All Kinds of Beer Bottles

The neighborhood should have been dark. Should have been. The moon was brilliant, but the clouds hid it just as well as the stars. Rain misted and swirled in the breeze. The summer heat was still fighting to hold dominance over the coolness of the night. The rain was actually welcomed by those huddled in what should have been a dark, if not exactly stormy, night.

But the light was pretty much over whelming. Each police car had a blue and a red beacon shouting across the spectrum. There were over a dozen cars arrayed down the street. So many that they represented the pecking order of the officers who drove them. The newest, sleekest cruisers with the lights aerodynamically and deceptively woven into the fabric of the cars were reserved for the senior lot who got first pick of the newest models.

So it went all the way down to the almost anachronistic "bubble gum" machines on the tops of cars that would have been considered classics but for the fact that they were still in use - those were reserved for the newest to wear the badge. Except for the car that belonged to Jankowicz. The older, slightly pudgier than average cop had finagled to get the car he and his first partner had driven too many years ago. It was good to be the sergeant.

Up until just a few seconds ago, Jankowicz had been the most senior person on scene and as such had kept everything in check and made sure no civilians were in danger. He had also made the call to broadcast the situation far and wide so that every available unit would have the opportunity to respond. Jankowicz was not a complete fool.

Now he was not the most senior person on scene. Captain Horgan was here. Horgan was a couple of years younger than Jankowicz but had flown up the ladder. He had been a captain longer already than Jankowicz had been sergeant. But Horgan had not gone so far so fast without leaving a wake of resentment behind him. Jankowicz was not one of the many who held Horgan's ambitions against him. Jankowicz was not the type of man to care about such things.

"Jankowicz - what the devil is going on here? Its one in the morning in a middle class neighborhood and you have a battalion out here for a drunk and disorderly? What are you thinking?"

Jankowicz was not really thinking about Horgan's question. Horgan was not the type to understand the answer anyway. What Jankowicz wondered was how in the world a political animal like Horgan, who had not had to work a night shift in a decade, was aware of something, anything happening at this time of night.

Jankowicz heard the answer in his left ear. "It's Horgan. Horgan is here. Makes sense. He is doing that weather girl from channel 12 and she has that brownstone across the way over on Boynton St. You should check to see if his fly is open."

Despite himself, Jankowicz took a peek. Horgan did not notice. And his fly was up. Jankowicz had not quite gotten used to the earpiece and the sudden advent of another's voice from a far. So of course his rookie partner simply could not help herself but insinuate herself into his consciousness at awkward moments. "Well?!" shouted Horgan.

Jankowicz did his best to repress the smile that was too eager to come to his lips. "Well, Captain, its like this. The gentleman in that brown... um... fixer upper, I guess, you'd say for this neighborhood..."

"Its and eyesore Jankowicz. Get to the point."

"Well, it seems that the neighborhood housing committee - some kind of community standards group - sent three representatives over to talk to the owner, one Mr...."

Christy was in his ear again from her vantage point 3 cars over, "Josh Adams."

"Mr. Adams," Jankowicz continued. "They argued. Adams told them to get off his property or he would split a beer bottle over the head of each of 'em"

"And?" asked Horgan.

"And they didn't believe him and he went back into his house, came back with 3 beer bottles and, get this, as they ran from the house, ran mind you, nailed each one of them in the head with a beer bottle."

Horgan just stared. Jankowicz continued, "They weren't really hurt but called us. The first two on scene each took a beer bottle to the head from at least 30 feet. The next two showed up and he nailed them plus one of the first two guys taking a second shot. This time none of them closer than 40 feet at most. The one guy who had hung back to get the bleeding above his eye to stop said it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. It would have been a big deal if the guy was sober but this guy is slurring his words and at least one of the guys with binocs thinks he may have pissed himself at some point."

Horgan just stared at Jankowicz. "By this point Christy and I are the next ones on the scene and she gets all over eager like rookies do...."

"HEY!" - right in his ear.

The squelch from the radio made him wince but Jankowicz continued, "So sure enough, she took one right off the noggin that sent her sprawling - she's back over there with one of those no-freeze ice packs on the knot on the side of her head."

Jankowicz stopped to take a breath and Horgan hissed a question,"Why the hell haven't you arrested him then? All he has is beer bottles? Geezus man, why do you have everybody out here with the world lit up?"

Jankowicz looked at Horgan. Every thought he had ever had about Horgan and the total lack of imagination required to play the political games required to hopscotch up the ladder was pretty much confirmed by Horgan's inability to grasp this situation. "Captain - he hasn't missed!"

