As Dog Is My Witness (36 page)

After a moment, the shadow stopped punching and rose.
And rose. And rose some more. I looked up, my eyes adjusting.

Finally, I could see that the shadow was Biggest. He
looked down to make sure the supine figure of Kevin Fowler was not
conscious. Believe me, it wasn’t.

What did you think—that I was going to get shot?
Haven’t you noticed this is all written in the first person?

“Oh my god,” I said. “All this time, you’ve been
protecting me from
him.
”

Biggest turned to me, smiled, and spoke, with, of all
things, a remarkable upper class British accent. “Quite something,
wasn’t it?” he said. “I saw you back there on the bluff, you know,
but I couldn’t make a move while he had the gun in your back. Once
he moved it, and the cell phone rang, I could get him away from you
with no problem at all” (he pronounced it “a-tall”).

“You can talk,” I said. It was the best I could
do.

“Quite,” he said. “Well, I suppose we should do
something about our friend back there.”

“Yes,” I answered. It was hard not to emulate the
accent. “I’m going to have to call the police.”

“That’s actually not what I’ve been told to do,”
Biggest replied. “I’m supposed to bring him back to our ‘mutual
employer.’” By “our,” he meant himself and Kevin.

“I realize that,” I said, “but I can’t allow it, I’m
afraid.” In another minute, I’d be inviting him in for tea and
scones. “Procedure, and all that, you know.”

He looked down at me from the rarefied air he
breathed up there. “I could insist.”

“You could, and I’d be at a loss to resist, but I
don’t think your employer would look upon that very kindly.”

Biggest nodded. “Quite right. Very well, then, we’ll
play it your way. But you do realize I’ll have to make myself
scarce before the police arrive.”

I nodded. “Naturally. Do you think I have to worry,
or will he remain unconscious for a sufficiently lengthy
duration?”

Biggest, who had knelt to pick up Kevin’s gun, put it
into his parka pocket. I noticed he was wearing gloves. “Not to
worry,” he said. “He’ll be out quite some time, I should
think.”

He started to turn, and I touched him on the arm,
because I couldn’t reach his shoulder. He turned back.

“I didn’t thank you,” I said, stumbling over the
words.

“A pleasure.” He smiled, actually tipped his hood at
me, and ambled off.

I picked up the cell phone, which had started ringing
again. It was Abigail.

“Aaron, I was frantic! Are you okay?”

“It’s all over now, honey, and I’m fine. Just another
day at the office, but with guns. I’m calling the cops, and that’ll
be it.”

“Guns! What . . . ?”

“Don’t worry,” I told Abby. “I’m absolutely fine. But
I didn’t find Howard.”

“That’s what I was calling to tell you,” she said.
“He showed up here five minutes ago. Said it was such a nice night,
he decided to take the dog for a good long walk.”

“Figures.”

“You’ll be home soon? I’m still a little scared.” So
she did love me, after all.

“As soon as the cops let me go, I’ll be home,
Abby.”

So I called the Midland Heights police, and Officer
John Crawford and his new partner were there in seconds. “Merry
Christmas,” I told them when they arrived.

Crawford assessed the scene: me, with no weapon,
standing over the comatose figure of Kevin Fowler, who had clearly
been pummeled to a bloody pulp. Then he looked at me again.

“Okay, here’s my guess,” he said. “He fell on a rock
seventeen times.”

“You don’t think I could do that to him?” I tried my
best to sound insulted.

He looked at me for a very long time. “No.”

“Would you believe I found him like this?”

Slightly shorter pause. “No. You called 911.”

“I did, but because I found a guy lying in the
park.”

“You told them you were being attacked.”

“Oh, yeah.” He had me there.

“So what happened?” Crawford said without a smile,
but then he’s never smiled in my presence.

“He was threatening me, and another guy beat the crap
out of him, but he left.”

“Who was the other guy?”

“I have no idea,” I answered.

