Jim Butcher - Side Jobs

Flat rage hit Ray’s eyes, and it was aimed at Maria. That made up my mind for me. Ray was obviously an abuser and one who took out his frustrations wherever he damn well pleased instead of upon their source. He was going to be unhappy with me, and when he realized he couldn’t take it out on me, Maria would be the recipient of his rage. It more or less obliged me to protect her.

And I wasn’t going to enjoy doing it even one little bit, either. Honest.

“Get your foot out of the door before I tear it off,” Ray growled.

“Suppose I don’t,” I said.

“Last chance,” Ray said, his eyes narrowing to slits. He was breathing faster, now, and I could see sweat beading on his brow. “Get out of here. Now.”

“Or what?” I asked, mildly. “You gonna hit me, Ray?”

Self-control was not one of Ray’s strong suits. He spat out the word “Bitch,” spraying spittle with it as he did. He moved toward me, all three-hundred-and-change pounds of him, his hands balled into fists the size of cantaloupes.

There was something Ray didn’t know about me: I know martial arts.

I’m not a truly advanced student, but I’ve practiced every day since I was seventeen. I started with Aikido, then Wing Chun, then Jujitsu. I’ve studied Kali, Savate, Krav Maga, Tae Kwan Do, Judo, boxing, and Shaolin Kung Fu. It sounds impressive laid out like that, but it really isn’t. Once you get two or three arts down, the next dozen or so come pretty quick. Since they are all addressing the same problem, and because human bodies are human bodies, regardless of which continent you’re on, they share characteristic motions and timing.

Ray swept a fist at me in a looping punch a kiddie-league fighter could have avoided, so I took my foot out of Maria’s door and ducked it. He kept coming forward in a fleshy avalanche, while I went under his arm and took a pair of steps to one side on a diagonal angle. He tried to grab me as I slipped loose, but he wound up losing his balance badly in doing it. I gave him a helpful push with the first two knuckles of my left fist, right in the kidney.

Ray smashed into the drywall and left dents. I thought about how long it had taken him to build up speed, and I took several steps back. He turned, screaming a vicious oath, and came at me, gathering sluggish momentum like an overloaded tractor trailer. I had to back up another pair of steps to give him enough space to move into a wobbling run.

He didn’t bother with a punch this time. He simply grabbed at me with his huge arms. I timed it carefully, and dropped to the floor at the last instant, sweeping my leg out in an almost-gentle kick that did nothing except prevent his right foot from proceeding forward and to the floor in proper rhythm with his left.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Ray fell pretty hard.

He staggered up to his hands and knees and swiped a paw at me in another grab.

Jesus Christ. Basic self-defense instructors would kill to have a video of this. He was coming at me with every stupid-aggressive move he possibly could, as if working his way through a list.

There were a lot of things I could have done with the gift he’d made me of his hand, but in real conflict, I don’t get fancy. I go with simple, fast, and reliable. I let him grab my wrist, then broke his grip, wrapped him into a wrist lock, and applied pressure.

That kind of hold has very little to do with muscle or mass. That one is all about exploiting the machinery of the human body. It wouldn’t have mattered if Ray was in shape. He could have looked like Schwarzenegger as Conan, and he would have been just as helpless. Human joints are all built to more or less the same specifications, out of similar materials, no matter how much muscle or lard is on top of them. They’re vulnerable, if you know how to use them against your opponent.

I did.

Three hundred plus pounds of body odor, stupid and mean, slammed down onto the worn, dirty carpeting in the hallway, as if dropped from a crane.

While he lay there, stunned, I twisted his wrist straight up and behind him, keeping his arm locked straight with my other hand. From there, I could literally take his arm out of his shoulder socket with about as much effort as it would take to push a grocery cart. And I could make him hurt—a lot, if need be—in order to discourage him from trying any more stupid moves.

Being Ray, he tried stupid again, screaming and thrashing against the lock. I sighed and kept control, and he and his face relived his crushing impact with the carpet. We repeated that several times, until the lesson began to drill its way through to Ray—he wasn’t going anywhere. It would hurt if he tried.

“So I’ve been talking to people in several buildings,” I said in a calm, conversational tone. Ray was puffing like an engine. “I was wondering if you could tell me if you saw anything odd or unusual last night? Probably between two and three in the morning?”

“You’re breaking my fucking arm!” Ray growled—or tried to. It had been watered down with whine.

“No, no, no,” I said. “If I broke your arm, you’d hear a snapping sound. It sounds a lot like a tree branch breaking, actually, though a little more muffled. What you have to worry about is me dislocating your arm at the shoulder and elbow. That’s worse, overall. Just as painful and it takes a hell of a lot more effort to recover.”

“Jesus,” Ray said.

“Are you telling me that Jesus was visiting between two and three last night? I’m dubious, Ray.”

“I didn’t see nothing!” he said a few panting seconds later. “All right? Jesus Christ, I didn’t see nothing!”

“Aha,” I said. “You sound like an honest man.” I used my bracing arm to reach for my coat pocket, then tossed my badge down onto the floor in front of him.

He stared at it for a long second, and then his face went white.

“Here’s what happens,” I said very quietly. “You’re going to resign from your job. You’ll write a very nice letter to your boss, and then you get out of this building. You’re gone by noon tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that,” he said.

“I can do whatever I want,” I said. “Which of us do you think the judge will believe, Ray?”

That isn’t how I approached law enforcement. It isn’t how any good cop does, either. But the criminals are always willing, even eager, to believe the absolute worst about cops. I think it makes them feel better if they can convince themselves that the police are just like them, only with badges and a paycheck.

“You’re going, one way or another. You don’t play ball, I send the city inspector in here to verify all the code violations on this building. Fire extinguishers are missing. The smoke detectors are years old, and most of the ones that aren’t missing entirely are just hanging from their wires. You’ve got mold and fungus issues all over the place. Lights are out. There’s trash piling up outside.” I yawned. “On top of that, there are drug deals going down in your parking lot, Ray. I figure you’re in on that.”

“No,” he said. “No, I’m not!”

“Sure you are. It fits you, doesn’t it? And here you are assaulting an officer.” I shook my head sadly. “So when the building fails inspection, maybe even makes it into the paper, you’ll be fired anyway. And on top of that, I’ll finger you in the drug deals. I’ll press charges for assault. How many strikes do you already have on you, big guy? Can you handle two more?”

“You’re bluffing,” he said.

“Maybe,” I admitted. “On the other hand . . . maybe I just give John Marcone a call and tell him how you’re helping some of his street-level guys run some deals behind his back.”

Invoking the name of Marcone to a Chicago criminal is as significant as invoking the name of a saint to a devout Catholic. He’s the biggest fish in the pond, the head of organized crime in Chicago—and damn good at it. His people fear him, and even cops take him very, very seriously. One day he’d slip up and CPD, the FBI, or maybe the IRS would nail him. Until then, he was the deadliest predator in the jungle.