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“Working what out? Why are you arresting me?”
Terri didn’t like the extra chatter. She said very clearly, “Get down on your knees with your hands behind your back. Then you can talk all you want.”
I could see it in his face. At that moment, Perry Martin weighed his options. Apparently, he didn’t like his chances if we got him in handcuffs and took him to our office.
It was shocking how quickly a man his size could move.
Chapter104
PERRY MARTIN GAVEme a shove. It felt like a force field pushing me away. There was nothing I could do to stop it. I fell back three steps until I was almost out of the hotel room’s doorway. Then Martin darted out of the bathroom door to face Terri Hernandez.
Terri used a good command voice to try to get Martin to finally go down on his knees.
As Martin turned to face Terri, I jumped on his back. I tried to reach high enough to get an arm around his neck so I could pull him to the ground. What I discovered was that his neck felt like a thigh. He twisted his body, and I found myself sailing through the air. Somehow he managed to throw me into Terri Hernandez. We both bounced off the edge of the bed and onto the filthy, thin carpet covering the cheap hotel-room floor.
As my head bounced off the floor, I was disoriented for a moment.
Terri had lost her gun in the fall. That didn’t slow her down. She was on her feet instantly. She ducked a massive right hand. A haymaker intended to take her out of the fight permanently. As the fist passed over her head, Terri slid to the side and delivered a brutal knee to the side of Martin’s leg. In training, it’s called a knee spike, and it generally stops anyone when delivered properly.
I saw Terri’s technique. It was perfect. And it had almost no effect on Martin. Now he swung a backhand, which Terri ducked again. But Martin was expecting it and used his other hand to grab her by the arm and fling her into the bathroom.
When he turned, I sprang from the floor and hit him like a tackling dummy. In retrospect, hitting a man that much larger than me, who had spent most of his adult life on the football field, didn’t make much sense. He turned his body slightly and tossed me into the wall. It felt like the whole building shook. As I slid down the wall to the floor, I prayed that there were reinforcements on the way.
Allie was still standing in the doorway. I hoped she didn’t think she should get involved in the fight. She was uncontrollably angry. I didn’t blame her. But now I saw I’d misjudged some of her motivation for getting involved in this investigation. She didn’t want to just bring Martin to justice; she wanted vengeance. I realized she could never go back to The Girlfriend Experience after knowing what happened to the other three girls.
When Martin turned toward me, Allie took a ceramic lamp sitting on a small table by the door and smashed it over Perry Martin’s head. Cheap ceramic shards flew everywhere.
It didn’t seem to have that much effect on him, but some shards hit me on the cheek and drew blood.
When Martin turned to face Allie, I jumped up and kicked him in the same leg that Terri had nailed with the knee spike. Finally, he let out a sound like he’d been hurt. A low, guttural growl.
When he turned, I punched him in the face. My right hand connected solidly with the side of his head just in front of his ear. He stumbled and caught himself on the doorframe before he fell.
He glared at Allie, then at me. Then he sprinted down the hallway. Again, he surprised me with his speed.
Chapter105
TERRI HERNANDEZ WASalready in the hallway by the time I was able to get on my feet. We saw Martin hit the stairwell. He hesitated at the landing, then started to climb the stairs. We could already hear someone coming up the stairs. Martin must’ve heard the same thing and took the only route available.
A single detective ran up to the floor we were on. He was from the local precinct. I’d met him, but I couldn’t think of his name. He was a hotshot in a tight shirt. He looked like a rock band reject, with his long dark hair brushed straight back. He kept his pistol in the small of his back. I guessed that was a cool way of carrying your gun now.
He didn’t say a word. He just followed us as we climbed the three floors to the roof. Then I paused at the door to the roof. It was one thing to be thrown around the hotel room. It would be another to be thrown twelve stories to the hard concrete below.
Terri said, “We might be better off leaving him sealed off on the roof. We can wait here for reinforcements.”
The new detective with us said, “What am I?”
Terri looked at the young detective. She said, “Reinforcements would be, like, four or five cops. You didn’t see him back in the room. You’d just be another body he could toss around.”
To his credit, the young detective didn’t try to act macho or say anything stupid. He just shrugged like he understood. Since he hadn’t seen Perry Martin in person, I didn’t think he could really understand what we were trying to tell him.
I thought about Terri’s idea. Finally, I said, “He might be able to get onto one of the other roofs or climb down the fire escape. I don’t think we can risk it. If we have to, we just stay away from the coach. Keep him occupied without actually engaging him.”
This time I didn’t hesitate. I turned the handle on the door and shoved it open.
The night air was cooler than I expected. The three of us fanned out quickly on the old-school tar-and-gravel roof. I had to glance over the side of the building to look at the fire escape. Even doing that triggered my acrophobia. Instantly, I felt a little nauseated. On the bright side, the coach wasn’t climbing down the fire escape. At least not yet.
I heard a sound and someone grunt. As I spun, I saw the young detective tossed through the air onto the gravel roof. He rolled and ended up on his back. I wanted to shout at him,That’s why we don’t carry our pistols in the small of our back. But somehow I refrained.
