Chapter 9

I walked to the back of the bar, past the pool table and down a short corridor to the men’s room. I took care of business and washed my hands. The restroom was actually clean albeit a bit Spartan in decor. I walked out and started down the corridor when I felt a poke in the back.

“I will shoot you right here if you start anything.”

I stopped walking.

“Now we are going to walk back to your table, and I am going to leave with my bitch of a daughter. After I am done with her, I will leave you the sloppy leftovers. Now move.”

The harder poke in my back made me move. I walked slowly, thinking at the speed of light. This bastard was not going to get Kendi. It seemed that my life for hers was a fair trade to me.

My gait is kind of John Wayneish. My shoulders rock from side to side with each step. I don’t know how I did it, but as we passed the pool table I rocked to the left, pick up a ball in my left hand, rocked to the right and spun. My right hand swept his gun out of the way, with my left, bringing up the ball and smashing it as hard as I could just in front of Mr. James Riker’s right ear.

He dropped like he had been shot.

“Call 9-1-1!” I yelled at the top of my lung.

“Stay back! He has a gun.”

I looked up to see two of my favorite bartenders moving. One for me and the other for security at the door. I wasn’t sure if he was going to move, so I stepped on Mr. James Riker’s right wrist and peeled the gun out of his hand.

“Mick! What is going on?”

It was Rudy, one of the bartenders and a friend. Last year, as a favor, I sang a song when Rudy proposed to his fiancé.

“Rudy, this guy had a gun on me. Has someone called the cops?”

“Yeah. They are coming in the door.”

“Where is Kendi?”

“Who?”

“The woman I was sitting with she ordered the Jubilee Mule. Golden brown dress, blonde.”

“Really nice tits?”

“That’s her.”

“Hang on.”

A few seconds later, Rudy showed up with Kendi. She looked down at Mr. James Riker laying, unconscious on the floor.

“Mick!”

“Hi honey.”

“Honey?”

“Don’t start. Are you OK?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“Your father came out of the bathroom behind me and had a gun on me. He was going to walk me up to you and then take you out. He does want to rape you. He told me. It won’t happen.”

“Not from down there” Rudy chuckled at the fool on the floor.

The police came in and as they surveyed the scene, I handed the nearest cop Mr. James Riker’s pistol.

“I took this off the guy. He had it in my back.”

“Let’s go outside and talk about this. Johnny! Stay with this guy until the EMT shows up.”

His partner gave him a thumb up and Kendi and I followed him out. She held me tight as it became clear what had almost happened.

“I am going to pull my car over there to that small parking area please meet me there and we can go over what happened.”

I paused for a moment.

Crazy paranoia.

“Let’s wait here until the EMT’s get here. My hand is killing me, and I want them to look at it.”

The police officer agreed immediately. I guess he might not be one of Riker’s minions. I had no reason to think that Riker had bribed people in the police force, but I was still shaken up by the gun in my back.

Just then the EMT’s ran in with their big backpack and people started to leave the place. Kendi and I stood and watched them. There was a lot more urgency than I had seen in other times I had watched EMT’s work.

The officer we were working with stopped one of the EMT’s and told him that I had an injury.

“If it is not life threatening, can you wait? We have a bad one back here.”

Kendi looked at me.

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t know.”

The officer turned to us.

“Would you please show me your ID’s?”

Kendi reached into her purse. I grabbed my wallet and handed it to Kendi, showing her my swelling left hand. She pulled out my driver’s license and gave hers and mine to him. He put them on a clipboard and sat back in his car and called them in.

“Mr. O’Dell. Miss Jackson.” He handed the ID’s back to us.

“Thank you, officer. Any word on that EMT? My left hand is hurting really bad.”

I held up the now swollen and discolored hand.

“Let me get one of them if I can.”

“Mick, what did you do?”

“I hit your father on the side of his head with a pool ball in my hand and it feels like I broke it.”

