Programmed for Peril

his incessant chatter, much of it in the form of annoying questions about Nicholas’s relationship with his beloved. On the other hand, the small fortune in state-of-the-art electronics that filled the vehicle’s rear interested him not at all.
    Trish’s hasty description of the man failed to do justice to his assertiveness and animal ways. From his wiry black hair down to his heavy flour-dusted shoes he exuded raw force, like a python poised on a branch to crush the next victim passing below.
    “What’s Patricia to you, really, worm neck?”
    Nicholas didn’t answer.
    “I think you got the hots for her. I think you lie awake at night and think about what she’s got under that jumpsuit.”
    “No!”
    “You’re a lying sack of scum! Even a zombie like you sees a woman looks like Patricia, you want to jump her bones.” Nicholas sought respite from the verbal pollution of his beloved in riffs, a blast of Cannonball, a swing from the Duke. Their tunes were drowned out by the brutish brass of Dino’s persistence. “I wonder if that Foster guy she thinks she’s going to marry knows how lucky he is. I wonder if he knows how to handle those coconuts of hers.”
    Nicholas turned his face from the rainy road and said, “Don’t talk about her like that!”
    Dino croaked out a laugh.
    “They will marry.”
    Dino’s heavy brows rose in frown. “Dunno. Never mind this guy spooking around her life doing her dirt. Hell, we might take him out inside the hour. From what she’s said, I don’t think she and Foster are a real match. Something not quite right between them. Something tells me it’s going to fall apart between them. And when it does, hey, maybe a poor baker will look a lot better to her.”
    Nicholas’s most private heart swooped down. He, too, felt that Trish would never marry Foster. If her unknown adversary didn’t succeed in stopping the wedding, then Sweetest Sister somehow would. In the end Lois would march with Foster to the altar like Caesar into Rome. Trish would be cast aside, despondent. Then she might be willing to notice him. How much about the wonder world of computers they had in common! They would sip coffee, and his words would flow eloquently with the caffeine. He would behold a woman’s face at long last with more than sidelong glances. Now it seemed even that most secret longing was doomed to be crushed by python Dino’s lust. And who would have the power to drive him away?
    This outspoken man had changed not only Nicholas’s dreams but his wishes as well. When they met at ten o’clock that morning Nicholas wanted to take the police with them to the apartment house where he had experienced his expensive, painful adventure. Dino read his fear as clearly as a billboard and waved it away. “Two reasons why not. First, I’ll take care of you, worm neck. Second is, cops have to follow rules. Dino doesn’t.” He raised a fist and stared at it as though it were a crystal ball. “I figure whoever he is has about forty-five happy minutes left. Then—whamo!” Nicholas sought relief from his companion’s oppressive personality in a chess problem he had committed to memory. Mate in five—a thorny puzzle, even for a man of his abilities. He hooded his eyes in a further effort to shut Dino out.
    “Pull over into this parking lot!” Dino said.
    “We’re not close yet.”
    “I know. We take a cab, dingbat. You wanta get this thing torched, too?”
    While Nicholas gathered up the equipment he needed and put it in a leather shoulder bag Dino stood outside in the light rain. In his full-length black duster he looked more like a chimney sweep than a baker.
    The cab dropped them off at the entrance to the rundown apartment house. Returning to the scene soured Nicholas’s mouth. His hands trembled. Glances up and down the street showed him that the usual lounging idlers had been driven indoors by the rain. His relief was short-lived. When he entered the mildewed lobby with Dino he found some of them. Three sipped from bottles hidden by paper bags. “There!” he whispered.
    “What?” Dino said.
    “Those two men. The one with the beret, the big man beside him. Eddie and Zak. They’re the ones who attacked me!”
    “They’re just punks. Keep walking.”
    “Look who’s back!” Eddie stamped a booted foot in delight. His grin was white and bright. His scar-chested partner, who wore a stained Valvoline sweatshirt against the coolness of the rainy day, chuckled and nodded.