TED WAS A THIN MAN, older and balding, with a shy smile and a soft voice. Lucas introduced himself, and Ted said, “Oh, yes, the gentleman from Minnesota.”
After that, it was forty-five minutes of looking at fabrics and talking about colors, not only of the materials but of Lucas’s eyes, hair, and complexion. There was also a subtle interview about where Lucas had bought other suits, accessories, and shoes. Next came forty minutes of measurements, after which Ted said, “This should be good enough for the preliminary work; you will have to come in again for the next fitting . . . probably in two or three weeks?”
“That’ll be fine,” Lucas said. “I’d like to get them before it gets cold back home.”
“We should have them finished by mid-September.”
Lucas spent an absurd sum on the suits, put it all on his American Express card. When it had cleared, Ted called a taxi, and Lucas shook his hand and said, “This was a nice experience.”
“Happy to be of help,” Ted said, as he walked Lucas to the door. “There aren’t that many men who take your interest. Mostly, they want something dark that won’t wrinkle too badly and they want it quick.”
Lucas smiled, went out the door, heard the lock click behind him, and walked down the stoop to the street, where the pleasant evening came to an end.
* * *
—
THREE MEN. At a casual glance, they might have been street people—funky dress, too heavy for the heat, with weird headgear. But the funky dress was too clean and too uniformly funky, as though it had been manufactured that way. None of them had beards. And they didn’t move with the halting gait of longtime street people, they moved like well-fed athletes. They were coming in hard. And they weren’t carrying anything in their hands.
In addition, there were a few more salient aspects to the approach: (1) The jackets looked heavy, as though they might be covering armored vests, which would be good protection in a fistfight. (2) They were all wearing hats pulled low on their heads—one wore a ball cap, and the other two wore tennis hats. Tennis hats on bums? Don’t think so. (3) Lucas could feel them focus on him. One was hurrying in from his left, one was crossing the street straight toward him, one was coming in from his right.
No gun. Couldn’t get back inside, the door had locked behind him. In the two seconds that it took him to scan the three of them and discern their intention, he made a snap decision.
Run.
The guy on the right was the bulkiest, and maybe the slowest, and Lucas ran right for him, then swerved to the right, and when the guy moved to block him, Lucas cut left, the guy swung at him, Lucas blocked his fist and with the heel of the same hand hit the man in the face, under the nose, jamming it up into the ridge of his brow, sending him staggering and down on his back.
As Lucas hit him, he realized he couldn’t see the man’s mouth: he was wearing a tan knit face mask. The impact turned Lucas enough that he could see the other two were almost on top of him. He pivoted and went left, which meant that the farthest one would be behind the closer one, and Lucas’d only have to fend off one man.
The closer one pulled a flashlight from his pocket as he came in, a Maglite, as good as a billy club. Lucas dodged him but then was open to both of them again, and he turned away and the man with the flashlight swung it at him, hit him in the back below his left shoulder, above his shoulder blade, and he stumbled and half turned and nearly stumbled over the first man, who was back on his hands and knees.
Lucas cleared him and the flashlight man came in again and Lucas dodged the light and grabbed the man’s face mask and wrenched it sideways, enough to see the man’s face, for an instant, from the eyes down. The man wrenched free, and the mask slipped up over his eyes and blinded him; he collided with the third man, and they reeled away. Lucas took advantage of the break to jump over the man on the ground, digging a heel into his back in the process, and Lucas was off and running.
Lucas had a step on them, probably not enough . . .
Then there was a burst of light, and another, and Lucas thought maybe he’d been shot at, but there was no sound, and the lightning flash came from across the street rather than from behind him. He glanced that direction and saw a tall, thin Asian man holding a cell phone and a briefcase, and it registered in the back of Lucas’s brain that the Asian man had taken a cell phone photo of the fight . . .
The flash also diverted the attackers. One of them took several running steps toward the Asian man, but another of the men shouted, “No! No! No!” as the Asian man turned and sprinted down the street. Lucas followed, slower than he might have if he hadn’t worn dress shoes to buy a suit.
And Lucas began screaming: “Help! Help! Help!”
He was loud and moving fast, and though there were few people on street, heads were turning their way. Lucas continued running for another hundred feet before risking another glance back . . . and saw the three men running in the opposite direction, before disappearing down a cross street.
The Asian man had stopped ahead, and Lucas ran toward him and called out, “U.S. Marshal. Wait! Wait!”
The man slowed, and Lucas got his ID from his jacket pocket and held it in front of him. Gasping for air, he stuttered, “I’m a . . . I’m a U.S. Marshal . . . Did you take a . . . a photo of that fight?”
The Asian man nodded, and said, in perfect English, “Yes. Two pictures. Who were those men?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “Maybe muggers.”
“I don’t think so,” the Asian man said. “They all wear masks. They all look the same. I don’t think muggers.”
Lucas nodded. “Could you please send those photos to my phone?”
“Yes, I will. Of course.”
The photos came in: they were sharp enough, but all you could read from them were shapes and sizes. Lucas got the man’s name and address in Japan. He was staying at a Washington hotel, on a business trip.
* * *
—
AS LUCAS shook the man’s hand, a cab came around the corner. Lucas jumped in front of it, and the driver ran his window down, and said, “I’ve got a call,” and Lucas said, “If it’s Figueroa & Prince, it’s me.”
He was still breathing hard and sweating, and the driver looked at him doubtfully, said, “Well, okay, that’s where I was going.”
Lucas got in the back, and said, “Watergate Hotel.”
The driver pulled away, saying, “I could be wrong, but in my opinion it’s too goddamn hot to jog in a suit and tie.”
“Gotta get your cardio where you can,” Lucas said. They passed the spot where he’d last seen the trio of men, but they were gone. He wouldn’t be going out again without a gun, but even if he’d had one, he didn’t know if he could have gotten it out in time. The three men had been closing fast, and looked competent, and maybe were armed. If he’d pulled a gun, they might have shot him. Still, he was . . . embarrassed. He’d had to run, and he’d been screaming for help like a little girl.
“So how about them Nationals?” the driver asked.
“I’m from Minnesota,” Lucas said, sinking back in the seat. “I’m a Twins fan.”
The driver thought for a few seconds, and said, “Then I got nothin’.”
* * *
—
AT THE HOTEL, he checked the recorder. Nobody had been in the room, as far as he could tell. And he called Rae. “How soon can you and Bob get here?”
She said, “Oh-oh.”
Lucas said, “Yeah.”
* * *
—
WHEN HE GOT OFF THE PHONE, he was still high on adrenaline. He eventually put on some gym shorts, a T-shirt, and athletic shoes, went down to the fitness center, and ran off the high on the elliptical machine.
Back in his room, he showered, concentrating on his back: he’d have a major bruise where the Maglite hit, he thought. Out of the shower, he watched the end of a Dodgers game from the West Coast, flopped on the bed, and thought about getting old. He’d barely cracked fifty, but he’d lost at least a step in the past ten years, and maybe two steps. The three muggers would have beaten the shit out of him.