Hurricane by Ken Douglas Page B

enough to go to the movies,” the boy said, and Dreadlocks grabbed one of the girls by the arm, to keep them from running away, Broxton thought. The girl was too frightened to scream, but her wide eyes caught Broxton as he moved up behind the men.
    “ Listen, boy, you give over what you got or you be sorry.” Crackheads, Broxton thought. The underbelly of the snake, the reason why he went to work everyday.
    “ Let the girl go,” Broxton said.
    Dreadlocks stiffened, but the other man spun around to face Broxton. He had a knife in his right hand and a glint in his bloodshot eyes. He was tall, six-six, half a foot taller than Broxton, but he was crack thin. Crack thin and crack crazy.
    “ You wanna mind your own business?” the man with the knife said.
    “ No,” Broxton answered.
    “ You gonna pay you don’t,” Knifeman said. Brave words, but the knife was shaking in the man’s bony hand.
    “ One way or another, everybody has to pay,” Broxton said, moving closer, keeping his eyes on the blade. Instinctively he lowered himself into a crouch, turning sideways to the man, making himself a smaller target. He wasn’t a natural like others he’d known, but he knew how to fight. Everybody did in the barrio, and if you were one of the few Anglo kids and your father was a cop, you had to fight just to keep your place in line at the school cafeteria, and Broxton liked to eat.
    Knifeman came in quick, leading with the blade, holding it like a sword. The shakes were cocaine induced, like his courage. Broxton stepped aside, but the man was faster than he anticipated and Broxton felt the cold tip of hot steel slice across his stomach as he brought the back of his right hand down on the man’s wrist.
    First, the snapping sound of breaking bone.
    Second, the clattering of the knife on the sidewalk.
    Third, the scream.
    Broxton hit him in the mouth, cutting off the scream and cutting his fist on breaking teeth. Knifeman left the ground, arms flaying, bleeding, and landed on his back, his head making a sickening thud when it hit the concrete.
    “ You can’t do that,” Dreadlocks said.
    “ Let the girl go,” Broxton said.
    “ I don’t think so.”
    “ Let her go and you can walk away.”
    Dreadlocks was silent for a few seconds, weighing Broxton’s words. The girl looked frightened, but she wasn’t struggling and the other three teenagers, to their credit, hadn’t run off. The four kids all looked to Broxton with hope in their eyes.
    “ You a bad ass?” Dreadlocks asked.
    Broxton kept his eyes locked on him, but ignored the question as he ran his hand through the slice in his shirt and touched tender skin. He studied the blood on his hand and winced. The cut was starting to hurt.
    “ I axed you a question.”
    Broxton bent and picked up the knife.
    “ I axed you a question.”
    “ Yeah, you axed me a question.” Broxton deliberately pronounced the word the East Coast way, the way Dreadlocks did. “You axed me a question and I’m gonna axe your head off with your buddy’s knife if you don’t let the girl go.”
    “ You want me, come through her.”
    “ Then you die,” Broxton said.
    Dreadlocks cut into Broxton’s eyes with a long stare and saw that he meant it.
    “ What about my friend?” he asked.
    “ You don’t really care, do you?”
    “ No,” he said and he relaxed his grip on the girl, thought for a second, and let her go, backing away. One step, two, three, then he turned and ran.
    “ Is he dead?” one of the boys said, looking at Knifeman laid out on the sidewalk.
    “ No, he’ll be okay.” Broxton didn’t know or care if he was telling the truth.
    “ You hit him hard. That was real neat,” the other boy said.
    “ We should move away from here, before the police come,” Broxton said.
    “ But you’re the good guy.” This from the girl that had been held captive.
    “ They don’t think so,” Broxton said and the four youngsters followed his gaze to the flashing blue light coming