John Lutz - Spark

“Gonna teach you a real hard lesson,” he growled, in a voice that would have suited a bear roused from hibernation.

Carver jabbed the cane’s tip into his stomach, but didn’t make contact with anything other than blubber.

The huge man almost managed to snatch the cane, then he backed off a few awkward steps on his tree-trunk legs. He was wearing a conservative yellow tie with a tiny blue diamond pattern, the sort sometimes referred to as a “power tie.” It was knotted loosely around his neck and tucked into the top of the overalls. On his feet were boat-size brown wing-tips with the laces untied and dangling for comfort, the leather tongues protruding as if desperate for water. Was this what investment brokers did on off days?

He came at Carver again, in a predictably straight line. Mistake. This time Carver jammed the cane’s tip into his chest just below the sternum, catching bone as well as fat. The big man grunted and his fleshy face twisted in a brief mask of pain. But in an instant pain became cunning. He said, “Tell you, motherfucker, all you’re doin’ is makin’ this rougher on yourself. Rougher’n it motherfuckin’ has to be.” He edged around where he could come at Carver from a different direction.

Carver scooted over into a corner, narrowing the man’s angle of approach.

“Motherfucker,” the big man said, momentarily stymied. Smiling widely, he stood motionless with his fists propped on his hips, his breath a little ragged now. No problem here, his expression suggested. He knew he had Carver on the defensive, so he’d have plenty of time to figure the best way to get to him. It was a puzzle that seemed to amuse him, total offense against a fixed target who’d be an interesting recipient of pain.

But Carver abruptly stepped away from the corner, settling his weight on his good leg as he lashed the cane across the huge man’s forehead. The mountain was slow, all right. His hands had barely lifted off his hips when the solid walnut thunk ed against solid bone. When he did get his hands raised to his bleeding head, Carver jabbed the cane deep into his fleshy stomach, drawing it back quickly before the man could grab it. As the cruel mouth formed an O , and breath and gin-smell hissed out, the big hands instinctively dropped again and Carver took another unsteady step forward and swung the cane like a baseball bat. As it met the wide head he felt the vibration shoot up his arm and almost dropped the cane. The big man stumbled backward, stunned, bleeding heavily now from a gash in his temple. Carver lunged, this time using the cane as a sword, aiming at the sloppy yellow tie knot. The fleshy giant gasped as the tip speared into his throat.

“I’ll kill you, motherfucker!” he said, his voice high and hoarse, even if still threatening. But now there was doubt in it; Carver was supposed to be afraid, supposed to buckle, but it wasn’t working out that way.

The phone rang. It was near Carver. Keeping his good leg pressed against the side of the bed for support, he used his cane to knock the receiver off the hook.

“Somebody probably complained about the noise,” he said. “Or maybe the smell.”

The huge man’s breathing hissed like a blacksmith’s bellows in the hot, tiny room. “Motherfucker,” he said again. Not much imagination, Carver decided. And apparently some kind of oedipal fixation.

“You should have brought a gun,” Carver said, reading fear in the cruel blue eyes. He smiled. “Yeah, you definitely need a gun.”

“I’ll bring one next time, motherfucker,” the man said. He showed no inclination to advance on Carver again.

“Somebody’s probably calling nine-eleven right now,” Carver said. “Why don’t you hang around and see who shows up.”

The agonized little eyes flickered with the knowledge that this might not be a bluff. Someone might well have complained about the noise, or heard the talk about guns over the phone, whose receiver was lying on the carpet with the line open. The law might swoop down on them like cavalry to the rescue.

It could all be true and both men knew it. The balance had shifted so noticeably that it seemed to have altered weight and gravity in the room. Carver’s assailant backed toward the door, glaring fearfully, as if Carver might suddenly charge with the cane.

Well, Carver might; he felt like it. God, he felt like it!

But he knew it would be stupid. If the huge man ever got hold of him where they’d be fighting in close, grappling, he’d be in trouble.

“You’re gonna be real sorry for this,” the man said, oozing his bulk out the door. “You’re a dead man, you are. Dead, dead, dead.”

Carver smiled and said, “Motherfucker.”

The huge man slammed the door hard enough to make a framed Norman Rockwell print drop from the wall. The one where the big ruddy cop is scolding the skinny, contrite boy for stealing apples.

Carver let out a long breath, then slumped down on the bed and picked up the receiver. Said, “Yes?”

“Housekeeping,” a voice said. “You got plenty of towels?”

Carver said thanks, the towels were fine, and hung up.

Limp now in action’s aftermath, he sat for a long, long time on the edge of the bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, both hands cupped over the crook of his cane. Throbbing pain made him probe above his right ear. There was a lump there from when he’d struck the wall just after the huge man had entered the room. He realized he was miserably hot and sweat was pouring down his bare arms and dampening the thighs of his pants.

After drying off with a towel in the bathroom, he retrieved the notes he’d taken during his phone conversation with Desoto and made sure his keys hadn’t dropped out of his pocket. Then he slipped his stockinged feet into his moccasins and hobbled squinting from the room into the bright and baking morning.

The vestibule of the cracked, often-patched stucco apartment building on Morning Star smelled faintly of frying bacon. Graffiti on the peeling walls informed Carver of all sorts of interesting things he could do with his own body. He scanned the mailboxes and saw Roger Karl’s scrawled name above the slot for apartment 2E. There was an intercom system, but half the buttons were missing, including the one next to Karl’s apartment number. Didn’t matter, Carver discovered, because the door allowing access to the stairwell and halls was missing.

He set the tip of his cane down and climbed creaking wood stairs to the second floor, feeling the thick air get warmer as he rose. There was loose rubber matting on some of the steps; he made a mental note of that so he’d be careful if for some reason he had to take the stairs in a hurry on the way out. Walk with a cane and you had to plan ahead sometimes.

The scent of frying bacon was stronger on the second floor, nauseating him and making his head ache. The carpet here was worn in the center all the way through to the wood floor. A dirty window at the far end of the hall provided just enough illumination to make out the apartment letters painted large and bold and recently on the doors. From behind the nearest door came the faint sound of an infant screaming desperately. Carver limped down the alphabet and knocked on the door with the oversize black E painted on it like a “Sesame Street” graphic.

No answer.

A TV began playing loudly behind the door of F across the hall. “Here’s what you’ve won!” a voice cried ecstatically.

Carver tried E ’s door.

He won just like the contestant on television. The door swung open and he stepped inside fast. If Roger Karl was alert, it would be best to surprise him.

The apartment was hot and still and furnished with cast-off furniture, not with the decorator touch. Carver limped across the faded blue carpet toward a door leading to the kitchen. “Roger Karl?” he called, being polite before he wrung Karl’s neck for siccing the menacing mountain in overalls on him.