Daddy Lenin and Other Stories Read Online Free Page B

key his car. How am I supposed to key his car after he drives off to work in it? Besides, I don’t even know what his goddamn car looks like.”
    “Mr. Janacek said he didn’t take his car to work today. Ms. Janacek dropped him off at his place of employment in her vehicle. His vehicle sat here in the underground parking all day.” Constable Ramage paused. “You don’t need to know what his car looks like. He says the parking stalls are identified by apartment number.”
    He saw he’d made a tactical mistake. Conceding that Janacek and he had had a problem over the elevator could be taken as an admission that they had a feud going. Brewster began to flex his fingers in time with the pain darting in them, wondered if it wasn’t impairing his thinking. Then he caught the corporal staring down at his hands and he realized those convulsive movements might be mistaken as a psychotic acting out his desire to get his fingers wrapped around Melvyn’s tree-trunk neck.
    The corporal carefully cleared his throat. “We asked some of the other residents on this floor if they had heard a disturbance.” He paused. “Nobody had.”
    “Well, what do you expect? Did you happen to notice how ancient they all are? Every one of them, deaf as a post.”
    “They had no problem hearing me,” the corporal noted. “I believe I came in just fine.”
    “Okay, forget it,” Brewster mumbled. “No skin off my ass. As far as I’m concerned, if this Ms. Janacek has a death wish, let her dream come true.”
    “Sir,” said Constable Ramage, “don’t get huffy with us. We’re just doing our job. I advise you to lose the attitude.”
    Her partner had another bit of advice. “And learn to cut your neighbours some slack. The world would be a better place if we all just rolled with the punches now and then.”
    “Roll with the punches like that young woman next door rolls with them? Is that what you advise?” Brewster snapped.
    “Here’s what I advise,” said Constable Ramage, thrusting her considerable bust aggressively forward. “I advise you to button it.”
    “Fine,” he said. “It’s buttoned. Firmly and forever. I don’t give a shit if it turns into Baghdad central over there. Bombs can go off and you won’t hear another peep out of me.”
    “You have a
good night
, sir,” said the corporal. It wasn’t goodbye; it was a warning.
    “You too. Have a
great
night. It’s been lovely getting to know you.”
Good job, buddy
, thought Brewster.
Way to burn your bridges. The police will be hustling right over here next time there’s a problem
.
    After the cops had left, he sank down on the sofa and gazed at his aching hands in disgust. They were too slender, too delicately made for a man his size. Entirely out of proportion to the rest of him. Over six feet tall, more than two hundred pounds, and yet here he was with a concert pianist’s hands dangling from the end of his arms. They weren’t handsbuilt to withstand much and he had repeatedly punished them in his youth. Now he appeared to be paying the price for that.
    The hurt was burrowing deeper and deeper into the bones, flaring hotly in the marrow. Desperate, Brewster ran the kitchen sink full of cold water, emptied all the ice cube trays into it, and plunged his hands into the frigid bath. That numbed them momentarily, the briefest of reprieves, but slowly, bit by bit, the pounding resumed, wringing sweat from his forehead.
    Now they were shrieking at him from the bottom of the sink.
    He lifted his head. No, the shrieks were coming from the Janaceks’ apartment. Hands dribbling water over the floor, Brewster crossed the living room, squared up in front of the wall, and stared at it. One of those blind rages he hadn’t felt for forty years surged up in him with such overwhelming force that black specks streamed in his eyes.
    Very deliberately he drew back his fist and struck the wall. Hit it again. Then again and again and again. Faster and faster, harder and harder,