"I weigh one-sixty-five, on a good day," she answered.
"On a good day," Chenko repeated, watching her put on the shoes.
"Maybe one-seventy-five today," Emma said.
"You're a little out of Jack's weight class, Emma," Chenko said.
"I'll start with you," Emma told Chenko. "You look big enough."
"Well--" Chenko started to say, but Emma was out on the mat; she was already circling him.
"I suppose you should start by telling me the rules," Emma said. "If there are any rules, I guess I should know them."
"There are some rules, not many," Chenko began. "You can't poke your opponent in the eyes."
"That's too bad," Emma said.
Chenko started with a little hand fighting--just grabbing Emma's wrists and controlling her hands--but she got the idea and peeled his fingers off her wrists, grabbing his hands and wrists instead. "That's the way," Chenko said. "You seem to have a feeling for hand control. You just have to remember to grab a whole fistful of fingers at a time, at least three or four. No grabbing a thumb or a pinkie by itself and bending it."
"Why not?" Emma asked.
"You can break someone's finger that way," Chenko told her. "It's illegal. You have to grab a bunch of fingers."
"There's no biting, I suppose," Emma said. (She sounded disappointed.)
"No, of course not!" Chenko said. "And no pulling hair, no grasping clothes. And no choke holds," Chenko added.
"Show me a choke hold," Emma said.
He put her in a front headlock, jerking her head down and holding the back of her neck against his chest with his forearm across her throat. "This is an illegal headlock," Chenko explained, "because I don't have your arm, too." He incorporated one of Emma's arms in the headlock; this kept Chenko's forearm off her throat. "You headlock someone, you have to take his arm, too. You can't wrap your arm around someone's neck and just choke him."
"That's too bad," Emma repeated.
Chenko showed her a proper stance and a pretty basic knee-pick. He showed her an underhook and a double-underhook, and how you get from a collar tie-up into a front headlock. "With the arm," Chenko made a point of repeating. He showed Emma a lateral drop; he even let her do a lateral drop on him. (Jack could tell that Chenko landed a little harder than he expected, with all of Emma's weight on him.) "You've got good--" Chenko started to say; then he stopped. He was pointing at the middle of her body.
"Hips?" Emma said.
"Good hips, yes," Chenko said. "Your hips are the strongest part of your body."
"I always thought so," Emma replied.
They were down on the mat--Chenko was showing Emma an arm-bar--when Jack noticed that Mrs. Machado had come out on the mat in her workout gear. She was just stretching, but he could tell she had her eye on Emma. "Who ees the beeg girl, dahleen?" Mrs. Machado asked him.
Jack was as tongue-tied as he was in any dream; he couldn't speak. Emma was still rolling around on the mat with Chenko. "Mrs. Machado is molesting Jack," Emma told the Ukrainian. "She made his little penis sore." Chenko had rolled into a sitting position; he was staring at Jack and Mrs. Machado. Emma was already on her feet and walking toward them.
"Jack, did you tell thees beeg girl our secret?" Mrs. Machado asked.
It was no contest, Chenko would tell Boris and Pavel later. Emma poked Mrs. Machado in the eyes, in both her eyes. Mrs. Machado cried out in pain and covered her face with her hands. Emma grabbed the pinkie on Mrs. Machado's right hand and bent it back, breaking it. The finger stood up at a right angle from the back of her hand. Mrs. Machado screamed as if she'd been stabbed.
Emma slapped a collar tie-up on Mrs. Machado and snapped her neck forward, putting her into an illegal front headlock--without the arm. Emma dropped her weight on the back of Mrs. Machado's head; with Emma's forearm across her throat, Mrs. Machado couldn't breathe.
Jack realized only then that Krung was there. The former Mr. Bangkok may have noticed the wrestling because Emma and Mrs. Machado had rolled off the mat, but Emma hadn't let up with her choke hold. Mrs. Machado couldn't breathe but her legs were still thrashing.
"Who's the new girl?" Krung asked Chenko.
"She's a fast learner, isn't she?" Chenko said. Emma had hit three illegal moves in under ten seconds; it was hard to imagine a faster learner. No wonder she wanted to know the rules!
"Aren't you going to stop it?" Krung asked the Ukrainian.