Free Devil With a Gun by M. C. Grant Page A

Tebe pizd’ets .”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound nice,” I say and twist my wrists to emphasize the point.
    The man bellows and spits in my face. His own face is contorted by pain, but suddenly his hands release themselves from my wrists and find their way to my throat. I gasp as he finds the strength to squeeze my windpipe, his dirty nails digging into tender flesh.
    Choking, I dig my own chewed-up nails into his balls and squeeze even harder, but it’s as if I’ve taken him over the brink of pain so that he no longer feels it.
    When my vision begins to blur from lack of oxygen, I make the decision to release my grip on his manhood and throw my hands skyward into the pressure points of his elbows. As I do, I also allow my body to become dead weight. The maneuver catches him off guard, and I break free of his chokehold to land on my ass.
    He reaches for me again as I scramble on all fours to break away, but just as I’m getting to my feet, his fingers lock onto my suddenly-I-give-a-damn hair. Before he can slam my face into the wall and take all the fight out of me, I spin to face him and launch a palm strike to the base of his nose.
    My hand connects instead with empty air as the large Russian unexpectedly tumbles sideways to collapse face first onto the sidewalk with a nasty crack of bone and squelch of flesh that makes me wince.
    Gasping for air, my sight blurry from pain and exhaustion, I stare at the new arrival who has taken the Russian’s place. This man is shorter than the Russian and skinnier, too. He’s bald and unshaven and in his black-gloved hands is a short length of wood that still holds a splatter of blood and patch of hair from where it connected with my attacker’s head.
    I’m about to reach down for my boot knife when the man says, “You should get the hell out of here. It’s not safe.”
    â€œYou have a cellphone?” My voice is raspy from the bruised swelling on my throat where the Russian’s thumbs had been trying to perform a tracheotomy on my windpipe.
    When he shakes his head, his ears flap as if they have no cartilage.
    â€œWhere’s the nearest pay phone then?” I ask.
    The man jabs a bandaged thumb over his shoulder. “Two blocks. Same corner as Trusty’s Pawn.”
    He says it as though everyone should know the local pawnshop.
    â€œDo you know this guy?” I ask.
    His ears flap again in the negative. “He was asking who sent you.”
    I touch my aching neck. “He could have asked nicer—and in English.”
    â€œWould it have made a difference?”
    I snort. “No. None of his damn business.”
    I glance back down at the unmoving Russian. Inert, he resembles an old bear-skin rug that’s molted and been tossed out with the trash.
    â€œThanks for the help,” I say without looking up. “But you should make yourself scarce. This guy might have friends who are even uglier than he is.”
    When I don’t receive a response, I lift my head to discover that I’m talking to myself. My Good Samaritan has vanished.

    I reach the pay phone without further assault and call for a taxi. I tell Mo that I’m outside Trusty’s Pawn.
    â€œYou short of cash?” Mo asks. “I’ve heard that Russian Tea House can be expensive.”
    I’m always a little surprised that Mo likes to keep an eye on my movements, and I suppose if I had any kind of a private life it might bother me. But as it stands, I’m grateful for his concern.
    â€œI brought in a cow,” I say, “but all Trusty could give me was a handful of magic beans.”
    Mo laughs and hacks up half a lung. “If you plant ’em, let me know. We’ll go up the beanstalk together. You can distract the giant and I’ll grab the golden goose.”
    â€œWhy do I always get the crappy jobs?”
    â€œYou’ve got more elastic in you. Last time I tried to bounce, I threw my back