“There’s a restaurant on the corner of 28th and J that’s open twenty-four hours. Or, if you want, you can go home and wait.”
“It’ll take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get back here. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine,” I said, and got out of the car. The air was full of river smells. Karla pulled away, turning left and heading toward downtown. Her receding taillights were the only visible traffic.
My destination was only a couple hundred yards from the intersection. Richardson’s house was constructed of rectangular sections of steel, concrete, and glass. It followed the ground’s gentle descent toward the river, like irregular steps forming the facets of giant crystals. I particularly liked the broad expanses of glass. They made the lit up interior look like a stage set. A riding lawn mower sat parked in the shadow of a shed about twenty yards from the house. The seat looked comfortable, so, like a vampire farmer who has driven his midget tractor to the drive-in movies, I climbed on and proceeded to watch the show.
Richardson and a woman who looked about half his age were in the living room, watching a very large wall-mounted wide-screen TV. The woman was wearing pajamas. She had recently showered and her hair was wrapped in a towel. Richardson was still dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a garish Hawaiian print shirt. He was slouched down on the sofa with his legs stretched out, his boots up on the coffee table. A dog, it looked like a Golden Retriever, was sleeping on the rug nearby.
At this point in the game, I preferred to leave the woman out of it, so I just watched, waiting to see how things would develop. I knew Richardson went through women at the rate of two or three a year. If this one had been with him for a while, I figured they would be past the honeymoon stage, and there was a good chance they wouldn’t go to bed at the same time.
I figured right. It wasn’t long before the woman sat up, said something to Richardson, kissed him on the cheek and left the room. Richardson didn’t even look at her. A moment later a light came on in one of the bedrooms. I could hear a hair dryer run for a minute or two. Then the light went out.
Richardson continued to watch TV for another half hour or so before aiming the remote and turning it off. When the TV went black, the dog perked up and they both went out the back door. I climbed off the lawn mower and began to circle around the house. When I got to where I could see him, Richardson was standing at the far edge of the lawn, where the grass ended at a slope dropping down to the riverbank. The dog was meandering around with its nose to the ground, looking for the right place to pee.
Richardson had his back to me and I was downwind from the dog. I sprinted across the lawn, hooked my foot under the dog’s rib cage, and gave him a little flip that sent him sailing out into the river. The splash brought Richardson out of his reverie. Confused, he stood staring, trying to figure out why his dog had jumped into the water. I stepped up behind him and gave him a shove that sent him tumbling down the slope.
Grunting and cursing, Richardson rolled to a stop just short of the water. I was already down the slope when he started to get up, and I slapped him hard across the cheek. My open-handed slap sounded like a small-caliber gunshot against Richardson’s face. It knocked him down, spinning him halfway around so that he landed hard on his left shoulder. I grabbed both of his feet, yanked his cowboy boots off, and tossed them into the river.
They must have been his favorite boots. When he realized what I had done, he flew into a rage, charging me with his head down, roaring like a bull. I stepped out of his path and slapped him again, hard on the back of the head. He went back down with a loud humph, his face and chest plowing into the dirt. Before he could try anything else, I put my foot on the back of his neck.
“Stay down,” I commanded. “If you try to get up, I’ll throw you in the river.”
The fight went out of him as fast as it had flared up. “Please don’t,” he pleaded, “I can’t swim.”
I moved a couple of steps back and sat down on a rock. I could hear the dog breathing as it swam. The current had taken it a good way downstream before it found a spot to climb onto the bank. The tags on its collar jingled as it shook the water out of its coat, then the dog’s padded steps headed back in our direction. A few seconds passed before its head appeared at the top of the slope. It made a little whining noise and retreated back to the house.
Disgusted by his dog’s performance, Richardson apparently decided it was time to deal with the situation. “What the fuck do you want?” he asked, trying to make it sound like he was in control.
“I haven’t even introduced myself,” I said, “and you’re already swearing at me, Ron.”
Richardson rolled onto his side. “So who the fuck are you?”
“My name is Shake. And before you let your bad judgment get the better of you, if you try to attack me again, not only will I throw you in the river, I’ll break both of your arms first. Are we clear on that?”
I could tell from the expression on his face he wasn’t going to risk it.
“Those were five hundred dollar boots,” he whined.
“Are we clear, Ron”?
“Yeah, we’re fucking clear.”
“Good. You can sit up now and we’ll have a civilized
