Game of Death

by David Hosp

  She shakes her head. ‘Not that I’m aware. It’s not the one you’ve walked, and it’s not one I’ve ever seen before.’

  ‘What was it? What did he do?’

  ‘She was standing,’ she says, her voice just a little dreamy. ‘It was a room with velvet walls, deep red, and her wrists were chained to the ceiling, her ankles to the floor. She had on the metal collar, and that was chained to the ceiling as well. She was blindfolded.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He had this . . . thing . . . I don’t know what it was. It had this thin handle, like a pencil, and at the end of it was a wheel that had these little sharp spikes. And he was running this wheel all up and down her body.’

  ‘You mean he was cutting her?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, it was just giving her these little pricks – tiny little impulses of pain all over her body. And she loved it.’ She looks up at me. ‘She really did love it, that much was obvious.’

  ‘How did it end?’

  She closes her eyes. ‘Not well.’

  I’m not sure how to ask, but I have to know. ‘What did she look like?’

  Yvette opens her eyes. ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘Yes. What did she look like? Her eyes, were they blue with flecks of gold?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told you, she was blindfolded.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Well, what else could you tell? What color was her hair?’

  She thinks for a moment. ‘Red. Almost as red as the velvet walls.’

  I breathe a silent sigh of relief. It wasn’t my girl.

  ‘He left her hanging there,’ Yvette says quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In the end she was just hanging there, the metal collar digging into her neck.’ I look down at Yvette sitting in the chair, and I see the tears streaking down her cheek. ‘We have to catch him,’ she whispers. ‘We have to catch him before he can do this in real life.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘Seven.’

  It’s two o’clock in the morning and I am sitting in my office with Yvette and Killkenny, an array of ten photographs in front of us. Three of them are the headshots of the three murdered women. The other seven are of models identified as having been the prototypes for women who appeared in De Sade’s LifeScenes that have been GhostWalked by my people. They are all attractive and have the youthful, eager look of people who are about to be taken advantage of. In the middle of the bunch is my girl. Kendra Madison. She looks out at me from the image, her face unmistakable, her hair long and dark, her skin clear and light. The only real difference is the eyes. They stare at the camera without the sparkle and life that I have seen in them before, when I was inside De Sade’s head, looking down upon her, touching her, caressing her. Something about the image makes me feel cheated.

  ‘Seven,’ Killkenny repeats.

  ‘That we know about,’ Yvette says.

  Killkenny looks up at her sharply.

  ‘He’s a Hummer, there’s no doubt, so he falls into the category that we track with the most diligence, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve actually been in every one of his LifeScenes. There could be others that no one here has walked. I’m just pointing it out.’

  Killkenny frowns as he considers this. ‘Is there any way we can make sure that someone is GhostWalking everything that he does going forward?’

  ‘Already done,’ I say. ‘As soon as we started putting this together, I set an administrative watch to make sure we are notified every time he gets on the system.’

  ‘When was the last time?’

  I look at Yvette. She is staring at one of the images at one end of the picture array. ‘About five hours ago.’

  Killkenny looks at Yvette. ‘You walked it?’

  She nods. ‘Taylor Westerbrooke,’ she says, fingering the picture at the edge of the line-up she’s been looking at. The girl has a flood of blood-red hair and wide blue eyes. Her smile says it all; for her, the modeling session had meant that she was on the edge of stardom. This was her breakthrough. I wonder how she would feel now to know that the thousand-dollar session had led to her being a fantasy plaything for a psychotic killer. It probably wasn’t the type of fame she was looking for when she walked into the photo session.

  ‘How did he do her?’

  Yvette stabs a glare at Killkenny. ‘Which part do you mean?’

  ‘The pun was unintended. How did he kill her?’

  ‘He hanged her,’ she says. Yvette takes one last look at the image and then her eyes go to the floor.

