S Huang - Zero Sum Game

“I will never,” he said, “be on the same side as someone like that.” He spat on the ground, the expectorant a bloody mess but the message clear, and, still using his truck for support, got around to the driver’s side, levered himself in, and roared away.

“It occurs to me,” said Rio, “that being acquainted with me is not the best decision for your social network.”

“Screw my social network,” I said.

Camarito was barely more than a truck stop, a ramshackle collection of buildings pretending to be a town. The gas station lighting up Main Street tried very hard to be a travel center and almost made it before giving up. A couple of truckers hunched over coffee at the mostly-deserted tables outside; Rio and I took one far away from everyone else. I sat back and watched the night while Rio went inside to pick up some coffees.

The childish part of my brain wanted to write Arthur Tresting off entirely. Nobody who threatened and belittled my friends—or my not-friends, whatever—deserved my help, or even my acquaintanceship. But a small, insistent voice pointed out that Tresting’s distrust of Rio was not outrageously unreasonable, and was maybe even an indication Tresting might be a good guy, or something. I was never quite clear on where the gray ended and the black and white began, but it wasn’t a stretch to put both Rio and me among the condemned, whereas Tresting—I wasn’t sure. I didn’t like him, but much as I wanted to, I couldn’t dismiss him or the information he might have just because of what he’d said about Rio.

After all, he wasn’t wrong.

Rio…Rio came into this world not quite right. He doesn’t feel emotion the way other people do. Doesn’t empathize. He honestly does not care about other people.

The one thing that drives him is inflicting pain. He craves it. He needs it. Some people are born for certain careers in this world; Rio’s talents mold him to excel at the worst of them all, the man with his tray of silver instruments whose mere presence in a room will cause people to scream and confess, the man who will smile through the spray of blood and revel in how much he loves his work.

I have no illusions about Rio.

In some strange joke of the universe’s, however, he was raised with religion. Lacking his own internal moral compass, he substituted Christianity’s, and became an instrument of God.

It’s twisted, of course. I freely admit it. Any Christian you stop on the street would pale with horror at the way Rio follows the Bible, because it doesn’t stop him from hurting people. Only as a Christian, he seeks out the people he judges deserve God’s vengeance, and he doesn’t bother with the little sins, the unfaithful husbands or petty thieves. Rio searches for people like himself. Or worse.

And then he introduces them to God.

Rio doesn’t have friends. It’s not part of his makeup. Some people hire him, usually people who aren’t very nice and can live with themselves after hiring someone like Rio. He’s choosy about the jobs he takes, and in between times, he freelances. For him, the payoff is never about the money anyway.

Rio and I had known each other a long time. As far as I could tell, he put up with me because I didn’t actively annoy him, and as for me, well…I understood him. Hell, he was a lot easier to understand than most of humanity. He practically had axioms. And because I understood him, I could trust him.

He was the only person I did trust.

And though I might not delude myself about the type of person Rio was, that trust had bred loyalty. Even if it didn’t bother the man himself, other people talking smack about Rio made my trigger finger real itchy, and I didn’t care who knew it. You didn’t knock my not-friends in front of me and expect to walk away unscathed.

Rio came back outside and set two paper cups on the table, taking one of the metal chairs for himself that allowed him to see almost every angle. Usually I would have taken that seat, but I always felt Rio outranked me in the paranoia hierarchy, so I ceded him the vantage point.

“What was Tresting’s information?” he asked as he sat.

I passed on everything the PI had told me, from the methods he’d used to track Polk and me to his nebulous theories about Pithica, not reserving judgment on the latter’s credibility. Rio listened silently.

“So, what’s the deal, then?” I demanded. “You’ve heard of whatever this Pithica thing is.”

“I told you not to get involved,” said Rio.

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Which means you know something.”

He sipped his drink. “On the whole, I know very little. Far less than I would like. What I do know suggests Arthur Tresting is more correct than not.”

“ What?”

“I, too, have followed some unusual patterns. What interests me more,” he continued, “is who made such a concerted effort to draw you into this. That, I think, is a question worth answering.”

I was still trying to take in the fact that he didn’t think Tresting was a raving lunatic. “I take it you didn’t call Dawna Polk ever,” I said slowly.

“No. In fact, I have no idea who that is.”

“Courtney Polk,” I explained. “The girl I mentioned before, the one I got out. Kid who says she ‘accidentally’ became a drug mule for the Colombians. She got caught, the Colombians threw her in a basement, and then her sister Dawna contacted me and said that you called her and told her to hire me.”

“Yet I never made such a call. Interesting.”

“Did you see Courtney in there?”

“I remember thinking her rather stupid.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “It did not occur to me that she would be worth risking my other goals for.”

“Well, whatever your goals are, it sounds like you’ve been compromised.”

“So it would appear.” He took another sip of his drink. He was taking it very in stride—but then, I’d never seen Rio flustered about anything.

“Somebody in there is onto you,” I continued, feeling it out aloud, “and somehow knew about your relationship with me, and called Dawna impersonating you. I don’t know why, but I intend to find out.”

Rio tilted his head slightly, as if considering. “That is one theory.”

“It’s the only possible theory,” I contradicted. Rio just kept looking at me. “What? You have something better? Nothing else fits all the facts.”

“Odd,” he said. “You’re usually better at this.”

“Better at what?”

“You say the only possibility is that someone else contacted Dawna Polk using my name.”

“Well, yeah.” I searched for the flaw in that logic, puzzled. “That is the only possibility.”

“Unless she lied to you.”

“Who?”

Rio regarded me as though I were speaking a foreign language. “ Dawna.”

I laughed. “She wasn’t lying to me. Jesus, if you’d seen her—she was practically in hysterics about this whole thing.”

“Did you do a background check on her?”

I frowned. I background check all my clients if I have the time. But…“I didn’t need to. Seriously. You’re being ridiculous. Let’s concentrate on the real possibilities.”

“Cas. You’re acting strange.”

“What do you mean, strange? Because I’m not jumping to suspect the least likely person in this whole tangle?”

“No. Because you’re disregarding it as an option.”

“So?”

“So, that is very unlike you.”

I found myself becoming annoyed. Which was unheard of—I couldn’t remember ever having gotten annoyed at Rio. Why was he insisting on being so infuriating over this Dawna thing? “Oh, so you have my deductive process axiomitized and memorized, do you?” I said.