Scott had three things going for him. One, he was standing in the dark, and Earl was in a brightly lit room. Two, Scott was enraged and was able to do anything. Three, Scott had the element of surprise and used it to best advantage to slug Earl, hard, right in his face.
     Earl presented a big target, and it wasn't hard for Scott to hit him. The blow was surprising, not only to Scott who connected much better than he ever had in any fight in his life, but mostly to Earl who stumbled back into the room and fell over the bed.
     Instead of chasing him inside, Scott stood in the doorway and rubbed his fist. He was pretty sure that Earl was hurting because he knew that he was. Scott hadn't been in a fistfight since sometime back in high school, about ten years ago. He'd won that fight and it looked likely that he'd win this one, too.
     Earl was showing signs of stirring, and had managed to rise from his bed and hold a hand to his bloodied face. His hand quickly became slick with his blood, and he was gingerly touching his nose and mouth when Scott called out from the parking lot.
     "You miserable, fat fuck! What the hell did you do with my tools?"
     At this, Earl stopped, his hand still locked on his face. He paused a moment, as if hammered by the words, then reached around under the bed and came up with the first thing he could get his hands on: a baseball bat.
     There was a gun under there, too, and the lack of any grips would not have itself prevented Earl from using it as a weapon, but there were no bullets in it and Earl didn't feel like stopping and loading. He drew forth the bat and Scott took a tentative step forward, into the door jamb.
     This wasn't what Scott had hoped for, to be out-armed like this, but he knew that he had agility on his side, as well as a good first punch. It may not stop Earl now, but Scott figured he could build on that earlier injury to floor his large foe again, and if Earl went down again Scott would do everything in his power to make sure he stayed down.
     He was in the doorway beause he instinctively realized that it gave him good protection against being hit from the side. He could be poked with the bat, or Earl could chop at him with it, but Scott could ignore a swinging blow. In short time Earl was back on his feet and charging, the bat held out in front in both hands.
     He stood a good bat's swing in front of Scott, too far for Scott to land another blow, and Scott could see that Earl's lip was split badly and that his nose was leaking blood. Scott feigned a punch forward, and Earl backed up, moving the bat from side to side in front. Scott ducked, and Earl began lifting hte bat over his right shoulder.
     As it was moving up and back, Scott lashed out again, stepping into his punch and connecting with all his might into Earl's soft, easy stomach.
     The big guy doubled over, and Scott grabbed Earl by the back of his head and slammed his downward-moving face into Scott's upcoming knee. There was another sickening snap, and Scott realized he must have broken Earl's nose, perhaps for the second time.
     He lifted Earl's head up and was planning on slugging him in the face again when he felt someone behind him holding onto his arm. He tried to wrestle his arm free, but it was held securely. Earl dropped the bat and was using both his hands to cover his face and was backing away, blind, toward the foot of the bed. Scott glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was being held by two men, who were also trying to drag him back out of the door and into the parking lot, where a small crowd had formed.
     The two men dragging him were Earl's next door neighbors, and Scott recognized them by sight. He gave up the fight and let himself be dragged away from Earl's room and into the open lot.
     In addition to the two neighbors, Scott recognized Vicky, who was oddly dressed in a pair of pants and a bathrobe and was standing in the gravel lot in her stocking feet. There were also a man and wife from the the other leg of the Single Spire, who must have seen the whole thing happen from across the lot. The man was unarmed, but his wife was holding a wooden spoon.
     The two men holding Scott released their grip slightly when Scott gave up the struggle, but he was still held. Vicky snaked in front of him and went into Earl's room, and the couple drew next to Scott on the opposite side of the two men who were holding him. The wife stood in front of Scott, between him and Earl's room, the spoon laying at her right side. Her husband grabbed Scott's left arm, but Scott had cooled down by now and wasn't offering any resistance.
     "What the fuck's going on?" he asked.
     "That bastard stole all my tools," Scott answered. "Right out of my truck."
     The man who'd done the asking looked at the other two, who shrugged, but they all kept holding onto Scott. Earl came out of the room, blood streaming down his face, and he used his sleeve to try to wipe some of it up. Vicky was standing next to him, looking concerned.
