by G. H. Ephron
“Usually I skip this part,” Jeff said.
The voice went on to explain that we were on a planet where survivors of Earth’s final war had taken refuge. Once again, humans were under siege, this time from a force of alien invaders.
Then the face of the Seer was replaced by the interior of a cave, walls and passageways lit by torches. Jeff did something with the mouse or the keyboard—he was moving so fast I couldn’t tell which did what—and the knife reappeared. We were propelled forward, through a series of dark tunnels, up a rough-hewn staircase, onto a ledge. Then a leap, and we continued through a new tunnel, around stalagmites.
“Hear that sound?” Jeff asked.
I hadn’t noticed it before but there was a steady beating, sharper than a drum sound, more like boot heels on cement. “Is that our footsteps?” I asked.
“It’s the guy following us. No need to worry. Yet.”
From behind a boulder, a red creature leaped out, pincers lashing. It looked like a scorpion crossed with an octopus. With a sweep of the knife, Jeff cut off an arm. Green blood spurted from the wound. Then the sound of an explosion. All that was left of a second alien was a green puddle with bits of red in it—the handiwork of the grenade, I assumed.
A human figure emerged from behind the rock, a woman in dark clothing with her hands tied. Jeff clicked on her and the bonds came free. An array of green numbers hovered briefly in a corner of the screen.
“What was that?” I asked.
“That was our score. I fragged two aliens, freed a hostage. Now I get a quantum generator.”
Fragged? Quantum generator? Jeff was already moving forward again, and now he had a new weapon that looked like a machine gun with a glowing red trigger. The sound of footsteps had grown louder.
“This was one of the first games where the object wasn’t to frag everything in sight,” he said. “You’ve got to watch out for the hostages. If you frag one of them, you die … Shit.”
An alien had dropped down from overhead. Jeff shot but missed. A smoking hole appeared in the stone wall alongside the creature. “This is a cool weapon. It opens up a vortex that sucks in anything nearby. Got to be careful, though, not to suck yourself in.” Jeff shot again. This time, there was an explosion and the alien shrank to a candle flame that went out with a sizzle.
It was odd watching Jeff, who’d up to now impressed me as a passive kind of person, so completely in charge and aggressive in the context of the game.
The aliens disposed of, Jeff freed two more hostages. Then he knifed one of the hostages.
“I thought you said you died if you kill a hostage.”
“This one’s not a hostage. Watch.”
As the dark figure lay on the ground, it morphed into another alien.
“How’d you know?”
“Experience. You play the game long enough, you figure out which things are bogus.”
He clicked on a little whirlpool of mist. The cave dissolved and the sound of footsteps ceased, replaced by the sound of rushing water and echoing chimes. We had emerged into a vaulted chamber, a waterfall in the background. I knew it was my imagination, but I could feel the temperature drop.
Two small circles of yellow glowed in a corner. We approached them and the figure of the Seer emerged from the shadows. He had his arms extended. The glowing yellow orbs had been his eyes.
“He’s offering us a choice,” Jeff explained. “Body armor or a gas mask. And he’s showing us a map of the new level.” The faint outlines of a maze floated in the air.
“So which is the right choice?”
“That’s the cool thing about this game. There isn’t one. It’s just different, depending on which you choose.”
“How do you win?”
“There’s two ways. Kill all the aliens. Or save all the hostages before you get killed yourself.”
That was a novel twist.
“Most players don’t get that far,” Jeff said as he chose the gas mask. A moment later, we were hurtling forward through a new cave. The new level was darker. The footsteps following us were louder.
For the next twenty minutes, I watched mesmerized. To get out of the nearly unlit cave, Jeff had to annihilate a band of aliens who were building a fire at the cave’s mouth. Without the gas mask, he explained, we’d have been asphyxiated. From there, he ran through a forest with new aliens that looked like apes in S&M leather, to a partially destroyed castle complete with ramparts and a neon pink sky. In a basement dungeon, hostages were kept behind bars. They reached their arms out, begging to be released as we sped past. Over the edge of a cliff, dead bodies floated on a river of red.
As I watched Jeff play, I could feel the claustrophobia of confined spaces, the relief of emerging into the open. I could almost smell the rooty coolness of the cave’s interior. Hearing those footsteps, like relentless pistons getting louder and louder, made the tension build. With the continuous adrenaline high, I could see how players got sucked into playing for hours on end.
