No Such Thing as a Lost Cause

by Shelly Fredman

  “You look nice,” I said, the blood vessels in my breasts constricting. “I’m feeling a little underdressed.”

  Nick tossed the box on the coffee table and turned his attention back to me. His hands, warm and sure, slid down my spine, coming to rest just under my butt. “Funny,” he said, inching his hands up the leg of my jammies. “I was thinking the exact opposite.” And then he did something about it.

  Thirty minutes later I sat up on the couch, wearing only the white, button down dress shirt Nick had discarded along the way. Nick, naked, and considerably less tense, gave me a lazy smile and leaned in to kiss me.

  “So, do you make a habit of dressing for breakfast?” I asked, eying the tuxedo jacket on the floor, “or was this a special event?”

  “Alana’s law firm hosted a charity auction last night. It lasted longer than expected.”

  “You were with Alana?” I tried to sound breezy and not the least bit threatened that he’d spent the wee hours of the morning in the company of one of his former bedmates. (a beautiful, smart, sophisticated, viper of a former bedmate. And I wasn’t completely sure of the “former” status.)

  Nick shrugged. “She was there. I was there. That was about the extent of it. I called to see if you wanted to come,” he added, “but you didn’t pick up.”

  And if I had answered, would I have agreed to go? I don’t even own formal wear—unless you count the Princess Diana wedding costume I begged my mother to buy me, on sale, the day after Halloween, when I was ten.

  I did a mental Alana hate fest, only I knew she wasn’t the problem. What I was really threatened by was the ease with which she traveled in Nick’s world. Jeez, I hate self-reflection. I always come out looking so bad.

  I decided a change of subject was in order. “There wouldn’t by any chance be doughnuts in that box, would there?”

  “I’m afraid not. But it is for you,” Nick said, handing me the package. “I had to bid on them because they reminded me of you.”

  Nick spent the evening with Alana, but he was thinking of me. In your face, sophisticated viper lady!

  I ripped open the carton. Inside was a pair of worn, regulation boxing gloves.

  “I remind you of a blood sport?”

  “They’re not just any gloves, Angel. They’re the ones Sylvester Stallone wore in Rocky, in the scene where he went the distance.”

  “Oh my God, are you serious?”

  Hands shaking, I lifted the gloves out of the box and held them against my cheek. Rocky was my hero. My go-to guy whenever I felt like giving up. This was so much more than an expensive gift. It was a life line.

  “I love them, Nick. Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome, Angel.”

  I started to put them on when something stopped me. Outside, a dog barked in the distance. A trash truck lumbered down the street, grinding to a halt in front of my house. A neighbor shouted goodbye to his wife, a car door slammed, and a V-8 engine pulled away from the curb. But, inside, all I could hear was the pounding of my heart and the thoughts in my head.

  Goddamnit to Hell, Santiago. First, you tell me you can’t commit to a future with me, and then you go and do something so fucking endearing I can’t commit to a future without you.

  I am so screwed.

  I set the gloves back in the box before I started blubbering all over them, and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I mumbled. “I’m just going to make some coffee.”

  “You okay?” he called after me.

  “Absolutely.”

  I threw some water in the espresso maker and sat at the kitchen table, fuming.

  I knew it was dumb. Nick loves me. Why can’t that be enough?

  I put the question to Adrian, who had followed me into the kitchen. Adrian didn’t answer me directly. Instead, he parked himself next to his food bowl, his front paws folded in front of him as if in prayer. Please, Lord, make her feed me.

  I picked up his dog bowl and scooped some kibble into it. Adrian cocked his head in expectation.

  “You’re right, as usual,” I told him. “So Nick says he can’t commit. But that doesn’t mean anything. People change their minds all the time. I’m making a big deal out of nothing. I should just enjoy what we have now and stop obsessing about the future. Thank you for this little talk.” I set down the bowl, poured the coffee and went back into the living room.

