Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

  I had fought back. I hadn’t killed Lavassier, but I had slowed him down. I had bit him on that tender skin between the index finger and the thumb of his right hand, which was why he called me a bitch.

  I wanted to tell Pammy that I had learned from her—You go for the soft, squishy parts—but she was in no condition to listen.

  She walked with her head down. Thank heavens it had grown dark, because she had dots of blood all over her face.

  Eagle was probably getting blood on her pretty new dress too, from my shirt. I had felt the warm splashes of it the first time Pammy hit Lavassier.

  Not to mention the blood that had dripped from the side of my own skull when he slammed me against the truck. I had reached up surreptitiously on the walk and found a cut, probably from one of the metal strips along the side of the truck.

  Eagle’s truck was right where I left it. I fished in my purse—Jesus, I still had my purse—and found the keys, extending them to Eagle. She took them and, bracing me against the truck, unlocked the driver’s door.

  Then she left me balanced there, and went around to the other side, helping Pammy in. Pammy hadn’t been hit at all, but she seemed to be in a lot worse shape than I was.

  I supposed, considering she had killed a man.

  I used the side of the truck to guide me and walked around as Eagle was helping Pammy inside. I got in too, and Eagle closed the door. Then she went around to the driver’s side.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The gym,” Eagle said. “I’m taking us back to the gym.”

  63

  Eagle

  Eagle parked the truck in the alley, grazing one of the trash cans as she pulled in. She didn’t care. She unlocked the door, glad the light above it was out. They were in full darkness now, and she doubted anyone could see her.

  Still, she was going to destroy all of their clothing. She would bag it and, later tonight, toss it, along with the purses, into the Bay. From where, she didn’t know yet. That wasn’t anything she needed to figure out immediately.

  She doubted anyone was looking for them. Even if someone saw them, they wouldn’t know who the three of them were.

  On the short drive back, she had worried about loose ends. The motel room—which was under Lavassier’s name—the fact she had been seen in the Golden Bear restaurant, the people sitting outside that restaurant on San Pablo.

  But even if someone figured out who the three of them were, there was no way to tie them to Lavassier’s death. Or there wouldn’t be, once she got rid of the clothes.

  The motel room would explain why he was in the neighborhood. If the cops figured out that a woman had rented the room, they probably would think she was the new assistant—if they even investigated that far.

  And if anyone overheard Eagle’s discussion with Lavassier in the restaurant, they would think her exactly as she had presented herself, a housewife who wanted to hire the man, not someone who had planned to kill him.

  Eagle got Pammy inside and under a hot shower. Eagle was going to put Val in the shower too, after making sure she didn’t have a concussion. She seemed to be pretty rational, but Eagle knew that meant nothing.

  She went back to the truck and grabbed her main medical bag. In it, she had an ophthalmoscope so that she could look in Val’s eyes. Val had sounded coherent, and she hadn’t thrown up. She also wasn’t complaining of dizziness, and she seemed to know where they were.

  Eagle did a few tests and determined, as best she could, that Val didn’t have a concussion. It looked like she had taken the bulk of the impact with the front of her face. Her right cheek and jaw were swelling. So far, Eagle couldn’t feel any broken bones.

  She got Val into the shower as well, then she sat for a moment on the bench, just breathing.

  She felt bad. She had planned to be the one to stop Lavassier. She hadn’t decided what exactly she was going to do to him. She had options—an LSD overdose, alcohol injected in his brain stem, or simply doing what Pammy and Val had thought they were going to do, leave him high and tied to the bed, awaiting the police’s arrival.

  She had planned to play that by ear.

  But she hadn’t expected Pammy to kill him. Pammy had never had anyone die at her hands. Pammy had been against this vigilante action in the first place.

  Eagle looked over at the shower. Val was bracing herself against the wall. She had bruises all along her right side. No wonder her head wasn’t as badly injured as Eagle thought it should have been. Val had taken some of the blows against her shoulder and arm.

  Maybe she had learned a little from Pammy already.

  Pammy shut off her shower and wrapped a towel around herself. She moved better than she had before.

  “I killed him,” she said, as she sat down beside Eagle. Pammy smelled of hot water and Ivory soap.

  “I know,” Eagle said.

  “He was trying to kill Val,” Pammy said.

  “I know that too,” Eagle said.

  “I should regret it,” Pammy said.

  “Why?” Eagle asked.

  Pammy shrugged. “I just should. But I don’t.”

  Eagle looked at her. Eagle had thought Pammy was moving slowly from the shock of killing him.

  “He killed Darla,” Pammy said.

  “Val told me,” Eagle said.

  “And he beat the crap out of Kelly MacGivers,” Pammy said. “And tried to kill that gas station attendant.”

  Eagle nodded.

  “I should regret it,” Pammy said.

  “Why?” Eagle asked again. “He was a son of a bitch.”

  “I didn’t think I believed in vigilante justice,” Pammy said.

  “It wasn’t vigilante justice,” Eagle said. What Eagle had been planning—that was vigilante justice. “You saved a friend’s life. That would hold up in court.”

  “If we stayed,” Pammy said.

