Chapter 38
Piper and Theo autographed and initialed everything Ronnie pointed at, unsure if they were signing their lives away or getting a second chance. Either way, their hands shook. Before the pens could be capped, the kitchen’s french doors swung open dramatically.
In the dark back yard, a wild animal pack was gathering.
The lurid beasts were visible by the lights in the pool, rotating colors.
Unicorns and foxes and pandas and bears and dogs, maybe thirty total.
Some of them wore full furry suits, others big Disney helmets, some in their underwear or loin cloths sporting tails and furry ears and face paint, many wearing collars.
The bubbling cauldron of the jacuzzi emitted steam in misty shades of red blue green white purple from the pool lights, turning the animal pack into demons, like a hellish Renaissance painting.
Apparently Theo had called his furry friends for reinforcements.
Strutting back and forth beyond the pool was a gorilla.
Maximus the Brave. He was tall and beefy and sweat ran down his body.
He wore only the tight shorts of a fighter and a mask.
His real name was Cole Vaughn, a former MMA fighter until they kicked him out for cheating.
The furries gathered around him, their king of the jungle, chirping and calling.
The gorilla had come for Manny.
Theo chittered happily, “Your ass is dead now, cop!”
Manny dropped the broom with a clatter and strode from the kitchen onto the back patio. As he did, the furry animals scattered from him. Brave in their pack, less so as individuals near the marshal.
The gorilla reached up to tug off the mask. His strong handsome face was snarling. It looked like he was high, I thought. He dropped the mask and pointed at Manny.
“You.”
Manny raised his arms to the sides. “Me.”
“You’re a dead man.”
“This important to you?” said Manny.
“You’re a dead man.”
“Seems like this is important to you.”
“Not for much longer. Not after we find out.”
Manny reached up to this buttons. He was wearing a dark blue button-down shirt, and he pushed each button though the hole.
“You and me. We find out who’s king,” said the big man. “And who isn’t.”
Ronnie and I watched the showdown from the kitchen. She whispered, “This is insane. Why would Manny do this?”
“He embarrassed the gorilla the last time. The gorilla needs to establish what’s what, or else he’s nothing. If it’s not settled tonight, the gorilla might ambush him later.”
“That’s so stupid,” she said.
“I know. But it matters.”
“Should I call 911?”
“No.”
“What if Manny gets hurt?”
“He will be,” I said.
“I mean, what if he dies?”
I patted my hip. The hard clunk of my Kimber pistol. “I’ll break it up before anyone dies.”
“This is terrifying.”
Piper made a scared crying sound and she ran upstairs.
Outside, the pack seemed to shiver as one big animal, catcalling and jeering at Manny. If it got louder, the neighbors would be dialing 911 soon instead of Ronnie.
Buttons undone, Manny let the shirt drop. He wasn’t as beefy as Maximus the gorilla but he was ridged and hard. He wore battle scars and tattoos and his muscles bunched under tight skin. The pack took a closer look at him, some of the girls nudging each other.
This felt like a sinister religious ceremony, with a priest and a sacrifice and congregation. Blood to be spilled. But who was the priest and who was the sacrifice?
“You gotta do this,” said Manny, “then vamos.”
Manny didn’t wait for Maximus to come to him. He leaped over the pool, a sudden jump, too high and too far, like a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon move. The gorilla wasn’t prepared and he dove to the side, bowling into his pack, three of them tumbling to the hard patio. Manny landed on his feet.
Max the gorilla had been badly beaten the last time they fought, and he brought caution with him this time, despite the bravado.
Scrambling to his feet, he lowered into what looked like a mixture between a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu stance and a boxer’s.
One foot forward, balanced, hands raised to strike or block.
He was two inches taller than Manny and his arms and legs were longer, and he outweighed Manny by forty pounds.
His hands looked big and bony. I wouldn’t want to fight him.
A veteran MMA fighter with a strength advantage would likely seek to tackle Manny for a ground-and-pound, beat Manny senseless or choke him out, maybe break his arms and legs. Manny would try to stay upright, a more brawling style. He had no formal training in mat work, and he’d be outmuscled.
Manny lightly dancing on his feet, the gorilla moved forward, his left arm out. The move of someone trained in BJJ, searching for a hold. Manny smacked the hand away. Max did it again and Manny smacked it again—they both knew Max’s longer arms could decide the fight. If Max got his arms on Manny—
Slap, Manny connected with Max’s face, an open-handed blow that rang the bigger man’s bell.
