Michael Palmer - Oath of Office

Lou circled the table, never once averting his gaze from the frightening diorama. He expected he’d see the remains of the meal, mauled and bloody.

But there was not any blood to be seen.

What Lou witnessed instead, was nothing.

There was no mouse left at all.

Lou felt leagues better the moment he set foot inside Cap’s Stick and Move. One good whiff of stale gym air with its distinctive blend of sweat, cheap aftershave, and bleach, and he felt he was home. But he still could not forget Joey Alderson’s astonishing termites. Before heading over to the gym, he had made a quick search of the Internet, but could find no entomological evidence that such creatures existed.

Only they did.

The image and hideous clicking of that amber-colored swarm totally consuming a mouse in a matter of seconds would stay with him indefinitely. Lou wrote down the name and number of Oliver Humphries at Temple University in Philadelphia, listed as one of the experts in the field of termite entomology. If time allowed, he might give the man a call.

Joey was extremely excited at Lou’s stunned reaction to his pets, and offered to drop another mouse into the Lucite habitat. Lou politely begged off an encore, but did ask where he had come up with the bugs.

“I can’t show you today,” Joey had said, a broad smile creasing his boyish face. “But come back on the weekend, and I’ll take you there. I think you’ll be pretty amazed.”

“I’m pretty amazed right now,” Lou had said, “and a bit horrified, too.”

Lou concentrated on the young fighters chasing their dreams, and Joey’s nightmare bugs gradually receded toward the back of his consciousness. As always, the gym was a sanctuary for his brain. The grunts, soft thud of boxing gloves, and rhythmic skip of jump ropes across the cement floor were symphonic.

After changing quickly in the locker room, Lou slipped on his bag gloves and got to work on the heavy bag. Cap was in the ring nearby, training a young fighter who had pretty decent moves. Lou started off with a set of straight jabs, remembering what his mentor had told him about not telegraphing the punch by leaning forward. Then he switched over to a rapid-fire combination set that included a mix of jab-cross, jab-hook, and jab-hook-hook punches. By minute five of his ten-minute set, he was sweating profusely and feeling almost airborne. He tried to focus on his punching technique, but then a surprising thing happened.

He found himself thinking about Renee.

Thud. Thud. Renee. Thud. Steve. Thud. Emily. Thud.

Steve was a decent-enough guy, Lou convinced himself as he walloped the bag with his hardest punch yet. Maybe he was a little dull and set in his ways, but at least he had a big heart and good intentions. Besides, Lou knew sparks were not a guarantee of a successful marriage. Heck, he’d given Renee enough of them to start a matrimonial forest fire, and look where that got him.

Lou had come to believe that Renee loved a solid 95 percent of him during their eight years of marriage. It was that remaining 5 percent, the addict who lied about his drug and alcohol use, that Renee could not endure. As in many failed marriages, she discovered Lou’s unacceptable 5 percent only after she had said, “I do.” As a recommended part of his recovery, he had done his best to make amends to her. Now, all he could do was to support her in her marriage and continue to push that 5 percent further and further from his life. When the time was right, someone would show up who could help him get over her.

Thud. Thud. Renee. Thud.

Lou slammed the bag a few more times, then stepped aside when Cap came over and hit the bag with a beautiful sequence of jabs. He seemed to be exerting little effort, but his punches sounded like gunshots. Throughout the remarkable barrage, he continued smiling.

It’s good to be the king.

“Where you been?” Cap asked as he unleashed an uppercut that would have put a full-grown gorilla on its back.

“Long story,” Lou said.

“Well, you might want to make it a short one,” Cap said without sounding the least bit winded. “I just got a call from the street that there are two guys lurking outside the gym, snapping pictures of this place, your building, and what I think is your car. What have you been up to?”

Lou felt as if he’d just been on the receiving end of one of Cap’s punches.

“I guess stirring somebody’s pot,” Lou said, wrapping his arm around the swinging bag like they were dancing partners. “What kind of guys are we talking about?”

“They look like muscle,” Cap said. “Thick, beefy guys. The kid who called seemed sure they were packing heat, and I don’t think he’s ever wrong about such things.”

“So do we invite them up for a workout?”

“That’s up to you and how interested you are in them.”

“I’m plenty interested.”

“Then we turn the tables and follow them,” Cap said after delivering a right cross that sent Lou staggering backwards off the bag. Sooner or later they’ll get tired of hanging around, and probably nervous, too. I’m betting sooner. This is hardly their kind of neighborhood.”

“How am I gonna tail them in the car that they’ve been tailing?”

“Leave that to me,” Cap said. He smacked the heavy bag one last time, hard enough rattle the chains.

Following Cap’s instructions, Lou grabbed a couple of slices of pizza from Dimitri’s, making a conscious effort not to look around while making the purchase. Outside, the two men in a black Cadillac sedan rolled past, then past again in the other direction.

“Be careful to act nonchalant,” Cap had insisted. “You don’t want these guys getting suspicious.”

Lou carried the pizza box upstairs to his apartment. Once inside, he turned on the TV and took out a slice. He felt like a duck in a carnival shooting gallery walking back and forth in front of his apartment windows while eating a slice of four-cheese with mushrooms, but he wanted to be certain he was seen from the street below.

Again, Cap’s idea, not his.

Lou’s cell phone rang. He stepped away from the windows to answer it.

“They’re on the move,” Cap said. “They think you’re in for the night. Let’s go.”

Lou raced down the back stairwell, threw open the unalarmed fire exit door, and stepped into a narrow alleyway. A beat-up Chevy Prizm, sans hubcaps and the passenger-side mirror, sped down the alley toward him and flashed its lights once. The rear door opened and Lou scrambled into the backseat as the car kept rolling. Then, as soon as he slammed the door, it accelerated.

Cap was driving, but Lou did not recognize the two twenty-something black men in the car with him. The one sitting beside Lou was clean-shaven with short, tightly curled hair. He was big, as in “needs to buy an extra plane ticket to fly” big.

“Ah man, I smell pizza. You bring us any pie?” he asked.

“After we get back to the gym, it’s my treat.”

“Terrific. I do a large with everything. Hold the anchovies.”

“Lou, meet Notso,” Cap said from the driver’s seat.

Notso’s beefy hand enfolded Lou’s like the wrapping on a burrito.

“Notso?” Lou asked.

“His real name is Anthony,” the man riding shotgun said, “but his last name is Brite.”

“Got it,” Lou said, suppressing a smile. “You okay with that, Mr. Brite?”

“My mother’s the one who first called me it, so I guess the answer’s yes.”

“And you would be?” Lou asked the second man.

The man maneuvered around to get a better look at Lou. He was slightly built, a while from his last shave, and was wearing a gray T-shirt, tattered at the neck. His left ear was studded with a lone diamond, while his tortoiseshell glasses gave him an air of intelligence. He reminded Lou of Spike Lee-minus the New York Knicks gear.