I gave her a look. “He’s not a Habitat for Humanity project.”
She took my arm, squeezed it affectionately. “No, no. Of course not.” Her voice lowered confidentially. “I just mean—I’m not sure if you know, but Ethan doesn’t come from a background that provided him with a lot, in that respect. He’s been having to learn all on his own. He’s come a long way. I like to think we’ve helped. I mean that as a true friend of his. You understand, Nikki.”
I did understand. Loud and clear. “Sure. A modern-day Jude the Obscure, stonemason to scholar.” There were a few other things I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I’d learned that usually it was talk that landed people in trouble.
A defensive look crossed Katherine’s face as she started to reply, but she tripped on something, a pothole or gap in the paving. I caught her arm and steadied her. “They need to fix these streetlamps,” she said, our exchange forgotten. “Someone will break their neck out here. This city is getting better, but still.”
I could see the lights and buildings of downtown Oakland in the distance. Probably less than a mile away. I heard Lawrence’s raised voice from up ahead. “What the hell is this?” His voice was no longer jocular. Katherine caught the change in his tone, too. “What’s going on, honey?” she called, concern in her voice. Up ahead Lawrence and Ethan had stopped. I could see their still shapes. Katherine quickened her pace into an anxious half-jog. “Is everything okay, honey?” she asked again, her voice louder.
I kept pace with her. But cautiously. I’d gotten close enough to see the shapes of other people. In front of us. Blocking the way.
“What’s happening?” Katherine said. “Is everything okay?”
I heard Lawrence’s voice. Thin and frightened. All the confidence stripped away like bark off a tree. “We’re being robbed.”
We reached Ethan and Lawrence and I took another look. There were three of them, big guys. The city had gotten a lot safer since the ’60s and ’70s. Tech money and gentrification paid for a lot of extra law enforcement. The homicide rate had plummeted. But still far from perfect. Over three thousand robberies a year in a city of less than half a million. Almost ten a day, one every other hour. Like clockwork. Maybe we happened to be the first people these three had ever tried to rob. Maybe they were doing it on a drunken dare, some spontaneous decision. Or, maybe, they’d done a hundred of these, and people like our little group were their bread and butter.
I stood next to Ethan, watching the three men and wishing I hadn’t touched the pot or the last bottle of wine. Two immediate questions. How many? And what weapons? I had my first answer. Three of them. No one hiding off to the sides. The lead guy was almost as tall as Lawrence, and heavier. He wore an Oakland A’s baseball hat and work boots and held something in his hand.
A knife.
It was a hunting knife. The lower half of the blade serrated. The point wickedly sharp. A six-inch blade gleaming coldly. The kind of knife someone would use to gut and skin a deer. The kind of knife that could do all kinds of awful and permanent things to a human body in less time than it would take to lace up a pair of shoes.
When it came to violent crime, the longer it went on the likelier that something would go wrong. Robbers tended to show whatever weapons they had in the interests of immediate intimidation. The whole shock-and-awe thing. A guy with a bat would wave it. A guy with a knife would brandish it. A guy with a gun would pull it. There were plenty of normal, regular people who might fight back against an unarmed robber. Especially on a weekend night, when they’d been drinking themselves into false confidence. No one wanted to give up their possessions. But the number of people who would risk fighting back against an armed assailant, risk being stabbed or shot for a few bucks—that was a much smaller number.
So maybe no guns. Probably no guns. But no way to tell for sure. Not yet.
Ethan held my hand. He was shaking. I could feel it. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “They won’t hurt you, Nikki. We’re going to be okay.”
The guy with the knife stuck it toward Lawrence. “Your wallet and your watch. Hurry.”
I watched closely, wondering what the big ex-boxer would do.
Lawrence licked his lips. “Please,” he said. “Take the money and don’t hurt us.” His big hands fumbled in his back pocket.
Katherine was handing over her purse. She took off her necklace and wedding ring unprompted. Extended her hand out, palm up. Like a child feeding a horse an apple. “Please,” she said. “Please.”
“Shut up, bitch. Shut your damn mouth.”
Ethan was next. He held out his wallet. Obedient as always. “Here, take it.”
“Hurry up.” The A’s guy shoved Ethan backwards, hard.
I took in a breath. Blew it out. There hadn’t been a need for that.
He turned to me. Working fast. Not wanting to be out here all night. “Purse, bitch.”
I met his eyes. Breathing evenly. Deep inhales, deep exhales. My purse still slung over my shoulder. Feeling familiar adrenaline fill me. Breathing. Controlling it. Feeling my senses sharpen. “You should know something important,” I told him quietly. “I don’t like knives.”
He stared at me. “Well, this one’s about two inches from your damn face. So give me the damn purse.”
I felt Ethan’s whisper close to my ear. “It’s going to be okay, Nikki, just do what he says. I know you’re scared.”
“Put the knife away,” I said. “Please. And then we can work to resolve this.”
I heard Lawrence’s voice explode, angry, edged with panic. “Are you nuts, woman? Shut up and give him your purse! Are you trying to get us killed?”
The knife blade was in front of my face. Close enough that I saw the blade crosswise between my eyes. Blurred by proximity. Like trying to look at the tip of your nose.
