“Bar’s closed,” he said evenly. His hand went underneath the bar and took hold of the handle of the wooden club.

“We are not here to drink,” the Southeast Asian man said in a thick accent, moving forward.

“We don’t have a kitchen.”

At this the man gave a slight smirk. “We are not hungry.”

“What can I do for you, then?” Cookie had put the fat stacks of cash from Jimmy in the safe earlier in the evening, so he knew that was protected. He glanced over at the money pouch by the register. He’d just tallied it, so he knew there was just over seven hundred dollars in it, a mediocre haul for a Thursday night, and certainly not enough to get hurt over. Still, there was the principle of the matter, and Cookie was not ready to give up the cash without at least a brief fight. In the end, he knew that they would get the money, and he would probably take a beating, but beatings were just a part of life. His fingers tightened on the club.

“Are you alone?”

Cormack was still upstairs in the office, and he generally carried a gun. It might be helpful to involve him, although from the look of the intruders Cookie found it hard to believe that some of them weren’t armed, and if this turned into a gunfight the odds of Cookie walking away from the situation alive would go down significantly. “Yeah, I’m alone,” he said.

The man shook his head. “No, you are not.”

Cookie frowned. “What is this about?”

“Where is he?”

Cookie looked around the room and saw that none of the men was looking at the register or the cash sitting next to it. They were shifting around, watching the corners, keeping an eye on the hallway. The realization swept Cookie away like a riptide.

“Cormack, get out!” he called at the top of his lungs.

All at once the room was in movement. The man in the corner closest to the bar rushed Cookie and was behind the bar faster than he would have thought possible. Cookie swung out with the heavy club. The man ducked and the blow glanced off his shoulder. The weight of the club and the force of the blow clearly took him by surprise, though, and he stumbled and lost his balance for a moment. That was all the time that Cookie needed, and he followed with two quick, expertly placed swings to the back of the man’s head. Cookie saw the scalp split and the skull give in. The sound was sickening.

Cookie turned just in time to see another man coming over the bar at him. He raised his club, but the man was able to grab his arm before he could generate any momentum. A third man was on him now, pummeling him as they dragged him out from behind the bar.