  You can turn yourself in, Eagle almost said, but didn’t. She wasn’t going to give Pammy ideas.

  “I don’t like being judge, jury, and executioner,” Pammy said.

  “You weren’t,” Eagle said. “He was trying to kill Val.”

  “Thank God,” Pammy said.

  Eagle frowned at her.

  “I don’t mean that how it sounded,” Pammy said. “I didn’t want him to hurt Val. But by doing so, he made it easy.”

  Eagle nodded. She understood that.

  “If we ever come across something like this again,” Pammy said, “I’m going to the authorities. And if they don’t help—”

  “Just hope we don’t come across something like this ever again,” Eagle said. She didn’t want Pammy to make a pronouncement she couldn’t keep. Because she had clearly forgotten that Eagle had gone to the authorities twice. “I’d never heard of anything like this before, have you?”

  “No, thank God,” Pammy said.

  “I doubt we will again.”

  Val shut off her shower. Eagle looked at her, trying not to stare as Val wrapped the towel around her too-thin body.

  “I’m shocked you didn’t break anything,” Eagle said to her.

  Val smiled. She seemed just fine with what happened. She seemed better than fine. She seemed to be at peace.

  “It would have been worth it, even if I had,” she said. Then she peered at Eagle. “You need a shower too. And fresh clothes. We need to get rid of this stuff.”

  “I already have a plan,” Eagle said.

  “I’ll help,” Val said.

  Eagle wanted to say no, but she didn’t. She didn’t mind the company.

  “We need to wipe down the inside of your truck,” Pammy said. “There’ll be blood in it.”

  “Got bleach?” Eagle asked. “That’s the best.”

  “Bleach and old towels,” Pammy said.

  “Give it to me,” Eagle said. “I’ll do it before I shower.”

  She didn’t mind cleaning up after an operation. And that had been what this was.

  It hadn’t been an operation th
at had gone by the book, but so few of them did. There was always something unexpected, always a twist or turn.

  And sometimes the patient died on the table.

  Not that Lavassier was a patient. He was the bomb, the mine, the bullet—the reason for the operation.

  He was gone, and good riddance.

  Eagle shuddered slightly. Pammy had no regrets.

  Val didn’t seem to either.

  But Eagle did.

  She was sorry that she had left her friends to fend for themselves. She hadn’t protected them. Not that they had needed her.

  They had defended themselves.

  “Are you all right?” Pammy asked. She had obviously seen something on Eagle’s face.

  Eagle looked at her, then realized what was missing. The craving for oblivion. Yes, she felt bad that things had gone sideways. But it had actually worked out for the best.

  And even though Lavassier had died, she hadn’t murdered him while he was out cold. Or tortured him. Or disabled him in all those vicious ways she had considered.

  She didn’t need a drink. She didn’t need a toke.

  She was all right, here, in A Gym of Her Own, with her friends, defending their little piece of the world.

  Because no one else ever would.

  64

  Pammy

  Monday morning, August 4, ten days later. Pammy had opened the gym around nine. She had had a long weekend. She had come to the gym on Saturday after seeing the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle. A man whom the paper called the Code Killer had confessed to killing two teenagers in Lake Herman and a girl in Vallejo on the Fourth of July.

  Val had learned about that killing when she’d been tracking Lavassier and ruled it out as something he had done. But it became clear with that news story on Saturday that the area police had a big problem on their hands. Another killer, stalking the streets, looking for victims.

  Pammy had a problem too. Whenever something like this hit the news, women flocked to her gym. The regulars came over the weekend to discuss the killer, and Pammy had listened silently.

  No one had known what she had done.

  Eagle had treated her with kid gloves these last few days, as if Pammy were going to break. Pammy even thought that she would at first.

  But she hadn’t. She’d slept well. She had no nightmares, even though she had killed a man with her bare hands. (Well, not bare—gloved—and with a concrete block.)

  Sometimes she thought it was intent that cleared her mind. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She had meant to stop him.

  And as her father had said more than once, you do what you have to do.

  Somehow she had always known she would be in one of those situations, and she had been prepared.

  It helped that Val had been right in her prediction: The police thought Lavassier had been killed by one of the girls he tried to kidnap. Eagle’s detective had called her and told her that Lavassier was dead and that she wouldn’t see much about it in the papers. Apparently there were too many prominent families involved, and the BPD decided that letting Lavassier’s history out would embarrass too many of them.

  Typical, Eagle had said, and Pammy agreed. Whenever the prominent got involved, the local police protected.

  Although Val pointed out that it was best this didn’t hit the papers. If it had, it might have given some other bail bondsman the idea to run the same kind of scam.

  Val hadn’t arrived yet, although Pammy expected her. Val ended up bruised but all right. In the last week, she had redoubled her efforts to get stronger. Sometimes Pammy had to remind her to be patient.

  Not that Pammy would have a lot of time to focus on individuals lately.

  There were nearly a dozen women in the gym already this morning. Jill had shown up early as well, because she knew that they would be busy. She was signing women in, taking cash for the beginner class, which would be stuffed. She and Pammy had already talked about running two concurrent classes, although Pammy wasn’t certain how that would work.