T
he cops kept me for a
while, and then Rodriguez called, and
he
kept me for a
while. Though I got home relatively soon afterward, most of the
rest of the family had already gone to bed. Abby, who had stayed up
for me, made the wait worth waiting for, and that’s really all you
need to know.

I slept in Christmas morning, and when I finally
dragged myself out of bed at ten-thirty, I was still a little
groggy. It had been something of a rough week.

So, with a surreal feeling, I walked into my kitchen
and saw a man who looked a lot like Howard Stein entertaining my
family with what seemed to be a very amusing anecdote.

“So there I was, dressed from head to toe in
bandages, walking into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in
Manhattan, and having people stare like this”—he made a face. The
kids roared with laughter. “And when I got to the ticket booth
. . .  Aaron! Good morning!” Howard stood up and
everyone else at the table turned to look at me. Since I had only
put on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hadn’t combed my hair
or shaved, I figured they were staring because of my appearance.
Not so.

“Uncle Howard is telling us a funny story about a
Halloween party he went to when he was in college!” Leah gushed.
“It’s really funny!”

“Yeah, Dad,” said Ethan. “He was dressed as the
Invisible Man, and he had to get from New York to New Jersey in his
costume.”

“Sit down, honey,” said Abby, and she actually went
to the stove and poured me a cup of honest-to-goodness hot
chocolate made from scratch. I started to worry they’d been told I
had a terminal disease, and were being nice to me for the short
time I had left.

“How did you sleep, Aaron?” asked the man pretending
to be Howard.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my
brother-in-law?” I asked.

Howard laughed. “You always
were
funny,
Aaron.” I shot Abby a look that said, “Who
is
this man?”

“If everyone at this table under the age of sixteen
is finished,” Abby said, “could they please go to their rooms and
get dressed?”

The kids grumbled. “But we haven’t heard the end of
the story!” Leah said.

“Don’t worry,” said Howard. “I’ll tell it to you on
the way to the airport.”

And amazingly, that did it. The children got up and
walked to their rooms without so much as a residual whine. But on
the way out, Dylan said quietly to Ethan, “I get to go home and
play a
real
video game today. Not your
baby
game.”
And before I could say a word, Howard stood up and pointed a
finger—at his son.

“Dylan,” he said, “you’re going to be civil to your
cousin, who’s given half his room to you for a week. And if you’re
not, you won’t be playing video games until sometime next
year.”

“But Dad,” Dylan began.

“Is that clear?” Howard emphasized.

“Yeah, it’s clear.” Dylan slunk off, and the adults
were left alone.

I wondered if I had awoken in an alternate universe,
but Abby was still beautiful and the hot chocolate still tasted
wonderful. Perhaps it was a selective alternate universe.

Once the kids were gone, Abby looked at me and said,
“I think I’ll check the laundry.” This was a surprise, too, since I
always do the laundry, at least until it needs to be folded.

“Laundry?” I asked.

“Yeah, you remember. How clothes get clean?” She left
for the basement before I could wonder, and there I was, alone,
with Howard and Andrea. I waited for the mask to slip off and for
the real Howard Stein to appear, but no such thing happened.

Howard cleared his throat a couple of times. This
appeared to be his way to indicate he was going to speak. “Aaron, I
just want you to know that I’m . . .  sorry about
the way I’ve treated you for, well, pretty much all the time we’ve
known each other.”

Now, I knew. Abby had slipped some hallucinogen into
my hot chocolate, or his coffee. I pinched myself. It hurt. I knew
I was awake.

“You are?” is the best I could manage.

“Yes, well . . .  Howard’s eyes
searched his frontal lobe for the right words, but he couldn’t find
them.

“I think what Howard’s trying to say is, well, he
learned something about you last night,” Andrea said, “when you
went out to find him even though you knew it could be
dangerous.”

“And it
was
dangerous,” Howard added. “I think
maybe I’ve misjudged you, Aaron.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I answered. “I’m still the same
guy you’ve found irritating and underachieving all these years. I’m
still not good enough for your sister.”

