UNDER SIEGE (A Story Of Hope)

by Ciuri Di Badia

  “Ok, ok if you insist I’ll tell you everything”

  “Then, please; go on”

  “Ok, ok, ok, ok……I’ll be absolutely candid with you”

  “Aha”

  “Do you remember me telling you that I have a lover called Dickson?”

  “Yes I do, what about him?” the male (Tommy’s) voice responds.

  “When I lost him, I swore to myself that I will never let any other man that I love get away from me. I could not bear undergoing a similar pain like the one I underwent when I lost him

  When you came along, I then took you as my idol and anyone trying to take you away from me was literally taking my life away.”

  She stopped for sometime before she continued.

  “Do you remember that day when we met in a hotel with your friend Dan?”

  “Yes I do” the ‘he’ voice responded.

  “That day, I clinked with jealousy when you told me about Birma and I swore to break you two up. Later, Dan told me that he had fallen for your lover Birma and I promised to help him.

  The people averring to have come from the post office were my own disguised henchmen and their role was to hold you up from getting into Birma’s house”

  In the tape the female (Quinsy's) voice is heard bawling before she continued to recount her intrigues.

  “I called Dan and told him to go for the girl. He had been informing me of all the events that were taking place there. He was observing you and Birma as he pretended to fix his car.

  My henchmen ‘released’ you to go at an opportune time when you would find your girlfriend with Dan. A contract killer, sent by me but oblivious to Dan, came in and shot Birma; just as soon as Dan informed me that he was done with her.

  In that setup, I lead the police to think that you were the one who killed Birma. See, the police thought that you were wound up by Birma’s infidelity and that you decided to kill her as you blew your top.”

  Tommy clenched his fists and he grinded his teeth bitterly. He could not believe what he was hearing. He had a sketchy idea of what happened but that could not come close to what he was hearing.

  Quinsy continued to make a clean breast.

  “Later I learnt that you were seeing Angie. She was therefore no exception to my ire. So I prepared how to get rid of her in a permanent way. I talked to one of my old collage mate who was doing nuclear physics and asked him if he could secretly get me some dioxin. I assured him that it was to be used to kill some pests in the basement of my parent’s farmhouse and so he got convinced. Three days later he delivered it to my apartment where he taught me how to use it. and if you can remember your night with Angie at the Imperial hotel, many things happened out of your depth.

  I had my men scrutinize the whole place while I waited at a secluded table in the bar where people were watching cabaret dancing. I knew you didn’t like cabarets and so chances were that you couldn’t go there. Later, I happened to see the waiter coming to bring you drinks. That’s when I got in his way by exhorting him to show me the way to my room.

  He left your drinks on a convenience table along the hallway unattended. It was at that time that one of my accomplices put the dope on the glass that was engraved with the name Angie.

  A man working for me called you as soon as I estimated that Angie was about to die. And when you left the hotel room, the police would think that you took off after killing her.

  “Why do that Quinsy? Didn’t you realize that you were ruining my life?”

  “No Tommy, I was keeping you for only me. If you are not for me then you can’t be for someone else” Quinsy is heard shouting.

  “That was very morbid of you. I needed to confirm it with you. I now have to hand myself over to the police.”

  Tommy continues talking in a husky voice that denoted the sadness that he had.

  “Thank you for destroying my life in the name of love. I never knew that I was quisling with the killer. I regret that it took me this long to find you out…..let me go for one of my last nature calls.”

  There is silence as the tape rolls on.

  Quinsy is then heard lamenting “if Tommy is going to die, then I am going with him. I love him. He is my life and I am as good as dead without him. I am prepared to pay the ultimate price for him. I wanted to see him single but not suffering like this”

  A gunshot is heard. Tommy then starts to bemoan loudly “oh my God! What has she done? Why commit suicide in here? She has made everything worse. Oh God you are my only witness.”

  The tape rolls on with Tommy still mourning and a small part of when the police commissioner was ordering him out of he house. It then ends with the Dolby hissing out.

  There you have it, Tommy was a frame. As he reiterated in the courtroom, he had been innocent all along. The same as the saying goes that truth sets one free, Tommy became a free man. The Truth finally set him free by manifesting itself in the in the most unimaginable way. It was such a slovenly mess, just like in the tale of the MI6 who was on espionage only to find out that MI5 was also spy.

  For the purpose of this novel, I have to append that Quinsy admitted to have sent red serrated cards to both Birma and Angie. Quinsy had warned the two women by sending cards with a caption that read 21 23’9’12’12’4’9’5 and told them to relate it to the alphabet taking A,B,C,D…….for 1,2,3,4…….respectively. Taking the codeword 21 23’9’12’12’4’9’5, it literally denoted ‘u will die’. Looking at that the 21 stood for ‘u’. 23’9’12’12 denoted ‘will’. And finally, 4’9’5 signified ‘die’.

  “At least I was kind enough to warn them” Quinsy supplemented.

  * * * * * * *

  Inside the courtroom, Mary harked back to an incident that had happened when Tommy was grooving with Quinsy. It made her understand why Quinsy was capable of doing what she had done.

  Quinsy had once found Linnet, a former workmate of Tommy at the New York harbor services, in his house. She had accompanied him to his house after he experienced a relapse at work. He was having a bad headache that left him worn down. That was when Linnet, offered to take him home.

  Mary mused over the story as Tommy had later recounted to her. It goes like this.

  “Hey Tommy” Quinsy said while frowning.

  “Hey, Quinsy” Tommy responded with a weak voice

  “I see you got company, who is she?”

  “I am Linnet, a good friend of Tommy.” Linnet answered back

  Quinsy furiously crocked out at Linnet “his friend ha! If you think that you can seduce Tommy just because you are close to him at work, you are definitely wrong. He is my man. You hear that you tart.” Quinsy lost her temper.