Manny was fast enough to land it and not let himself be grabbed, in and out.
Dazed and embarrassed, Max charged him, throwing punches.
Manny, a tight one-two combo, left-right, neither of them landing cleanly, and he spun out of Max’s grip and on the follow-through caught him with an elbow, a brutal shot to Max’s ribs.
A gasp from the furries—their king staggered.
Max pivoted and dove for Manny’s knees, Manny dancing backwards, defensive, staying clear of a powerful clench, but Max scrambled up before Manny was ready and got both arms around his legs, hoisted Manny, and half-threw him, half-slammed him into the patio.
A heavy drop, a sick thunk. Ronnie gripped my arm.
The animal pack howled. Max swarmed over him, punching, kicking, kneeing, Manny on his back.
Max rained blows and then tried to force an arm-bar hold that would dislocate Manny’s elbow, Manny smoothly adjusting and parrying as he was being thrashed against the hard surface, vulnerable but maintaining a stout resistance.
I didn’t see what happened but we heard a thunk, and the gorilla rose up in pain, his jaw cocked at a funny angle, and Manny slithered loose. He stood and kicked, and the gorilla stood too and he caught the kick between his legs unintentionally, the most vulnerable spot on his body.
Instead of a fight-ending impact, Manny’s foot clanked against the hard surface of a protective cup—the gorilla wore armor to protect his genitals. The kick still hurt and the gorilla buckled forward a few degrees and grunted, but he survived.
Manny danced backwards and Max worked his jaw, the joint popping into place.
Round one tacitly concluded. Manny’s back was abraded and bleeding.
His chest expanded with a deep inhale and he let the air out slow, the only indication that he’d exerted energy, and he resumed bobbing on his feet.
Max the gorilla’s entire body rose and fell as he sucked huge mouthfuls of the night into his lungs.
Sweat poured down his chest, beading up at the waistband of his shorts.
He might’ve looked dazed from absorbing too many shots to the head, or maybe he was higher than I thought.
“You fight good, old man,” panted Maximus, and he spat blood onto the tiled concrete between them.
“Old man?”
“You got a family? After this, I’ll find them and I’ll kill them too.”
“Old man?” said Manny.
One of the pack made a mistake—a purple bear reached out to grab Manny’s arm, to distract him.
Manny noticed it in his periphery, caught the wrist, turned at the waist, pulling the guy up and over, a classic judo throw, tossing the bear onto the coping of the pool, where he bounced painfully and fell into the stagnant water.
The pack laughed. The bear suit was full-body and the wearer was going to drown and his friends didn’t care.
Maximus used the distraction and tried to shoot his shoulder at Manny’s knees, but Manny was ready and landed another stinging open-handed slap.
Hard enough to make the gorilla’s eyes water and his balance wobble, and Manny attacked.
A left to the kidney, another left to the kidney, a right-hand punch up and over the protective shoulder, meaty smacks, left-right-left to the guy’s face as Max parried with his forearms. Ronnie’s grip tightened.
Give the gorilla credit, most men would’ve collapsed, but he exploded upward like shot from a cannon and wrapped both arms and legs around Manny’s upper body. They fell to the ground.
The purple bear hadn’t surfaced, the thick suit soaking up water like a heavy sponge. I had my eyes on a fox, who carried a kid’s baseball bat and gave me the impression of a scumbag, a low-life who would crack Manny in the head given a chance.
Manny lay on the bottom again, beneath the big gorilla.
Max tried driving his thumbs into Manny’s eyes but couldn’t, tried throwing elbows into Manny’s throat, but was deflected into the hard patio instead, bruising his elbow bone.
These moves were outlawed by MMA and UFC, too dangerous.
Max was cheating, if that was possible when you were trying to kill someone.
“Last chance, mono,” offered Manny, battling but strangely poised beneath the onslaught. “Give up.”
Maximus finally landed a hard strike to the side of Manny’s head. Manny’s skull rebounded off the surface and he slowed for an instant, allowing the gorilla to wrap his hands around Manny’s throat.
“No?” choked Manny, and his airway was sealed by big thumbs.
