“Look at this!” I told Ebony, my best friend, who sat next to me in the Tipperary Pub, the Irish-themed bar of the Parsippany Sheraton. I was here for the Deadly Ink writers’ conference and Ebony and Lucy were here for moral support.  “I think it’s my death threat.  Oh, I’m so excited!”

Ebony took the envelope I gave her, pulled out the note and read it aloud.

“I’ve done the deed.  You won’t be disappointed.  Have the money before the luncheon or you’ll never be hungry again.”

She put down the paper and gave me a look.  “You are excited about your own death threat?”

Ebony had full lips, big brown eyes and a voluptuous mop of African hair that propagated equally in all directions.  She wore about five dozen bracelets and golden lipstick.  I wore old t-shirts and ragged jeans.  Jewelry and make-up were always an afterthought.  

“Just think about it,” I said.  “What an idea for a story!”

Lucy, my other best friend, inched over to see the paper.  She had just got off duty and still wore her cop uniform and the twenty pounds of stuff that came with it.  That’s why I was so calm and nonchalant.  It was easy feeling invincible when your best friend’s a cop.  Lucy was six feet tall and loved martial arts and extreme sports.

“How did you get this note?” she asked as she examined the paper.  She started gathering facts and looking for clues.  “Printed on quality paper, fancy font, black ink, no smears, no apparent fingerprints.  Professional printing.  Signed by Deadly Inker.  You know this guy?”

“No.  I found the note in my registration bag.  Someone must’ve slipped it in.”

“Did other registrants find death threats in their bags?” Ebony inquired. 

I shrugged.  “I have no idea.”

“I’m sure they didn’t,” Ebony declared.  She fancied herself a psychic.  She believed she could speak to her ancestors, tell the future and prevent accidents from happening.  Apparently enough people believed it too so she raised her fees last month.  I wish people liked my stories half as much as they liked Ebony’s fortune telling.  Writing fiction never paid well.

Ebony continued.  “Normal people don’t get death threats.  And if they do, they don’t get excited about it.  Only crazies like you do.”

“Normal?” I gave her a dirty look. “What do you know about normal?”

Lucy was the most normal of us all.  Well, that depended on your definition of normal.  I heard voices in my head and killed people in my stories.  Ebony heard voices in her head and told the future.  Lucy simply believed she was immortal.  So she tried everything from sky-diving to surfing in hurricanes.    

“Vicki, wake up,” Ebony told me.  “You got a death threat.  Someone’s out there to get you.  I can see it.”  

“It’s just a stupid prank,” I said dismissively.  “But I like the idea.  A writer gets harassed for winning a contest by someone who didn’t.”

“It could be a prank,” Lucy agreed.  “You never know what people may pull.  Last week I was arresting this fellah for domestic violence.  I took him down all right and I’m just about to cuff him when he goes, ‘ma’am, can I please use the bathroom?  You don’t want me to have a messy accident in your car, do you?’” 

“He escaped through the window?” Ebony asked. 

“No windows in that bathroom, I checked.  He rips off the medicine cabinet and tries to smack me in the head.”

“It’s an idea,” I muttered.  “Creative escape plan.”

“You always write stories in your head,” Ebony grunted at me.  “You’re such a space cadet!  That’s why I’m telling you to be careful.”

“I live my stories in my head,” I retorted.  “And at least I’m in my head.  You don’t even know where yours is half the time.”

“My head’s always here.”  Ebony held her fingers to her temples as she always did when she had her visions.  “Let me tune in.  Let’s just see …”

I chuckled and got elbowed by Lucy. 

“Sometimes she gets it right,” Lucy told me.  “She said I was gonna get hurt last time I went heli-skiing.  I did.  Rolled down that slope like a tumbleweed.”   

I supposed Ebony made a few creditable predictions.  Like telling me I wouldn’t win the St. Martin Minotaur contest or that Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine wouldn’t accept my story.  Unfortunately when it came to publishing, I was my own psychic.  I could tell the future of a submission myself.  This time Ebony swore I was going to win the Deadly Ink contest, but I knew better.  Deadly Ink was offering a hundred bucks for first place and I never won money. I’d kill for first place, but winning money simply wasn’t in my karma.

“The Deadly Inker has never killed,” Ebony announced, returning from La-La Land. “Vicky’s his first.”

I was picturing a forensics team in digging up bodies in the New Jersey wastelands and it didn’t fit in my plot.

“Too bad,” I muttered.

“Too bad he’s an amateur?” Ebony picked on me.  “Would you rather be dealing with a serial killer?”

I shrugged.  “Whatever gets you published.  The gruesome gory details usually do.”

“So Vicky is his first target?” Lucy asked.  She liked things clear and non-ambiguous.  “I don’t like using her as bait.  She’s too dainty for this kinda stuff.”