One of the door security guys that I knew well saw me and disappeared into the adjacent bar. The sports bar and the Whiskey Bar were owned by the same guy and their doors were next to each other. After a few minutes he returned and handed me a wet bar towel filled with ice. I held it in my left hand and thanked him.

The officer returned.

“Mr. O’Dell the EMT’s are tied up. You hit the guy pretty hard and he is badly injured.”

“Good.”

We both looked at Kendi.

“He needs to be out of my life and, frankly, I don’t care how.”

The officer made a note.

“Mr. O’Dell, can you tell me what happened?”

“The whole thing is a long story, but the short and sweet is that the guy came up behind me when I left the bathroom and put a gun in my back. He told me to walk to the front of the bar where he was going to take my girlfriend and rape her.”

“As we were walking past the pool table, I picked up a ball and spun. I swept the gun to the side with my right arm and hit the guy with the ball on the side of his face just as hard as I could. He dropped, I took his gun, and I called for help.”

‘Miss, where were you while this was happening?”

“I was in a seat up by the garage doors. I had no idea of what was going on until the bartender came and got me.”

“Any idea why the guy would come at you with a gun?”

“Absolutely. He is my girlfriends father. He is a convicted sex offender. He was here to take his daughter and finish the rape what he didn’t get to finish when she was 8 years old.”

“His name is James Riker. I don’t know where he lives now. He got out of prison about three years ago and won the lottery. He is worth about $30 million. He has been using that money to bribe police and judges trying to get his conviction pardoned and get his name off the sex crimes lists,” Kendi added.

“He blames me for going to prison. I met Kendi here when she was 8 and her father was in the act of beating her mother and raping her older sister. I called the police and he was convicted and jailed in So Cal. Earlier this week he offered me $100,000 to stay away from Kendi. This morning his two bodyguards tried to kidnap Kendi and I stopped them.”

As I spoke, the EMT’s came out with Riker on a stretcher and rolled him to the ambulance. He looked like he had been hit in the head. He was pale, and they had an oxygen mask on him. There was a perceptible dent in the right side of his face.

The EMT came over to me and took a look at my hand.

“How did you manage to do this?” He smiled.

“I’m the guy that hit the fella you just carried out.”

“Really? You did that damage with your hand?”

“No, I was holding a pool ball and hit him with a spinning back fist. Did I do good?”

“Good?”

“The guy had a gun on me and was going to abduct my girlfriend.”

“You broke his mandible and crushed the outside of the orbital bone. He will be in bad shape for some time. He is bleeding internally around his ear and they are taking him to the ER.”

“Sounds like you fucked him up, Mick.”

“Thanks for the technical description of the injury, Kendi.”

“Thank you for saving me, again.”

“Hey, it is the least I can do for my girlfriend.”

“Admitting it openly now?”

“Old dog, you know.”

“Did you just infer that I am a new trick?”

“I might have, but it was purely Freudian.”

The punch in the arm was meant to be loving, but it shook my left arm down to my hand. The wince was very noticeable.

“Let me look at that hand.”

He very carefully took my hand and moved each finger and pressed down around my wrist.

“I would suggest getting to the hospital and having that x-rayed. My guess is that the impact shattered several bones in the palm area of your hand and the shock of the impact may have migrated into the wrist. You should go get it looked at right away.”

“As soon as the police are done with us, we will,” Kendi said while she rubbed my shoulder, looking very contrite.

“We have talked to the witnesses and they only saw you spin and hit the guy. No one saw the gun until after he hit the ground.”

“Well you should find his prints on the trigger and mine on the end of the barrel. I don’t think I attacked someone holding the wrong end of the gun.”

“I agree. You aren’t going anywhere in the near future, are you?”

“No and I’ll be staying at Kendi’s place for the foreseeable future. So, you can call me or stop by her place. I go back to work on Monday so let me give you my work address as well.”

“OK, I’m sure the DA will be in touch.”

“Yeah the DA needs to talk to us about this morning as well. Thanks for your help.”