His voice was drowned out by the music, but Kitty did not hesitate. Her eyes widened a bit—fear maybe?—and then she spun. She ran for the door. Myron tried to get up fast, but the cushion-sucking sofa slowed him down. By the time he got to his feet, Kitty Bolitar—Myron’s sister-in-law, the woman who had taken away so much from him—was out the door.

5

Myron ran after her.

As he reached the VIP lounge exit, here was the image that flashed across his brain: Myron age eleven, his brother, Brad, age six with the crazy curly hair, in the bedroom they shared, playing Nerf basketball. The backboard was flimsy cardboard, the ball basically a round sponge. The rim was attached to the top of the closet door by two orange suction cups you had to lick to make stick. The two brothers played for hours, inventing teams and giving themselves nicknames and personas. There was Shooting Sam and Jumping Jim and Leaping Lenny, and Myron, being the older brother, would control the action, making up a fake universe with good-guy players and bad-guy players and high drama and close games with buzzer beaters. But most of the time, in the end, he let Brad win. At night, when they got into their bunk beds—Myron on top, Brad beneath him—they would recap the games in the dark like TV sportscasters doing postgame analysis.

The memory cleaved his heart anew.

Esperanza spotted him sprinting. “What?”

“Kitty.”

“What?”

No time to explain. He hit the door and pushed through it. He was back in the club now with the deafening music. The old man in him wondered who enjoyed socializing when you could not hear anyone speak. But really, now, his thoughts were totally focused on reaching Kitty.

Myron was tall, six-four, and standing on his toes, he could look over most of the crowd. No sign of the Maybe-Kitty. What had she been wearing? Turquoise top. He looked for flashes of turquoise.

There. Her back to him. Heading toward the club exit.

Myron had to move. He shouted excuse-me’s as he tried to swim through the bodies, but there were too many of them. The strobe lights and quasi-laser show weren’t helping either. Kitty. What the hell was Kitty doing here? Years ago, Kitty had been a tennis wunderkind too, training with Suzze. That was how they first met. It could be that the two old friends were back in touch, of course, but did that really answer why Kitty was here, in this club, without his brother, tonight?

Or was Brad here too?

He started moving faster. He tried not to knock into anyone, but of course that was impossible. There were dirty looks and cries of “Hey!” or “Where’s the fire?” but Myron ignored them, pressed on, the whole exercise beginning to take on a dream quality, one of those where you’re running and not going anywhere, where your feet are suddenly heavy or you’re trudging through deep snow.

“Ouch!” a girl shrieked. “Dumbass, you stepped on my toe!”

“Sorry,” Myron said, still trying to get through.

A big hand landed on Myron’s shoulder and spun him around. Someone pushed him hard from behind, nearly knocking him off his feet. Myron got his balance and faced what might have been an open audition for Jersey Shore: The Ten-Year Reunion show. There was a blend of hair mousse and faux tans and plucked eyebrows and waxed chests and poser muscles. They had the tough-guy sneers, a strange look on those who primp and manscape to within an inch of their lives. Punching them in the face would hurt; messing up their hair would hurt even more.

There were four or five or maybe six of them—they tended to blur together into a mass of slippery unpleasantness and overbearing Axe cologne—and they were excited about the possibility of proving what men they were in defending the honor of some girl’s toe.

Still Myron was nothing if not diplomatic. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “But this is an emergency.”

One douchebag said, “Whoa, where’s the fire? You see a fire here, Vinny?”

Vinny: “Yeah, where’s the fire? Because I don’t see one. You see one, Slap?”

Before Slap could speak, Myron said, “Yeah, I get it. No fire. Look, again, I’m really sorry, but I’m in big hurry.”

Still Slap had to get involved: “Nope, I don’t see no fire either.”

No time for this. Myron started to move—damn, no sign of Kitty—but the men closed ranks. Douchebag, with his hand still on Myron’s shoulder, went for the vise grip. “Say you’re sorry to Sandra.”

“Uh, what part of ‘I’m really sorry’ confused you?”

“To Sandra,” he said again.

Myron turned to the girl who, judging by her dress and the company she kept, never got enough attention from her daddy. He shook his shoulder to dislodge the annoying hand. “I’m really sorry, Sandra.”

He said this because it was the best course of action. Try to make peace and move on. But Myron knew. He could see it in the red in their faces, the wet in their eyes. The hormones were engaged now. So as he turned back toward the guy who’d first pushed him, Myron was not surprised to see a fist heading toward his face.

Fights normally last mere seconds—and those seconds are chockfull of three things: confusion, chaos, and panic. So when people see a fist heading toward them, they naturally overreact. They try to duck all the way down or fall all the way back. That was a mistake. If you lose your balance or lose sight of your adversary, you end up, of course, in more danger. Good fighters will often throw blows for just this reason—not necessarily to connect but to make the opponent put himself in a more vulnerable position.

So Myron’s move to avoid the blow was a slight one—only a few inches. His right hand was already up. You don’t have to knock the fist away hard with some big karate move. You just need to divert its course a little. That was what Myron did.

Myron’s goal here was simple: Put this guy down with a minimum of fuss or injury. Myron redirected the traveling fist and then, with the same hand already up, he put his index and middle finger together and snapped a dart blow right at the soft hollow of his attacker’s throat. The blow landed flush. Jerzie Boy made a gurgling sound. Both his hands instinctively flew to his throat, leaving him totally exposed. In a normal fight, if there was such a thing, this was where Myron would put him down for good. But that wasn’t what he wanted here. He wanted to get away.

So even before Myron could gauge his next shot, he started past the guy, trying to move swiftly away from the scene. But all avenues of escape were blocked now. The patrons at the crowded club had moved in closer, drawn by the smell of a fight and the base desire to see a fellow human being hurt or maimed.