Unfinished Business (6 page)

Mama Tia sighed. “We got the business. Mama Tia's as popular as ever with those who
know.
” She shook her head. “Problem is the crime. Seems like every other week I'm replacing a lock some desperate soul bashed up trying to break in here. Or cleaning up graffiti, or investing in some new security thingamabob.” She glanced over her head at a small camera mounted on the ceiling above them. “But it don't seem to make much difference. Just last week, Tony—you remember my husband, Tony?”

“Of course.” There was no forgetting Tia or Tony. In Erica's childhood, they were the only interracial couple she'd ever known: Tia, an African-American goddess, and Tony, a stocky bronze Italian with a thick flip of dark hair. Whatever their differences, their marriage must have worked: They'd been at it for at least twenty-five years, Erica guessed.

“Got mugged,” Mama Tia finished. “Trying to make a deposit. He's all right,” she continued quickly in response to their noises of concern. “But it makes the two of us say—”

A bell jangled behind them and the three of them turned toward the sound.

A person—Erica couldn't be sure if it were a man or woman—in sunglasses, a ball cap and a broad-striped flannel shirt, stepped into the store, paused long enough to take them all in and muttered, “Too crowded,” in a voice that sounded completely phony, before turning for the sidewalk again.

“Crowded? If he calls this crowded he must be used to some
serious
backwater joints. You know, population: one. Or something,” Mama Tia quipped. She threw back her head and laughed at herself like it was Amateur Night at the Apollo.

Mark frowned, staring toward the door, even though the person was by now long gone.

“What's the matter?”

“I'm not sure…” He shook his head. “Something familiar about that guy.” He sighed, turning back to them. “Can't place it.”

“Too much stuff up there,” Mama Tia said, tapping the side of Mark's head. “You need a break and I intend to provide it. For two of my favorite customers, I'll make a special exception. You two can eat in”—she pointed to a single wobbly-looking metal table with a chair at either side, set at the end of the room not far from the bar-covered windows—“if you want to. This ain't The Palm, but you're welcome.”

Erica studied the lonely little table in dismay. “What happened to your eat-in business, Mama?”

Mama Tia shook her round head. “Had to stop it. Them hoods would come in here and tear everything up. Had a couple of serious fights—bad enough for
the police to be called. So finally, Tony and me, we just took all the tables and chairs but that one. It's for people to sit while's they wait for their carry-out. But, like I said, tonight, it's all yours. I'll even wait the table. It'll be like the old days, if you want.”

Erica forgot about the unpleasantness of sitting down across from Newman and embraced the woman. “Of course we want,” she said.

“Thanks for makin' an exception.” Newman grinned and started toward the little table. He pulled out the battered aluminum chair closest to him and held it. “Ms. Johnson?”

For a second, she just stared at him, wondering why he was calling her name. Then in the next instant, she understood the old-school, chivalrous gesture. She hesitated, flustered by conflicting feelings: flattery, appreciation, annoyance and embarrassment.

But it didn't matter. She never got a chance to actually sit, anyway, because the door chime clanged again, and once again, the three of them turned. This time, two young men entered the tiny store.

Erica knew instantly what was about to happen, and before she could stop herself, she glanced toward the steel doors separating the lobby from the rear of the store, protecting the other employees and the night's cash. The door was hanging wide open. Mama Tia, in her happiness to see them, had forgotten about store security.

Both of the men were dressed in dark jackets, their collars high toward their ears, baseball caps jammed tight over faces concealed by ski masks. Erica could just barely make out a pair of black eyes on one of them, when his companion pulled a small handgun out of his pocket and pointed it at Erica.

“Yo!” he said in a voice of menacing authority.
“Throw that pocketbook on the floor. Right here in front of me.”

There was mace on her key ring, but as a matter of course, she'd stowed her keys almost immediately after they'd stepped into the restaurant. Erica loosened her purse from her shoulder.

“Don't.” Mark Newman's voice cut the air with deliberate and certain command. “Don't give him anything.”

