Don't Kill The Messenger

by Joel Pierson

  “Thank you for those coordinates,” he says, quickly writing them down. “I didn’t have an exact location until now. Do you know what is at twenty-eight degrees, ten minutes, sixteen seconds north; eighty-three degrees, five minutes, eleven seconds west?”

  “No.”

  “My fishing grounds, dear Persephone. Mine and my friends’. Hundreds of fishermen, looking for fish, shellfish, sponges—all creatures that will be wiped out if Consolidated Offshore begins drilling operations there as planned.”

  “What does this have to do with my father?”

  “Calvin Traeger is one of the investors using dowsers to find sites. He’s one of the backers for the Tarpon Springs drill site.”

  She rests her head in her hands in disbelief.

  Stelios continues, “He must have had one of his people send you those coordinates to keep them safe, in case something happened to him.”

  “It makes sense now,” I tell him. “You knew we were going to see him, and you want us to ask him not to drill there, because of your fishing grounds.”

  “I wish it were that simple, Tristan. This has gone far beyond polite conversation and personal appeals. There is a war going on, and the two of you are caught in the middle of it. I came here today to stop you from going there at all. You’ll be safest if you’re nowhere near Calvin Traeger or anything he touches.”

  “No …” Rebecca says. I reach out a hand to calm her.

  “Stelios, you don’t understand,” I say. “I was sent to get her, to take her home, because she was in danger if she stayed in Florida.”

  “And where did you get that message?” he asks calmly.

  “The same place I’ve been getting them for the past two years.”

  “And where is that? From heaven? From God? Would you know a true message from a false one, Tristan?”

  “A false one? I don’t understand.”

  “You are a messenger. You and a handful of others like you go about helping others, just as you did with me. And for this, I thank you. But this gift of yours … it marks you. There are others out there who know you have this ability, and they can manipulate you, make you do their will by making you believe that the assignment comes from above. This is why you were sent to get Persephone. Her father needs her home again. So he instructed one of his team members to reach out and project an assignment to a vulnerable messenger. And you received that message, thinking it was real.”

  “Are you saying I was used?”

  “Yes, you were. Persephone here is very valuable to her father’s work. You’re discovering that Tristan isn’t the only one with gifts, aren’t you, my lovely little friend?”

  “Yes,” she answers quietly.

  “These gifts of yours will help your father. He doesn’t have them himself, but the same associate who saw Tristan’s abilities must have been able to see yours as well. And now he wants you to help him find the oil. This is why you were summoned home. You weren’t in danger before, but if you join with him, you will be. There are those who will go to great lengths to protect their livelihood.”

  “Stop it,” I say sternly. “You’re scaring her.”

  “She needs to be scared. I can’t guarantee the safety of her father or anyone in his investment group. If you doubt me, ask Jeffrey Casner.”

  The name sends a shiver up my spine. “Casner … He was one of them?”

  Stelios nods. “A major investor in the group, with ties to organized crime.”

  “But I don’t understand. I was sent to warn him about the car bomb.”

  He sighs deeply. “I owe you an apology, my friend. The one who sent you to Atlanta to talk to Casner was me.”

  “You? But …”

  “I sent you there because I needed someone to take the blame. When I met you and Persephone, I was able to see who she was. I saw the connection to Calvin Traeger, and I couldn’t take a chance. I sent you there in enough time to talk to Casner, but I knew you wouldn’t convince him.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because I called him ahead of time and bullied him. Told him he was a coward and he would back down from any threats. I also kept him from completing his vacation plans that day.”

  At last I reach my breaking point. I spring from my seat and grab Stelios by the lapels—the second time, I realize, I have done this to someone in the past three days, and probably the second time in my life. “You son of a bitch! They arrested me for murder! They thought I killed Casner.”

  “I know,” he says calmly, and once again I am dismayed at how calm people are when I grab them by the lapels. I really need to work on my fierceness. “They thought exactly what I wanted them to think. I am sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? Oh, well, that makes it all better then, doesn’t it?”

  “You can hit me if it will make you feel better,” he says, still calm. “But please try to see it from my point of view. You arrive on my boat with my enemy’s daughter, and I can sense that she is a psychic. You tell me that my boat is going to sink. How could I see you as anything other than a threat?”

  “We came to warn you,” I remind him. “We came to save you from having that very thing happen to you, and this is how you repaid us?”

  “After Atlanta, I realized that I had misjudged you. Believe me, I was quite relieved to see that you had been released from custody. Tristan, I really regret putting you in that situation. That is why I came here now, to warn you not to finish your journey.”

  I release him and pace around the table a bit. “So you killed Casner?” I ask.

  “No. The people who did that are far away from here, and they mean you no harm. Casner’s death was a warning to other members of the cartel.”

  “Like my father?” Rebecca chimes in, quite agitated.

  “Yes.”

  “So they’re going to kill him next?” she asks.