  “I am here to help him, not to seduce him” Linnet explained

  “I don’t care bout that, just leave him alone”

  “Who the hell do you think you are skunk?” Linnet fumed up

  “Listen to yourself you swine” Quinsy retorted bitterly

  Before Linnet could chime in and save the drabbing situation, Quinsy had aggravatingly gone mad. She slapped Linnet before starting to throw her out. It was at that point that Linnet decided enough is enough and she started whacking Quinsy back. They walloped, clouted, thumped and thwacked each other as hard as they could.

  All this time, Tommy’s excruciating headache was becoming worse. It worked him up so much that he could not do any amicable arbitration. The hullabaloo continued with the ladies now pulling each others hairs.

  It was in the middle of that bedlam that Tommy’s Cousin Mary, walked in. The two fighting women could not even notice her presence. They just continued with their hubbubs. Mary then interceded by pulling the two exasperated ladies apart before making them talk sense out of their misconstructions.

  Quinsy found out later that nothing had been transpiring between Tommy and Linnet. To her regret, she had just psychoanalyzed the whole scenario by taking her jealousy too far.

  Learning from that incident, Mary believed that Quinsy could have done something
crazy like the tape bore out. Quinsy was clearly a hot tempered swine and as the tape revealed, she killed for love, she killed for Tommy.

  Tommy realized that, in his attempt to stop the music, he had mistakenly pressed the record switch. It’s a mistake that ironically saved him. It saw all the charges that had been labeled against him rebutted, leaving him with no indictments outstanding. And as Tommy would say it; the truth finally had its undisputable appraisal.

  Det. Allen could not believe the outcome of this case. It was the first time that his investigations had led him to the wrong suspect. He wished that he could have done things differently, but it was too late. All he was left to do was curse himself for ignoring tiny evidences and for not thinking outside of the box. The case was like a sabbatical in detective’s career. He had put a lot of energy and time to solve it but, without realizing, it was as if he was playing croquet by pushing dented balls through some poky hoops. And by constantly ignoring the rules of the game, he ended up loosing it.

  The judge and his jurors were no different either; they were all stunned by the new evidence. In fact, the judge ordered that the tape’s transcribe be kept by the court for reference. Neither the jurists nor the judge had seen such a dot aging case before. What had seemed so obvious to them suddenly took a sudden turn to the unexpected.

  Tommy front-paged major newspapers as an acquitted holy-devil who was absolved of all charges that had been labeled against him. The execution judgment was quashed and Tommy was set free.

  Immediately, news went round that Tommy was not guilty after all but, unfortunately, it did not resonate well with people. Most of them got disappointed so much that they avoided talking about him.

  You see, people were enjoying when things were not going well for him, and when his situation became better, they started behaving like he doesn’t exist; a clear sign that they were not happy with the turn of events.

  Tommy kept the tape as a keepsake from fate. Perhaps it will always remind him that he should never stop believing that there is hope in every situation that he may face in the future. His was one of the rare miracles that happen to just a few people.

  As for the guilty one quinsy, justice was polarized from her. She was the one to be blamed for all those deaths. Not Tommy. Luckily to her, she had the quibble privilege of vanquishing justice through her own way; death. By committing suicide, she went unpunished and untraceable by the men in blue - out to the untouchable land of the dead, the departed and the ones who have met with their maker.

  * * * * * * *

  Chapter 8

  Destiny is what makes it possible for me to see a new day. It makes one love while another one hates. It makes one laugh while another one is crying. It is the cause of almost every feeling that we all experience. It is the controller and the determiner of the course that any action will take. It causes so many happenings that we can’t explain.

  So, every time a good or bad thing that you can’t control happens, one should not credit or discredit any other persons; it’s not their fault that the situation is the way it is, it’s the fault of an imperceptible force called destiny.

  From that, one ought to think that some people do not die because their time is up; they die to fulfill the belligerent ambitions of others. That is; some of us are not in this earth to live, they are here to help and make others live their lives. And the pattern goes on, on and on, until it gyrates all over again.

  * * * * * * *

  For Tommy, it’s a commutation from providence that he is alive, celebrating his Christmas in the Caribbean as an ex-lifer. He has run away from the snow fall to the sunny beaches of Caribbean. As an example of the rare miracles of Christmas, a man, who months ago was in jail, is freely walking past fir and yew trees in the porticos of some foreign beach hotel. He is headed to the beach where he will spend the rest of his afternoon with his host…..a gorgeous Caribbean blonde!

  It was a year that had seen Tommy’s three women who had had a fling with him, mysteriously die. He seduced the killer and in return, the killer killed his seducers. Nevertheless, Tommy bore it all with a bold equanimity and he is now busy putting his life back together.

  No mater what happened, he knows that he just have to keep on going and never give up on his life. And no matter what happens, it’s the surest way of finding out how his life would turn out. However, one question strikes our mind; does he know if he will fail or win this time? No. The question can only be answered by fate. What he knows is that, through the hard-way-biorhythm, he survived the first round. But, as he hopes to only see good things on his Ouija board, the most he can do is to lay the best plans for his future which is; in a distance, reeling close, very very fast.

  * * * The end * * *

  ‘In sweet or sad memories, in merry or miserable reflections, in good or bad dreams, we should all strive to enjoy our lives to the fullest no matter what obstacles are there before us. We have one lifetime to live and no one else can live it on our behalf.’ -Ciuri

  Coming next…….

  ……….perhaps Tommy would have had a better perspective in telling this story from firsthand experience. But, I wonder if his bad luck could have slipped his pen into writing a fuss about nothing! That is something that we will ever find out since all this happened before he was born. However, one thing is apparent; what happened before he was born has a connection to what he has become in his adulthood.