It had taken Brian Lu about two minutes to get his picture back. He tucked it into his pocket, and the ball in the other. He made sure to kick each man in the face as he cut through the downed crowd.
He ignored the talk going around. Too many people had seen him in action. Some of them pointed at him as he passed. He shook his head.
He decided to check by the apartment. The old man might be nursing some kind of injury to let anyone take something from the place. And if something had happened, he could brag about how he had taken care of things with his fancy footwork.
It would be something to rub in whenever they got together for a workout.
He would have to make sure to keep an eye on the doors if he rubbed it in too much. The old man was bad tempered at the best of times. And he was still fast despite losing the edge on his skills.
Brian had nursed a black eye for a month the last time he had razzed the old man about something. If he had moved away slower, he might have been sent to the hospital.
He turned over the idea that he should tell Sara what had happened. He decided not to do it. If she knew the bums, then she would find out that they had been trounced. If she wasn't involved, she wouldn't like his involvement. And he knew it looked like he was trying to get around their truce.
The last thing he wanted was to fight with his ex over something that made no sense on the face of it.
Maybe it had something to do with the flowers he had delivered.
He wondered about the professor, but he didn't remember a return address. Maybe he could call the flower company and see if there was a source. Then he could swing by and ask some questions.
He doubted that would violate their truce. Sara acted amazed by the flowers. That meant she hadn't thought about the professor since the plane crash.
Would the flower company give him the return address? That seemed to be the next big obstacle to any search.
He wondered if any of the fight crowd could help him with this.
He put the thought in the back of his mind as he saw his apartment building ahead. A small crowd stood out on the brick stoop. He stood at the back of the crowd, hands in his pockets.
“What's going on, Slick?,” said the old man. His thin hair was combed back from his wrinkled forehead. A burn mark peeked from the top of his shirt. He had told Brian that he had grabbed a hot pot wrong once. He wore a short coat, flannel shirt, jeans, and boots like Brian.
“I don't know,” said Brian. “It might have something to do with someone breaking into the place and taking some of our stuff.”
“What did they take?,” said the old man. He examined the front of the apartment building.
“I don't know everything, but they showed up at the park with my picture from the memory shelf,” said Brian. “Looks like they waited for you to go out before they broke in.”
“Let's go in and see what's what,” said the old man. “We're not going to find out anything out here standing around with these gumps.”
“All right,” said Brian. “You don't happen to remember who delivered the flowers for Sara. She said the name on the card belonged to a guy who had disappeared into the ocean.”
“Nothing weird about that,” said the old man. He pushed through their neighbors. Brian followed in his wake with a drifting trails of I'm sorry as they worked their way to the front door.
They walked to the stairs at the back of the ground hall. The building didn't have an elevator, and the old man didn't like them. The stated reason was they were enclosed spaces that could be hit from the outside with little effort.
Brian suspected his dad had a mild case of claustrophobia and didn't want to admit it.
On the other hand, it was easier to beat someone down in a stairwell where they couldn't just cut the cables to drop the elevator cab to the bottom of the shaft.
They stepped out in the apartment hall and looked around. The old man snarled as he looked at the door to the place. Some idiot had kicked the wooden panels in to get inside.
“Not very subtle,” said Brian.
“We'll be on the hook for the fixes,” said the old man. “You left these guys in the park?”
“Don't even think it,” said Brian. “There's no way they hung around after the beating I gave them.”
“I would like to make sure,” said the old man. “We're going to need some dough to get this fixed. Gepetti will be up our noses about this as soon as he quits being scared.”
“We'll have to look around for them,” said Brian. “Let's look around and see if they took anything other than the picture.”
The old man pushed the pieces of the door out of the way. He stepped inside the living room part of the place. A low growl escaped is throat at the sliced furniture, and wrecked shelves. Someone had kicked the television in.
“How am I going to watch the Expos now?,” complained the old man. “I can't believe this.”
