got him, let’s get out of here,” the one further out of the car said.
His talking covered the sound, what little there was of it, of Brenner dashing up to roundhouse kick him square in the side of the face. He dropped Adam’s legs and staggered backward like a drunken man.
The other one, partially in the car, his leg bent on the bench seat, was turning and rising out of the car, removing a gun from inside his sport coat.
At that moment, Rolf was more than halfway down the outside steps, pointing his Beretta at the hood with the gun. But Brenner moved faster and lashed out with the edge of his hand. He cracked the wrist of the gunman’s hand, and he yelped, dropping his piece, a dull finished Glock. Jabbing two stiff fingers into the hood’s chest, the would-be kidnapper began twitching with spasms as if he’d been shocked by a stun gun. He then fell to the sidewalk on his face and lay still. Brenner kicked the Glock away.
The first one Brenner struck had recovered and now held a semi-auto shotgun in his hand, plucked from under the front seat. He boomed it at Rolf and the other bodyguard who’d appeared behind him. Rolf, in front on the steps, was hit with the spray of buckshot in his upper body area. Grey dust kicked up around him as the pellets also blasted into a brick pillar of the porch. Hamlish’s man yelled in pain and went down.
The hoodlum shifted his attention to Brenner. Both stood beside the Lincoln. In the fraction of time it took for the shotgunner to again fire his weapon, Brenner had dropped to the ground below the blast. Like a runner sliding into a base, he used his legs to sweep the shotgunner off his feet. On the ground, still holding his weapon, the hood tried to twist around to employ the shotgun. But Brenner, also on the ground, rammed his heel twice in rapid fashion into the man’s stomach, knocking the air out of him.
Brenner got to a knee and took the shotgun away. Once on his feet again, he went to the rear of the Lincoln and pulled the dazed victim out of the back.
“How do you feel?” Brenner asked as he helped him over to the Hamlish house.
“I’m okay,” he said. There was a lump at the base of his neck where one of the men had hit him to stun him and make him compliant.
Rolf was on his feet being helped by the other bodyguard. Devra Hamlish was also outside, standing at the top of the stoop. Over at the Lincoln, the hood who’d wielded the shotgun was at the wheel of the car. The other one had managed to crawl into the rear. Brenner turned to stop them, but the woman spoke.
“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Brenner, it would be better for me if you didn’t subdue them as then we’d have to call the police, who tend to ask so many pesky questions.”
Brenner did as requested.
The man he saved to his host, “And no press.”
She smiled and nodded.
The back door opened, the Town Car roared away, the hood’s feet hanging out of the rear.
“You some kind of Navy SEAL, man?” The injured Rolfe asked Brenner as they all went inside. “I’ve never seen anybody with moves like yours.”
“I practice a lot,” Brenner said.
They sat Rolf on the couch, and Hamlish called a medical friend she said wouldn’t feel compelled to report the bodyguard’s gunshot wound.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you did, Mr. Brenner.” He put his hand out.
Brenner returned the handshake. “Ned. And no worries, Adam, right?”
“Yeah, Adam, Adam Damakas.”
Brenner grinned. “That’s why you’d like to keep this low key.”
Damakas said, “Exactly.”
“But looks like you might need to get yourself protected, huh? These dudes were for sure going to try and ransom you to your pops,” Brenner observed.
Damakas smiled crookedly. “You available for lessons?”
Brenner shrugged, “I’m always up for a new experience.”
The wounded bodyguard growled, “Well I’ve had the new experience of getting peppered by a shotgun, so I’ve had enough excitement for the time being.” His shirt was off, and he pressed a bloody towel to his wound.
• • •
Three days later, about an hour drive out of Las Vegas, Ned Brenner, wearing Number 19, goosed the accelerator of his Yamaha dirt bike as he took the last hill. Number 34 was ahead of him and his rear tire spun dirt and small pebbles into Brenner’s dark visor. Both lead riders gained the high ground with several other riders zooming up the hill close behind. The two were side-by-side as they shot across the stretch of level ground. A third rider, Number 13, in yellow and orange gear, began closing the gap.
The racers maintained their furious pace, the rhythmic burr of their engines filling the dry, hot air. Brenner’s front tire hit a gopher hole, and his motorcycle’s front end wobbled, but he regained control quickly. However, Number 34 took advantage and got out in front of him again. Number 13, a female rider, wasn’t losing ground either and was tight on Brenner.
The final leg of the race was a twenty foot leap from the hill down to the path leading across the finish line. The three and their machines rose off the end of the hill. Momentarily, they seemed frozen at the apex of their leap, stuck in a matrix of time. Then the racers descended to the earth again.
As one, the riders leaned forward on their bikes and bore down, each imagining their flesh fusing with the metal of their machines. Brenner gained less than an inch ahead of Number 34. But on his left came Number 13, and she crossed the finish line first, Brenner not two seconds behind, and 34 took third place. The crowd cheered and applauded. The three shook hands and hugged all around after removing their helmets. Thereafter, the awards were handed out as phones were held aloft taking pictures.
Later, at a bar called the Busted Spoke, the motocross riders and their fans partied hard in the heat of the late afternoon. Brenner and Sela Wu, Number 13, were at a table in a corner of the establishment.
“Ha, shit, Noc, you didn’t let me win, did you?” She sipped from a beer bottle, eyeing him as she did so.
“You damn well know me better than that, Sela. I play to win in everything, just like you.” He knocked the top of his bottle against hers.
She regarded him, a serious look settling on her face. “Except you do sky diving, snowboarding, b-ballin’. I know you won some golf tournaments, yeah? That time in the park, when I was with you, you pocketed some serious cash playing chess with two guys at once.”
“I’ve done that once or twice,” he said dismissively.
“And that’s how you make a living, bumming around, doing whatever it is that interests you?”
“More or less.”
She crimped her lips. “It all comes easy to you doesn’t it, Noc?”
“You mean I don’t appreciate my, ah,” he gestured to finish his sentence.
Wu said, “Whatever it is you got.”
“I apply myself, that’s all.”
“In everything?” she said.
“In everything,” he replied evenly.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She got up, turning her head back to lay a loaded look on him.
He followed the woman out. At the end of the standing bar was a wiry, pleasant-faced man having a vodka and tonic. His features reminded people of the late actor and game show host, Richard Dawson. Brenner had noticed him at the race. He didn’t have a photographic memory, no one did. Some children, and a handful of adults, had what was called eidetic memory — they could call up clear snapshots of faces and incidents in their mind’s eye.
He didn’t posses that either, but he was observant and