Six Years

Four of the men peeled off the group and headed inside, leaving Bob alone with one guy. The guy was younger and wore a suit so shiny it looked like a disco ball. Bob seemed to be giving Shiny Suit instructions. Shiny Suit nodded a lot. When Bob was done, he headed into the funeral. Shiny Suit did not. Instead he swaggered with almost cartoon exaggeration in the other direction, toward a bright white Cadillac Escalade.

I bit my lower lip, trying to decide what to do. The funeral would take some time—half an hour, hour, something like that. There was no reason to just sit here. I might as well follow Shiny Suit and see where it led.

I started up the car and pulled onto Northern Boulevard behind him. This felt weird—“tailing a perp”—but it seemed a day for the weird. I didn’t know how far to stay behind the Escalade. Would he spot me following him? I doubted it, even though I had a Massachusetts license plate in the state of New York. He made a right onto Francis Lewis Boulevard. I stayed two cars behind him. Crafty. I felt like Starsky and Hutch. One of them anyway.

When I’m nervous, I tell myself a lot of dumb jokes.

Shiny Suit pulled off at a mega-nursery called Global Garden. Great, I thought. He’s picking up flower arrangements for Otto’s funeral. Another weird thing about funerals: Wear black but kill something as colorful as flowers to decorate. The store, however, was closed. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I didn’t make anything of it yet. Shiny Suit pulled in to the back. I did likewise, though I stayed to the side, at a pretty good distance. Shiny Suit stepped down from the driver’s seat of the Escalade and swaggered over toward the store’s back door. Shiny Suit was big on the swagger. I didn’t want to prejudge but based on the company he kept, the glistening of his suit, and the poser-like swagger, I somehow suspected that Shiny Suit was what the students today technically refer to as a douchebag. He rapped on the back door with his pinkie ring and waited, bouncing on his feet like a boxer listening to the ring introduction. I thought the bouncing around was for show. It wasn’t.

A kid—he could have been one of my students—wearing a bright green store apron and a backward-facing Brooklyn Nets baseball cap opened the door, stepped out, and Shiny Suit sucker-punched him in the face.

Oh man. What had I stumbled across?

The cap flew to the ground. The kid followed, holding his nose. Shiny Suit grabbed him by the hair. He lowered his face so that I feared he might bite the kid’s probably-broken nose and started yelling at him. Then he stood back up and threw a kick in the kid’s ribs. The kid rocked back and forth in pain.

Okay, enough.

Working on a rather heady albeit dangerous blend of fear and instinct, I opened my car door. The fear could be controlled. I had learned how to do that during my years as a bouncer. Anyone with an iota of humanity experiences fear during physical altercations. That is how we are built. The key is harnessing it, not letting it paralyze or weaken you. Experience helps.

“Stop!” I shouted, and then—here was where the instinct part came in—I added, “Police!”

Shiny Suit’s head spun toward me.

I reached into my pocket and took out my wallet. I flipped it open. No, I don’t have a badge, but he would be too far away to see. My attitude would sell it. I stayed firm, calm.

The kid scrambled back toward the door. He stopped to scoop up his Brooklyn Nets baseball cap, jammed it onto his head with the bill facing back, and disappeared into the building. I didn’t care. I closed my wallet and started walking toward Shiny Suit. He, too, must have had some experience in this. He didn’t run. He didn’t look guilty. He didn’t try to explain. He just waited patiently for me to approach.

“I have one question for you,” I said. “If you answer it, we forget all about this.”

“All about what?” Shiny Suit replied. He smiled. His tiny teeth looked like Tic Tacs. “I don’t see anything to forget, do you?”

The iPhone was in my hand, displaying the clearest photo I had of Bob. “Who is this man?”

Shiny Suit looked at it. He smiled at me again. “Let me see your badge.”

Uh-oh. So much for attitude selling it.

“Just tell me—”

“You ain’t no cop.” Shiny Suit found this funny. “You know how I know?”

I didn’t respond. The door to the shop opened a crack. I could see the kid peeking out. He met my eye and nodded his gratitude.

“If you were a cop, you’d know who that is.”

“So just tell me his name and . . .”

Shiny Suit started to reach into his pocket. He could have been reaching for a gun. He could have been reaching for a knife. He could have been reaching for a tissue. I didn’t know which. I didn’t ask. I probably didn’t care.

I had had enough.

Without saying a word or issuing a warning of any sort, I snapped my fist into his nose. I could hear the cracking sound, like I’d stepped on a big beetle. Blood ran down his face. Even through the small crack in the door, I could see the kid smiling.

“What the—?”

I snapped another punch, aiming again for the definitely-broken nose. “Who is he?” I asked. “What’s his name?”

Shiny Suit cupped his nose as though it were a dying bird he wanted to save. I swept his leg. He went down in almost the exact spot the kid had been in less than a minute earlier. Behind him, the crack in the door disappeared. The kid wanted no part of this, I guessed. I didn’t blame him. The blood was messing up my man’s shiny suit. I bet it would wipe right off like vinyl. I bent down with my fist cocked.

“Who is he?”

“Oh man.” Shiny Suit’s voice had a tinge of awe in the nasal. “You’re such a dead man.”

That almost slowed me down. “Who is he?”

I showed him the fist again. He held up his hand in a pitiful defensive move. I could punch right through it.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Danny Zuker. That’s who you’re messing with, pal. Danny Zuker.”

Unlike Otto, Bob hadn’t used his real name.

“You’re a dead man, bro.”

“I heard you the first time,” I snapped, but even I could hear the fear in my voice.

“Danny ain’t a forgiving guy either. Oh man, you are so dead. You hear what I’m saying? You know what you are?”

“A dead man, yeah, I got it. Lie on your stomach. Put your right cheek on the pavement.”

“Why?”