He ducked. Swoosh! Crack! Gulliver had had a baseball bat swung at his head before, so he knew the feeling. He felt the rush of air over his head and heard the aluminum smack against the brick of his building. Without thinking, he placed his right palm flat on the pavement. Anchored, he thrust out his left leg and connected. The kick didn’t hit his attacker’s knee flush, but it was enough to throw off his second swing of the bat. Gulliver heard the man stumble backward and moan in pain. Sometimes that was all it took. You got your opponent off-balance. You made him miss a few times, and he retreated. Not this time. Before Gulliver could right himself, his attacker was coming back at him for a third swing. He saw the metal flash. Instead of ducking, he sidestepped it. Strike three! As he sidestepped, he reached under his jacket and unholstered his SIG. Though Gulliver already had a bullet in the chamber, he racked the slide of his semiautomatic. While the racking of the slide wasn’t as effective as the cha-ching of a pump-action shotgun, it did tend to get people’s attention.
