Free THE LADY KILLER: intense, suspenseful, gripping literary fiction by LEE OLDS

uncommon act, which we nonetheless adopt as a standard and call sacrifice. There was none of that here. Just two blokes trying to beat one another up. Maybe that’s all any battle is.
    “Come on Heartless (her nickname for her boyfriend),” Sandy emitted the old cheerleader yell, “beat the bully to a pulp.” Then she whispered to Mort. “Oh, how I wish Marcus was here to see this.”
    “Not yet you don’t,” the realistic writer cautioned her. “Not until we see how it turns out. Of course just the commitment alone …”
    “You can keep your ideas to yourself.” Sandy moved on the other side of him. She was out there cheering whereas a few minutes before she’d been cursing her escort and about to leave.
    Sarah, the cause of it all didn’t know what to think. She was upset. She wanted her boyfriend to win, beat the hustler silly. On the other hand she hadn’t had so much craved attention since she’d moved out there. And all because of another’s asking her to dance. She still felt the firmness of his arms. Well, she had, and what’d she get for it…? This? As all women, she wondered why men couldn’t just be at peace, why they had to fight.
    Meanwhile, the two grunts danced around one another jockeying for position. They threw punches, clashed, separated and clashed again. Thwacks on flesh, thuds on bone could be detected. Unusual sounds when you think about it. Not your everyday noises, but noises nonetheless. After receiving a particularly hard punch to his kidney, Barney groaned, staggered momentarily, dropped his guard and backed off to recover himself. That, of course, was when Hartwig dove instinctively as he would into a scrum, drove his shoulder into the tall man’s waist tackling and taking him down. The two rolled over furiously like two cocks fluttering on the ground, nipping and clawing one another. Presently (when the dust had cleared), one came out on top. It was the stronger, stockier man, of course, as one might’ve expected. Hartwig had that giant of a string bean down and sat on top of him. He must’ve felt it too. I looked over at Hammond whose eyes were shining.
    All Hartwig did then was call for the man to …
    “Give up now, Barney, or you’ll really get hurt. I gotcha…” A generous offer I’d say considering he’d already received a broken nose.
    “Never. I’ll kill yuh.”
    And yet keeping his balance so as to remain on top, Hartwig managed to pound the man’s face like it was a speed bag in midair. He knocked it this way and that and in the course of the punishment broke the man’s jaw. He didn’t know it but the giant felt it give just as Hartwig’d felt his own nose break but the giant didn’t know that either.
    And, in fact, the man never did cry uncle though the fight soon ended. The owner and his assistant jumped in and pulled Hartwig off. It’d lasted four or five minutes at most. Nothing, really, but like a collegiate wrestling match it demonstrated a lot of action in a little time. And the worst wasn’t over.
    “Worst not over? I thought you said the fight ended. What do you mean not over?”
    Not so fast… Though the two men were pulled apart and separated the interveners grabbed Hartwig first for he was the aggressor who was doing the damage. Monahan, the bar owner, and his helper held him fast each taking an arm. The stunned giant who by then was bleeding profusely and wobbling from side to side was nonetheless alert. His pickup, a job box in its bed, an old Chevy, which his girlfriend then sat against was several steps away. When he went to get into it no one gave particular notice. He’d been soundly thrashed and was humanely beating a retreat before the sheriffs arrived to arrest him. One more offense, remember, and he was back in the slammer.
    Imagine when someone let out a cry.
    “Watch it, he has a gun.” And the man did. He held a pistol he’d fetched from the glove compartment of his pickup and standing before the crowd he waved it over