Crimson Joy

CHAPTER 20

Hawk was taking a turn sitting with Susan while I went down to the office to look at my mail and bill a couple of clients. I walked up Berkeley Street with the wind coming off the river behind me and scattering McDonald's wrappers before me as I walked. Susan was all right as long as Hawk or I stayed with her, but it was no way to live, and I knew how much she hated needing someone to guard her.

Inside my office I picked up the mail from the pile on the floor beneath the mail slot and went to my desk and sat down with my feet up to open it. There were several calls flashing on my answering machine, and while I opened mail I turned them on.

The first one said, "Hello, nigger lover. I heard you last night on Jimmy Winston, and I heard you trying to say it was a white man instead of letting the nigger fry like he should. Someone ought to shut your mouth for you." I finished reading through my telephone charges, as I always did, with the fond hope that I would catch the bastards in a mistake. There were five more messages on my machine. All concurred in various elegant ways with the first, except one which was a computerized vacation real estate pitch that made me yearn for the racist threats, and one in which a male voice said softly, "Maybe you're right about Red Rose, maybe he's still out there." I stopped looking at my mail and played that one back again. Then I took out the message tape, put in a spare one, and slipped the Red Rose tape in my jacket pocket.

I finished up on the phone bill, opened a note from Rita Fiore, written on lavender paper and smelling of lilac scent. It said she was just checking in to see how I was and maybe we should have lunch. While I was mulling this the door opened into my office and five guys, who clearly did not represent the League of Women Voters, came in one by one and formed a semicircle around my desk. The last guy in shut the door.

"You guys are in the Kerry Drake fan club," I said, "and you've come by to ask me to your next banquet."

The leader was a weight lifter, obviously. The quartet backing him were all good-sized, although none of them would have scared me alone. The weight lifter had on baggy prewashed jeans and black Reebok coaches' shoes and a sleeveless blue muscle shirt that said Universe Gym across the front. Given the weather outside, he must have been freezing, but how else to scare me with his muscles?

He said, "We want to talk with you, nigger lover." I said, "Ah, didn't I just hear you on the phone?" He said, "You're trying to get that nigger off." I said, "Truth, I am truth's servant, and I don't think he did it."

"Yeah, well we do," he said.

"Persuasive," I said.

"We don't like niggers, and we don't like nigger lovers," the weight lifter said.

I felt my frustration slowly catalyze into anger and the anger begin to build. I'd been wrestling with a phantom for weeks now, and here were live bodies, right before me, asking to wrestle. I held on. Five is a lot.

"Could you make a bicep for me?" I said.

The weight lifter actually made a start before he caught himself. I grinned to let him know I'd seen the start.

"Step out around that desk," the weight lifter said.

"Or you'll come around and get me," I said.

He was in the center, slightly forward of the other four. The guy to his right was red-haired and square-shouldered with a swarm of freckles on his face.

The weight lifter grinned slightly at his pals and said, "Yeah."

I got up from my chair and walked around my desk. Without breaking stride I kicked him in the groin. I put a straight left into his pal's face and pulled my gun from under my arm with my right hand. The other three froze in a kind of tableau.

The weight lifter sank to his knees, hands and forearms pressed between his legs. Red had taken maybe two steps back and was rocking back and forth, his hands to his face, the, blood trickling between his fingers.

"You three dopes, up against that wall," I said. "Lean your backs on it. Now walk away."

They did as I said until they were leaning on the wall and would have to move their feet and arms and lunge to stand up.

"You too, Red, and don't bleed on my rug." Red moved over, still holding his nose.

"Now," I said, "you, Muscles. You ready to continue yet?"

He was still on his knees, but he'd raised his head.

"What do you mean?" he said. His voice was strained with discomfort.

"You ready to teach me a lesson in race relations?" I said.

"You didn't have a gun," he said.

"Sure," I said. "If I didn't have a gun I could fight five of you. That seems fair."

"If you hadn't kicked me," he mumbled.

