I pushed him off and to one side, onto the floor, then twisted to throw myself on top of him, giving him a knee in the balls and then a right to the nose, breaking it, and a left to the jaw, jarring it on its hinges. He was wincing with the pain only a groin blow can bring, but he was, after all, a stunt man and obviously a muscle builder, so his testicles were probably the size of peas anyway, thanks to steroids. In any case, he had the will and presence of mind to shove his right forearm into my chest with enough power to send me tumbling back.

Then he jumped on me like a wrestler in the ring only not phony, and he was pinning me with a knee and strangling me with two powerful hands. For a moment I wondered if he was the killer with the deadly knee move, but he smelled like pot, not Obsession. Gasping, I caught his pony tail with one hand and jerked his head back while with the other I hit him in the side, and busted a couple ribs because their snap was unmistakable. He cried out and his hands loosened, and I head-butted his chin, which rocked him back, and he stumbled off me and got to his feet and put a little distance between us.

I was still down low and I threw a tackle into him and he went backward, hitting his head hard on the edge of the projection TV. His eyes rolled back and he slid down to the floor and lay in a pile of random bones and muscles in a bag of flesh. Very quiet, but for some dripping blood.

I bent over and checked his pulse. Both his wrist and neck.

Then I stood staring down at him, thinking about what to do. Thinking about my situation.

I had a phone call to make. It would take going to a gas station and making a call, but I would be back.

I wasn’t done here.

Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Meatpacking District on a Sunday night was dead, the businesses for which the area took its name shuttered till tomorrow, the weathered buildings wearing graffiti like scars. Refuse blew down the cobblestone street like tumbleweed except where slowed by fetid-surfaced puddles.

No inhabitants were showing themselves. Even the underground gay scene with its leather shops, bathhouses and notorious sex clubs (The Manhole, The Hellfire Club) were, like God Almighty, taking a day of rest or anyway a night of recuperation. The rain stopped yesterday but the sky was still a dirty gray, not ready to turn loose of the world below. The block where Velda and I had visited the bustling movie location was a sinister ghost town now, the production having moved on.