The male voice snapped Manny’s head around to the window . . . where he stared into the barrel of a gun.
“You heard me, man. Out the car or I’ll shoot you.”
As Manny moved Payne back into her seat and away from point-blank range, he said softly to her, “When I get out, lock the doors. It’s right here.”
He moved his hand over to the dash and tapped the button.
“Just let me handle this.” He had about four hundred dollars in cash in his wallet and plenty of credit cards. “Stay inside.”
“Manuel—”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond—as far as he was concerned, that gun held all the answers and made all the rules.
Snagging his wallet, he was slow in opening the door, but quick about his up and out—and when he shut Payne in, he waited to hear the locks go down.
And waited.
Desperate to hear the punching sound of Payne getting as safe as she could, he only half heard the guy in the ski mask bark, “Your wallet. And tell the bitch to get out the car.”
“There’s four hundred—”
The wallet disappeared. “Tell her to get out or she comes with me. And the watch. I want the watch.”
Manny glanced over to the building. There were windows everywhere, and surely that guard had to take a wander to check shit out from time to time.
Maybe if he went slow with the handover—
That gun muzzle pushed right up into his face. “Watch. Now.”
It wasn’t his good one—he didn’t operate with his Piaget on, for chrissakes. But whatever—asshole could have the fucking thing. Plus, as he feigned hands that shook, he figured it would eat up—
Hard to say what happened in what order.
In retrospect, he knew that Payne had to have opened her door first. But it seemed like the instant he heard the horrific sound of the passenger side getting cracked, she was behind the robber.
And another bizarre thing was that it wasn’t until Manny cursed that the bastard seemed to realize a third party had entered the scenario. Except that couldn’t be true—he would have seen her coming around the car, right?
Whatever—however it all went down, Ski Mask ended up leaping to the left and going back and forth with the weapon between Payne and Manny.
That tennis match thing wasn’t going to last. With god-awful logic, Manny knew the guy was going to zero in on Payne because she was the weaker of the—
Next time the gun muzzle swung back in her direction, Payne . . . disappeared. And not as in ducked or dodged or took off at a dead run. She was there, taking up space one moment—and gone the next.
She reappeared a split second later, and caught the man’s wrist as he went to put the gun back in Manny’s face. The disarming was just as fast: One, she twisted the weapon away; two, she snapped it out of the SOB’s hold; three, she tossed it at Manny, who caught the thing.
And then it was beat-down time.
Payne spun the guy around, grabbed the back of his head, and pounded him face-first into the Porsche’s hood. After she polished the paint job a little with his piehole, she repositioned him and got a grip on the SOB’s baggy-ass jeans. Hefting him up by the hair and what was either his waistband or his rectum, she hauled him back and threw him . . . about ten yards.
Superman didn’t fly half as well—and the robber ended up knocking on the side of the horse-pital with his forehead. The building didn’t have much to say in response, and what do you know, neither did he. He landed facedown in a flower bed, and stayed there, his limbs going dead meat and then some.
No twitching. No moaning. No attempt to get up.
“Are you all right, Manuel?”
Manny slowly turned his head to Payne. She wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Jesus . . . Christ . . .” he whispered.