by Dani Lamia
“Henley Nylo,” I say flatly. “Of the Nylo Corporation. I am Caitlyn Nylo, his sister.”
Jay and Rutledge look at each other.
“Of the Nylo Corporation?” asks Jay.
“So damn strange,” says Rutledge.
“What’s open around here?” asks Jay, looking up and down the street.
“There’s a pizza parlor,” says Rutledge, pointing.
“Outstanding,” says Jay.
Just at that moment, a long black limousine pulls up to the curb. The doors open and Alistair and Angelo Marino get out, looking haunted.
“What happened?” asks Alistair. “Is it real? Is it some kind of prank?”
“These are two detectives,” I say. “They’re telling me that Henley is dead.”
“What precinct are you?” asks Angelo Marino.
“This precinct,” says Detective Rutledge.
“We service the tunnels beneath Midtown,” adds Detective Jay.
“Can I see your badges?” asks Angelo Marino. “I am the personal lawyer of the Nylo family.”
The detectives look at each other and then one of them shows Angelo Marino a badge on a chain from under his shirt.
“We are still investigating what happened,” says Detective Rutledge. “Let’s all go to Joe’s Famous over there on the corner and talk.”
“If I may speak for my partner,” Detective Jay adds, “first of all, we must say that we are a little confused about how you are all here. Did you get some kind of fucking Google alert?”
“We saw it,” I say. “We saw a video of it. He lost all his lives in this game we are playing. And then he lost his life for real.”
Angelo Marino steps in front of me.
“Gentlemen, she is distraught and exhausted,” he says. “Her father died a few days ago, and now her brother has been killed in a gruesome accident. We would love to answer your questions and also to be as helpful as possible. But you must tell us what is going on here.”
“I need food,” says Detective Jay. “Come on.”
Detective Jay leads the way as Rutledge goes back inside, presumably to check up on what is happening with the wreckage in the elevator. As we walk over to the pizza place, a paramedic strolls out the front doors of the Empire State Building, walks over to the ambulance, and kills the lights. No more emergency, I guess. There’s nothing that can be done.
I do a quick count. I have two lives left, Bernard has two lives left, Gabriella has two lives left. Alistair only has the one. But what does any of that mean? Could Henley’s death just be some kind of horrible coincidence? Or did someone just murder my brother? And if so, is it possible my father’s death wasn’t an accident? Was he murdered too, by the same person?
Joe’s Famous Pizza is completely empty, except for a man with forehead and neck rolls who is wiping down the tables and looks glum to see us walk in. I sit down at one of the booths in the back. Angelo Marino and my brother join me. The entire restaurant is lit in fluorescents and neon. There are mirrors on all the walls. I stare at myself in the mirror right beside my shoulder. I look haggard and frightened.
Detective Jay is more eager to order food than to talk to us. He gets four slices, picking them out from where they sit cold on the counter behind glass. As he joins us, Detective Rutledge also comes in and orders four slices. He grabs an extra chair from where it is pushed up against a wall and sits at the head of the table.
“So that’s your brother in there,” says Detective Rutledge. “We are so sorry for your loss.”
“Could you please just tell us what happened to him?” asks Alistair.
Jay and Rutledge look at each other.
“The internal Empire State Building security aren’t sure if it was an accident or not,” says Jay. “But your brother fell forty stories and snapped his neck on the ceiling of one of the elevators.”
“Cage 1,” I blurt out.
“Yes, that’s right,” says Jay. “They are afraid you are going to sue the fuck out of them, frankly.”
“We probably will,” I say.
Angelo Marino looks at me sternly, but I can’t help myself. His gaze then shifts to the detectives and I can see him studying Rutledge and Jay, trying to size them up.
I do the same, wondering what they might want in life and how they might be persuaded to help us to the maximum of their abilities instead of resenting us for our wealth and power. Police detectives have the same chip on their shoulder as other cops about the elite, about their social betters, about people who have chosen any kind of life other than one that brings them into daily contact with criminals and victims. Police detectives are insecure about their intelligence, which is what draws them to the job. They get to feast on the power of knowing things other people don’t know, much like doctors. They get to sadistically withhold and draw out information in order to destabilize the people that they target. They get to be in charge of people who would otherwise despise and ignore them.
In fiction and in media, they are often portrayed as heroic, as above the anodyne concerns that torture the rest of us venal sinners. In real life, they control the chaos of their own lives by controlling other people. Like doctors, they deal with finalities. And like doctors, they are the last people on Earth who should be given this dread responsibility. But by the time you discover this for yourself, it is usually too late. You find yourself up against some dead-eyed detective or surgeon who looks at you like a bug, and you squirm as a reflex, hoping they don’t crush you.
Something odd about these two detectives is that they are both conventionally attractive and they both seem rather easygoing. I’m having a hard time figuring out which of them is more intelligent. I decide to address myself to Detective Jay, merely because he was the first one I encountered. I do this also because his gaze has fallen on me the hardest, and I wonder if he might be feeling some kind of hormonal stirrings that I can bend to my advantage.
