Rescue

longways as I stood to face Jay and his friends. The rest of the patrons, getting the general drift of the situation, rose from their tables and moved toward the bar.
    Jay said, “Gonna be a little different this time, fucker,“ and came forward, each friend circling so they’d have me from three directions. Nobody showing knives or worse yet.
    I waited till Jay was ten feet away and the two flanking friends were twelve or so to either side of me. Then, holding the rolled-up paper like a riot baton, I went forward quickly at Jay, feinting first to his face, then driving the butt end of the paper between his stomach and breastbone. There was a loud whoosh of foul air from his mouth as he doubled over.
    The husky guy got to me first, and I drove the top end of the paper into his face, maybe breaking his nose, then kicked him in the shins. I jumped back toward Dawna, the blade of a buck knife in the fat guy’s right hand slashing through open air where my chest had been. I tripped him, the momentum carrying him into the husky guy, both of them now on the floor near where Jay was vomiting.
    As the fat guy tried to get up, I dropped the paper and straddled his back, grabbing his hair with my left hand and pulling upward hard. He cried out and struggled to get the blade to what was hurting him. I caught his right wrist in my right hand and twisted it till he dropped the knife, then brought the edge of my hand down hard on the muscles between his neck and right shoulder, causing him to slump. By this time, Jay was scrabbling toward the knife, and I stepped on his hand, hard enough to make him scream about it. When I turned back to the husky guy, he was still on the floor, one hand to his bloody nose and the other up in Roberto Duran’s no más pose.
    I was picking up the knife just as two deputies in gray shirts and dark green pants but no headgear came through the patio doorway. One was Billups, the deputy providing security at the Wyeths’ tent meeting. The other was a slim black male, who was about to draw his sidearm, some kind of nine millimeter.
    I dropped the knife. “Glad to see you.“
    Billups took two seconds to survey the scene. “Who started this?“
    Without hesitation, Dawna Adair pointed to me and said, “He did.“
    I looked at her. “Thank you a lot.“

18

    D eputy Billups’s last name was on the brass tag over his right breast, a five-cornered star over his left. Billups recited my rights, handcuffing my wrists back-to-back just above the tailbone. After checking my pockets and finding the car keys, he tossed them to the black deputy, whose nametag read SHERMAN. Then Billups took me outside Pedro’s as the scattered patrons returned to their breakfasts.
    I said, “It was self-defense. The other witnesses will back me on that.“
    “Deputy Sherman’ll be taking their statements.“
    There were two white cruisers with the Sheriff’s Office green over gold racing stripes along their sides, red and blue bubble fights on the roof. One was a Ford Crown Victoria, the other a Chevrolet Caprice. Billups marched me over to the Caprice, easing my head past the doorframe as he put me in the backseat. The hot air was stifling, the conditioning not reaching past the taxicab Plexiglas shield to the front. Sitting awkwardly, I could see a side-handled billy club, an elaborate radio, and a pump shotgun mounted barrel-up on the passenger’s side of the radio.
    Billups got into the vehicle, skimming a black mesh ball cap across the seat. After starting the engine, he keyed the mike, speaking in normal English instead of radio code to “Dispatch“ about bringing me into the “Station.“ We drove out the dirt road, Billups taking it easy on the ruts and shock absorbers.
    On Route 1, he drove steadily, no siren or lights, to a building I hadn’t noticed Thursday on my scouting trip. At the road edge of the parking area, there was a sign hanging from a pipe frame that displayed the sheriff’s name over MONROE COUNTY . The station itself was a one-story fortress, a public version of the Church’s office building, even down to the nice flowering shrubs.
    Billups brought me through a glass door toward a counter area with a small plaque saying DISTRICT VI—MERCY STA TION. Beyond the counter were SAY NO TO DRUGS posters and women in civilian clothes staffing desks. We turned left past a framed POLICE OFFICER’S PRAYER into a short corridor with detention cells maybe eight feet wide and ten feet deep. He