Breaking the bridge of a man’s nose in this manner creates a surprising amount of pain, dazes him, and blurs his eyes, which gives me time to explore other options. Like removing the belt from my shoulders, wrapping it around his neck, threading it through the belt buckle, and pulling it tight while pushing his head in the opposite direction with my foot. I forced his huge neck to fit into the tiny space created by the hole I’d cut into my belt moments earlier.
The goon was choking. His face sprayed blood like the blow hole of a whale, and I guessed he’d be dead in two minutes. I jerked him to his feet, but he was too heavy to hold with one hand, twitching and kicking as he was. I pulled the door open, got it between us, draped the belt over the top of it, and held him in place by pulling on the belt with my left hand. This way, the door was doing most of the work and the goon was hanging on the front of it, with me behind. I backed us up into the wall, which was a good place to be because the two parking lot goons had just burst through the back door of the kitchen with their guns drawn.
The first thing they saw was their partner hanging from a belt over the door, choking, spewing blood everywhere, grabbing at his neck, kicking and gasping for breath. The second thing they saw was part of my head poking out from behind the guy.
The one who looked like the dying goon’s brother screamed, “Ray!” The other one called me a bad name and threatened to shoot me if I didn’t let Ray go. Everyone else in the kitchen had long since hit the floor and found cover-everyone except the waitress who had fainted. She was starting to regain consciousness. The customers in the front part of the diner were just beginning to realize something very wrong was happening in the kitchen. I heard the sounds a group of strangers make when they’re trying to decide what to do. If they were smart, they’d follow Kathleen’s lead and jump under their tables.
“Here’s how it’s going to happen,” I said to the gunmen. “You’re going to drop your guns and kick them across the floor to me. Or else Ray chokes to death.”
Ray’s friend sneered. “I don’t give up my gun to no one.”
I squinted to get a better look. “That a Monster Magnum?” I asked. “Hell, I don’t blame you. That’s a damn fine gun.”
The guy with the magnum ignored me, kept talking while he took a step away from Ray’s brother, trying to create distance between them and work his way into my blind side. “Broken nose, belt around his neck-he’s not gonna die. That’s total bullshit.”