The drowning bear’s hands flailed above the water level in the deep end. He’d lost the animal gloves and he was trying to jump off the bottom of the pool in order to surface for gasps of air.
The crowd nervously parted as I made my way through it, gun drawn.
Fools they may be, but fools who didn’t want to be shot.
I reached the scumbag fox just as he crept from the pack, maybe to dogpile on Manny, hit him with the wooden bat.
I grabbed him by the fur and dug my gun into his ribs and I told him, “You try it, and I’ll put you in the hospital. Maybe you live, maybe you don’t.”
His friends chattered and barked. A unicorn in a bikini scooted away from me. Beneath her mask, her big eyes were afraid.
“Hi Apple,” I said.
“I didn’t know you’d be here! I’m sorry!”
“You should run.”
Manny, purple in the face, finally swatted the big hands off his throat.
The gorilla snarled something I didn’t hear and he head-butted Manny but missed, cracking his forehead on the patio.
Manny rolled away and stood, gouges in the flesh of his windpipe, breathing deeper, and I detected a new level of mad.
Time for games was over. One of the other animals, a green panda, took a swing at Manny, pathetic, missed by a foot, staggering, and Manny kicked the guy forward and he fell into the pool too.
Maximus bled from the forehead and his eyes and mouth, and he couldn’t breathe enough oxygen. They’d been fighting for four minutes without a true break and he wasn’t in fighting shape. He hoisted one of the wooden patio chairs and tossed it at Manny, but the throw was soft and Manny caught it.
“King of the jungle,” said Manny, taking longer breathes. “That’s a lion. Learn your animals.”
Manny threw the chair back. The gorilla tried to catch it but the throw was a distraction and Manny straight-leg kicked him in the stomach.
The chair fell on Max as he doubled over and sat down.
Manny grabbed the chair off him, hoisted it, and brought it crashing down on Max’s head.
The wooden architecture exploded. A lot of pent-up frustration in that strike.
Pieces flew and scattered, leaving him holding a chair leg and the back rest. Manny heaved it up and into the pack of animals, which cried out in surprise, and he grabbed another chair.
Several of the furries closer to Manny bowed, like the animals in The Lion King did to Simba.
“You don’t know about animals and gorillas,” said Manny. “Because you’re human. An ugly, stupid one who needs a better mama. Or parole officer.”
The fight had gone out of Max. He sat on the ground, unable to catch his breath, his eye swelling shut, but he tried to spit on Manny. Spittle and blood.
“I’mma kill your family, cop,” he panted quietly. “I win this, then I kill them.”
Delusional but determined.
Manny raised the chair and brought it down hard, like swinging a sledge hammer, breaking it against Max’s back as the guy rolled over protectively. After the impact, Max quit moving, lying like a dying animal on the tiles.
Again Manny tossed the leg of the chair into the audience, and he turned to grab another. If he didn’t slow down, he might kill Max.
The green panda in the pool was whimpering that he couldn’t swim, though he was standing in the shallow end. The purple bear still floundered under the surface. If these guys truly had the souls of wild animals, they were terrible at it. Bears and pandas should be strong swimmers.
Manny’s eyes held a dangerous look, pushed beyond reason, and I thought I might need to fire my gun into the air to scatter the pack and startle Manny back into his senses, but brilliant red-and-blue police lights ignited one street over and a siren blared.
The neighbors had called the cops. The sudden siren wail did the trick, Manny blinking, remembering where he was, and he released the chair.
I holstered my gun as the animals screamed and fled the yard, streaming out like a stampede.
Manny, khaki pants torn, arms and tattoos glinting with sweat, crouched by the gorilla.
“Fight’s over, amigo. Now we know. You’re not king of the jungle,” he told the guy. “America has no king, needs no king. We got people. Get a job and pay your taxes and stop acting like a dumb animal, before I get mad.”
Max grunted something and he drooled.
“I see you again,” said Manny. “I’ll kill you.”
Manny stood, kinda grunting when he did it, looking down at the wounded, bleeding animal at his feet.
Headlights shifting through the trees as the squad cars closed in.
Manny pounded his chest one time and turned to the pool.
He knelt by it, reached into the reeking water, grabbed the drowning purple bear by the collar, and hauled him out.
The guy had lost the bear helmet but his suit was full of pool, and he lay streaming and coughing, half in, half out, as Manny watched with his head tilted.