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Back on the downtown Millbrook sidewalk, I make my way past the bookshop. I glance through the window and see the old ponytailed proprietor smoking pot off a vape device. He’s having himself a little private party while his many paper books gather dust. I walk in the direction of my pickup where it’s parked in the small concrete parking garage along a gravel road that’s flanked by Main Street and a set of working train tracks.
While I’m walking, both hands stuffed in my jeans pocket, I feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. It’s one of those gifts I have (or curses)—the ability to sense deep in my gut that someone or something is following me. It’s called having eyes in the back of your head. It’s also called intuition and vigilance. Something you might develop if you’re incarcerated in a maximum-security prison or a hospital for the criminally insane. Places where an inmate or a patient can kill you when you least expect it. That’s why you grow that extra pair of eyes in the back of your head. If you want to live to see another day, another sunset, another blue moon, you develop a sixth sense that warns you of impending danger you cannot see, but instead feel.
Walking the garage floor, I listen to the click-clack of my hard rubber soles reverberating off the concrete walls. I suddenly stop and make out the sound of a second person’s footsteps. I don’t hesitate to reach for my gun. Drawing it from my shoulder holster, I suddenly about-face. I see nothing but the occasional parked car, van, or pickup truck. Nothing threatening. But that doesn’t mean someone’s not following me or close on my tail.
Could it be that Jennifer has indeed shown up for our coffee meeting? That the whole thing was a setup? Like I said, is the real Jennifer some big monster of a criminal who’s bent on fucking me up just for the sake of fucking up a bestselling author? Note to self: learn to put your ego aside and take the cop’s advice. It could be the very thing that saves your life one day.
“Who’s there?” I say, not needing to shout inside the echo chamber of a parking garage. “I have a gun.”
“I have a baseball bat,” says a high-pitched voice from behind.
The blow strikes me on the back of my head. I go down and lose my grip on the pistol. By some miracle, I’m not knocked out. Stunned and dizzy for sure, but not knocked out. I go for my gun, grab it, and aim it in the direction from where I was hit. But all I hear are footsteps, not walking, but running away from me. Whatever stupid bastard did this to me, didn’t even have the common sense to steal my gun.
I feel the back of my head. A lump is already forming. I should go immediately to a hospital to have it checked out. Head injuries can be a funny thing. You can go for days feeling perfectly fine and then something goes pop in your brain, like a capillary or a vein, and suddenly, it’s lights out forever and ever, amen. But I don’t want to go to a hospital. I just want to get back in my Jeep and get the fuck out of here, fast.
I do my best to get back up on my feet. My gun is still gripped in my hand, but there’s no one to shoot at. Maybe that’s a good thing since the New York DA in charge of this county would place all the blame on me if I defended myself. It’s never the criminal’s fault anymore. It’s society’s fault. That’s the messed up world we’re living in.
I’m a bit unsteady on my feet. Out of balance, like the world isn’t spinning correctly on its axis. I go to my truck and unlock the door with the key fob. Settling myself behind the wheel, I once more touch the back of my head. The lump stings. When I retract my finger, I see there’s a tiny bit of blood that stains them.
“Motherfucker cold-cocked me,” I whisper.
If I were a brave man, I might scour the town looking for someone holding a baseball bat. But I’m in no condition to fight anyone, big or small. And running him or her down with my truck is probably not the best of ideas either since that will land me in prison for the rest of my life. And like I said, shooting someone isn’t an option either. I just need to get home.
As I’m pulling out of the parking garage, my phone vibrates and chimes.