  Nick was already dressed and on the phone. He was speaking mostly in Spanish but I caught Lewis’ name before he hung up. He turned to me, shirtless, under his tuxedo jacket.

  “That was the guy I hired to watch Lewis. According to Kenzo, Lewis left his house about an hour ago and drove over to that stretch of abandoned warehouses a few miles north of the naval yard. There were cars and vans parked all along the perimeter of one of the buildings. Lewis parked and went inside.”

  “Was he alone?”

  He nodded. “Except for a couple of dogs with him. Kenzo tried to get a closer look, but there was a group of Samoan bikers with an impressive looking arsenal hanging around outside, and they didn’t seem in the mood to be messed with.”

  Nick picked up his .38 from the top of the TV set and casually gave the cylinder a spin. Satisfied that it was fully loaded he opened his jacket and slipped it into his shoulder holster. “I’m going to go meet Kenzo down there and check it out.”

  Oy. While I had absolute faith in Nick’s ability to beat the living crap out of anyone, the odds didn’t seem in his favor.

  “Nick, why do you have to go? If there’s really a dog fight going on, can’t we just call the police?”

  “We’re not certain of anything, at this point, and it’s not wise to tip your hand unless you’re sure. I promise you I’ll call the police if it becomes necessary. I’ll be fine, Angel. I don’t want you sitting here worrying.”

  “I have no intention of sitting here worrying,” I said, heading upstairs to get dressed, “because I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Eight

  The area adjacent to the Philadelphia Naval Yard was a once thriving commercial district comprised of brick two-story warehouses and manufacturing plants that fell on hard economic times when business moved south. Flanked by I-95 on one side and the Delaware River on the other, these abandoned buildings made the perfect venue for various and sundry criminal activities.

  We took the La Sabre since Nick’s car, a 1964 XKE Jaguar, would have stood out in any crowd, no matter how isolated the area. While he didn’t openly object to my coming along, I sensed a minuscule drop of unease, which I chose to ignore, because if I acknowledged it I would feel bad that I was doing something against his wishes, but that’s what’s so great about Nick. He accepts me the way I am. Rationalization intact, I sat back in the passenger’s seat and watched the city whiz by.

  Kenzo, a short, skinny, guy with a long face and enormous eyes, was waiting for us the next building over. He was sitting in his car, smoking. Now, he threw the cigarette onto the ground, gave a quick nod to Santiago, and ignored me completely.

  “He’s still in there, as far as I can tell,” he reported. “Do you need me to hang around?”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Nick said.

  I eyed Kenzo. He didn’t look like he’d be much good in a fight. I probably outweighed him by about ten pounds. “I’ll bet I could take him,” I thought. That notion was dispelled a quick second later when he whipped out a pair of speed chucks, absently spinning them with precise and deadly force.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I asked.

  Nick scanned the building. There was a fire escape ladder leading up to the roof. “We need to see what’s going on in that warehouse,” he said. “Kenzo, you stay here in case we get company. I’ll be right back.”

  Kenzo was still twirling the speed chucks. Maybe it was my imagination but he seemed to be actively glaring at me.

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  Again, a nano second’s hesitation, then, “Come on.”

&nbs
p; Nick went first and climbed the ladder with ease. I trailed after him like an asthmatic eighty-year old scaling Mount Everest. He reached the roof and turned to pull me up the rest of the way. “Great view of the city,” I said, to cover my intense fear of heights. “What now?”

  “Now, we cross over to the other building and check things out through the skylight.”

  The gap between the buildings was about five feet. No problem for a pole vaulter, but for me, it might as well have been the Grand Canyon.

  “Cross over? As in leaping tall buildings in a single bound?”

  “Actually, I thought we’d use this.” Nick grabbed a six-foot plank, probably left by some other reprobate during a similar escapade. He placed it over the narrow gap between the buildings and set out across it.

  “You can stay here if you want,” he said, glancing back at me.

  I looked down and swallowed hard. What am I trying to prove? I’ll fall and kill myself. It will be so embarrassing.

