by F P Adriani
*
When I woke up late the next morning, Tan had already left for work, and I hadn’t even heard him get dressed: he must have done that in the house’s other bathroom.
I was sighing in disappointment as I got out of bed. I had a feeling another this-won’t-be-easy day lay ahead for me, and I suddenly wished I didn’t have to fucking deal with any of it.
I nevertheless got dressed and got all the shit together that I thought I’d need. Then I went back to the Sapphire Lake post office.
Different people were working the counter this time; the woman yesterday had been newly hired here. But these two people today, two men—I’d seen them before a bunch of times, though the younger one only seemed to be around early in the day.
I got on his line, and when my turn at the counter came, I removed a brochure from my purse, a brochure I’d cleaned of any prints before I’d left the house. “Hi,” I said. “I was here yesterday asking about certified mail. Then I remembered this brochure mentioned another option that only went through the high-security offices?” I leaned toward the counter and handed the young blond guy the brochure.
He wore eyeglasses, but his nose was very narrow; one of his forefingers had to keep pushing up the thin brown bridge of his glasses as he stared down at the brochure in his other hand. “Oh—yes. That’s the most private type of mailing we have—businesses often send their taxes that way. Though I’ve heard someone got a marriage proposal like that.”
He looked at the clerk beside him, who must have been listening in to our conversation because they both laughed now—an inside post-office joke apparently.
I didn’t know what their laughing was specifically referring to, but I gave them my best fake laugh anyway. And then I asked, “Could you explain some more about how this mailing option works?”
The young guy did explain more. Then he handed back the brochure; then I stuck it in my bag; then I went over to my box.
I stood staring at it, thinking that it might have been a bit too early for the mail—but when I ran my little bomb-checking scanner over the box and then opened it, I found mail inside.
Once again…I breathed a relieved sigh because there was nothing bad among my mail—no more threats.
A small seed of hope blossomed inside my chest: maybe the fucking letter had been a one-time joke on some crackpot’s part. For all I knew, some nut might have simply gone down a list of people and sent the letter to all of us on there.
I shoved my mail into my black purse and went back to my car to remove my silver case from my trunk. In my front seat now, I pulled out the brochure and my Osier, and got back my prints—and a match for the prints on the threat’s envelope.
My disappointed heart crashed like a stone into my bowels.
Then I felt afraid again; then my fear turned into fury.
Then I yanked my biggest gun from my case.
*
The back of the blue post-office building was where the employees walked in and out. On one side of the back sat a pretty desolate street where you could park a car and wait for an employee to come out. And as that employee walked across the employee parking lot and reached the landscaped edge near the street, you could be waiting inside one of the bushes, like I was waiting right now.
I had thought that I’d probably have to jump back in my car and follow him. But, as he walked, the young blond guy came close to my bush.
“Hey,” I said, stepping out, my hand inside my black jacket, inside on my gun.
The guy’s head shot up. His pale blue eyes behind his glasses looked really surprised to see me standing there between a big bush and a big garbage dumpster. He appeared to be at a loss for words.
I, however, wasn’t. “Do you know me?”
His lips twitched a surprised breath, and he shifted a palm to wave over his shoulder. “You were just inside. You’re a patron.”
“That’s right. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But you hand-delivered a nice little letter in my box with a fake postage-metering.”
His face, his usually pale face beneath his mass of straight blond hair—that face paled even more.
“I see you know what I’m talking about,” I said, my hand shifting my black gun out and forward.
He noticed. He stared down. His bottom lip dropped open. “Is that a—”
“You bet.”
“But you can’t do that here—”
“And mail tampering, especially with a threat, is a planetary offense. But that didn’t stop you.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “What are you—what threat—”
“As if you don’t know. I got a letter. From you. Who the fuck are you? I don’t even goddamn know you.”
“I—I.” He had stopped talking very abruptly, probably because, going on his face, he was having trouble thinking of what to say next. A glistening drop of sweat slid down his forehead; his eyes were still on my gun. “I don’t know what’s in the envelope. Someone—someone paid me to stamp a fake metering and leave it. I thought it was a gag—”
“Yeah? Well, it wasn’t. And why should I believe you anyway?” I said, though, at this point, my instincts were telling me, He isn’t the one. “Give me a reason to believe you. Give me everything you’ve got. Who told you to do this?”
“Someone I knew from school years ago—he called me and asked me to drop a letter in your box. It was just a sealed envelope. I scanned it like we always do in the office—nothing—uh-uh—dangerous inside.”
“Not physically dangerous,” I snapped. “Yet.”
He didn’t respond. He was licking his lips.
“What else have you got—anything else?”
“There’s—there’s another envelope. Just another thin envelope. Supposed to put it in tomorrow.”
My heart was pumping so hard, my chest hurt. “Did you write out the first envelope?”
His head shook a fast “no.” “My friend did, I think. But I’ve got the other one here.” He’d been holding a brown bag over his shoulder and now he went to lower it, but I thrust my gun forward even more, my eyes shooting a once-around to see if anyone was nearby; no one was.