By now, Jeff had lost his quantum generator and gas mask and acquired a blade-shooting machine gun, more grenades, and a flashlight. He paused the game and showed me which keys on the keyboard controlled the weapons, the beam, how the mouse controlled movement through space. Then he handed me the controls and turned the game back on.
Thirty seconds later, I’d aimed the gun at an alien, fired, and the game went black for a moment.
“No big deal,” Jeff reassured me. “Everyone’s a newbie at first.”
The game’s eye retreated until it showed a body lying on the ground, bleeding. On the cave floor beside it lay a gun, a flashlight, and several unexploded grenades. “That me?” I asked.
“That’s you. You killed yourself.”
“Huh?”
“You fired the blade-thrower at a brick wall and it ricocheted, killing you.”
The footsteps reached a crescendo, slowed, and stopped. A dark figure appeared and hovered over the body. It was the Seer. He gathered up the fallen weapons. “Sucker,” a voice sneered, and hollow laughter seemed to echo off the cave walls.
That night, I lay in bed, images from the game romping through my head. I had the physical sensation of hurtling forward, lurching sideways. Cave walls and torches rushed up to meet me. I felt the stomach-dropping sensation of leaping from rocky ledges. The vertigo of looking off a cliff at dead bodies floating in red water.
I remembered Nick’s mother’s tale of a forced march, of corpses floating down a river of blood. Her mother—Nick’s grandmother—had probably told her the same stories she’d spoon-fed to Nick. Those constant messages had formed Nick’s character and convinced him: Trust no one. I wondered—having used those images in his game, did they haunt him less?
I tried to turn off the game, to think of something else. But when I closed my eyes, I kept hearing “Sucker.” In my head was Nick’s voice. He had to pop back in and taunt players who failed. He’d designed his game so that the only way to win was to be hypervigilant and anticipate, to assume everyone was out to get you.
As I was drifting off to sleep, I remembered Jeff Gratzenberg’s comment: You play the game long enough, you figure out which things are bogus.
17
THE NEXT evening, I’d just poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to the paper when my doorbell rang, followed immediately by loud knocking. It was not my mother’s shave-and-a-haircut.
I flipped on the porch light and peered out through the glass panel alongside the door. It was Richard Teitlebaum. His suit looked like he’d slept in it.
I pulled the door open. Teitlebaum was glancing back over his shoulder. There was a Statie parked across the street, its parking lights on.
He turned back to me, wild-eyed. “I get back from the APA meeting and the police have my house staked out. Search warrant.”
I felt a pang of guilt. “Come in,” I said, backing away. “Take it easy.”
He stepped inside. I closed the door.
“You’re worki
ng on this case, aren’t you?” He didn’t give me a break to explain that I didn’t work for the police. “What are they looking for? What in the hell are they—?”
“Duck boots,” I said. “There were footprints at the murder scene—”
“Everyone and his mother’s got a pair of those,” he exploded. Then he stopped. “Are you saying they think I did it? I’d kill my own patient? That’s insane.” There was a pause. “And how the hell do they know I’ve got a pair of duck boots?”
Now I was wishing I hadn’t answered the door. “When I came to talk to you after the murder, there was a pair of them in the driveway outside your office door. I had to tell them what I’d seen.”
“Outside my office?” Teitlebaum blinked. “You told them?”
“I had to, when I found out that there were prints from shoes like that at the murder scene.”
He leaned heavily against the door. “He’s setting me up. The bastard, that cunning son of a bitch, he’s—”
“Hey, take it easy,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “You look like you could use a drink.”
I led him into the kitchen. He dropped into a chair. I dug around in the cabinet and found a bottle of bourbon shoved to the back. I poured some and gave it to him. He knocked it back and set the glass down on the table. Then he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the eyes that had been so startlingly blue seemed dead gray.
“I keep those shoes in the shed,” he said, his face grim. “I always put them back after I finish working.” He paused. “Christ. That’s around the time my gloves went missing too. And …” He stopped short.
“And what?”
He swallowed. “And when I went to finish planting the bushes, my shovel wasn’t on the hook where I keep it. It was lying on the floor.”
“Who’s setting you up?” I asked.
“Who?” Teitlebaum looked at me like I had the IQ of an amoeba. “Nick Babikian. And now I’ve got the cops after me.”
“They’re just making sure you don’t leave town before they see if your shoes match the footprints.”
“And you think there’s a chance in hell that they won’t?” he asked. “Paranoid, rabidly jealous, smart. What did I want him to do, wave a gun at me too? Why the hell didn’t I tell them I was too busy? Or refer them to someone else?” His head jerked to one side. “Christ, who am I kidding? I would have taken Charles Manson if he’d asked. Since I moved up here, the world hasn’t exactly been beating a path to my door.”
