Jason Frost - The Warlord

"Stop fucking around, Sam," the big, blond man said with disgust, scratching his neck again. "This ain't no movie and you ain't no fucking Bruce Lee. Just kill the sonofabitch and let's get the fuck outta here."

"Right," Sam said, allowing himself a little smile now that he'd shown his stuff.

Then he started after Eric.

Fisher calculated that, considering withholding tax, Social Security, union dues, and stuff like that, he could probably buy the Sony Walkman by next week. It meant working a few more hours to get it, but he knew what he wanted. None of those pissant Sanyos or Panasonics. It had to be a Sony. The One and Only.

He wondered if there was a way to hook it up so he could listen to it while on duty. Not with the headphones or anything so conspicuous, but maybe run an earplug down his sleeve so he could just put his palm next to his ear, like he was thinking or something, and listen to the music.

" 'Wko-o-oa, listen to the music,' " he sang quietly. He liked it when real thoughts were the same as lyrics. It was neat to sing your thoughts instead of just think them.

He hummed a few more lines from the song while he watched another guy in a three-piece suit try to go into the men's room, but unable to budge the door, give up and head for the elevator.

"Wimp," Fisher said, tried to think of a song with wimp in it, couldn't, went back to humming "Listen to the Music."

A couple seconds later another man tried the door. This guy was pretty husky, wore a ratty sports jacket and white socks with black slacks and black scuffed shoes. Obviously a defendant, Fisher grinned. B amp;E, maybe, or Grand Theft Auto. Needed to take a leak before he spilled his guts to his PD, probably some young Jew who drove a Porsche, paying his dues before joining his Dad's big Beverly Hills law practice. Those people had it wired, man. Not that Fisher had anything against Jews, hell, he almost screwed one in college. But you had to wonder about them.

The husky guy shook the door, bumped it with his shoulder, kicked it with his foot. Still it wouldn't budge. Finally he kicked it again, swore, and stomped off to the stairs.

"Jerk," Fisher mumbled, then went back to humming. Yet it was odd. The door being stuck. Hadn't he seen that Ravensmith guy go in a minute ago. And he seemed to remember somebody else going in too. Maybe they were stuck inside. He could go over and check it out, but he really shouldn't leave his post. Besides, stuck doors was a janitor's job, not his.

Still, it was funny.

"Quick kill, damn it, Sam!"

"It will be."

"Then do it. I wanna get home for the second half of the Lakers-Celtics game." The blond shifted his bulk, exchanging feet under the door. "That's the second bastard who tried to get in here. I'm not gonna be able to keep the whole fucking floor outta here."

"Just a few seconds more," Sam assured him, sliding toward Eric, one handle of the nunchakus tucked under his right arm.

Eric backed up a few steps, the ends of his tie still wound around each hand and stretched out in front of him like a clothesline. That the man called Sam was obviously well trained in martial arts didn't disturb Eric too much. He too had been trained in various fighting disciplines, though he'd never enjoyed martial arts. All that bowing and waiting and kneeling seemed to Eric just another kind of army rules, only the uniforms were white and you got to wear a colored belt. Besides, those karate and kung fu masters lacked any sense of humor. They took themselves so damned seriously, not like the Hopis who'd taught him Indian fighting. He could see the attraction, though, for a lot of the guys. The rigid rituals, the feeling of belonging to an elite group. It's the same technique Fallows used with his men, turning them into a kind of religious cult.

In the Green Berets every martial arts teacher had hollered at Eric for sloppy form and technique. Though he defeated every opponent, they never let up on him, trying to force him to do it "the proper way." The hell with that, Eric had told them, they weren't there to perfect an art, but to learn how to protect themselves. It didn't matter how perfect your form was, just who was left alive at the end.

Toward that end he'd developed his own way of fighting. A potpourri of various combat skills that combined the oriental martial arts, western boxing, and Indian fighting methods. He borrowed a little from each, altering, combining, changing into a form that maximized his strengths and minimized his weaknesses. Big Bill Tenderwolf had seen it at work once in a Santa Fe barroom brawl and instantly dubbed it the Retreating Attack.

Eric hadn't thought of it in those terms before, but that was as close to describing it as two words could come. It required intense concentration to master, but the premise was simple. Eric merely imagined that he and his attacker were attached at the navel by a cord within arm's reach of each other. Therefore, when the opponent attacked, Eric could dodge the blow, but he had to maintain that arm's distance between them. No more than that. Which meant any move to avoid a blow had to end up in an attack position, culminating in a blow returned. "Don't give me none of that fancy talk," Big Bill Tenderwolf had shaken his huge, grinning head when Eric had tried to explain it. "It's a simple enough idea: No aggression goes unpunished. Tit for tat."

And once again, the Hopi chief with his M.B.A. from UCLA had understood even better than Eric. Make the attacker pay for every miss and he will become hesitant, tentative. Afraid.

But those moves required split-second timing, excellent conditioning, practice. Eric Ravensmith was still in good shape, but he hadn't hit another man in twelve years. All his speed was used to chase tennis balls that Annie blasted out of the court with her wild backhand.

"Don't make this harder on yourself than necessary," Sam told him, inching closer, "Just let it happen. One whack with these and, pow, it's all over."

The blond nodded sadly, as if they were discussing a great retiring athlete. "It's gotta be, man."

Suddenly the heavy wooden handle was flipping through the air, tumbling toward Eric's face. He slipped to the side, raising his hands, trying to snare the handle with his tie. But he was too slow. The handle glanced off his wrist, immediately numbing it. The pain rattled up his arm like an old locomotive, ending with a throbbing pain at the back of his neck.

His wrist went from numb to burning, until he hardly had the strength to hold the end of the tie with it. But somehow he did, gliding back against the tiled wall as the long wooden handle somersaulted toward him again.

Eric ducked, heard the loud crash as the heavy wood bounced off tile. Felt some of the plaster grouting sprinkle down on his head. Then he heard the whoosh of the handle again and felt the sudden pain on his back like a building collapsing on him. Eric dropped to the floor, butt first.

"I got him," Sam exclaimed. "I nailed the sonofabitch."

Eric looked up, saw everything as if through thin gauze. Recognized Sam hovering over him, about to snap those damn things into his head.

Somehow he found the strength, almost as if he wasn't even doing it himself. As if there was some part of Eric that was operating on its own, on automatic pilot. Like in Nam. Whatever part it was, Eric's legs suddenly swept in a wide arc and knocked Sam's feet out from under him. Sam's arms flew up, sent the nunchakus sailing into a mirror with a loud, shattering crash, and Sam finally slamming onto the tiled floor in front of Eric. Close enough for Eric to thrust his heel into Sam's chin and watch Sam's head crack against the floor.

The burly blond man at the door came running. He snatched up the nunchakus as Eric struggled to his feet, inching his back up along the wall.