So, timing was crucial.
Bessie strode toward him, like a ragged pirate galleon under full sail. Her heels clicked through the threadbare carpet and her hands were massaging her breasts, giving what she imagined was a tantalizing smile at Ryan.
“Let’s go, lover,” she purred.
When she was close enough, Ryan hit her once, a short stabbing punch that traveled no more than eleven inches. His fist buried itself in her stomach, just above the belt, sinking deep into the soft flesh. He twisted his wrist at the last moment to give extra impetus.
Bessie doubled over, her face purpling, and began to retch, hands clasping herself where she’d been struck. She drew in a gasping breath, unable to make a sound, winded by the savage punch. As she bent, Ryan brought his hands together and hit her on the back of the neck, harder than a mesquite war club, sending her unconscious to the floor of the room.
Trader was less successful with Cissie. The older, larger woman had been watching him with her cold, dead fish’s eyes, and she saw the attack coming.
And got her retaliation in first.
She kicked at Trader, catching him a glancing blow on the shin with the chisel toe of her boot that made him whoop in pain. He hopped clumsily out of her way, nearly falling over the end of the broken bed.
“Help, murder!” she screamed. “Help!”
She turned toward Ryan and saw her sister lying on the carpet at his feet.
As Ryan dropped into a bar fighter’s crouch, he felt a hand grip at his ankle, making him realize with a shock that Bessie Torrance had greater powers of recuperation than he would have imagined possible.
“Break him, sisty,” she said in a sighing, choked little voice.
Like Ryan had figured, it wasn’t easy.
And it had gone very wrong.
J.B. HAD MADE HIS WAY around the back of the ville, seeing how far he could go before reaching the point where the old hotel was toppling into the limitless canyon on his right. The first floor seemed to be totally unoccupied, but a few lights blazed on the top floor. One of them came from a room whose balcony was hanging so far over the black velvet abyss that it looked like a tug on a spiderweb would bring it down.
The Armorer froze in the shadows as he heard a woman’s voice shriek out, just above him.
“Help, murder! Help!”
And, a moment or two later, Ryan, sounding strained and tense, shouted, “Come on, Trader! Now!”
After a moment’s hesitation, glancing up to see if there was any possible way he could climb into the ville, J.B. spun on his heel and started to run back toward the garage, abandoning any pretense at secrecy.
RYAN STOMPED on Bessie’s wrist, feeling bones snap crisply under his heel. By the time her yelp of pain had burst from her throat, he was already half-turned, kicking at her a second brutal time. He used the steel toe of the boot, feeling it thud under the angle of her fleshy jaw. There was the familiar click of displaced bone and her head flopped back at a weird, unnatural angle.
Trader was up once again, responding to Ryan’s shout, grappling with the older sister, trying to get a grip on her enormously fat, sweat-slick wrists. But Cissie was far stronger than he had suspected, and she was still slapping hysterically at him. They were great, round-arm blows that rang off the side of his head, making him sway on his feet.
She had stopped screaming, putting all her energy into fighting. Outside, the group of sec men was still hesitating before entering, obviously terrified of upsetting the little sisters. One of the guards was shouting to the women, asking if they needed help or not.
Trader tried to knee Cissie in the groin, but her thighs were so fat that it was like kicking a soft cushion. Ryan picked up one of the brass oil lamps and smashed it over her head from behind. Colored glass shattered, cutting her on the side of the face, and the pungent oil ran all over her shoulders, soaking into the torn chiffon blouse.