Steve Martini - The Arraignment

Holding the tire iron in both hands, I motion with my head for her to move aside. She doesn’t see me or it doesn’t register.

The doorknob turns. There’s no time. With my back against the wall I raise my left leg, put my foot against her arm holding the briefcase, and push as hard as I can with my foot. The briefcase comes out of her hand and drops. Watkins sprawls to the floor six feet away down the hall. An instant later, the door opens a crack.

I throw my body against it, shoulder first, and push with my legs. I trip over the briefcase, lose traction, leather soles on a wooden floor.

The door opens halfway before Saldado knows what’s hit him, his eyes wide, two black olives floating in a sea of white. I get just a glimpse of his face before he reacts. Quick as a cat, he throws himself against the other side of the door and stands me up straight. Suddenly the momentum shifts. Leaning, he has leverage. He reaches around the door, something in his hand, shiny and flashing, a straight razor. He swipes at me, catches my right arm, and slices the thin sleeve of my cotton shirt as if it were tissue paper.

In the instant it takes me to regroup, he has the door closing like a mountain has fallen on it from the other side.

I push with everything I have. I’m losing. The door is closing inch by inch, until it hits something hard and stops. I look down. Robin Watkins, bleeding and bruised, is huddled at my feet. She has jammed my briefcase into the opening.

I throw my shoulder against the door and it budges. Saldado knows he can’t win. He can push, but he can’t close the door. He tries kicking at the case, but Watkins is holding it in place with both hands.

He tries to reach out with the blade again. This time I deflect it with the tire iron, catching his knuckles with the lug end of the steel. He pulls his hand back in. For a few seconds, he holds me. I throw myself against the door, once, twice, three times. Each shot transfers the blow to his body on the other side. He absorbs several more of these, then suddenly steps back and the door flies open.

Saldado retreats to the center of a small living room. He backs up and nearly falls over a low, flimsy coffee table. He flattens one of the legs and kicks the rest of it out of the way. Splintered pieces of wood fly across the room. The tabletop crashes into a large package wrapped in plastic and lying on the floor by the end of the sofa.

The Mexican crouches, knees flexed, holding the razor blade out in front of him, his eyes fixed on the tire iron in my hands.

Off to my left is the child, a little boy sitting in soiled Pampers on the couch, wide-eyed, staring at me. For the moment, his crying is stopped by the surprise of my entry. He has one little fist wet with saliva in his mouth.

I look at Saldado, and the thought reaches both of us at the same instant. He makes a move toward the child. I lash out with the iron, missing him by a few inches, but it’s enough to make him step back and to his left. As he does I move into the breach, circling to my right, putting myself between him and the boy. He continues this circular dance of combat and forces me farther to the right. He’s looking at the open door and Robin Watkins kneeling on the floor. I’m where I want to be, and I don’t budge. He has the blade, but I have greater reach with the iron. If he slashes at me and misses, I’ll break his arm. If I get lucky, I might nail him in the head.

Saldado studies the situation, dark pupils darting back and forth between Watkins kneeling in the doorway and her child on the sofa. Either one of them will do. He feints toward the mother and catches me leaning. I lash out. Nothing but the swish of air. He goes the other way toward the child. The tire iron cuts a figure eight through empty space.

He backs off, smiling at me. “Not so easy, uh?” He wipes perspiration off his upper lip with one arm.

I’m watching his eyes. He’s gauging the distance of my reach, my willingness to risk the blade.

He looks at the child, then back at the mother. Obvious moves now, leaving me to wonder which one he will go for, his focus never far from the tire iron. He looks quickly at the child, takes a half step in that direction.

This time, I don’t go for it. Instead I move my head in that direction, my feet planted firmly. When he reverses field toward the door, I’m ready for him.

Saldado is committed. Momentum carries him. Just enough time for a quick hitch with the iron for a back swing. I lay into him like a left-handed batter with a Louisville slugger. The lug end of the tire iron catches him full force, low along the left side of his chest-a deadening thud and the cracking of bone.

“Unnnnnhhhh.” It knocks the wind out of him. Saldado staggers backward. Surprise and pain, followed an instant later by anger-all the emotions of adrenaline flashing across his face in less than a second. Before I can follow up with another blow, he lashes at me, a halfhearted effort, but enough to keep me away, fight or flight.

He comes at me again. The blade slashes under the iron. I bend at the midsection, leaning back, and the straight edge of the razor misses my stomach by an inch.

Looping the iron, I catch the back of his hand on the follow-through, but without enough force to do any damage.

Saldado is holding his side with one hand now-glancing under his arm, feeling the pain, and assessing the damage. There’s blood on his shirt. He looks at it, then realizes, as I do, that its not where I hit him.

There is an arc of tiny red splotches up high on his shoulder as if someone swung a loaded paint brush in his direction.

Breathing heavily, in pain, he connects the dots before I do. He smiles. “You’re bleeding, senor.”

I glance quickly down. There is blood dripping off the end of the tire iron and onto the floor.

While I’m distracted for an instant, Saldado tries for an opening. I check him with my eyes, catching him leaning and freeze him in place. Having felt the bite of the steel in my hand, he has no desire to offer up a second course.

My right shirt sleeve is red from the elbow to the buttoned cuff where he slashed it with the razor through the door. Adrenaline has killed the pain. Either that or he’s severed a nerve.

His movement is slower now. So is mine. He positions his injured side away from me, protecting it, still holding the bottom of his rib cage with one hand, as he waves the blade slowly back and forth, stirring the air in front of my face with the other.

He tries to get me to swing at the blade, moving it closer. I refuse to take the bait. He would move in behind my swing and catch my arm coming back. In the meantime, the razor would be free to do its work.

“Man, you keep this up,” he says, “you going to end up like your friend on the floor there.”

“Yeah, you do a real good job beating on women,” I tell him.

“No. No. Not that one. Your other friend. Over there.” He gestures with his head in the other direction. “I let you keep the money. Take it and go. I give you your life,” he says.

I glance over quickly and realize he’s talking about the package wrapped in plastic and lying on the floor.

“Espinoza?”

He nods slowly, smiling at me.

“What about the child and the woman?”

He shrugs, offers a disarming smile. “What are they to me?”

Watkins must have seen him kill her husband. I can’t believe he would let her go.

“I’ve already called the police,” I tell him.

“You lie.”

“Stick around and find out.”

He waves the blade at me. “How long you think you can bleed like that, man, and still stand up? Huh? Why don’t you go?”

His eyes tell me that the second I move toward the door he’ll come with the blade.