“This seems a little excessive over some flowers and an ex-girlfriend,” said Brian. He stood outside the apartment, hands in his pockets.
“Tell me about it,” said the old man. “This really makes me want to talk to those lunkheads and find out what's going on.”
“I think we should call the cops since we don't really know who did this,” said Brian.
“We have to anyway so we can file an insurance claim,” said the old man. “Then we have to get someone to take all this wreckage out of here.”
“I know someone we can get a dumpster from,” said Brian. “We can just throw things out the window.”
“We can throw the smaller stuff out the window,” said the old man. “The bigger stuff will have to be humped out of here.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“I don't have a problem with that if you don't,” said Brian. “Looks like we're rooming together again.”
“You're out your mind,” said the old man. “They probably already burned the boat down to the ground for the intimidation.”
“I hope not,” said Brian. “All the rest of my stuff is in there.”
“Say good bye to your women in bikinis posters,” said the old man.
“Say good bye to your Expos,” said Brian with a wide smile.
“That's right. Kick a man when he's down,” said the senior Lu. “I would never do that to you.”
Brian's eyebrows went up in astonishment. He couldn't remember a time when the old man didn't kick him when he was down. When he had broken up with Sara, good for her was the sentiment.
“What happened here?,” said the landlord, Gepetti. “What have you two done?”
“Your top flight security system let someone come in here and bust the place up while I was out,” said the old man. “I thought you said it was foolproof.”
“I don't have a security system for this building,” said Gepetti. His beady eyes glared out of his round face of stubble and receding hair.
“Maybe you should get one,” said the old man. His tone snarled like a mean dog. “We'll wait for you to go get it and set it up before I kick you down the stairs.”
Gepetti backed up a step. He had confrontations with the old man in the past. This was the first time he had been threatened to his face.
Brian wrapped an arm around the smaller man's shoulders and dragged him away from the confrontation. He had no doubt the old man was more than capable of throwing someone down the stairs.
“Don't mind him, Mr. Gepetti,” said Brian. He made sure he was out of reach of the other Lu. “He's mad that someone broke in and broke the television so he can't watch the Expos. Now we're going to clean this up. It might take a while. Before we can get started, we're going to have to call the police and file a report.”
“What can I do for you?,” said Gepetti. He had the look of someone who had swallowed a bag of lemons.
“If you can find us a door before the police get here, that would be great,” said Brian. “I don't know if they'll want to seal the place off, but it might make things easier for them.”
“I'll call around and see what I can find,” said Gepetti. “He really likes the Expos?”
“He's Canadian,” said Brian. “He knows nothing of the glory of the Yankees.”
“I thought Canadians were supposed to be easy going,” said Gepetti.
“Most are,” said Brian. “Some are wolverines. They're mean, bad tempered, and ruin stuff. If you could call for that door, I'll get the police here so they can talk to you about a report for the insurance. As soon as we get that done, I'll try to find a dumpster so we can haul this wreckage away.”
“Thanks, Brian,” said Gepetti. “You're a good kid.”
“Thanks, Mr. Gepetti,” said Brian. He pulled out his phone. He called the number for the police department. There was no need to call the emergency service. No one was in danger, so there was no need for them hurry.
Brian told the dispatcher about the break-in. He assured her that everyone was all right. They just needed someone to come around to take a report.
The dispatcher assured him someone would come around.
Brian gave Gepetti a thumb's up to show things were moving. He wondered how long it would take for the landlord to get a door. He hoped it would be tougher than the first one.
Gepetti went downstairs to his place on the bottom floor. He seemed to be mentally flipping through a rolodex of people he could call for a door. It would be a tossup if the door came before the police showed.
“Canadian, eh?,” said the old man.
“No real American likes the Expos,” said Brian. “As soon as we deal with the police, I'll go check on the boat.”
“Go ahead and do it now,” said the old man. “I'll deal with the cops when they do get here.”
