THIRTY-TWO
“As it just so happens,” Angela said, “I met John Babington today. It did not go well.”
He looked surprised, and a little suspicious. “Really. What were you doing with Babington?”
Angela pulled out the mug shots. She unfolded them and handed all four to Nate.
“I have a courier business. I delivered a package to these four men. They overpowered me, raped me, beat me nearly to death, then hung me by my neck from a beam and left me to die.”
“Yeah …” he said quietly, “I saw what’s left of the bruises and abrasions around your neck from the rope. I wondered what that was about. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “But if they left you hanging there by your neck, how the hell did you get out of it?”
Angela pulled her knife from her boot and held the blade up briefly, then slid it back down into its sheath. He looked a little surprised to see that besides the gun she also had a knife.
“I gave the police their license plate number along with their names and descriptions. All four were arrested. John Babington dropped the charges and had them released.”
Nate made a face. “Why?”
“They’re illegal aliens. This is a sanctuary state. Babington didn’t want to be accused of being a racist for prosecuting illegal aliens, or get in trouble with the politicians above him for violating that policy. It would be bad for his career. So, he dropped the charges.
“When I objected he said I was a whore and implied that I probably got what I deserved for enticing the men. The police had confiscated my knife when I was in the hospital. He threatened to prosecute me on concealed-weapon charges, along with invented drug charges, if I made a fuss over it. He’s a pompous prick. I knew better than to cross him.”
Nate let out a sigh. “That sounds like Babington. I’m glad you were smart enough not to test him. He would have carried out the threat. Believe me, I know.” He folded his arms. “So, what do you want from me?”
“Those four men overpowered me in an instant. I had this knife on me, but they grabbed my wrists before I could even try to get to it. I tried as hard as I could to get out of their grip, but I couldn’t. They were a lot stronger than me. I was at their mercy and they had none. I was helpless. I don’t like being helpless.”
His expression reflected his understanding as she went on.
“I know that people who don’t have a weapon, but who know what they’re doing, can get out of it when men grab them, and even turn the tables on them. I know that there are people who know how to put down the threat, even though the men are stronger. But I didn’t know how to do it.
“I spent hours being abused and beaten by these men. You can’t imagine the degrading things they did to me, or how they hurt me. I nearly died. I thought for sure that I was going to die, hanging there.”
“Thank god you survived. At least it’s over.”
Angela shook her head. “I know them. These aren’t regular bad guys. They’re something more. They would know by now that I escaped the death they had planned for me, and now that they’re out of jail they will come after me to finish what they started. Besides that, it’s also a matter of their masculinity, their imagined superiority. A woman bested them. They can’t have that.
“But it’s not just those four. I tend bar and that can be risky at times. I’m a woman, and I’m not as strong as most men. On top of that, for some reason I seem to attract bad guys. I want to know how to stop killers like these four—or any man, for that matter, who intends me harm.
“Can you teach me that?”
Nate shrugged. “Sure. I’m strongly in favor of women knowing how to protect themselves. But it takes—”
“You don’t understand. I don’t have a lifetime to devote myself to learning some kind of higher way of life. I don’t want a hobby or inner peace. I don’t want to learn forms and ritual moves that have fancy names. I’m not a bored housewife. I’m not a gullible girl looking for the meaning of life. I don’t have time for any of that crap.
“I’m not interested in learning to protect myself the way you teach women to protect themselves. This isn’t about empowerment.
“I don’t want to learn martial arts and get colored belts. I want you to teach me down-and-dirty street fighting. I want you to teach me how to hurt people who need hurting.
“Those four men are out there somewhere. I want you to teach me how to put them down when they come after me. I don’t want you to teach me how to simply get out of their grip so I can run away.”
Nate cocked his head. “But there are a number of steps—”
“And I also don’t want to go to classes with other women. I’m not looking to compete in stages or any of that stuff. I’m only interested in one thing. I want you to teach me how to fucking kill them.
“I know how to do it with a gun or a knife and if I can I will, but I need to know how to do the same thing if I can’t get to a weapon in time. I don’t want to be defenseless if all I have are my bare hands.
“That’s what I need you to teach me.”
He studied her eyes for a moment as he considered. “You’re talking about something very different than my standard self-defense training.”
