13 A NOTABLE OMISSION IN THE SKIDMORE COLLEGE SYLLABUS
The backup generators whirred to life. The freezers hummed, LEDs glowing green. The emergency spotlights hesitated, then stunned bright white, Maglite beams crisscrossing the combat zone.
The Sophomore Slayer lay motionless at Cori’s feet. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, swirled with the ice cream. Cappuccino strawberry. Cori’s umbrella sprouted from the loser’s thigh.
“I came to see where you were. I was worried. You hadn’t called. I thought he was you.” I wrapped my arms around her. “He grabbed me. I reacted. I do that. I knew he wasn’t you. After, I mean.”
“You did good,” I said. I gave her the short version of how he’d come to rob me.
“Is he dead?” she asked, a shiver of apprehension.
I knelt beside him, monitored the uneasy to and fro of his chest. “He’ll survive.”
“Should we call an ambulance, the police?”
“Wouldn’t be good for him. And a whole can of worms for us. Look at him. We roughed him up good. They’ll question who the real victim is. Try talking your way out of that.”
“He tried to rob you.”
“No,” I said, “he came to kill me.”
She looked at the body on the floor and back to me.
“He’s thinks I’m the Brittle Butcher.”
“You? Your dad? I don’t understand.”
“He seemed to think killing me would make him some kind of hero.”
“My God, Rob.”
“Yeah.” I pulled her umbrella from Dobsie’s leg. The wound was deep. She’d packed a wallop. I wiped the bloodied end of the umbrella on his hoodie.
Cori extended her hands. “If you don’t mind,” she said. I wiped the blood and ice cream from her driving gloves and she reciprocated by lifting a corner of my apron to clean my chin.
A cell rang. Kelly Clarkson. My Life Would Suck Without You. Could the punk-ass have been any more uncool? His eyes rattled open. He raised a finger, but his hand failed to follow. I scanned the lot; his buddies had turned tail. I dug the phone from his pocket.
“Dobsie? Dobsie?”
“Hey, Em—Emory,” I said.
“Dobsie?”
“All good, man,” I said. “All good. Meet me outside. Hurry.”
“You sound funny.”
“Yeah, well.”
“You kill him? Did you?”
“All good, man. All good. No worries. No worries. Hurry. Hurry.” I clicked off.
I knelt by Dobsie’s head. “Do your homework next time. Know who you’re dealing with. Avoid individuals with behavioral issues. And keep it simple. Don’t make it personal. If you’re going to rob, rob. If it’s to kill, kill. Get in, get out.”
I could see the agitation coursing through him, building like a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s in the microwave. Maybe he thought I was getting set to slit his throat. He let rip a panicked cry, threw himself to the side, and made another move on Cori. I now got to see what the blackout had concealed.
Cori evaded his grasp with the agility of a cat on a rat, hard-landed her heel on his right hand, and high-stepped onto his left. Wired she was, as she stomped, stoked by the girly yip yip yip from his throat and the chilling pop pop pop of his knuckles. She was going in for the kill, a back-kick to the jaw, but pulled up at the surrender in his face. She alighted daintily en pointe. A snug tug on each of her gloves marked the decisiveness of her victory. Kung Fu Dentist—in theaters now! 97 percent fresh on rottentomatoes.com!
“Jeez, Cor.”
Her smile was in the realm of sheepish as she examined the heels of her ankle-high hiking boots. “I’ve taken a few self-defense classes over the years.”
“And you were afraid of me—my stupid badass look? It’s me who should be afraid of you.”
“Perhaps.” She was nonchalant, a twinkle in her eye.
Together, we dragged Dobsie outside, negotiated his disobliging frame through the rising waters, over the parking stanchions, and propped him up against the window, beneath the jubilation of the poster that hyped Saratoga’s Only 5-Scoop Cone. Cori retreated inside, left him to me.
I squatted between his splayed legs, balled the front of his hoodie into an unforgiving fist and parked my knuckles in the hollow of his throat. I jerked him near, wanting him to hear every word. The elements raged without let-up. The savagery buoyed me.
