Game of Death

by David Hosp

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asks.

  Killkenny asks, ‘Is Kendra Madison here?’ He holds up his badge. ‘BPD,’ he says.

  She tilts her head at him. ‘Is that real?’

  He tilts his head back at her. ‘Is she here?’

  She looks at him for a moment, rolls her head back and calls over her shoulder, ‘Kenny! Cops are here for you!’ She looks back at Killkenny and says, ‘She’ll be right with you.’ She closes the door in our face.

  ‘Interesting,’ Killkenny says.

  A moment later the door opens again, and she is standing there in front of us. Her face is almost exactly as it is in De Sade’s LifeScene. Her skin is smooth and clear and creamy, the lines of her jaw and her cheekbones even and perfect. Only her eyes seem different. I can see just a hint of fatigue in them – a world-weariness that is not evident in the fantasy – but other than that there is simply no denying that it is her. She’s wearing a short black skirt and a thin silk blouse that clings to her skin. Her legs are covered to the calf in black leather boots. She’s nearly looking me in the eyes, and I’m almost six feet tall, but from the look of it, she’s borrowing at least three inches of that from the heels on the boots. Her black hair falls straight, covering her shoulders and spilling down to the swell of her breasts. Around her neck she’s wearing a black satin choker with a small silver cross nestled in the cleft between her collarbones. She looks at both of us with a confident, unafraid expression and says in a clear voice, ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’

  ‘Kendra Madison?’

  ‘My friends call me Kenny.’

  ‘We’re not friends.’

  ‘Not yet.’ She gives a mischievous little smile. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘We’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  Killkenny looks around the porch. ‘Is there any chance we can come in?’

  She considers this. ‘For just a moment,’ she says. She opens the door and we walk in. The house has narrow hallways, and small rooms. From where we are standing we can see down a long passage to a kitchen, where there are two or three young women talking. The girl who answered the door looks down toward us with suspicion and closes the kitchen door.

  We are cramped in the entryway, and Kendra leads us into a larger room that looks like a sitting room. There are couches along the walls, and several tall tables with chairs around them. In a corner there is a small bar. ‘What is this place?’ Killkenny asks.

  ‘It’s my home,’ she says. ‘I rent out some of the rooms to other girls to help make ends meet. Gillian mentioned that you gentlemen are with the police department.’

  ‘Boston Police Department,’ Killkenny says. ‘Not Sommerville.’

  ‘Do you mind if I see your badges? I find them so impressive.’ She smiles as she says this, but there is no mirth in her eyes. Killkenny takes out his badge and holds it up. ‘Can I hold it?’ she asks.

  He hesitates, but hands it over. She studies it, comparing the picture on the identification to the man standing in front of her. ‘Detective Paul Killkenny,’ she says. ‘Just as I said, very impressive.’ She hands it back to him and looks at me. ‘Can I see yours, too?’

  ‘He’s not on the force,’ Killkenny says quickly.

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘No?’

  ‘No, he’s helping me with an investigation.’

  She’s looking at me, and I feel like she can see through my skin. ‘Is he allowed to speak for himself?’

  ‘I’m helping the detective with an investigation,’ I say.

  ‘We have agreement on that, at least. What is this about?’

  ‘We just have a few questions, and then we can get out of your hair,’ Killkenny says.

  ‘Are you planning on getting into my hair?’

  Killkenny smiles, but I can see that he’s on the defensive now. ‘As I said, just a few questions.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You did some modeling for a company called NextLife a few years ago, is that right?’

  She moves over to one of the raised tables. There’s a pack of cigarettes there and she picks it up, slides one out and puts it between her teeth. ‘Either of you have a light?’

  I shake my head. It feels like she’s stalling, though it’s not clear why.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ Killkenny lies.

  ‘A couple of regular Boy Scouts, huh?’ She walks over to the bar and bends over, reaching across the wooden top and digging behind it, coming up with a pack of matches. As I watch her, there’s a part of me that wants to scream that I’m not a Boy Scout. There’s a part of me that wants to tell her exactly what I am thinking at that moment, but I keep quiet.

  ‘Getting back to my question . . . ’ Killkenny says.

  She comes back to the table, lights the cigarette, takes a deep drag, holds it in her lungs and blows it back out. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I did some modeling for them. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘A little over four years ago, right?’

  ‘That sounds about right.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about the job?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like anything? Do you remember anything about the people who were there?’

  ‘Sure. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Do you remember who they were?’

  She takes another drag on her cigarette. ‘The photographer’s name was Todd Pritzker. He’s a local Boston guy, does pretty good work. Frankly, the job was a waste of his talents.’

  Killkenny is visibly surprised. ‘How so?’

  ‘They weren’t looking to interpret the female form,’ she says with a laugh. ‘They were looking to record it. They might as well have used a giant Xerox machine. I stood there, au naturel, as they snapped close-ups. Not exactly an Annie Leibovitz moment. Still, I suppose it served their purposes.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘Have you never been on the site?’

  ‘Humor me, sweetheart.’

  ‘I’m not your sweetheart.’ She flicks the ashes into a tray on the table. ‘Remember that, Detective.’

