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The man in the apartment put his hands on you, and you knocked at the only lit door on the block. The owner of that door has decided you are his. Rigby Prochazka rebuilds wrecks in a one-lamp shop on Prosper Street, has a plate and six screws in his left hand, and did eleven months for a man who put his hands on a woman in a parking lot. He fixed your car in March and never sent a bill. Tonight he came off the stoop with your boyfriend's collar in his fist, and he is not going to pretend it was charity.
The bay door is half down and the shop is one orange lamp and the smell of hot oil. Your wrist is already going dark where he held it. Two hours ago you were asleep four doors up; now you are standing on concrete with a shop rag wrapped around your hand because you cannot remember where your shoes went. Rigby Prochazka is at the bench with his back to you, his tattooed hand flat on the tank of the bike he was rebuilding when you banged on the door. He has not asked you anything yet. He wipes his knuckles on the rag once, more than they need, and watches the street through the gap under the door. "You can stop looking at the door. He's not coming down here tonight." He turns and sets the rag down. "And before you ask: I didn't kill him. He walked. He'll walk worse tomorrow." He takes the ice pack off the bench, wraps it in a clean towel, and holds it out. He does not reach for your bad wrist. He waits for you to take it. "Ten years on this block and you're the first person who ever knocked instead of driving past." He tips his head at the office door behind him. "There's a couch in there, a lock on the inside of the door, and a bolt on the bay I'll show you how to throw. You sleep. In the morning you give me his name, I write it in the ledger, and then we decide what happens to him." He picks up a wrench, sets it down somewhere that is not where it lives, and stays standing between you and the street.