A worse version of myself would’ve stomped him in the neck or slammed a heel into his sternum with all my considerable weight behind it. I stepped lightly on his armpit while seizing his wrist, then locked him into an armbar. I calmly requested that he lie still and cool off. He couldn’t catch his wind to argue. His buddy came around the passenger side brandishing a golf club. A third guy hovered on the periphery, less gung ho to enter the fracas. Another aging blue-collar patriot with a pomade-slick duck’s ass haircut and a leather jacket. I named him Slick.

Golf Pro, white-haired, heavyset, and paunchy, didn’t repeat the driver’s kamikaze charge, choosing a cautious yet determined approach. His posture suggested he was no stranger to this routine. In addition to experiencing chagrin for doubting that salt-of-the-earth bigots might enjoy nine holes after a hard day in the mines, I marveled at how rapidly the incident had escalated.

I yanked the unresisting Mr. Denim to his feet, caught his collar and belt, and slung him into Golf Pro, who quite understandably didn’t conceive what was happening until too late. A man doesn’t begin from the premise of administering a beating to some swarthy foreigner to having his two-hundred-pound buddy chucked at him by said swarthy foreigner. Mr. Denim’s boots lifted off as I launched him and their skulls collided with a satisfying thump. They lay in a tangle, unconscious. The third man, Slick, bolted.

Vehicles rumbled past on the street. I expected the cops to zoom in at any second. When the fuzz didn’t swoop in to clap me in irons, I carried the dudes to their truck and stuffed them inside. I killed the engine and tossed the keys onto the hood. Golf Pro snored through a mashed nose. Mr. Denim’s eyes were glassy. A growing lump disfigured his forehead. Breathing sounded normal, if labored. They’d be fine. I advised Mr. Denim to relax for a few minutes and collect his shit. Once he felt okay to retrieve his keys, he’d be safe to proceed.

I wished them many happy returns and briskly departed the scene.

■■■

While I was initially getting my feet wet in the Hudson Valley, local wiseguys regaled me with a campfire story. A split-level in a wooded neighborhood in Kingston once belonged to a fellow who operated on behalf of the mob; a numbers guy, but also a hitter if the occasion warranted. That nondescript home at the end of the ordinary street proved to be a house of horrors. Numbers Guy and his cronies killed numerous people there and minced them in the basement. Hookers, estranged girlfriends, mobsters, saps who’d pissed them off, et cetera. Numbers Guy ratted to the Feds on the regular, so this continued for years. The minute his usefulness diminished, cops broke down his door in a no-knock raid, expressed shock and consternation at the gruesome revelations, and sent him to the pen for a million years.

Lionel and I once took an opportunity to roll past the murder house. The realtor kept the lawn tidy and the gutters clean in vain; nobody would touch the place with a ten-foot pole. It emanated a psychic stench that caused us to exchange a glance and motor into the sunset. We hadn’t spoken of it since, although the experience lingered.