The Best American Noir of the Century

Neil grabbed my arm. Not with the same insulting force Mike had used on me. But enough to get the job done.

“I think Mike’s right,” Neil said. “I think we should grill that bastard a little bit.’

I shook my head, politely removed his hand from my forearm, and proceeded to the phone.

“This isn’t just your decision alone,” Mike said.

He’d finally had his way. He’d succeeded in making me angry. I turned around and looked at him. “This is my house, Mike. If you don’t like my decisions, then I’d suggest you leave.”

We both took steps toward each other. Mike would no doubt win any battle we had, but I’d at least be able to inflict a little damage, and right now that’s all I was thinking about.

Neil got between us.

“Hey,” he said. “For God’s sake, you two, c’mon. We’re friends, remember?”

“This is my house,” I said, my words childish in my ears.

“Yeah, but we live in the same neighborhood, Aaron,” Mike said, “which makes this our problem.”

“He’s right, Aaron,” Bob said from the breakfast nook. There’s a window there where I sometimes sit to watch all the animals on sunny days. I saw a mother raccoon and four baby raccoons one day, marching single-file across the grass. My grandparents were the last generation to live on the farm. My father came to town here and ultimately became a vice president of a ball-bearing company. Raccoons are a lot more pleasant to gaze upon than people.

“He’s not right,” I said to Bob. “He’s wrong. We’re not cops, we’re not bounty hunters, we’re not trackers. We’re a bunch of goddamned guys who peddle stocks and bonds. Mike and Neil shouldn’t have tied him up downstairs — that happens to be illegal, at least the way they went about it — and now I’m going to call the cops.”

“Yes, that poor thing,” Mike said. “Aren’t we just picking on him, though? Tell you what, why don’t we make him something to eat?”

“Just make sure we have the right wine to go with it,” Neil said. “Properly chilled, of course.”

“Maybe we could get him a chick,” Bob said.

“With bombers out to here,” Mike said, indicating with his hands where “here” was.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. They were all being ridiculous. A kind of fever had caught them.

“You really want to go down there and question him?” I said to Neil.

“Yes. We can ask him things the cops can’t.”

“Scare the bastard a little,” Mike said. “So he’ll tell us who was with him tonight, and who else works this neighborhood.” He came over and put his hand out. “God, man, you’re one of my best friends. I don’t want you mad at me.”

Then he hugged me, which is something I’ve never been comfortable with men doing, but to the extent I could, I hugged him back.

“Friends?” he said.

“Friends,” I said. “But I still want to call the cops.”

“And spoil our fun?” Neil said.

“And spoil your fun.”

“I say we take it to a vote,” Bob said.

“This isn’t a democracy,” I said. “It’s my house and I’m the king. I don’t want to have a vote.”

“Can we ask him one question?” Bob said.

I sighed. They weren’t going to let go. “One question?”

“The names of the guys he was with tonight.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it. That way we get him and his pals off the street.”

“And then I call the cops?”

“Then,” Mike said, “you call the cops.”

“One question,” Neil said.

While we finished our beers, we argued a little more, but they had a lot more spirit left than I did. I was tired now and missing Jan and the kids and feeling lonely. These three guys had become strangers to me tonight. Very old boys eager to play at boy games once again.

“One question,” I said. “Then I call the cops.”

I led the way down, sneezing as I did so.

There’s always enough dust floating around in the basement to play hell with my sinuses.

The guy was his same sullen self, glaring at us as we descended the stairs and then walked over to him. He smelled of heat and sweat and city grime. The long bare arms sticking out of his filthy T-shirt told tattoo tales of writhing snakes and leaping panthers. The arms were joined in the back with rope. His jaw still flexed, trying to accommodate the intrusion of the gag.

“Maybe we should castrate him,” Mike said, walking up close to the guy. “You like that, scumbag? If we castrated you?”

If the guy felt any fear, it wasn’t evident in his eyes. All you could see there was the usual contempt.

“I’ll bet this is the jerk who broke into the Donaldsons’ house a couple weeks ago,” Neil said.

Now he walked up to the guy. But he was more ambitious than Mike had been. Neil spat in the guy’s face.

“Hey,” I said, “cool it.”

Neil glared at me. “Yeah, I wouldn’t hurt his feelings, would I?”

Then he suddenly turned back on the guy, raised his fist, and started to swing. All I could do was shove him. That sent his punch angling off to the right, missing our burglar by about half a foot.

“You asshole,” Neil said, turning back on me now.

But Mike was there, between us.

“You know what we’re doing? We’re making this jerk happy. He’s gonna have some nice stories to tell all his criminal friends.”