Reed Coleman - They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

They were unfortunately underwhelmed by the response; there wasn’t any. But having never truly entertained the possibility of failure, they had painted themselves into a rather precarious corner. Zak and Guppy had no way of knowing whether their months of messages had gone unread by the people for whom they were intended. That prospect was difficult enough to swallow and meant Valencia Jones was as good as convicted. There was, however, a second possibility, a possibility far more bone-chilling. It dawned upon them that their messages might very well have been received, but that their adversaries were simply lying in wait. After all, now the Isotope dealers knew Zak’s identity, but Zak and Guppy were still fumbling around in the dark, tilting at shadows without faces.

That’s where their plan had gone awry. They had hoped to somehow set up a meeting with the dealers and alert the police. But when there was no immediate response to Zak’s name mysteriously showing up on the witness list, they supposed they were dead in the water. Zak, his life now possibly in danger, thinking his bluff had been called, had no reasonable choice but to remain in hiding until the completion of Valencia Jones’ trial. Brave and resourceful as he and Guppy were, they failed to see the value in Valencia Jones’ conviction and getting themselves killed.

Instead of completely giving up the ship, they continued to fill up the Isotope chat rooms with their messages:

Revealed and still concealed. Love Valencia. Don’t be shy, I won’t be. I’ll bring your house down, you will see.

You’ve called my bluff. You think I am not tough. Love Valencia. Six figures is no longer enough.

Think I’m scared, we shall see. That disc is what’s important, silly, not me. Tick. .Tick. .Tick.

Still nothing. Then Zak remembered a weird thing from a trial he’d seen on TV. Evidence for possible future use was handed to the court in a sealed envelope. It wasn’t actually entered into evidence, but was kept by the court for later introduction. Whether the evidence was admissible or not would be argued if and when the envelope was unsealed and its contents offered to the court. The next day, Valencia Jones’ lawyer delivered a sealed brown envelope into the trial judge’s hands. That night Zak and Guppy put out the following message:

Going once. Going twice. No more playing nice. Love Valencia. Disc in envelope is a fake. Mine is real. Make no mistake and make the deal. The clock stops ticking soon.

It worked, though Zak and Guppy didn’t know it, not right away. On the night they sent that message, Detective Caliparri left Riversborough for the second and final time. His visit hadn’t gone unnoticed. Although his visit had been basically innocent and completely fruitless, the Isotope dealers remembered Caliparri’s first visit and his nosing around about Valencia Jones on behalf of Jeffrey Klein. Much to Caliparri’s eventual detriment, the dealers had put two and two together and come up with five. Apparently, they had found the timing of Zak’s message about the disc, the delivery of the mystery envelope to the judge, and Caliparri’s brief return to Riversborough too great a coincidence to dismiss. Somehow, they had gotten the misguided notion that Zak had passed the real evidence-which, of course, was not real at all-on to Caliparri for safekeeping. And when Caliparri could not produce the disc, he was whacked for his trouble.

“You see, gentlemen,” Guppy said, “once the detective was killed, there could be no turning back. We knew then that they had been reading our messages all along. What we hadn’t counted on was murder.”

“What did you think they were going to do if you ever had a meeting,” I sneered, “kiss you on the lips?”

“We hadn’t thought things out that far.”

“They would’ve tortured the truth out of the one of you they got and killed the pair of ya,” MacClough shook his head disapprovingly. “You two guys were real smart about this plan. I mean that. But this ain’t the kinda game with rules and it’s been my experience that civilians don’t fare well against killers in those games. And just in case you haven’t been keeping score lately, it’s them that got us by the balls. Remember, my old pal here,” he slapped my shoulder, “is facing the hangman’s needle.”

“The hangman’s needle?” I was incredulous. “The soul of a writer and the syntax of a refugee.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my syntax that bringing back the electric chair wouldn’t fix.”

“I don’t understand,” Guppy seemed perplexed, “truly. How do they have us by the balls?”

“Because the manhunt and the murder charge against Klein are real,” MacClough said, “but the evidence and testimony we have to bargain with are phony as a three-dollar bill. There are limitations to what you can do with smoke and void.”

Guppy, suddenly looking quite ashen, stood and excused himself. He mentioned needing some time to meditate before talking to Zak. Like Zak before him, it had dawned on Guppy that play time was over, but that killing time might have just begun.

I don’t know how Zak had made it through his weeks of seclusion. I was three days into my life in the bunker and I was ready to turn myself in. MacClough was dealing with it better than me, but he wasn’t the current poster boy for America’s Most Wanted. Ma Barker and Pretty Boy Floyd had nothing on me.

I don’t know, I just couldn’t get a handle on which part of the ordeal was worst. At times, the fear of capture made me nauseous. Then, minutes later, the world would turn on me and capture would seem like salvation. The apparent hopelessness was getting to me; Existentialism 101. Somewhere, Sartre and Camus were laughing at me. I wondered if the point was to try and evade capture long enough to rate a movie of the week or could I hold on until I inspired an entire series? Alas, no. Quinn Martin was dead.

I hated being scared all the time and I was scared all the time now. Having been scared my whole life, you would’ve thought I’d’ve been prepared. I wasn’t. This kind of scared was different. This kind of scared was amorphous and specific all at once. But being so scared helped me block out the thoughts of Kira.

In the end, though, it wasn’t the insecurity nor the hopelessness nor the fear. It wasn’t Guppy’s god-awful cooking nor was it speculations over how much Kira had suffered. The worst part, I guess, was knowing that people thought I was a monster. It was eating me whole, inside out. I tried to recall how many times I had recited the cliche: “It doesn’t matter what people think of you.” It matters, believe me, it matters. I think I understood how MacClough must have hurt when I confronted him about Hernandez’s death.

Things were bad for me, but they had just gotten worse for Valencia Jones. The newspapers reported that her trial was back on and that each of her attorney’s motions had been denied, most without comment. At least I had the myth of freedom to cling to. Guppy and Zak were bummed to the max and were busy trying to devise some new message to draw their enemies out. I had my own ideas about that, but kept them to myself.

“Guppy,” I tugged at his sleeve. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Certainly.” He followed me out of the shelter into the basement.

“I need to make two phone calls in private. Unfortunately, there’s a chance at least one of the lines I’m calling could be tapped. Is there-”

“Yes, Mr. Klein, there is a secure method. Let us say that I have managed to gain access to certain phone systems in other countries which will allow me to route your calls through so many places that the place of origin will be impossible to detect.”