Free The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson Page A

legitimate business,” Trev explained as I shrugged into a jacket and borrowed the keys to Lisa’s five-year-old Accord. “Botero uses it to launder money for some local guys with a trade in stolen vehicles and connections to the ’Ndrangheta—the Calabrian Mafia.”
    â€œMouse figured this out?”
    â€œMouse noticed some irregularities in the invoices, but she found solid evidence in Botero’s desk one afternoon when he was out talking to a corporate buyer. And there’s more to it than that.”
    This was what I learned on the way from the back door to the carriage-house garage where Lisa’s Accord and Loretta’s ancient Volvo brooded together in wintry silence:
    Mouse had asked for a divorce. Bobby refused her request and threatened her with a beating or worse if she so much as glanced at a passing trial lawyer. He explained that he himself was thoroughly lawyered-up, and if she insisted on starting proceedings she would come out of it with nothing to show but an aching hollow where her self-respect used to be. And, he insisted, he loved her, and he wanted to prevent her from making a terrible mistake.
    Mouse bowed her head and meekly agreed. The next day she left work at noon, drove home, packed a few essentials, and moved to a motel room on the Queensway strip. She emptied a bank account she had never told Bobby she possessed and sold to a pawnbroker the few items of gold and silver she had inherited from her mother.
    Over the course of the next six months Mouse managed to find herself a new clerical job, moved into an apartment in the basement of a midtown row house, humanized that space with a selection of funky thrift-shop furniture, and saved as much as she could from her weekly paycheck. As soon as she had built up a useful surplus she did two more things: consulted a divorce lawyer and signed up for Affinity testing.
    Before long she was a registered Tau with a pending application for divorce. Bobby was well-lawyered, but the law left little room for maneuver; in the end he chose not to contest the proceeding. Mouse had brought very little personal property to the marriage and wanted nothing from Bobby, which made it easier.
    *   *   *
    â€œYou in the car?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “But, Trev—”
    â€œGood. I’ll let you know when I’m at the corner, then you pull out of the garage. Come at Botero’s car from behind, park up close to his bumper. I’ll be right behind you, and I’ll cut him off from the front.”
    â€œWhat happens then?”
    â€œThen I have a conversation with him. That’s all.”
    *   *   *
    Mouse, though shy by nature, thrived in her Tau tranche. She had almost convinced herself that her bad marriage was behind her when a series of envelopes without return addresses began arriving in the mail. Sometimes the envelopes contained brief hand-scrawled messages. WHORE was a repeat favorite, as was SICK FILTHY CUNT. Sometimes the envelopes contained photographs of Mouse taken without her knowledge: Mouse coming home from work in a yellow summer frock, Mouse dressed up for a tranche party, Mouse fidgeting in the line outside the restroom at a local movie theater.
    There was not enough evidence linking these threats to Bobby Botero for the police to get involved, and although Mouse’s lawyer applied for a generic restraining order, Mouse wasn’t convinced that it would change Botero’s behavior. He was obviously nursing a massive grudge, and Mouse knew he was capable of engineering acts of vengeance beyond her power to avoid.
    She moved across town, which was how she ended up attached to our tranche. She requested and obtained a transfer from the Ministry office where she worked to a location closer to downtown. She invested in industrial-strength locks for her doors and windows and signed up for a free tae kwon do class at the local community center. And