Horgan just stared at the idiot Sergeant in front of him.

"As word got out and more and more cars showed up and some overly ambitious douche jumped out and ran to his front porch - POW - right in the kisser. He hasn't missed a single one.
Christy - how many is he up to now 30 - 31?"

"36" from his left ear.

"Thirty-six in a row! Thirty-six?"

"Some of the first guys tried twice," stated Christy - conveniently leaving herself out of the "some of the first guys" even though she had two knots on her head now.

Jankowicz shook his head, "Captain, you don't take a pitcher out when he is throwing a no hitter - with all due respect to Bobby Cox and Kent Mercker."

Horgan's eyes were wide but he found he could not talk. Jankowicz continued. "We started organizing the folks that arrived. We sent four up at once from different directions and he still nailed them. Some guys wanted to go up to five but the first two guys on the scene barked at that. They felt like, and I agree with them, that would make things too easy for the folks charging the porch."

"Too easy..." echoed Horgan, "for the POLICE!"

Jankowicz squirreled up his face and looked at Horgan like he was a moron. "Well, yeah. After we put on the helmets and the shooting googles, he really can't hurt us. Now its just a matter of skill."

Horgan looked at him, slack-jawed. "Captain, he is a perfect 36 for 36! That alone is amazing! And then you have to wonder where he got all the beer bottles and then it starts to become supernatural. "

Christy jumped in his ear again, "And the types of beer bottles! He had Miller and Bud and all the light varieties. But he has craft beers that I have never heard of and he has 7 ounce bottles and 12 ounce and a couple of growlers for the big guys like McGillicutty. Just being able to be so proficient with so many different sized beer bottles puts this whole thing over the top. And I just love the fact that he ain't a beer snob and will try just about anything from the looks of the glass out here."

Horgan watched as Jankowicz had gone glassy eyed while listening to his left ear and lost it. "Sergeant, you listen and you listen good, you hear me?" Horgan was waving his finger in Jankowicz's face. His own face was flush red and spittle was flying from his screaming maw. He noticed Jankowicz begin to roll his eyes and in that moment made up his mind to ruin the man - to drive him off the force all together. At the last moment he realized that Jankowicz was not rolling his eyes. He was merely looking up. Horgan turned in what felt like slow motion even to him as he started to realize what must be happening. Realization smacked him right in the face.

"37!!!!!!!!!"

Chapter 26: Her Confusion

His knee hurt.  It ached.  He walked with a limp that he resented.  At first he had gritted his teeth against it and refused to hobble despite the pain.  Long ago he had learned that pain was just an intense form of communication from nerves to brain.  Pain could be tied down or smothered if you had will enough to do it.  He had never lacked will.

But this was more than pain.  If he took a normal step, the knee became indecisive about which way it was meant to bend.  That invited more pain and a whole other resentment - his body working against him.  He had been stubborn - the less attractive cousin of a strong will - and refused to limp.  But the knee had sent him into walls and hopping against the possibility of a fall.  So he limped.

He was too old for this.  Long ago, when he was still in the life, he passed off this kind of thing to a younger generation of strong willed men.  He had been in his prime, still a power of a man who could inflict damage and pain if it was called for.  He had also been old enough to know when a stern word or even a smile would work better.  And he had given it over to younger men.  He was too old for this.

But there was no one else for it.  No one else would go after her.  She had killed the only one who would have.  She had killed her son.  He shook his head at thought.  He had known she was a hard woman.  He had been her instrument too many times to doubt her will. But to kill her own...

The boy had been like her in so many ways - smart and devious and savvy and charming.  He could put you in a good mood just by smiling at you.  He could talk.  He got that from his father - the politician.  But her mind and that smile and those words - the kid would have taken her out at some point - if that had ever been his aim.  But he just wanted to be away from her.

He didn't want what was hers and never had.  As just a boy he had seen through the manners and the politeness and the reserve and the poise that she wore.  He had seen the violence and rage and vulnerability and the vindictiveness and the utter incapacity for kindness.  He saw her plans.  He understood her calculations and manipulations and wanted no part of it.

The only thing he had not seen was her confusion, her blind spot.  No one who played her game as well as she did could ever be anything other than a threat.  He had wanted to walk away and be done with her.  Her need for control would never let him walk away.  He knew he would need a fortune to live a life free of her.  And she saw him amassing wealth - power - and came to the only conclusion she could have ever reached.