“Last chance, bitch. You don’t give me that purse, I’m gonna cut pieces off you.”
I shrugged.
“Okay. Have it your way.” I held up my purse. “I guess you’ll be happy, then. I have cash. A lot.” I reached inside. “Here. Let me give it to you.”
I took a wad of bills. I knew they were hundreds.
Slowly removed my hand. Letting him see.
“Shit,” he said. “That’s what I mean. That’s right. Gimme all that.”
I extended my hand. Let him start to reach for the money.
He reached.
Opened my fingers.
The bills fell gently to the ground like dry fall leaves.
“Whoops.”
He cursed. Kneeled, started picking money off the ground with one hand. The other hand still holding the knife. The gleaming tip still pointed up at me.
I took a look around. Everyone’s eyes on the money. Hundred-dollar bills did that to people. You could have ten million bucks in your bank account and your eyes would still be riveted by a hundred-dollar bill falling to the ground.
I took a single step back. My hand back in my purse. Finding what I wanted.
When my hand emerged the second time I gripped a rubberized handle.
This particular object was illegal in multiple states, California included. It was also useful as hell in situations like these. I pressed the latch button and a powerful thirty-pound spring mechanism caused a twenty-inch black steel rod to materialize out of the handle. Like a switchblade action. Telescoping out faster than the eye could follow.
The metal tip was weighted. I was effectively holding a steel baseball bat.
He was still on the ground, still picking up the last few bills. Starting to look up toward the unfamiliar sound. Instinctual.
Not fast enough.
I took a breath in.
Blew it out.
Swung the baton in a downward arc as hard as I could. A careful, controlled motion.
The baton struck his forearm above the wrist. About where the carpus joined to the radius in a mass of small, delicate bones and nerves and tendons.
I was conscious of a few different sou
nds coming in quick succession.
The sound of bone shattering with an audible crack.
The metallic noise of the knife clattering to the pavement. Steel scraping tar.
The instantaneous, childlike howl of agony.
And then the shocked noises from everyone around us.
I looked down. The man was rolled into a ball. His hat had fallen off and he clutched his arm. I could see why the batons were illegal, more or less. They tended to have a nasty effect on whatever part of the body they encountered. The hand hung limp, bleeding, useless. It would be a long time before anyone got his autograph.
There was general confusion for the next second or so. Things could go many different ways. It was important to assert control.
I took a deep breath in. Blew it out.
Extended the baton outward. Pointing toward the other two men.
They watched me. Frightened, unsure. Not fully comprehending what had happened. But starting to. Starting to process why their friend was now curled up on the ground.
I saw a hand creeping toward a pocket. “Choices,” I said. “We all get to make them. He did. Now it’s your turn.” I hovered the baton roughly between them. Arm’s length away so they couldn’t grab it. Daring one of them to try to pull something. I was pretty sure I could crack a head faster than they could raise an arm. Or two heads, if need be. I was willing to bet on it. Maybe we’d find out. Maybe not.
Choices. We all had them.
They exchanged a look. Glanced down at their friend. Still on the ground, bills scattered around him. Still clutching his arm. Groaning and cursing as the initial shock wore off and the full magnitude of the pain set in.
They turned on their heels and ran.
I looked down again. He was no longer a threat. Not even close. I saw the knife, gleaming against asphalt. The needle point. The razor edge. Serrations for sawing through flesh or bone. I watched the knife. But I was seeing something else.
She takes a step into the room. Seeing the dark stain, larger, now. Sticky-looking. Bright afternoon sunshine streaming through the window. A pot bubbling on the stove. A strange smell. She’s never smelled this smell before. Not a pleasant smell. A sour, iron smell. Not a kitchen smell. The stain spreading outward. She squints in the sunlight. Looking at the floor.
I took a breath. Looking down at the knife. Thinking of Ethan being pushed backward. Thinking of Luis, that afternoon. Remembering all kinds of things. Seeing the knife.
The knife.
The knife.
“I told you I didn’t like knives,” I exclaimed. And swung the baton a second time.
A hard, backhanded arc directly into the man’s upper lip.
There was a crunching sound and suddenly half his front teeth appeared all over his sweatshirt. I assumed the other half had gone down his throat.
He put his hands over his face and started moaning softly. Blood dripped through his hands. He lay there, making that moaning sound. The blow had knocked his hat off. The white A still visible above the brim. I was conscious of Ethan grabbing me. “Nikki, no more. Enough.”
Lawrence was holding Katherine. The two of them staring at me. A strange look. The same look from both of them.
Like I was an animal.
I retracted the baton. Pulled a Clorox wipe from a travel packet in my purse and wiped blood off the tip. Knelt down and took back everything that had been taken from us, ignoring the guy on the ground. He had rolled to a seated position and leaned against a fire hydrant, holding his good hand against his head and mumbling small noises.
I handed Katherine her purse. She accepted it without a word.
Maybe two minutes had gone by. The same amount of time it took to brush one’s teeth or soft-boil an egg. I looked at the three of them. “We can probably still make the show.”
