Conscience

My hand would remain in the pocket of my blazer.

I would not take it out, I could not risk it.

Yet I had, at least to catch my face from kissing the cracked asphalt as the man crashed into me. I wish I could say our shoulders merely bumped one another and we mutually apologized before continuing on our respective routes. But in truth, I was not a believer in wishes and was not tall enough to meet his shoulder. Instead, one of his massive arms slammed into my side, sending me stumbling and careening toward the ground. A bone-deep pinching, at my ribs. By the time I straightened, hands raw and face burning, he was gone. Sucked back into the pack of hyenas that circled the Harlem intersection. 

I wiped my nose and sniffled— oh my word, it was freezing for October 7th. I jammed my hand back into my pocket, fishing for that page. Those four lines. 

1600. Day after your jubilee for bent knee. 

Ready for hanging beef and retired dining the cornerstone of jet-tinted fish belly.

How smart were you then? Now? 

No “N.” But why, eh?

That final line. The only part of his instructions I had not yet uncoded. I received the letter over a week ago, analyzing and deciphering it every free minute since. 

I gripped the paper, my thumbs making sweaty imprints in the wrinkled corners as I elbowed my way down Malcolm X Blvd. I had nothing better to do except read over those words, nothing more to distract myself from my racing heart, from the monster-like guilt coiling in my gut. 

And so I read. 

1600. 4 pm. That was simple enough. It was the damn time. The date? That had been the first riddle.

The day after your jubilee for the bent knee. He had already assured me it would happen in October, but what warranted a word like jubilee? Jubilee as in a celebration? Halloween was the only holiday I could even pretend to observe in October, but the day after would place it into November. And so I had wondered. For nearly two days. Just on that one stupid line. When I saw the receipt for Conrad’s flower order on Sunday it clicked. Jubilee or anniversary. Bent knee. The day after the anniversary of Conrad proposing to me.

It was morbidly romantic. Sickeningly syrupy in its sweetness. 

I stopped at a red light, ignoring the nausea threatening the bagel in my stomach, and rubbed at my chest with my hand, trying to ease a new tightening there that I had not felt before. Nausea, guilt, dizziness, and disgust over the past months, unendingly, but this tightness? Perhaps it was because now it was real. It was so close to being done. 

Hanging beef. That was much easier. A butcher or a market. Retired dining, the cornerstone of jet-tinted fish belly. That piece had given me the address. I smiled, a hint of pride expanding in my chest. The asshole liked to make me work for the clues, to make me painstakingly piece the puzzle together, but he had, naturally, underestimated me.

I broke it down. Retired dining? A diner somehow related to the past. And the jet-tinted fish belly? Likely related to dark skin.

It had taken less than three hours to discern the phrase was a reference to the Greensboro sit-in protests carried out by black equality seekers decades ago. The lack of political politeness in the statement shocked me. (Although it should not have, considering who was writing). 

And that was how I wound up heading toward, but still miles from, the Bazaar on the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd and 3rd Street. The skin, the diner. It was confusing and flowery and unnecessary, but I had made sense of it. 

The light changed and the massive group crossed the bustling street. 

Conrad, on the other hand, had not understood what it meant. I had, for some reason, I still could not figure out, asked him to reason through the phrase. I had not shown him the letter, of course, it could have jeopardized it all, but instead, I had lied. And before you roll your eyes saying: Connie, you lied? 

Trust me, that is the least of my damning sins, my dear. 

Another flash of pride shot through me. He was such a scientific genius and he had failed. It filled me with a disturbing degree of happiness, proving to myself that my husband was not infallible. He had embarrassed himself, in truth. Agonizingly, he would never be able to grant me such a gift again. 

Again that tightness threatened to stop my rapid heart. Now accompanied by some meddlesome cramps in my stomach. Almost as though the guilt and anger were moving. 

No “N.” That part I had not yet solved. I had mulled over it for the past four days. Again consulting Conrad, convincing him it was from a student’s midterm paper. Was it a reference to the preceding line?  

How smart were you then? Now? 

If I were to take the phrase literally then it could be referring to the letters on the paper itself. The "N" in... now? What possibly could “ow” mean? Nothing of importance, at least not to me. 

Now the tightness pulled a cough from me. Damn, maybe I was more tired than I thought, even though I had only been walking for two hours. 

And still, just under an hour left to go.

Maybe it was a different word. Take away the N in the word then? The? The what? 

I groaned and shoved the frustration back into my pocket, coughing as I avoided

a particularly thick patch of gunk on the sidewalk. I crossed my arms, it was cold as hell, but my shivering seemed unnecessary. Near uncontrollable.

Once I made it to the Bazaar I wasted no time. I headed to the waste bin just outside the store. I learned long ago, albeit unwillingly, that this man had a sort of affinity for hiding my directions in disgusting areas. Namely, trash cans. Just to get him back, at each payment drop, I left it in some horrid space. I doubted it bothered him very much.

I had never met him in person so I had never asked why, but I assumed it was the same reason he only ever left me printed instructions— no trackable trail. Not digitally or materially. If I failed to pick up the evidence, it would be discarded and no one would be the wiser. 

There was a sort of excitement as I unfolded the small new parchment. 

This one, just three lines. 

4th Line. 

No “N.”

But why? 

Those same words again? 

My next cough rattled my spine. I was shaking like crazy, violently enough that I was struggling to hold that paper steady. I was sweating, hoping it was not showing through the expensive blazer. Maybe I was coming down with a cold. I would make some tea when I returned home. Alone. Finally. 

My preoccupation with the ominous note and the shivers allowed my mind to wonder where I usually forbade it to go. 

