It was the word, or maybe his flippant tone, I'm not sure which, but hearing it changed something in me. It brought the pale image of a sleeping girl into my mind once more. That powerful image was accompanied by a low-pitched roaring in my ears. The sound is not unknown to me. It was an occasional visitor from a dark, dark room.
I said softly to Tony, very softly, feeling the words of a stranger flow out with my breath: 'Begging? I'm begging?'
'Yeah, dude. You can't hear yourself? Then you must be deaf, man.'
I have my own rule when it comes to dealing with more than one attacker, and it has nothing to do with deception. The rule is simple: do your damnedest to eliminate the weakest attackers first.
Do it quickly, brutally, and you will not have to deal with that attacker ever again. It allows you to give full attention to the man who can do you the most harm.
I watched Tony lift the shovel in both hands and rest it on his shoulder as he walked slowly toward us. He had a nasty little smile on his face; he looked like some freaky laborer on his way to work.
By moving in opposite directions, they'd reached an angle of separation where I had to face Tony or I had to face Derrick. I knew that the man at my back would be the first to charge, so I faced Tony. He was still coming toward us, but now I was paying less attention to what I saw than what I heard.
Derrick, a big, doughy man, was behind me. I listened to his careful steps. He'd gotten into some of that black muck. I could hear it sucking at his boots.
Good, he'd be a little less agile. He didn't look particularly agile to begin with. Probably in his early twenties, but lots of baby fat.
'What's the matter there, dude? Don't want to beg no more? Big ol' nerd like you, you ought to be on your knees right now.'
I gave Tony a very different kind of smile. 'It's those pretty earrings of yours. I don't know whether to beg or flirt.'
I half expected Tony to come lunging, but he wasn't taking any chances. Momentarily, his eyes bulged. Nothing more. He was probably waiting for the same thing I was anticipating-Derrick to make his move.
Derrick was back there now, clumping along, trying to work up his courage. At least, I hoped he was. I kept waiting and waiting as Tony drew closer.
Tony was about three shovel-lengths away, but moving more slowly. Yep, he wasn't going to do a damn thing until Derrick attacked.
There are active cowards and passive cowards. Neither are decisive. They almost always need a visual stimulant to act.
I decided to give Derrick an opening he couldn't refuse.
Nora was to my right. She was still holding her dumb little club, a fierce expression on her face. Not at all like the chubby girl who now stood watching from the perimeter. I could hear her siren voice yelling, 'Kill 'em, you guys! Beat the shit out of 'em. Kick that mouthy bitch!'
Desperation has a tone and so does fear. I tried to imitate both when I said loudly, 'Okay, okay, enough. We don't want any trouble, we quit, we give up. We'll do whatever you want us to do.'
Nora rebuked me with a swift turn of the head, eyes furious with disappointment. ' What? Don't speak for me, buster.'
Now I held my hands up in the most primitive gesture of surrender: palms face-high and turned outward. 'I mean it. We'll do anything you want. Just please tell that girl to shut up about killing us because there's no reason for anyone to get hurt,' which is when I heard the brush crash behind me as Derrick came charging from behind…
I didn't want Nora within reach of Tony's shovel, so I swung her hard to my left, catapulting her toward the blustering Tisha. I ducked as I threw her, allowing the momentum to carry me around so that my eyes were belt- high as Derrick plowed toward me.
He'd found a club. I'd expected him to have something. It was wood, about the width of a broom handle but not as long.
When he swung at me, he gave a grunt of effort, put all his considerable weight into it, which threw him off- balance. I leaned away from the club; even so, I took a bruising shot against the ribs. It nearly knocked the wind out of me; created a whistling noise in my lungs, but I locked my elbow down when he hit me and caught the club under my arm. At the same time, I drove up hard and hit him in the crotch with a full right fist. I put all my weight and the strength of my thighs into it, so it drove him a couple of feet into the air.
I heard him scream as his legs collapsed beneath him, but I didn't let him fall. I caught him under the throat with my left hand, forcing him to stand.
I held him there like a fresh shield, me behind him, looking at Tony, who was marching toward me, shovel held overhead like a workman with a sledgehammer who was about to drive a stake into very hard ground.
I stuck my thumb into Derrick's right ear, dug my fingers hard in behind it. I had a pretty good grip on the thing.
People don't realize how tenuously the human ear is attached to the head. I gave Derrick a painful demonstration. Early white settlers who were scalped by Indians but managed to survive described the terrible, deafening sound their skin made when it was ripped away from the bone.
I suspect Derrick's ear made a similar sound as I tore it away from his temple. I didn't pull it completely off. No. But I broke the skin and popped enough tissue to send a message: it was mine if I wanted it.
The sound of Derrick's scream froze Tony in midstride, shovel overhead.
I locked my eyes into Tony's as I spoke into Derrick's ruined ear, 'Leave. If you come back, I'll make you eat this. You'll be listening to music through your asshole. Nod if you understand.'
Derrick moved his head up and down carefully.
Still holding the guy by the throat, I pushed him toward the mangroves. I didn't bother to look at him as he scrambled off into the bushes. Then I stooped and picked up the limb he'd dropped. I stared into Tony's troubled face and grinned. The color of his cheeks had changed. They were splotched with white.
'Look, mister. Maybe you were right. Maybe we can talk this over. You pay for what you did to my dad's shit, sure, fair enough. Just like you offered.'
I was still grinning, walking toward him, the broom-thick stick in my hand. Said, 'That offer was for a limited time only.'
Fifteen
A long time ago, in a different hemisphere, they made us take martial arts instruction. One of the weeklong evolutions was an introduction to kendo and kenjutsu, Japanese stick fighting and sword fighting, two very serious disciplines.
The martial arts were useful in that they taught pressure points and power points-unexpected places on the body where it is painful or dangerous as hell to hit or get hit. To this day, I cannot see a man wearing an open- collared shirt without looking at the third button down and thinking solar plexus.
They drove us hard, drilled us so incessantly that we learned to react without thinking.
Some of it stuck. Most of it did not.
I took away from those evolutions two memorable lessons. I learned that, nine times out of ten, a mediocre wrestler can beat a martial arts 'expert' senseless, because all fights, if they last beyond the first series of blows, end up on the ground. The second important lesson I learned is that I have absolutely no talent as a swordsman or stick fighter. Zero. My peripheral eyesight is not good to begin with, and I'm at a marked disadvantage if I lose my glasses.
But even a talentless stick fighter such as myself knew more about it than Tony.
As I walked toward him, I noticed that he shortened his grip on the shovel. Unknowingly, he'd just told me something very important. He'd gone from a defensive posture to an attack posture.
Had he recovered from his fright? Seemed so. He looked not just ready to fight but eager. Lots of nervous movement. Probably because his chubby girlfriend was still watching, urging him on, yelling, 'Kill 'im, Tony! See
