"Hello, gentlemen," I said, leaning out of thetreehouse and trying to salvage a bit of dignity in my voice. "This is official business, so I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave the area."
The guys shared an amused look. "Which position are they in?" asked the one who'd previously inquired as to whether I was seeing anything good. He looked like he should be named Biff, so that's what I'll call him.
I shrugged."Hard to say. It changes every few seconds." I had the evidence I needed, so I figured my best plan of action was to climb down and see if I could reason with these guys. Maybe offer them each a copy of the tape, after I added a classy soundtrack.
After I reached the ground, I realized that these guys were much larger seen up close. One of them was kind of skinny (I'll call him Winslow) and I could have possibly taken either of the more athletic guys one at a time, but if I had to fight all three I was in pretty big trouble.
They were all in their late thirties, about the same age as Mr. Ballard, so there was a good chance they were friends of his and not merely concerned citizens. "Okay, okay, you caught me," I said. "You probably think that I'm some kind of—"
Obviously they weren't particularly interested in what I thought they thought I was, because the guy who wasn't Biff or Winslow (let's call him Hector) punched me in the gut. I doubled over and made anotheruuggchk sound. Biff grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the tree, while Winslow yanked the camera off my neck. He began to swing the strap over his head, lasso-style.
"You guys really ought to give me back the camera and let me go," I warned. "I'm a private investigator for the top law firm in the state. I can sic every lawyer in Chamber and its neighboring communities on your butts."
I was lying, of course. Not only was I not a private investigator for the top law firm inFlorida , but I wasn't a private investigator at all. Though I thought it would be cool to be an official, fully licensed detective, at the moment I was nothing more than a friend of a friend of a friend being paid to make a dirty video. And if I didn't get the camera back, I wouldn't even be that.
"Do you want to guess how much that scares us?" asked Winslow, while Hector hit the tree with my body again.
"Ummm...more than getting a mosquito bite, less than total nuclear annihilation?"
Hector bashed me against the tree yet again. I was getting a little sick of that, but didn't know the guy well enough to ask him to quit.
Then Biff punched me in the face, knocking me to the ground. This was substantially less comfortable than being bashed against thetree, and my ability to think up amusing comments temporarily disappeared.
I winced as Winslow swung the camera a couple more times, then let it hit the tree. Fragments of plastic, glass, and videotape sprayed everywhere.
"Ow, crap! A piece got my eye!" Winslow yelped, staggering away with his hands against his face.
"That was my wife's camera!" I shouted.
Biff slapped Winslow hard on the side of the head."You idiot! We could've sold that thing! What's the matter with you?" He slapped him again, knocking him to his knees.
Hector yanked me to my feet. "We don't want to see your sorry butt around here ever again. You leave Jake alone. He's got enough problems dealing with that frigid wife of his. If we catch you again, we'll twist your legs off with a spoon. Got it?"
While I couldn't envision the actual process of twisting one's legs off with a spoon, I nodded anyway. He punched me in the face once more just to show that he could, and then informed me that I was permitted to leave.
I walked back to my car, lacking a spring in my step or a song in my heart. I'd really needed the money from this job, and not just because of my little uninsured car accident. We weren't going to end up on the streets or anything...Helen was a registered nurse, and her salary took care of most of the bills. But while she was semi-supportive of my decision to quit doing clerical temp work and try to earn money without getting a Real Job, her semi-support wasn't going to last much longer if I continued bringing home little or nothing in the way of actual income.
I returned to Roger's place and rang the doorbell."Daddy! What happened?" asked Theresa as she opened the door.
"Nothing, sweetheart.Daddy just fell out of a tree."
"Are you okay? Do you need to go see Mommy at the hospital?"
"No, no, I don't think that's a very good idea. All Daddy needs right now is a kiss."
I received kisses from both of my children, as well as a painful hug from Theresa, though I was manly enough not to shriek.
"I'll be out in a second," called Roger from the library, which also functioned as the bathroom.
"No rush, we've got to get going," I said. "I'll hook up with you later." Preferably after my face healed, so he wouldn't be able to give me any grief about coming in fourth in the fight.
"Where's the movie camera?" asked Kyle, after we got back in the car.
"It's all over the place. Don't worry about it. Now who wants ice cream?"
HELEN CAME in around ten o'clock, while I was sitting in our bedroom reading a horror novelcalledWhose Heart is in MyPopcorn ? Characterization was a bit thin, but boy could that woman write dismemberments.
"Hi," I said. "How was work?"
"Work was fine," said Helen, remaining in the doorway. She's a small woman, barely five-two, with straight brown hair and a plethora of freckles. With her thick glasses, she has abookwormish , almost owlish look that in no way reveals the "screwing with me would be a bad, bad idea" attitude that rockets through her soul.
"That's good. My day was fine, too."
"I'm happy to hear it.Any special reason for that huge bruise on your face?"
I closed the book. "Oh, did that leave a mark?"
Helen folded her arms over her chest. Damn. Not a good sign. I was going to have to work quickly if I was going to get out of this without seeing The Gaze.
"Sweetheart, normally upon coming home and seeing my loving husband with a huge, ugly bruise on his face, the first thing I would do is rush forward, give you a hug, and ask what I could do to make it better." Helen shifted a bit, and I knew I was going to get The Gaze. I just knew it. "However, I could tell from the second I saw you that you're feeling really guilty about something, and you darn well know you've got a hideous bruise. So what happened?"
"It was nothing, really," I said, then cringed inwardly. Error! Error! A statement like that was a guarantee of receiving The Gaze. I was doomed!
Helen frowned and, yes, fixed me with The Gaze. It was a horrible look, a look that simultaneously said "I know perfectly well that you're lying, Andrew R. Mayhem," and "You're not going to have any degree of sex until you tell me the truth."
"Andrew, what happened?"
"It was just a punch," I said, standing up. "Well, two of them.Nothing to get upset about."
"And what exactly did you do to cause yourself to get punched?"
"Someone got annoyed because I was doing a little videotaping. No big deal. These things happen. And expensive cameras sometimes get broken, too.Can't be helped."
Helen finally left her spot in the doorway and sat down on the bed next to me. "What were you videotaping?"
"Something for a friend.An athletic event."
"Andrew..."
I really wished I could lie to her. Make that, I really wished I could lie to her without getting caught. "I was videotaping a guy cheating on his wife. No big deal."