A COFFIN FROM HONG KONG

I wished I wasn’t sweating so hard. It irritated and bothered me. I’ve been in tight spots before, but none quite so tight as this one. I wished I wasn’t feeling so goddam cowardly. “But why? What’s it all about?”

He lifted the gun and rubbed the hole where his ear should have been with the barrel of the gun.

“I don’t know. I don’t care either,” he said. “I’m just making some easy dough.”

I licked my lips. My tongue was so dry it was a waste of an effort.

“You getting paid to shoot me? Is that it?”

He cocked his head on one side.

“Why sure, Buster. Why else should I want to shoot you?”

“Tell me about it,” I said in a strangled voice. “We’ve got lots of time. Who’s paying you to shoot me?”

He shrugged his lumpy shoulders indifferently.

“I wouldn’t know, Buster. I was playing pool when this jerk comes up and asks me if I’d like to make five hundred bucks. We got in a comer and he gives me a hundred and he tells me to come here and put a slug into you. When I’ve done it, he’ll give me the rest of the dough. So here I am.”

“Who was this guy?”

“I don’t know: just a guy. Where would you like to have it, Buster? I’m good with this rod. A brainshot is the quickest, but you please yourself.”

“What did this guy look like?” I said desperately.

He scowled and lifted the gun so it was pointing at my head.

“You don’t have to worry about him,” he said, and there was a sudden savage note in his voice. “You start worrying about yourself.”

“Five hundred isn’t so much. I could top it,” I said. “How about putting that gun away and I pay you a thousand?”

He sneered at me.

“When I make a deal, I stick to it,” he said.

Then the telephone bell rang.

For the past twenty seconds I had been bracing myself. The bell startled him and he looked towards the telephone.

I launched myself at him, the top of my head aimed at his face, my hands for the gun.

I hit him like a rocket: my head smashing into his mouth and nose. My hands closed over the gun, wrenching it aside as it went off with a sound no louder than a bursting paper bag.

He and I and the chair went over backwards with a crash that shook the room.

But he was tough all right. I couldn’t get the gun out of his hand. He had a grip like a vice. He was partially stunned, otherwise he would have nailed me, but I had time to roll over and hit him on the side of his thick neck with a chopping blow that slowed him down. His grip loosened and I got the gun. Then he hit me between the eyes with the heaviest punch I’d ever walked into. It was like being hit with a hammer.

I let go of the gun. For a brief moment all I could see were flashing lights dancing before my eyes. I was crawling to my knees as he pushed himself off the floor, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. He aimed a kick at my face, but there was no steam in it. I had hurt him, and when a junkie like him gets hurt, he stays hurt.

I blocked the kick with my arm, rolled away front him and somehow stood up. We faced each other. The gun lay on the floor between us.

He snarled at me, but he was smart enough not to bend for the gun. He knew I would nail him before he reached it: instead he came at me like a charging bull. I got in one solid punch to his face as he thudded into me and then we both crashed against the wall, bringing down two water-colours of Rome I had picked up out there when on an assignment and had carted, home for the memory.

I used my head in his face again and slammed six fast punches into his belly, taking two swings to the head that made my brain reel. He drew back. Those punches, in his belly had softened him. He was looking wild-eyed now. I jumped him, hitting him again. He swerved aside and then I saw the knife in his hand.

We paused and stared at each other. He was in one hell of a mess. My head had mashed his features and his face was a mask of blood, but he was still a killer. The look in his eyes and the knife in his hand rattled me.

I backed away from him.

He snarled at me and began to creep forward.

My shoulders hit the wall. I pulled off my coat and with one quick movement wrapped it around my left arm. He came at me then as fast and as viciously as a striking snake. I caught the knife thrust on my padded arm and socked him on the side of his jaw with my right fist. It was a good, explosive punch. The whites of his eyes showed and he reeled back, sagging at the knees. The knife slipped out of his thick fingers. I kicked it across the room, then as I set myself, he began to fall forward. I hung a punch on his jaw again that ripped the skin off my knuckles. He went down with a thud, scraping his chin on the carpet.

I leaned against the wall, panting. I felt like hell. I had taken some of the heaviest punches I’ve ever taken and they had done something bad to me. It was as if some of my life had been drained out of me.

The door burst open and two cops stormed in, guns in hand.

You can’t stage this kind of fight in my kind of apartment without alerting the whole block.