Now I said hard and fast, “Turn your bag over and dump it all on the ground.”
“Shit—”
“Do it!” I said in a louder voice than his.
He poured out the contents of his bag—which contents weren’t much. But my eyes latched onto a red plastic folder lying there. “Is that it?”
“Yeah,” he said on a quick nod.
“Kick it here.”
His white-sneakered foot shoved the folder’s end, and I bent down to pick it up, keeping my eyes on him all the while. He looked like he’d rather be trapped in a pit of vipers than standing there with me. And like he’d probably pissed himself. But I certainly didn’t care.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” I said to him as I straightened up. “Tomorrow morning you’re going to come into work, but you’re going to give your notice.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but I only said, “Shut up,” in an icy voice. And he sighed then, looked off to his left.
“If you’d rather go to jail, be my guest. If you don’t quit your job, I’m going to both your boss and the cops.”
Another sigh as he shifted his white sneakers on the dark pavement.
“And,” I continued, “you’re also going to break off contact with your friend, but not before giving me his name. Do I know him?”
He shook his head “no,” his palms up. “I don’t know. I went to school with him from fifth grade—”
“I don’t give a shit if you played goddamn doctor together with each other’s dicks. I only want to know his NAME. Now.”
“Vervais. Ed Vervais.” I just looked at him. “That’s really him. Ed.”
I didn’t know any Ed Vervais, but for now I had to take this idiot’s word on the name. “Give me your post-office ID down there.”
“What for!”
“But I can’t get into work tomorrow without it!”
“That’s your problem.”
“Shit!!!” He used the same foot as before to shove his ID now.
The plastic card stopped nearer to the dumpster; I moved over to it, not taking my eyes off the guy. I picked up the ID, which had both his name and address listed. “So, Brian Cooperson, if you’re smart you’ll do everything I say because you really don’t want me to show up where you live. If I have to see you again, next time, I won’t be so nice.”
His legs in his brown pants twitched, as if he really did have to pee bad, or had already peed and was now twitching in discomfort. “Look, I know where he lives. How about I take you there? If I do, then will you promise you won’t kill me?”
“I’m making no promises,” I said.
“I’m kind of pissed too—he told me it was a joke! I guess I shouldn’t have trusted him, but you’d be surprised how many jokes patrons say pass through here.”
“I don’t give a shit. Mine doesn’t sound like any joke. And I don’t need your help to find your friend.”
“Yeah, but you might need my help talking to him,” he said.
And when I finally got to the friend’s place, I saw what Cooperson meant.
But that wasn’t until later on.
In the Sapphire parking lot still, I got Vervais’s address from Cooperson, and then I walked away, leaving the idiot bent over and picking up the shit from his bag.
When I got into my car, I phoned my other employee, Mike, and told him to tail Cooperson, starting at his home address.
Then I called Roberto and told him to meet me at the office. He said he was on his way there anyway.
“But I told you not to go to MSA alone,” I said to him, my voice clipped with annoyance.
“I know, Boss, but I left my extra gun cartridges there the other night—and after I went to the target range before, I’m low on fuel with the one I’ve got.”
“You’ve got to be more careful,” I said, turning my car around one of the last corners on the way to MSA. “I’m almost at the office. Wait in your car. See you there,” I finished.
But when I got to MSA, he was standing on the stoop with his key-card in the door alarm, about to enter his personal code to get inside.
I jumped out and slammed my car door. “What the fuck did I just say? I told you to wait in your car.”
His voice was gruff. “Goddammit, Boss, I’m not an idiot.”
“You could have fooled me! Forgetting your cartridges, going into places alone when I said NO. Pull your key out. Let’s do a once-around first.”
We did and everything seemed all right.
“We’ve got to do something sticky today,” I said to him as I finally let us both inside the front door.
His somewhat large nose sniffed the air. “What do you mean ‘sticky’?”
“I’m on to who sent the threatening letter. …And I’ve got another one with me.” My face felt hot, and now I could feel Roberto’s blue eyes moving over the heat.
“What does it say?”
“Haven’t opened it yet.”
“Come on, Boss. I’m here for support.”
I rolled my eyes. But I did pull out the red folder from my purse.
I opened the metal clasp that kept the folder sealed; then I removed the envelope—saw the same handwriting and return address on the outside, but no postage-metering. Apparently, Cooperson hadn’t gotten to that part yet.
My fingers shook as they opened the envelope, and inside I found the same size and shape of inner envelope, and the same handwriting on the letter inside, handwriting that now said:
You’ll be dead soon before the dish runs away with the spoon.
“Damn, Boss,” said Roberto, looking over my shoulder. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I wish I knew,” I replied.
Because I was expert at blocking things, if I wanted to forget something, I could easily forget it, including that the case I was working on was me.
Unfortunately, I had to work my case just like I’d work any other case: I had to remember me in order to examine me in great detail, and that was something I just didn’t enjoy doing—and occasionally found myself incapable of doing.