Erica stopped. The young gun's eyes swung away from Erica and onto Mark Newman. His weapon swung with them.

“Don't start none, won't be none, old man.” The kid sneered at him, nodding the other robber toward the steel doors and the cash register.

“You don't want to do this, young man,” Newman hissed. His voice shook, not with fear, but with pure anger. Erica glanced at him: she could only see his profile, but his jaw was tight and his eyes hard. His fingers were curled so tightly around his stick that his knuckles popped whitely beneath his skin.

“Oh no, you don't,” Mama Tia hollered and Erica suspected the cry was more of a warning to the kitchen staff than any serious attempt to thwart the robbers as she threw herself in front of the steel doors. “Don't!”

The crack of a bullet split the silence and both Erica and Mama Tia cowered, their hands over their ears. Only Mark Newman hadn't flinched: He stood stock still in the center of the room, leaning on his stick and scowling like he was a second from committing murder.

“Throw me the damn pocketbook, bitch!” the young thug screamed.

Erica glanced at Mark again. This time he said noth
ing, but there was a glimmer of something in his eyes as he nodded just the slightest bit, communicating.
Resist
, those eyes said.
Resist
.

Erica slid the bag off her shoulder…and threw it hard into the young criminal's face.

“Take it!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, just as Mark jabbed the kid in the solar plexus with his cane. The gun barked again, wild and loose as it flew out of the kid's hand and upward into the air. Erica heard the bullet streak past her ear with a hot, loud,
zinging
sound and flinched, ducking away from it.

When she looked up again, a full-blown melee had erupted in the small diner. Mama Tia had grabbed a baseball bat from some out-of-nowhere hiding place and was beating the hell out of the kid who had the nerve to approach her cash drawer, while her husband and two scared-looking employees huddled in a corner of the kitchen. Erica's eyes flicked over Papa Tony: his swarthy face was nearly as pale as his apron, which, stained with pizza sauce as it was, made him look almost bloody. A cordless phone was pressed to his ear and over the din of Mama Tia's fury, Erica could just make out the beginnings of his conversation with an emergency operator.

“Yeah, we got 'em both,” Tony told the phone. “My wife's got one and the senator, he's got the other.”

“I oughta knock you out,” the outraged Mama Tia was saying, brandishing the bat over the now-bare head of the kid on the floor beneath her.

“Please, don't hit me again, lady. That shit hurts.” He cowered, raising his arm slightly to protect himself from the expected blow.

“You think it don't hurt nobody to come in here and try to steal from me? And what did you think that gun was for? You think that first lick hurt,” Mama Tia grumbled. “I'll show you
hurt
.” She waved the bat
like the kid's head was a baseball and she was aiming for a grand slam. “I'll show you
hurt.
”

She didn't strike, though. The danger was over, the kid was scared and, Erica knew, Mama Tia wouldn't do any more than fuss and threaten now.

Erica turned toward Mark Newman.

She didn't know what she had been expecting to see—only that it wasn't what she was seeing.

Newman's face had gone into a hard mask of controlled violence. He held his cane like a sword in front of him, pointing the end of it at the chest of the young criminal like he intended to stab the man with it. And when Erica looked more closely it was clear he had the means to do it: the soft rubber bottom of the cane was gone. Instead, a six-inch blade, sharp as death, protruded from the wooden cylinder like a bayonet.

“The police are on the way!” Papa Tony called.

The young man under Newman's makeshift bayonet made a sudden lunge. With surprising agility, Newman lunged with him, pointing the tip of the knife at the kid's jugular with an expression on his face that seemed to boil the man down to his naked essence: equal parts protector, violator, hero and killer.

“Erica,” he commanded, and Erica felt her muscles snap to attention as though she'd been taking his orders all her life. “His gun's on the floor.” He nodded toward the ground, but never took his eyes off his opponent. “By your foot. Pick it up.”

Erica hesitated. She disliked guns, had never held one in her life and didn't want to start today.

“I'll just kick it over—”

“No! Pick it up!” Newman shouted at her, and there was an edge of something desperate in his voice. Erica glanced at him: his face was very pale, very sweaty and there were tight lines around his
lips and mouth as though he were in great pain.

