His torturers hadn’t gotten to his upper body like they had his legs, so every curve remained as it should be above the thighs. From the thighs down Sam was the work of plastic surgeons.

The sound of loud, annoying voices came from behind him. Sam pretty much stayed out of other people’s trouble, but he turned to look, more curious than anything else. Seemed that an ugly sounding man was giving the coffee girl a hard time.

“You made a deal,” he was saying in a raised voice. “I need the money and I need it now.”

“I don’t owe you nothing,” she said.

Obviously they were discussing more than the price of the coffee. The guy was big, a black man who looked like a noseguard, and not friendly. Sam decided that his beard must have stood for something other than tolerance. The fellow had a friend who didn’t look much better than a sheep turd. Long rastafarian hair glued with mud.

“I want what I bargained for,” the black man said through gritted teeth.

“You never said you wanted that. I was selling a stereo. That’s it.”

“That was no thousand-dollar stereo and you understood my meaning.”

Sam figured that people took a long time to build character and usually they didn’t change overnight. Sherry the coffee girl was solid and fair, good hearted--she’d feed a stray cat and pay respect to those that didn’t deserve much. Sam had seen that and he knew what the woman was about. She hadn’t gotten that way overnight and would not behave unreasonably greedy with the stereo or money or anything else. What this man apparently wanted, Sherry would never have knowingly sold.

Sam had walked up to within three feet. The big fellow had a two-inch slab of belly fat that was probably undergirded by a fair portion of muscle. The arms were big and the man had obviously lifted. Maybe prison. From the shoes and the pants it was obvious the man came from the city. Maybe Seattle.

His fingers reached out to grab Sherry’s upper arm.
Sam moved quickly and in a second or two his fingers were buried at the base of the man’s neck, to the brachial nerve, just as he’d practiced a thousand times and done more times than he cared to remember.

“Jeeeeeeezzz,” the man screamed.

“It’s a big nerve,” Sam said. “It wouldn’t hurt if you’d quit with the girl.”

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