Party Foul - Abby Knox Page 0,1

sure he wasn’t cutting off the man’s oxygen but squeezing the sides of his neck just enough to make the asshole panic just a little.

“Usually I don’t gotta toss your ass out on a Thursday, Wallsy. What’s got you acting out? Wife lock you out the house for good this time?”

Walls choked out, “Fuck you, Spanos.”

That kind of talk was pretty brave for a guy whose cheap-ass boat shoes were helplessly flailing in the air five inches above the pavement.

Levi scoffed, and bit back a wince at the slight strain in his triceps at the prolonged suspension of a drunk Walls at arm’s length.

“That any way to talk to an old classmate?” Levi asked.

Walls had a way of producing copious amounts of spittle whenever Levi threatened to cut off his oxygen. Fortunately, Levi was quick, and Walls was predictable. Levi ducked as Walls frothed, “You were a punk at Kennedy Middle, and now you’re just a loser. But congrats on being bigger and stronger.”

Still too much oxygen getting to Walls’ brain if he was able to grunt out that much of a speech. Levi squeezed a little harder. His dark imagining saw himself making a complete fist and watching Walls’ head pop off his neck, cartoon style. Levi would fuckin’ enjoy it.

“Pal, I warned you last time to leave the female customers alone, but you didn’t listen. You just keep pushing the envelope, so now I gotta kick your ass.”

Walls’ bugged-out eyes looked sideways at someone lurking between the backdoor and the delivery dock. Levi didn’t look—he knew better than to tear his focus away from his target—but he had a feeling he knew who stood there watching this whole unfortunate scene. He wished she’d go away.

“What do you care? You can’t afford what that one charges per hour, I’ll tell ya that much,” Walls rasped, his face turning red, saliva frothing from his thin lips. That mouth never did stop running. Not at Kennedy Middle, and not now as a drunk spouting his nightly bullshit at Crow Bar.

In a sick way, he was almost glad for a reason to toss this fucker out. He had had enough. Enough of Walls’ bragging that the capo of the Girardi family business owed him a favor; about how if the bartender kept cutting Walls off he was going to come back with one of the crime boss’s men to collect protection money; or about how that crime boss was going to invest in his latest get rich quick schemes. The guy was all hat, no cattle. Levi could let verbal bullshit slide on most nights, but tonight he crossed the line. Levi knew the capo. He had first-hand experience with the man who oversaw the family’s most lucrative rackets.

Levi knew the capo only by his menacing sounding last name — Goring — but he wasn’t about to spill that to Walls. That was all he needed — for this blowhard to start using the actual names of mob members. Levi had worked several years to put the capo’s name, and that of the capo’s entitled 15-year-old brat named Christoph, out of his mind.

Levi’s clenched fingers let go of Walls’ throat, but not before his increasingly taxed arm muscles let loose with one forceful, rage-filled shove.

Walls hit the opposite wall of the alley and bounced off the steel backdoor of the boxing gym. The dirtbag’s body connected with the ground, knocking the wind out of him. He rolled to his side with a groan.

“This is it. Do not show your face back here after this, Walls, or my fist is gonna make hamburger with your stupid face.”

Walls scrambled to his feet and rubbed his throat, hoarsely replying as he backed away, “You won’t have trouble with me anymore, you and this shit hole are Girardi’s problem now.”

Levi snorted a derisive laugh. “I’ll be waiting with bated breath for the guy doesn’t even know your name.”

Unfortunately, Levi knew the Girardi name all too well, and wished he’d never been acquainted with that family in the first place.

Levi watched Walls disappear around the corner, heard a door open and Walls’ scratchy voice shouting at a cabbie to take him to see “the capo.” In return the cabbie groused about not knowing what that was, which set Walls off into a tirade about how anybody in this neighborhood worth their salt knows who that was. Levi wasn’t about to offer the cabbie any clarification.

Just hearing the boss’s title made Levi’s stress flare up and his palms