by F P Adriani
But this one didn’t contain any of that. It contained another smaller white envelope inside the bigger white envelope. And inside the sealed smaller one was where I found the message very legibly written in black on white notepaper:
You’re dead soon. And you’ll deserve it.
Something cold slithered up my spine and then straight into my skull where it froze my brain. It was fear at first, and then it became a touch of shame that grew into more than a touch. The message contained some truth in the second sentence; I just hoped the message contained none in the first.
But survival wasn’t about hoping. It was about fighting.
I sprung up from the black couch, my hands shaking on the white paper with the lovely message. I reread it dozens of times; then I grabbed the envelopes again and examined them more closely.
The neat handwriting on the notepaper was the same neat handwriting on both the outside envelope and the inside envelope, which inside envelope simply said, “Pia Senda.” The return address on the outside envelope I disregarded because it probably was a dummy address. The postage stamping beside the address looked perfectly normal; there were no identifiable marks on the stamp-metering—there never were in the Diamond mail system. But everything was coded inside the post office, which meant the post office would have a record of where this envelope had come from.
I glanced over at the clock on the room’s black side table: Tan would be home soon.
My special silver suitcase was also lying on that table; I went over there and removed my Osier fingerprint scanner from my case. Then I went into the kitchen to get a pad of paper, a pen and a clear plastic bag.
In the living room again, I sat down on the couch and ran the scanner over the letter and the two envelopes; I got back matches with my prints, and that there were other prints on the outer envelope, but no other prints on the letter or the inner envelope. And on the outer envelope, there were no matches with any of the prints already recorded in my scanner’s database.
I slipped the three paper items inside the plastic bag and pressed it closed.
Then, on the paper pad, I began writing down a list of scenarios.
My face felt flushed, and for a moment my right hand shook on the paper. I used my left hand to steady my right. I would now put the experience I had in solving other cases toward solving my own. It felt surreal, as if I’d just woken up in some bizarre upside-down film of my life.
There were eight Someone Who Might Want To Kill Me Could Come From That Event possibilities I could think of off the top of my head, and four of them were very strong possibilities. I decided to use a process of elimination to find who wanted me eliminated.
Over the years I’d worked as a Miscellaneous, most of my actions had been behind the scenes, as in, the people or groups involved didn’t see me doing my machinations and manipulations. However, there were several times when I’d been unable to hide my string-pulling so much.
Inside my head I now mostly disregarded any scenario I’d been involved in that hadn’t wound up with someone either dead or in jail. I couldn’t imagine any other outcome would have generated enough hatred toward me that someone would want me dead….
It occurred to me that maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I’d become too paranoid. Maybe I was reading too much into the threat. Maybe it was a prank.
Also, I had just been in the news again—this time over a sentencing trial for a murderer. I had chased him the day of the public bombing he’d carried out almost two years ago at The Diamond Sand Festival, and, tomorrow, I would be testifying at his trial.
Because of that, I’d become a slight celebrity again; I had previously been in the news over the bombing itself and over my being held captive right after the bombing, and then someone (I’d never found out who) had also let it slip to the media that I’d recently been involved in the most significant Diamond scientific finding so far.
The mention of the sentencing trial and my name in the newspapers had been brief, the photos of me small, but all of this might have been enough to lead to someone from my past putting a target on my back.
Or the threat could have been from some random nut attacking a figure in the public’s eye.
On the other hand, though that kind of thing used to happen quite a bit on Earth, it now happened extremely rarely in the galaxy: when you had so many choices of planets to live on, if you really felt THAT much hatred for someone you were hearing about, you could avoid the person by going to another planet.
Grudges typically didn’t last that long nowadays. Unless they were personal grudges.
I looked down at the two sentences again. They were brief, but to me they screamed PERSONAL. And that meant the threat really could have come from a number of people in my old life especially, a life I could never seem to totally break away from no matter how much I worked at that. But then maybe I was being naïve whenever I let the pleasures in my current life, any good feelings there, make me think I could divorce myself from all the pain and madness in my old life. I had used and still could use a number of surface identities on paper, but I couldn’t remake the real me, this body I carried around, this mind, and all the things I’d done with both….
My writing hand worked faster at the possibilities now, and what had happened a year ago on a trek through The Astral Mountains was at the top of my list. Several people had been killed then. Did someone blame me for that—and did the person also blame everyone else involved? This was something I could check on—if anyone else involved had received threats. Tan had been involved, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t gotten any threats.
However, since that trek-time, I’d lost control over the outcome of that situation and wasn’t sure of the names of all the people who’d been killed: The Diamond Council had taken over, and my unusual pipeline of unusual info, Arlene Hu, had been in prison for months….
Now I thought of the job I did on Earth-Moon several years ago—I put that down as Number Two. I wasn’t looking forward to reopening that event, so I’d leave examining that for later.