  The students would hear both instructors and would probably end up confused.

  So she was pacing the front of the gym, trying to figure out where best to hold a second class. She was near the door when it opened and a young woman hunched in.

  Her protected posture caught Pammy’s attention. The woman looked like she expected to be hit. She clutched a pile of books in one arm and glanced around as if the entire place terrified her.

  Pammy knew better than to burst out with an enthusiastic hello. Instead she moved a few inches sideways so that she was in the girl’s range of vision.

  The girl looked at her, startled, and then smiled. “P-Pammy, right?”

  It took Pammy a moment to place her, because she was out of context. The last time Pammy had seen her, she had been hiding in her dorm room.

  “Kelly,” Pammy said. “I’m glad you could come.”

  She kept her voice low and warm.

  “Looks like you’re busy,” Kelly said. “I can come back.”

  “No, this is a perfect day,” Pammy said. “We’re starting a new class for newcomers. I would love it if you join it.”

  “I-I can pay.” Kelly said, clearly remembering Pammy’s offer. “In fact, I want to.”

  “Let’s go to the counter and discuss this,” Pammy said.

  Kelly glanced over there and went pale. Too many people.

  “Or my office,” Pammy said.

  Kelly shook her head. “I-I need to be—you know—stronger. Around people. They killed him, you know.”

  She blurted that last out.

  Pammy’s cheeks heated. “Him?”

  “That guy,” Kelly said. “The one you’ve been trying to find. A detective, he called me. Told me I was safe now. I had no idea how he even knew about me, but he did. He said one of the girls, or maybe a guy, they stopped the bastard when he tried to take them.”

  Pammy did not know how to respond to that. Good seemed lame. It was me, was something she didn’t dare say, just like I know, revealed too much as well.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Pammy said.

  “I kept telling myself that was why I should come here. So you would know everyone was safe. But then I saw the papers, and I realized, we’re not safe. There’s always someone…” Kelly’s voice trailed off. She swallowed hard. Then she squared her shoulders and started again. “There’s always someone. And rather than hide in my room, I just have to know how to survive him. You can teach me that, right?”

  Pammy smiled. “I can.”

  “Good,” Kelly said, and smiled back. The smile was tentative and slow, but it was a real smile. “Thank you.”

  Pammy’s breath caught. You’re welcome, she thought. Thank you for coming here and caring enough to tell me.

  Kelly nodded toward the counter. “I pay there?”

  “Yes,” Pammy said. “But the offer—”

  “Is for someone whose parents aren’t footing the bill for everything.” Kelly’s smile turned sharp. “They’re going to pay for a lot of things they hadn’t expected. So charge me extra if you want.”

  Pammy shook her head. “No need for that. But we have a fund you can donate to for others if you end up liking the classes. Wait until you’ve taken a few, though.”

  “Okay.” Kelly threaded her way through the crowd of women who waited near the desk.

  Kelly had stopped hunching somewhere in the middle of this conversation. She still hugged her books to her chest, but her shoulders remained back, her back straight, her chin out.

  Not the frightened, damaged girl that Pammy had met, but a woman who had made a decision, a decision that would change her life for the better.

  Pammy returned to her task. She needed to take advantage of the opportunity the sensational newspaper headlines gave her. She needed to make room for a whole new class, for women who needed to learn how to protect themselves.

  Kelly was right: there would always be someone horrid—someone that Pammy, and Eagle, and Val
couldn’t find. But if others knew how to defend themselves, then those someones wouldn’t have the upper hand.

  Everything would balance.

  Pammy nodded to herself. That was why she had no nightmares. She had known, deep down, that she was filling a void. Just like she had with the women who were in bad marriages. Just like she had when she taught girls how to fight.

  Pammy believed in the gentle art of self-defense.

  And she would offer it as long as she could, in the safest environment possible.

  She would make sure that her women, at least, knew that they might not always win, but that they at least had a chance.

  Which was more than most of them had before they came here.

  She looked at the gym, filled with women she didn’t know yet, and smiled.

  Welcome to A Gym of Her Own, she thought. Welcome. We hope you stay. And learn, and maybe, just maybe, teach.

  So that the word would spread, and grow.

  Maybe she was seeing the beginning of what Strawberry would call a movement.

  And maybe it would change the world.

  Following is a sample chapter from the fourth book in the Smokey Dalton series, Stone Cribs.

  * * *

  WIND BLEW off Lake Michigan through the empty canyons of Chicago’s Loop. The warmth of the afternoon was long gone, and the cold nights of early spring had returned.

  As Laura Hathaway and I stepped out of the Sherman House Hotel, people surrounded us, talking and laughing. They were reviewing Ella Fitzgerald’s concert, but not talking about the charity that had brought us all together.

  The concert had benefited the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid Society’s new committee, the Committee for the Adoption of Black Babies. Events like this one overwhelmed me. Hearing about so many people in crisis—so many children in crisis—made me want to help all of them. Only to me, helping involved more than throwing money at a problem. Yet I couldn’t see a real solution for orphaned and unwanted children, at least not a solution that I liked.