     "What the fuck?" Earl asked. He began moving toward Scott, but the men holding him put themselves between the two fighters. "What are you saying?"
     "I'm saying you took my tools, you fat bastard. And I want them back."
     Earl wiped his face again, this time smearing the blood over both his hands. He winced as he wiped his nose, his face screwing up like a walnut. "Took your tools? What are you talking about?"
     "They're gone. They were there when I got home and now they're gone."
     "Well, *I* didn't take them." Earl again wiped his face, this time with the other arm. "Fuck, my face hurts."
     "Ya wanna look in my truck?" Scott asked. "You took 'em, and I want 'em back."
     "I didn't take your goddamn tools," Earl said. The men holding Scott exchanged looks, and an eyebrow or two was raised to match the shrugging shoulders. "And I oughta bust you in two right now."
     At that the man holding Scott's left arm let go and placed his hands on Earl's chest, keeping him away. "Hey, cool down," he said.
     "Fuck that," Earl said. "That little bastard started it."
     "Okay, okay," the man holding Earl said. "We'll get to that later."
     Vicky came over and stood in front of Earl, looking at his face. She reached up and put her right hand on his nose. "I can help with this," she said.
     Earl didn't exactly shake her off, but he didn't turn his attention toward her, either. "I'm gonna get that guy," he said, focusing on Scott.
     "Any time," Scott answered and began moving toward Earl before the guys holding his arm could stop him. The woman with the spoon raised it and struck Scott in the middle of his forehead. It didn't really hurt him much, but he stopped moving.
     A couple other tenants joined the crowd in the parking lot, an Indian man and another husband and wife. They began asking what was happening and trying to fill themselves in on the details.
     "So, where are my tools?" Scott demanded. "Can we look in your room?"
     "Fuck no," Earl answered. "I didn't take your goddamn tools."
     "You knew I was in the shower," Scott said. "It was a perfect time and I know you want me out of here."
     The assembled crowd looked at each other, not understanding this last bit. They weren't interested in the shower, but the local gossip was new and, of course, welcome.
     "I didn't steal any goddamn tools," Earl said. "But I am gonna bust your balls next time I see you."
     "Hey, now," said the man holding Earl. "We can get to that later."
     "Hold right here," The Indian said and went to his room. Everyone watched him come back a moment later with a bottle. "Here, drink this," he said offering the bottle to Earl.
     The big man took the bottle, which looked like some kind of wine, and filled his mouth with a swallow. He gasped, either at the taste of the liquid or at some pain it gave him, and handed the bottle back. "Thanks."
     The Indian next offered the bottle to Scott, who refused it. The Indian insisted, and Scott took the bottle and a small swallow. He, too, made a face, but not as dramatic as Earl's, before handing the bottle back.
     "Better?" The Indian asked. Scott shrugged his shoulders, but Earl nodded a little.
     "Can we let you two go now?" asked the man holding Earl and another nod resulted.
     The man in front of Earl moved to the side, away from being between the two combatants, and the woman with the spoon moved with him. The two guys holding Scott looked at him, at each other, and they also released their captive.
     Scott windmilled his arms. loosening them, but made no effort to hit Earl and even moved a step backward. Earl stood there, and Vicky stood next to him, looking at her hand that was covered with Earl's blood.
     "So what about my tools?" Scott asked.
     "Are you sure he took them?" one of the men who'd been holding Scott asked.
     "He must have," Scott answered. "They're gone."
     Earl said nothing, but reached out for the bottle the Indian was holding. The Indian smiled, and offered Earl another drink, which he took. Earl took as big a drink as last time, but made a milder face. A small bit of the liquor leaked out of his bloody mouth and into his beard. The blood which had been dripping from his beard became pink with the addition of the liquor.
     "I didn't take the tools," Earl said at last. "I wasn't even near your fuckin' truck. I just came back to my room and then I talked with Vicky."
     At the mention of her name, Vicky brightened. "That's right," she said. "He was talking to me." She was looking at Scott when she made the confirmation, and he was discomfitted by the stare as Earl had been.
