Endgame

by Jeffrey Round

  As they reached the song’s climax, the room was abuzz in a roar of combined voices when the word “MURDERERS” appeared briefly then faded out again. On-screen, the band’s instruments thrashed but, except for Crispin’s, the singing in the room died instantly.

  “What the hell is this?” Spike demanded.

  A new face suddenly appeared on screen, that of a vivacious, smiling young woman. Sami Lee screamed.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Max shouted.

  “What’s happened?” Crispin asked, startled by the sudden outburst.

  “It’s that girl!” Pete said, gasping for breath.

  “What girl?” Crispin said. “Is someone here?”

  The face, friendly and young, faded along with all the others. The words “THE VICTIM” appeared on screen and held a moment before fading out again. A final phrase followed: “ALL THE MURDERERS WERE FOUND GUILTY AND SENTENCED TO DEATH.” The song ended and the screen went black.

  For a moment there was absolute silence in the room, then everyone started talking at once.

  “What is going on here?”

  “… who was that?”

  “Is this some sick joke?”

  “… a ridiculous game.”

  “Will someone please tell me what the fuck is happening?”

  “This is preposterous …”

  “… in very bad taste.”

  “Everyone shut up NOW!”

  The final voice was Max’s.

  The chattering died. Holding the shattered pieces of the cup and saucer, Sandra sank into the last empty chair. The eleven people seated in the room looked at one another in bewilderment.

  After a moment, Edwards stood and went to the DVD player. He looked at it as though it might yield some clue to the video they’d just watched. Then he flipped the switch and the screen died. He sat back down, holding his head in his hands.

  “Where’s Harvey?” Max demanded. “I want an explanation for this!” He turned to Edwards. “Where is your fucking boss?”

  Edwards shook his head. “I don’t know. He said he was coming. I haven’t heard a word from him since he instructed me to start the video.”

  “Well, when did you last see him?” Max insisted. “Was he in the village on the mainland?”

  Edwards looked up with a strained expression. “I don’t know. I … I’ve never met him.”

  “What?” Max was incredulous. “You mean he hired you without meeting you in person?”

  Edwards nodded.

  “Why were you in the video?” Spike asked.

  “I have no idea,” Edwards replied with a stunned look. “That footage was taken at a private party years ago. I didn’t know Harvey Keill then, either. I have no idea how he got hold of it. I just applied last week for a job as a general handyman, cook, and boat driver. The ad was in a local paper that was left in my mailbox. It’s the sort of job I’ve been doing here for the last few years. I sent off a letter with my resumé and got word by phone that I’d been hired and was to report immediately for Shark Island.”

  “What about you?” Max said to Sandra. “Have you met him?”

  The timid-looking woman shook her head fearfully. “Never,” she said in a whisper. “I was hired over the phone, too. Someone called to say I’d been recommended.”

  “Who by?” Max asked.

  “I don’t know. He never said.”

  Spike turned to the group. “I think Harvey’s playing one of his very bad jokes on us …”

  “It’s not a joke if he’s accusing us of murder,” Janice said in a subdued voice. “That’s what I think.”

  “Well, Harvey can go fuck himself,” Max said. “Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything. Except for Sandra and Edwards, everybody in that video was someone we used to know back in our party days. All good people. Good fucking people.” Here, he looked carefully over the crowd. “And most of those people are in this room right now.”

  “But not everybody in that film is still alive,” Pete told them.

  “That’s right,” Spike said. “Kent’s dead. And there were a few others I haven’t seen or heard of in years. Like Newt Merton and Werner Temple.”

  “That little creep Werner,” Max said, shaking his head. “God knows I hope never to run into him again. The sight of him makes me sick.”

  Heads turned at the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. Noni Embrem stood before them, his drink outstretched as though he were about to make another toast. Something about his face said otherwise, however. His mouth hung open and his eyes looked wildly about the room. He seemed to be gasping for breath. He swayed before them, then dropped his glass and fell to the floor with a thud.

  Sandra knelt, feeling his neck for a pulse.

  “Ice,” she said to Edwards. “Get me some ice and wrap it in a towel.”

  She began to apply pressure on Noni’s ribs, pushing down and releasing again, repeating the action. Edwards returned with ice wrapped in a hand towel. Sandra looked up, a stricken expression on her face.

  “He’s dead,” she said.

  “What?” Janice looked down at Noni. “How? How can he be dead? He was all right at supper.”

  Sandra removed her fingers from Noni’s neck and sat back. “It must have been a heart attack. It was … very sudden.”

  “Well, do something! Aren’t you a trained nurse?” Sami Lee demanded, her eyes flashing.

  Sandra shook her head. “I don’t have the proper equipment for this sort of thing. We’re not prepared for emergencies. If I had a defibrillator, I might’ve been able to save him. But there’s nothing on the island,” she said, with a panicked look. “Really, you’ve got to believe me. There’s nothing I can do.”

  Edwards knelt and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “We understand.”

  “It was that fucking video,” Spike said angrily. “That’s what caused his heart attack. He’d just been accused of murder …”

  He let the statement hang in the air.

  “It was awful,” Janice said, shaken.

