Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [39]
I don’t even realize he’s there until he steps past me and into the stall. At which point he sees my jacket and sweater hanging off the hook on the back of the door and I guess he realizes that the bum in the T-shirt drinking from the faucet is actually the fuck he’s looking for. Which is the exact same moment that my eyes flick up to the mirror and see the back of his shocking red head in the open door of the stall.
The element of surprise is an amazing thing and, as has been documented many times, can be the decisive factor in even the most lopsided conflict. In this case, we get the drop on each other and it produces a kind of tableau. I straighten, water running down my chin and onto the front of my T-shirt, but I haven’t had time to turn, while he has spun neatly on his heels to face me. So I look at the mirror, straight through the yellow lenses of his goggles and into the reflection of his eyes. He stares back. There’s a cut on his chin and scuff marks on his otherwise flawless red jacket and, somehow, I just know that he’s more pissed about the condition of his vinyl than his face. I slowly wipe water from my mouth and chin. We are in a bathroom. Someone could walk in at any moment.
—I talked to Roman. I told him I was getting the key. I told him I’d call him.
He blinks behind those goggles. Slowly.
—Fuck Roman.
I spin and backpedal at the same time. I’m bigger than he is, but for it to do me any good I need room. He dances in toward me as I lift up onto the balls of my feet, tuck my chin, and bring my fists up. He skips back just a bit, keeping his hands loosely balled down by his hips. I want to stay mobile, but the boots I’m wearing slow my feet down, so I’m doing my dancing with my head and upper body, keep the target moving. The tight space plays to his size, but if I can keep some distance between us, I might have a chance. He darts in, trying to come inside my guard and I pop out a jab to keep him away. Before my arm is fully extended he hits me three times.
They’re tight little punches that pepper my lower ribs. And that’s about it for boxing. I flinch back, ducking and turning, and he just plants a good one right on my wound. I give a sound halfway between a scream and a gasp and my body twists back toward the pain, and he flattens his hand into a spear point and drives it into my solar plexus. I fold. He grabs me, puts me into some kind of hold, spins me and drives me back into the stall, kicking the door closed behind us.
—Fuck Roman. I want the key.
He’s got me pressed face first against the wall across from the stall door. He’s knotted the fingers of his right hand into the fingers of both mine in some fucking Shaolin Super Death Grip. And as a bonus, he’s digging the thumb of his left hand into my wound, living up to all the clichés of the Asian torture master.
—I want the key.
—Yeah, I got that part.
He digs the thumb in a little harder and I bite my lip.
—The key.
—Yeah, look, I told Roman—
He gives me the thumb and does something to my hands and I swoon. My knees buckle and all the air goes out of me, my vision blackens and I only stay up because he keeps me there.
—I’m just gonna kill you right now. Right now, just kill you and find the key on my own. Now fuck Roman. I want the key.
—I don’t have it. I didn’t get it yet.
—Where is it?
—I gave it to a friend.
—What friend? We know all your friends. Which one?
They know all my friends.
My boxing instructor, he’s a badass. He also teaches street fighting. When I came to him to start boxing, he asked me why I wanted to study and I told him that I had trouble in the bar from time to time and wanted to be better equipped to handle it. He took me on for the boxing but suggested I take some of his other classes as well. He thought they might serve my needs better. And you know what? He was so right.
I shift against the wall and gasp like I’m trying to get room to breathe. Red