Paris is a Bitch

them requires surgery afterward
—and then Delilah was running, and I heard footfalls to my left.
    I turned, slipping my phone back into my pocket. There were two of them, hauling ass to catch Delilah or to help their buddies or both. The one in the lead barely glanced at me as I stepped into the street on an intercept course. As he came abreast of me, sprinting, I rotated my hips and launched my right arm into his path at neck level, catching him full in the throat with the forward edge of my hand. I felt something break in his cricoid cartilage and another crazy thought—
that had to hurt!
—flared and disappeared somewhere in my consciousness. Then his feet were sailing past me and I dropped my weight, guiding the back of his skull into the stone street where it connected with a satisfying crack.
    The second guy pulled up short just a few feet away, his eyes bulging, his circuits obviously jammed with the effort of trying to work through how a simple plan had just gone so incredibly wrong. His right hand went to his front jeans pocket, and before he could access whatever weapon he had there, I spewed a mouthful of wine directly into his face and eyes. He cried out in pain and disgust and stumbled back, his hand still groping at his pocket. I swept in, simultaneously securing his right wrist with my left hand and catching the collar of his leather jacket with my right, spun counterclockwise, and blew his legs out from under him with
harai-goshi,
a classic and powerful judo throw. I used the collar grip to bring his head toward the ground faster than his body, and the back of his cranium crashed into the street like his partner’s with a satisfying and doubtless disabling crack. I released him, stood, and stomped his right hand, turning his metacarpals to mush and thereby rendering his weapon hand useless, maybe permanently so.
    I glanced behind me. The two men Delilah had dropped were still down. I glanced the other way. The truck was quiet. Either it was empty, or whoever was inside didn’t realize what had just happened to his buddies. I strode over to the back door and gave it two brisk raps with my knuckles. “Open up,” I said in French. “There’s been a problem.”
    I heard movement inside, then the door started to swing out. I grabbed the handle and flung the door wide, and the guy who’d been opening it spilled out onto the street with a startled cry. As he came to his knees, I grabbed his hair with both hands and shot a knee into his face, then a second time, and again. By the third shot, his arms had dropped away and I was supporting dead weight. I let go and he slumped to the street, his head smacking the fender of the truck with a theatrical
clang
along the way.
    As I used the hem of my jacket to wipe down the handle I’d grabbed, the driver’s door blew open. I immediately moved counterclockwise around the truck, buying myself time and distance in case whoever it was had a weapon. But then I heard the sound of feet and saw the guy’s back as he turned left on Rue Poulletier, and I realized he was running away. He would have been better off driving, but maybe he’d thought I was the police, or maybe he’d just panicked.
    I went after him. It wasn’t carefully planned, just an impulse, born of cold rage at what would have been happening in that truck if things had gone the way they’d planned. And it wasn’t as though I wanted to stick around the crime scene anyway.
    He headed west on the Quai d’Anjou. I thought he would break right over the Pont Marie, but he didn’t, he just kept going, I suppose thinking he could outlast me. He wasn’t much of a runner, though, and it wasn’t long before his pace was slackening. By the time we had reached Rue Le Regrattier, he was going not much faster than a man who was running late for an appointment, which, other than his loud panting, he might in fact have been. I could have overtaken him there, but wanted a quieter place, somewhere we might have a moment alone.
    On the short riser of stone stairs that led to the Pont Louis-Philippe, he stumbled and collapsed. I circled around him as I approached, watching his hands, making sure they were empty. There were a few people around but not so near as to present a problem.
    “Okay, okay,” he said in French, coming to his feet. He was panting, doubled over, his hands on his knees. “Please. Okay.”
    I looked around again to ensure we were alone, then smacked him in the side of the head—a