  “Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” I said, and forced my feet onto the board.

  Nick reached behind him and took hold of my hand. “You’re doing fine, Darlin’. Just another few steps.”

  As I landed on the next roof over, I thanked God and resumed breathing.

  Nick motioned for me to follow him, and as we approached the skylight I could hear the raucous sounds of a crowd gone wild. We stopped inches from the filthy glass window and crouched down. Nick’s face was tense. “I’ve seen dog fights before, Angel. These people are devoid of conscience. It might be best if you don’t look.”

  Nick was trying to shield me from the most despicable realities of life, and I loved him for it. But remaining blissfully ignorant was how we allowed these things to happen in the first place. I leaned over and looked.

  About a hundred people ringed a makeshift pit in the middle of the room. The pit measured between fourteen and twenty feet square with plywood sides and a dirt floor. Judging by the ragged condition of the two dogs inside the ring, they had been going at it for a while.

  The crowd was predominantly adult males, with a few scattered women and young children thrown into the mix. Whenever a particularly vicious attack occurred they reacted collectively with an exuberance bordering on satanic frenzy.

  In a sudden burst of energy, the larger of the two animals sank its teeth into the other dog’s throat and ripped it wide open. Blood gushed from a gaping hole. The injured dog collapsed in the middle of the pit, and the fight was over. Only, just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.

  A guy standing on the sidelines stepped into the pit. He was large and muscular, with a swastika tattooed on his bald head. He didn’t look happy.

  “The dog that collapsed is probably his,” Nick surmised. “His dog shamed him by losing the match, so he has to do something to win back audience favor. Turn around, Brandy,” he warned.

  Before Nick’s words could fully register in my brain, the owner hoisted his injured dog upside down by its hind quarters and paraded it around the pit. The crowd came alive in anticipation of a good “show.” Sickened by the scene unfolding before me, I tried to turn away, sure that he was going to rip the dog’s legs off. Only, just then, Nazi-Boy made a quick turn and swung the dog hard, heaving him straight over the tops of the heads of the crowd.

  Some of the younger men tried to reach up and bop it back into the pit before it hit the ground, like a beach ball at a Phillies’ game, but they weren’t strong enough.

  The audience roared as the dog crash landed on the pavement floor. Satisfied by the massive cheering that ensued, the owner left the pit, spitting on the mangled remains of his dog before walking out of the warehouse.

  A blinding rage swept over me. I scrambled to my feet and ran over to the edge of the roof, tracking Baldy as he strode toward a row of cars parked along the highway. Nick came up behind me and pulled me away from the ledge.

  “He’s getting away,” I screamed, and lunged for the makeshift bridge. My only thought was to get this guy and do to him what he’d done to countless innocent dogs.

  Nick held tight to my hand. “He’s not going to get far, Angel. I promise you that.”

  We made our way in silence back across the wooden plank and down the fire escape. Kenzo was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Keep an eye on our friend over there, would you?” Nick said. “But don’t make contact with him unless it’s necessary.”

  Kenzo nodded and took off, the speed chucks dangling at his side.

  Nick turned to me and handed me his phone. “Go back to the car, Darlin’, and in a couple of minutes call the police. Tip them off about the dog fight, but don’t identify yourself. It should take them about twelve minutes to get here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just wait for me in the car. I’ve got some business to attend to.” He was calm beyond reason, which meant someone was going to die.

  Oh shit. “Nick, no. The cops will be here soon. They’ll take care of him.”

  “Not to my satisfaction, Angel,” he said, removing his gun from the holster.

  “Well, not to mine, either.” I ran to keep pace with him. “But if you kill this ass hole you’ll go to jail…and…and…I won’t have a date for my cousin Marlene’s daughter’s wedding, and, well, you don’t know my family. I’ll never live that down. Nick, please!”

  We had reached the row of cars. The guy was four vehicles, down, standing with his back to us, talking on his cell phone in a loud, angry voice, oblivious to the danger he was in.

