I guessed she had been the one to cry out. I could see she was scared. I could see she was running away from something. But I couldn’t see what the trouble was.
Then I could.
The next moment, another figure came into view. It was a man this time, large, lumbering. He came running into the light after the woman. His steps were crooked and unsteady. He shouted in a slurred voice, “Come back here!” He shouted again-a foul word-and then his voice dropped into a mutter of curses.
I hoped he would turn around, go away. But he didn’t. As I stood there watching him, he hurried after the woman, stumbling headlong out of the lamplight, into the dark.
I couldn’t see either of them. Maybe she had gotten away. But now I heard her cry out again, and his rough voice answered her in a triumphant, guttural growl. He had her.
I hesitated another second. A fight was sure to bring the police. But what was I going to do? Just stand there and let this woman get attacked? There was no way. Not while I had a chance to stop it.
She cried out again. I started running toward her.
A moment later, I was close enough to see them, even in the deep shadows. They were pressed tight against the brick wall of a warehouse. The man had the woman pinned there, one hand on her throat, the other moving roughly over her body. He was big and thick and powerful and he loomed over her. I could see the whites of his eyes and his bared teeth. I could see her eyes too. I could see the terror in them.
I kept running. I was just going to tackle him and take him down, hold him there until she got away.
But he heard my footsteps. He turned and saw me before I reached him. He kept his one hand on the woman’s throat, but his other went in and out of his pocket. A blade flashed dully as it caught what little light there was. He had a knife.
I pulled up short. He held the woman against the wall. He waved the knife in the air and glared at me through the darkness.
“What?” he said roughly, drunkenly. “What do you want? Huh?”
I was out of breath, my heart thumping, but I tried to keep my voice quiet. “Let her go,” I said.
He looked me up and down. Then he gave a hard laugh. “You want to die tonight, punk? Get outta here.”
The woman made an angry noise. She grabbed at the hand on her throat and tried to pull away. He shoved her back against the wall, throttling her so hard she gagged.
“Hey!” I said. I took a step toward him.
Suddenly, he threw the woman aside-just hurled her away from him so that she stumbled a step, grazed the wall, and toppled to the sidewalk. She lay there, gasping for breath, clutching her throat.
At the same time, the drunk leapt to meet me, slashing at me with the knife. The blade made a vicious diagonal in the air, a stroke meant to cut me open. I was quick enough to dodge back, my arms flying clear, my body bending so that the blade whistled past, missing me by an inch or two.
We faced each other there in the darkness. He waved the knife around threateningly. He grinned. His eyes were bright and gleaming. He was enjoying himself.
He jabbed at me with the knife again. Jabbed and slashed, making me dance backward. He laughed at that. He crooked his hand at me, beckoning.
“What’s the matter, punk?” he said. “You afraid? Come and get it. Come on, come on and I’ll show you what I…”
In the middle of his sentence, I brought my right foot swinging up from the ground in an arc. It’s called a crescent kick. Even though you’re standing in front of a guy, it comes looping around at him from the side. The drunk didn’t see it until it hit him. Then the edge of my foot struck him in the wrist. The impact knocked the knife right out of his hand. The knife hit the brick wall and fell to the sidewalk with a metallic clatter.
The drunk went for the knife, but I was there first. I let the force of my kick carry me forward and brought my foot stomping down on the weapon where it had fallen. At the same time, I grabbed the front of the drunk’s shirt with my right hand and drew my left hand back, ready to strike at his eyes or throat.
All the gleam was gone out of those eyes now, and his snarling laughter was gone too. His mouth was open in surprise and his hands were up in fear, and I could feel him shaking, waiting helplessly for me to strike. Yeah, he was a big man when he was roughing up a woman, when he was pulling a knife on an unarmed man. But he was just a bully-a drunk and a bully and a coward.
I shoved him away from me.
“Get out of here,” I told him.
For another second, he stood there, staring at me with that same frightened look on his face. Then he frowned-a sulky, little-boy frown as if he were being sent to bed without his supper.
“What about my knife?” he said.
I laughed. You have to laugh. People are nuts sometimes. “Go on,” I said. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
Frowning, sulking, he began to edge away from me. Weakly, he muttered, “Punk. Why couldn’t you just mind your own business?”
I didn’t even bother to answer. I stood where I was, my foot on the knife. He kept edging away, edging away. He edged into the light again-the circle of light from the streetlamp.
Then, with a last scowl, he turned and slunk off, out of the light into the darkness, and he was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Crazy Jane I turned around, looking for the woman. She was gone as well. I figured she’d run off while I was dealing with the drunk. So here I was alone on the street again and still with no idea where to go, or what to do next.
I bent down and picked up the knife the drunk had dropped. I looked at it. It was a crummy old thing, a switchblade, good for nothing but stabbing people. I drew back my arm and hurled it into the night. I heard it give a distant chuck as it hit the gravel on the train tracks.
I started walking again along the line of warehouses. I got about ten steps before a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed my arm.
I turned. It was the woman, the woman who’d been attacked. She was hiding in a recessed doorway. As she took hold of me, she stepped out, peering up at me intently.
I looked down at her. She was small. Her torn gray overcoat dwarfed her. She had a large, round face with a strangely innocent, even childlike expression. Her cheeks and forehead were covered in grime and red sores. Her brown hair was so filthy it was matted into dreadlocks. She was so dirty I couldn’t tell how old she was-not very old, I thought, maybe thirty or something. She had large, almond-shaped green eyes that moved over me quickly and nervously.
Her voice was a low murmur. “I know you,” she said. She said it dreamily, in this kind of distant, eerie tone.
I felt my arm go tense in her hand. “Oh yeah?”
She nodded, a quick, squirrel-like motion. Then, glancing this way and that, she said, “Come with me.”
She took me to the corner and down a street, then to another corner and down another street. The whole time she was talking to herself-or maybe she was talking to me, I couldn’t be sure. She was talking very fast in that dreamy, low murmur, saying stuff like, “Jane knows… they sent the knife-man to keep her quiet… about the impulses… they’re electric, you understand… mind control… but they can’t get Jane…” She kept hold of my arm, moving along beside me with small, swift steps. She kept her eyes moving, too, scanning this way and that. Once, suddenly, she drew me into the alcove of a warehouse bay and we hid there. “They’re coming. They’re coming. Jane knows… ” she murmured. I figured she was crazy. There was nothing to hide from. I didn’t hear or see anything to be afraid of, anyway. But the woman said again: “They’re coming. Jane knows.” And it turned out she was right: a few moments later, some hulking thugs went by, a small gang of them. We waited in the alcove till they were gone.
We walked on, Jane holding my elbow, murmuring the whole way. Finally, we came to an old brick apartment building, its walls practically black with graffiti. Some of the windows were broken, but there were lights on in some of the others. I caught glimpses of shadows moving inside, so I knew the place wasn’t deserted.