Vengeance of the Rain God

August Putogether had done well in the housing department. On a street of jewel-like houses, his was a twenty-carat diamond. An eight foot wrought iron fence, backed by giant oaks, ran along Canal VIew for almost three hundred feet before I found the mammoth brick pillars. The pillars, encircled by flower beds, supported ornate gates, now standing open. The house number was woven into the stationary part of the gate ironwork. I turned onto the white gravel, crunching my way to the house. The drive split; one part going through an arch to a large multi car garage, the other circled around in front of the house. I followed the circular drive that ran between terraced beds of early blooming flowers.. the green lawn was flourishing, neatly mowed and trimmed. Scattered flowering trees and bushes were much in evidence. The two story English manor seemed apt for the setting. It was a step across the Atlantic. I stopped behind an extra long white Limo, which was parked in front of the wide rhododendron- bordered steps leading to the entrance. Dark evergreens, with their light spring growth flanked the rhododendrons that stretched away along the foundation. I pushed open the door and got out, as a slim wiry man in a dark suit approached from the other car. His swagger, and the smirk on his face, boded trouble. His coat was cut to hide the holstered gun under his arm. It failed to do the job. "Just get back in your heap and be on your way," he barked, "you're not wanted here." He was six feet and a touch, and nearing one eighty. He looked as hard as the stone covering the drive. The smirking face had the same texture. Eyes too small for his head rode bony cheeks separated by a hawk nose. The knife scar along his chin was a white ugliness on his swarthy face. "Do you work here?" I asked as he continued to move into my line of travel. "No, I work for Mr. Icelli." He stepped in front of me, blocking my way. I had seen his kind around the docks plenty of times before. Strong-arm thugs doing the mob's dirty work: enforcers for the gamblers and loan sharks. They had no heart, no soul, no morals, and no one to oppose them. They usually brought out the same in others. "Does Mr. Icelli live here?" "No, he's conducting some business here." He took hold of my arm with a wiry hand; the name S A M M Y was tattooed across the backs of his fingers. I'd seen enough prison tattoos to recognize the self-inflicted design. "And he don't want no interference from nobody, especially a private dick. So beat it." He wrenched my arm, attempting to turn me around. His mistake was in not being prepared for the kind of response he got. I buried the tips of my knuckles deep into his diaphragm, karate style. As his head flashed down in agony, my knee took him in the beaked nose. I followed it up with a joined-hands chop behind the head, driving him to the gravel. Gravel that was now being soaked with the red blood running profusely from the middle of his face. He twitched once, then lay where he fell. "I forgot to tell you," I said, "I don't take orders from people without the authority to give them."