Overtime.
The Brooklyn Giants needed to get ten yards in four downs to avoid overtime. Of course they didn’t make it. If they made it then their porous defense wouldn’t have given up those seven points. If they made it I’d win that bet. But that isn’t what happened. Miller ran right up the seam and put seven more on the board, so here I was sitting at Tony’s bar not a mile away from the stadium and wondering if I could get to the exits before one of Tung’s big boys noticed I was trying to slip away.
Tony’s was emptier than I hoped on a Sunday afternoon. There were the regular day drinkers who didn’t care if there was a game going on or not. Usually you get your fair mix of fans coming around this time of year, even in a neighborhood like this. I mile away from the stadium is still close enough to see the thing, and close enough to feel like you’re part of the action.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t that kind of game. Nobody cared if the Giants lost to the LA Juggernauts. Nobody except for me that is. I had two hundred on the Giants winning. I only had 100 on my credstick. I was checking the exits again, trying to see which of the triad goons were focused on the doors and which were eyeballing the handful of people who had money riding on this thing when the front doors burst open. Everyone turned. You don’t crash into a bar like a cop unless you are a cop or something worse. I ought to know. I was a cop for about two years before I wasn’t.
The two men who came through the door were something worse. One was a blonde. The other was dark skinned like me, but not like me. They were vat-big, muscles showing under too tight suits. They wore sunglasses that they didn’t take off indoors and hard expressions that spoke of a corporate military upbringing. That all would’ve been fine if they were both staring right at me.
The dark-skinned one said, “Tojiro Mako. You need to come with us.”
The upside? At least Tung and his goons wouldn’t be beating me down today if I lost that bet.
Some Thoughts:
- Since it is waiver Wednesday I decided to start this story with a sports moment. It also helped define the character a bit more in my head. Tojiro is coming together on the fly.
- If anyone who reads this is an artist, hit me up at fastdos@gmail.com. I’m interested in getting a pic of this character.