“It’s me! Jason! Mom?”
The house was quiet. Too quiet. I moved forward slowly, past a new couch I didn’t recognize, past a table I did. I could go either into the kitchen or into the hallway and the bedrooms beyond. Since I could see part of the kitchen and there didn’t appear to be anyone in it, I chose the hallway.
It was the right choice.
Or the wrong one.
For my mom lay crumpled on the floor. It was the middle of the afternoon, but she was still in her nightgown, which told me that she’d been killed either last night or early this morning. She’d been shot in the head. Around her awkwardly positioned body was a tremendous amount of blood that had puddled and congealed in rivulets that had run together to form a single pool, like a moat, about her. On the wall was more blood, spread out in starbursts like modern art. There were even splatters on the ceiling. I could see only one cheek and one eye; the rest of her face was covered with red. The one eye was open.
On the floor in front of her, soaked in blood, was a white sheet of paper that had at one time been folded in thirds but was now lying open.
A letter.
I crouched down, trying to read what it said, but the blood had saturated the paper, obscuring all of the words.
Was the Ultimate playing with me, pulling some sort of Frankenstein stunt where my circle of family and friends would be knocked off one by one until finally I was the only one standing? I didn’t know, but I was determined not to return to the rental house, just in case. Whoever—
whatever
—had knocked off my mom might be waiting there for me right now with a loaded silencer or an unsheathed knife. I’d have to call Edson, tell him that I was going away for a few days, tell him—
He might be next.
Oh, shit. I pulled out the cell phone and immediately dialed his number, but he didn’t answer; I got his voice mail instead. Please be in a meeting, I thought. Please be alive.
I left a message explaining that my mom had been murdered and that the killer was most likely after me. There was the distinct possibility that he himself could wind up as collateral damage. “Do not go to the rental house,” I warned him. “Stay away. And stay alert. Any weird phone calls, any strange people hanging around, call the cops. Don’t answer the door for anyone you don’t know. Keep your car doors locked. Keep your cell phone with you at all times. For God’s sake, be careful. I’ll be in touch when I can.”
I tried to imagine his reaction when he listened to that message. He was probably through with me for good. He’d no doubt remember my dad’s killing, and of course he’d probably receive letter after letter indicting me for both crimes.
If he wasn’t murdered in his sleep.
“Fuck!” I screamed aloud, banging my fist on the wall in frustration. Blood that had half dried broke free of its hardening shell and began to drip down the wall again, jostled loose by the vibration.
I looked down at my mom’s still body. I didn’t love her. I didn’t even like her. Hell, I’d hated her damn near all my life. But she still didn’t deserve to die this way, and I felt guilty for the fact that she had been killed because of me. I was turning soft in my old age, and in a way that made me feel better, alleviated the pain. I was becoming human, and probably, if enough time passed, I’d even be able to forgive her for having been the bitch she’d been.
I moved out of the hall, unable to look at the gruesome sight or smell the horrible stench any longer.
Somewhere in Southern California, I assumed, Tom had met an equally horrendous death.
Or was about to.
I got in my crappy Volkswagen and drove aimlessly for a while. It would be dark in a couple of hours. Where was I going to spend the night? Like an animal, my instinctive impulse was to flee, to get as far away from here as possible, but there was no way this POS car would get me out of Southern California. Besides, physical distance was no barrier. The Ultimate had already proved he could track me and keep tabs on me no matter where I went. In college, when I’d driven up the coast, letters had been left for me at motels where I would randomly stop. There’d even been that bizarre incident of the one-night stand where the entire episode had been predicted in a letter.
Did he know what I was going to do before I did it?
If so, I was screwed. There was nothing I could do to escape my fate.
But I had the feeling that that instance was a rarity, if not completely unique. I didn’t know what it was about that journey that had invited such outside intrusions into my thoughts or what had happened afterward to stop it, but he had never again been able to get into my head in such a thorough, subtle and intimate manner.
Vicki had happened.
Yes, that was true. I’d been a free man in Paris when I’d set off on my little trip, not a care or encumbrance in the world, cut off from my family, loyal only to myself and my writing and, to a lesser extent, my school and studies. After that had been a period of abstinence… and then I’d met Vicki.
Love doesn’t make the world go round, Henry said. Letters do.
But maybe he was wrong.
I hoped he was wrong.
The question was, where should I go now? My mom had been murdered, and the phone call had been a way to let me know about it. What exactly did that mean? Was it a threat of some sort? Was I supposed to get back in line, write a letter asking to be let back in?
Write a letter…
I could write a letter to the Ultimate not asking for forgiveness but telling him to fuck himself. I could write threatening letters to him, hate letters, letters predicting his death and disembowelment. I’d written to him before, in there, when I was with the company, but my work in that world had always seemed muted, unsuccessful, not as powerful as it had been out here in the real world. I’d been out here when my letters had interfered with theirs, when my words had crossed paths with those of Charles Dickens and rendered his impotent. Out here I was at my best.
Perhaps I could weaken the Ultimate, inflict some damage, do some harm.
