Diamond Sphere Read online

  “What else could I do? I was leaving the mine job. You wanted the new business, and I wanted it for you because you wanted it.”

  “I didn’t need charity. I needed support, as in, someone else in the office sharing alternative insights with me.”

  “You’ve got Nell,” he correctly pointed out.

  He still hadn’t turned around, but on his left side I saw his hand shaking as he poured himself another drink—no, as he poured me one. He finally turned a bit and slid the glass across the table to me, bypassing his dirty dinner plate.

  I picked up the glass, and that was when he said, “Why can’t you join Nell in her jewelry business? Why can’t you behave more like her?”

  “Because I can’t,” I snapped, hurt once again because, apparently, I wasn’t good enough in his eyes. Now I slammed down my glass. “I’m me. Pia. Why don’t you go with a woman like Nell if that’s what you want? Why are you with me?”

  He had been looking at me; now his head shot toward the tabletop, and he sighed loud and hard, as if sighing out a long-held anger he could no longer contain. Then he looked up at me again from beneath hooded dark eyes as he said, “I guess I’m addicted to bad girls.”

  There went those hurt feelings again; this time, he must have seen them on my face.

  “But you’re not so bad,” he said fast now. Then he sighed even louder than the last time. “I shouldn’t have said you’re bad. Another dumbass thing from me!”

  “Tan, we’ve known each other a year now, and I don’t know why we still can’t get this together right—between the two of us.”

  “Maybe it didn’t start right so keeps getting screwed up. It just didn’t start in the right place for a bunch of reasons.”

  “But I care about you so much,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied.

  Now both his hands reached for me, and I slid into his arms; they were warm and hard and they always made me ache for them even while inside them. The area around my heart literally hurt; for a long moment, I couldn’t breathe.

  Then I finally said against his soft neck, “I know this is difficult for you—I know. Because of your past with Hu, this brings up old things. I realized this a while ago, like that’s why you had difficulty helping me back then—I mean other than you didn’t trust me. But it was like you didn’t trust yourself too. The thing is: this has happened now. We need to deal with now.”

  He pulled back, stared into my face. “Well, what are you going to do?”

  I sighed. “I just don’t know yet.”

  “This could be lies. It could be a trick of hers.”

  “And the girl? I really don’t trust any of them; I know she’s holding back. But the thing is, she came to you and then to me. Why would she? What would she have to gain from tricking us? She’s rich…but she seems kind of pathetic to me.”

  “So? Pathetic people can still be creepy troublemakers.”

  “But my instincts about her in specific—they’re telling me that she isn’t that way.”

  “You know,” he said fast now, “I suddenly wish we could forget all this shit. I really do. Derek came into my office right before I left—he said we should all meet for dinner this weekend at Rinaldi’s. I want us to be normal. A normal couple going out with normal friends. I thought that would happen this weekend, and now this shit happens instead. This fucking Arlene and her fucking messes.”

  “Well, maybe it’ll all blow over. Maybe it won’t be a big deal.”

  His black eyebrows shot up at me, and the right side of his mouth jerked to the right even more.

  It was my turn to sigh loudly. “Well, what else can I say? We can’t go back and undo the past few days—how many times have I learned that about life already?” Um, more times than I wanted to discuss right now. Actually, I suddenly didn’t want to discuss anything at all. “I shouldn’t have to say this to you either, Tan. You should know all this. And I’m all talked out now. The bottom line is: I’m into this too deep already. I want to help this girl with her goddamn problem, whatever it is. But I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.”

  *

  A few moments later, he was cleaning up his dinner, and I was taking a shower in his bathroom. The warm water slid over my shoulders, my back, my ass, and I could almost believe that the water carried the whole day away into another part of the Universe that had nothing to do with my existence.

  I was here now, with Tan; for me, life didn’t get any better than this. I’d had so few close relationships—and nearly all of them had been as a child before my parents were killed.

  Now, when I was with Tan, I forgot all the loneliness from my past, I forgot all the things I’d seen, I forgot all the things I’d done, things I hated, things I now felt ashamed of…things I didn’t want to think about now or ever.

  My hand quickly twisted off the spigot, and I stepped out of the shower. After I dried myself, naked still, I walked into Tan’s bedroom and over to the closet there, standing beside a messy-with-papers box on the floor. As I reached into his closet for one of his nightshirts, my leg shifted at the box, making some of the papers slide off the pile on top.

  I bent over to pick them up, and one particular cover-page immediately caught my eye: Festival Bombing, it said.

  My eyes scanned the page and beyond, and found a security report of that day, that day when I interrupted the bomber and chased him and then wound up in Hu’s cave.

  Tan had since told me that the bomb guy had never been found; I never expected he would be. But in the report I now read about the two people who were killed then and about how the bomber had gotten in with the explosives: he’d used an undetectable-to-the-security-scanners liquid fuel from Crayton, one of Diamond’s moons. The building’s basement bomb had been a very damaging hot kind so had caused part of the basement to melt and collapse, which was why the explosion had seemed to have earthquake-like aftershocks….

