Diamond Sphere Read online

  My heart was doing its favorite rib-busting pounding now. “Talk about dangerous. Yeah right, I’m gonna meet you. You have any idea of the shit I’m in? I’ve even got cops on my ass now.”

  “What cops?”

  “This break-in crap—that’s what. I don’t need to explain any of this. My time isn’t my own now—shit, my whole life isn’t. And now I’ve gotta follow a lead to someone somewhere.”

  “Where?” Hu asked. Then when I didn’t respond: “Where?”

  Even if I didn’t tell her now, she’d probably find out about my ticket somehow. “Hera,” I stated bluntly, but I was sighing inwardly.

  Hu’s voice now sounded incensed. “How on Diamond can you run off to Hera now? That’s absurd. There are important things here—”

  “Fuck those important things. This shit’s gotten bigger than you. A gaping mouth the size of Hera’s calling me there.”

  “Absurd again. We definitely must meet now—”

  “Oh, not that shit again!”

  “Do you only understand profanity? Fine. No more fucking antlers. If you don’t meet me, you’re fucking stupid.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that with the cops sniffing around? Thanks for the socializing offer, but I’m not feeling particularly suicidal right now. Contact me at a future date. Maybe I’ll be happy to slit my wrists then—”

  “We’re wasting too much damn time. Ironically, Diamond has softened you. I guess you’ve lost your touch. You really mean to tell me YOU can’t elude a few cops?”

  I pressed my teeth together hard, listening to the long tense silence between us.

  Then I sighed equally hard.

  “What was that sigh all about?” Hu said then.

  “A sigh of resignation,” I replied, my voice dry once again. “Look, you’ll hear from me shortly, at a more untraceable phone because I trust your reassurances about our privacy as much as I trust in immortality. You say talking over the phone’s safe, yet you won’t tell me anything specific over it. Talk about a contradiction.

  “So here’s the deal: you call my hotel lobby phone in an hour and fifteen minutes. And we’ll take it from there.” I slammed down the receiver.

  Nell stared over at me, her mouth gaping. “Pia, what the hell is happening now—”

  “Ugh, don’t ask,” I said as I rushed into the kitchen in search of Diamond’s best coffee—and something solid to help push down the bitterness.

  *

  I made it to the lobby with about fifteen minutes to spare and found the place packed with people; the four-day-long Actor’s Costume Ball Convention had begun today. I’d seen the advertisements around the lobby and in one of the elevators, and now near the front desk stood a bunch of people in freaky exaggerated costumes, their hair in strange up-dos, their bodies either covered in regal or shocking get-ups, or mostly uncovered. Supposedly actors were coming from all over—including from Earth—to attend this hotel-hopping convention-gig.

  I stood there in the lobby, half-frowning and half-smiling at their ridiculousness, and shaking my head—but not just at them, also at what I’d gotten myself into. From the get-go I’d seen the direction this whole shit was now moving in. But sometimes you were better off jumping into ice-cold water fast—the pain wouldn’t last so long then, wouldn’t hurt as much as if you waded in slowly.

  I’d delayed the inevitable; I’d kept hoping to delay it even more. But maybe meeting up with Hu wouldn’t be such a painful experience if I just gave myself up to its inevitability soon.

  At least that was what I told myself while waiting for her call. Nevertheless, my hand shook when the customer phone started ringing.

  My unsteady hand picked up the receiver, and I quick-barked a “Hello.”

  “So I’ve called,” said Hu’s voice. “When are you leaving for Hera?”

  “Next week.”

  Overnight so my sleeping wouldn’t get disturbed, I’d had my hotel-room phone off the hook and my portable phone off, and Mike had left me a message saying he’d booked a flight for me for Tuesday. But I didn’t tell Hu this—that much help she wouldn’t get from me.

  “That’s not much time—” Hu started, but I cut her off.

  “You don’t have much time. You want to meet me? Tonight’s the night or it doesn’t happen.”

