Authors: John R. Maxim

Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel

Time Out of Mind (54 page)

BOOK: Time Out of Mind

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Tilden pointed to the mirror and row of bottles behind
McArdle. “I'm going to ask for him one more time and then I'm going to throw a chair through that.”

The bartender shrugged. He brought up his hands, showing a long-handled wooden hammer. ”I guess you must be holding some good cards. I got this here mallet. You mind showin' me what else you got before I go botherin' Mr.
O'Gorman?”

“
Right here.” The sound came from John Flood's
mouth. All eyes except Tilden’s followed as John Flood
rose from his stool and walked toward the man with the
bandaged ear. The man seemed to know what was coming. He pushed back his chair and waited, the pool cue held low
at his side. Flood, without breaking stride, feinted with a
shoulder and easily ducked the tapered stick as it whistled
past his head. A crushing right hand slammed downward
to a point below the bandage, making the sodden snapping
sound that told of a jawbone separated from a skull. John
Flood's left hand seized the man's shirt and steadied him,
unconscious, in his chair.
Joe McArdle's expression, save for an understanding
nod, changed not at all.

“
Would your name be John Flood, by chance?” he
asked.

“
Yours truly.” Big John bowed at the waist.

“
Another time, I'd admire to shake your hand. Will you
be asking Billy to take you both on, can I ask?”

“
It's Mr. Beckwith's show. I'm here to keep it square.”

The two men playing nine-ball stopped their game and
took seats at the edge of their table. McArdle studied their
faces. They, too, seemed familiar.

“
Fair and square you say. On your word?”

“
On my word,” Flood called back.

McArdle turned to the smaller bartender. “Would you tell Mr. O'Gorman that there's a fine gentleman here to
dispute him. Tell him it's my opinion he'll be back at his
table before the next raise.”

The bartender walked quickly to a door at the rear of the
room, rapped twice, and entered. He was gone a full min
ute, Nat Goodwin noted. When the white-aproned man
reappeared, he announced in a nervous mumble that Mr. O'Gorman would be joining them shortly. He glanced once at Tilden and then, Nat saw, once more toward the doors
leading to the street.

“
On your toes, Tilden,” he said softly. “O'Gorman will
be coming at your back.”

The words were barely out before Nat Goodwin felt a
draft on his cheek, then a fuller rush of air. He turned,
almost casually, his right arm extended and his pepperbox
pointed full in the startled face of Billy O'Gorman.
O'Gorman had come in at a runner's crouch, a baseball bat held low in front of him. His surprise ruined, O'Gorman
straightened and spat.

“
I'm getting very tired of staring into that thing, Good
win. Next time I'll make you eat it.”

“
Drop the club, Billy. Please.”

O'Gorman lowered it but kept his grip. ”I don't think
so. I also don't think you'll go to Sing Sing for shootin' a
man who only has a stick.”

“
Try to remember, Billy, that I don't like you very
much.”

“
You'll put that away if I drop this? No matter how rough it gets?”

“
If I see no guns or knives.”

“
Your word?”

“
We've been through that.”

“
Then
done”
O'Gorman shouted. He whipped the base
ball bat at Tilden's feet and charged as Tilden leaped aside.
A running kick glanced off Tilden's hip inches from his
crotch, and a backhand fist caught him high on the temple. Tilden spun away, both hands up, and shot three quick jabs
at O'Gorman's mouth, snapping his front teeth and sending
him reeling against the bar.

O'Gorman shook his head. He brought a hand to his
mouth and spat into it. Blood and bits of teeth. Next he
stared hard at Tilden’s hands.

“
What have you got there?” he demanded.

Tilden advanced on him, saying nothing.

“
Those are weighted gloves.” He pointed, looking accusingly at Nat Goodwin. He backed along the bar away
from Tilden. “You said a fair fight.”

Tilden cut him off. He faked another jab and dug a snarl
ing right hand into O'Gorman's ribs. The bigger man
gagged and buckled. Tilden straightened him and threw two
hard rights at his eye, slicing open the brow. O'Gorman
crashed to his knees. His hand found the rim of a heavy
brass cuspidor, but Tilden kicked it away before he could grip it. Tilden seized O'Gorman's hair as his own had been seized and aimed a tattoo of chopping lefts at O'Gorman's other eye.

“
Help me,” O'Gorman screamed, sinking to the floor.
“Fifty dollars a man. Get him.”

Three men exchanged glances, shot a measuring look at
John Flood, and reached for pool cues. At another table
four men rose, one slipping on a pair of studded knucks. The two who had been playing nine-ball smiled.

“
So everybody understands”—Nat Goodwin projected
his best stage voice—“those two gentleman by the pool
table are Paddy Ryan and Alf Greenfield. With John Flood there, you're looking at three of the best bare-knuckle heavyweights in the world. On the other hand, fifty dollars
is fifty dollars. So don't back off on my account.”

