PART 1
I got home late. Rain was pounding the windows. It sounded like a heavy man in a hurry to get in.
Mrs. Malone had neatly stacked two weeks of mail on the sideboard by the whiskey: a selection of bills and assorted trash. The bottle's lambent smile wormed its way up my brain, making warm promises to wet bones. The mail never stood a chance.
Halfway through the second whiskey, the telephone started to wail. It pierced the rain like an augur foretelling new wounds.
I glanced at the black bakelite monster and waited, hoping it would grow tired. It didn't.
The glass went with me to the gossip bench in the hallway. The handset hadn't slimmed in my absence. I picked it up but said nothing.
"Mrs. Gabe?" It wasn't really a question.
I recognized the thin male voice on the other side. My blood curdled for half a second. Not because of him. He was just an echo.
"No," I said. The answer had nothing to do with my name, either.
"We sent you a letter, Mrs. Gabe."
The neat stack of mail was out of sight, untouched on the sideboard, next to the decanter. I glanced at the whiskey left in my glass, wondered if taking a gulp would be heard through the line, and let it go.
"I don't care," my words finally came out, voice as flat as I could manage.
"Read the letter, Mrs. Gabe," the voice pressured. "Just... Read the letter first."
Why? I wanted to ask, but didn't feel like begging for an answer that would never arrive. So I let the silence fester, listening to the pale newt on the other side breathe as he grew something akin to impatience, not a backbone tough enough to question or hurry me.
The rain was still pounding the windowpanes, demanding to get in. The whiskey left in my glass kept on sneering at me next to the telephone. I thought of you - the only one who mattered, the one I'd die and kill for - and closed my eyes for a moment.
"We're sending you a Mike," the voice finally said, breaking the silence like a rock through the window.
A hunter. They were sending a hunter. Again, no point in asking why.
"When?"
"In the morning. Eight o'clock?"
"Fine," I said, sounding like a warm body with no pulse. "Anything else?"
"Goodnight, Mrs. Gabe."
I stared at the black bakelite monster for a while after replacing the receiver. Then, I took the whiskey back with me to the living room sideboard, ransacked the neat stack of mail, found the letter "they" had sent me, and went to bed. The whiskey never left my side.
PART 2
The ceiling looked dark when I woke up. I stared at it as if there was nothing else to do. The rain was still playing drums like the last man standing of a Jazz quartet. The sun was late for rehearsal.
For a moment, I let myself linger in that space where you could be here, by my side; quiet yet not sleeping, waiting for me to fire the gun and start the race. I could call the feeling bittersweet – if bittersweet is what dragging your heart through shards of glass feels like.
My glance fell from the ceiling to the nightstand. Seeing the letter there, rumpled next to the empty glass, made me want to get up and start packing.
It didn't have to be a dream.
One more mission and I could finally be with you.
That's what the letter said.
It said a lot more, but all my heart really cared about was the fairy tale.
Like a darned fool, I had gulped the ruse whole – hook, line, and sinker – without batting an eye.
One more job and they'd let us go away, be together in some remote place, resume whatever made us feel close enough to having a normal life.
No pending debts this time.
No obligations.
Just us and the ocean, somewhere along the Lost Coast.
That was the dream. I should have known that's all it was; a lacuna in my reasoning the size of a sinkhole.
In retrospect, I was begging to be duped.
In Retrospect City, everyone's got 20/20 vision.
PART 3
The French clock on the mantlepiece in the sitting room had just chimed eight when I heard a car coming up the hill. It wasn't Mrs. Malone's. Hers was a racket on four wheels that climbed as if gasping for air. This was a completely different beast.
The car stopped just short of entering the driveway.
Suddenly, all the cells in my body stood to attention. My breath became shallow.
The pen with which I had been writing a note to my housekeeper fell on the paper, spattering ink all over it. I stood up. The chair went down backwards with a heavy thud on the carpet. My feet took me to the front door like an old plane on a faulty autopilot.
I opened the door and looked down at the spot where driveway and street met. A man built like a skyscraper was getting out of a Packard Six Station Wagon.
He saw me and stopped. Then started moving again. Towards me. Slowly. As if he were approaching a predator.
For a moment, the old craving came back, like a hungry child tugging at my skirt. It was just a memory of you. I didn't let it linger. The man walking up the driveway wasn't you.
He also wasn't a regular Mike. The Mikes I had worked with so far were all watered-down versions of the real deal. Capable, but no less than 99% human. That 1% could still make them the most destructive thing in a room full of dangerous people.
But this was different. This was 50-50. The real thing. Above this, there was nothing. Nothing, that is, that could actually breathe and eat and do all the other things humans do.
Why would they send *this* to help with a simple job?
It occurred to me that they wouldn't.
It occurred to me that this was not the Mike they had sent.
This was something else. On a different mission.
You had told me it could happen.
Would happen, in fact. If something happened to you, one of them would come and tell me. One of you. It was a promise.
“If” had been a dagger pointed at me for too long. Now, it seemed, the time had come for me to bleed. The dream promised in the letter would mean nothing now. I would be free. And lost. Just like before.
I stepped onto the porch.
It was starting to rain again, but plain water didn't feel brave enough to touch the mountain standing before me. Fortunately, he hadn't come up the steps yet, so I could look him in the eye without straining my neck.
“Is he dead?” I asked, the words stumbling out of my mouth shakier than I had intended. “Is that why you're here? To tell me that... Gabe is dead?”
________
GRIME AND SHADOWS: MRS. GABE is an ongoing noir story initially inspired by vss365 and vssmystery.
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