Torres snaps a lead-leg front kick at my groin. I twist a little so that my hip catches most of the impact, though the tip of his Nike just barely nicks my ever-so-more sensitive target. It’s obvious he isn’t trying to control his blows. I keep my face neutral, although I feel a surge of hot adrenaline surge through my muscles.
I swat his jab aside. He jabs again, this one hitting a strand of wet hair hanging down my forehead. “I’ll take that as a hit,” he says, chuckling. “Good thing I don’t have to pay for this lesson.”
I nod, as more adrenaline charges my muscles. “Good thing.”
I’ve been told many times that when I get angry or when I’m completely absorbed in hard training, my eyes assume a sort of luminescence. Either Torres doesn’t see it or he’s too stupid to recognize a bad thing when it’s standing right in front him. He pops out a backfist. I turn my head just enough to avoid his big knuckles. Had it landed, I would have been visited by Tweety Bird. “Good one,” I say flatly. The young man is clearly getting frustrated. He can’t hit me, intimidate me, or get any emotion out of me. Actually, he’s provoked my adrenaline, but I’ve done a marvelous job hiding it, if I say so myself.
Okay, I’m tired of this dickstick. I have too many other things on my mind to have to deal with an upstart gunslinger.
“Would you like to see a counterattack, Torres?”
He chuckles. “You want to try to counter me? I’ve gotten a piece of you two times. Let me see you try.”
“I’ll show you what we call ‘Lesson Thirteen.’”
“Lesson Thirteen? Why do you call it that?”
“Just makes it easy to remember. I’ll control myself, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Worry?” he says, sneering like a bad guy in a Hong Kong chop-socky movie. He throws a punch.
I smack my palm against his arm hard enough to spin him around. He’s mine now and I commence to do a little saturation bombing with kicks, punches, elbows, and knees, hitting him just hard enough against the back of his legs, spine, kidneys, and ribs to let him know he’s been tagged. I slap my palms down onto his shoulders, sending a shock-shimmy through his big body, and spin him around to face me.
The look on his mug nearly makes me laugh before I flick my fingers against his eyebrows, lightly smack his throat with my other hand, and snap a kick just short of his groin. The fingers into the eyes would have temporarily blinded him, the fist could have sent him into a choking spasm, and the kick could have crumbled his cookies for a couple weeks.
“That’s twelve,” I say, calmly, my breathing normal. “The last and thirteenth move—hence the name—Lesson Thirteen, could be—oh—how about this.” I slap my left palm against the right side of his shocked face and hook my right index finger just barely inside his right nostril opening. I grin at him. “Here’s how this works, Torres. If I ram my finger deeper into your nose and then rip it toward me as I push your head away, you’ll experience a lot of hurt. It’s a good technique, as you say, for the street.”
The big man’s eyes couldn’t be larger as his head vibrates on the verge of exploding.
I step back. “That’s Lesson Thirteen. Controlled of course, unlike the blows you were throwing at me. I controlled them because I’m a martial artist. I have nothing to prove by hurting you. You, however, are a thug and a very stupid one.”
Torres rubs the back of his hand over his eyebrows where my fingers had touched. “I just—”
“There is nothing for you to say and it’s time for you to go.”
Looking like a deflated tire, the big man nods and turns toward the door.
“Think about what just happened. And should you want to come back sometime, you’re going to have to take off your shoes.”
He nods and leaves.
I shake my head and move toward the dressing room. That’s all I needed with all the other stressors in my life. I sit on a bench and roll my shoulders a few times to rid some of the tension there. What’s going on with me? For a moment, I wanted Torres to push it so I could grind him into hamburger. What’s that about? That’s not like me at all. I have a rep on the PD for being the last one to engage in a fight. I’ve never administered street justice as some coppers do, though I’ve definitely gotten into my share of brawls. I’m known for BSing violent people into compliance and for using force as a last resort. So why would I want to trash Torres when it would serve no purpose?
In a grocery store a couple of days ago, I thought about how good it would feel to break a rude clerk’s kneecap. Last week, I imagined pulling an idiot tailgater out of his truck and beating him into a gutter drain. I guess the good news is that I didn’t act out on any of these things. The bad news is that I’m fantasizing about it.
Kari would probably say that I’m psychologically beating up myself because I feel guilty. Tiff would probably high-five her.
Of course, that’s ridiculous… Or is it?
I pick up a bucket of cleaning supplies, step into the shower and spray cleanser on the walls. The butterflies in my stomach have a riot every time I think about going to work tomorrow. Funny how a shooting and two months away from the street can make me feel all twitchy, as if it were my first day out of the academy. Not funny ha-ha, but funny weird. Funny unpleasant.
Kari said it was a common worry among officers who have used deadly force; it haunts them that they might get into another shooting. I get that. Most cops never fire their weapon outside of the firing range. They train for it and talk about it all the time, but most believe deeply inside that it will never happen. Then when they do have to drop the hammer, the ugly reality of it shocks some to their core. The it’s-never-going-to-happen-to-me barrier comes down with a bang, and it stays down. The officer becomes hyper-vigilant and the thought that he’ll have to kill again makes his insides feel as if he had chugged a bottle of Drano.
Kari said there is no greater chance of it happening a second time than there was the first. Easy enough to grasp intellectually, but emotionally…
I inhale deeply and blow it out. Okay, a little more cleaning before tonight’s first class. Tomorrow will come soon enough.
We’re at the Kick Start coffee shop on Weidler Avenue getting exactly that, a morning kick start, and doing the buddy-bonding thing before jumping on our first case. I drain the last of my Americano, eyeing Tommy as he sits perched on the edge of his chair carefully wrapping the Earl Grey tea bag string around his spoon. I’ve always thought he looked a little like Niles Crane, Frazier’s woosie brother on the old Frazier sit-com. His impeccably tailored suit and slacks are too spendy for police work, he has a demeanor that’s a little on the prissy side, and with his fair skin and blond hair, it’s hard to imagine him ever getting dirty. My mother would say that, “He could fall into a toilet and come up smelling like roses.” The big difference between Tommy and the actor is that my partner has a physique like a football linebacker, which he was in college, and he can bench four fifty.
I’ve never worked with him, but word has it he’s a good investigator with a gift for gab. I’ve heard that during interrogations, he often turns hardened criminals into slobbering infants wanting their mothers. Supposedly, the captain has a foot-thick folder of commendations from people who wrote that his compassion and gentle words were comforting during their frightening ordeal. A separate folder contains a dozen letters from the joint written by crooks he’s put away, all thanking him for being respectful during their frightening ordeal, their arrest and interrogation.
Tommy and I have chatted in the office break room and the police gym a few times, mostly about lifting weights. One time we got all touchy-feely, talking about how citizens and other coppers see us. We’re both long-time iron pumpers,