Next on my list was what occurred during the small number of times I hadn’t worked alone as a Miscellaneous. I had long ago lost contact with my partners on joint jobs, Molotov and Anthem, but now I’d have to get in contact with them. Another thing I wasn’t looking forward to….
Suddenly I heard the clink-clink-buzz of someone turning off the alarm system to open the front door—probably Tan, but I couldn’t take a chance.
My heart turning into an adrenaline-pumping machine, I sprung up for my case and yanked out my biggest handgun.
I waited in the doorway to the hall, my gun at my side…but then I saw Tan’s black silky hair, the changing curve of his moving shoulder beneath his black shirt as he shut the white door behind him.
My breath shot out my mouth in a rush. He must have heard.
“Hey,” he said, turning around sharply. “Were you waiting for me?” His brown eyes slid down, noticed my gun. He had a big gray shoulder bag on his arm, and now the bag dropped to the floor. “What’s going on?”
“I got a letter,” I said.
“You don’t look too good.”
“The letter isn’t too good. In fact, it’s really bad. Be prepared.”
He sighed, and it was a long sigh. Finally shaking his head, he laid his key-cards on the hall side table.
Now I said, “I think you should pack up some things and we should go to a hotel. It’s probably not safe here. I got a death-threat.”
His head whipped toward me. “What? What?” Lately, Tan had developed this tic of saying words twice when he was confused or upset. And whenever he’d do a Tan-tic, I’d joke that chasing me around to whatever new disaster had been turning him into an old man.
But I didn’t do that joking today. I just wasn’t in a joking mood. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t either.
“Today I got this in the mail,” I said, walking up to him and handing him the plastic bag.
The letter’s
contents were clearly visible, and now he frowned down at the two sentences. “This looks ridiculous. Like a prank.”
“I considered that. But, somehow, it feels personal.”
“It’s seven words—what does that mean!”
“I’m assuming it means what it says.”
His dark eyes shifted to the silver watch on his wrist. “We’re supposed to be at Nell’s place in an hour for dinner—”
I swallowed back my disappointment and saw the look of disappointment on his face. Then I said, “We’ll have to cancel.”
“And you’ve got the court case tomorrow!” Now he kind of shoved the plastic bag back at me and charged past me down the hall and into our bedroom.
I followed him, watched him yank off his black shirt, watched his slim, fit pale chest emerge from beneath the black.
Looking at him always made me warm below the neck, but his insensitive behavior had hurt me above the neck. So I said, “Is this what you’re going to practice now: denial?”
“I only just walked in the DOOR. And I’ve got to take a piss. Give me ten minutes before you tell me the sky’s falling!” He rushed into the adjoining bathroom and slammed the door closed behind him.
*
I stood there shaking a bit, watching the white door and waiting for him to change his mind, come back out and say he was sorry for practically shouting. I couldn’t believe he’d stormed off like that. I didn’t exactly want that letter, but my having gotten it wasn’t my fault. At least not totally….
But I had my own ways of denying and avoiding, a.k.a. working: I sprung into action again.
Back in the living room, I dropped the plastic bag into my case and grabbed my portable phone from inside my favorite black corduroy jacket. Then I dialed the number to my employee Roberto’s house. I wasn’t sure if he’d be there because he’d told me he would probably be out today. But, luckily, he answered on the second ring.
“Roberto,” I told him, “trouble’s come up. I know you said you’re not coming into the office tomorrow, but you’ll need to stay away for longer than that.”
“Well, shit, what happened now?” he asked, a heavy frown in his voice.
I filled him in on the situation. Then I mentioned getting better security on my car and Tan’s, and having someone check out both cars. “I’d prefer tonight, like right now. You got any ideas who can do it? I’m going to check around the house, but the electrical system in the cars….”
“I’ll be over there within the hour, Pia—I know just the person.”
*
When I hung up with Roberto, I took my scanner and my gun and went to look around outside.
I checked the front door and stoop, around all the white windowsills, along the back slate patio—I ran Osier scans everywhere. But I didn’t find anything unusual. My prints were everywhere; Tan’s were everywhere; our friends’ prints were on the doors; an unknown-to-my-scanner set of prints was on Tan’s car-door handles, but he’d just taken the car to get fixed a few days ago.
It seemed I had been wasting time.
I was sighing as I walked back into the house; I reset the alarm behind me, which was coded to accept only Tan’s fingerprints and mine.
I heard the soft rushing sound coming from the bathroom shower. When I finally stepped near the doorway there, through the white shower stall’s glass, I saw Tan washing his black hair.
“That isn’t the first time you’ve done that,” I said.
His brown eyes flashed my way through the glass. “What—done what?”
“Scoffed at something important I’m worried about. It’s a sexist thing to do. Like you’re implying I’m hysterical.”
“Pia, I didn’t mean to do that. I just had a busy day at work—”
“So did I. And then I came home to see that.” My hand shot out randomly, meaning the letter. “I’m always worried about us—you especially. You haven’t gotten any threats or anything? This could be something from the Astrals escapade.”