"I'd have punched you like I did Red and you'd have blood all over your pectoral muscles. You ready to stand up yet?"

"Yeah." He got painfully to his feet and looked at me with his head half lowered. "We won't forget this," he said.

"No, I certainly hope not," I said. "But I'm still game for a couple of rounds, if you like."

"You holding the gun?"

"Sure, just so I don't have to deal with all five of you at once. So I'll fight you one-handed. How's that sound?"

"Sure, till I start winning, then you use the gun, right?"

"You won't start winning, so the question is moot," I said.

"You think you can fight me one hand?"

"Sure," I said, and hit him square in the nose with my left fist. It rocked him back and the blood started. Just like Red. He shook his head and started toward me.

"You on the wall, you start to move and I'll kill you," I said, and rolled backwards and let his right fist sweep past my chin. I hooked my left hand over his right shoulder and caught him on the cheek under his right eye. I did it twice more, short hooks before he could get his right shoulder and arm up for cover. When he raised the right arm I slid around him with a little shuffle and got a sharp hook into his kidneys. He grunted and turned toward me, and I slapped the gun from my right to my left hand and hit him full swinging straight overhand right on the chin, and he sagged and rubber-legged backwards two steps and sat down, his legs spread and flaccid, his arms sagging in his lap. He sat for a minute, then went over on his side and was still.

One of the wall birds, a guy with a thick neck and very blond hair, said, "You said one hand."

"At a time," I said.

I put the gun back in my right hand. My knuckles were a little numb and would probably be puffy tomorrow. There was a pleasant touch of sweat on my forehead and the muscles in my shoulders and back felt energized and engorged. I felt good. Watch out, Red Rose, I'm on your trail.

"Get him on his feet," I said, "and get him out of here."

Red held on to his nose. The other three got the weight lifter to his feet and helped him as he wobbled among them. All five looked like they were trying to find a way to leave with dignity.

One of them, the blond one, said, "We know where you are." I said, "You knew where I was this time, and look what it got you." No one had anything to add to that, so they shuffled the weight lifter through the door and were gone.

I put the gun back under my arm, went to the sink in the washroom and ran cold water over my hands for a few minutes, and rinsed my face and toweled dry. Then I went back into my office and walked to the window and looked down at Berkeley Street where it intersects Boylston and did some deep breathing. . It seemed like he could trust her. He could talk to her about things he'd never said before. About that time in school. About his mother. She never told. They weren't supposed to.

There was some sort of oath… it never hurts to keep your mouth shut.

"My mother used to say that women would take me for all they could get."

She smiled slightly and nodded.

"Iguess she meant money. That they'd go out with me for my money."

"Did you have a lot of money?"

"Me? No. My father had some, but I never had any, and, I mean, I was a kid; kids don't have money."

Today she was wearing a light gray suit with a high round collar and some pearls. Her stockings and shoes were white.

"So maybe there was something else they'd take, "she said.

"Like what?"

She shrugged.

"I always felt bad when she said that. It was like nobody would go out with me for, you know, just what they could get. And it made me feel like I was stupid, like if any broad wanted to take me for everything she could get, she could, and I'd be too weak to stop her."

"Weak," she said. It wasn't exactly a question, and it wasn't exactly a comment.

"Dumb, whatever."

She nodded.

"Must have made girls seem pretty scary, when you were a boy."

"Well, not scary. I mean a boy doesn't have to be scared of a girl"

"Um hmm."

"I used to fantasize sometimes. "He would feel the surge of passion, almost ejaculatory, as he flitted closer to revelation. "I used to think about tying them up." He could barely speak for the rush of excitement. He felt the sexual thrill of it dance through him.

"Um hmm."

They were both quiet. I could tie you up, he thought. If I had my stuff with me. I could make you stay there and tie you up.

"What do you suppose those girls were going to take?" she said again.

He felt as if he might explode.

"Me," he heard his voice. "They'd take me."

"Away from?" she said.

"Her. "His voice seemed loose from him, out there on its own in the room.