  Killkenny looks baffled. ‘He hanged her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Yvette says sharply. I can see that the investigation is wearing on her. ‘You want to know the goddamned details?’

  ‘It’s my job,’ Killkenny says. ‘It may seem morbid to you, but yeah, getting the details is what makes it possible for me to catch him.’

  She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, lets her eyes drop to the table. Her voice is barely audible. ‘She had a metal collar that was chained to the ceiling. He was having sex with her standing up. When they both started to . . . to finish, he lifted her legs off the ground and pulled her down with her own weight. He was still inside her as she—’

  ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ I say, cutting her off, putting a hand on hers. I don’t know whether it was for her benefit or mine. I’ve lived in this world of dark fantasies for four years, learning more about the human psyche than I ever wanted to know, but it was all fake. I never thought of it as real. As the lines between NextLife and real life blur, I’m starting to feel nauseous. ‘What do we do now?’

  Killkenny takes a deep breath. ‘Well, I keep the investigation going to find this asshole. In the meantime, though, we have to talk to these women.’

  ‘To warn them?’ Yvette asks.

  ‘In part. But I also want to know if they’ve been contacted by anyone strange. If he’s picking up the pace, he may be dealing with more than one of these women at a time. Maybe he’s asking them out, or posing as a salesman to case their houses or apartments. If we can find any crossovers between people in the lives of these girls, it may help point the way.’

  ‘We need to be involved in those interviews,’ I say.

  Killkenny looks at me as though I’m crazy. ‘You? I don’t think so.’

  ‘I said when we started this that we are willing to cooperate as long as we can protect the company name. I understand that you need to talk to these girls, but I have to be there to hear what’s said and to answer any questions that they may have of NextLife. There are liability issues here that I need to address.’

  Killkenny laughs. ‘I don’t give a shit about your company’s liability issues,’ he says. ‘I only care about finding this sick fuck, and making sure he doesn’t kill any other woman. It seems to me that that ought to be your main focus as well, Nick.’

  ‘It is,’ I say. ‘That’s why we’ve been cooperating. That’s why I’m running interference with the company when I can. But I do still have responsibilities to the company to know what’s happening.’

  Killkenny shakes his head. ‘No can do,’ he says. ‘This is a police investigation, not a fuckin’ PR campaign for NextLife.’

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Anything else you need from the company, you can get through proper channels. You need to take the full names and addresses for these women? Serve a subpoena. I’m sure you’ll get the information within a few months, once the company’s lawyers have had a chance to run the request through the usual legal rigmarole. The court process can be a motherfucker, from what I hear.’

  ‘You really want to play that game?’ Killkenny shouts at me. ‘You really want to mess with these people’s lives like that?’

  ‘No, I want to fully cooperate and give you everything you need, but like I said from the beginning, there are conditions to that.’

  ‘I’ll have you brought up on charges of obstructing justice!’ Killkenny yells, standing.

  I stand, too.
‘Good. More work for the lawyers. Have fun with that!’ We are at a stand-off across the table and I have a flashback from my youth – back in the days when all those a generation ahead of us in the Charlestown rackets used to like to pit the two of us against each other, just to see who was stronger. The years have passed, but the instincts we learned are not far from the surface. We are both breathing heavily as we glare at each other. I wonder whether one of us will throw a punch. Odd as it may sound, it’s clearly a possibility. Fortunately Yvette steps in.

  ‘Sit down, both of you!’ she shouts at us.

  It breaks the spell. We continue staring at each other for a moment, but then both sit down. ‘We all have the same basic goal here,’ she continues. ‘And, Paul, you can’t possibly feel that we have been obstructing the investigation with our presence. In fact, if it wasn’t for us, it’s fair to say that you wouldn’t be half as far along as you are, right?’

  He says nothing, and it answers the question.

