the stale coffee on his breath, I shot my arms out and grabbed his jacket, pulled my knee to my chest, shoved my foot into his gut. I straightened my leg and threw him away from me, and this time when he stumbled I was right there, three fast mean punches pounding his face and another sharp kick up under his ribs. He moaned and started to sag. I clenched my hands together and swung them like a hatchet down on the place where his neck joined his shoulder. At first nothing happened; then he fell over sideways like a tree. I stepped back, panting, and looked around. The little bony guy was standing now but he was a lot smaller than I was and he wouldn't try to take me again, not from the front where I could see him coming. I grinned so he'd know I knew that.
A loud, wordless sound came from behind me. I whipped around and saw Tony sitting on Frank Grice's chest, his knees pinning Grice's arms, his square fist thumping repeatedly into Grice's already bloody face. 'Tony!' I yelled hoarsely. 'Hey, Tony, that's enough! Come on, man, you're going to kill him.'
I pulled Tony back and off Grice, who groaned, rolled, and worked his way slowly to his feet. Tony struggled in my grip and I held him, not relaxing until he did.
'All right?' I asked, as his rocky muscles loosened under my hands. He nodded and I let him go.
Grice stood slightly stooped, breathing noisily through his mouth. He lifted a hand to his face, cupping his nose, then moved the hand away. 'You'll pay for this, Tony,' he hissed. 'This was stupid. And you'—he turned his bloody face to me—'whoever the hell you are, stay the fuck out of my way from now on.'
'Aw, Frank,' I said, my voice still hoarse. 'Why should Tony have all the fun?'
Something flared in Grice's eyes. I suddenly noticed how cold I was, soaked with sweat and muddy water out here in the winter night.
'Go on, Tony,' Grice said, still looking at me. 'You bring me all the smartass muscle you want. It won't help you, Tony.' He coughed.
“I don't need no help, you son of a bitch,' Tony snarled, taking two fast steps toward Grice.
From off to my right a voice like gears grinding said, 'Don't do that.' I spun around. Ten feet away, the little bony guy was planted, legs spread apart, holding an automatic pointed at the centre of Tony's chest.
Grice and Tony saw the gun the same time I did. Everyone froze, and for a long moment no one moved in the gravelled lot under the blue-black sky, scattered now with more stars than a man could count, even in a long lifetime.
My gun was pressed to my ribs under my flannel shirt, as out of reach as the stars.
Then Grice laughed, a short, guttural sound, as of something being ripped in two. 'Oh, Christ, Wally. What the hell is that for? Put it away. Come on, let's go.' He looked at me, then at Tony. 'Next time,' he said.
He turned sharply and walked to a big blue Ford, got in the front passenger door. The little guy hesitated, swore, then tucked the gun into his belt. He grabbed the big man, who looked as if he wasn't sure what day it was. Steering him to the car, he shoved him through the rear door, got behind the wheel, and sprayed gravel tearing out of the lot.
Tony and I watched the red glow of their tail lights vanish down 30. 'I don't like your friends,' I told him.
'You got Frank pissed off at you now,' he said.
I fingered my left cheek carefully. It felt hot and sore. 'You owe him, Tony?'
Tony turned to me. A lead curtain fell behind his eyes. 'I don't owe nobody, Smith.' He wiped his hand down his sweaty face. 'You shoulda stayed out of it.'
'Yeah.' I shrugged. 'But I was hungry. Grice beats the shit out of you, I don't get my lasagna.'
We turned together, headed back toward the door. The ancient, pitted tin sign that read 'Antonelli's,' Tony's father's sign, creaked as it swung in the wind. A smile cracked Tony's face. 'Sucker,' he said. 'I'm outta lasagna.'
Two hours later, full of food, warmer, I turned my six- year-old Acura onto the dirt road that leads from 30 down to my cabin. The single lane was rutted and slippery, ruts that fit my tires exactly because almost no one drove that road but me. I parked in the flat field next to my place and spent a long time leaning on the car, looking at the stars through the black cross-hatching of tree branches.
Inside, I turned on the lamp in the front room. The cedar-panelled walls soaked up most of the light, except where the glass frame of a photograph or drawing caught it, threw it back. When I bought the cabin it wasn't winterized, so I'd done that, insulating, finishing with cedar because it stood up well to damp and I liked the smell. I'd reroofed, too, and rebuilt the porch; this year, as soon as the weather was warm enough, I was going to replace the chimney.
I shed my jacket, threw it over the broken-in reading « hair by the window. As I turned, lamplight glinted on the child's silver-framed photograph in the middle of the bookshelves. Days, weeks could go by without my looking at that picture, knowing it was there but feeling it only as a source of warmth, a hand on my shoulder. At those times I felt almost at peace; sometimes I even thought I wanted to talk about it, although I didn't know with whom and I never tried.
And then other times, like now, I'd walk by too close, too close, and slice my heart on the sharp edges of Annie's smile. Then the old pain would well up from where it lived in the hollows of my bones, and my eyes would grow hot. Ambushed by this aching, I would stare, as I did now, into this picture that never changed, and wonder why I kept it here, where it was so dangerous. Seven years ago I'd packed away the pictures I'd had in New York, and all her things. Her things were gone from here, too; this was all that I had left, all I'd kept, and I wondered why.
But I knew.
Because although the fresh prettiness of her face, the round cheeks and soft brown eyes and the wave in her hair, had all been her mother's, that sharp, slanted smile was mine.
And because, in all her nine years, I had never seen Annie afraid.
I turned away from the picture. I poured myself some Maker's Mark, left the bottle out. I drank, then flexed my
hands, palms up, palms down; they seemed all right, so I carried the bourbon to the piano bench and raised the cover off the keyboard of the old, battered Baldwin.
