“Have a listen,” I said over my shoulder. “You’re going to want to know about this.”
“You can’t go around saying stuff like that,” Theo said. Taking one last glance at his castrated bumper adornment, he added, “And you don’t fuck around with a man’s truck.”
“I just felt a guy who doesn’t have any’s got a lot of nerve hanging a pair from his bumper,” I said.
I was ready for him.
When he took a swing at me, I ducked under it and put my right fist hard into his gut. As fights go, it lacked excitement. My punch took the wind out of him and he dropped to the floor.
“Shit!” he howled, clutching his stomach.
Hank grabbed my arm but I shook him off. “Jesus, Glen, what the hell are you doing, coming in here and-”
I pointed to the man on the floor. “Hank, if I were you, I’d take a good long took at anything he’s installed in this house. This guy burned one of my places down.”
“It’s not… my fault!” Theo gasped.
“That house on Shelter Cove?” Hank asked.
“He put bogus electrical parts in it,” I said.
“Goddamn.”
“Yeah, no kidding. And insurance companies don’t much like to pay off when you build a house with that kind of stuff.”
“He’s done a couple of my other jobs,” Hank said worriedly. Looking down at Theo, he said, “This true? I swear to God, if you’ve-”
“He’s lying!” Theo wheezed, getting onto his knees. “I’m gonna have you charged! I’m gonna have you charged with assault!”
I turned to Hank. “Did you see him take a swing at me first?”
Hank said, “I believe I did.”
“See you later, Theo,” I said.
I turned and started down the stairs. By the time I was out the front door, I could hear Theo coming up behind me. I spun around, figuring he was going to try to jump me, but he wasn’t making any aggressive moves.
“You got me all wrong, man,” he said. “It’s not my fault.” There was the sound of pleading in his voice.
“Sure,” I said. I stood my ground. “You’re finished. You’re done. I’m going to tell everyone the kind of work you do. There’s not going to be a contractor in Connecticut who’ll hire you.”
“Don’t do this, man. I only tried to do my best. You’ve always done right by me.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t actually end up killing anybody,” I said. “You nearly killed me.”
I got in my truck, feeling exhilarated. It was almost a kind of high, working out my anger and frustrations on Theo. He had it coming.
But it didn’t take long for the elation to fade away into regret. I’d just punched Theo Stamos, the man Sally Diehl was intending to marry, to spend the rest of her life with. I’d just promised to make it impossible for him to ever work in this state again.
Sally was going to be pissed.
THIRTY-SEVEN
When I got to the office, Sally’d been crying.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
“I already heard.” She wouldn’t look at me.
“Sally, come into my office.”
“Go to hell,” she said.
“Damn it, get in here.” I took her gently by the arm and led her into my office and put her in a chair. Rather than get behind the desk, I pulled over another chair and sat up close to her.
“He says you cut off the thing,” she said. “From his truck.”
“ That’s what he’s upset about?” I asked.
“And he says you hit him. How could you do that? How could you hit him?”
“Look, Sally, he took a swing at me. I was defending myself.” I didn’t tell her how much I’d provoked him. I pulled a couple of tissues from a box and handed them to her. “Pull yourself together.”
She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “You already heard from Alfie, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“What did he say?”
“He said the circuit breaker panel didn’t meet code. It was garbage. Cheap knockoff parts.”
“And right away you blame Theo?”
“Sally, he did the work.”
She crumpled the tissue in her hands. “That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s his fault. Like, what if someone gave him the wrong parts and he couldn’t tell the difference?”
“Look, Sally, I’m really sorry about this. I’m sorry about how this affects you, because you’re special to me. You know that Sheila, when she was still around, and I have always thought the world of you. Kelly loves you. I’d bend over backwards to give Theo the benefit of the doubt, because I know he means a lot to you, but-”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know exactly how much he means to me. But he’s all I’ve got at the moment.”
“Well, look, that’s something you have to work out. And what I have to do, Sally, is I have to protect myself, and this company, and the people like you who work for me, and if someone does work for me that’s unacceptable, that leaves us exposed to possible lawsuits, that could end up getting someone killed, for crying out loud, then I have to do what I have to do.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “But I’m sorry I’ve hurt you.”
She nodded, dabbed at her eyes again. “I know.”
“And I know that this has been a tough time for you. Losing your father. No other family here to help you out.”
“He was just… one minute he was okay and the next he was gone.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s hard. Look at my dad. One second he’s hauling plywood off a truck, the next he’s dead.”
She nodded. “You were there,” she said.
“Yeah, I was there when he died.”
“No, I mean, my dad’s funeral. I couldn’t believe it when you came to the funeral.”
“Sally, I wasn’t going to not be there for you.”
“Yeah, but you had a funeral to get ready for, too. I always felt bad.”
“You always felt bad about what?”
“That I didn’t come to Sheila’s.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“No, I feel real bad. I mean, if you could come to my dad’s, why couldn’t I go to your wife’s funeral the day after?”
“It was hard for you,” I said. “You’re just a kid, really. No offense. You get older, you can handle these things.” I tried to make a joke. “You learn to multi-grieve.”
“I thought I was the office multitasker.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “ ‘Give it to Sally, she can handle a hundred things at once.’ I guess not always.” After a couple of more dabs at her eyes, she asked, “Is Theo finished? Is he ever going to get work around here again?”
“I don’t know.”
“He said you’re going to ruin him.”
I let out a long sigh. “He’s ruined himself.”
That, evidently, rubbed her the wrong way. Abruptly, she pushed back her chair and stood up. “You’re a hard