“Like I said, I don’t need a hobby.”
“You’re talking about some serious, game-ending moves.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t ordinarily teach those to idiots like Malcolm. You’re talking about things that can break bones or even kill. You only use deadly force in life-and-death situations, when it’s you or them—the same as with a gun.”
“I understand.”
He looked dead serious as he considered her for a few moments longer. “You would have to come in for a few hours every day for a while. That would give you a good variety of effective moves—the kind of things you’re talking about. You can learn those moves fairly easily, actually, if that’s all you’re interested in learning. You’re not interested in advancing through martial arts, so you can do without most of the rest of it. You won’t understand the totality of it, but you will know how to seriously hurt people.”
“As long as I’m able to put a guy down so he can’t get up. If necessary, not ever.”
He appraised her for a moment longer. “I’m a convicted felon. I’m not legally allowed to teach anything like you’re talking about, so it would have to be kept strictly confidential. You can’t ever let the authorities know where you learned it.”
“Not a problem.”
“It also means it would need to be private sessions—just you and me—so that no one else would know about it. That’s time I can’t teach classes. Private lessons like that are going to cost you.”
“My grandparents used to protect me from the kind of men who hung around my mother’s trailer. When they died they left me a little money. I’m sure they would love nothing more than for some of that money to go toward me learning how to better protect myself.”
Nate nodded. “If you’re sure you’re serious, I’ll cancel some classes. That time will be for you exclusively. You will be my only student. I’ll lock the door. I’ll leave some time on both sides of your time here so people won’t see you come and go. No one will see you train or see you in here, and no one will know about this.”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll skip all the forms and traditional instruction. It’s basically repetition practice of game-stopping moves. I’ll just teach you what you need to know to escape from the grip of an attacker and cripple him for life if you need to, and if necessary, to kill him.” He smiled to lighten the grim mood. “And when you’re done with a lesson, you can always go next door and get your nails done.”
“When do I start?”
Nate shrugged. “Right now if you want.”
“I do. Do I have to change?”
“Are you planning on changing your clothes before someone tries to kill you?”
For the first time since coming into the place, Angela smiled. “No, I guess not.”
He smiled with her. She liked his smile.
“Well all right then.”
“How do we start?”
“First, I want you to listen to me. Going over that line with the clear intent to kill is not something that most people can do. Even seriously hurting someone is something a lot of people aren’t willing to do. You have to realize that the things I’m going to teach you can seriously mess someone up. Some of these moves can kill. Most people, when it comes right down to it, can’t bring themselves to kill.
“These moves can be just as deadly as using your knife on someone. Dead is dead. I want you to think about it—could you actually stab someone if you had to?”
Angela almost laughed, but she didn’t. “If someone comes at me to kill me, then they are going to get what they deserve. I don’t have a problem with that. So how do we begin?”
Nate’s arms were folded across his chest. He let them slip to his sides.
“A guy is almost always going to be bigger and stronger than you. You’re not going to be able to overpower a guy like that with strength, but you can overpower them with technique.”
“Okay, how?”
“Your objective is to disorient, disable, destroy. That requires intent, aggression, momentum.”
Now he was talking her language. Angela was quite familiar with “disorient, disable, destroy.” She’d had plenty of practice at that. She was beginning to feel good about her decision to come to Nate.
“Show me.”
Nate reached out and gripped her wrist. “Let’s say a guy grabs you like this.”
Angela nodded. “That was how one of them grabbed me.”
“Okay. You must first get out of his hold on you. I’m going to show you how to do that by converting his hold to a position where you can break his wrist. Unless the guy is on PCP or something, like the guy I killed, pain is your best tool.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
He let go of her wrist and looked up to her eyes. “We’re going to start by focusing now on how to break the bones in a person’s wrist. That takes the fight right out of them and immediately puts you in control. But the sound of breaking bone is revolting. You can’t afford to hold back. You need to do these moves with the conscious intent of breaking bones. Are you squeamish?”
If he only knew …
“I’ll try not to puke.” Angela lifted her arm out toward him again. “Show me.”
She was already feeling good about this. It felt kind of like when her grandfather started teaching her how to shoot.