I was getting low on gas, and I stopped at an ARCO station to fill up. It was the first time I’d had to stop for gas since getting the Volkswagen, and while the car was noisy and far too small, I was impressed with the mileage it got. I paid the attendant, stuck the nozzle in the tank and looked west toward the setting sun. Newcomers to Orange County always got their directions screwed up, always thought the ocean was to the west because that’s what it said on the maps of California. But the shoreline was at a slant here, and most of the beaches in Orange County faced the south.
That’s what I needed to do, come at this thing at a slant, throw the fucker off.
I drove down Harbor Boulevard to where I knew there was a Kinkos copy shop. They had PCs and printers that could be rented by the hour, and I paid my ten bucks and quickly wrote an anonymous letter to the chief of police: The murderer of Kathleen Hanford lives at Apartment 3, 114 Dukenfield Avenue, Los Angeles. The Shangri-La apartments. I would remember to my dying day the address to which the Ultimate had originally lured me—it was burned into my memory—and I was willing to gamble that if that address still existed, no normal human lived there. The only person able to travel in and out, between both worlds, would be him.
I had no illusions that the police would be able to catch or incarcerate the Ultimate or that they would be allowed even to get close. But this would show that I meant business. The stakes, as they say, had been raised.
I bought an envelope and a stamp, mailed the letter to the Acacia Police Department.
I’d have to keep my eyes open from now on, protect myself.
And keep moving.
3
I migrated from motel to motel, using my rooms only for sleeping, and staying for only one night at each. During the day, I went to different copy shops and computer cafés and various businesses that offered office services for rent.
I wrote complaint letters and death threats to the big boss. I had no idea who the Ultimat
e really was or where to address my messages, but I figured if I sent them to old apartment number 3 in the Shangri-La, my words would find their way to him.
The company building and the adjacent gated community in Brea were gone. If they had ever been there at all.
I wrote other letters as well. To the president and the pope, governors and congressmen, assorted newspapers and newsmagazines and television newscasts.
I was spending all day every day writing, penning letters that for once in my miserable life were completely true and stated the opinions I really held. I still had no idea what the Ultimate’s agenda was, to what principles or philosophy he and the Letter Writers who followed him maintained allegiance, but knowing that I disagreed with many of the positions I had been told to take, I figured that by stating my mind, I might neutralize some of the damage they were causing and head off some of the worst effects of their evil words.
I did not like the direction in which the world seemed to be headed, and I could not help but think that the disastrous events occurring around the globe were the result of letters that had been written and sent, read and heeded, and that this was what the Ultimate truly desired.
I was afraid to contact Edson, and each time he tried to reach me on the cell phone, I did not answer, though I was grateful to see his number on the display screen. It meant that he was still alive.
What if Vicki and Eric had been killed?
I didn’t want to think about that, refused to think about that.
I’d been bopping around Orange and L.A. Counties for a week, staying in low-profile motels in nondescript cities: Garden Grove, La Habra, Downey, Santa Fe Springs, Montebello, Midway City, Buena Park. I had just spent the day at a Copy Shoppe in Pomona and was checking into a run-down motor court by the side of the seedy street that had once been part of Route 66, when the desk clerk said, “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” I asked him.
He turned around the log I’d signed so he could read it better. “Your name’s Jason Hanford?”
“Yes.” I suddenly wished I’d used a fake name.
“I got some mail for you this morning. I thought it was weird because there was no one staying here under that name, so I remembered it.” He reached under the counter and pulled out an envelope, looking from it to the key in his other hand. “Whoa! It says here, ‘Jason Hanford, Room 112,’ and I was just about to give you the keys to room 112!”
I was covered in gooseflesh, but I managed to smile. I took the envelope from him, looked at the writing.
It was from him.
Somehow I was able to get through the ritual of paying for my room, listening to the rules and regulations, looking at the map of where the ice machine and the vending machines were located. Walking slowly, pretending to be casual and disinterested, I took the envelope into my dark little room and opened it immediately after closing the door behind me.
Go back to the house, the letter stated. You will not be harmed. We need to talk.
That was all it said, no greeting, no signature. I was not sure whether to believe it or not, but considering the fact that the letter had been left for me hours before I had by chance pulled into this place, and its author could have lain in wait for me and killed me before I knew what was happening, I tended to believe it was legit.
He wanted to talk.
The thought was intimidating, although in a way it was also very flattering. My letters had obviously gotten through to him, and while I didn’t think he’d allowed me to live because he feared my awesome powers—most likely, he wanted to harness my abilities, have me working for his side again—the fact remained that my letters had saved me or at the very least granted me a reprieve.
It was getting dark. Obviously, I wasn’t going to be spending the night here. I needed to get back to Edson’s rental house in Costa Mesa. With the rush hour traffic, that was probably a ninety-minute commute. I closed the door to my room and returned the key to the lobby. “I won’t be staying,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” the desk clerk said. “We don’t give refunds.”
