Deadline Man

But on my personal troubles, the M.E. promised to talk to the U.S. Attorney and ask about the supposed national security letter. If it proved to be a fake, as it almost certainly would, then we could file an assault complaint against the two “agents.” And so, cooler heads…well, sanity makes a welcome reappearance in my life. I ignored Stu and Bill’s deadline and nothing happened. I even kept my job for another day.

Now it’s sunny outside, I am supine on soft sheets, my head hurts, and my ears are buzzing. I quickly shut my eyes. Pam’s bedroom has big windows on three sides and the light floods in joyously. I have overslept and a column is due today, yet somehow I don’t care. I can feel Pam asleep next to me. My high-functioning executive is usually out the door before sunrise. Amber had wanted to come over last night, but I had put her off. “Must be the blonde who poured water on you,” she said.

Before I can even decide whether to lie, she added, “Give her a goodbye fuck and come back to me,” and gave me a long, lewd kiss.

And so I had spent the night at Pam’s, something about which I am careful. There’s the boyfriend. I brought the red wine and she intended to make dinner, except we devoured each other at the front door, eventually made it to the bedroom, and the wine seemed enough to keep us going. At one point, she wanted me to tie her hands to the headboard and blindfold her while I took her roughly. She likes to use my neckties for this purpose. Then we made love missionary style, eyes meeting, bodies comfortable with each other’s pleasure, and it was as sweet as life gets.

But as my head clears now, the buzzing and the quality of light make me panic. The buzzing is Pam’s alarm and she hasn’t shut it off. She hasn’t gotten me out the door at five a.m. as she promised, so she could be prepared when her boyfriend, Ron, came by at seven for coffee. Something is terribly wrong. My hand reaches toward Pam’s shoulder to shake her, but her arm is raised toward the headboard and she’s very cold. My hand follows her arm up and her wrist is tightly bound with fabric. None of this makes sense. I had untied her long before and we had fallen asleep, her back to my front, my arm around her, the way she likes it.

I hear myself shouting her name even before my brain processes what my eyes see. Her face is gone, half of her face, replaced by a pulpy crater of blood, brains, and pillow feathers. Skin tatters at the edges. The wound looks like a meteor strike. Blood is spattered onto the wrought iron of the headboard and the tastefully painted wall beyond. My hands are fluttering uselessly over her, not knowing what to do, she is so hopelessly gone…her lovely face…she worried about the wrinkles around her eyes…my hands cupping what’s left of my beautiful Pamela’s skull, halfway preparing for a hopeless resuscitation and then I am on the floor, flat on my back, having fallen straight backwards out of the bed and all around us is the damnable sunlight.

I stand. In the silence I hear myself mumbling and crying.

She lies on her back, totally nude, her hands tied to the headboard and her legs partly open. The sun illuminates her obscenely. A gun is sitting on the bedclothes where I had been lying. It’s a black semi-automatic, but small, like a .22. I’ve never seen it before. I back away, spin around, look for her phone. Help me…help us. I trip across something heavy and immovable, fall across it and barely get my arms out to avoid hitting the hardwood floor face-first. The floor is very cold.

When I look over my shoulder, I see a man lying on the floor. He wears jeans and a flannel shirt. His head is turned at an angle and he’s staring at me. I am on my feet before I am even conscious of the movement. It’s Ron and he has a hole in his chest. It’s about the size of a quarter, dark red, and singed. Under his back is a plume of darkening blood. He stares to the side with wide doll eyes. The torrent from inside my stomach is already flying up my esophagus.

Then I am outside, fully clothed. The autumn light has never been more beautiful. It makes the trees look like golden and orange mushroom clouds. Loose leaves swing around in the light breeze coming up from the bay and the sidewalks are comfortably broken and old, grass hopefully poking up. I don’t know how my legs walk on them, but they do.

Chapter Eighteen

The black fender glides alongside me suddenly and quietly, unnoticed, like death.

“Get in,” Amber commands.

Then we are driving toward the water down the extreme slope of Queen Anne Avenue. My already woozy stomach does an upward loop. I keep swallowing. We are right behind an electric-powered bus, its black rooftop tentacles gathering power from overhead wires, and it blocks my view. I am startled when a Seattle Police cruiser slams past with lights and siren, speeding in the opposite direction. Its engine roars insistently as it heads uphill. Five seconds later another cruiser whooshes by. The police cars are the color of the ocean in summer and their sirens make me feel as if someone is jamming knitting needles in my ear.

“They’re going to Pam’s house.” My voice is a harsh whisper.

“Your hands are shaking.” These are the first words Amber has spoken since I climbed into the car.

She’s right. I put them between my legs.

“What were you…?” I leave the sentence incomplete. Words aren’t coming easily. She had found me a block from Pam’s house on a quiet side street.

“I was spying on you,” she said simply. “What happened back there?”

“Spying? Why?”

“Because you’re my boyfriend and I’m a jealous bitch. And don’t ask how I found her address. I’m a reporter, remember? Oh my God!”

She swerves into a parking space a block beyond the Lower Queen Anne business district, unhooks her seat belt and leans over toward me. “You’re hurt.” She says my name, which sounds soothing in her voice, and she gingerly tilts my face toward her. “You’re bloody. How did you get bloody?” She examines my cheek and hairline. “I don’t see a cut. What happened back there? Did she take a frying pan to you?”

Amber’s dimples appear, but something in my expression erases it in an instant. I am feeling far away, living in the land of a giant headache. I know the symptoms of shock. When I was a Boy Scout, they said to elevate the victim’s legs. My legs look far away on the floor of the car, with more blood smudged on my slacks. I touch my face with an unfamiliar hand, feeling the fine grainy texture of dried blood.

“What happened back there?” she repeats softly.

I am the master of the white lie. It’s essential to protect sources, keep editors off my back, and manage my time with different women. Yet I say, “They killed Pam.”

“What? Who?”

“The feds.”

“What?”

“They said they’d hurt me.” I hear a slow monotone voice, mine. “They shot her in the face. I woke up and she was next to me, but she was dead and her face was gone. The gun was in the bed, right there.” I try to talk through a mouth as dry as a desert. “On the floor, her boyfriend, shot in the chest. She was cold. She was so cold. I couldn’t warm her up.” I am only vaguely aware of the tears cascading down my cheeks.

Amber leans close and hugs me tightly, my eyes covered by a curtain of her red hair. I am sobbing and shaking.