  A sigh of resignation came over the line, sounding a lot like the one I’d given her earlier.

  Then we made a plan. Then we mutually hung up right after we’d agreed to the plan.

  And now the hardest part of the day might be coming: I had to get Tan to go with me and behave rationally during the Hu meeting. This meeting I wouldn’t do alone—not again would I be near Hu by myself. What had developed the last and first time was more than enough alone time for me with Hu.

  I needed someone’s help now. Nell would really be my first choice, but she was out because I wouldn’t endanger her; so was Roberto out because he was with Julianne today. And Mike just was not the person to bring to scenarios like this. So that left Tan.

  Back in my room, I called him and told him to meet me here later.

  I had an idea.

  *

  After I got off the phone with Tan, I called in an “order” to Mike, who got everything I needed and brought it all to my hotel room.

  “You’ve been a gem lately,” I said to him as we dumped the packages onto my bed.

  He shrugged in his low-key Mike-way, his eyes looking particularly blue today and his skin looking particularly youthful-fresh. “I like keeping busy,” he said, flashing me his blue gaze. “You want me to pick up your Hera ticket?”

  “Yeah, that would be good. Get the money tomorrow from Nell at the office. You find out anything new about Rodriguez when you ordered the ticket there?”

  He frowned, shook his head.

  “I thought maybe from that, um, employee.”

  “Oh—no. Nothing there. I mean about that. We did go on our date though.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You really went?!? Mike, you don’t have to do those kinds of things for MSA….”

  “I wanted to do it. The thing I like about working for you, Pia, is: I always learn something about myself.”

  “Well…what do you mean? What happened on the date?”

  He shrugged. “He wasn’t looking for a long-term thing, which is cool because I’m not either. I can be anything I want. I like new experiences. I stay open to stuff.”

  “No one’s requiring you to be that open, to sell yourself—”

  “I’ve always been laid-back,” he said then, shrugging a second time.

  Now I, too, had learned something: it seemed people like that really existed, people who were so easy-going, you could get them to do plenty of things, you could often sway them to your way.

  An hour later I was laughingly relaying this Mike-stuff to Tan, without mentioning Millie and Hera in specific. I finished off my story with, “But, you know, he’s so pretty, he could bend other people’s wills to his.”

  Tan was frowning as I spoke that last bit. And then he said, “He may be pretty, but he’s also a flake.”

  I frowned back at him. “You’re being ignorant.”

  “I’m not talking about the gay thing. I don’t give a damn about that. I give a damn about you. If he’s so easily swayed, he’s dangerous then.”

  Quickly, I shook my head at him. “Nope, I trust him. You’re barking up the wrong tree there. Honestly.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said in a clipped voice, his face as red as the proverbial beet now. He still did not look happy; in fact, he looked quite miserable.

  “Tan, your face…are you, by any chance…jealous? Is that where this is coming from?”

  Unbelievably, his face got even redder. But he didn’t respond.

  “Well, you’ve got NOTHING to be jealous about. But I remember you never liked Mike when I hired him.”

  “I do think you’ve got a fucking soft spot for him.”

  “Well, the sof
t spot I have for him isn’t anywhere near the soft spot I let YOU have access to.” I winked at him and he shook his head as a smile formed on his lips.

  But then as quickly as the smile had formed, it now disappeared as I turned on loud music in the room, then finally dropped the We’ve-Got-To-See-Hu-Tonight Bombshell.

  I’d hoped the funny banter about Mike would let me ease Tan into the serious Hu stuff, making him take it better.

  But my plan didn’t work: his face immediately paled. And then I wondered if I would be better off going by myself….

  “Shit—what?” Tan asked me as his ass fell back on my bed, right on top of the packages.

  “No choice, Tan. I really believe that at this point.”

  He shot out at me, “You’ve finally, totally flipped your fucking lid. What are you thinking? This is dangerous for us, Pia!”

  “But who’ll know it is us?”

