#48-Red Lined
With a puddle of soap in my right palm, I raced out. Elizabeth’s wheelchair lay on its side, the topmost wheel glinting as it spun. Jerry’s black-suited bulk loomed in front of me. He held Elizabeth up by her hair. She wobbled as she tried to stand on tiptoe, crying.
“Shut up,” Jerry rumbled, “Or this goes straight into your belly, understand?”
I took three rapid strides to build up momentum, shifting the evening wrap on my shoulders. I flung it over his head like a net, trying to entangle the hand I couldn’t see. I yanked on the shimmering strands to haul in my catch. Anyone else would have fallen backwards. Jerry’s head only rocked back. Trying to pull him down, I climbed up his back and slapped my soapy palm across his eyes.
He bellowed in rage. He tossed Elizabeth away. Her torso hit the water fountain and she slithered down like a rag doll. He tossed me in the other direction. I tried to get a foot under me, but the heel of the slut shoe caught in the carpet. My ankle turned, dumping me on the floor. I fell hard.
In a shower of crystal beads, Jerry slashed his way out of the evening wrap. The switchblade looked like a toothpick in his huge hand. Right eye closed against the stinging soap, left eye blinking madly, his face contorted in a monstrous snarl, he lumbered toward me. Because of the slut shoes, I couldn’t get leverage to stand. I scooted backwards on my hands.
“Stop!” Darryl yelled. His long arm snaked around to grab at Jerry’s knife hand. Jerry pivoted, shoving Darryl back. Reeling under Jerry’s onslaught, Darryl took the first slash on his closed fist and the second on his arm. I scooted forward again and tried to kick Jerry’s foot out from under him, managing only a glancing blow to his shin. Jerry hopped and bellowed, stomping down on my leg.
I jerked back. Teeth set, feet planted, Darryl grabbed the wrist of Jerry’s knife hand and swung. Darryl was strong and agile, but Jerry outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds. Jerry withstood the attempt to throw him down, but staggered, slamming into the wall by the men’s room. He bounced off, balance recovered, slashing high. Darryl turned his head and the knife only nicked his cheek. Darryl slid sideways away from the knife; Jerry followed. Darryl danced back, drawing Jerry after him.
Jerry bellowed and charged, knife held low. I saw Darryl’s feet plant, then one foot sliding back. Like a matador working a bull, Darryl twisted aside from Jerry’s mass. Jerry’s arm jerked. Darryl grunted at the contact. A scrap of cummerbund still clasped in a safety pin fell near my foot. Jerry blundered against Darryl’s forward leg and fell. Darryl chopped down on Jerry’s neck, driving Jerry’s head down like a tent peg. Grabbing the seat of Jerry’s trousers, Darryl heaved upwards.
As easily as I might toss a hay bale, Darryl sent Jerry’s three-hundred pound bulk spinning in a spectacular, involuntary cartwheel, using the man’s own charging momentum. Jerry’s head and shoulders crashed first. His torso slammed down with a thud, followed by his heels.
Taking teensy steps, the hotel rent-a-cops crept in on his unmoving body to kick the knife away and slap on handcuffs. I wondered how much of the fight they’d witnessed, hovering shyly in the wings.
White-faced, Darryl wobbled, the cut on his cheek weeping blood. “Sugar?”
“I’m okay,” I assured him. My boneless ankles refused to let me balance on the narrow heels of the slut shoes.
Darryl backed into the wall by the water fountain. He grabbed at the fountain as he slid. Blood from his hand stained the basin.
“Lizzy?” he asked.
She was curled in a fetal position under the water fountain, sheltering her belly. “I can’t feel my legs,” she said, “But the babies are kicking okay.”
