Al must’ve sensed the twitching in my neck and my elevated blood pressure because he went extra nuts when I came through the door. I got him his sustenance and cracked open another can of sustenance for myself.
My hands were shaking and I wasn’t sure if it was my flirtation with the underworld, the illegal shit I did that could’ve caused me a world of trouble, or the fact that I just set up a man to go to prison for a long time. It might have been that stuff or it might have been the fact that I didn’t get to beat the shit out of Sofco.
Or it might have had more to do with me being away from the gym. Since I took up karate at age eleven, I haven’t gone two weeks without sparring or fighting someone. I’ve had a handful of street scraps, not very many, but I always had the outlet between the ropes. My self-imposed avoidance of the gym left me with a gap, and that gap was sending adrenaline, anger, or Schlitz-induced rage through my veins. Maybe it was all much simpler. Maybe I just wanted to beat the shit out of a bad guy.
Al calmed down and I went through the mail. Six credit card companies were offering me their business, there was the cable bill and a solicitation from the Polish American Club, and there was a letter from the office, which I opened. It read:
This is to provide you with written notification from Jewish Unified Services that we intend to terminate your employment on September 2. You will have until that time to appeal this termination.
It was signed by the Michelin Woman, and it finally seemed like she had won. The hardest part for me to accept was the fact that I had made it easy for her. Sure, I could appeal, but that was a futile formality that would just serve to further embarrass and demean me, and that was a pleasure I didn’t want to give Claudia.
It had been a hell of a month.
I hit the button on the machine to see who had called and I had three messages. The first was a recorded sales message about aluminum siding, which I found particularly absurd considering I lived in a steel tube. The next message was from Marcia.
“Hi Duff, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve met someone new and very special, and even though my therapist thinks it’s too soon for me to get involved, I really feel something special for this man. I just knew you’d be happy for me. Take care.”
That really was special.
The third call was from Dr. Pacquoa.
“Duffy, I called an old colleague about our days in the prison. The graduate student who disappeared shortly after the deaths was named Victor Gunner, and he was in the doctoral program at the University at Albany. No one knows what happened to him since. Don’t know if this helps. Thank you.”
Hmmm… that felt like something important, though I wasn’t completely sure how or why. Suffice to say, between the evening’s events and the Schlitz I wasn’t firing on all cognitive cylinders at this point. Of course, it was nice to hear that Marcia had found somebody special. Geez.
I was drifting off on the couch when the phone rang. It was Kelley and it was now close to one in the morning.
“You up?” Kelley said.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Hey, this DWI you tipped me off to. The Foursome tells me that you gave them cash and drove them out to the Insideout to drink with him.”
“Yeah, so.”
“So, bullshit. Those four leave AJ’s every time there’s an eclipse. What’s up?”
“The guy’s abusive to a goofy kid I’m teaching karate to.”
Kelley paused. He didn’t know anything about me and Billy.
“The kid you teach karate to… let’s just leave that alone for a second. You knew this guy had a record of DWIs and drug possession.”
“Yeah, you told me that, remember?”
“So you get him drunk on the outside of town and call me when he’s on the road?”
“Yep.”
“I probably don’t want to know if his claim that the gun and the drugs weren’t his is true, do I?”
“Uh, Kell, the guy was regularly beating the kid and his mom.”
“You’re fuckin’ nuts, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah-tell me something I don’t know.”
I hung up and the next morning I woke up on the couch with my head using Al as a pillow. I was hungover but otherwise I slept pretty well.