  “I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you this is a war. There are those on both sides who will do whatever it takes to prevail.”

  “Now that I know this, what’s to stop me from going to the Atlanta Police and telling them about your part in Casner’s murder?” I ask.

  “Because I think you will look deep inside yourself and realize that I truly am on your side in all of this. And … although I would hate to do so, I have gathered pieces of evidence which, if given to the police, would very convincingly implicate young Persephone here in the murder. You have an alibi; she does not.”

  Rebecca and I share a glance that says we both believe he means it.

  “As I said, I don’t want to do that. All you have to do is go your way and let me go mine. The world will not miss Jeffrey Casner …”

  “No, but I suspect his wife will,” I interrupt.

  “Less than you might think,” he says. “He has inflicted hurt upon her, both physical and emotional. There are some men in the world for whom no one will grieve.”

  At last, after all the questions I’ve had these past four days, the answer is standing before me, telling me everything I need to know, and I am completely unprepared to accept what he is saying. It’s too much; it’s just too much to take. The knowledge that other people can send me on their own little assignments sickens me; how many times have I fallen for it, thinking that I was serving a higher authority? All along, I’ve been feeling enormously guilty, believing I’d dragged Rebecca into this whole thing. Now I realize that, in fact, she dragged me into this whole thing, however unwittingly, and I don’t know how to feel about that. I can’t blame her and I can’t abandon her now, so close to the end. But Stelios keeps using the word war, and it feels ominously like a major battleground awaits us on Calvin Traeger’s doorstep.

  “I’m not your enemy,” Rebecca tells Stelios, in response to his earlier threat.

&nbs
p; “I know that now. You didn’t choose your family; and you were wise to get as far away from them as possible. The best thing you can do now is to do just that. Go back to Key West if you’d like. Or California, or Europe. But don’t tell them where you are going or why. You can bet that if I know of your gifts, others know of them too—others who would consider you their enemy. Or at least a weapon against their enemy.”

  She shoots him an icy glare. “I want to hate you for this.”

  “I will understand if you do.”

  The tension is building between them, and I have to I interrupt it. “How widespread is it? This psychic phenomena … I mean, three of us in this room. How far does it go?”

  Stelios looks surprised at the question. “It’s everywhere. Every person alive has the potential to do what we do. Most of them don’t know it, and enough of them actively disbelieve it, so for the most part, it lies dormant. The devoutly religious are skeptical of such things, so they attribute their gifts to divine inspiration, and that makes them happy. Others call it coincidence and don’t pursue it any further. But there are still plenty who do use it.”

  “But if it’s out there, why isn’t the media all over this? This would be huge news.”

  “Every now and then, the press gets wind of it, but it gets written off as a human interest story. Everyone says isn’t that nice, and they go about their business.”

  “There’s a man who’ll pay a million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate verifiable paranormal activity …”

  Stelios laughs. “Oh yes, big man. You should see the conditions he sets forth in order to claim the prize. It’s like putting someone on a toilet standing on their head, with their fingers in their ears and raccoons balanced on their feet, and telling them they’ll get a million dollars if they can take a shit that comes out purple and looks like Abraham Lincoln.”

  Rebecca laughs at the mental image. “Pardon my language,” Stelios says to her. Ever the gentleman.

  “Psychic ability is out there, Tristan, and people are using it.”

  “So why aren’t all these psychics winning the lottery with their abilities?” I ask him.

  “Who the hell do you think is winning the lottery? Do you know what the odds are of picking those numbers by chance, without cheating? You show me a lottery winner, and I’ll show you a psychic. But there aren’t many who can do it … because most of us don’t have control over our gifts. We fuss and we fumble and we try to make sense of it when we get glimpses of the future or we know what someone else is thinking. The strongest of us have control. The rest do what we can.”

  “So how do I know if the assignments I get are real or if someone is using me, manipulating me for their own purposes?”

  His answer is brief and direct: “You don’t.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth now,” I ask him, “about any of this?”

  “Ask Persephone. She’s been reading my thoughts since we entered this room. Words can lie, but thoughts will always tell the truth.”

  I turn to Rebecca and she nods. “It’s true.”

  “So I’m at their mercy, whoever they are.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “And her? What happens to her now?”

  Before he can reply, Rebecca interrupts. “Tristan, it’s fine. My eyes are open now, about a lot of things. I understand that meeting you was important. Maybe this all happened for a reason, maybe it didn’t. But it happened, and we have to live with it.” She walks over to Stelios, standing right in front of him, and says to his face, “Blaming Stelios won’t help anything.”

  I watch as she stares directly into his eyes for five seconds, then ten, then fifteen. He stares back at her and then he nods at her—discreetly, but it is enough that I can see it. After that, she steps away from him; I can only wonder what silent communication they have shared.

  She turns to me. “We have to go.”