  ‘Good. We’re both glad we can help. We’re both offended that someone might be using our technology to practice killing these girls. And we both want to continue to help. We’ve also made clear that we have not – that we will not – put the interests of NextLife above the need to catch this man. But if you want us in on the investigation, we do need to know what’s happening. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for us to be involved in talking to these women. Hell, if we wanted to we could go out and talk to them on our own, but then we could be giving them mixed signals. Doesn’t it make sense to coordinate this, so that we all know where everyone is?’

  Killkenny considers this for a moment. ‘Alright,’ he says at last. ‘You can come to the interviews, but let me handle them – you got it?’

  ‘Of course.’ Yvette looks at me. ‘Nick?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine,’ Killkenny says. He looks at his watch. ‘It’s two-thirty. Will you be ready to start at seven-thirty? We may be able to catch a few of them before they go to work.’

  ‘I’m fine with that,’ I say. I can’t remember the last time I was actually able to sleep for more than four consecutive hours anyway.

  Killkenny looks at Yvette. ‘How about you?’ he asks. Are you coming along as well?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’ll let you boys handle the unfortunate task of interviewing the hot models. I have some things that I need to look into here.’

  ‘Things related to the case?’ Killkenny asks.

  Yvette shoots me a quick glance. ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s something else work-related.’

  She’s lying, I know. She’s going to start trying to hack into the system to see whether De Sade’s LifeScenes were created on any of the NextLife computers, but she’s being true to our agreement to share that with no one. She is, I realize again as I sit there, the most trustworthy person I have ever known.

  Killkenny nods. ‘I suppose work has to go on.’

  ‘It does,’ she agrees. ‘And I need to talk to Nick about what I’m doing before he leaves. He is technically my boss.’

  Killkenny looks back and forth between the two of us. ‘In name only, I’m sure,’ he says. It occurs to me that he has no idea how close to the truth this is. He stands up, pulls his coat off the back of his chair. ‘I’m going to grab a smoke and a couple of hours’ sleep.’ To me he says, ‘Meet me in front of my apartment at seven-thirty, and bring the list of addresses.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I say. I still can’t bring my tone to be friendly, but it’s neutral. That should be enough.

  ‘Thanks, Yvette,’ he says.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  He looks at me, nods and walks out of the office.

  ‘Asshole,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘Yeah, you should be good together in that way.’

  ‘Nice. You said you needed to talk?’

  She walks over to the office door and peers out onto the floor. The place is three-quarters filled with my staff, reclining in their overstuffed chairs, peeking into the fantasies of the company’s loyal users, no one knowing that they are being watched and catalogued to enable us to analyze and create new products to keep them coming back – to keep them pushing holes in the barrier between real-life daydreams. I can see Killkenny walking out of the main door at the far end of the floor. She watches him leave and closes the door.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure you weren’t making a liar out of me,’ she says, studying my face as she speaks.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I have an idea, but I want to hear it from her.

  ‘I told Killkenny that your priority is to find this guy. That that is more important to you than protecting the company. I need to know that I wasn’t lying; that it’s the truth.’

  ‘It is,’ I say. ‘It is the truth.’

  I can tell that she is trying to decide whether or not she believes me. ‘Why do you need to be there when Killkenny talks to these girls?’

  ‘I said why,’ I point out. ‘We need to know what’s happening. If they have any questions that they want to ask the company, then we need someone there to know that those questions are addressed. NextLife hired these girls, after all.’

  ‘That’s it?’ she asks. ‘It’s not so that if you find out that someone connected to the company is contacting these people, you can warn the company and protect whoever it is that’s doing this?’

  ‘It’s not so I can protect the company.’ That much is absolutely the truth.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘How can you ask me that?’

  She makes a face. ‘What do you mean: how? I know how much stock you have in this company. I know how much that’s worth if we go public. It’s millions. Tens of millions, probably. Greater men have been tempted by less.’

  ‘I’ve never been a greater man,’ I point out.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she says. ‘I don’t care how aloof you are, that’s a lot of money. I couldn’t blame you for wanting to balance the need to catch De Sade against your own interests. No one would.’

