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“I’m fine. She’s fine. Thank you. I’d love to
talk, but I have to get back to–” He looked toward the servant’s
door. “work,” he finished.

“Well, it was good to see you again. You look
great. Look all big and strong. Say hello to Ava for me, will you?
You take care, Jon.”

Jonathan gave a faint smile back as he
quickly walked toward the kitchen. He was relieved his former
acquaintance hadn’t made a scene or been rude or insensitive.
Actually, Jonathan realized he had been quite kind. He mentioned
nothing but good things, compliments and well wishes. He hadn’t
mentioned his humiliating position, and Jonathan was grateful.

On the next trip, however, several men
recognized him. One nodded with a piteous expression. Another
simply whispered to others the news that one of their own had
fallen and was now reduced to hired help, which caused stares and a
few snickers that made Jonathan burn under the collar. The last one
was the worst. He confronted Jonathan in the middle of the
ballroom.

“Hey, Garrett!” he yelled from several feet
away. “Thanks for losing a boatload of money for me.” He staggered
over to where Jonathan was working and leaned in close to him,
whispering loudly with putrid breath. “Thanks to you, I don’t get
to retire next year. And I had to sell a couple of my homes on the
coast.” Jonathan looked at the belligerent drunk and recognized him
well enough as one of his former clients. Before the crash, his
firm had made a massive amount of money for the man. “Lucky for
me,” the man continued, straightening his posture and returning his
insults to full volume, “I didn’t hand everything over to you to
destroy. I spread it all over and kept plenty of cash. I got hit.
Oh, I got hit hard, but I’m not out. Not like you. You got what you
deserved.”

Jonathan snapped up, took a step toward the
man and just as he opened his mouth to speak, Charles was at his
side.

“Sven needs your help in the kitchen,” he
said calmly and politely as if nothing were going on. Jonathan
hesitated and then turned away seething.

“Yeah, get me a drink while you’re in there,
Garrett!” the drunk called out after him. It took every ounce of
self-control Jonathan had to keep walking. Charles kept him in the
kitchen for the last hour while he continued to work.

When the guests had all left and Jonathan,
Charles, and Sven had finished the last of the cleanup in the
kitchen, Charles held a few dollars out to Jonathan.

“I’d say you more than earned this, sir.”
Jonathan took out his own wallet and tucked the bills inside.

“Jon, catch!” Sven called and tossed a bottle
of vodka across the room to him. He dropped his wallet on the
counter beside him and caught the bottle just in time.

“We have drink before you go,” Sven ordered.
“Sit.” He, Charles and Jonathan sat at the table the chef used for
food preparation, and Sven poured. “I had good time with your
friends. They are funny,” Sven said smiling.

“They are. We all had a good time, too. But
Sven, you were the funniest one of us all,” Jonathan insisted.

“I’m no funny. I’m Russian. Is impossible,”
he teased in a stern voice.

“Say what you want, but I was there and you
were hilarious. We’ll have to do it again sometime,” Jonathan
offered.

“Yes, we do again.” Sven nodded and Jonathan
turned his attention to Charles.

“Charles, you’re always so quiet. Why is
that?” Jonathan remembered that even in the middle of the men’s
night hoopla that he had been the quietest one.

“Mainly habit, sir,” he replied. “But I also
enjoy watching people.”

“Watching people?” Jonathan asked
curiously.

“Yes. I like watching people; how they
interact, their body language and facial expressions, and in some
cases, their strangeness. It’s most amusing,” Charles said and
smiled.

“Amusing, huh? Maybe I’ll try it sometime.
I’m getting real tired of fire-watching. It’d be a nice change of
scenery.”

“Well, I also learn a great deal about people
that way, sir,” Charles added.

“Really? How’s that?” Jonathan asked before
finishing off his drink with a large gulp.

“Just by paying attention. That impolite man
in the ballroom, for example. I could tell what he was preparing to
do before he had fully crossed the room.”

“Thanks, by the way. I’d probably have laid
that guy out and gotten thrown in jail,” he said.