“I'll check in with you,” said Brian. “I think they thought I still lived here.”
“This is about Sara?,” asked the old man.
“And the flowers,” said Brian. “The flowers seems to have started everything. Be careful. Those guys might come back.”
“I hope so,” said the old man. “What did these guys look like at the park?”
“Slick mobsters in suits,” said Brian.
“I'll be on the look out,” said the old man. “Maybe we can have a little talk about paying me back for this mess.”
“The guys in the park didn't seem like they wanted to talk,” said Brian.
“I have a better personality than you,” said the old man. “Everybody likes to talk to me.”
“That has to be the biggest lie you have ever told me,” said Brian.
“The biggest lie I ever told you was you did okay whaling on that James kid when you were in the fourth grade,” said the old man.
“What was wrong with that?,” said Brian. “I whipped his bullying butt.”
“You looked like an idiot flailing your arms around like you never swung them before,” said the old man.
“That's not what you said then,” said Brian.
“Hence the lie,” said the old man. “Wake up, boy. You lucked out and busted his face before he thought you would. The fight was over after that.”
Brian shook his head. There was another childhood memory washed down the drain. The tinge of victorious nostalgia still remained. Stewie James had been a hulk who liked to pick on the smaller kids. Brian had stopped that three days after running into him for the first time. Stewie never picked on another kid if he thought Brian was wandering around, and in those days the old man had Brian running errands all over the city for him.
The school had said something to the old man. He had told them if they wanted their bullies to be kept safe, they should put them in a special school so they wouldn't run into someone who would beat them at their own games.
The old man was abrasive at the best of times, but that was one of the few times he had stood up for Brian unconditionally and would brook no threat of expulsion for what had happened.
“What do you want to do about this?,” asked Brian. “We're not detectives.”
“Go check on the boat,” said the old man. “But don't get close to it. Just make sure it's still parked in place.”
“Think they might have come here because they still thought I was living here?,” said Brian.
“It wouldn't surprise me,” said the old man. “Maybe they followed the flowers.”
“So they know where this professor is?,” asked Brian.
“Or they picked a guy out of her yearbook and didn't know he had been in a plane crash,” said the old man. “We won't know unless we get involved and ask questions. Sara and her boss might be involved in something crooked. They might not want us hanging around.”
“This might be about her boss,” said Brian. “Sara said he was nice enough, but not always in the store. Maybe these guys are actually looking for him, and think Sara knows how to find him.”
“All this?,” said the old man. He waved his arm to indicate the mess they would have to clean up.
“I don't know unless they thought grabbing me would get Sara to do anything for them,” said Brian. “I guess they didn't know we broke up.”
“So they did some asking around, but not anyone really close to either one of you,” said the old man.
“Looks like it, except they came to the park,” said Brian. “Maybe they have a lookout at the shop.”
“Do me a favor, go back to that shop, and keep an eye on things,” said the old man. “I'll wait on the police and Gepetti. When I get done here, I'll come down.”
“Sara won't like that,” said Brian.
“Like I give a flying fart,” said the old man. “Do what I say. Keep an eye on things. If you get a chance to grab one of these guys in suits, do that. I'd like to know why they wrecked my place.”
“The police frown on vigilantism,” said Brian.
“Only if they catch you,” said the old man. “Go ahead and get out of here.”
Brian turned to leave. He paused.
“Be careful. They might come back to try something else,” said Brian.
“I would like that a lot,” said the old man.
Brian headed down the hall. Anyone who annoyed the old man now was going to get hurt.
Brian took the stairs down to the ground floor. He slipped out the back to avoid the crowd in the front. The police should be showing up soon. He didn't want any of the busy bodies to point him to the cops while he was trying to make his escape.
He hoped that things were a simple misunderstanding. He didn't want to find out Sara was in trouble, or her boss was some kind of criminal, or any of the other things that were going through his head.
The old man was right about one thing. They needed to ask some questions of people who knew what was going on.