  Killkenny laughs. ‘I get the sense you’re everyone’s sweetheart. What were the pictures for?’

  She scowls at him. ‘They used us as the models for the LifeScene computer images. It’s not all us, necessarily; it’s more of a mix-and-match thing. You can take this girl’s face with that girl’s tits, and another girl’s ass. Put them in a dress, or not, depending on what you’re trying for. It’s not the perfect substitute for reality, but as far as the technology is concerned, it’s impressive enough.’

  ‘You remember anything else about the shoot? Anything about the company people who were there? Anything at all, or have I taxed your brain?’ Killkenny’s tone is dismissive, and I feel somehow like I should come to her defense. It’s a stupid instinct.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll answer any more questions from you,’ she says.

  ‘Are you refusing to cooperate with the police?’

  ‘I’m refusing to cooperate with you,’ she says. ‘I’ll answer questions from your non-cop friend, if you want.’ She looks at me as she puts her lips to the cigarette again. Killkenny looks at me, sweeps his arm, inviting me to take over.

  I clear my throat. ‘Do you remember who the other men at the photo shoot were?’

  She smiles at me. ‘I do,’ she says. She doesn’t continue.

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘One of them was Dr Santar Gunta. He’s one of the founders of the company, and he’s the one who is primarily responsible for the development of the technology. He’s Pakistani. Most people think he’s Indian, because he’s Hindu, but he grew up in Pakistan. Weird guy, not particularly warm and fuzzy. I got the feeling he found women distasteful – particularly when they were naked in front of him. I couldn’t tell whether that was because he wasn’t interested in women, or whether it was because he was too interested in women. Oh, yeah, and he smelled like good pipe tobacco, which I thought wa
s weird because I didn’t see him smoking.’

  I look over at Killkenny as the details pour from Kendra’s lips. He’s looking at her in astonishment.

  ‘Who else?’ I ask.

  ‘Let’s see, there was Michael François. He was a programmer, I think, and Dr Gunta’s primary assistant. He was the youngest of them there, and the nicest. Very good-looking too. There was another programmer as well . . . Sam something . . . I can’t remember his last name. He didn’t make much of an impression on me.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  She gives me a coy look. ‘Is this a test?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Well, I saved the best for last, then.’ She takes a drag of her cigarette, closing her eyes as though it’s a last rite. ‘Josh Pinkerton,’ she says, almost wistfully. ‘The man behind the company. The CEO of NextLife, and God’s gift to Internet companies. He’s thirty-nine, good-looking – not as good-looking as you,’ she bats her eyes mockingly at me, ‘but nothing to sneeze at. He’s a man who likes the ladies and isn’t afraid to make that clear. He was in the background during the actual shoot; I don’t think his skills lie in the technical functioning of the system, but he was every bit the face of the company. And he’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars.’ She closes her eyes, as if dreaming of the money.

  ‘You have a remarkable memory,’ I say. ‘I’m impressed.’

  She laughs. ‘I think we can stop the games now, don’t you?’

  I look over at Killkenny, who shrugs. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  She looks back and forth between the two of us. ‘C’mon, fellas, we’re among friends, aren’t we? Let’s put our cards on the table.’

  I’m confused, and it must show on my face. She gets a look on her face like she has said too much. ‘How is it that you remember all that detail?’ I ask.

  ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  She polishes off her cigarette, stubs it out in the ashtray. ‘How should I put this? We . . . dated,’ she says.

  ‘Who?’ I ask.

  ‘Me and Josh Pinkerton.’ She looks up at me and I’m sure she sees the shock, and at least a hint of jealousy and disappointment, on my face. ‘For almost four years.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘You and I met once.’

  I’m still digesting Kendra’s story, and her words don’t register at first. Over the course of the past fifteen minutes she’s summarized her four-year relationship with Pinkerton, beginning with the moment he walked over to her as she was putting her clothes back on at the photo shoot. He was aggressive, she says, and always demanding in their relationship. He was also clear that, given his role in the business, and the need for him to keep up his profile, their relationship couldn’t be public. In his view he needed to project youth, and that was more easily done by a CEO unburdened by public attachments. I’m still thinking about all this, and it takes a moment for me to hear what she’s said to me.

  ‘We met?’

  ‘We did.’

  I shake my head. ‘I would have remembered that.’

  ‘That’s sweet. It happened, though. Josh used to get me into company events from time to time. We couldn’t talk, of course, but he said he liked to look at me.’ I sense a shudder from her. ‘I thought you looked familiar when I first saw you. Now it’s all making sense. ‘You’re Nick Caldwell. You were Tom Jackson’s friend, and you were brought in a few years ago. You were going to work with him on product development and analysis, right?’

  I nod. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘God, Josh had such high hopes for you. He said from what Tom had told him, and from what he saw in those first few months, that he thought you might end up running the company some day.’ I look at her sharply, trying to gauge whether she’s playing me. I can see no evidence of it. ‘After he’d taken as much money out of the place as he could for himself, of course.’

  That did sound like something Pinkerton would say. ‘Of course,’ I agree.