“It was my father’s will that all of his children—there are five of us—play a game against each other for his fortune,” I say, getting a subtle nod of approval from Angelo Marino. “In the game, we each get three lives. At the very moment that Henley lost all of his lives, he was killed by this falling elevator. Then the rest of us were sent a video of his death. It can’t be a coincidence. He was murdered. I’m sure of it. I hate to say it, but the likeliest suspect is our own father, which can’t be true because our father died on Sunday.”
The detectives stare blankly at me for a long time. A bell dings at the front of the restaurant and Detective Jay hops up and retrieves his four slices of pizza: two cheese and two chicken bacon ranch. Detective Rutledge cranes his neck to the counter, searching for his own food.
“Did you hear what I just said?” I ask.
“Yeah, we heard you,” says Detective Jay.
“We hear crazy shit all the time,” says Detective Rutledge.
I pull out my game phone and put it on the table. Alistair looks at me and then, reluctantly, pulls out his game phone, too.
“These phones are how the Game Master is supposed to get in touch with us,” I say. “Whoever our father hired as the Game Master is some kind of fucking maniac. None of us are safe.”
“Okay,” says Detective Jay, staring at me blankly.
Detective Rutledge picks up the two game phones and they both turn on, showing our respective character-creation screens. He turns them over and sees our names on the back. He plays with them a little bit, but soon he sees that there isn’t much that can be done with them.
“Pretty neat,” says Detective Rutledge. He hands my phone back to me and then gives Alistair’s phone back to him.
“You aren’t taking this seriously,” I say. “How else do you explain how we knew our brother was dead before you did?”
“Who knows?” says Detective Rutledge. “Maybe you killed him. We d
on’t even know why he was in the elevator in the first place.”
“Check the footage,” I say. “He was there because we were all supposed to hold these phones up to a box in the ceiling. The box will still be there. Maybe there are fingerprints or something. At the very least, if you check the footage, you will see me and my brothers and sister all getting in the same elevator throughout the day. He was the last one, and I guess he had to sneak in because the building was closed, which is why he was dressed as a janitor.”
“We’ll check the tapes,” says Detective Jay. “But look, honestly, I don’t know what you want us to do here. It looks like an accident. The Empire State Building execs are freaking out, just so you know. Like we said, they’re terrified you’re going to sue them. Now here you are telling us that you think he was murdered by your father. We don’t really know what to say.”
“It wasn’t our father,” I say. “It was this Game Master, whoever that might be.”
Detectives Jay and Rutledge share a long, exasperated look at each other.
“We have some questions for you,” says Detective Jay. “But we want to interview you separately, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” says Angelo Marino, again stepping in. “I’m afraid that won’t be happening.”
I want to tell Angelo Marino to leave us alone, to stand down and let the detectives work. But it isn’t just us he is protecting. It’s the entire Nylo Corporation. He knows better than we do.
Detective Jay sighs.
“Right, figured as much,” says Detective Rutledge. “Look, we’ll investigate all the angles here on our own. Thank you for your help, but if we need to talk with you, we’ll be in touch.”
The bell dings as he finishes speaking, and Rutledge gets up to retrieve his own haul of pizza: two pepperoni slices and two large squares of deep-dish Sicilian.
“You want a slice?” Detective Jay asks me, noticing me staring at their pizza.
I stand up and so does Alistair, following my lead.
“Look, go home and get some sleep,” says Detective Jay. “We’ll be in touch if we have any news to tell you. Thank you for all of your interesting leads. We are so sorry for your tragic loss.”
“So that’s it?” I demand.
“Unless you want any of this pizza,” says Detective Jay, grinning as he takes another bite.
Disgusted, I storm out of Joe’s Famous. The three of us walk back to the limo. We get inside and start driving, headed for the office, unsure of where else to go.
“I could try and trace the calls,” says Alistair. “Try and figure out where this Game Master is.”
“If the police don’t care, what can we even do?” I ask Angelo Marino. He stares out the window a long time, weighing my words, watching the bright lights and drunken revelers of early morning Manhattan speed by.
“I guess you keep playing,” he says.
16
The office is dark and silent. The security guard on the ground floor is surprised to see all three of us. He gives me a cool nod. We ride the elevator in silence to the top floor, to my father’s office. It’s clear from the tension that all three of us are thinking about Henley’s last moments, of the terror he must have felt as the elevator plummeted forty stories and killed him.
The abrupt cut to black as the camera was destroyed in the fall was chilling. It is the blackness that consumes us all in the end.
“Gabriella and Bernard are on their way,” says Angelo Marino, after we enter the office.
I pace back and forth, helping myself to my father’s bourbon while Alistair mumbles something again about trying to trace the game phones. He leaves. I excuse myself and go into one of the conference rooms and call Pez.
“Oh my god, Caitlyn, it’s so late at night!” he says after a few rings.
“Pez, I want to know if you’ve learned anything yet about why Henley had to come back so soon to the United States. I want to know what happened to him in China.”
“I have learned a little,” he says. “Mostly just rumors and tidbits. I don’t have anything concrete yet, though I am meeting with one of his many exes tomorrow to see what she can tell me.”