He nodded fast. “Actually, I was just thinking about that. What about Hera? You know they might be after you.”
“I’m making a list, and that’s one of the strongest possibilities on it. But I keep dismissing it in my head because they wouldn’t do something so stupid right while Ronin’s on trial. They’d want to distance themselves from me and the bombing as much as possible. Ronin’s a killer, and he was working with them…. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. They’re still on the list. I just think Ronin’s more in danger from them than I am. That might be why he pled guilty: he’s safer in jail.”
Tan turned off the shower water, and then his hand fixed into a palm-up position as his other hand opened the sliding glass door. “All right. So now what?”
“I called Roberto—I want to get the cars checked and a better alarm put on them to let me know if they’re tampered with.”
“Oh Christ,” Tan said.
And I flashed him a look that said, You’re doing it again.
Slowly, he nodded back at me, sighing as he briefly closed his eyes.
Then when he opened them again: “I just don’t think we should leave the house, Pia. I really don’t. You can’t let people keep doing this to you—running off. You’ve got to stand your ground sometimes. We could go to a hotel, but how are you really secure there? At least you know your own space here.”
He was right. I hadn’t thought of it like that.
This was why I often discussed so much with him, why I had longed to discuss even more with him: Tan’s pragmatism, his honesty, would help set me right, would give me a perspective from outside the confines of my past. It had been so crowded with insanity that my first instinct on anything had permanently been turned into a flight-or-fight position. Fear was good, but if you were too reactive, you could overreact and inadvertently make problems where there hadn’t been any….
My eyes slid down Tan’s wet body, to his dick. It was reddish and plump-looking, and I bit my bottom lip to help stop the tingling feelings in my crotch before they could blossom too much. This just wasn’t the right time….
I was sighing as I walked away and across the house into the kitchen to pick up the phone and dial Nell’s number. I hit the speaker-phone button. And when Nell’s voice came on the line, I said, “Nell, I’m going to have to cancel for tonight.”
“Oh Pia, no. Why?” There was hurt in her voice, and I hated that I had to do this. I hated that I was so dangerous to have as a friend.
“Problems, problems,” I said to Nell now, sounding like Tan with his tic. “Danger again. I can’t bring it over there, Nell. Not to my friends.”
“But you’re wrong, Pia! I can’t stand when you do this, running away from everyone. When you’re in trouble is exactly when you need your friends. That’s what they’re for—protection in bad times! Derek’s here; he’s armed. So are you. You better come over!”
Her words reminded me of Tan’s outburst: clearly, everyone hated when I would automatically run away. Had my image of life been backwards there? I’d always thought that if you have people you care about, you should make as few problems for them as possible. But maybe some people wanted to be needed as much as they wanted to be liked.
I was about to open my mouth again when Tan, wearing only a small patch of blue bikini underwear, walked into the room. He must have heard what Nell had said: he moved over to the fridge and raised his voice toward the phone on the opposite side of the kitchen. “That’s what I told Pia—I’m not leaving my house!”
“Your house?” Nell asked.
“Nell,” I said, “I just don’t know yet what’s going on—where it’s safe.”
“Aren’t you still set for court tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I said in a dry voice, watching Tan as he drank from a glass full of water and watched me back.
“So much stress on you right now!” Nell said. “Look, I’m running late with dinner anyway. So you can come late—just make sure you come, both of you! Maybe we can all
brainstorm over your problem….”
I hung up with her a moment later, and then I said fast to Tan, “Roberto’s on his way here.”
Tan shot me a questioning look.
I hesitated for an instant. Then: “He’s bringing someone to check the cars.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my…oh.” I thought I saw his eyes ever so slightly begin to roll.
“Don’t do it again!” I said.
His eyes stopped. “Don’t do what again?” He started laughing, the remaining water in his glass shaking with his body’s motions.
“Christ, sometimes I could smack you.”
“Just so long as that’s as far as your hitting goes!”
I spun around and rushed to the living room, where I put my scanner back inside my case. I slammed the lid shut and locked it. But I’d kept my gun out.
Tan came up behind me. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed. I’ll come outside with you.”
“Don’t bother,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll go out like this. I’ve always wanted to flash my nuts at the neighbors.”
I didn’t turn to look at him and his blue-covered nuts because I wouldn’t have been able to stop looking. And I wanted to keep my annoyance with him rolling around inside me for a little longer.
“I meant,” I said now, “don’t bother coming out at all.” I walked away from him and to the front door.
*
Outside, my gun stashed inside my black corduroy jacket now, I waited for Roberto. At first I intended to take a closer look-see at the cars myself, but I felt uneasy about that because I really wouldn’t know what I was doing there.
So I just waited on the back patio, at the very end of the side-extension, where some bushes partly obscured the view of the front to me and the view of me to the front.
