Tide King by Jen Michalski Page B

me.”
    Just then a seaman staggered forth from the bathroom. Stanley stood up just before he reached their table, stuffing title and money in his pants pocket. Nicolai stood up just as the seaman walked between him and Stanley, and Nicolai pushed at him. Stanley began to squeeze his way to the front. Bodies multiplied between him and the door, perhaps because of his drunkenness. He pulled his Colt from his back pocket and tucked it in his right shirt sleeve, above his hand. Nicolai pushed the seaman onto the floor and began to pursue, but Stanley was halfway through the bar. A hand grabbed him as he pushed his way ahead.
    â€œTen cents?” A man the color of liver asked him. His yellowed eyes floated on a fifth of liquor, if not more, by Stanley’s estimate. “Lend a guy ten cents?”
    Nicolai was only one man from him now. Stanley hooked liver man’s barstool with his boot and pulled it hard, sending him tumbling to the floor behind him. He could smell the cool, salt air from the open door, glimpse the cobblestone and the night harbor before Vadim filled it from the outside.
    â€œSome of us, we take back door,” he grinned as Nicolai cuffed Stanley’s shoulder from behind. “What, you think we come to this country yesterday?”
    â€œCome on, Mr. Soldier.” Stanley felt Nicolai’s gun in his back. He had survived Europe only to get killed by a bunch of greasy dumb Ruskies.
    â€œI won fair and square,” Stanley said, although he supposed the argument was more for his benefit, for God, than for theirs. They walked along the cobblestone streets, thick with the smell of fish and salt, Vadim in front, Nicolai behind, like a drunken marching band, until they found a narrow alley well off Thames Street, where the bums slept. Where Stanley would be sleeping forever, soon enough. They hadn’t gotten his gun, but Stanley didn’t see how he could shoot them both. At the very least, he needed to shoot Nicolai first, whose gun was nosed so far in Stanley’s back, he could feel it in his stomach. Vadim wheezed in front of him. He lurched left and right, and Stanley was hopeful for a moment that Vadim would pass out, making Nicolai pause, perhaps, loosen his grip. Stanley let his Colt slip from his forearm into his hand.
    â€œNot here,” Nicolai said, when Vadim stopped. “People live here.” Stanley looked at the open, second-story windows from the backs of brick rowhouses overlooking the alley. He couldn’t imagine who lived down here. But a woman sat in one, smoking a cigarette. Her blonde ringlets bounced as she leaned over the sill. Help me , Stanley mouthed.
    â€œI’m tired. Shoot him now.” Vadim turned and coughed, emptying his chest of yellow phlegm before spitting it on the ground. A shot whizzed by Stanley’s head, and it was enough of an opening. He turned and shoved his gun into the gut of Nicolai, who had crouched behind Stanley, intending to use him as a shield from the errant gunman, and fired twice.
    Stanley heard another shot, from Vadim’s direction, and then warmness in his left shoulder. He turned, on his knee, and fired three shots into the middle of Vadim’s shadow, which staggered back. Another bullet split the air from the window. It hit Vadim in the neck, and he slumped over.
    â€œUp here.” The girl in the window motioned to him. Stanley patted Nicolai’s pockets, pulling out some loose bills, before he went over Vadim. They had done it in the Army for years, stealing from dead soldiers. Only it wasn’t a crime then. Not that there was very much—a few tens, loose bullets, a button—on the Russians. Vadim and Nicolai were probably small peanuts, not part of any group. No group that would be hunting Stanley in the days and nights ahead, he hoped.
    But there was still the police. Stanley looked up at the window. The woman had retreated, but the light was still on. A stone wall, five feet