Even as frugal as I’d been, I’d spent a lot this week and didn’t want to waste the thirty dollars. “I work for a law enforcement agency,” I lied. “Undercover. Our stakeout’s been moved. That’s what the letter was about.”
“Cool.”
“So I’ll need my thirty dollars back.” I tried to make my voice as serious as possible, hoping there’d be an implied threat that if he didn’t comply, the cops would be all over this place, looking into every minor infraction.
“Don’t worry,” the clerk said. “It’s not your money. They’ll reimburse you for the room.”
I didn’t want to stay here and argue, but I fixed him with what I hoped was a hard look. “I’ll remember that,” I said.
“All right, all right,” he grumbled. He opened a drawer beneath the counter, gave me my money.
“Come again!” he called as I walked out the door. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
I was on the freeway five minutes later. As I’d known, it was crowded, the traffic barely moving, and I had plenty of time to think. I turned on the overhead lamp, read the short letter once again. Three declarative sentences: Go back to the house. You will not be harmed. We need to talk. An order, a promise, a reason. It was masterful. Short, to the point, giving out only necessary information, giving nothing away.
The Ultimate Letter Writer.
Stan had called him that and the name had stuck. Stan had thought of the nickname, too: the Ultimate. Were they accurate? I believed they were. He was the Ultimate Letter Writer; he was the Ultimate. Which led to the question, why had he written “We need to talk” rather than “I need to talk to you?” Why was he pretending that we were on the same level? Why was he kissing my ass? To catch me off guard? To lull me into a false sense of security? I couldn’t figure it out.
I drove back to Costa Mesa, to the house. It was night by now and the windows were dark. The drapes were open, but I couldn’t see inside, could see only a reflection of the streetlamp and the house across the road.
I got out of the car, walking slowly forward. I wished I had a flashlight.
Suddenly a floodlight above the garage door switched on, illuminating the driveway and half the front yard, and I jumped a mile. The motion detector. I’d forgotten about that.
It provided me with light at least, and I felt a little less afraid as I hurried up the walk to the front door. I fumbled quickly for my keys before the floodlight went off, since I was now out of range of its motion detector. Opening the door, I reached around the corner, flipping on the living room light before stepping inside.
The room was empty.
I went through the entire house, through the yard and the garage. No sign of the Ultimate. The place was empty.
Go back to the house. You will not be harmed. We need to talk.
Was that some kind of joke? Or had the letter meant a different house? My old house? My parents’ house? It hadn’t been specific. I was worried that I’d misinterpreted the meaning. Three declarative sentences. How could there be room for interpretation?
That was the genius of it.
I sat down on a chair, my neck and back knotted with tension.
I didn’t like the silence, and I reached for the remote control on the coffee table, turning on the TV so I’d have some noise. I reread the letter, tried to remember what my first thought had been upon reading it. This was what he’d meant, I decided, looking around the room. This was the place. I’d just beaten him here, that’s all. He hadn’t mentioned a timetable; maybe he wasn’t even planning to meet until tomorrow and would be by in the morning.
Meet.
I was going to meet the Ultimate Letter Writer.
Just the idea gave my stomach butterflies. No one, to my knowledge, had ever met him or knew what he looked like.
I admitted to myself that I was afraid to see him. In my mind, he was bigger than life, ei
ght to ten feet tall, more monster than man. But that couldn’t be true, could it? I looked again at the precise, almost delicate script on the page. No big clawed hands could hold a pen and write in such a way.
Still, the image persisted.
I glanced around. Would he knock or ring the doorbell? Would he come through the door at all or would he just… appear?
Maybe I was supposed to go to a different house, I thought hopefully.
It didn’t matter. Even if this wasn’t what he’d planned, the Ultimate would be able to find me. All I had to do was wait. I fell asleep on the couch sometime in the middle of the night, listening to the inane chatter of an infomercial.
It arrived in a black envelope with a stamp from hell.
I don’t know who delivered it or how it got into the house, but in the morning when I awoke, there was a letter waiting in the center of the coffee table, directly in front of me. I reached out, picked it up. The paper was rough to the touch and strange, as though it had been made from a combination of dirt and animal hair. There was no name on the front, or if there was I couldn’t read it, but in the upper righthand corner of the black rectangle was a reddish orange stamp that depicted what appeared to be a pile of mutilated bodies burning in an underground chamber. There was no monetary value listed and no writing on the stamp.
Ignoring the repulsion that was being transmitted through my fingers, I opened the envelope. Inside was paper that I recognized, a sheet identical to those that I had made with my kit all those years ago to falsify my Paul Newman recommendation. The typestyle was the same as the one I’d used, too, only centered at the top was not Paul Newman’s name but two words: YOUR GOD.
Beneath that was an invitation.
I had been granted an audience.
4
The address, of course, was apartment number 3 in the Shangri-La complex, and the time was tomorrow at noon.
YOUR GOD.
That piece of self-identification was baffling to me. Did he actually think I worshipped him as a god? It was possible other Letter Writers worshipped him, but I sure as hell didn’t. Maybe he thought he was a god. He certainly seemed self-important enough to have such delusions of grandeur.
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