Lawrence had his arm around Katherine. Breathing hard. Watching me. “Are you insane? You could have killed him.”
“Or he could have killed you,” I said. “Or your wife.”
“He only wanted money! He wasn’t going to hurt us.”
“It wasn’t his money. And you don’t know what he would have done.”
“You could be going to jail for manslaughter,” Lawrence said. “Why did you hit him a second time? Are you some kind of sociopath? Are you sick?”
Ethan stepped forward. “Leave her alone, Lawrence. She saved us.”
Lawrence glared at him and whispered something to his wife. They turned and started walking away from us. Fast, without a backward look.
“We should go,” I suggested.
Ethan nodded at the figure on the ground. “Are you going to leave him?”
“Why not,” I said sullenly. “He can walk. His legs are fine.”
“I’d feel better if I called nine-one-one.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Ethan took out his phone and dialed. “I’d like to report an injury,” he said. He gave the cross street and then said, “No, thank you!” and hung up hurriedly. “They asked for my name. Will I get in trouble if they trace it?”
“It doesn’t matter. He won’t say anything.”
“How do you know?”
I looked at Ethan patiently. “Because he was robbing us.”
“Oh.”
We soon reached downtown. A regular Friday night. Neon, people, cars, shouting, laughter. Normal. Ethan was shaking a little. Shock.
I put my hand in his. “We should talk.”
18
We sat in a little all-night donut shop. The smell of pastry was sweet and aromatic. I got us coffee and a few donuts and we sat across from each other in a bright red booth. I didn’t like the fluorescent lights. I would have been happier in a dim, comfortable bar. But something was telling me that coffee was the way to go. “Take one,” I said, pushing the donuts to him.
He sipped his coffee, wincing at the hot liquid. “I don’t think I’m hungry, to be honest.”
“Eat one if you can. The sugar will help.”
He took a piece of a maple glazed donut. Took a bite. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—I’ve never been mugged before. I think the last time I saw someone throw a punch was in high school.”
“And it bothers you? What happened?”
“It was scary.”
“Sure.”
He was watching me. “You run a bookstore.”
“Yes.”
“But—but you did that.”
“Yes.”
“Were you lying? About the bookstore?”
“Ethan. Let me tell you three things about myself. And then you can ask questions. Is that okay?”
He nodded.
“First of all. I don’t lie. Ever. Not to you. Not to anyone. It’s just a thing.”
“Okay.”
I wasn’t done. “But I sometimes choose not to reveal the whole truth. I’ll never lie to you. But I might not always tell you everything, either.”
He took another nibble of donut. “That seems like a sort of imperfect arrangement.”
“Let me finish. Second. There are pieces of me that I don’t talk about. Not to anyone.”
“You’re really selling yourself.”
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up. Please. Okay? Just listen. For a minute.”
“Sorry.”
“And third. I sometimes struggle.”
“Struggle?”
“With certain impulses.”
“Impulses? What do you mean, impulses?”
“Look. As an example. My last boyfriend.”
He groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re sleeping with an ex. That’s happened, like, at least three times to me. And it really sucks. You’d think it gets easier with practice, but turns out it doesn’t. Just continues to basically all-out suck.”
“No,” I said. “There’s no one else. Definitely no one else.”
He was watching me closely. “So what do you mean, with your ex?”
“I gue
ss it ended with him because of how I act. Sometimes. In certain situations.”
“Like tonight?”
“Yeah. Like tonight.”
“So you mean … violently?” He thought this over. “What happened last time?”
“We were at a bar. Some dive. Having a drink, minding our own business. There were a couple of assholes who came in looking for trouble.”
“What happened?”
I drank some coffee and shifted my weight. “They hassled a couple of other people, then started trying to pick a fight with Bryan, my ex. Stupid stuff. Dumped a drink on him. Said suggestive things about me. The bartender knew them. Didn’t want to get in the middle of it. They wouldn’t leave us alone. Kept trying to get a rise out of him.”
“And?”
“Eventually they did. Only they didn’t get a rise out of him.”
“They got a rise out of you,” Ethan finished.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“What’d you do to them?”
I looked down at the yellow linoleum table, seeing directly under me the white-rimmed black circle of my coffee and next to it the dark circle of my uneaten chocolate donut. “I overreacted. In hindsight.”
“Overreacted?”
“Two of them had to be hospitalized. Not for anything major. But still.”
“Hospitalized? You used that thing? That stick?”
I shook my head emphatically. “No. I wouldn’t use a weapon unless someone threatened or attacked me with one. I believe in proportional response.”
“So how did you handle them?”
I looked at my two hands. Somehow I’d chipped the maroon polish on my left thumbnail. I’d have to repaint it. “A couple of drunk assholes. I didn’t need much.”
“So what happened?”
“I was arrested.”
“Arrested?”
“First time in my life. They plea-bargained the charges to a misdemeanor after they saw the security tapes. But I had to attend court-ordered therapy sessions. For my … issues.”
“The violence.”
“It’s not that I’m some raging psycho, Ethan. I’m not running around bashing heads or out of control. And I’ve never picked a fight in my life. But I tend to be … overprotective. Of people I care about. And certain situations end up setting something off.”
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