And the boy had never known the exact stakes they had played for.  And Ginger had never thought it would come to this either.  But the boy was dead.  His brother had been the weapon, but she had called the shot.  And now Ginger did the only thing a stubborn old man could do.  He hurt her as best he could.

The money was still earned and counted and stored and transferred in so many of the old ways that he himself had designed.  He waited at the weakest points and he killed and stole as much as he could.  He tipped the cops to the ones not vulnerable to a vengeful old man.  The limp had come when should have called the cops but pride and will had demanded he handle it himself.

The first two, the only two he had expected, had crumpled just as the lead found them.  Ginger took the time to take the silencer from his gun. He tossed them both into his duffle bag and raked thick stacks of bills in after it.    And then the third man, the unexpected man, the bastard who shouldn't have been there, had come out of the pisser. They had stared at each other for what had seemed like minutes.

Then the man had reacted.  He was a young man, at least forty years younger than Ginger.  And he was fast.  His leg had swept out and found Ginger's right knee.  The nerves in the knee had shouted - loudly.  Ginger had ignored the noise and as he fell he threw his right hand up into the man's groin and could almost hear that shouting as well.  As Ginger had hit the floor, the other man had doubled over while trying to remember how to breathe.

Ginger sat up and clapped his hands around the man's head and his thumbs found his eyes.  The screaming was out loud now.  Ginger slid his hands down and tried to make a fist with the man's throat between his fingers.  Ginger slung the corpse down and then frantically clawed over it until he found the other man's gun.  He was hyperventilating in great gulps of air as he scrambled across the floor to get his back to the wall and wait for the next unexpected thing.

Nothing else waited for him.  He got up.  The knee shouted. Ginger gritted his teeth.  The pain wilted.

Chapter 25 - How Blessing Met His Best Friend

Blessing looked around the house.  They had just come down the long hallway with a dining room set off to one side and a den of some kind off to the other.  It was not a large house.  It was really much smaller than any of the houses that his mother cleaned.  It was not all that much bigger than the house he and his mother lived in.  A crucifix hung by the doorway.  That was different.  There were so many in his home.  Just the one here.

He had been told to sit in the den while his mother met with the owner of the house - her employer.  He had not expected Ms. Wetta to live in a place like this.  He had expected more.  Grandeur and decadence was what he expected - even if his 13 year old vocabulary never had those words for it.  The closest it came to excess was the butler who answered the door.  A tall black man with red hair curled tightly and cut short to his head.  His eyes pushed down at him.  Those eyes, that stare, had made Blessing look down.  His own eyes fixed upon the shiny black shoes.  He stared at them and tilted his head just a bit.  Yep.  The vague image in the toe of the shoe shifted just the same.  This butler had style.

The butler had led his mother to the stairs to the basement.  Blessing had never known of a house in Crosby to have a basement and wanted to follow them - it was part of the reason he had left the den and was halfway down the hallway after them.  Years later, at the most awkward of moments, he would remember the door of the basement opening.  The black man held the door with his right hand while  his left found the center of his mother's back.  And his mother's right hand had reached up and settled in the middle of the black man's chest.  He had seen this.  But he had not noticed it. A part of him locked the memory away.

He looked up at one of the pictures on the wall and saw a man.  His sandy blonde hair was going to grey around the edges.  The man was in a plaid shirt and was holding the reins of a horse.  The horse's head was draped over his shoulder in a way that Blessing, who knew nothing about horses, could tell was friendly.  There was a boy on the other side of the horse.  He had the same hair and eyes and nose and bearing of the older man.  But his smile was... friendlier.

"That was taken, what?  Three years ago now. I must have been about your age from the looks of you. Dad took Jericho and me to Kentucky for the Derby."

Blessing turned and saw the boy from the picture.  Only older.  Taller.  Shoulders broader and the arms and legs looking like they belonged.  But it was the boy from the picture.

The boy never really stopped talking.  He had paused until he saw recognition and then rambled on, "Dad had promised that we would all go to Kentucky.  Of course that was before Jericho turned up lame.  Freak thing.  Not even in a race.  Working with the trainer.  That trainer..."  The boy didn't spit but the pause had.  Even at thirteen Blessing was impressed by that.  The other boy had said the words just so and Blessing, in his mind, had spit at the mention of the trainer.  He tilted his head to the left in appreciation.

The other boy continued, "That bastard wanted to put Jericho down.  The first vet did too.  But Dad found one willing to do the work.  And bend the rules.  In that picture?  Jericho is out of his mind on morphine."  The blond boy smiled from ear to ear.