  ‘What happened with you and Pinkerton that ended it?’ Killkenny asks. It startles me; for a few moments I’d forgotten that he was still in the room. ‘That’s an awful lot of money to walk away from. I would have thought that a woman like you would have hung on to the death.’

  She looks at him for a moment, and just for a brief instant I think she’s not going to answer his question. She does, though, meeting his eyes as she speaks. ‘Money’s important to me, Detective,’ she admits. ‘I like to eat. I like to have a roof over my head. I like to feel like I can take care of myself. If you knew anything about how I grew up, that might make sense to you. But I’m not putting up with anyone’s bullshit for any amount of money. Not if they think it means they own me.’

  ‘So you ended it with him?’ Killkenny sounds incredulous.

  ‘Yes, I did. He began trying to run my life, and when I made it clear that I wouldn’t play that game, he got violent.’

  ‘Josh?’ It surprises me. I’ve always known that he’s a bit of an asshole, but I didn’t see him as the type to beat women.

  She nods. ‘Him and that psycho who runs his security.’

  ‘NetMaster?’

  ‘Yes, NetMaster. Not a pleasant man.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  She’s looking down and her head whips around on me, her face deadly serious. ‘No, it doesn’t. I got away, that’s all that matters.’

  ‘And we’re supposed to believe this?’ Killkenny says.

  ‘You can believe whatever you want, Detective. If you want the full story, you can ask Tom Jackson. He helped me get away, and he kept Josh from going off the deep end. I’m not saying it solved the problem, but it made it better. I’m pretty sure Josh keeps tabs on me, but I’m far more careful now, so I think I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Tom helped you,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. He’s the only one there I’d ever trust. He’s the only one who sees the company for what it is and what it could be – the good and the bad. You want some free advice, I’d keep your wagon hitched to his. He’s the one who knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘He’s a good man,’ I say. ‘He helped me when I was in trouble.’

  ‘I know.’ She smiles at me, and it cuts to my heart. ‘I told you, we met.’ She lights another cigarette and, as strange as it seems, I want to tell her to stop. I have some instinctive need to protect her, and as the flame touches the tobacco and the tip glows like the embers of an inferno, all I can think of is my mother strapped to her oxygen tank. I have to fight the urge to say something. ‘So, you two really didn’t know about me and Josh,’ she comments. ‘Which means you’re not here investigating him. I assumed when you started asking about NextLife that you were going to ask me some questions about Josh.’

  Why would you assume that?’ Killkenny asks.

  She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You read all the time about CEOs getting in trouble with the law. And think about the information they have – the chances for abuse.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. Again, it seems as though she feels she’s said too much. ‘I just assumed you wanted to ask about Josh because we were together.’ She blows a huge, perfect smoke ring. It hangs in the heavy air in the sitting room, swirling in an ever-expanding circle, losing its definition until I can’t even tell whether it’s still there. ‘So if you’re not here to ask about Josh, why are you here?’

  ‘We’re here investigating three murders,’ Killkenny says.

  ‘Murders?’ She sounds shocked. Who was murdered?’

  ‘Three of the other girls who were part of the modeling for the NextLife avatar library.’

  She looks at Killkenny, clearly trying to judge whether he’s telling the truth. He just nods at her. ‘How were they killed?’

  ‘They were all the victims of sexual assaults that culminated in their murders.’ Killkenny relays the in
formation in a cold, clinical manner. He could have done it with more tact, but I think he’s getting back at her for refusing to answer his questions before. ‘We think he goes on NextLife to practice the murders, and then when he feels he’s ready, he goes out and does it for real.’

  ‘How does he get the girls’ names? It’s not like they’re on the website.’ She’s smart, and she’s working through the implications quickly. ‘Which means,’ she continues, ‘that he’s getting the names from the company somehow.’ It takes only a matter of seconds for her to make the next logical leap. ‘Which means it’s probably someone who actually works at the company and has access to the records.’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Killkenny says. ‘But it’s certainly one possibility.’

  ‘There have to be hundreds of girls who modeled for the project,’ she says. ‘Are you talking to all of them?’ She’s looking at me as she asks the question. I shake my head slowly. ‘Great,’ she says. ‘So you have a particular reason to talk to me, which apparently has nothing to do with the fact that I dated the CEO.’

  ‘We’re just taking precautions,’ Killkenny says.

  ‘Has he practiced my murder?’

  ‘We can’t talk about specifics.’

  For the first time I can see real vulnerability in her eyes. She’s scared, and she’s clearly not used to being scared. ‘Has he?’ she asks again. Now she is looking only at me, her eyes locked with mine. They aren’t exactly the same as the eyes I’ve seen before in the LifeScene. They’re missing the luminous flecks of gold and silver, but they have so much of the life that I’ve seen before, when looking down at her from De Sade’s vantage point as his hands go to her throat. Her eyes are begging now, just as they have when the oxygen is cut off. I’ve been powerless in the LifeScene, but I’m not powerless now.

  I nod. ‘He has.’

  ‘Nick!’ Killkenny shouts at me. ‘This is a police investigation!’