     "We'll sort this out, later," the man who'd been holding Earl said. "We should get the manager, who can call the cops. You," he said, indicating Scott, "should make a robbery report or something."
     One of the men who'd been holding Scott left the group and headed toward the small office that set between the two legs of the Single Spire Motel, out next to the sidewalk. While he was doing that, the woman with the spoon left the group and returned to her room, probably to discover a burned dinner.
     The group stood around, mostly doing nothing except looking at each other. Scott began easing back a bit toward his truck, and Earl began sliding toward his room. Vicky was following Earl and the rest of the people were congregating in the middle, between the two.
     They turned in response to a new sound, the crunch of footsteps across the gravel lot. While they may have been expecting the manager to show up, it was a young blonde man wearing a navy sweatshirt over a pair of neat khakhi pants. He walked with a little hesitation, and approached Scott first.
     "What's up?"
     "Fuckin' bastard ripped off my tools," Scott said. He glanced from the newcomer to Earl. "Took 'em right out of my truck."
     The newcomer said nothing, but his eyes widened and a flash of light exploded from them. "No shit?"
     "I did not," Earl prostested, moving forward, away from his room. "The fucker's lying. I didn't take nothing."
     The newcomer looked from Scott to Earl, and back again. Scott recognized him, now, as one of the guys who worked in the liquor store next to the motel. His name was Perris, or something like that, and he went to one of the colleges about a half hour away.
     "What makes you think he took them?" Perris asked Scott.
     "He told me he wants me out of this place, then when he knew I was in the shower he took them."
     "But he was talking to me," Vicky said. Perris turned to look at her, a slight beaky girl in nice pants and a bathrobe. Her right hand had blood on it, and so did Earl's face. Scott, Perris noted, looked untouched.
     "Yeah," Earl added. "So I didn't take no tools."
     This return to the stalemate was stopped by the arrival of the manager, a thick woman with short-cut hair and a shapeless housedress. She had a phone in her hand and was being escorted by one of the tenants.
     "Okay, what's going on here?" she asked, and Scott responded with his complaint and Earl, his insistence on his innocence. She asked if anyone in the assembled crowd knew anything and was met with denials and much looking away.
     "All right, then, I'm calling the police."
     This latest news was received with looks of dismay and alarm on the faces of everyone except Perris, who merely looked nervous. She used her phone, dialled the police, and reported the robbery.
     Part way through the conversation, when she handed the phone to a reluctant Scott, Earl began slipping back to his room. Vicky followed him, chattering on about how she could help his injuries. By the time Scott finished talking to the cops and handed the phone back to the manager, the tenants who'd been watching the spectacle had disappeared, returning to their rooms. In the lot now it was just Scott, Perris, and the manager.
     "I'm going back to the office to wait for them," she said. "Are you going to be here or up in your room?" she asked Scott.
     "I guess I'll be here," Scott answered. "I want to keep an eye on my truck."
     "What about you?" she asked Perris. "What are you doing here?"
     Perris grinned and shoved his hands into his back pockets. "Just hanging out, I guess."
     "Well, do your hanging somewhere else." She turned away and walked back to her tiny office and they could hear her unlock, unbolt, and close the service door at the back of the office.
     Perris looked around, not really wanting to leave. Scott said nothing to him, but walked back over to be near his truck. Perris could see Earl and Vicky entering Earl's room and decided to hang with Scott.
     When Earl and Vicky got to his room, Earl looked not only hurt, but worried. Vicky told him to lie down and went to his bathroom. While she was gone, Earl quickly reached under his bed and pulled out the cigar box. While Vicky was running some water, Earl lifted a corner at the foot of his bed and slid the cigar box between the mattress and the box spring, next to his gun.
     By the time Vicky came out with a washcloth and threadbare yellow towel, Earl was lying prone on the bed, his arms rigid at his sides. He watched her move from the bathroom to his side without moving anything except his eyes.
     "You just lay there," she instructed him.
     Vicky knelt down with her back to the door and began gently wiping and washing Earl's face. The washcloth was quickly red with his blood, and she had to get up and rinse it out again. When she returned a moment later, instead of kneeling she simply leaned over him to do her cleaning.
