did not strike me until the following day that it had been the anniversary of the truck crash. Even then, I dismissed it as an odd coincidence. The matter of the mail bomb that had destroyed half of another apartment the following year did cause me to begin wondering whether the statistical nature of reality might not be under a strain in my vicinity at that season. And the events of subsequent years served to turn this into a conviction.
Someone enjoyed trying to kill me once a year, it was as simple as that. The effort failing, there would be another year's pause before an attempt was made again. It seemed almost a game.
But this year I wanted to play, too. My main concern was that he, she, or it seemed never to be present when the event occurred, favoring stealth and gimmicks or agents. I will 'refer to this person as S (which sometimes stands for «sneak» and sometimes for «shithead» in my private cosmology), because X has been overworked and because I do not like to screw around with pronouns with disputable antecedents.
I rinsed my coffee cup and the pot and set them in the rack. Then I picked up my bag and departed. Mr. Mulligan wasn't in, or was sleeping, so I left my key in his mailbox before heading up the street to take my breakfast at a nearby diner.
Traffic was light, and all of the vehicles well behaved. I walked slowly, listening and looking. It was a pleasant morning, promising a beautiful day. I hoped to settle things quickly, so I could enjoy it at my leisure.
I reached the diner unmolested. I took a seat beside the window. Just as the waiter came to take my order I saw a familiar figure swinging along the street - a former classmate and later fellow employee Lucas Raynard: six feet tall, red-haired, handsome in spite, or perhaps because, of an artistically broken nose, with the voice and manner of the salesman he was.
I knocked on the window and he saw me, waved, turned and entered.
«Merle, I was right,» he said, coming up to the table, clasping my shoulder briefly, seating himself and taking the menu out of my hands. «Missed you at your place and guessed you might be here.»
He lowered his eyes and began reading the menu.
«Why?» I asked.
«If' you need more time to consider, I'll come back,» the waiter said.
«No,» Luke answered and read off an enormous order.
I added my own.
Then: «Because you're a creature of habit.»
«Habit?» I replied. «I hardly eat here anymore.»
«I know,» he answered, «but you usually did when the pressure was on. Like, right before exams - or if something was bothering you.»
«Hm,» I said: There did seem to be something to that, though I had never before realized it. I spun the ashtray with its imprint of a unicorn's head, a smaller version of the stained-glass one that stood as part of a partition beside the doorway: «I can't say why,» I finally stated. «Besides, what makes you think something's bothering me?»
«I remembered that paranoid thing you have about April 30, because of a couple of accidents.»
«More than a couple. I never told you about all of them.»
«So you still believe it?»
«Yes.»
He shrugged. The waiter came by and filled our coffee cups.
«Okay,» he finally agreed. «Have you had it yet today?»
«No.»
«Too bad. I hope it doesn't pall your thinking.»
I took a sip of coffee.
«No problem,» I told him.
«Good.» He sighed and stretched. «Listen, I just got back to town yesterday…»
«Have a good trip?»
«Set a new sales record.»
«Great.»
«Anyhow… I just learned when I checked in that you'd left.»
«Yeah. I quit about a month ago.»
«Miller's been trying to reach you. But with your phone disconnected he couldn't call. He even stopped by a couple of times, but you were out.»
«Too bad.»
«He wants you back.»
«I'm finished there.»
«Wait'll you hear the proposition, huh? Brady gets kicked upstairs and you're the new head of Design-for a twenty percent pay hike: That's what he told me to tell you.»
I chuckled softly.
«Actually… it doesn't sound bad at all. But, like I said, I'm finished.»
«Oh.» His eyes glistened as he gave me a sly smile. «You do have something lined up someplace else. He was wondering. Okay, if that's the case he told me to tell you to bring him whatever the other guys offer. He'll try like hell to top it.»
I shook my head.
«I guess I' m not getting through,» I said: «I' m finished. Period. I don't want to go back. I'm not going to work for anyone else either. I' m done with this sort of thing. I'm tired of computers.»
«But you're really good. Say, you going to teach?»
«Nope.»
«Well, hell! You've got to do something. Did you come into some money?»
«No. I believe I'll do some traveling. I've been in one place too long.»
He raised his coffee cup and drained it. Then he leaned back, clasped his hands across his stomach, and lowered his eyelids slightly: He was silent for a time.
Finally: «You said you were finished. Did you just mean the job and your life here, or something else as well?»
«I don't follow you.»
«You had a way of disappearing - back in college, too. You'd be gone for a while and then just as suddenly turn up again. You always were vague about it, too. Seemed like you were leading some sort of double life. That have anything to do with it?»
«I don't know what you mean.» He smiled.
«Sure you do,» he said. When I did not reply; he added: «Well, good luck with it -whatever.»
Always moving, seldom at rest, he fidgeted with a key ring while we had a second cup of coffee, bouncing and jangling keys and a bhp shone pendant. Our breakfasts finally arrived and we ate is silence for a while.
Then he asked, «You still have the Starburst?»
«No. Sold her last fall,» I told him. «I'd been so busy I just didn't have time to sail. Hated to see her idle.»
He nodded.
«That's too bad,» he said. «We had a lot of fun with her, back in school. Later, too. I'd have liked to take her out once more, for old times' sake.»
«Yes.»
«Say, you haven't seen Julia recently.»
«No, not since we broke up. I think she's still going with some guy named Rick. Have you?»
«Yeah. I stopped by last night.»
«Why?»
He shrugged.
«She was one of the gang - and we've all been drifting apart.
«How was she?»
«Still looking good. She asked about you. Gave me this…to give to you, too.»
He withdrew a sealed envelope from inside his jacket and passed it to me. It bore my name, in her handwriting. I tore it open and read:
