“Oh, good,” she said.
And I think I saw a twinkle in her eye.
Chapter 30
The next morning, when I came back from my run, I picked up a tail. In my line of work, you learn pretty quickly to spot a person who’s following you, or at least you do if you don’t want to go back into teaching. Also, I’ve done a fair amount of tailing of other people over the years, so I know most of the tricks involved in the procedure. The guy who was following me didn’t seem to know any of them. In fact, he was so bad that at first, I thought he was just what he seemed to be: a guy on the street. When I returned from my run, I saw him as I was walking down the sidewalk, cooling off. He was leaning against a tree across the street from my place, wearing brown slacks, a purple shirt, tan work boots and a yellow windbreaker. First Rule of Tailing: be inconspicuous in one’s appearance. Then I noticed that he wasn’t doing anything else, like reading a paper, or looking around and glancing at his watch, as though someone was late meeting him, or even watching other people going by. He was just over there, leaning against the tree. I filed the information away before I went in and showered and changed.
He was still there when I came back out forty-five minutes later, so I decided to find out for sure. I began walking towards the business district, and, sure enough, he chose that instant to break off his relationship with the tree and start heading in the same direction that I was going. I thought about walking a few more blocks to confirm what I already knew, but then I saw that I was at Gennaro Plaza, a three-story office building with, as luck would have it, an elevator. If this bozo intended to brace me at some point during the day, I might as well hasten the moment. Feeling the comfortable heft of the .38 that was holstered on my right hip, I opened the glass doors that led to the building’s lobby and walked over to the elevator. I actually waited a few seconds before pushing the Up button, allowing my secret friend sufficient time to enter the lobby himself. He came over and stood next to me without speaking. He was about my height, maybe a little taller, and probably twenty or thirty pounds heavier, none of it muscle. His windbreaker was open, and I didn’t see a gun anywhere. Also, I doubted he was wearing an ankle holster, given the work boots. When the elevator arrived, it was empty. I got on, he got on, the doors closed, I pushed the number 3, and we started our ascent. Between the first and second floors, he pushed the Hold button, bringing the elevator to a halt. Then he stared at me with a smirk on his face.
“If you’re selling magazines,” I told him, “you’re too late. I just renewed my subscriptions to Boy’s Life and Ladies’ Home Journal.”
“You gonna get a beatin’,” he said.
“Well, geez, fella,” I said, “if it means that much to you, then I’ll buy a subscription. You got any Weekly Readers left?”
Ignoring me, he said, “I ain’t never lost no fight.”
Judging from the amount of scar tissue around his nose, either he was lying or it had been a particularly difficult birth.
“Your mother must be proud of you,” I said.
He frowned and said, “Hey, you rippin’ on my mother?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I just meant that, since you sprang forth from her loins and all, she must be thrilled with what you’ve done with your life.”
His brow furrowed, and I could see that he was trying to think.
“Don’t,” I said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Time for your beatin’, asshole,” he said, and then he threw a looping right hook that was so slow it should have been sponsored by Western Union. At the last second, I moved my head back just a fraction, and his hand swung lazily by.
He frowned and said, “Hey!”
“Don’t feel bad,” I told him. “It was my fault. I didn’t play fair. I should have warned you that I was going to move. Tell you what, try it again. Throw another punch, and this time I won’t move my head. Promise.”
As I said this, I put my hands together in front of my waist and applied isometric pressure. He tried a left jab, which, in terms of speed, was the brother to his right hook. I kept my head perfectly still while suddenly releasing the grip my left hand had on my right, allowing my right arm to snap upward and block his punch. He didn’t seem too happy about that.
“Okay,” I said, “I know what you’re thinking. I played a little dirty with you there. But you have to admit, I didn’t say that I wouldn’t move any other parts of my body, just my head.”
You’d think that, presented with such perfect logic, my bozo buddy would have admitted that, yes, indeed, I’d put one over on him, and then offered to buy me a drink somewhere where we could rehash old times together. Instead, he roared, lowered his head and rushed at me. Even in the relatively small confines of the elevator, it took him a while to complete the journey, but eventually he did, and when he got close enough, I stepped aside, placed one hand on his shoulder and the other at the back of his pants, and helped him on his way into the wall behind me. He hit it with considerable force and slumped to the floor.
“That had to hurt,” I told him.
I’ll give him this. He may have been slow, but he was stupid, because after a minute, he got up and made another run at me. This time, he tried a roundhouse right, which I intercepted with my