So now I wondered: was there something personal to me in this dish-and-spoon crap—something personal I’d been blocking? If there was, it must have been deeply buried because I only drew a big blank on it….
“Pia,” said Roberto in a softer voice now, “your face is so red.”
“I could really use some cold water….”
“I’m on it,” he said, and I watched his big block-shaped back in his white shirt rush into the kitchen.
I looked down at the threat again, but my mind still drew a blank. The address was the only thing I had to go on.
I turned on my black computer and initiated that same search as yesterday. Then I pulled out my Osier again….
“Pia, we need to restock the fridge!” Roberto called from the kitchen.
“Put it on the list of The Gazillion Things I’ve Got To Do By The End Of The Week,” I said in a dry voice.
I ran my fingerprint-scanner over the new envelopes and letter and got back the same thing—almost. I suddenly realized that previously the Osier had made an error, or I had made an error in reading it: but now, maybe because the scanner had more information and some better prints, it said there was a high probability that the prints on both the old and new outside envelopes were from two different people; three of the fingerprints were likely from a separate person, maybe Vervais, maybe not….
I was sighing in frustration when Roberto finally came back in; he was holding a large, sweaty glass filled with water and ice. “Sorry it took so long. The ice was like a big block in the freezer.”
“That’s what my head feels like right now,” I said, grabbing the glass from him. I took a huge gulp of the icy water.
“Boss, we’ll set this right.”
“I don’t know, Roberto….”
“But we always come out on top.”
“We always have. That doesn’t necessarily mean we always will.”
He was standing on the opposite side of my desk, and now he frowned down at me. “Don’t be so pessimistic. Where’s the confident Pia?”
“On vacation, somewhere far, far away from this insanity.”
“I could use a vacation too, but the last time I went on one was when Lori and I broke up.”
Uh-oh. Here it comes….
And when the Lori-lament did come this time, even though I was distracted by my probable imminent demise, I silently listened with a friendly ear while Roberto said a bunch of things he’d said a bunch of times before.
“Would you believe it? I thought I had a shot at something and it wound up being nothing. Next thing I know she’s telling me she wants to be with a woman now. I know some people experiment. But is it really fair? She just can’t make up her mind. What is she doing? She’s fifty; I’m fifty. Fifty’s no time to not know what you want.”
“Roberto,” I said…not for the first time… “maybe she’s just bisexual….”
He shook his head fast. “No. She’s just confused. Or she just can’t stick with one person. Some people use ‘I’m bisexual’ as an excuse because they can’t commit to anything, even to an orientation.”
Surprised that he had such views on this, I now asked him, “Where’d you hear that?”
I almost laughed as I watched him blush and stammer, “Oh—I—I read it in a book. I looked up information on this.”
“You’re very thorough,” I said, successfully holding back my laugh. But it wasn’t goddamn easy….
“The thing is,” he said now, “I’m getting old, Pia.”
At first I wondered what the hell he was talking about. Then a thought struck me and my eyes lifted to his. “Is this job too much for you now?”
His gray-blond head shook fast. “No.
I just mean…life’s going by so quick. I don’t like living alone.”
“But there’s Jamie,” I said.
Roberto looked at me. “Jamie’s a guy. I’m talking about a woman.”
“But she isn’t the only woman in the world,” I pointed out.
“I know. But it’s like you with Tan—I really like her….”
“Roberto, I’m sorry for what’s happened. …And I don’t know what else to say. I never do in these situations.”
Heaving a big, from-the-gut Roberto-sigh, he plopped down in one of the two armchairs near my desk, and I went back to watching my search results pop up. And pop up they did—a lot of results this time. But still none quite matched what I was looking for. “Was Arlene bullshitting me?”
“What?”
“I’m looking for the address on the envelope—possibly a place on Diamond called Spoonville.”
“Oh, Spoonville—I know there.”
My head shot up to him. “You do?”
“It’s a small town—I think? I had a friend who lived there once.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
I thought this was a weird conversation…. Could Roberto, possibly, be some kind of connection here?
I looked at his big open face, and I hated myself for having any suspicions about him or anyone near him. But I just couldn’t be sure….
I thought of something. “So what’s up with Paulie? He seems like, well, like he’s a bit off or something.”
Roberto’s open face closed up into a frowning face. “Boss, I can’t talk about it; Paulie doesn’t want people talking about his past. It’s not something he wants to think about either.”
Well, for sure, I knew how Paulie supposedly felt there. But, I wasn’t “people” to Roberto. We’d gotten to know each other pretty well. Or so I had thought….
He must have noticed something not-quite-right on my face. And I had been staring at him.
His wide brow and cheeks now twisted in an ironic way. “Pia, you’re giving me that look.”
“What look?”
“The look that says, ‘I wouldn’t even trust saints’.”
“Well,” I said, “Well.” And then my face twisted like his because he was…right. “I don’t even trust myself right now. For all I know, I have an alter ego who’s sending me these threats. But I really just wanted to know how you know Spoonville.”