  There were aftershocks going on now, in my angry stomach. What a monumental fiasco-fuck-up that day was. I really didn’t need to see this goddamn report today of all days. I wanted to tear up the fucking thing.

  I was just about to throw it back onto the pile when Tan walked in. When he saw what was in my hand, he said, “Shit—I didn’t mean for you to see that. Been cleaning out my basement lately, but I didn’t know you were coming tonight.” He rushed over and grabbed the papers from me.

  “What’s the big deal?” I said. Then: “Really, it’s not a big deal.”

  “I don’t want it to bring up bad memories.”

  “Well, if I had to keep all those down, I’d have hardly any memories left in my head,” I said dryly.

  “You can always make new ones,” Tan said then as he straightened up.

  “I have been.” I looked straight into his warm dark eyes.

  But now they traveled down me, down my flesh, settling around my crotch. He smiled as his eyes slowly roamed back up me again. “All clean now?”

  I nodded.

  “Good!” he said. Then he grabbed me and pulled me to him. “I like when you’re squeaky clean—you’re my squeaky-clean bad girl.”

  “Oh christ,” I said, laughing, and slightly rolling my eyes and my head. His mouth latched onto my neck then.

  “I really am sorry for that before,” he mumbled hotly against my skin. “I should have said bad girls aren’t bad—I mean they’re actually really GOOD.”

  “Mm hm,” I said, because that was all I could do now: mumble. His mouth had moved lower toward my left tit, which he then popped into his mouth. And now I couldn’t speak at all. My hands grabbed him by his silky hair as he sucked on my flesh.

  Moments later we were sliding on his bed and he was sliding inside me. We both sighed and moaned; he was on top of me, and my recent shower had dampened our connection. When his skin would pull away from mine, I’d feel an ever-so-slight chill. When his skin would come back, I’d be warmed once again.

  He pushed and pulled inside me in long exagg
erated motions, pulling his dick nearly all the way out and then carefully sliding it in firmly but slowly. We usually didn’t screw like this. We usually went at it fast. But this time felt so…nice. So special. Like he didn’t want it to end for either me or him.

  A tear slid out my right eye. Another soon followed.

  He must have seen them. “Hey…hey,” he said. And then he kissed me, warmly whispering Don’t cry against my mouth. Then his weight shifted to on top of me even more, till we were so close, as close as human-body possible. Even as our pelvises moved, our chests and bellies never separated. We felt like one person, one body…content, complete.

  *

  Not long after, I was using his bathroom again. When I walked out and sat back against his bed’s headboard, he was lying down staring up at the ceiling; he seemed unaware I was there.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I asked, my right hand reaching out and stroking his hair, my left pulling a pillow on top of me.

  “That paper before reminded me,” his soft voice said now. “You seen the news lately? Another explosion two days ago, at West Legion Mine. There was another article last week—‘Miners Win Big Particulate Fight’ about improved air-quality standards in the cave-mines in general. But no matter what, it’s like the shit never stops. It’s less now, but what good is less for something that shouldn’t be happening at all?” He sighed. “I feel guilty sometimes, that I left. Even without all the political attacks, general security things are still important.”

  “Well, you’ve still got a job doing that. Protecting museums is important. Some people would love to destroy those.” For some reason, Hu popped into my head. Was she that kind of destructive person? If she’d destroy people, wouldn’t she destroy knowledge too?

  Now Tan said to me, “You should come there—see what you can find out. I’ll show you around.”

  I stared down at his head; it twisted back up at me. I’d been to The Citadel only once since he’d started working there. But he’d never said then that he’d show me around.

  “Amy Castano—you should look into that,” he added finally.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to get involved.”

  “If you’re going to be involved, so will I. I don’t want you getting hurt.” He was still looking at me. “Maybe there’s a danger to the place too—who knows?”

  So that was the reason. “I see: you just want me to help you in your job.”

  “No, Pia. I really want to support you with the other thing. I was shocked when I heard Amy died. She looked so healthy, like she was a fitness freak. How the hell could she die of a heart attack?”

  “There’s too much death on Diamond,” I said, staring ahead of me now. “We need more life here.” I paused. Then: “You know, Nell’s going to have a baby.”

  He rose up on his left elbow; his eyebrows also rose up. “No kidding?”

  “Nope. No kidding. She really is.”

  “Wow,” he said. Now he too stared straight ahead at the wall opposite the bed.

  And I finally asked him, “A couple of times, you said to me that you wanted a kid—you still feel that way?”

  His head shook from side-to-side a bit. “No. I mean, I’m not sure I ever did. I like my life the way it is. Don’t think I’m cut out for kids. I’m too ordered. Kids represent disorder.”

  “But what about that first night here, when you said you wanted a child around your mountain?”

  His head slid around in my direction; he was grinning. His eyebrows shot up again—fast, three times. “That was a line.”

  I laughed under my breath, began slapping him with my pillow.

  He lifted his arms and feigned being wounded as he said, “So you think it was a good line or what?”

  I slapped him with the pillow again, and he lightly bit my arm, then blew a loud raspberry on it.

  “I’m here, ain’t I?” I said, pulling back my arm and the pillow, and laughing again.