Blessing found his voice even in the face of that smile.  "How could he race with..."

"Race?  Oh hell, he didn't run at the Derby.  No.  Hell no.  Dad had just promised that we would all go to the derby. And by God, we did.  Dad drank mint juleps until he was fall down drunk and I found his bottle of bourbon until Ginger took it away from me. And ole Jericho was out of his mind on illegal narcotics.  My dad was freaking insane.  But ya gotta love that kind of crazy don't cha?"

Blessing found himself in the glare of that smile again.  And he smiled back.  "Oh.  Sorry.  I haven't introduced myself.  I'm Sebastion Bradshaw.  But my friends call me Bash."

"I'm Ben."  He reached out to take the hand that the blond boy offered.  They shook.  Blessing looked up at him.  He wrinkled his brow.  "Do your friends really call you 'Bash'?"

The blond boy looked him up and down.  Something about him changed just a bit.  Blessing felt it change.  When the blond boy continued his tone was different.  His voice was softer and somehow older.  Ben felt.. something.  He didn't know how or why, but he was now... more... in this boy's eyes.

The blond boy looked at him in silence for a beat and then smiled.  "Maybe its what I wish they would call me."

"What DO they call you?"

"They call me 'Bashful".  Especially the girls.  The name started with the girls actually."

Blessing felt awkward on the boy's behalf.  He knew how an embarrassing name could haunt and torment.  The blond boy must have seen the pity rolling across his face.  Bashful laughed.  "No.  Not like that.  God no.  That would be horrible."

"No.  I'm not at all bashful.  That's what makes the name.  That's why it stuck.  I've never really had a problem talking to girls.  Any girl.  All the girls.  Some of whom can apparently get fairly jealous.  There was a bit of a scandal when two young ladies got in an actual fight over me. The odds against such a fight were astronomical.  A truly historic bit of fisticuffs."  Bashful paused a beat, "One was my history teacher and the other taught physics."

Blessing laughed out loud.  Bashful smiled.

Chapter 24: Sitting Next to Curtis

He had sat next to Curtis Steeridge  in a diner in Mountain View, California.

He sat and listened intently to the slightly tipsy man talk about moving boxes in a warehouse.  Curtis said that he was old school - a label sticker and a box kicker.  A burp of Jack Daniels and he explained that his current team was almost all millennials,  Even so, they had still set records.  He went on to explain that it had always been about giving away credit.  But with millennials?  You had to give each one of them a bit of the credit. And specific credit.  Something peculiar to them.  If you could do that, if you were willing to do that, then a generation vilified for participation trophies would actually do great things.

He listened.  He took it in.  But his situation never left his thoughts.  They still didn't know what he looked like -  exactly.  But they knew enough.  A particularly dark skinned Latino just over six feet. Slim, athletic, and carrying at least one bullet.  But alone.  He was supposed to be alone.

He had smiled at Curtis and nodded and said something encouraging to get him talking again.  They were not looking for two old friends sitting at the bar of a diner.  And it was easier to listen than talk while taking shallow breaths.  He resisted the urge to reach under his arm to feel the stitches.  The veterinarian had been a perfect confluence of character and greed.  The money got her to pull the bullet and replace it with thread and staples.   Her sense of honor had kept her from even thinking of selling him to the people who were now walking bar to bar, restaurant to restaurant looking for him.

Curtis was explaining how structure, accountability was almost always welcomed by those who could excel.  "If you don't define bad, you can never have good.  And if you don't know what good is, how the hell will you ever be able to recognize greatness?  You just gotta have a plan.  What IS success?  What does winning look like?  How do you know when you've won?"

He paid for the man's bill and then for dessert and then for a cup of coffee and then another.   Curtis even thought it had been his idea when he asked his new best friend and patron if he wanted to head over to Bierhaus to continue their conversation over German hops and barley.  Curtis was a good man.  A good talker without running out of words or eager listeners at the popular bar.

They had left the bar and moved on to a strip club.  They eventually sat with Edgar.  Edgar explained that he had his disability check sent straight to the club.  The club cashed it for him and sat up a tab.  They gave him the little bit of money he gave his mother for rent and he sat in his regular booth every day and every night until they closed the place down.  He was like a mascot for the club.

