Page 14 of I Am the Messenger

"You got it here with you?" Audrey asks.

I shake my head.

Before I went to bed last night, I placed it in the top drawer of the cabinet in my bedroom. Nothing touches it. Nothing breathes on it. The drawer is empty but for that card.

"It wasn't any of you, was it?" I ask. I've decided I can't skirt around the question.

"Me?" asks Marv. "I think we all know I don't have the brains to come up with something like this." He shrugs. "That,

and I wouldn't invest that much thought into the likes of you, Ed." Mr. Argumentative, as usual.

"Exactly," agrees Ritchie. "Marv's far too thick for something like this." Now that he's made his statement, he becomes silent.

We all look at him.

"What?" he asks.

"Is it you, Ritchie?" Audrey questions him.

He jerks a thumb over at Marv. "If he's too dumb, I'm too lazy." He holds his arms out. "Look at me--I'm a dole bludger. I spend half my days at the betting shop. I still live with my mum and dad...."

To fill you in, Ritchie's name isn't even really Ritchie. It's Dave Sanchez. We call him Ritchie because he has a tattoo of Jimi Hendrix on his right arm but everyone reckons it looks more like Richard Pryor. Thus, Ritchie. Everyone laughs and says he should get Gene Wilder on the other arm and he'll have the perfect combination. They were a dynamic duo if ever there was one. How can you argue with movies like Stir Crazy and See No Evil, Hear No Evil?

Exactly.

You can't.

Just, if you ever meet him, don't mention the Gene Wilder thing. Trust me. It's the one thing that sends Ritchie into a bit of a frenzy. He can't stand it. Especially when he's drunk.

He's got dark skin and permanent whiskers on his face. His hair is curly and the color of mud, and his eyes are black but friendly. He doesn't tell people what to do and expects the same in return, and he wears the same faded jeans day in, day out--unless he's simply got several pairs of the same type. I've never thought to ask.

You can always hear him coming because he rides a bike. A Kawasaki something or other. It's black and red. Mostly he rides it without a jacket in summer because he's ridden since he was a kid. He wears plain T-shirts or unfashionable shirts that he shares with his old man.

We're all still staring at him.

It makes him nervous, and he turns his head now, with all of us, to Audrey.

"All right." She begins her defense. "I'd say out of all of us, I'm the most likely to think up something this ridiculous--"

"It isn't ridiculous," I say. I'm almost defending the card, as if it's part of me.

"Can I go on?" she says.

I nod.

"Good. Now, as I was saying--it definitely isn't me. I do, however, have a theory on how and why it ended up in your letter box."

We all wait as she gathers her thoughts.

She continues. "It all stems from the bank robbery. Someone read about it in the paper and thought to themselves, Now there's a likely-looking lad. Ed Kennedy. He's just the sort of person this town needs." She smiles but turns serious almost immediately. "Something's going to happen at each of the addresses on that card, Ed, and you'll have to react to it."

I think about it and decide.

I speak.

"Well, that's not real good, is it?"

"Why not?"