I couldn’t have timed it better, or worse, if I tried. The door comes open and out steps Sadie with a trash bag in each hand, moving toward the dumpster.
“Speak of the devil,” one of the guys says, as he moves closer to her while his friends circle her like a pack of dogs. She drops the trash bags realizing she’s trapped.
Not for long.
My long strides eat the space between us as I put my fist into a palm, crack my knuckles, and repeat the process on the other side.
“If it isn’t the little cocktease,” one of these little shits says. A couple of them are wearing high school football uniforms and they’re pretty big kids. Kids.
No match for a man, no matter how many of them there are.
“And if it isn’t five little shits who are just leaving,” I say as I approach them.
They turn and look at me, one of them spitting in my direction. “Beat it old man,” one says.
“What are you, her father?” another asks.
“Guys?” a third says, starting to backpedal and immediately question his affiliation with these knucklehead losers.
“You were just leaving,” I repeat. “Last chance.”
“Or what?”
I step toward the loudmouth who predictably throws a haymaker. I slide in closer, his wild blow going over my shoulder as I headbutt him so hard he falls backward onto the concrete.
Another kid dashes to the dumpster, grabs a pipe, and stalks toward me with a second kid, the other two wisely backing away.
“That’s right. Go and pick out the branch you want me to spank you with, son.”
“It’s a pipe, old man. And I’m going to beat your ass with it.”
I motion him toward me with an outstretched hand and all four fingers making a come hither motion.
He runs toward me, swinging wildly and I easily dodge him and use a similar movement I used on his buddy…moving closer when the average person would move away.
I clench my fingers and drive my open palm up into his chin, knocking him backward and sending the pipe flying. His friend tries to tackle me and I sidestep him and deliver a steel-toed boot to his face.
The other two kids predictably abandon their ‘friends’ just as the sound of police sirens wail.
“That was fast,” I say, grabbing the boys by the backs of their jerseys and dragging them into a tidy pile to make this easier on the cops who show up.
Immediately I recognize one as a Marine veteran. There’s a lot of joking and friendly rivalry between Marines and SEALs, but not now. Not when we have a common opponent, if these boys even classify as that.
“They’ve been stirring up trouble for a while, but they’re untouchable. ‘Bout time someone roughed them up and gave them a taste of their own medicine,” the Marine veteran turned cop named Jack says. “Didn’t know you were back in town?”
“Just got in.”
“Already stirring up trouble, like Jack Reacher.”
We share a laugh and I acknowledge that I’m going to have to give a statement. Steven comes flying out of the bar saying he’s got it all on video, and that I was clearly attacked.
Jack steps inside to take a look while his partner cuffs the boys.
Too easy.
But what’s not easy is the look on Rick’s face.
“Luckily that turned out okay.”