Curtis greeted Edgar with a joke about the blond that was on Edgar's lap.  The three of them laughed almost loud enough to be heard above the music.  Curtis called him over and introduced him to Cindy - Sindy he found out when he went to the pisser and saw her little poster above the urinal.  Back to Edgar.  Edgar offered him his right hand.  Even as he saw it, he was careful to not hesitate to shake it.  And he smiled and over the music loudly said, "Nice to meetcha.  Can I buy you a beer?"

Edgar had smiled back and said, "Naw.  I get beers at cost.  How about I buy you a beer and you by me a dance?"

And so they sat in the booth and Sindy and her friends Asshley with two s's of course (yet another poster) and Honey came over after their sets to snuggle comfortably between the three men.  Edgar finally noticed him staring at his hands.  He held them both up.  On his right hand he waggled the only two fingers there.  There were only two and they were exceptionally long.  It almost looked like they were extensions of two bones in the forearm.  And the thumb far down below from the two fingers.  An afterthought.  The left had three fingers plus another useless thumb.  "It wouldn't be so bad if my name wasn't Edgar frigging Thomas.  And no, I don't love Reese's Pieces either."

Curtis burst out laughing and despite himself and the stitches and the staples, he laughed too.  He called for another round even though his wasn't missing an ounce.  He looked over at Honey and couldn't tell if it had been a tough life or if she was just older than most strippers in the club.  "Honey?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"I need you for a little something."

"Bet its not too little," she smiled back at him.

He saw them come through the door.  The bouncers at the door had tried to frisk them and now one of the bouncers had a nose shattered and the other found a boot in his groin and his lunch moving up past his throat.

Before Honey saw, he whispered,"Take me for a private dance."

The noise was obvious after that but Honey couldn't care less.  She had a fish on the hook.  All that mattered was getting him in the boat.  That changed when he had her by the throat.  "How do I get out of here?"  She looked back to the way they came.  "NO!  When the cops come.  When vice decides they need a headline!  Where do you go! Now!"

She never shouted out or shed tear but he did have to grab her hand when it came up with a razor.  He had a full 3 seconds to realize where the folded blade must have been.  It took him another 2 to appreciate the... control that had kept it there for the night.  And yet another second to rule out bringing her with him.

As soon as the razor was on the floor she turned to look at the wall to the far left.  He threw her towards it.  She rolled with the momentum and had popped the hidden door open and was through it and just about to close it on him when he leaped through it.  That was when the first shots fire-crackered back down the hall.  He saw the next door vaguely in the darkness and dove for her ankles. She spilled in front of him and he drug her back to him.

"Don't move.  I can get us out of this alive but you have to do exactly what I say."  She stopped struggling and sat still.  Her eyes were wide.  But she didn't make a sound.  Light flooded down the narrow hall way.  Voices were in the hallway.  Her breathing got quicker and louder.

Two shots.  Two dead.  And he looked back at her and smiled.  "Get us out of here."

The days ran past them.  It took him 9 days to get back to Wetta.  It had turned out that his caution was well founded.  The two men had had colleagues who had proven too smart to be led down a dark and cramped hallway like their fellows.  He had kept the girl with him the whole time and used her again as a decoy when he had found a way to gain the upper hand.  Two days later he felt confident to make his way back to Wetta.

He still had the girl with him in the elevator leading up to the penthouse.  She had been quiet since they walked into the building.  The elevator opened and they turned left and walked down the hall to the wide open living space with the floor to ceiling windows looking out upon Manhattan. And there sat Wetta.  And she smiled with Curtis standing behind her.  "How did he do?"

"He's almost as calculating as you said.  Used me to ferret them out.  Killed them without hesitation.  But he did sleep with me on day four.  Until the door to that elevator opened, I was beginning to think he might not bring me to you.  And by the way, it is such a relief to be out of that strip club.  But it was nice to be ogled again at my age."  Honey - not her real name.

Wetta smiled at her.  And reached to the glass coffee table and held up a small card - a post card.  The picture on the front showed blue bonnets with a caption she could not read but apparently about Texas.  "He mailed this to me.  By the postmark it looks like he mailed it on day three of your little journey."

Honey - not her real name - no longer smiled but looked at him with a little bit of bewilderment and a little bit of respect.  Wetta continued, "Only one line, 'Honey is sweet.'"

Chapter 23: A Desperate Smile

He lay there breathing softly.  Her head rested on his chest in that romantic way.  She snored just above a whisper. He knew that bit of coolness trailing down his side was a thin line of drool.  Movies never showed that.  When she woke she would realize what had happened and would surreptitiously wipe it away from her cheek with her palm.  And he would pretend that he had never noticed and she would pretend that she believed that.