“I’m not dainty,” I barked, insulted.  “I may be a space cadet sometimes, but dainty I am not.  Look, I work out when I am not writing.”

Lucy ignored me and continued working on the case.

“Ebony, can you see what he wants?”

Oh, great.  The last thing I needed was Ebony reading my thoughts.  I hated being inside my own head, let alone having company.  People got killed, cut to pieces and dumped in rivers in my head all the time.  Besides, some of my really darkest and deepest thoughts I wasn’t prepared to share.

“I can’t see his intentions clearly, but it has to do with Vicky’s story and the Deadly Ink books,” Ebony pronounced in her psychic voice. “He calls himself Deadly Inker for a reason. Oh well, the future will tell.”

I couldn’t help a jibe.  “I thought you were here to tell us the future.”

“I’ve told you your future, but you won’t listen,” Ebony snapped.  “I told you your story’s gonna win and you’ll get a hundred bucks, but you refuse to believe it.  Where are those goddamn books?  I wanna see them so I can prove I was right.”

“They’ll have the books out after the luncheon.”

“And when are they gonna announce the winners?”

“At the luncheon.”

“And when is the luncheon?”

I sighed.  “In ten minutes.  But what’s the point, I never win anything.”

Ebony put on a scowl.  “You’re such a pain in the neck.  Go get yourself a seat.”

I sighed again because I didn’t feel like going to the luncheon.  I was having the blues.  The Deadly Ink ladies would announce the winners, call them to the mike, ask them to say a few words, and of course, I wouldn’t be one of them.  And even if I would, I didn’t deserve it, because my writing sucked and all that jazz.  Well, maybe there was more to my melancholy, but I wasn’t admitting it.

Ebony read it all on my face.  Sometimes she really did read your deepest deadliest thoughts, but not always.  So far, I managed to preserve my own.

“Go now!” Ebony slammed her hand on the table, sending her bracelets into a spastic dance.  “Go, or I’ll kill you before that Deadly Inker guy does.”

“I left my badge upstairs,” I made a lame but true excuse as I slid off the bar stool.  “I need the badge.  I’ll be back.”

“Go to the luncheon and we’ll see you there,” Ebony ordered as she took the last sip of her drink.  Lucy belted down her beer and got up too.

I left the Tipperary Pub and schlepped to the elevator.  Suddenly, without Lucy around I got nervous.  Let me tell you, clubs and handcuffs are an amazing self-confidence booster.  Now I was nervous and having anxiety attacks about everything.  My story didn’t deserve to win.  I didn’t deserve to win.  Could Deadly Inker really hurt me? What if I ran into him?  I should’ve never come to the conference.  This whole thing was a bad idea.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened.  The cabin was empty.  I walked in, pushed the button and let out a sigh of relief when the doors closed.  The cabin twitched upwards and moved slowly.  Really slowly.  I decided my fears were irrational, same as most of my deepest deadliest thoughts, so I switched to the latter, writing another story in my head.  What if a deranged writer harassed the contest judges to win first place?  Working title “A Deadly Ink-lination?”

I got off on the seventh floor and dragged myself toward my room visualizing an action scene in which the writer chased the contest judge around with a heavy printer cartridge. Whatever gets you published.  Writers are nuts.  Look at me, I’d kill for the St. Martin’s contract, let alone smack someone in the head with a container of dry ink.  The floor was empty and quiet so my imagination took over and I happily lost my sense of reality.  If someone wanted to smack me in the head with something heavy, this was the perfect moment.

I was working out the action scene details, when I reached the end of the hallway and realized I had walked past my room.  The storage closet was right in front of me and I decided it was a great hiding place for Deadly Inker.  Unfortunately, the doors were locked so I remembered that the purpose of my trip upstairs was to get my badge.  I turned around, found my room and walked in.  I was back to writing my action scene when a strong hairy hand caught me across the throat and grabbed me in a choke hold, tight as a printing press. 

“Didn’t know you’re a broad at first,” the man said with an unpleasant chuckle.  “Your emails made me think you’re a guy.  Guess, writer types are good at making stuff up, like whatcha call them, pen names?  Sure fooled me.  Thought you’d fool me again with the room number?  Nice try, bitch.  Well, money doesn’t fool.  Lemme see the money.”

I wiggled in his grip frantically.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are,” I spoke, half-gagged by his hand.  “I got your message, but I don’t think it’s for me.”

“Don’t play no frigging games with me,” Deadly Inker growled and his grip tightened.  I wished I could see his face, but I couldn’t.  “I toldja I’m no mister nice guy.  I ain’t risking my reputation for nothing.  I run my business and I smile at my customers, but you take me for a ride, I’ll take you for a ride.”

“Listen, I don’t even know who you are and what you did…”

“What I did?” he echoed into my ear.  “I did whatcha asked.  You promised me a grand to make sure the title page said that your story won first place. Well, I did.  The deed’s done.  The book says your story won.  Now, you got that grand?  I can use it.  I’m about to lose the lease on my printing place.”