  “What the hell are you talking about—”

  “I’m talking about beneath your butt.” I nodded down toward his ass, and his head turned as his eyes slowly followed my nod’s lead.

  *

  Two hours later he said to me under the cover of music still, “I’m the only orange-haired asian man in the Universe. This is insane, you are insane.”

  “But isn’t my insanity fun?” I said.

  We were both standing before my full-length wall mirror as we adjusted a bright-orange long-haired wig on his head. He looked outrageous. Outrageous enough for everyone to hopefully laugh off the green-cat-suited guy with the atrocious hair as we both slipped out through the partying crowd later.

  Near my room’s kitchenette now, I reached into my dedicated gun case and pulled out two handguns: my fat-barreled Granger and a tiny extra gun for Tan. They ran on gas, which powered both lasers and bullets, which mostly the lasers propelled. I checked the gas-canister gauges on both guns; they were almost at full.

  Tan eyed my gun fiddling. “Well, I’m happy to see that at least you’re not taking any chances tonight, Snow White.” That name was a reference to my costume. And I almost laughed at the irony of that title being applied to me.

  I walked over to my dresser and put down the guns. I moved before the long wall mirror, eyeing my perfectly round-haired wig; it looked and felt like a big hard tumbleweed on my head. And the beige and brown dress I wore also felt bizarre—it was way too long and billowy. I’d put on pants beneath so I could rip off the skirt part if necessary and still get somewhere fast with some accompanying fast leg action….

  Oh christ, what a night this would probably be.

  *

  As the time to leave drew closer, Tan paced my bedroom at an increasingly fast rate, and his hands and legs began shaking to keep time with his pacing.

  “Jesus Christ, I don’t think I can do this,” he finally said, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair, but only encountering his carpeting-dense crazy wig. With a frustrated grunt, he dropped his hands.

  “You can do it. I need you to, Tan,” I said, checking my wristwatch. Then I rechecked my ankle holster, shoved my portable phone inside one of my skirt’s inner pockets, and got off my bed. “It’s time to bolt.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tan said for the second time that night.

  *

  In the elevator going down to the third floor, I said to him, “Just look natural, like you’re having fun, not going to prison, which is how you look right now.”

  Tan adjusted his small, silver-beaded jacket on his shoulders, and then the black mask over his eyes. “Well, for all I know, that’s where I’m headed tomorrow for cavorting with her!”

  “You better not ‘cavort’ with her ever again,” I said fast. And I would have said more—but the elevator had stopped on the fourth floor, and now we were no longer alone as someone else stepped onto the elevator.

  The first three floors of the hotel all had Event Rooms, where the Convention would primarily be celebrated. But I hadn’t wanted to slip out from the elevator onto the first-floor—too obvious. So instead we’d slip in to the party on the third floor, then we’d slip into the side stairway and slip out into the street that way, under cover of the Convention parade that was supposedly happening on the street right now. And I really hoped I wouldn’t slip onto my damn ass in this fucking annoyingly long dress….

  The doors finally opened onto the third floor, and I yanked a groaning-again Tan out by the arm.

  “Stop moaning and groaning!” I said urgently. “Look the part—this is a celebration!” And as if to punctuate my words, the music surrounding us suddenly loudened, which seemed odd because the hall wasn’t supposed to be filled with music. But then I realized it was so loud, it was spilling out of the giant Event Room down the hall….

  We finally stepped inside that room. “Damn, what a bunch of fools acting like immature assholes,” a sneering Tan said as he looked around at all the revelry, some of which involved people bursting balloons with what looked like wine inside—bursting them all over each other.

  “Does it look like we’re being followed at all?” I asked, laughing as if I were enjoying myself, but covertly glancing around by keeping my head still and moving my eyes-only behind my black eyemask.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” said Tan. “I don’t think I see anyone though.”

  I grabbed him by the arm again. “Neither do I. That’s good enough—let’s split.”

  We went down the stairway, and once we’d finally left there and stepped out into the humid night, Tan stopped short and said, “That’s a parade?”