He had been so gentle this time.  There was not a hunger this time.  There was not an urgency.  It had been soft and delicate right up to that brief last moment when it is always savage and wild.  The kisses - their lips - her lips...  The feeling of her kissing him.  The softness of her lips within his and around his and against his.  Slowly and softly and familiar as they always were and strange and electric and teasing as they always were - her lips.

She had told him almost before he could close the door.  He had heard her and understood her and still stood dumbfounded like he had never learned the language she spoke.  She said it again and he had smiled so broadly and so desperately. His eyes had gone wide and the light reflected from them more brightly than a moment before.  He thought he never wanted this. Realization: he had never wanted to want this.  Her words only promised possibility.  Pragmatism held him aware of all  that could still go wrong.  And he damned himself for not being properly lost in this happiness.

She woke as he shivered.  She forgot herself and any embarrassment of sleep.  She marveled at him.  She had never seen this from him.  She had not known this of him.  He sobbed.  Ginger cried.

She reached up to his cheek while softly breathing, "Shhhhhh.  Its going to be alright. Its going to be wonderful.  Its okay.  Its okay."

After missing so many times, he managed to catch himself.  He inhaled deeply... again.  "Its more than okay.  Its a Blessing."

Chapter 22: Rogers

She finished pouring her drink.  She turned to look at him over her shoulder, "Would you like something?"  He shook his head no.  She turned and walked over to the couch and sat without saying another word.  She sipped her drink.  She made eye contact with him and then looked to the chair across from her.  He sat.

He knew better than to speak again.  She would just fix him with a stare until he stopped talking.  He had told her they had a problem.  Maybe this silence let her gather herself.  Maybe it was just to make him nervous.  She had seen her like this before.  Sometimes it had ended well for all involved.  Sometimes..

She inhaled and smiled.  "Have I ever told you my favorite story about Ginger?"  He managed not to wince but he did blink.  Even in this bit of discomfort, he was awed by her.  How did she know?  How much silk was in her web?  He shook his head to say no.

"The thing I love about Ginger is that he is so controlled.  Sometimes I thought he wouldn't actually sweat if he chose not to.  But he was also implacable.  Couldn't be stopped if set to a task.  That was useful to me at times - most times  actually.  That ability to separate himself from his emotions, his needs, the petty concerns of the common - I found that very attractive.  And familiar."

"He was never afraid of me.  And he was not afraid of failure.  He knew it was a part of life.  An inevitability for anyone daring to do great things.  He had no fear.  And he did not lose himself to ego."

"But my favorite story.  Happens to be true too.  John Malleck.  John Mallek was an earner.  Ran our New Mexico interests for six years.  Hated Ginger.  Hated him.  Professional jealousy was part of it.  Race was another.  Alpha male pissing on whatever he could."  She blinked her disdain.

"Called Ginger "Rogers" every time he spoke to him outside my presence.  And Ginger never once called him on it or told me about it.  Other people made a point of letting me know.  They thought it would lessen Ginger in my eyes.  Make him look weak.  I knew it was just the opposite.  I admired the fact that Ginger kept control of himself like that.  Went on for 8 months."

"Then one day it came to light that Mallek was skimming.  And not a little.  The man had been brazen.  Most people in Ginger's shoes would have been worried about that kind of thing happening on his watch, under his nose.  Not Ginger.  He came to me with it immediately.  And I gave him Mallek."

"I never saw Mallek again.  I did see Ginger's knuckles though.  Mallek did not die from a bullet to the head.  I know that much."

He cleared his throat. "I should have come to you as soon as we thought he was missing.  I know that."

She smiled.  Not a friendly thing.  "We haven't got to my favorite part of the story.  After the deed was done Ginger came here.  Iced his knuckles in that bucket right over there at the bar.  He took a deep breath and told me that Mallek had never stolen a dime.  He asked me why I had set him up."

"Because he disappointed me."

Chapter 21: A Dancing Butterfly

He sat behind his desk, arms crossed in front of him.   He sat back in his chair and it fell back in forgotten expectation.  The sudden rush of fear - the sharp intake of breath - every muscle tensing in adrenaline fueled impotence.  A single butterfly danced up.  Ginger smiled at himself.

He could not have planned a better way to put her at ease.  At least as much as she could ever be at ease in his presence.  He was fallible.  Capable of fear.  He could tell by her smile, suppressed but still struggling up to the surface however briefly, that some of the tension had gone out of her.  She still sat ramrod straight in front of him with her hands folded within in themselves in her lap.  Her dress came to a tasteful length at her knees.  Her ankles were crossed like a proper lady.