His leg
, Erica realized with a flash of understanding.
He's standing on the bad leg.

Reluctantly, Erica stooped, but the kid must have realized he had only one chance. He dove for the floor, just as Newman lost his balance. Erica felt the cool metal come into her fingers as she scooped up the weapon. She held it in front of her, clasped tight in both her shaking hands.

“Don't!” she hollered at the kid. “Don't or I'll—I'll—I'll…“

But the kid didn't hear her. He read her fear of the weapon in her eyes and knew she wouldn't—couldn't—use it. Before Erica could even muster the courage to threaten to fire, the young thug had already bolted out the door.

Erica let her hands fall to her sides. Her whole body was trembling, shaking with the thoughts of what could have happened, what didn't happen, what she'd let happen…

“Done good,” Newman murmured, touching a lever along the cane's curved handle. The blade sprang back into the staff and disappeared. “Done good,” he repeated gently, and she realized he was standing right beside her, leaning harder than ever on his old wooden stick. He gently pried the weapon from her fingers, cracked open the barrel and counted the shells in the chamber. “This thing was ready for business. One less gun in the hands of an unprincipled idiot,” he pronounced. “Done good.”

“But…he…” Erica heard her own voice, high and distant, as though someone very young and very far away was speaking. “He…he…got away…”

“But you got the gun,” Newman said calmly.

“I…got…” Erica repeated blankly. She'd held
a gun. A weapon. Her stomach churned with the thought.

“I wish I could have kept him under my knife a few minutes longer, but…” He sighed, patting his leg. “I'm not what I used to be.”

Erica stared at him, hearing him but not hearing him, seeing him but not seeing him. The room went kind of fuzzy and there was a tinny, whining noise, like a mosquito had taken up residence in her eardrum. Erica rubbed at the side of her face, feeling warm and wet on her fingertips.

A loaded gun…

Those bright blue eyes met hers, searching her, and his frown deepened.

“You're bleeding,” he said. A large pale hand caught the side of her face, stroking at her right ear with an unexpected gentleness. Then it was gone. He showed her his fingers, smeared with bright red blood. “The bullet must have grazed…”

Erica didn't hear the rest. A strange sensation of heat climbed from her stomach to her brain. She touched the warm, wet spot at the side of her neck again and stared at her red-stained fingers.

Blood…her own blood…

“Whoa, there.” The voice sounded disembodied and far away. “I got you…” and Erica felt herself sink against something warm and solid. “I got you.”

She shook her head, clearing away the fuzzy heat, but her legs still felt like jelly and her stomach inside out. Erica looked around: Mark Newman's face was suspiciously close to hers, bright blue eyes only inches away.

“Better?” he asked.

“Than what?” Erica heard herself mutter. Her voice sounded like a distant echo. She reached for the side
of her neck again, but Newman grabbed her fingers and pushed them down.

“A second ago, woman.” The smirk was back on his face, but it didn't look so aggravating while there was such concern in his eyes. “You nearly blacked out on me.”

“I…nearly…” Erica repeated, struggling to make the room stop swimming. The chair she'd somehow come to be seated on moved a little and she looked down to see a dark blue stretch of pants leg where her chair should have been, but it took her foggy brain a while to work out why.

“Nothing like the sight of that much of your own blood to make you weak-kneed,” he drawled at her, and Erica slowly became aware of the man's fingers around her wrist and his arm wrapped around her waist. “I've seen seasoned soldiers go down like rotten trees.” He inspected the side of her neck. “Looks like it's just a scratch. A pretty
good
scratch—but just a scratch.”

“I—I heard the bullet,” Erica stammered.

“Thank God you weren't a millimeter closer,” the man growled into her ear and the arm around her seemed to tighten. “This story could have had a very bad ending. A very, very bad ending.”

Erica took a deep, shaky breath. He was right. That wild shot had whizzed past her ear close enough to draw blood. A few tenths of an inch closer and…