  But my smile soon faded. “I’m really not cut out for kids either. I can’t imagine being pregnant. Actually, I don’t want to imagine it.”

  “There’s always adoption. So many kids here need homes—”

  “But you said we’d make a beautiful baby together—”

  He did that evil grin again, making my laughing start up again. Now he said, “There was this guy I knew once—I don’t mean to be mean, but the guy was just…not attractive. And his biological parents were both gorgeous. No genetic guarantees in life.”

  “No guarantees in life, period,” I said.

  *

  The next morning I left Tan’s place quite early; I drove back to my house to shower and change into fresh clothes, then I went to my office.

  When I got there, Roberto was waiting outside the front door. I punched in the code to turn off the building’s door alarm; then I inserted the keys to open up the door, keys only Nell and I had.

  When I pushed open the door, I said to Roberto, “You’ve gotta go back to the Castano place.”

  He frowned at me as I stepped into the hall. “What for? That place seems like bullshit.”

  I looked at him. “It may be, it may not be. I still want you there. Keep your eyes open and check her security system—if it’s been compromised.” Roberto knew about those things: a few nights a week, he moonlighted for a home-security company.

  “If the girl goes out, you go with her,” I said. “Come back here after three. But from tomorrow on, you’ll probably only have to tag along with her when she goes out. Get her schedule.”

  His block-shaped face was still frowning. “I can’t stand babysitting kids.”

  “Well, this kid will be paying me enough money for this one job so that I’ll be paying you more than I’ve paid you since the get-go here.”

  He snorted and said, “All right,” then he turned around and left.

  Mike showed up a few minutes later, and I quickly put him onto the new bank job. I was unfamiliar with the security set up there, so I wanted him to in-person talk to the bank’s manager today.

  From behind the main desk, I looked up at Mike’s black hair and wide dark-blue eyes; he was young, only twenty-five, and he often seemed out-of-it mentally. I suspected he was very good friends with some mind-altering substances. But I didn’t care about his “social life” as long as he got a job done, which he always did. He also used to work for Great Guards, which I thought would be the best company for providing guards for the bank.

  When Mike finally left for there, I did a few office-keeping activities at Nell’s desk, then I filed some papers. As I was doing that, I bent nearer to the wall safe behind Nell’s desk—and that was when I noticed something wasn’t right there.

  …Did I mention that I actually had two safes? One was for show, the other was for the real stuff. From my old job I’d learned that keeping dummy duplicates of important things was common—safes were one of those important things. What I’d learned from breaking into other places I now applied to protecting my own places.

  Unfortunately, it seemed I couldn’t apply my fucking knowledge correctly one-hundred percent of the time.

  My face flamed in a humiliated heat as I examined the fresh scratches on the polymer coating that I or Nell always resprayed around the safes’ combination-lock mechanisms—so we could detect any tampering. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Roberto or Mike…well, maybe I shouldn’t have trusted them because someone had tried to get into this safe overnight—had tried and failed. Or maybe had succeeded and found nothing, so then unsuccessfully tried to close it back up and not alert me.

  I opened the safe now, rummaged through the dummy contents, but didn’t find anything missing. Then I rushed away from the safe and double-locked the hall door.

  In the outer office first, I searched around for anything not-ordinary, anything mini-camera-like; I looked and felt under the furniture and along the walls, checking any holes, checking the light fixtures. I came up with nothing in the outer office or in my inner office. Th
en I checked the real safe, the one under the floorboards in the far corner of my inner office, beneath a large file cabinet I kept over a hidden tricky track—tricky because the cabinet could only be slid away if you knew the proper sequence of directions to slide it in.

  Using my high-powered magnifier lens and my Osier scanner, I examined the real safe’s lock and saw no tampering and came up with no prints (Nell and I always wore gloves when we opened the safe). I also examined the safe’s contents—including the notes Nell had taken yesterday—and again I saw nothing had been tampered with or stolen.

  Nevertheless, it seemed someone had gotten into the outer office and tried to do something that wasn’t supposed to be done.

  The timing of the break-in could have been a coincidence. Maybe someone from MSA’s brief past wanted to find out something for whatever reason.

  But it seemed too big a coincidence considering what happened the day before.

  I used my portable phone to call Nell’s place.

  She breathlessly answered “Hello!” on the second ring. She must have been washing pots or something because I heard brittle clanging coming over the line.

  “Nell,” I said, “someone got into the office here last night. Or very early this morning.”

  “What?” she said, the clanging abruptly stopping.

  “The dummy safe—the polymer coating is scratched.”

  “Oh wow,” said Nell. There was a long pause, then she asked fast, “Are you sure we didn’t accidentally scratch it?”

  “I haven’t gone near there in almost a week. Didn’t I see you check it two days ago?” We always checked the safes at least twice a week.

  “Yeah. Nothing. You know, it could be someone with a grudge from a while ago….”

  “Yes, I thought of that.” I wanted to tell her about Hu’s having called me, but I thought it best for Nell’s sake that she didn’t know, which I hated because here I was breaking my vow to be up front with everybody in the office.

  I sighed, and Nell said in a slower voice, “Pia, remember I told you the other day that I didn’t like the way the new janitor looked?”