He had refused to look to her ankle as she had limped into his office.  He did look at her cane.  The cane was something new.  The discomfort must be increasing with age, he assumed.  The cane was wood and a bit thicker that what you would normally see and it was polished to an impossible shine.

"I never wanted to see you again."  She managed, somehow. to smile in a way that made the statement funny, if not exactly friendly.

"YOU were the worst night of my life."

He found himself.  He had expected this. Accusation.  NOT smiling.  He could do that too. And he could do it better.

But she smiled, "And you were the best night of my life."

What?

It was everything he could do to keep from asking the question out loud.  And then he wondered why it would be wrong to say it out loud.  He was still debating when he heard his voice say, "What?"

It wasn't just his voice.  His brows had gone up and then crinkled together.  His chin had come up and to the left. Every tell he had ever had all at once. How did she do that?

"You gave me a life."  She shrugged the phrase at him.  "You gave me a limp.  But you gave me a life too. What you did was outrageous.  I had stolen from those women.  I had.  It was wrong.  I should have been punished.  That would have been just.  What you did...  What you did?  You were a horror.  A monster.  What you did to me...  I'll never walk without a limp.  That's the horrible action of a terrible person."

Ah.  We get to it.  A monster.  Evil. A bastard.  He knew this script.

"And I am sorry I put you in that position." He felt himself swallow.  None of this made any sense.  And yet..  she gave him pause again.

"I knew I worked for Ms. Wetta.  I knew what she could be like.  In the back of my mind, I knew if I was caught, well, honestly, no addict thinks she will ever be caught.  But I knew some of the things that had happened to people who had crossed her.   And I knew that she never did those things herself.  Someone would be ordered to do whatever thing she chose to do to me."

She pursed her lips at him.  "I'm sorry you had to be that person."

He laughed.  She pursed her lips a bit tighter.  "Let me get this straight.  You are apologizing to me for crushing your ankle?  Really?  My God, woman, What is wrong with you?"

"Not a thing.  I know you had a choice to make.  And I know you well enough, or I know of you well enough, to know that you have done far worse to other people than you have done to me.  And I believe you will be held accountable for your decisions one day.  I came here because I have to make amends.  If I thought this would do you harm, I would be obligated to NOT come here.  But I think you need to hear this:  I forgive you.  And I hope you can forgive me for putting you in that position - to have to  make one of those horrible choices."

Her eyes glistened and this time it was her turn to swallow deeply.  Ginger leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and looked at her.  His face was blank - a mask.  But another butterfly danced up from a dark place.

Chapter 20: Blessing

Ben did not like his name.  Not his whole name.  Just the first name that his mother saddled him with.  It would have been alright if he could have passed it off as Ben.  It was a white boy's name but it was not pretentious or precious.  He had learned to fight - to properly fight - over the name his mother had given him.  She had called him Bendicion  Spanish for blessing.  It was anything but.  It was not a typical Mexican name.  But, she told him, his father had insisted.  His father had named him but hadn't had the decency to stick around to have his ass properly kicked.

Ben had told his mother this once and she had smiled just to the point of laughter and looked up at him with eyes alight.  He loved that look when he played football in little Crosby, TX.  He loved it when he walked across the stage as Valedictorian at the University of Houston.  That look was his then.  When he talked of kicking out his father's teeth? He could tell that look wasn't his then.

He had been haunted by that look.  And the idea it shouted.  His father was invincible to her.  Even when he finished basic.  Even when he completed SEAL training.  Even when the whole world knew some of the things he had done without ever knowing his name -  he knew that look really belonged to the absent man.  He could never hate her for that.  Never.

She had limped from house to house cleaning up after old white women who always looked at her with disdain.  Even the other Mexican women who worked for Ms. Wetta looked at her like she was... less.  But she had never let him see any bitterness.  She made his life rich and full.  She was strict.  Grades mattered.  Manners were expected.  Meekness was valued.  Honesty above all.

He had only seen her enraged once.  He had beaten Billy McKinnon to within an inch of his life.  Not really.  But he had broken a rib and split his lip and gossip was that one testicle was swollen enough that they thought he might lose it.  Billy had been 15 at the time.  A bully.  A head taller than all the rest of his age and lacking something.  He was handsome and charming and a dark haired white boy of dark skin that the bigotry of the time only made handsome on a white boy.  Ben didn't know it at the time but later he learned that Billy was a sociopath.  All he knew when he was 11 was that there was no way in hell he was giving up his lunch money.

