“Let’s go,” Valerie said to me.
“No,” I said.
“No, he says. Way to go, Aaron. You’re a stand-up guy. Did you know somebody boosted Grady’s pink convertible last night?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“An expert. Not many people can hot-wire a Caddy. Grady is torn up about it.”
“That’s a heartbreaking story,” I said.
“That’s why my father has got some of his friends looking for the guy who did it. Can I sit down before we dance?”
“What do you want, Vick? We haven’t done you any harm.”
“I know that now because you told me. If a guy like you tells me something, I know it’s gold. That’s straight up. From the heart. I wouldn’t feed you a line.” He dragged a chair from another table and sat down. “Where’s the Bledsoe kid tonight? Still in the can? Or out doing mischief? What a card.”
“We need to go,” Valerie said.
“Hang on, little lady,” Atlas said. “We’ve got to dance. Nobody will believe a story like this. I meet Aaron, get my eye put out, then dance with his girl. I mean, provided he doesn’t mind. You’re simpatico with that, aren’t you, Val?”
“Why did you ask about Saber?” I said.
“He’s a fascinating guy. I heard a lot of the parts on his heap are stolen. A guy who steals car parts is probably one jump away from boosting the whole car. But you probably wouldn’t hang with a guy like that. Give me an answer on this dancing situation, will you? My lady is waiting over there. You know her.”
I followed his eyes across the dance floor. At a long table in the corner, Cisco Napolitano was sitting with a group of people who looked like they’d just arrived from Miami. She was wearing a strapless black evening gown and a pink corsage. For just a second I thought she was looking back at me.
“So what’s it going to be, Aaron?” Atlas said. “I’m not talking about slow dancing. We’ll wait for a fast number. I dig the bop. Jitterbug is out, the bop is in. There’s even a dirty bop, did you know that? We can do it, Val, you and me. I mean the regular bop.”
“I don’t want to dance with you,” Valerie said. “Do we have that settled now? Please leave our table.”
“The lady is direct. I respect that. Too bad you didn’t step up to the plate on that, Aaron.” He leaned closer to me. I could feel his breath on my cheek. “Doesn’t matter, though. We’re buds. Right? Talk to me. The right kind of bud is a bud for life.” He grinned at Valerie and put his arm across my shoulder. Unconsciously I put my hand on the steak knife that lay by my plate. He jiggled his arm. I could smell the staleness in his armpit. “Friends?”
“Yeah,” I said, my eyes straight ahead.
“That’s the way to talk, Jack.”
He removed his arm. I thought he was done. I should have known better. He wet his finger and reached around the side of my head and put his saliva inside my ear.
I had never experienced a greater sense of revulsion and violation. I drove my elbow into Atlas’s face and, at the same time, pressed my napkin into my ear. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself tearing him apart, stomping his face into jelly, breaking his jawbone, snapping ribs like Popsicle sticks. But I didn’t do it. I doubt I drew blood. The orchestra was blowing down the walls with “One O’Clock Jump”; few if any people seemed to notice a problem at our table.
Valerie handed me her napkin. I dipped it in my water glass and cleaned my ear with it. Atlas was pressing his fingers against his cheekbone, otherwise unruffled. Then I realized he had paid a price he hadn’t anticipated. His patch had popped up from his eye, exposing the true nature of the injury. The eye was a blue orb the size of a dime, oozing liquid, either infection or medication or both, but the surrounding tissue was not cut or bruised or stitched; the tissue was puckered, the eyelid seared. Atlas’s eye had been burned, not hit with a brick.
“It was a firecracker,” I said.
“Firecracker? What are you talking about?” he said, popping the patch back in place.
“Y’all were throwing firecrackers,” I said. “Maybe Baby Giants or M-80s. A firecracker blew up in your face. You and Grady framed us, Vick.”
“You just admitted you were in the park, smart guy.”
“Get away from our table. If you don’t, I’m going to do something that will embarrass you for the rest of your life.”
There was a beat. His good eye was watering. His bottom lip had started to puff where my elbow had hit him. “You’re going to do what?”
“You don’t want to know. Nobody watching will forget it.”
The band finished “The One O’Clock Jump.” Vick looked over his shoulder at the orchestra as though somehow it contained the solution to his problem. “I’m going to write this off for now. But I’m coming for you.”