I would go home, alone. Make tea, alone. And my husband…and Conrad Taylor would be dead. The brilliant, pompous, revered pharmaceutical genius he was. 

Poisoned to die a quick, but uncomfortable death. 

Not by me! By some boogeyman. Some ghost I had been paying in pieces, always according to his encoded notes for the past months. 

That guilt in my stomach charged my throat and I keeled over at the waste bin, retching. Those passing by glared at my display, but I was more focused on what was exiting my body. 

I had hardly eaten that morning and so the miniscule chunks of food covered in bile did little to alarm me. It was the spots of what looked alarmingly like blood splattering the gas station wrappers at the bottom of the bin that gave me pause. 

Maybe I would need more than tea. And yet, I had a job to do. 

A meeting to attend. And with or without an illness, it had to take place. 

And it had to be today. 

So I straightened myself, shrugging off my blazer— the unbearable fever-like boiling of my skin had won out against the heavy shivering. I threw that coat in the bin. It was trash day after all, and screw that drenched thing. 

Getting to the subway stop? That was a whole other chore. It was only a few blocks, but it might as well have been fourteen miles away for all that information comforted me.

Now, when the world writes about this day, they will not be able to tell you this much, but I swear to you that the freezing October wind was laced with tongues of flame. It pierced and sliced at me as I walked, like a drunken sailor, down the street. 

I was burning, and that tightness in my chest— oh God! It felt like my lungs were tearing free of my chest. Like they were bleeding and aflame all at the same time. 

Just a few more hours. He would meet me on the subway and— well, meet was a loose term. He would brush by, like he always did, my shoulder only coming up to the middle of his torso, and slip me a note. I would not look up at the back of his head as he disappeared. And then I would read the note. 

But this note? This one would be the note. 

The one that confirmed he was finally gone. That I had finally killed my husband. 

The perfect asshole.

I stumbled down the steps and onto the platform, almost praying that he would not take too long. Maybe he would bless me and arrive just a bit before four and I could go home. Maybe he would even include a detail on how successful he had been. How he had exposed the military doctor that my husband is— hopefully was— to the lethal beast. 

I leaned against a disgusting station wall. Any other day I would be cursing myself for doing such a vile thing, but I could barely stand and I would have bet on the fact that I looked like a sweaty fish in ironed dress pants. 

Far too long passed before the correct line arrived and I stumbled into a car, flopping into a seat, much to the dismay of an older man to my left. 

I could not have cared less. I felt like I was dying. I coughed and blood spotted my hand. 

I had to sit in this car for hours, simply waiting for four this afternoon. For the time he had informed me of. What else could I do, but think? And so I closed my eyes and did just that. 

How smart were you then? Now?—

No “N.” But why, eh?

It was condescending, undoubtedly, but there was something else. 

My heart was racing. Part of me wanted to call Conrad. He should be dead by now, but I was desperate. I needed something— some comfort, I think. 

And I guess that flawed, aching part of me won out. 

No “N.” But why, eh?

The phone rang long enough for me to fear he would not pick up. Fear? No. I expected him not to pick up. To never pick up again. 

The line connected.

“Connie?”

A woman next to me shook my shoulder. I think her lips were moving. I think she spoke. 

No. “N.” 

The now? Or then ow?

“Are you ok?” Conrad’s voice. 

I licked my lips, my throat jammed with cotton and fluid. When I responded, it was with a voice that did not belong to a woman who had the balls to assign a SEAL-certified assassin to kill her war hero husband.

“Baby, have they got you yet?” Conrad asked me. 

But that— No. That made no sense. What could he mean—?

“I did not think it was true, but you did it. You tried to kill me?” 

I think the woman next to me was calling the police, I think I am still coughing up blood. 

Then ow? The now? The ow?

But why? 

“Why?” I think I managed to say. Was it directed toward him? I could not tell you if you asked my headstone  

“Why, me?” Conrad roared. Rightfully so, it had been a wild question on my part.

“You did this to us first. You accounted for every detail.” 

I do not know how I still heard him. Someone was screaming at me, banging on my

chest. Was I dying? 

“Every detail, but one. I know it. Do you know it now baby, eh?” And then he was gone. 

But there it was. 

How smart were you then? Now? 

I coughed again. I could not see. Blood ran down my cheeks.

Some cold, dark thing crept around the edges of my mind. I could not hear. I could not move. 

No “N.” But why, eh?

No n. But why. Why. “Y.” 

They now? No "N", but some other letter?

They ow?

They know. 

THEY KNOW.

They. Conrad. My Connie. The military. I had chosen a SEAL to execute Conrad. And all those months ago… I had told him. Kill Connie Taylor for me. 

And they knew. They had reported back to him. And that man this morning..?  

The poison for Conrad. He was a pharmaceutical specialist for the military. It had been, what? Slipped into my pocket by the large man. Fentanyl? Anthrax? Slipped into my coat, just like all those notes before. The coat that was now disposed of, along with any evidence of my murder.

My body was gone. 

I no longer heard that yelling, the pounding on my chest, Conrad’s voice. 

They know. 

I laughed at that incoming darkness. At that cold hell, waiting for me. I asked the military to kill Connie Taylor. 

And they had. In some sick trick, Conrad had ensured they killed Connie Taylor. I laughed again as I lost my grip on all I had once known. What had been funny through all of this, is my name. Not just the fact that having the same nickname as my husband was some sick irony in my death, but my real name. It had been cute once, at our wedding: Connie & Connie.

The assassin had listened to me. Obeyed me. 

Killing, not Conrad Taylor. The other Connie.

Conscience Taylor. 

How smart were you now ?