  Following his eyes, I could see a little ways ahead to the front street, where hardly anyone moved past. It looked like a normal night out there.

  “Guess it’s too early. Don’t worry about it,” I said, but I was frowning.

  And before I could move toward the street, Tan’s hand on my arm stopped me short now. “I just thought of something—your car—maybe someone’s watching it. Namely the cops!”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? We’re not taking my car. We’re taking Mike’s. That was one of the things he brought. But I made him bring it first, before the stuff he bought me. Then he hopped on the train back to his place, grabbed the stuff and hitched a ride here.”

  With raised eyebrows, Tan was looking at me. “You think of everything—I’m impressed.”

  “Well, not everything,” I said in a dry voice. “Keep moving.” I jerked him a bit by the hand; then I dropped his hand and stepped out into the street, carefully looking around again and laughing as I danced and shouted and sang with the thin procession of actors and their fans. I thought it would be busier tonight, much busier because a few famous actors were supposed to show up. But, apparently, I’d misjudged something somewhere.

  I did not, however, see many people watching the mini-parade, so if someone was watching me and Tan, they too were probably in the parade itself. I slid down the street toward a side-road where Mike’s car was supposed to be and, sure enough, it was there. I made Tan wait with me for a few moments before we actually walked over and got into the car.

  When I still saw only the two of us on the road, I said, “Let’s go.”

  So far, so good. No one was tailing us when I pulled the car out of the parking spot.

  Now I breathed a relieved sigh…but the night was still warm and so was the inside of the car. And sometimes life looked safe when it really wasn’t.

  I opened the window beside me. Between the warm car and the tight-waisted dress and the annoying hair and eyemask, I was feeling too constricted, which claustrophobic auras never seemed to leave me, no matter how brave I might otherwise be.

  “Where the hell are we going?” Tan asked suddenly.

  I glanced over at his shadowed profile. “I told you one of the other hotels. This shindig’s going on in four places. I figured meeting at another one would be best for all sides. We can all be more disguised and hidden then.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Yeah, well, it
is what it is.”

  It took us about twenty minutes to get there, and when we finally did and stepped out of the car into the outside again, Tan’s beautiful face turned various shades of red as he said in a rather desperate voice, “Maybe I shouldn’t have come tonight. I’m a liability.”

  “No—no,” I said, reassuring him, even though I somewhat agreed with his assessment. At the same time…. “I need your opinion, I need another set of eyes and ears. I can’t do everything alone.”

  Tan blinked a couple of times; then he sighed. “All right. Let’s go.”

  When we got inside and reached the first floor’s Event Room, the place was packed—even more packed than at my hotel. People of all sizes and shapes and colors in here—a kaleidoscope of crazily-clothed disguised human bodies pulsed through the room, some dancing, some talking, some miming skits to other crazily clothed people.

  “Shit,” I practically shouted. “How the hell are we supposed to find anyone—or how are they supposed to find us?” The music was blasting so loud, I got an instant headache. And for a few moments, I couldn’t hear myself think.

  I moved through the crowd, spinning around a little wildly, trying to get a mental anchor somewhere, and I finally realized one thing: Tan was right; this was crazy.

  When we reached a side door away from the other partiers, I glanced at Tan, saw his hand dancing inside his silver jacket, where a pocket held the small gun I’d given him. “I don’t like this,” Tan shouted, half in my direction, half in the room’s direction. “Was it her idea?”

  I shook my aching head. “No—she just agreed. It was my idea.”

  “Great going,” he said, and just as I was about to respond with a retort, someone walked up to us.

  He was big and blond, and dressed in a costume reminiscent of the jokers on old playing cards; his narrowed brown eyes studied my face for a long tense moment. Another someone stood behind him—he had a black patch over one eye and a big pink sash around his waist, and black boots rose up high over his knees.

  The Joker’s head came closer. “P.S.?” he asked me. Hu and I had agreed that we’d only use initials here.