O'Farrell's Law Read Online Free PDF Page B

pressure points that he’d been trained so well how to use—but only in extreme emergency, because the absolutely essential rule was always to avoid possible recognition by an intended victim—reeled off in his mind until O’Farrell consciously stopped the reflection. It was prohibited for him to become involved in any sort of dispute or altercation, to attract the slightest attention, official or otherwise.
    â€œWhy doesn’t someone do something!” Jill demanded, beside him. “Look at her, poor woman!”
    â€œSomeone will have sent for security,” O’Farrell said, and as he spoke two uniformed guards came into the room and began herding the group away, ignoring their protests.
    Jill shuddered and said, “That was awful!”
    â€œEmbarrassing, that’s all,” O’Farrell said. “They were drunk.”
    â€œI didn’t like it.” Jill shuddered again.
    It wasn’t being a very successful day, O’Farrell thought. He said, “Do you want another drink?”
    â€œNo,” she said, at once. “Surely you don’t, either?”
    â€œNo,” said O’Farrell. There would easily have been time. “We might as well go, then.”
    They emerged from the hotel through the main Pennsylvania Avenue exit and immediately saw the group continuing their argument. The crying woman was still weeping and her hair was disarrayed. The other woman was trying to pull her male companion away and he was making weak protests, clearly anxious to get out of the situation, but not wanting to be seen to do so. As O’Farrell and his wife looked, the man who appeared to be at the center of the dispute lashed out; the disheveled woman somehow didn’t see the movement and the open-handed blow caught her fully in the side of the face, sending her first against the hotel wall and then sprawling across the sidewalk. When she tried to get up, he hit her again, keeping her down. Neither of the other two men attempted to intrude. One allowed his companion to pull him away, and the other, the one who had made an effort in the bar, visibly shrugged off responsibility.
    â€œDo something!” Jill insisted. “Somebody do something! He’s going to hit her again.”
    The man did, and this time the woman stayed down. Distantly O’Farrell thought he heard the wail of a police siren. He took Jill’s arm, forcibly leading her back into the hotel toward the long corridor that bisected the building to F Street.
    â€œWe can’t walk away!” Jill said. “She could be hurt.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” O’Farrell said. “It’s all being taken care of.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about!”
    â€œDidn’t you hear the sirens?” She’d expected him to intervene, he knew. And was disappointed that he hadn’t.
    â€œNo!”
    â€œI did. They’re coming.”
    On the pavement outside, on F Street, Jill stopped, head to one side. “I still don’t hear anything.”
    â€œThey’ll have gotten there by now: police, ambulance, everyone.” O’Farrell wondered why he was shaking, and why his hands were wet, as well. Jill would think him weak, a runaway coward.
    â€œHe could have killed her.”
    â€œNo,” O’Farrell said.
    â€œHow do you know?”
    How do I know! Because I’m an acknowledged and recognized expert, O’Farrell thought: that’s what I do! He said, “It was one of those lovers’ things, matrimonial. An hour from now they’ll be in the sack, making up.”
    â€œCan you imagine anyone capable of hurting another human being like that!”
    â€œNo,” O’Farrell said again, more easily now because he’d learned to field questions like that. “I can’t imagine it.”
    The show was at the National Theater so they cut down 14th Street, pausing at the Marriott comer to look back along the opposite