Free The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson Page B

when, despite these precautions, the letters began to arrive again (CUNT, WHORE, FILTH), she accepted Lisa and Loretta’s invitation to move into the Rosedale house, where she wouldn’t be alone.
    â€œAnd now he showed up again.”
    â€œAgain,” Trev confirmed. “But this time it’s different.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œThis time Mouse has friends on her side. Us, plus everyone in her old tranche, plus all the local Taus we’ve ever networked with.”
    â€œStrength in numbers.”
    â€œYeah, and more than numbers: experience, skills, connections.”
    â€œEven so, you really think it’s a good idea to get up in the face of a guy with Mafia connections?”
    â€œWell, that’s the interesting part. Like I said, Mouse has friends in two Tau tranches, and the Tau network in this city is pretty big. For instance, there’s a woman, a Tau, lives out in Scarborough, who works for a cleaning service called Daily Maid. And ever since he split up with Mouse, Botero has been a Daily Maid customer. The upshot is that we managed to acquire copies of the contents of the backup drives of Botero’s home computers. Including some very ineptly encrypted financial records, which indicate that Botero has been inflating expenses and skimming some of the cash he launders for his mob friends. He puts this down as ‘transaction expenses,’ but it’s a blatant skim. That’s our leverage.”
    â€œYou’re still talking about confronting somebody with money and dangerous friends and an obviously unstable, uh, personality—”
    â€œI’m not talking about it, I’m doing it. Or I will be in about sixty seconds. Get on out here, Adam.”
    *   *   *
    We can’t live in fear of this guy forever , Trevor said at some point in our conversation, and I thought, We? But he was right. Mouse was a Tau, and one intimidated Tau was one too many.
    The street was slick with snow and the Accord chunked into anti-lock mode as I left the driveway. Botero’s car was still parked where I had seen it. Probably he was waiting for Mouse to come home, either for reconnaissance or to frighten her by advertising his presence. When I pulled in behind him, almost kissing his bumper with the grille of the Accord, he gave me a sour look in his rearview mirror. His brake lights lit up as he started the Venza’s engine and put it in gear.
    But Trev came up fast in his Subaru, cutting off Botero and making it impossible for him to move. The Venza’s brake lights went dark. A moment later, Botero opened the driver-side door.
    He was tall, lean guy. He got out of the car like a flick knife unfolding. He wore a Canada Goose jacket over a logger shirt and faded jeans, a blue-collar-guy-made-good look. His jaw was thrust forward, his mouth bent into a perfect bell curve.
    Trevor left his car at the same time. Not as tall as Botero, but broader across the chest, big arms, sure of himself.
    â€œYou need to get out of my way,” Botero said.
    â€œI’d be happy to do that,” Trevor said. “Soon as we have a talk about Mouse.”
    â€œI don’t know anybody named Mouse.”
    â€œI think you do. I think you know a lot of people. Like Jimmy Bianchi? Carl Giordano?”
    The names meant nothing to me, but they could only have been Botero’s mob connections. Botero’s breath hissed into the cold air like steam from a defective radiator. “If you know those names, you know you’re playing out of your league.”
    â€œIf you continue to harass Mouse, there will be consequences.”
    â€œAnd if you continue to harass me, there will sure as fuck be consequences. You’re a member of that club she joined, right? The League of Losers or whatever. Do you really think that entitles you to stand between a man and his wife?”
    â€œI don’t want to have to go to Mr. Giordano about