His mother had been in a rage when she found out.  She had driven him up to the McKinnon house out in the Woodlands and made him stand there in his best clothes and apologize to Billy while his family stood there smug and oh so comfortable in their... life.

He did like she wanted.  He had apologized.  But he saw it.  It was in Billy's eyes.  There was no shame there. Or fear.  Or concern.  Or acceptance.  Or even anger.  Everyone had always been vaguely uneasy around Billy.  Ben had seen it on the day he apologized while in his Sunday best.  Billy was not quite human.  Not human in the way that empathy or compassion or concern made a person human.  Ben knew that Billy, left to his own devices would kill him some day.  And it would not be a quick way to death.  It would be a savored thing.

Ben waited until he was sent to the Baptist Summer Retreat in August - his mother had such high hopes.  He stole a car of one of the counselors and drove back to Houston.  He stripped naked and jumped the fence of Billy's house.  He climbed up from the front porch to the roof and made his way to the window of Billy's room.  He rapped on the window.  Again.  And again.  He paused to hear.  Rapped again.  He paused to hear.  Motion.  Someone trying to be quiet on wooden floors of an ancient house that was built before Santayana slaughtered history at the Alamo.

Billy stuck his head out.  He looked to his right.  Ben waited until he looked back to his left.  Billy saw him.  He saw him.  His eyes saw him.  Light travels that fast.  He saw Ben.  By the time the message got to his brain, by the time Billy knew he had seen Ben, Billy was dead.  The ice pick had pierced the left eye and found the brain.  Ben had rolled his wrist like he was Zorro even though he wasn't sure he had to.  His mama never knew anything about that.

But Ms. Wetta - she had asked him about it at the interview.  She had pointed out that his alibi wasn't really an alibi.  It was just something for lazy law enforcement to miss.  She said that was something only a child could get away with.  Not something that would work for a full grown man.  Especially one so accomplished as he.  Ben had been working for Clear Skies for three years at that point.  Counting his time with the SEALS,  he had spent 7 years in the sand box.

While they sat she pointed out all the ways his murder of Billy McKinnon could have fallen apart,  He sat uncomfortably while his back itched like fire ants had made a meal of him.  He thought he had given nothing away and then she had commented on it.  He had protested when she had told him to remove his coat and his shirt.  But, inevitably, he sat before her in the bandages that had brought him home.

"So the burns are true."  she had said.  "Is the rest of it true?"

The ambush.  The explosion.  The roads blocked off and everything burning around him.  The three other Humvies on fire and men pouring out of them and taking fire.  His fifty cal there above him, haloed in flames.  Standing in the fire.  Hearing the skin on back and arms sizzle as moisture is driven out by heat.  Firing.  The whole time firing.  Deciding pain was not enough.  Deciding agony was fuel.  Deciding to keep firing until everything that could hide a shooter was rubble.  Deciding to kill everything to save your few.  Deciding to die to save your few.  Waking up in agony.  Waking to nurses and doctors pealing away the dead and burnt to get to the quick below.  Waking to scream.

"It's all true."

She had hired him on the spot.  He had started as her body guard.  He had started ignorant.  As ignorant as a man of his intelligence could be.  She had a good handle on him though.  She told him just before or just as he was figuring things out. It was an illusion he had never decided to see though. Truth and honesty.

That made him nervous now.  Ginger had been missing for weeks.  It had already been weeks when they realized that both sources on the island had gone silent.  It had taken another week to get out to the island and confirm that all the locals thought that Old Vincent and his girlfriend and his bartender had died in a boating accident miles off shore.  He had lost another two weeks trying to track the old man down on his own.  The man now had over a 90 day head start and Ben had no choice but to go to Ms. Wetta with the news.

She had talked to him more than once about pride.  This conversation was going to be painful.  Every lesson she had ever tried to teach about humility - every single one -  had just proven useless.  She had told him about sitting at a table chasing a straight when the aces had him beat.  Now he had to face her with all his chips in the center and that frigging deuce was never coming.

He walked in to the room with the long windows and waited for her to turn from the bar.  She fixed him with those green eyes.  She was older than his mother and looked 15 years younger.  He had never let himself dwell on it.  But she would look at him some times after what you would have thought were too many drinks...  She caught his breath at all the wrong moments.

He had never been scared of her.  She looked at him.  He cleared his throat.  "We have a problem."

End Chapter 20.