Stuart Kaminsky - Vengeance

But it didn’t happen.

A man came out from behind my car. Dwight Handford paused. The man took a few steps toward us. He was built like a wrestler, a short round wrestler. He was almost bald and he looked bored. He wore slacks, a sports jacket and a white shirt with no tie.

“Walk away,” Handford said to the man.

The man in the sports jacket moved closer.

“This is between my wop friend and me,” Handford said. “A matter of filial responsibility. I heard that word on television. You like that word, wop? Filial.”

Handford’s nose was bleeding, badly. He didn’t bother to hold it or try to stop the bleeding.

“I’m Italian too,” said the new man. “And I don’t like people calling me names.”

“Walk,” Handford said between his teeth.

“You walk,” said the man. “You walk or I blow your goddamn head off.”

There was a gun in his hand now.

“Who the hell are you?” Handford asked.

“I’m a man with a fuckin’ big gun in my hand,” the man said. “And if you think I won’t shoot your pissant balls off, take another step toward Fonesca. Or better yet, take one toward me. The way I figure it you got only one way to go and that’s back into the fuckin’ night.”

“You won’t shoot,” Handford repeated, but he didn’t move.

“It would mess things up,” the man said, “but shit, I can make it work. I don’t feel like talking anymore. Get the hell out of here, fix your fuckin’ nose or die. Those are your choices and I’m real bored here.”

Handford looked at me. The look said we were going to meet again. Then Handford looked at the man with the gun. It was the same look.

“Next time I see you,” said Handford, pointing a finger at the man, “you may not have that gun.”

“Hey,” said the man. “If I don’t you’re in real god-damn trouble ’cause I’ll break your neck. Hey, I don’t need a show here. Move out.”

Handford moved back into the bushes. I could hear him rustling away. I watched the darkness for a few seconds and then turned toward the man with the gun. He was gone.

I groaned my way up the steps, used the rusting handrail and made it to my office. I went inside and locked the door behind me. Light came through the window from the DQ and cars on 301. I leaned my back against the door and tested the spot just below the ribs where Handford had punched me. I was reasonably sure nothing was broken or ruptured. It wasn’t that kind of pain.

There was a chance Handford would come back that night. I didn’t think so, but you never know. I didn’t have a gun but I did have a tire iron in my closet. I had rescued it from my Toyota when it died. The tire iron would remain dose to me, and my reasonably sturdy office chair would go under the doorknob. I couldn’t count on my guardian angel in a sports coat to return.

I closed the drapes, turned on the lamp on my desk and looked at the air conditioner in the window. It was humming and doing its best to kick out air. Ames had done something to it, but the air coming in was still almost as warm as the night.

I got the tire iron from the closet, brought it back to my desk, reached for the telephone and the folder Carl Sebastian had given me. It was almost nine. It felt like a washed-out midnight. I made my call. An answering machine kicked in with a male voice repeating the number and politely asking me to leave a message.

“My name is Lew Fonesca. I’m working for Carl Sebastian. I’d like to speak to Caroline Wilkerson. When she-”

“This is Caroline Wilkerson,” she said, picking up the phone.

Her voice was light, cultured.

“I’d like to talk to you about Melanie Sebastian,” I said.

“Are you all right, Mr…?”

“Fonesca,” I said. “Aside from suffering from depression and having recently been punched in the stomach by a very big man, I’m fine.”

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Forgive me. I’m a little under the weather and the moon is full.”

“You have been drinking,” she said with irritation.

“No. I’m sober and I’m looking for Melanie Sebastian. Mr. Sebastian suggested that I talk to you.”

The pause at her end was long. I tried not to gasp from the pain as I waited.

“Cafe Kaldi, tomorrow morning at nine,” she said.

“Sounds fine,” I said, fairly sure that I would be in no condition to work out at the Y.

“And Mr. Fonesca, please leave your sense of humor, if that’s what it is, at home.”

“I’ll do that, Mrs. Wilkerson,” I said.

We hung up.

I thought of Sally Porovsky at her desk brushing back her hair, adjusting her glasses. I didn’t want to think about Sally Porovsky. I had her card. I had her phone number. I thought about calling her and making an excuse and forgetting about seeing her tomorrow for dinner. I pulled the card from my wallet, looked at it, put it down on the desk and knew I was going to go through with it. I made a few notes in my file on Adele. There was a lot to write. I kept it simple.

I watched an old tape of The Prince and the Pauper. The tire iron lay next to my bed. A bottle of Advil kept it company. I wondered what happened to the Mauch twins who starred in the movie. I wondered, but not enough to find out.

I wondered about my guardian angel. Who had sent him to protect me? Why? I heard my grandfather’s mandolin. He was playing “Darktown Strutter’s Ball,” one of his favorites.

When the twins stopped smiling at the end of the movie, I leaned back and fell asleep. One of my recurrent dreams came deep but with a new twist. My wife’s car was driving in the right-hand lane. Night. She was heading home. The water of Lake Michigan off to her left. I was there. Standing in the median strip, watching her come toward me. A pickup truck suddenly appeared, red, fast, hit her hard crushing her car a few feet in front of me. The pickup sped past. The driver was Dwight Handford. He was smiling at me like the Mauch Twins.

Putting on my jeans and a loose-fitting black T-shirt was painful now that the punch to my stomach from Dwight Handford had settled in. I’ve been punched before, usually when I delivered or attempted to deliver a summons to someone who decided that since I was the only one available, he or she would take out their wrath on me.

I had learned that showing a gun wouldn’t stop an infuriated recipient from attack. I had tried the gun bit- using an unloaded weapon-once when it looked as if the large Hispanic man standing in his doorway with the summons I had delivered in his hand was going to do something angry, violent and out of control. He had spat at the gun, taken it from me and tried to shoot me. When it didn’t fire, he threw it at me, hitting me in the face. He had then run into his apartment shouting in Spanish and looking, I was sure, for something lethal-at the very least a large knife. I picked up the gun and ran like hell to my car. Eight stitches later, I vowed never to try the gun bit again.

I pushed the chair out form under the doorknob and, carrying the tire iron at my side, went outside, where I was greeted by a small lizard on the metal railing. He cocked his head in my direction. Nothing new about lizards in Florida. There were usually three or four scuttling along the concrete and the railing. This one seemed to sense that things were a little different this morning. He looked at me, puffed out the sac under his neck, and watched as I made my way down to the rest room, each step a painful reminder of the reality of the previous night.

The rest room could only be opened by a key, or so I had been told. Once in a while, when the weather really got bad, meaning heavy rain, I found a homeless man curled up under the sink. There was no one in there this morning. I laid my tire iron across the sink, shaved, washed, brushed my teeth and looked at my face. I am not formidable. I thought about Sally Porovsky and tried out a smile. It wasn’t hideous, but it wasn’t winning. I’m not ugly. I’ve been called pleasant, plain, interesting. My wife always said I had hidden appeal, Mediterranean hidden appeal.