A month later, Cole sat in the corner booth at the Sportsmen’s Lounge. It was eight p.m. on a Friday and he nursed a mug of Paradocs Red IPA from Raised Grain Brewery. The beer tasted of citrus and caramel. Brewed nearby, it was the intended first course of his meal in liquid form. He licked his upper lip to catch a drop that had collected there and his tongue scraped the bushy mustache he’d glued in place before coming out for the evening. He looked up and caught his reflection in the large mirror that hung on the wall by his booth. A tattered blue and gold Marquette Golden Eagles cap covered the shaggy black and gray hair of his wig. With the mustache and bushy eyebrows, he hoped he could pass for a homeless person.
Cole shook his head and smiled to himself. The lounge didn’t typically host guys that looked like him. The bar’s website described itself as, “Diverse. Classy. Original.” It encouraged its clientele to be stylish. “Don’t just dress to impress,” the website said, “dress to turn heads. Be classy. And do what feels right.” His smile turned into a scowl when he considered the last part. He wished more people concerned themselves with doing what was right, instead of what felt right.” That would make his job a whole lot easier.
A flash of light to his left caught his eye and he turned to catch the highlight on the 96-inch HD screen. It was late in the second half of ESPN’s college game of the week and Marquette’s men’s basketball team was capping off another improbable comeback. Though nearly always undersized, MU’s teams fought hard all forty minutes of every game, and often into overtime. Nothing came easy to them, but they got the job done. They often fell behind by double digits, but came back to win more than their share. Everybody underestimated them, typically to their own peril.
Maybe that’s why I feel such an affinity to the team, he mused. That, and the fact you got both your undergrad and master’s degrees from MU, he reminded himself.
“Hey, Old Timer…” The sportswriter, Dan Rippa, interrupted Cole’s thoughts, as he leaned over him. “Why don’t you belly up to the bar and let us have this booth,” he said, gesturing to his two buddies who both had smug grins on their handsome faces.
“What?” Cole asked, looking startled. “You want to sit down? Okay, I don’t mind the company.”
Rippa looked at his pals and shook his head. All three of them wore dress slacks, nice sweaters, and wool sports coats. Their hair was fashionably long and styled.
“Ah, yeah, about that,” he said to Cole with a fake smile, “this is kind of our booth and we have work to do. We’re reporters at the Journal Sentinel across the street and this is where we hang out. My buddies work in the news/editorial section of the paper, and I’m in sports.”
“Well, sit down here, then,” Cole said with his equally fake but more convincing smile. He patted the Naugahyde-covered bench he sat on. “I love sports and used to play ‘em some when I was younger.”
Rippa was losing what little patience he had. He hovered over Cole, crowding him. “Look. I really wasn’t asking you to move, I was telling you…although you weren’t bright enough to pick up on that. This is my booth and I want you out of it. Now!”
Cole leaned closer to the sportswriter, invading his space and making it difficult for his entourage to hear his words. “I can see why you like this booth, what with the big mirror here,” he gestured, “and the even bigger TV screen over there,” he nodded with his head. “There’s plenty of room here. You won’t even notice me. I’ll watch the rest of the game and SportsCenter, while you stare at yourself in the mirror.” He winked at the sportswriter as he finished the last line.
Two minutes later the four of them had left by the bar’s rear entrance and were now in the small employee parking lot behind the tavern. Even though it was cold, Cole could smell the sour odors emanating from the dumpster off to his right.
In the bar, Cole picked up on the fact that Rippa was right-handed. As he faced him, he put his own left fist up in front of his chin and his right fist close to his right ear. He looked awkward. The sportswriter broke into a grin as he saw Cole wide open for a hard right hook.
“Fair warnin.’ I ain’t got no insurance to cover ya,” Cole blabbered, looking to confuse his adversary. He wasn’t sure why he was adopting a hillbilly persona, but he didn’t need to win an Oscar for this acting performance.
Rippa’s grin faded and he bit down on his lower lip. Even without feeling the warm glow spreading in his head, Cole would have known he was gathering himself before knocking the old-timer down with one big punch. As Rippa launched his sweeping right hook with a grunt of effort, Cole stepped back. The right fist that would have caved in the left side of his face instead flew by, pulling its owner off-balance, twisting his body so that he was facing almost away from Cole. Big mistake.
Cole stepped behind the sportswriter, bending his knees and locking his arms low around his waist. Then he exploded straight up, lifting the bigger man off the ground. In the same motion, Cole leaned backward and twisted, propelling his opponent hard to the asphalt. As Rippa stretched out his left hand to break his fall, Cole slipped his own grip and caught the sportswriter’s wrist and pulled it back into his body. Rippa’s face was the first thing to hit the pavement, as Cole rode the other man to the ground. Cole felt the wet crunch of bones breaking and skin shredding as the man’s head bounced hard twice.
Rippa lay face down, too stunned to feel the pain yet. Cole took his time going through the writer’s jacket pockets and found a small bottle of clear liquid. He rolled him over, unfazed by the blood flowing from Rippa’s broken nose and shattered teeth, or the ooze coming from his grated forehead. He could feel the two friends struggling to decide whether they should join the fight. The look of menace Cole gave them decided things, and they stepped back, though they were close enough to hear what Cole said next.
He held the bottle inches from the fallen sportswriter’s face and said through clenched teeth, “If you ever drug a woman for sex again, I’ll find out and I’ll break more than your nose and your arm…”
As Cole straightened up he could sense Rippa’s confusion. The guy knew his face was wrecked, but didn’t feel any real pain in either arm. “Oh, yeah,” Cole said, bringing his heel down with all his weight on Rippa’s right wrist. The sharp crack of breaking bones was followed by the writer’s scream. “Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself.”
Cole turned and walked down the alley and out of sight as the two friends moved uncertainly to the aid of their fallen buddy. Cole wasn’t sure if it was adrenaline or the Paradocs Red that helped get him through the quick brawl. His left shoulder was aflame and he would have sworn he’d reopened the stitches of his wound if they hadn’t already been removed. He thought he’d feel like whistling Ring Out Ahoya, the Marquette fight song, after putting away the reporter. Instead, he felt hollow and empty. For nearly two months he’d battled the darkness and bitter cold outside, and now he confronted the cold darkness inside himself. He didn’t intend to kill Rippa, but it could have happened. And Cole wasn’t sure he would have regretted it. He thought of Michele, and how she would have felt seeing her rapist beaten. He swallowed bile, pretty sure she wouldn’t have approved. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking, wondering if he was any better than the late Deputy Randall Hubbard.