Goodwin watched with satisfaction, and the three fighters
with disappointment, as one pair of hands after another dis
appeared deep into trouser pockets. Tilden took Billy
O'Gorman's hair once more and rolled him onto his back.
He sat across the bar owner's chest, pinning his arms at his
sides.

“
I'm done,” O'Gorman pleaded. “No more, for God's
sake.”

Tilden stripped off his wool knit gloves and laid them
aside. He placed his thumbnails against the edges of O'Gorman's eyes and leaned forward, pressing.

“
Oh, Jesus. No. No, Mr. Beckwith,” he bawled.

“
Nothing personal,'' Tilden whispered. “Your employer
wants a pair of eyes and
I'm
going to bring them to him.”

“
Oh, please. My mother. My babies.”

“
And you were hired to hurt a woman as well. What
were you going to do to her, Mr. O'Gorman? Were you
going to take one of her sweet eyes, sir? Or the tip of her
nose?”

“
Oh, I'd never. Oh, please God, believe me.” He was
blubbering. “Jacko will tell you. Jacko was the one whose
ear you done last night. Jacko will tell you I said no, not
for all his millions would I put my hand to a lady.”

“
Millions?” Tilden glanced up at Nat Goodwin, then
back to O'Gorman. “Whose millions?”

“
Mr. Gould's. Not for every dime of his would I have
done that.”

“
Who hired you? Was it Gould himself?”

“
It was his man. Carling his name was. But he said he
spoke for Gould and for the Clubber.”

Tilden pressed harder.

“
Jesus. Jesus.”

“
Would you like to keep your eyes, Mr. O'Gorman?”

^liOh,
yes. Yes.”

“
Then pass a message for me to all your kind. From this
moment on, you are to be that lady's protector. Should any
harm come to her, even any fright, through whatever
agency and even if you be innocent, I will come for you.
I will claim your eyes and your hands as well. Do you
doubt that, Mr. O'Gorman?”

“
No,” he croaked. “It will be like you say. I swear it.”

Tilden felt John Flood's hand upon his shoulder. “It's
enough, lad,” he said softly. “Let's take a walk.”

He lifted Tilden onto legs now drained of strength and, signaling for Nat Goodwin to watch their backs, led him toward the door. Behind him, he could hear Joe McArdle
climbing over the bar and helping Billy O'Gorman to his
feet. The smaller bartender rinsed a bar towel in clear water
and handed it across. McArdle held the towel to
O'Gorman's face.

“
Beckwith,” the beaten man called.

Tilden looked over his shoulder. The saloonkeeper was
blinking through his own blood at Tilden and at some of
the barroom idlers who had witnessed his defeat.

“
I'll want to try you again. Without them damned
gloves.”

“
You know where I live,” Tilden answered wearily.

“
I'd have took your eye well enough, but I'd have left
you the other. And I told you true about the woman.”

Tilden took another step toward the door but John Flood
stopped him. “Don't do that, lad,” he whispered. “Hear
the man out.”

“
Beckwith?” O'Gorman assumed a fighting stance
though he could barely make out which form was Tilden’ s.
“I'll have you again right now.”

“
Say you've had enough,” John Flood said softly. “Say
he's the toughest man you ever faced. Say that out loud, lad.”

Tilden sighed. “Twice is enough, Mr. O'Gorman. I
might not be so lucky a third time.”

“
If it was only one eye you had your thumb against, I'd
have spit in your face and said pluck and be damned’.”

”
I know that, Billy.” Tilden nodded. “Two eyes made
it different. A man who'd lose both his eyes for want of
asking to keep them is a fool.”

“
Damned true,” came Paddy Ryan's voice in agreement.
O'Gorman could see others nodding.

“
You caught me off balance.”

”
I said I was lucky.”

”
I ain't an altar boy. But I ain't the worst, either.”

“
Worst or not, I'd hate to see anyone tougher. Good day,
sir.”

Corbin had his eyes on the sidewalk as he climbed with
Gwen up the narrow shoveled path on Maple Avenue. It
was strange. He'd always understood that. That you should never take it all. Leave the other person some room. It was
not a thing he remembered learning in his life so much as a thing he'd always known. But now he remembered.
He could almost hear John Flood's voice, which would have
been a whiskey tenor but for one punch too many at his
throat. “Three hundred men. I've licked three hundred men
in my time,’' he said,' ‘from mining camps, to farm and cow
town saloons, to the prize rings of London. I've clubbed men to the dirt who became fast friends, men like Paddy and Alf,
and Joe Goss and Tommy Chandler. Some were bummers, sure enough, who it gave me pleasure to cosh. But I never
took all a man had, Tilden. I never shamed him. I never put a
man where he had to piss on my grave before he could lift his
own eyes. That O'Gorman's a bad one, but you left him
proud. Ansel Carling's a bad one but you left him nothin',
lad. Nothin’ but gettin' even.”