him and his body fell limp and crooked to the cement floor; the only thing missing was a chalk outline.
I stared at the idiots for a few seconds before saying, “So, what did we learn today?”
All I can say is this: dust cloud.
And as Willie’s troops abandoned him on the battlefield, I yelled, “Hey, take your trash with you!” I grabbed Willie by his jacket and jeans and tossed his body down the half flight of steps toward the second floor. I considered leaving him with a souvenir, but really didn’t care enough about him to make the point.
I could hear the two of them running and tumbling down the steps, then the crash of the door at the bottom of the stairwell. I looked out the window and watched them fly out to the street, scatter in different directions like a pair of roaches.
I opened the door to the garage and gently pulled it closed behind me, no loud bang this time. I casually headed toward my car like I was nothing more than a visitor to the city’s center, could still smell the rubber from Melody’s frenzied departure, eyed the fresh tire marks she left on the cement, walked them like a tightrope.
By the time I reached the Mustang, pain arrived in all the places that would later require some form of attention, the worst of the bunch a near ripped-off fingernail from the middle finger of my right hand, no doubt still twisted in the fibers of Willie’s jacket, along with some of my blood and all of my DNA. I had long since become immune to worrying about the outcome of these violent outbursts, for the Bovaros only acted out on the bottom-dwellers, the drug addicts and criminals—certainly Willie fit the bill; he’d never surrender any truths about that day, especially his attempted rape. Throughout my childhood I had watched guys stumble to their feet, beaten and bruised, only to resist assistance from police, oppressed by some parole violation or outstanding warrant. Willie was going nowhere. Not that day, not ever.
I cascaded down the ramps of the parking garage and drove out to Broadway, headed directly for Melody’s apartment. I pulled into the lot for her building and spotted her Civic parked on the edge. I crept up alongside it and turned my engine off, rolled down my windows. I could hear the engine of her car still ticking as it cooled.
The only thing I could be sure of was that she made it home. I had no assurance that she made it home safe. I watched the door of her building, then her car, then the door again. I reclined my seat a little, lit a cigarette, and took a drag that lasted five seconds, closed my eyes and held the smoke in my lungs even longer, felt the rush of the nicotine as the warmth drifted from my chest out to my limbs and my head, into my blood. I blew the smoke out my window and waited.
And waited.
I left three times that evening—once to get a bag of burgers from McDonald’s and twice to use the restroom—and each time I returned I parked in a more secluded location, always staying within a clear view of her car and the front door of her apartment, utilizing my recently learned method of triangulation.
I’d venture a guess that during the period of time I surveilled the scene from that distant corner of the parking lot, every single resident of her apartment building came and went—everyone but Melody. I was determined to stay until I saw her again, until she came out from her shelter, until I could be sure she was even marginally okay, that whatever fear or trauma caused by Willie and his cafoni had disintegrated or passed. I rolled back my moonroof and a gust of crisp Kentucky air swirled around the interior, a mixture of cut grass and smoldering Kingston charcoal. I stared up at the heavens, dotted with a number of stars never seen in a New York sky. As the clock ticked forward and fewer and fewer people came and went from her building, I waited.
And waited.
The morning came through my windows damp and loud; nests of birds in the branches of the white oaks overhead shrieked with chicks begging for food, a thin layer of dew covered everything: my dash, my windows, the knob of my stick. I flipped my wrist over and glanced at my watch: 7:23. Once I’d