  ‘Yes, you would. And you know me better than that.’

  ‘I thought I did,’ she says. ‘Once I really thought I did.’ She’s looking me right in the eyes and I find it difficult to meet her gaze. I force myself to, though.

  ‘I haven’t changed.’

  ‘No? I’m not sure.’

  ‘You worry too much.’

  ‘And there’s no other reason you want to hear what these women have to say?’

  ‘None.’ I hold her look with all the effort I can muster.

  ‘Okay,’ she says. We stand there for a moment, looking at each other. It’s the first time I can ever remember being with her when I felt uncomfortable. I’ve felt other things with her – amused, frustrated, angry, annoyed, turned on, happy – but there’s always been a level of comfort that sat as the bedrock of our relationship. Then again, I’ve never lied to her before. Now it feels as though a tremor is running through that bedrock and, as slight as the shift is, it still feels as though it could tear a building down.

  ‘Are you going home?’ I ask. ‘I could give you a ride.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’m not tired, and I want to get started hacking. It’s quiet now, not a bad time to begin.’

  ‘Okay. I’m gonna try to get a little bit of sleep.’

  ‘I understand.’

  I grab the handle to my office door, turn it. Before I can open it, though, she says, ‘Nick?’ I turn around to look at her. She is a beautiful creature, I’m reminded. Even now – at two in the morning, with her hair wild and streaked, in the same clothes she’s been wearing for close to a day, no makeup, no pretense – she is beautiful and strong and hard. For the first time, though, I can see a softer side. A sadder side. Perhaps, even, a damaged side.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m here,’ she says. ‘I’m a friend, and nothing can change that.’ Her face is, as it so often is, set against emotion. And yet there’s something else there, tugging at the corner
s of her eyes.

  ‘I appreciate that,’ I say. ‘I really do.’

  I open the door and step out onto the floor. I look around the strange invented world in which I spend my life and, for the first time in twenty years, I wonder how well Yvette and I really know each other.

  My car is parked on the street, two blocks north of the warehouse. It’s a clear night and the moon is in its ascendancy, just a few evenings from being full. With the stars, it casts a light that makes it feel as though it’s not really nighttime. I think this must be what it’s like up in Alaska or Greenland during the summer, when it never really gets dark, but only dims a bit.

  There’s no one around as the hour approaches three. It is the heart of the night, when the latest partiers have stumbled home and the earliest risers are still more than an hour from dragging their weary asses out of bed. I think of it as the quiet time, when only the night shift and the lonely are conscious. Many of the lonely are on our website now, strapped in, exploring who they might be in a different reality; looking for loves lost and hoping that they might, too, be looking for them; seeking out the random and the strange and the dangerous. It’s a relatively high-traffic time of the day for NextLife, which is why we still have nearly a full complement of Walkers active. In Bombay it’s early afternoon, and our outsourced support staff are taking technical calls. Here, the vampires of our emerging online world are crawling over the World Wide Web, looking for others like them, or others to prey upon.

  I hear the noise, and it takes a moment for it to register. I assume it’s merely some college kid getting an early start on the day’s walk of shame, getting home from some random, ill-advised hook-up. Stumbling, head down, muttering to himself . . .

  Something about it, though, raises an alarm in the back of my head. I think there’s something about growing up on the streets of a rough neighborhood. Of necessity you develop an inexplicable instinct about the world around you: what fits, and what doesn’t; which movements are harmless, and which could be a threat.

  I turn quickly and see a shadow duck into an alleyway ten yards up the street. ‘Who’s there?’ I call, but there’s no answer. I hear a bottle being kicked down the alley, rolling and bouncing loudly off the uneven bricks before it cracks. Against my better instincts I walk toward the alley, keeping my footsteps soft, creeping up on the corner as quietly as I can. I can feel my heart beating in my throat as I move.