Read Michael Lister - Soldier 03 - The Big Hello for Free Online

man.”
    “I’a step up there,” Deek said. “Drop the rod.”
    Clip immediately dropped the gun on the floor, the heavy thud sounding like a shot ricocheting around the room.
    He’d die before letting anyone take his weapon, but he’d drop it instantly if it suited his purpose––which at the moment was beating or killing the big negro in a fair fight.
    At that I had expected Deek to rush him, but he didn’t move.
    “Thought the rod was keeping you away?” Clip said.
    “Man, I ain’t got time for this,” he said.
    “Oh, I’m keeping you from something?” Clip said. Then turning to me added, “He got somewhere to be.”
    Deek began slowly moving toward the door, giving Clip a wide berth as he did.
    “You gonna have to shoot me in the back,” he said. “I ain’t standing around playin’ the fool for you.”
    I hoped revealing Deek for the bullying coward he was would be enough for Clip, but I knew better.
    “Probably best for you to die outside like a dog anyway,” Clip said. “Not mess up this dance floor and these people’s good time tonight.”
    When Deek was nearly parallel with us, he lunged at Clip, coming up with a small handgun as he did.
    Firing as he ran, Deek missed Clip and me, but managed to wing a guy leaning on the wall behind us.
    As he got closer and his empty pistol began dry firing, he lowered his shoulders and ducked his head down, crouching to tackle Clip, but just as he reached him, Clip shimmied and twisted, avoiding Deek altogether, then sticking his foot out and tripping him as he stumbled by.
    Deek went down fast and hard, his thick, muscular body smacking the wood plank floor with such force it cracked a board.
    “Once a motherfucker sucker puncher,” Clip said, “always a motherfucker sucker puncher.”
    Stooping down, Clip picked up his pistol then walked over to Deek, holding the gun down beside him as he did.
    Still facedown, Deek was just beginning to roll over.
    When he did finally manage to get on his back, he began pushing away from Clip in a kind of awkward crab crawl.
    When he reached him, without saying a word, Clip raised the gun and pointed it at Deek’s huge head.
    As Clip began to squeeze the trigger, a middle-aged woman stepped over and said, “Wait. Don’t shoot. I’m Bernice Baker. Don’t shoot him.”
    “What about to happen to him got nothin’ to do with you,” Clip said. “Talk to Jimmy. He got a few questions for you.”
    “No, don’t shoot,” she said. “This my son Deek. He’s just trying to protect his mama. Please don’t kill him. Please. He’s just lookin’ out for his mama. Don’t make him die for doing that.”
    I wasn’t sure if that was enough to keep Clip from killing him. Before this moment, I would’ve said Deek was a dead man, but now there was a slight chance he might actually make it through the night.
    Clip continued looking down at the man, who was panting heavily and avoiding eye contact.
    Everyone waited.
    Eventually, Clip took his finger off the trigger, lowered the gun, and extended his other hand to help Deek up.
    Deek hesitated, but then took it.
    Clip pulled him upright and the moment he was standing, flipped the Walther around in his hand and hit him in the center of his forehead with the butt of the weapon. He went down hard, unconscious by the time his head hit the floor again.

Chapter 9

    “You didn’t have to do that to my boy,” Bernice Baker was saying.
    We were back in the dark parking lot. Four guys had carried Deek out and he was lying on the front seat of his mom’s car. Both doors were open to accommodate his length, his boots nearly touching the ground on the driver’s side.
    Bernice was squatted down in the V formed by the open passenger door, rubbing her son’s head. Clip and I were standing a few feet away.
    “You better just be glad he alive,” Clip said.
    “I am,” she said. “Thank you for that.”
    “Why didn’t you just talk to us?” I asked.
    “I’s scared to,” she