  “My friends,” Stelios says, “I truly am sorry for any harm I have caused you. I hope you stay safe and well, and I hope you make the right decision. You won’t see me or hear from me again, unless you seek me out.”

  I can’t bring myself to say goodbye to him. Despite all his apologies and all his contrition, I can’t forgive him for what he did to me in Atlanta. I leave that little room, with Rebecca following close behind, neither of us giving a backward glance.

  We return to the Sebring and both of us move toward the driver’s door. “Give me the keys, please,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “I need to drive us. I need to focus on something to get past everything that’s in my head right now.”

  I hand her the keys and make my way to the passenger’s side, climbing into the seat. She opens the driver’s side, starts the engine, and lowers the top. Without signaling, she makes a U-turn and heads quickly back through town, back to the highway. Her face holds an inscrutable concentration and intensity, and without her gift, I don’t know her thoughts or her plans. After two minutes of silence, I have to ask her, “Where are we going?”

  “Where are we going?” she repeats, sounding annoyed at the question. “We’re going to my father’s house. Where else would we be going?”

  “But you heard what Stelios said …”

  “I heard exactly what he said. He said there are people out there who want to kill my father, and he might not even know it. I have to warn him that he’s in danger.”

  “Then call him and tell him! Rebecca, if you go there, you’ll be in danger too. You have a phone, you have his number. Call him.”

  To my great surprise, she turns on me, shouting at me with an anger I’ve never seen in her. “How fucking dare you tell me to call him! You of all people? This is what you do, Tristan. You put your own safety aside and travel all over the country to warn people you’ve never even met that they’re in danger. This is my father! I have to look him in the eye and tell him what could happen. And right now, I don’t care what he’s done or what he’s planning to do. They don’t get to kill him for it. Not for oil or zinc or … or a bunch of God damn fish!”

  Her words are carried off by the wind, and I see such pain in her eyes as she struggles not to dissolve into tears. In the aftermath of her fury, my argument seems weak, completely without merit. We are on an assignment, only this time, she is the messenger, and I am along for the ride.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “You’re absolutely right, and I have no business questioning your judgment. I let my own fear for your safety cloud my thinking. You need to go there and face him and tell him what you know. And if I can help, I will. And if I can’t help, I’ll stand back and let you do what you have to do.”

  To my surprise, she slows the car and pulls over onto the shoulder, putting it in park. With a flood of exhaustion-induced tears, she leans over and throws her arms around me, sobbing out her words. “I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry for all of it. I’m just so scared, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if this is the right thing to do.”

  “It’s the right thing,” I answer. “If it’s what your heart needs, then it’s the right thing.”

  “These last four days have ripped away everything I considered normal in my life. I miss my friends, and I miss my classes, and I even miss my father.”

  “Then take us to him, Rebecca. We’re almost there. This assignment is yours to complete.”

  She composes herself and puts us back on the road, on the final leg of our journey. “Tristan, I’m so sorry that they tricked you into coming all that way to get me.”

  “I’m not. Don’t you know that meeting you was the best thing that’s happened to me since this whole thing started two years ago?”

  “No … I didn’t know.”

  I laugh, feeling a bit choked up. “And you call yourself a mind reader,” I tease.

 
She laughs too and slaps my arm. “Shut up. I’m new at this.”

  The miles pass quickly as the two of us regain our inner peace and try to focus on the task ahead. She takes us down familiar roads as we enter the metropolitan area of Dayton, Ohio. We drive through suburb after suburb, each getting a bit fancier than the last. Rebecca signals a turn onto a road leading into the village of Palisade Heights. “This is it, isn’t it?” I ask.

  She nods. “Less than two miles now.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “No,” she says, “but I’m here. And I have to do this.”

  “Solidarity,” I reply, taking her hand in mine. “I’m here for you.”

  She drives on, and in three minutes, we are turning onto Leighton Terrace, a street lined with expensive homes. In the distance, on the right, I see three police cars parked in front of a house, with six officers out of their cars, seemingly standing guard with the homeowner. “Is that your father’s house?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says. “I wonder why all the police are there.”

  “Maybe he learned about the threat and they’re keeping him safe. Go ahead and pull up and we’ll ask him.”

  She parks at the curb, as close to the house as she can get, and we both get out of the car. Rebecca hurries past the police perimeter undisturbed and goes right to her father. He’s a good-looking, well-dressed man in his late forties, with an air of self-assurance that hangs about him like overpriced cologne. He looks like trouble, plain and simple. It doesn’t take me long to realize how right I am. I lag behind a bit, but when I reach the officers furthest down the driveway, two of them each put a hand on my shoulders. Before I can even ask what’s going on, they bring me over to one of their cars and search me for weapons, finding none.

  “He’s secure,” one of them tells Rebecca’s father.

  “Keep him there,” Calvin Traeger replies.

  Rebecca hugs her father briefly, and then asks him, “Daddy, what’s going on? Why are these men here?”