Joe Haldeman - Work Done for Hire

“No… I don’t know. She said they’d done it before, and she had me Google some kid’s name. Who had died of mylo something. Mylo-thrombosis? It was pretty convincing.”

“And on the strength of that?”

“What do you mean? They threaten to kill my girlfriend and ‘on the strength of that’ I go zero their fucking rifle? Yes! You wouldn’t?”

“What were you supposed to do after that? Did they say who you were going to shoot with the rifle?”

“I don’t think they ever did… no, never. Just that he was someone bad.”

Paper rustled. “‘You will agree that the World is a better place without him.’ The word ‘World’ is capitalized.”

“I noticed that. And a couple of other grammar things. So he’s not too literate?”

“You never know, Mr. Kinney—Mr. Daley. ‘He’ might be a female, and more literate than you or me, faking it. Though you’re right; on the surface it appears to have been written by a person with little education, probably male.

“Of course that generates the question of how and why some semiliterate person could and would set up and execute this complex stunt.”

Her use of the word “stunt” was interesting. “Wait. Do you still think that I might have done this ‘stunt’ myself?”

“Nothing is off the table, Mr. Daley. My personal opinion is that you didn’t do it. People who haven’t seen the recording of your interview, who don’t know anything about you, might think otherwise.”

“But it’s ridiculous! Why would I go to all that trouble just to get into more trouble?”

“You’re an educated man, and a writer. You know that people do things for odd reasons, or no reason. That you or someone else would set this up is ‘odd,’ but odd things happen.”

That was almost exactly what Blackstone had said. Maybe it’s a mantra you have to learn for Homeland Security. “And I suppose my fingerprints are all over the note.”

“In fact, no. That piece of paper has been folded and unfolded and crumpled up, but as far as we can tell no one has ever touched it without gloves. You do admit to reading it?”

Shit. I loved where this was going. “Of course. I told Blackstone—”

“Why would you put on gloves to read a note? Why would an innocent person avoid leaving fingerprints on anything?”

I had to admit that was a pretty good question. “I… I guess I was in a suspicious frame of mind. Cautious frame of mind. I started to take the rifle out of the box but then I thought, hell, I’m taking this straight to the cops; don’t want to mess up any prints that might be on it.”

Long pause. “But in the event… you actually didn’t take it to the police.”

“ No! Like I said! That’s when the woman called.”

I heard her exhale in exasperation. “I’m trying to make a list here. First your doorbell rang, late at night.”

“Morning. About four in the morning.”

“What were you doing up at that hour?”

“I wasn’t up! The phone woke me up.”

“Calm down, Mr. Daley. I’m trying to decipher the notes from your conversation with Mr. Blackstone. You went to the door and there was no one there.”

“I heard a car leaving, peeled out. Before I opened the door.”

“There was no sign of them when you opened the door?”

“Nothing but the box. I heard tires squealing while I was getting dressed.”

“What did you think it was? Four in the morning.”

“I don’t know. Kids, I guess.”

“Why did you go to the door when the phone rang?”

“Not the phone ! The doorbell.”

“Okay. Kids rang the doorbell and left behind an expensive sniper rifle.”

A really bad feeling was growing in my head. Could I open my mouth without screaming? It would feel so good to throw the phone into the traffic.

“Are you there, Mr. Daley?”

What would it sound like on her end, when a car ran over it? Would it be loud enough to be worth the cost?

“Mr. Daley?”

I took a deep breath. “Add this to your list. I’ve had enough abuse for the day. My shoulders and wrists hurt from being manhandled by jackbooted fucking storm troopers. On your list I want you to write down the time of day. Call me exactly twenty-four hours from now and I’ll answer. If the phone rings before that I will throw it in the fucking Mississippi.” I snapped it shut with a sound like a rifle shot.

An elderly couple sitting down at the next table smiled and applauded softly. “Whoever they are,” the old lady said, “fuck them.”

I gave her a V-sign. My grandfather’s generation. God bless the sixties.

The phone rang again. I opened it. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

It was a familiar woman’s voice, but not Sara Underwood’s: it was the mystery woman who first talked to me in Iowa City, and threatened me with the story about the boy who died of myelofibrosis.

“Jack? We know where you are now. Are you ready to talk?”

I threw the phone into the street and got up to rush to Korn Dogs.

Something must have shown on my face when I returned to the restaurant. Mario was by the grill chopping onions and he came over with the big chef’s knife in his hand. “Something wrong,” he said.

“Hate to leave you in the lurch, man. We have to get out of here.” Kit untied her apron wordlessly and started folding it.

“You have to?”

I nodded.

“Shit happens,” he said, setting the knife down. He went around the counter and punched the cash register hard and scooped out two C-notes and a fifty from the till.

“We couldn’t, Mario,” Kit said.

He put the money on the counter and looked at me. “I never seen you guys.” He turned to go back to his onions. “Good luck anyhow. In bocca al lupo. ” He’d taught us that phrase, like “break a leg.”

We had Plan A mapped out completely. Every morning before we left for work we packed everything we owned into two knapsacks, so we could go into the apartment and out in seconds.

There was a bike shop on the way. The two we’d picked out, a couple of sturdy touring Treks, had been sold—but two new ones had just come in; he’d unboxed them this morning and almost had them together. It seemed like a good omen, starting out fresh, so we bought them and two sets of rear baskets.

While the kid was bolting the baskets on, we went back to the apartment and picked up the knapsacks and left the key on the dresser. As an afterthought Kit left a note saying we’d been called north, and expected to be back before the first, but if we weren’t, go ahead and rent the room. We left our Jazzy Pass RTA cards with the note.

We had two detailed route maps that took us from New Orleans to Miami on back roads, and then down A1A to Key West. We would travel apart, Kit leaving an hour before me, the routes slightly different wherever possible. They’d be looking for a couple our age traveling together.

Not trusting cell phones, we’d bought a pair of kids’ walkie-talkies from the Phone Shop. I would call her every hour on the hour, and let it buzz once. If she didn’t buzz back soon, it meant she was in trouble—or we’d been betrayed by cheap Phone Shop technology, not impossible.

We split our cash down the middle, $4,320 each. Decided to go ahead and use her credit card for the bikes, since the Feds knew where we were anyhow. All my cards were flat.

I’d downloaded lists of bicycle-friendly hotels for the states we’d be going through. We chose one just out of town, about twenty miles away, for the first night, and I sent Kit on ahead.

Locked my bike up outside the Black Cat, our favorite tavern, and had one last imported beer before taking off into the land of country general stores and Bud Light. We’d made up our routes from a library copy of the Southern Tier Trail “southern tier” tourist maps, which kept you away from highways and cities, and decent beer.