“I can tell other things, too, though, not
just the bad.” Jonathan stared at Charles, waiting. “Well, how much
you care for Mrs. Garrett, for example. In both your old and new
life, anyone with eyes could see that you love her more than your
own soul. I remember the ones before her and not one of them
consumed you the way she does.”

“Maybe you could drop by and tell her that
sometime? She’s not very happy with me right now,” he said, staring
at his empty glass.

“And the other night, for instance,” Charles
continued. “I have been aware that Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Sullivan are
your friends through my long service to you. But I was able to see
the way you interacted with each other on a different level that
night. You finished each other’s sentences, so in tune with each
other, you can communicate without words. I got the distinct
feeling that I wasn’t with a group of friends, but brothers. The
three of you could not be more different, in personality and
attitude, but the three of you complement each other’s strengths
and give where the next man might be weak. It was wonderful to
watch.”

Jonathan sat quietly, having never
consciously considered the way the three were around each other.
But it was true, if he were being honest. Since they were young,
they had been like brothers. Although he still carried the guilt of
their losses, he was selfishly grateful that they were in the
trenches with him. He stood up and reached for his coat.

“I’d better get home. Thank you, Charles, for
everything.”

“You’re most welcome, sir.” Charles
nodded.

“Night, Sven. Don’t be a stranger,” he called
as he closed the back door behind him.

∞∞∞

The frigid northern wind made Jonathan turn
up the collar of his coat and keep his head down as he walked.
Turning the corner onto his street, he didn’t notice the man
leaning against the lamppost, waiting patiently. Just as he was
about to pass him, the large, dark-haired man who towered over his
own six feet stepped directly into Jonathan’s path.

He stopped abruptly. “Excuse me,” Jonathan
said and took a step to the side. The man sidestepped with him,
once again blocking his attempt to pass. Jonathan realized then
that this was a mugging and reached back for his wallet to
surrender but felt an empty pocket. Adrenaline rushed as he tried
to think of what he could barter to get away from the mugger with
his life.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” he told the
big man. A voice carried from the alley to Jonathan’s right.

“This the guy?” A smaller man emerged from
the shadows of the alley, pulling on leather, fingerless
gloves.

“Yeah. That’s him,” another voice laughed
from behind Jonathan, grinning at his payday. Dread and fear balled
up in Jonathan’s stomach as he realized this was much more than a
simple mugging. He might have had a chance with only one, even the
big one, with his recently added bulk. But not three. He glanced
frantically for an open spot as they closed in around him. His only
chance of escape was between two parked cars to his left; he knew
he was close to home. The big one in front of him looked over at
the one emerging from the alley, and Jonathan took his chance. He
turned and sprinted three steps into the street only to come inches
from death by a speeding delivery truck.

The two seconds that Jonathan was blocked
were all the men needed to catch up with him. One pulled on his
left arm, and Jonathan spun around with a clenched fist, realizing
instantly the only option left was to fight and caught Tony on the
eyebrow. He growled and swore, holding the bony ridge over his eye
as blood trickled down his face. The big one grabbed Jonathan from
behind, and the third man from the alley centered himself as
Jonathan struggled to get free. With a sadistic grin, he pulled
back his fist and punched Jonathan in the stomach. His mouth opened
wide in a silent scream as the wind rushed out of him, his knees
went weak, and his head pulled down toward the pain. Hard
alternating blows to his ribs took his breath again. He pushed
Jonathan up by the shoulders, holding them against the big one and
kneed him hard in the groin. Everything went white as he doubled
over, and his legs gave out. The big one let go his grip on
Jonathan, allowing him to fall forward, his face scraping the icy
concrete of the sidewalk where it landed. His eyes floated around
in their sockets, and he was unable to focus on anything but pain.
He instinctively curled into a fetal position, which left his back
entirely vulnerable. Tony kicked him in the kidney with vengeance
for his own bleeding face. Jonathan’s back arched toward the pain,
and the one in front took advantage by giving another hard kick to
the stomach causing Jonathan to writhe forward again. One jumped
around completely caught up in the adrenaline. He landed a kick to
Jonathan’s face that sent him over onto his back, and he screamed
through clenched teeth.