Howard puffed out his lips. “Apparently, she thinks
otherwise,” he said. “When she insisted I walk the dog to keep you
safe last night, that was the first time Abby openly defied me
since our father died. To do that, she has to feel pretty strongly
about you.”

“The fourteen-year marriage, the two kids, and the
thirty-year mortgage weren’t enough to convince you?” I asked.
“Does she do that with everybody she finds mildly amusing?”

“Boy,” said Howard, chuckling, “you don’t make it
easy.”

“I had a gun held to my head last night,” I said.
“I’m not in a real bouncy mood.”

“Well, please think about my apology,” he said. “And
let me know if you accept it.”

I smiled. “I’ll tell you what I tell the kids,
Howard,” I said. “I accept your apology, but I’ll be on the lookout
to make sure you don’t do the same thing again. There’s nothing
wrong with making mistakes . . . 
if
you
learn from them.”

“Fair enough,” Howard said.

What happened next is a bit blurry. Their Christmas
Day flight left early in the afternoon, so we didn’t have a whole
lot of time to spare. The usual getting-the-family-out-the-door
nonsense ensued, but baggage and personnel were conveyed to Newark
Liberty International on time. Security concerns made it impossible
to enter the gate with the travelers, and Howard wouldn’t pay for
parking—some things
never
change—so we said our goodbyes at
the drop off curb, and headed home.

The Tuckers’ Christmas tradition was then observed,
with a family outing to the movies (Ethan is currently obsessed
with Adam Sandler) and our favorite Chinese restaurant, which
serves the one and only General Tso’s chicken my son will deign to
eat. We weren’t the only ones at dinner, but it was pretty close.
The waiter sat and talked to us for twenty minutes, and, on the
house, brought everyone ice cream for dessert because Leah, fresh
from Chinese classes at school, could count to ten in Mandarin.

After we got home, Abby walked the dog without
incident, and we watched our traditional Christmas video together:
Jean Shepherd’s
A Christmas Story.
Shepherd, at least, had
attitude.

Once the kids were safely tucked in bed, Abby and I
spent a while on the sofa with the TV off, talking about almost
nothing and smiling a lot. Then, I sent her to bed.

I had a screenplay to revise by tomorrow.

“
Y
ou think I’ve forgotten,
don’t you?” Abby said. Thirty minutes before New Year’s, we stood
together in the living room, and she looked so good I wanted to
devour her whole. But then, that’s not unusual.

“Forgotten what?” I said, having to speak loudly.
Along with the family, we had our usual December 31st crowd: Leah’s
best friend Melissa, her parents Miriam and Richard, and Ethan’s
friend from summer camp, Cody, with his parents, Barbara and
Milt.

“You know perfectly well.” My wife, when it’s her
intention, can be as annoying as the next woman, depending, of
course, on who the next woman happens to be. If it’s Kelly Ripa,
then she can’t be as annoying. Everything’s relative.

“Okay,” I said. “What?” But she turned away and
walked to the living room, where my kids and their friends were
indulging in the one holiday tradition I insist upon: watching the
Marx Brothers on New Year’s Eve. This year was
Horsefeathers—a
personal favorite.

Lori Shery had called earlier in the day with New
Year’s wishes. She still felt it was her fault I’d almost been shot
in the head, and no amount of denials would persuade her otherwise.
But she was still Lori, and therefore upbeat in a totally
unannoying way. I said I still owed her 167 more favors, having
evened the scales by only one. Lori, however, said we were
even.

Mary Fowler had called the week before. Recovering
from the shock that Kevin was going to jail for murder and
attempted murder, she said she was concentrating on Justin, who
apparently had lost all interest in guns and was now obsessing over
superheroes, with an eye toward becoming an illustrator of “graphic
novels,” or, as I like to think of them, comic books with a good
publicist.