Devil With A Red Vespa

This is a true story.

A friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood passes a red Vespa everyday parked either on a main strip or on a side street. It's something that he sees all the time, and sometimes he even sees the owner of said Vespa as she gets on, or off. He sort of has an idea where she lives -- not that he's stalking her or anything, just one of those things that you notice out of sheer frequency. On a recent weekend he saw the Vespa parked on a nearby street. It was a windy day, and something swinging in the Vespa caught his eye. The keys. She left the keys. He was conflicted. First, instinct: mind your business and keep it moving. Second, thought: Gee, if it was my Vespa, and someone knew where I lived, I would want them to take the keys out and give it to me. He followed the first instinct and went about minding his business. On the way back about 20 minutes later, there the keys were, still in the ignition. He went over, pulled them out, and went to nearby stores to see if he could find her. She was nowhere to be found.
"What did you do?" I asked. He got a piece of paper, a piece of tape, and a pen, and he wrote very clearly, 'I have your keys, please call me to get them back' and he left his number. He went about his day.

It was the weekend, so he did the domestic stuff one does; no one called. He had plans for the evening and did not want to hold on to the keys for much longer. He decided to ring the doorbell where he thought she lived. There are three bells. He rang them all, first starting with the top: no answer; the middle: no answer; the bottom, and the door swung open.

A white woman, blond, looked him up and down assessing skeptically. "May I help you?" He politely said his good afternoons like his mama taught him and he laid out the whole scenario. She nodded and concurred that the woman lived in that building and if he gave her the keys, she would pass them on. He gave them to her and left. As he said, it was a windy day, and a piece of paper taped to the Vespa raised slightly in the breeze. The note. He had forgotten all about it. But he felt self conscious about approaching the scooter. Suppose she walked up as soon as he approached it, or left it? Might she misunderstand his motivations and hold him suspect? He walked away.

The next day the scooter was on the main street, and he noticed for the first time that marring its lipstick red coat was a slight ding. It seemed to have been there for some time, by the looks of it, but he had not noticed it before. The note was gone. He felt something unusual build up inside of him. A pang, and a thought: "If she got her keys then she realized she had forgotten them. If she realized she had forgotten them then she would have realized that someone other than herself had found them. If she came to her scooter and saw the note, then she must have realized that the author of the note found her keys. If she found her keys then why couldn't she call and just say thank you?"

He looked at me and shook his head slowly, up and down. "I know why."
Don't say it, I said. I knew where this was going, and I had little defense for his conclusion, because I had thought it too, but sometimes denial is the best palliative.
"Maybe the wind blew the note away so when she came to the scooter she didn't see it."
"B.S."he said calmly.
"Maybe someone else saw the note and took it off the scooter "
"Now why would someone do that?"
"Dude, this is Franklin Avenue. People will do anything. Someone just killed a man just the other day."
"I tell you one thing, he said. If she does that again. I'm just gonna leave it alone."
"Well, I said, "She is a woman, and, well, they have to be more careful."
"You're gettin' warmer, " he said, and then there was a silence between us.
"I'll tell you what happened," he said.
I begged him again not to. He looked me dead in the eye then said he wouldn't, because he knew that I knew that she knew the sorry deal.