“In about ten seconds,” he said, “I’m going to throw you out of this room so hard you’ll bounce.”
He got to his feet, walked across to the door, unbolted it, opened it, jerked with his thumb, and said, “Out.”
I got up and picked my place, a place where I could make a nice pivot, throw his right arm over my shoulder, hear down as I twisted, and send him hurtling over my head.
He walked over to me, very casually.
I waited for him to move that right arm.
It didn’t come up the way I’d been practicing with Hashita. It came around from the side. It caught me by the coat collar. His other hand caught me around the hip pockets. I tried to brace myself, and might as well have tried to push a freight train off the track. I went out of that room so fast I could hear the doorjamb whiz as it went by. I threw up my hands to break the force of the impact against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor. I grabbed the edge of the glass mail chute beside the elevator. He tore my grip loose, pivoted, and sent me down the hall at the same time he brought up his left foot.
I know now just how a football feels when a player kicks a place goal.
What with the momentum of the bum’s rush and the force of the kick, I went sailing down the hall for twenty feet before I came down flat on the floor.
I heard him go back, close and lock the door. I limped on down the corridor and around a bend, looking for the stairs, made up my mind I’d picked the wrong end of the hallway, and started back.
I was still twenty feet from the “L” when I heard three shots. A second or two later I heard running steps in the corridor going in the other direction.