February 26 - "The Long Count"

“The Long Count”
by Sam Edwards
Hardcore Hardboiled (2008)

* * (Okay) Crime

Rusty is visited by a cowboy and his thug, has his tooth knocked out, and is told to return what he stole within three days, or else. The problem is, Rusty doesn’t know the cowboy from Adam, and has no clue what – if anything – he might have taken from him.

The premise is sound enough, and Rusty is believable enough as a small-time thief and tough guy, but the ending explodes, literally, out of nowhere and falls flat. There is one great scene at a bar where Rusty unexpectedly runs into the thug and they have a brief but revelatory conversation about their final boxing matches, held on the same night, still remembered all these years later. The scene ends with an impressively painful punch, but their conversation ends up as the highlight of a rather fluff story.