  “Harvey will pay for this,” Max said, looking around the room.

  The others stood there silently, looking everywhere but at the dead man lying on the rug at their feet.

  “I suggest we should all think about making it an early night,” Edwards said after a moment. “The storm is nearly on us. I’ll make some calls. There’s nothing more we can do till the morning.”

  In all the commotion, no one had noticed how the wind had increased outside. They all heard it now.

  “I agree with Mr. Edwards,” said Sandra, looking around at the others.

  There were murmurs of assent around the room as one by one the guests started to drift off, glad to leave the problem in someone else’s hands. Crispin, Verna, and David headed upstairs immediately. Sami Lee and Max left next. Janice remained standing in the room with Spike and Pete.

  “Do you really think the video caused it?” Janice said.

  “It’s impossible to say,” Edwards told her gently.

  “But why would Harvey accuse us all of murder?” She shivered. “He was as much a part of it as anyone —”

  Spike gave her a sharp look. Janice broke off.

  “Nobody’s guilty of murder,” Pete said forcefully. “It was an accident. We all agreed —” He, too, left his statement unfinished.

  “It’s awful,” Janice said, looking down at the dead man. “I can’t believe he’s gone, just like that. I suppose it could happen to any of us, really.”

  “I used to see it at the hospital,” Sandra told her. “You never really get used it, but it happens all the same.”

  Janice sighed. “I suppose. But I’m far from used to it.”

  She put a hand to her head. “I’m getting an awful headache. Do you have anything for it?”
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  Sandra nodded and stood. “Yes,” she said. “Come with me. I can fix you up.”

  The two women went off together.

  After they’d gone, Edwards looked at Pete and Spike. “I hate to ask, but would you mind helping me move the body?”

  Pete’s head hung down on his chest. He was waiting for the Voice to speak. It had been oddly silent all this time, but something felt imminent.

  “Where do you want to put it?” Spike said.

  Him, the Voice said at last. It was almost a relief when it finally spoke. The Voice’s silence unnerved him almost as much as the things it told him to do.

  “Him,” Pete corrected.

  “Yeah, sure. Him. It. Whatever,” Spike said in a subdued tone.

  Edwards drew a deep breath. “There are no vacant rooms. For now, we should just bring Mr. Embrem upstairs and put him on his bed.” He shook his head. “I doubt there’s much chance this will turn out to be a mistake and he’ll wake up in the middle of the night, but if he does, I think he’d want to be somewhere comfortable rather than out in the boathouse or somewhere like that.”

  The three men carried Noni’s body up the stairs. They had just placed him on his bed when Max appeared in the doorway watching them.

  “Harvey will pay for this,” he repeated malevolently then turned and went back into his room.

  Downstairs, the Voice said unexpectedly to Pete. For a moment, he looked around to see if anyone else had heard it, but of course no one else ever heard the Voice. He waited a beat then slipped back down to the drawing room.

  At first, everything appeared as it had when Noni fell and died. Outside, the wind whined fiercely in the trees and thrashed around the chimney. The storm was on them at last. Pete looked around the room, wondering what the Voice wanted him to see. Then he spotted it. A second chess piece — a black knight — lay on its side next to the white pawn. Ten figures remained upright.

  Pete thought about it for a moment and decided he wouldn’t say anything about it to anybody else. Not unless the Voice told him to, of course. It might not mean anything to anybody else. Of course, someone could have accidentally knocked against the board in all the confusion after Noni fell. But he didn’t think that was what happened. To Pete, it was clearly a sign of something.

  Something bad.

  Chapter 11

  Pete stood in the middle of the room staring down at the ivory pieces. How often had he felt like a pawn on the chessboard of life? Even when he’d acted the king, he knew he wasn’t one. Still, everyone had taken from him as though he were some kind of monarch with bottomless pockets — first his mother, then later his girlfriends. But when the fame faded and the money dried up shortly after, they’d all left him. It hadn’t been him but the money they’d wanted, after all. His mother had gone first, when he could no longer support her drug habit. Rachel went soon after, letting him know just how unnecessary he was: But you’re nobody now, Pete. Why would I stay with you? At least they were up front about it. He’d never had any real power, not even in the group. It had all been, “Pete, do this,” and “Pete, play it like that.” No questions asked. He’d been too timid and shy, really, under the armour of being a tough punk. In truth, he had no spine. Without the group, he was nothing.

  But that girl, Zerin, she would have been different. He could tell just by talking to her the few times they’ d met that she really cared about him. If she’d lived, she might have become the queen to his king, because he knew deep down inside there was a real king underneath it all. A noble, kind king who rewarded the people who were loyal to him. But Zerin died and that was tragic. For that, he blamed all the others, but most especially he blamed Spike. In Pete’s mind, it was Spike’s fault for inviting her to the party in the first place. And then later for abandoning her. For leaving her on her own where …

  He shook his head. He didn’t like to think about that, either.

  Pete looked over the instruments, thinking back on the times when the band performed together. All had been going well until that stupid party. The Voice hadn’t been talking to him yet, otherwise it might have warned him not to get involved. It had also been oddly silent on the question of whether or not to come to the island today. But then he had no choice, had he? He needed this opportunity as much as he needed the money.