I was half-choked by his arm, but my brain seemed to work better on the oxygen shortage. It made perfect sense.  If I had been writing this story, I’d have had a flawless plot.  Deadly Inker was hired to print the Deadly Ink 2009 Anthology books.  Some desperate scribbler bribed him to replace the winning story with his own, but somehow Deadly Inker decided it was me.  Maybe I ended up in the scribble’s room and Deadly Inker thought it was me.  Or maybe I was mistakenly handed the scribbler’s registration bag and the Deadly Inker saw me walk away with it.  Talk about a coincidence and the famous “what if.”  Whatever gets you published.  But there was one last thing that still didn’t make sense.  If the prize was a hundred bucks, who in their right mind would promise Deadly Inker a grand for altering the title page?  Writers are flakes, but even I know how to count.

I gasped to get enough air in my lungs for a question. 

“Who won the contest?  Who was the author of the winning story?”

“What do I know?” he growled.  “Do I look like a literary type to you?”

“You don’t look like anything because I can’t see you.”

“You’ll see me when I see the money.  Enough bullshit.”

The hairy hand shook me so hard my head almost fell off my shoulders. 

“All right, I’ve got the money,” I lied frantically.  If this were a story in which I was a character, I’d have Ebony sense I was in danger and I’d have Lucy shoot the door lock and break in.  But this was reality and I was on my own.  My friends were checking the tables in the dining room downstairs and cursing my flakiness.

“I’ve got your grand, but it’s in my car.  I’ll give you my keys…”

“Cut the crap!” Deadly Inker barked.  “You lied to me about everything.  You tell me you don’t know me.  I don’t believe you.  If it’s in your car, you’re coming with me.  And if you try something funny…”

“I won’t!” I swore.  “I’ll come with you.  But you gotta let me breathe and use the bathroom, all right?  I gotta pee.”

He cackled scornfully but loosened his grip.  I wheezed and almost collapsed on the floor.  Deadly Inker held me up and pushed me toward the bathroom. 

“You got a minute, you hear me?  If you ain’t done, I’ll pull you off the john.”

I burst in, slammed the door behind me and looked around.  The medicine cabinet was firmly attached to the wall, the shower curtain rod was firmly attached to the tiles and the toilet bowl was firmly attached to the floor. There was nothing I could use as a weapon.  Except for… oh, my god, what an idea for a story!

Thirty seconds later I was flattened against the wall behind the door, the ultimate bathroom weapon in my hands, raised, ready and waiting.  

“What’s taking you so long?” Deadly Inker questioned.  “Geez, that’s why there’re always lines in the ladies rooms.”

He waited a few more seconds and pounded on the door.  I held my breath.

“What the hell?” he roared and blasted in.  

I brought the toilet lid down on his head as hard as I could.  Deadly Inker sank to the floor like a sack of potatoes.  I smashed him again to make sure he was well adjusted and bolted out of the bathroom. 

“Vicki, are you in there?”  I heard Lucy’s voice, followed by banging on the room door.

“She’s lost in time and space writing another story!” Ebony chimed in.  “And she has a nerve to tell me she’s in her head and I’m not.”

I rushed to open the door.  My friends burst in.

“Look, you perpetual skeptic!” Ebony stuck an open trade paperback book in my face.  “See your name here?  See, it says first place, Vicki Ray?  Congratulations, girl, you won!” 

“I won?” I mumbled, confused.  “Then Deadly Inker didn’t do his job and he doesn’t deserve the money.  It doesn’t make sense.  I thought I had a perfect plot, but now the ending doesn’t work.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ebony barked at me.  “Christ, you’re such a space cadet, you missed your own prize announcement.  They announced the winners.  They put the books out in the bookstore.  Get your ass downstairs or you will miss your own book signing, too!”   

A moan from the bathroom made my friends jump and give me perplexed stares.

“Who’s that?” Ebony asked with rounded eyes.  Lucy patted her club. 

“That’s Deadly Inker.  I hit him on the head with the toilet lid,” I explained nonchalantly.  “I’ve got my next story all laid out except for the ending and the scribbler.  Unless I’ll make myself the scribbler.  Yeah, really, what if it was me who hired Deadly Inker to put my story in the program, but didn’t want to pay?  That’s the perfect ending.  My story won and I got away with it!  Even the title works.  The Deadly Ink-lination.”

Lucy gave me a confused look, but Ebony followed my logic. 

“So was it you?” she asked me with a prying look. Her eyes narrowed, focusing on my own as if she was indeed reading my deepest deadliest thoughts.  “You made it all up to write a story or you made it happen to win?  You always say you live your stories.”

“You never know,” I replied with a sinister smile.  So far I still could resist Ebony’s mind-reading. “Maybe I did.  Maybe I didn’t.  Whatever gets you published.”