end of Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier.
Oh, Van Damme—good thing he could beat up a guy who'd aged fifteen years since facing Bruce Lee in a film.
On the streets this information got them nowhere. When Jack mentioned Bloodsport to a man selling groceries, the guy gave him a look like he was crazier than insane.
The way they were dressed, Jack was starting to wonder if maybe the guy was right.
Then six o'clock came, and everybody started packing up. The boxes of fruit were pulled off the sidewalks, and back inside the shop owners pulled down metal grates, and people scurried to get out of the streets. In half an hour, Jack and Gannon went from being completely surrounded to being the only ones left outside.
And it was summer, too. There were still three hours of daylight left, and the day wasn't even foggy. It was almost like a normal summer day in the rest of America.
With Jack wearing a gray suit by Armani and a white shirt open at the collar and black leather boots by Prada, and Gannon in a slit-up-the-side red dress, holding a shiny gold purse, it wasn't long before people started to drive by slow and give them more than the once-over.
Eventually a Mercedes stopped at the curb as Jack and Gannon were about to cross the street. It blocked their way.
When the tinted window rolled down, Jack saw a thin-lipped man in sunglasses with rectangular frames. He pushed his glasses down his nose and looked at them.
"What you doing here?"
"Hey, I–I heard there's a new sport going on. Shit better than UFC." Jack threw a few uppercuts and a cross. "Know what I mean? We want to see some action."
The guy in the car squinted. "You are kidding with me, right?"
"Nope. Just flew in from Vegas because we got the word you guys had the shit here."
In the car, someone in the back seat spit out a chain of Chinese. The driver started to laugh.
Gannon squeezed Jack's shoulder. "Ease up, Haus. You're scaring the locals."
Jack stepped back.
"No fight tonight," the man in the car said. "You go back to Union Square."
"Yeah. Maybe we do that."
"Here." Gannon sidled up to the car and passed in a fifty wrapped around a business card. The man removed the bill with just the tips of his fingers, as if it had been someplace dirty. He looked at the card.
From the color of the writing on it, Jack knew it couldn't be one of Jane's gray-on-white Fed cards. No, the lettering in orange meant it wasn't that. Who knew how many covers and different ways of playing people Jane Gannon had? Definitely not Jack.
"Funny," the man said, sliding his glasses back up his nose to cover his eyes. "But you have made your point, I can assure." He slid both the card and the fifty inside his jacket. The driver said something in Chinese that he ignored. "You go back to your hotel now. This spectacle is over. When we have something to say, I will call."
With that, the window went up and the car rolled off.
Gannon tweaked Jack's nose and then stepped for the curb as she held up an arm to hail a taxi. "Come on, big boy. It's time for us to go."
A cab was already starting to slow down. Jane Gannon had the magic touch with getting taxis, even here in San Francisco, where they could be few and far between.
The rest of the weekend, they made love and ate room service. Jack did his runs along the Embarcadero up to Fisherman's Wharf and around the Marina, then came back and they made love again.
He had often wondered about a weekend like this when he was digging his way out from the drug hole–whether he'd ever have them again. Once, about two months into his clean streak, he'd picked up an attractive married woman at the super market–or more accurately, she'd picked him up–and they'd gone back to his house. That hadn't counted. In fact, it was more of what made Jack start to wonder.
The Gannons’s daughter was away for the week with Jane's parents, letting them both figure their way through the mess Jane’s husband had brought
Oh, Van Damme—good thing he could beat up a guy who'd aged fifteen years since facing Bruce Lee in a film.
On the streets this information got them nowhere. When Jack mentioned Bloodsport to a man selling groceries, the guy gave him a look like he was crazier than insane.
The way they were dressed, Jack was starting to wonder if maybe the guy was right.
Then six o'clock came, and everybody started packing up. The boxes of fruit were pulled off the sidewalks, and back inside the shop owners pulled down metal grates, and people scurried to get out of the streets. In half an hour, Jack and Gannon went from being completely surrounded to being the only ones left outside.
And it was summer, too. There were still three hours of daylight left, and the day wasn't even foggy. It was almost like a normal summer day in the rest of America.
With Jack wearing a gray suit by Armani and a white shirt open at the collar and black leather boots by Prada, and Gannon in a slit-up-the-side red dress, holding a shiny gold purse, it wasn't long before people started to drive by slow and give them more than the once-over.
Eventually a Mercedes stopped at the curb as Jack and Gannon were about to cross the street. It blocked their way.
When the tinted window rolled down, Jack saw a thin-lipped man in sunglasses with rectangular frames. He pushed his glasses down his nose and looked at them.
"What you doing here?"
"Hey, I–I heard there's a new sport going on. Shit better than UFC." Jack threw a few uppercuts and a cross. "Know what I mean? We want to see some action."
The guy in the car squinted. "You are kidding with me, right?"
"Nope. Just flew in from Vegas because we got the word you guys had the shit here."
In the car, someone in the back seat spit out a chain of Chinese. The driver started to laugh.
Gannon squeezed Jack's shoulder. "Ease up, Haus. You're scaring the locals."
Jack stepped back.
"No fight tonight," the man in the car said. "You go back to Union Square."
"Yeah. Maybe we do that."
"Here." Gannon sidled up to the car and passed in a fifty wrapped around a business card. The man removed the bill with just the tips of his fingers, as if it had been someplace dirty. He looked at the card.
From the color of the writing on it, Jack knew it couldn't be one of Jane's gray-on-white Fed cards. No, the lettering in orange meant it wasn't that. Who knew how many covers and different ways of playing people Jane Gannon had? Definitely not Jack.
"Funny," the man said, sliding his glasses back up his nose to cover his eyes. "But you have made your point, I can assure." He slid both the card and the fifty inside his jacket. The driver said something in Chinese that he ignored. "You go back to your hotel now. This spectacle is over. When we have something to say, I will call."
With that, the window went up and the car rolled off.
Gannon tweaked Jack's nose and then stepped for the curb as she held up an arm to hail a taxi. "Come on, big boy. It's time for us to go."
A cab was already starting to slow down. Jane Gannon had the magic touch with getting taxis, even here in San Francisco, where they could be few and far between.
The rest of the weekend, they made love and ate room service. Jack did his runs along the Embarcadero up to Fisherman's Wharf and around the Marina, then came back and they made love again.
He had often wondered about a weekend like this when he was digging his way out from the drug hole–whether he'd ever have them again. Once, about two months into his clean streak, he'd picked up an attractive married woman at the super market–or more accurately, she'd picked him up–and they'd gone back to his house. That hadn't counted. In fact, it was more of what made Jack start to wonder.
The Gannons’s daughter was away for the week with Jane's parents, letting them both figure their way through the mess Jane’s husband had brought
Similar Books
