The Patriots Club Read Free Page A

closed half the distance before they looked back. He saw their eyes widen, heard one of them swear. Thirty feet dwindled to twenty. He stared at their backs, deciding which to go after. Rule 1: Always take the biggest guy down first.
    Bolden followed the track set by the slower man. He saw himself racing through the back alleys of Chicago. Blue jeans. Stones T-shirt. The lanky kid with the wild crown of hair. Mean-spirited. Unsmiling. Unreachable. No one ever caught Tommy B.
    At Delancey, the men hugged the corner and headed right, down the cross street. The block was dark, less crowded than Broadway. He was gaining on them and he tried to pick up the pace.
Come on,
he urged himself. He pumped his arms, pushed out his chest, but the gas wasn’t there. Seven years behind a desk had softened his legs. Weekly games of half-court basketball were hardly enough to keep his lungs in any kind of real condition. Half a minute and already they were burning. The back of his mouth was dry, his breath scratching his throat like a match striking flint.
    An alley ahead opened to his right. The men ducked into it. Dumpsters lined the walls on either side. Steam rose from a grate. Water dripping from a broken pipe had formed a puddle in the asphalt. Bolden turned the corner a second behind them. With a last burst, he closed the distance. If he could just stretch out his arm, he could grab one of them by the collar. . . .
    And then the two men stopped and turned to face him.
    The bigger man was Hispanic with a broad, simian face. The bridge of his nose had been flattened more than once. His hair cut short on the sides with plenty of greasy kid stuff on top, his glaring eyes screaming for a fight. The other man was blond and angular, his pale gaze as placid as the other’s was violent. He carried the sterling-silver dish under his arm like a football. A star-shaped patch of scar tissue pinched his cheek. A cigarette burn. Or a bullet wound.
    Bolden realized it was a trap. He also realized that it was too late to worry about traps, and that he’d committed himself to this course the moment he’d left Jenny.
    Always take the biggest guy first.
    Bolden crashed into the darker man, shoulder lowered like a rugby half. He hit him solidly and followed with a jab to the solar plexus. It was like slugging a block of cement. The man retreated a step, grabbing Bolden’s fist, then his arm, using his momentum to flip him over his hip onto the ground. Bolden rolled to the right, avoiding a vicious kick. Skittering to his feet, he raised his hands. He jabbed once, twice, connecting with the jaw, then the cheek. The Hispanic man took the punches and moved closer, batting away Bolden’s hands. His own hands, Bolden noted, were meat cleavers. Bolden clutched at his shirt collar, ripping it, then fought his shoulder free and threw an inside uppercut. Suddenly, the man was no longer there. Bolden’s fist struck air. And then his world was turned upside down. His feet were at his head, the ground had taken a flyer, and the sky was doing a barrel roll over his head. For a moment, he had the sensation of falling, and then his shoulder hit the ground.
    He lay on his back, fighting for breath. He struggled to pick himself up, but by then both men were standing above him. Their arms hung easily at their sides. Neither appeared winded or in the least fatigued. The knife was gone. A silenced automatic took its place.
    “Okay,” said Bolden, taking a knee. “You win. But that watch is engraved. There’ll be a police report filed on it by morning. You won’t be able to pawn it anywhere worth a damn.” He was speaking in bursts, like a telegraph operator sending Morse code.
    The Hispanic man tossed Bolden the watch. “Here you go. Keep it.”
    Bolden held it in his palm. “Am I supposed to thank you?” Mystified, he looked past the man’s shoulder as a Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the mouth of the alley. The rear door opened, but no one stepped out. “What