     It took her several repititions of the washing and rinsing before she'd managed to clean off all the blood that had stained Earl's face and beard. The bleeding had stopped, and when she used the inadequate towel to dry him off, Earl winced and grimaced as she wiped his nose and mouth.
     Vicky could see that Earl's lip was split and resembled a plum. He had full lips before the fight, but the upper one was now easily twice its normal size. His nose, too, was swollen and slightly off-center.
     "This will help," she said as she gently touched her fingertips to Earl's lip. Earl moved his eyes down, nearly becoming cross-eyed in his effort to see what she was doing.
     "Do you feel my fingers?" she asked, and Earl grunted in reply.
     "Good," she said. "Concentrate on my fingers and how they feel and the pain in your lip will go away."
     Earl's brow furrowed in response before he gave himself up to this treatment. Over the next few minutes Vicky continued to touch Earl's lips and nose, asking him each time if he could feel her fingers and to concentrate on them. Each time she did that he did as he was told, and while he enjoyed the feeling of her slender fingers caressing his face, it wasn't doing anything for his injuries.
     She stopped her useless treatment once or twice to clean away the blood that still continued to ooze from his lip and nose, and when she was in the bathroom rinsing out the washcloth Earl felt his face himself. It felt numb and painful, both, and he knew that it would hurt like hell later on. It didn't seem to Earl that Vicky's touching and pressing his wounds was doing anything, but it felt good to have her hands on his face.
     She was back from the bathroom and touching his lip, again asking Earl to concentrate on the feeling of her fingers, when there was quick, timid knock on the open door. "What's up?" Perris asked.
     Vicky frowned at the interruption, which may have rendered moot any benefit her ministrations were creating. Earl disregarded her instructions to lie still and turned to see who was talking.
     "Am I interrupting anything?" Perris asked, slipping in the room to stand over Vicky.
     "I was giving him a Touch Assist," Vicky said. "It will heal him."
     "Really?" Perris asked. "Is it working?" he asked Earl.
     "I don't know," Earl said. He noticed the crestfallen look on Vicky's face, then added, "I guess it's a little better, yeah."
     Vicky stood up and took the washcloth to the bathroom to rinse it out again. When she returned, Earl was sitting on the bed and Perris was sitting next to him.
     "Okay," she decided. "Maybe we should take a break. Let me go get some clothes on." Earl looked up at her and took the washcloth she held out and lightly dabbed at his lip with it. His nose had stopped bleeding entirely, but his lip still leaked a bit. "I'll be back in a minute."
     Perris watched Earl examine the washcloth, looking at the streak of blood. It was a tiny smear in the center of the now-pink washcloth.
     "Shit," Earl said, touching another corner of the washcloth to his lip. "That bastard's gonna get it."
     Perris grinned. "Really? That's kinda why I came over here."
     Earl let the statement drop. "Hey, it's Perris, right? Isn't that your name?"
     "Yeah."
     "Lookit. I need a big favor. Can you help me?"
     "Depends."
     "The cops are coming, right? I need you to hide something for me."
     Perris grinned again, and looked at his watch. "The tools?" he asked.
     "Fuck you," Earl answered, standing up. "I didn't take no tools."
     Perris looked at Earl and nodded. "I was just kidding."
     "Fuck that. Get up," Earl instructed. When Perris stood up Earl reached under the mattress and pulled out the cigar box. He held that in his left hand while reaching in again and pulling out the gun. He shielded the box close to his chest with his back to Perris and put the gun inside.
     Perris watched Earl moving around and soon the big man turned to face him. Earl was holding the cigar box out in front, giving it to Perris. "Here. Take this and get it out of here until the cops are gone."
     Perris took the box and tilted it from side to side. He could hear the gun sliding back and forth, and he jiggled it a bit, getting its weight.
     "Bring it back when the cops've split," Earl said. "And nothing better be missing."
     Perris took the box and promised to return with it when everything was clear. He shook Earl's hand and left his room, shutting the door behind him. Earl sighed, dabbed at his lip and nose with the washcloth and laid back down on the bed.