“I am specifically wondering if you know any reason why anybody might want him dead,” I ask, my voice trembling. I am trying to stay calm, but it isn’t quite working. I slowly pace around the conference room in a tight circle, like a tiny dog in a bathtub.
“I’ll know more when I talk to Sheila tomorrow,” says Pez. “She and Henley were evidently in touch these past few weeks and he went to see her as soon as he got back into town.”
Should I tell him or not? If I tell him, will he tell Sheila? Will that spook her and keep Pez from learning anything concrete from her? Or will telling her that Henley is dead let her know that the stakes are very high and there is no sense protecting any of Henley’s secrets anymore?
“Henley is dead,” I finally say. “He was killed in an elevator crash at the Empire State Building a few hours ago.”
“What?” says Pez. “I don’t understand.”
“We saw the video,” I explain. “It has to be related to the game.”
Pez doesn’t know what to say. He is stammering, searching for words.
“I think somebody is trying to kill us all,” I whisper.
“You think it’s related to this game?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Yes. I don’t know. Anyway, whatever we initially agreed upon as pay, I’m tripling your fee. But I need information and I need it fast. Anything you can find out about Henley, my father, the game—anything. I need it as soon as possible.”
“Okay,” says Pez. “I’ll keep pushing.”
“Call me every few hours,” I say. “Even if you don’t have anything new to report, I just want to know what you are doing and what leads you are working. I don’t really feel like I can trust anybody else here, you know? I don’t want to feel all alone in this.”
“You can trust me,” says Pez. “I loved your father and I love all of you kids.”
“You love everyone,” I say generously.
“I do. And I’m going back to sleep now,” he says. “So I can get right on it in the morning.”
I hang up and head back to the office, where Angelo Marino is sitting at a laptop, typing furiously. Alistair is nowhere to be seen.
“Alistair went down to R&D,” says Angelo Marino, answering my unspoken question. “I’m emailing the police. I’m typing up statements for all of you. I will need you to look over them just so there aren’t any surprises if they bring you in for questioning later.”
“What are you telling them?” I ask.
“The truth,” he says. He blesses me with one of his rare, unnatural smiles. I feel like I am being stared down by a hungry wolf, spittle foaming down its jowls.
Bernard and Gabriella show up right about the same time, and I call Alistair’s lab to bring him back up. Even when all of us are gathered together again, we don’t speak.
I realize that we are all unconsciously waiting for someone.
Henley. But he isn’t coming.
“Okay,” I say. “We have to all agree to stop playing this game. Henley was murdered. We have to find out why and who did it.”
“Murdered?!” exclaims Bernard.
“The Game Master sent us all the snuff film!” I say. “It was murder. And that means that any one of us could be next.”
“Not any one of us,” says Bernard. “Strictly speaking. Only whoever loses.”
“Right, and Alistair is down to one life, which means he’s next on the chopping block.”
“It was Dad’s game,” Bernard points out. “What are you suggesting? That somehow Dad was responsible for killing Henley?”
The notion is preposterous. Dad, a killer? Yet it makes me think back to all the rumors surroundin
g our mother’s death. To all the detectives who interviewed me, all the women they brought in wearing blue gloves who were overly nice to me, but who still asked me to tell them the same story again and again, of walking into the White Room and seeing the bright red sprayed out all over everything.
I think back to the suspicions of my mother’s family in Alabama and the ensuing custody battles over who would raise the five of us. My father had pulled my mother’s entire family out of poverty, but they weren’t even remotely grateful for it. He didn’t cut them off. But we didn’t really see them anymore after that, either. That was the trade.
We all knew that our father had nothing to do with the death of our mother. Why would a goofy patrician with a love for games and diversions, who found success in business thanks to his creative concepts, murder the mother of his five children in cold blood in the middle of the day when he was supposed to be running a scavenger hunt for all the neighborhood children?
No, it didn’t make any sense at all. Plus, we all knew how depressed our mother was. How she seemed to hate life and even seemed to hate us.
I remember when Alistair and I were entering the first grade at Aviators, the private primary school for the richest and most fashionable children in the city.
“Bet you two little shitheads think you’re really something special,” our mom told us, holding our hands like iron as she walked us down the sidewalk.
I did indeed think I was something special. In fact, I knew it. But I could tell that Alistair was freaking out on account of being forced to be around children who would be a year older than him, and he wasn’t taking it well. He was scared and upset that he wouldn’t be in the same class as the few friends he had made in kindergarten.
Our mother stopped in front of the school and sat down on the sidewalk, still holding both our hands, hanging her head. She smelled like alcohol and cigarettes and patchouli. She started weeping so hard that her shoulders shook. Her lank hair hung down in front of her face like blond curtains.
“Why did you stop here, Mommy?” asked Alistair, who was perpetually insensitive to our mother’s moods and who never knew when to just shut up and let her vent. He was always taking her moods personally, as if her insane rages and catatonic despairs had anything to do with him. He put his free hand under her arm, trying to drag her to her feet.