  Nick moved quickly and was on him before he could take his next undeserved breath. He leaned into the guy, pressing his knee hard against his kidney, one arm snaked around his neck. With his other arm, he brought the gun up to the guy’s face, and shoved the barrel into his mouth. I cringed at the sound of teeth breaking like a dog crunching on a chicken bone.

  Oh God, oh God, Oh God. Please don’t kill him, Nick. Please don’t kill him.

  A dark stain appeared at the crotch of Nazi-Boy’s pants and worked its way down his leg. It left a puddle in the dirt.

  “You’re real tough, aren’t you?” Nick crooned. “You like torturing animals? Does it make you feel like a man?” He shoved his knee deep into the guy’s back, eliciting a guttural cry.

  “How about I give you a lesson in empathy? Give you an idea of how those animals you starve and bait and torture feel.”

  The son of a bitch deserved all that and more and, God help me, I wanted him dead. But not like this. Not by Nick’s hand.

  On shaky legs I positioned myself in front of them. The guy stood stock still and wild-eyed, looking absurdly comical with a bloody mouthful of .38. Nick had zoned out, having gone deep into his past. This did not bode well for Nazi-Boy’s future.

  “Nick,” I said, summoning the practical side of me. “If you kill him, he won’t hurt. Hurt him bad, but let him live to remember.”

  And so he did.

  *****

  Nick and I didn’t talk much on the way home. I sat with my head resting against the car window, eyes closed, as two questions played like a loop in my mind. If I hadn’t been there, would Nick have killed that guy? And, if there were no possibility of him getting caught, would I have wanted him to? I didn’t have an answer to either one, and that frightened me most of all.

  “I’m going to be tied up for the next few days,” he informed me as he pulled up in front of my house. “I’ve got an errand to do for Sal.”

  Father Sal is an old friend of Nick’s, and a priest in the Badlands, one of the city’s most impoverished and dangerous areas. At times Sal has to resort to extreme measures (read: illegal) to help his parishioners, and that’s where Nick comes in.

  “Should I be worried?” I asked.

  “Can I stop you?”

  “Good point.”

  He unbuckled the seat belt and handed me the keys. I started to open the door but he reached over and pulled it shut, watching me
with his beautiful, liquid brown eyes. His expression was, as always, hard to read, but I was getting good at picking up on infinitesimal signs. The man was in pain.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and hugged me to him.

  I knew better than to ask why. And, anyway, I already knew the answer.

  *****

  “…and then the cops showed up and busted the place, only Donte must’ve slipped out earlier because he wasn’t listed in the police report.” I took a healthy bite of ‘cheesesteak wit’ and licked the liquid grease that ran down my arm. I was sharing a bench with Uncle Frankie at Pat’s Steaks. At midnight the line was still wrapped around the block; a testament to the best cheese steak on Earth. We had to scramble to get a seat.

  “Hey, did you know it’s a felony to even attend a dog fight in Pennsylvania?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But good luck enforcing it. This shit is all pervasive. Still, you did good, Midget Brat.”

  Of all my relatives, the person I’ve always been most comfortable confiding in is Uncle Frankie. He’s protective without being smothering, and he doesn’t try to improve me. Still, I figured it wasn’t worth mentioning the more graphic details of my adventure with Nick, like, for instance, the guy we’d left for dead. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll be fine after the hip replacement surgery. Plus, lots of people function perfectly well with just one kidney.

  Uncle Frankie dug into his cup of fries and popped the last one into his mouth. Then he eyed mine, still half full. I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I slid them over to him.

  “You sure?”

  I nodded. “Uncle Frankie, can I ask you something?”

  “Absolutely.” He squinched up his eyebrows. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine. It’s just that…well, do you think people can change?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean do you think we’re capable of profound turnarounds from our basic nature, or are we destined to play out the hand life gave us?”

  “Wow,” he said, through a mouthful of French fries. “You sure get philosophical late at night.”

  “Never mind,” I shrugged. “I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about anyway. I’m just tired.”