The glue would take a few seconds to harden, so she snapped several pictures with the phone in multiple angles and orientations. Feo was in no hurry to finish. He was eating it up.
By the count of ten, Raven knew the glue had hardened and she suddenly flinched as if he’d pinched her. She slapped him and started yelling in English.
“Hey! This guy just groped me!”
She turned and waved frantically to the police officers.
As she expected, Feo started cursing back at her and getting in her face. He wasn’t going to take a hit from some disrespectful girl without fighting back.
She reared back again, but slowly enough so that he could grab her forearm.
Exactly as she wanted him to.
She rotated her body and clasped his wrist so that his arm bent at an awkward angle. Feo let out a yelp of pain. Raven used his body weight against him to flip him over and slam him to the ground facedown. The pistol was now fully exposed because his shirt was pulled over his head.
She backed away and screamed, “Ele tem uma arma!” She’d memorized the phrase.
He’s got a gun!
The police officers saw the pistol and rushed over as they drew their weapons.
There had been a small chance that Feo would have opted for a shoot-out instead of risking a stay in a Brazilian prison. That’s why she had glued the hammer down. Even if he had tried to fire it, nothing would have happened. He would have gone down in a hail of bullets, and neither of the police off
icers would have been injured.
But that would have been messy. This way was a lot tidier.
One of the policemen put his boot on Feo’s back while the other removed the weapon, before handcuffing him. They lifted him to his feet while he spewed rapid-fire, angry Spanish. Raven couldn’t understand it, but she bet it consisted of a few choice words about her.
She put on a scared look and tried to make some tears flow. She couldn’t squeeze any out, but the officers got the picture. One of them even tried to console her. He said some kind words in Portuguese and then nodded for her to go.
As they led a still-fiery Feo away so the disturbance wouldn’t attract onlookers during the halftime festivities, she turned and went back to her spot across from the men’s room.
“First guy is out of the picture,” she said over the comm system to Linc, who was just going inside the restroom.
“I saw,” he replied. “Nice job. If it weren’t for that sweet judo move, I would have thought you were the prototypical damsel in distress.”
“It was easy. Men are suckers.”
“Present company excepted?”
“I stand by my statement.”
“I’ll try not to let that hurt my feelings,” Linc said with a laugh.
“Maybe I should teach a seminar on the Oregon someday about how not to be one,” Raven said.
“I’ll be in the first row.”
That got a split-second grin from her, but it disappeared when people started streaming out of the stands. She checked the monitors, and they showed players heading toward the locker room for halftime.
A minute later, she saw López and his companion head into the men’s room.
Raven said to Linc, “Your turn.”
14
Linc pretended to use one of the urinals and kept his eye on the entrance. The modern bathroom, remodeled for the Olympics, was filling with drunk spectators rushing to make room for their next beer.