“Not the face!” Tony yelled a split-second
too late as the man leaned down and delivered a punch directly to
Jonathan’s nose. Blood flowed down both sides of his face, his
vision went from blinding white to pitch black and finally he saw
the dim light from the lamppost above him fading in and out
intermittently with his heartbeat.

He heard what was going on around him now as
if it were very distant; a gagging sound when someone grabbed the
man from the alley by the throat with one hand and delivered a blow
to the head with the other, which rendered him instantly
unconscious.

Tony took several steps back with his hands
up, terrified and then made a break for the alley, scurrying like a
rat. The big one hit the ground after three lightning-fast strikes
that carried the force of a half-dozen men; one to the face, a
second to the ribs making a horrible crunching sound, and a third
to the stomach. Stepping over the big one as he lay whimpering on
the ground and heaving with a loud grunt, Sven pulled Jonathan onto
his shoulder and carried him home.

∞∞∞

“Oh, God!” Ava’s hands muted her cry as she
opened the door. Sven walked inside with Jonathan hanging over his
shoulder. He leaned down to deposit him on the couch as carefully
as he could.

“What happened?” Ava cried, sitting beside
Jonathan and looking from him to Sven and back with horror.

“He was mugged. He didn’t have wallet. So,
they did this,” he explained.

“Go get Caleb, please,” she told him and ran
to the kitchen to wet a handful of cloths.

She knelt on the couch beside him and began
wiping away the blood. He winced and her hands shook as she first
attended to the ragged cheek and then the kicked, swollen other.
Caleb came bounding through the door ahead of Sven and stopped
abruptly in front of the couch where Jonathan sat, half-slumped
over. He was barely conscious. Caleb stepped back to pace the floor
a few lengths.

“Who did this, Jon?” he finally growled. Sven
explained again that it was a mugging gone badly, and Caleb noticed
out of the corner of his eye Jonathan gingerly shaking his head
no.

“It wasn’t a mugging?” Caleb asked. Jonathan
moved his head side-to-side again.

“Go get Aryl,” he told Sven. “Save your
strength, Jon,” Caleb told him. Jonathan nodded slightly with eyes
closed.

Aryl was through the door a moment later, and
his eyes flew open when he saw Jonathan’s condition. “What’n hell
happened?”

“Sven says it was a mugging, but Jon is
trying to tell us something,” Caleb replied.

“All right, Jon. Go ahead. What happened?”
Aryl asked anxiously, waiting to find out who he needed to start
looking for. Jonathan opened his eyes, and his vision was still
blurry. “There were . . . three. One asked if . . . I was the right
guy, one . . . I tried to get away but . . . ,” he said with great
difficulty.

“They were waiting for you? Did you get a
good look at their faces?” Aryl asked.

“Saw two . . . got one in the eye,” he
explained.

“One of them is hurt. Good. That’ll make him
easier to find.” Caleb turned to Sven. “You found him?” he asked.
Sven nodded.

“I was minutes behind. He forgot wallet on
counter. I return to him. If I was sooner, he would not be so
hurt,” he said regretfully.

“No, Sven.” Ava looked up at him. “If it
weren’t for you, he might be dead,” she said with gratitude and
went back to cleaning Jonathan’s face.

“I hurt them good. One ran but others,” Sven
said, shrugging. “Not so lucky.”

“You got a hold of them?” Aryl asked.

“Yes. One block north.”

Aryl and Caleb glanced at each other for a
split-second, and then the two of them ran out the door.

Down the block, they found a man just
returning to consciousness, disoriented and woozy. Caleb pulled him
up and slammed him against the wall. He and Aryl took turns
convincing the man to tell them who recruited him for the beating.
They got the names of the other men involved, dropped the man on
the ground like garbage, and walked away.

When they returned to Jonathan’s apartment,
Ava asked them to help her remove Jonathon’s coat. They helped to
lift him up and then steadied him. As she took his coat off
carefully, she gasped when she saw the dirty imprint of a boot on
the side of his shirt.

“Get his shirt off, too,” Aryl told her. Sven
approached Jonathan, inspected the dark and swollen areas, and then
felt his ribs, pressing his chest; pressing the front, back and
sides. Jonathan winced and groaned, but didn’t scream.