“Are you all right?” he asked.
Teddy nodded.
“Ain’t that sweet?” Dave said. “Big handsome hubby comes back from…”
Carella dropped his wife’s hand and stood suddenly. At the other end of the dining room, the elderly couple looked up from their meal.
“Mister,” Carella said slowly, “you’re bothering the hell out of me. You’d better…”
“Am I bothering you?” Dave said. “Hell, all I’m doing is admiring a nice piece of…” and Carella hit him.
He hit him suddenly with the full force of his arm and shoulder behind the blow. He hit him suddenly and full in the mouth, and Dave staggered back from the table and slammed into the next table, knocking the wine bottle candle to the floor. He leaned on the table for a moment, and when he looked up his mouth was bleeding, but he was still smiling.
“I was hoping you’d do that, pal,” he said. He studied Carella for a moment, and then he lunged at him.
Teddy sat with her hands clenched in her lap, her face white. She saw her husband’s face, and it was not the face of the man she knew and loved. The face was completely expressionless, the mouth a hard light line that slashed it horizontally, the eyes narrowed so that the pupils were barely visible, the nostrils wide and flaring. He stood spread-legged with his fists balled, and she looked at his hands and they seemed bigger than they’d ever seemed before, big and powerful, lethal weapons which hung at his sides, waiting. His entire body seemed to be waiting. She could feel the coiled-spring tautness of him as he waited for Dave’s rush, and he seemed like a smoothly functioning, well-oiled machine in that moment, a machine which would react automatically as soon as the right button was pushed, as soon as the right lever was pressed. There was nothing human about the machine. All humanity had left Steve Carella the moment his fist had lashed out at Dave. What Teddy saw now was a highly trained and a highly skilled technician about to do his work, waiting for the response buttons to be pushed.
Dave did not know he was fighting a machine. Ignorantly, he pushed out at the buttons.
Carella’s left fist hit him in the gut, and he doubled over in pain and then Carella threw a flashing uppercut which caught Dave under the chin and sent him sprawling backward against the table again. Carella moved quickly and effortlessly, like a cue ball under the hands of an expert pool player, sinking one ball and then rolling to position for a good shot at the next ball. Before Dave clambered off the table, Carella was in position again, waiting.
When Teddy saw Dave pick up the wine bottle, her mouth opened in shocked anguish. But she knew somehow this did not come as a surprise to her husband. His eyes, his face did not change. He watched dispassionately while Dave hit the bottle against the table. The jagged shards of the bottle neck clutched in Dave’s fist frightened her until she wanted to scream, until she wished she had a voice so that she could scream until her throat ached. She knew her husband would be cut, she knew that Dave was drunk enough to cut him, and she watched Dave advancing with the broken bottle, but Carella did not budge an inch, he stood there motionless, his body balanced on the balls of his feet, his right hand open, the fingers widespread, his left hand flat and stiff at his side.
Dave lunged with the broken bottle. He passed low, aiming for Carella’s groin. A look of surprise crossed his face when he felt Carella’s right hand clamp onto his wrist. He felt himself falling forward suddenly, pulled by Carella who had stepped back lightly on his light foot, and who was raising his left hand high over his head, the hand still stiff and rigid.
And then Carella’s left hand descended. Hard and straight, like the sharp biting edge of an ax, it moved downward with remarkable swiftness. Dave felt the impact of the blow. The hard calloused edge of Carella’s hand struck him on the side of his neck, and then Dave bellowed and Carella swung his left hand across his own body and again the hand fell, this time on the opposite side of Dave’s neck, and he fell to the floor, both arms paralyzed for the moment, unable to move.
Carella stood over him, waiting.
“Lay… lay off,” Dave said.
The waiter stood at the entrance to the dining room, his eyes wide.
“Get the police,” Carella said, his voice curiously toneless.
“But…” the waiter started.
“I’m a detective,” Carella said. “Get the patrolman on the beat. Hurry up!”
“Yes,” the waiter said. “Yes, sir.”
Carella did not move from where he stood over Dave. He did not once look at Teddy. When the patrolman arrived, he showed his shield and told him to book Dave for disorderly conduct, generously neglecting to mention assault. He gave the patrolman all the information he needed, walked out with him to the squad car, was gone for some five minutes. When he came back to the table, the elderly couple had gone. Teddy sat staring at her napkin.
“Hi,” he said, and he grinned.
She looked across the table at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want trouble.”
She shook her head.
“He’ll be better off locked up for the night. He’d only have picked on someone else, hon. He was spoiling for a fight.” He paused. “The next guy he might have succeeded in cutting.”
Teddy Carella nodded and sighed heavily. She had just had a visit to her husband’s office and seen him at work. And she could still remember the terrible swiftness of his hands, hands which she had only known tenderly before.
And so she sighed heavily because she had just discovered the world was not populated with gentle little boys playing games.
And then she reached across the table, and she took his right hand and brought it to her mouth, and she kissed the knuckles, and she kissed the palm, and Carella was surprised to feel the wetness of her tears against his flesh.
To say that Charlie Chen was surprised to see Teddy Carella would be complete understatement.
The door to his shop had been closed, and he heard the small tinkle of the bell when the door opened, and he glanced up momentarily and then lifted his bulk from the chair in which he sat smoking and went to the front of the shop.
“Oh!” he said, and then his round face broke into a delighted grin. “Pretty detective lady come back,” he said. “Charlie Chen is much honored. Charlie Chen is much flattered. Come, sit down, Mrs…” He paused. “Charlie Chen forget name.”
Teddy touched her lips with the tips of her fingers and then shook her head. Chen stared at her, uncomprehending. She repeated the gesture.
“You can’t talk maybe?” he asked. “Laryngitis?”
Teddy smiled, shook her head, and then her hand traveled swiftly from her mouth to her ears, and Chen at last understood.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh.” His eyes clouded. “Very sorry, very sorry.”
Teddy gave a slight shake of her head and a slight lift of her shoulders and a slight twist of her hands, explaining to Chen that there was nothing to be sorry for.
“But you understand me?” he asked. “You know what I say?”
Yes, she nodded.
“Good. You most beautiful lady ever come into Charlie Chen’s poor shop. I speak this from my heart. Beauty is not plentiful in the world today. There is not much beauty. To see true beauty, this gladdens me. Makes me very happy, very happy. I talk too fast for you?”
Teddy shook her head.
“You read my lips?” He nodded appreciatively. “That very clever. Very clever. Why you come visit Charlie Chen?”
Teddy looped her thumbs together and then moved her hands as if they were in flight.
“The butterfly?” Chen asked, astounded. “You want the butterfly?”
Yes, she nodded, delighted by his response.