SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

I regarded her for a long moment. My heart had finally stopped pattering. "How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Months."

I stood up and took her glass. "I can’t help you. At least Horace had the courtesy to seek me out. You…you come asking for something you can’t even verbalize and expect me to jump when you say so?"

"I want you to kill him."

"What?"

"I won’t say it again."

"You shouldn’t have said it once. Murder?" I whispered the word. "That’s crazy human stuff. It’s not us. It’s not in us."

"But, before…when we were simple animals, we didn’t take drugs or drink alcohol, did we? They changed us. And now we’re just…monsters."

"Jesus. No." I sat down. "We’re no more monsters than a…a human woman with breast implants or an android with skin. We still have our own natures. We’re still vegetarians. We didn’t become human when we were uplifted. We aren’t capable of murder."

"I’m sorry I came." She stood up and brushed down the front of her deep blue dress, smoothing the lightweight fabric.

"You still look amazing. Leave him."

"It’s okay, Umber. I know what I have to do."

I watched her go from the back of the bar.

She stopped and spoke to Al for a few minutes. He must have told her what I would have, that she didn’t owe us anything, because she left with no money changing hands. His eyes followed her out.

She left me with nothing, once again.

After a few sleepless nights, I went to The Scene.

Horace shook my hand energetically. "I’m afraid to hope that you’ve come to join us."

"Don’t be afraid."

I signed a contract for a short run.

My motives weren’t complicated. I still cared about Sarelle and needed to find out what was going on.

But I never saw them together. Sarelle wasn’t around. And Horace, was…well, Horace. More full of himself than he had been when I first knew him. Controlling, sure. But this was his show; he needed to boss everyone around.

Opening night, I sought him out. A massive gauze bandage shrouded his forearm.

"What the hell happened?"

"Accident. It’s fine." But he looked miserable for a guy who was about to have a sold-out opening.

"Is Sarelle going to be here?

"She left."

Left him? Left Tijuana?

"Where to?"

He shrugged. "Don’t know. She does what she wants."

"That’s not what she told me."

"When did you see her?"

"She came to my place a few weeks ago. Jealous?" I wanted to rile him, to see how quickly his temper flared.

But instead, he said, "She’s always done what she wanted. No-one controls Sarelle. There’s not much left between us."

This sounded like a hard-won truth, but I tried again. "Were you trying to off-load her onto me? Is that why you came to my town?"

His bottom jaw gaped, capped teeth looking unnaturally small. "Where do you get off? I came here to do exactly what I’m doing."

"And it just happens to be the place I put down roots."

"Yep. You—" he pointed at my chest and enunciated every word, "—and a lot of other uplifts. Get over yourself." He walked off in a huff.

I had riled him, but not about Sarelle.

I took the stage feeling pretty good in spite of all this. I love performing. Hell, I bought my own bar so I could play any time I wanted. That night, having a large, new and appreciative audience was a treat.

And yet, my performance was off. My fingers worked fine; I didn’t screw anything up, but something didn’t feel right.

They loved me anyway. I played three encores.

Before the first one, Horace was there in the wings, excited, pleased—despite our earlier spat—urging me to go back on. I played two more tunes and left the stage. Horace wasn’t there. The audience clapped and stamped so long that I went back for one more.

Then at some point, while I watched the final act from stage-left and, afterward, when we all took our bows and curtain calls, Horace was discovered lying in a pool of blood behind the theater.

In the alley, with a blunt instrument…

They took me into custody before the last customers had left the theater. But being falsely arrested for a friend’s death hardly touched me in comparison with the crystal-clear clarity with which I finally saw Sarelle’s vicious, self-serving and murderous nature.

Al came immediately.

"You don’t seem that upset," he said. "Are you in shock?"

"I know I didn’t kill Horace and so does Sarelle. This—" I shrugged looking at the cage I was in, "—I can leave when it’s all sorted out. In the meantime, my self-inflicted prison bars have vanished. I feel freer than I have for years. Hey, ask them if I can have Betsy in here, will ya?"

"What?"

"My clarinet."

"Umber, your clarinet is being held as the murder weapon."

In the alley, with a clarinet…

So neatly framed was I that I should have been hanging over the mantel. According to the police, the clarinet they’d taken from my hands had Horace’s dried blood on the rim of the bell.

My conviction seemed almost certain to everyone but me. Al was taking no bets. While I knew where I’d been at the time Horace had been bashed, no one else seemed to have noticed me backstage. I could have, they said, left after my last number, killed Horace and been back in time for my curtain calls.

But I knew how to beat this. Maybe it wouldn’t have had to come to trial at all, but I wanted it to. And there you have it: I’m a performer at my core. I wanted to face Sarelle this one last time.

"He could never get used to the idea that I wanted someone other than him," she testified, in a whispery voice.

My passion for her had turned into a cold hate.

"You were legally married to Horace, the deceased?" Al asked on cross-examination.

"Yes."

"You stand to gain a significance inheritance and proceeds from an insurance policy?"

She glared, her nostrils flaring.

"Please answer the question, Ms. Sarelle," said the judge.

"Correct."

Al established that she and I were once in a close relationship and then asked, "Are you familiar with the instrument Mr. Umberto plays?"

"Of course. A clarinet."

"How does Umberto feel about his instrument?"

She glanced at the jury. "It’s his prized possession."

"Does he have a name for it?"

She shifted and reared her head so that her hair bounced fetchingly. She looked at the prosecutor and said, "Betsy."

"Is there any significance to the name?"

I couldn’t have enjoyed the show more.

"I, uh…I—"

"Isn’t it a fact that Betsy was your name prior to your uplift? And that Mr. Umberto is one of the few who knows this fact?"

She stared at him, fuming, humiliated, as I knew she would be, to have her former life as an ordinary horse with a common name referenced in a publicized trial.

"You are under oath, Ms. Sarelle."

"Fuck you."

I laughed out loud. Jury members gasped, giggled, and looked at the witness suspiciously for the first time. The prosecutor objected, though to what, I don’t know. The judge almost broke his gavel. All this, while Al leaned back against the defendant’s table, his arms folded across his chest.

The judge told Sarelle to answer the question. She flat out refused, was held in contempt, and taken away by the bailiff.

The prosecution rested on this highly rocky point and, in due time, Al called me to the stand.

"Mr. Umberto, is there any circumstance in which you would use Betsy as a weapon?"

"None. Even in self-defense, my reaction would be to set her down carefully and use my fists. Hit something with her? Impossible. I would protect her with my life."