“Listen,” I said. He gazed slack-jawed through droopy lids. “I am the victim here, not you. You brought this on yourself. You’re hurt bad. You need to get to a hospital. Understand? A hospital. Where the doctors and nurses, and likely the cops, will want to know how you got banged up. You’ve got two choices: shut the fuck up or make something up. Because if you or your amigos breathe about me or my wife and what went down here tonight, the next place you’ll rest your empty head will be the deep end of a body bag. And that goes not just for you, Dobsie, but your buddies, your pal Emory, your mommy, your daddy, and every human shit who has helped to make you the sorry-assed fuck you are today. I know who you are, I know where you live.” I slit his throat with my finger. “I am not who you think I am, Dobsie. But I promise you, I can be.”
I let the wall break his fall. I was sore, soaked, and tired.
My curbside sermon complete, I returned inside to find Cori sprinkling Skor bar crunchies onto a Toffee Tornado sundae. “There you go,” she said, as she set it on the counter.
“For me?”
“Who else?”
“It’s perfect. You’re some fast learner, lady.”
“It’s fun once you get the hang of it.”
She scooped assorted sorbets into a cup for herself.
I dimmed the emergency lights, angled them low, sufficient for us to see out, but not outsiders to see in. We sat well back from the windows, our legs dangling from the countertop, two crazy kids taking in a show.
“What did you say to him?”
“Not much. The spoken word version of my badass look, I suppose.”
The Outback coasted into view, passed in front, circled back.
“What if they come in?” Cori whispered.
“Sounds like you’re hoping they will.”
Dobsie’s accomplices took it slow, before summoning the courage to retrieve him. They gathered him up quickly, pranksters from Sigma Delta Douche swiping the rival fraternity’s mascot. They stuffed their fallen leader into the rear of the Outback. The doors blew shut as the Subaru hydroplaned into the fringes of Hurricane Jerry.
“Can I have a taste?” Cori asked, and I fed her a spoonful.
“I do make a good sundae, if I do say so myself.”
“You looking for a job?”
“You never know.”
Cori helped me mop up.
I picked up the gun, wrapped it up in a towel, set it aside.
“What if he had shot you?” she said, her arm at my waist.
“Yeah, well, he didn’t.”
Lastly, I got around to the redo of Alma and Lowell’s anniversary cake. Cori watched as I worked, joining in toward the end to demonstrate her skills with frosted ribbons and rosettes. “My Aunt Maureen owned a bakery,” she explained.
“I thought you said she was a dentist, why you went into dentistry.”
“She was my inspiration. Not because she was a dentist, because she gave so many people so many cavities. Besides, fondant and dental fillings aren’t all that far removed.”
“If that’s the case, then you and I were made for each other. We just might have a goldmine here, Cor.”
“Right. You rot the teeth . . .
“ . . . and you fix them.”
“I’ll be sure to leave a box of my business cards by the door.” She dabbed a fingertip of chocolate fudge onto my nose, brushed up close, and licked it off. Making love atop a soda fountain was a first for both of us.
We were ready to go, when she asked to see the gun again. I unwrapped the towel. “I want it,” she said.
I double-checked the safety. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Not a good idea, Cor. The serial numbers are filed down and—”
“I want it,” she said.
“Trust me, you don’t.”
“If they come back. If they find out where we live . . . Give it to me.”
“Do you even know how to use it?”
“They came to kill you, Rob.”
“Yes, but if you’ve never—”
“It’s a Bersa,” she said. “A Thunder .380, matte finish, double action, eight-plus-one capacity. Super compact with a checkered polymer grip. Made in Argentina.” She slipped a slender finger through the trigger guard and deposited Dobsie’s gun in her bag.
“What are you, a secret agent? CIA? Wonder Woman?”
“How did you ever guess?” she said.
And there’s the thing about that night. We were troubled, but in no way shaken. Not how you’d reckon innocents of sound mind to behave in the aftermath of violence. The kid had tried to kill me. My wife had almost killed the kid. It was not a first for me. I’d been well schooled, had lived the larger part of my life in the barrens of dispassion. But who or what had messed up Cori?