Odyssey by Walter Mosley Page B

the driver said.
    “Waste a whole damn day for Tomcat to tell me what I knew before I went there.”
    “That’s how they make their money,” Joey said. “By takin’ ours.”

    Coming into the building the doorman Geoffrey LaMott said, “Hey, Mr. J. How you doin’ today?”
    “Fine, Geoff. You?”
    “Just fine. I—”
    “How’s the family?”
    “Great.”
    “Gina got over that flu?”
    “Yes, sir. I—”
    “See you later, Geoff,” Sovereign said.
    If he hadn’t cut the young attendant off maybe things would have worked out differently. He usually stopped and talked to LaMott about the world of politics, the young man’s growing family, and the goings-on in the building. But that day Sovereign was bothered that he missed a meeting with his therapist because of some note in a claim adjuster’s ledger.
    Opening his door he thought that he’d heard a sound: a footfall maybe.
    “Hello?” he called. “Miss Loam? Galeta?”
    He moved through the entrance toward the living room, wondering if his ears were playing tricks after all that humming from Tom Katz’s machines. He felt the openness of the larger room, its high ceiling yawning above … and then she yelled, “Nooo!”
    The moments after the shout were filled with sensations and insight. First, and most jarring, was the immediate and complete return of his vision. The sunlight coming through the window was bright, slamming down from a cloudless sky. The thought accompanying this brightness was that it was now Toni’s fear that ignited his vision and not the blow that was coming.…
    Lemuel Johnson stood four feet away, raising a two-and-a-half-foot black baton that most resembled a top-hatted magician’s wand, only somewhat thicker.
    Toni screamed again.
    A look of hesitation on Lemuel’s face told Sovereign that the young black man could see that he was being seen. Shaking off this surprise, Lemuel took a long step forward, swinging down with his weapon. Sovereign fell easily into the sway he was taught in the boxing gym thirty-five years earlier. The baton swung past his head and he lashed out with a jab that Drum-Eddie always avoided—not so for Lemuel Johnson.
    The younger, taller man leaned into the upthrust punch. The skin below his left eye ruptured and Toni screamed again.
    “Get away from him, Lem!” she shouted.
    Instead Lemuel swung a vicious backhand at Sovereign with the rod. All the weeks of exercise had increased the strength in the older man’s thighs. He lowered down six inches below the arc of the blow and fired back with heavy punches to the head, stomach, and chest. Lemuel exhaled a stench-filled breath and fell backward two steps. Sovereign bounced on his feet and swayed his shoulders, expecting his opponent to come forward with the weapon again. But Lemuel Johnson turned and ran toward the front of the apartment.
    For a moment Sovereign was confused. His sight had returned. His enemy had been defeated. Life was new—again. And then something rose up in him. It was only later that he identified this
something
as rage. And it was later still that he understood that this passion was the
significant psychic event
that Offeran had predicted.
    Sovereign reached his front door just as Lemuel was rushing out. He clockedthe young man with a blow to the back of his head, but that just propelled his reluctant opponent faster. Lemuel dropped the baton and ran full-out to the end of the hallway where the exit sign redly glowed.
    Sovereign ran after him. He chased him to the door and then down the stairs. He had proven himself Lemuel’s better in hand-to-hand combat but the younger man was still the faster. If the exit door on the first floor had not been buckled a bit, making it stick, Lemuel would have gotten away. But he wasted four seconds, no more, pushing frantically against the door. Sovereign came up behind him two steps into the entry area and began to pummel him as he ran.
    Lemuel stopped and pushed against James’s