17

Bradley sat cross-legged on the floor of the Whittier Explorer Academy weaponless defense gym and listened to the training sergeant explain the wrist break. He watched the demonstration without paying attention to it, imagining instead Erin last night onstage at the Whiskey and later in their bedroom.

“Daydreaming, Jones?”

“Absolutely not, sir.”

“Then get up here and show us what you’ve learned.”

The other Explorer sat down and Bradley took his place, bowing slightly to the instructor, then waiting relaxed. The gym was well lit and the floor was padded and there were speed and heavy bags along two walls, and body-size attack targets and huge medicine balls along another.

“Grab my wrist,” said the instructor, whose name was Grgich. He was stout and short-limbed, midforties to Bradley’s eye.

When Bradley took his wrist, Grgich did a slow-motion twist-grab-turn and easily moved Bradley around and down to one knee. Bradley tapped out and Grgich waited a moment, then let go.

“Again,” he said. “Half speed.”

Again Bradley was forced to one knee, but when he tapped out, Grgich waited, keeping the pain up. Bradley was a second-dan black belt in hapkido, and the last time he’d used the art, he had badly broken two men. Again, Grgich wrenched him around and down and held him past the tap.

“Your turn.”

Bradley rose and felt the heat of the pain in his face. One of the other Explorer trainees was a pretty young woman, and Bradley caught the worry in her expression.

“Your app said you have some experience at this,” said the instructor. “But I’m here to tell you that on the street, everything changes. Whatever you think you know, forget it now.”

“Right.”

“You bet it’s right.”

Grgich took Bradley’s wrist, and Bradley did the twist and grip, but the man used his strength to break it and with his other hand he spun Bradley and bent his arm sharply behind him and forced him to the mat. Bradley tapped out and Grgich held fast, then let go and backed away.

“Don’t go easy,” he said.

Bradley righted himself and took a deep breath. Again, Grgich clamped down on his wrist. Bradley faded very slightly to draw Grgich off balance and to judge his strength. Then he kihaped loudly, as Master Paulson had taught him, the kihap having several purposes-an exhale that focuses energy, a battle cry, and a summons of focus and power. Bradley’s twist and grip came as fast as a gunshot. He turned the heavy man’s weight against him and drew back on his arm and eased him to his knee upon the mat. Grgich didn’t tap out, but Bradley released him and stepped away.

“That was good,” huffed Grgich. “Again.”

“There’s no reason to do it again.”

“This is training and you are the trainee. Again.”

Grgich gripped his wrist, and Bradley felt the ungoverned strength of the man. He kihaped and locked the instructor’s wrist in his hand and twisted up the arm and turned him. But he felt the continuance of Grgich’s rotation and he felt him lower and pivot fast so that the instructor was facing him again, their wrists still locked, Grgich off balance, leaning in. Bradley’s instinct told him to turn and throw his enemy, but his desire to succeed as an Explorer overrode it and instead he allowed Grgich to throw him over his back to the mat.

Bradley rolled once and bounced to his feet and continued to bounce like a boxer waiting for the bell. He thought of Erin and this kept him from attacking.

Grgich stood panting, face flushed, hands up in a fighting stance. Then he let them down.

“Next.”

After the weaponless defense class, Grgich approached Bradley at the water dispenser.

“I was there when you met Coleman Draper. At the recruiting booth.”

“I remember.”

“When I saw your name on the trainee roster, I was surprised. I didn’t think a little shit dribble like you could make Explorer.”

“I’ll make Explorer.”

“I can’t believe they let you in.”

“They let you in.”

“You and Draper hit it off?”

“We had beers and that was it.”

“I’ll be watching you, Jones.”

Bradley dropped the paper cup into the trash and headed off for the firearms safety class.

The pretty trainee sat down next to him and introduced herself as Caroline Vega. Her handshake was firm. She was dark-haired and brown-eyed, and even in the unflattering Explorer uniform, she appeared to be built with strength and good form. She had had no trouble learning the wrist break. They watched the handgun demonstration, then shotguns, rifles, and pepper spray. Bradley day-dreamed about Erin. He felt a strong physical desire to be near enough to smell and hear and see her. The first time she had looked at him, Bradley felt like he had walked into a beautiful room. Three years now. They were children then. Erin was the only goodness in the world that interested him now that his mother was gone. He had large appetites for pleasure and for beautiful things, but what he wanted most was to be near Erin and to see her. Nothing else mattered that much. Bradley was not an introspective man, but it amused him to know that only one person on earth owned his heart and that if she were to leave him or vanish or die, he would become nothing more than a scourge upon the land.

“Why are you doing this?” asked Caroline. It was break time and they stood in the shade of an olive tree in a campus quadrangle.

“It might be a decent job someday. You?”

“I want a place to start. Base camp.”

“So you can what, boldly go where no woman has gone before, explore strange new worlds?”

She laughed, but Bradley could tell she felt belittled, which is what he had intended.

“I guess.”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “You meant there’s more to life than a cotton-poly uniform blouse and ten-hour shifts.”

She looked at him with a skeptical lift of an eyebrow. “I’m going to burn through L.A. one way or another. This is just the beginning. There’s money and pleasure and a thousand ways to get them. That’s what I’m doing here, looking for a way. And you want to know something else, Bradley Jones? I know you. I know who you are. Allison Murrieta had it right. And you’re doing the same thing here that I am. Good luck, hombre. By the way, I liked you better with long hair.”

She started across the quad.

“Wait.”

“I don’t wait,” she said over her shoulder.

He watched her walk back into the classroom. When he took his chair, he saw that she had moved to the back of the class. He turned and found her and nodded and she stared him down. She had scribbled a phone number on the cover of his LASD Explorer class syllabus.

For the rest of the firearms safety class and all the way through criminal law, police procedures, and community relations, he pictured Erin at different moments. He could remember the moments clearly, her clothes and her scent and the way she wore her lovely red hair, and he could rerun a particular smile or expression, and he could hear the sound of her clothes sliding off her skin and the sound of her voice onstage as she sang. And as he remembered these things, Bradley smiled inwardly at his outlandish luck. Thousands of young men had seen her perform, and half of them fell in love with her on sight. Bradley had fallen, at the Whiskey on Sunset, before the first song of her first set was over. On his third straight two-show night, he finally caught her eye and she had looked back wholly at him. He was sixteen with good fake ID and a solid vodka buzz on.

– When you look at me it’s like walking into a beautiful room. I’m Brad Jones.

– That’s a pretty thing to say.

– I’m short on words right now.