  Still, the signs weren’t good. His thoughts returned to the dead man. Seeing Noni Embrem standing at the dock when they arrived had been a bad sign. He knew it as soon as he recognized Noni as the man in the red Saab that almost ran him down. A very bad sign. And Noni Embrem was a very bad man. Everyone knew what he’d done, but no one was willing to admit it, even now.

  He was still standing by the stage when Max and Spike returned. Max came up and put an arm around Pete’s shoulders. Together, they stood looking down at the spot where Noni had fallen and died.

  “Poor son of a bitch,” said Max, with genuine feeling.

  Pete eyed him. “Poor son of a bitch, nothing! The man was a slimeball, pure and simple. We all knew it.”

  Max’s mouth fell open. “Hey! Have some respect for the fucking dead. And have some respect for the man who saved your ass from jail once upon a fucking time.”

  Pete hung his head in silence.

  Spike looked at Max. “Pete’s right, though. Noni was once a well-respected civil rights lawyer. That all changed when he got us off the murder rap. After that, he began taking on bikers and corporate sleazeballs who’d wiped out pension funds for thousands of employees. And he got them all off, one at a time. It was like we handed him the key to a new world of depravity.”

  Max glared at him. “Wake up, Spike. What do you think lawyers do for a living?”

  Spike shook his head. “Noni didn’t need to go in that direction. His reputation was spotless in the beginning. He went from being a minority superhero to a slimeball who would take on any case, no matter how vile, for money. The world hated him, but by then he was rich, so he didn’t care.”

  “Yeah, well — tough. He’s dead and we’re alive, so don’t get hung up on it. And when did you get so lily white? He saved our asses once, so at least be grateful for that.”

  “True,” Spike said softly. “I never liked the way he went about doing it, but it’s done and behind us.”

  “He hung the rap on the bugger who was responsible,” Max said in an angry undertone. “Never forget that.”

  Spike sighed and cast a glance over the stage setup. “So what are we going to do now? I guess once Harvey gets here in the morning this will all be over.”

  Max eyed him. “Hell, no! We’re not turning back now.” He stabbed Spike in the chest with a stubby finger. “We are not giving up this opportunity. We’re gonna complete that record and we are going back on tour.” He turned to Pete. “Right, Pete?”

  Pete shrugged. “If you say so, Max.”

  Max nodded hungrily. “I definitely say so. Ladykillers will ride again.” He paused to think for a moment. “Tomorrow we send the women home when they take Noni’s body away. Then, when Harvey gets here, we’ll put trouble aside and get down to business. Agreed?”

  The three men exchanged glances. They all nodded at once.

  “Good. I’m gonna have another spliff and then I’m off to bed. Tomorrow’s gonna be a busy day.”

  Max plucked a joint from the bowl in the parlour, then headed upstairs. Passing an open door, he saw Janice pacing the length of the room. Sandra sat on the bed, going through a first aid kit.

  “I hope it’s not a migraine,” Janice was saying. “They have a tendency to strike when I get stressed.”

  She’d inherited the trait from her mother, Ruth, a chronically worried and unhappy woman who grew up in Holland after the war before moving to the States. She’d passed the whole bag of nervous headaches and fears along to Sarah Wynberg, a.k.a. Janice Sandford, her only daughter. When her mother lay dying, her last re
quest was to be buried in the homeland. They’d all thought she meant Israel, but she was talking about Amsterdam. All that angst. Who could live with it? You didn’t grow up the child of Old World Jews and escape the non-stop stories, Janice knew. Better to create your own stories and escape from it all.

  Sandra looked up at Janice with a sympathetic expression. “I’d say this certainly qualifies as stressful.”

  “Stress?” For a moment, Janice thought Sandra had read her mind, but then she remembered she’d mentioned stress a moment before. My memory’s going too, she thought. But I’ll worry about that later. “Yes, it’s the stress,” she agreed.

  Sandra continued to look through the kit then dug for something at the bottom. She held up a transparent orange vial with a white top.

  “Here,” she said, unscrewing the cap. “It’s codeine. It should help. You’ll sleep well with this.”

  Her hands quivered a little. Funny how she hadn’t noticed the container earlier. Probably a good thing considering her … tendencies.

  Janice stopped pacing and looked over at the side table where she already had a vial of sleeping tablets at hand. But the ones Sandra was offering were free. Why not try them?

  Sandra shook two tablets into Janice’s outstretched hand. Before she could get the cap back on, she let two more fall into her palm. Quickly, before Janice noticed, she slipped them into her pocket.

  Just then there was a sharp knock on the door. Spike’s head poked in.

  “Everything okay in here?” he asked.

  The two women turned to look at him.

  “Yes,” Janice told him. “I just needed something for a headache.”

  “All right.” Spike hesitated. “Sleep tight, then.”

  When he’d gone, Janice sat beside Sandra on the bed.

  “I …”

  Sandra watched her with concern. “You can tell me,” she said. “Whatever it is, it’s safe with me.”

  “That girl,” Janice said. “The one at the end of the video.” She shook her head. “She, um, took something at a party in my home. It was ecstasy. She died.”