“I’m just guessing,” I said, “but I’d say it was also because you realized Lisa Babikian needed all the help she could get.”
He pushed away the glass and rested his elbows on the table. “I kept telling myself, no history of physical abuse. There’s always physical abuse first. Now she’s dead, and the bastard’s fixed it so it looks like I’m the one who did it. He’s fixed me good.”
I wanted to ask him, Why not tell the police? Surely he could explain. But the doorbell rang.
Teitlebaum leaped to his feet. “See.” His eyes darted about the kitchen, from the doorway that led to the front of the house, to the door to the basement, to the back door. “Told you it was just a matter of time.”
“Wait here,” I said. “Okay?” I squeezed his shoulder.
He shook me off. “It’s your fault. If you hadn’t told them—”
The bell rang again.
“Wait,” I said and headed for the door.
When I looked out, I couldn’t see anyone. From the shadows, I knew at least one large person was standing alongside of the door. The cruiser was still across the street. Now its lights were out.
The bell rang a third time, long and insistent. “Open up. Police,” said a disembodied voice.
“Show yourself,” I called back.
Two police officers emerged from either side of the door. With their caps on, their faces were in shadow. One of them flashed a badge.
I opened the door. “We’re looking for Dr. Richard Teitlebaum,” one of them said. “He’s wanted for questioning.”
“He’s here,” I said, leading them through the front hall and into the kitchen. But when we got there, the room was empty.
One officer yanked open the basement door. The other officer was out on the back porch. “He’s out here,” he bellowed.
In the dark, I could see Teitlebaum trying to hoist himself over my neighbor’s chain-link fence.
“Halt! Police!” the officer yelled.
He grabbed hold of Teitlebaum’s ankle. Teitlebaum kicked, and the officer swore but held on. By now the other officer was outside too. He had his gun out and was pointing it at Teitlebaum.
Cornered, Teitlebaum inched his way down from the fence and landed with a thud. He turned, his face ashen.
One of the officers explained the advantages of coming along quietly. They just wanted to ask him a few questions.
Teitlebaum’s eyes seemed to glaze over. “Call your attorney,” I told him. “Don’t say anything until your lawyer’s with you.”
I couldn’t tell if he heard me, or could process what I was saying. “Do you have a lawyer?” I asked as the officers started to lead him away.
Still no response. The officers were walking him out to the street. “Do you want me to call one for you?” I called out.
His shoulders sagged. He looked as if he was giving up.
One officer opened the back door to the cruiser, put his hand on Teitlebaum’s head, and pushed him in. The door slammed shut and the officers got in front. Teitlebaum pressed the side of his face against the glass.
“Get a lawyer,” I yelled as the cruiser slid away.
I trudged back to the house. The porch lights were on and my front door was standing open. I went to my mother’s door and rapped. “Mom?” I called out, so she’d know it was me.
The door opened immediately. “You had visitors?” she said. She loves to state the obvious.
“You okay?”
“Why shouldn’t I be okay? A little yelling. A person is climbing over our back fence. The police. This business of yours, helping criminals?” She screwed up her face. “Why shouldn’t I be okay?”
“He’s not a criminal. He’s a psychiatrist,” I said.
My mother raised her eyebrows. Like what else would she expect? “A friend?” she asked.
It hit me. I did feel a kinship with Teitlebaum. Shrink kills patient? It was like man bites dog. It did happen—occasionally. But like Teitlebaum suggested, it was usually the other way around.
“Maybe. Kind of,” I admitted.
“And you didn’t go with?”
Trust my mother to be able to rearrange my priorities with a firm smack. She was right. If anyone was in need of help right now, it was Richard Teitlebaum. More than that, he needed to call himself a lawyer. But that meant he’d have to want to fight back, and it looked as if anything resembling a survival instinct had been sucked out of him. Without someone there as his advocate, the cops would steamroll him. I’d done what I had to do. But still, if he had been set up to look like a murderer, then I’d helped ensure that the setup worked.
“Actually, I thought I would. Go with, that is. I just wanted to be sure you’re okay alone.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m not alone.”
“You aren’t?”
“Why does this always surprise you?” she asked and closed her door.
I locked up the house, jumped into my car. But where to go? I hadn’t a clue where they’d taken him.
Then I remembered. I still had Boley’s card. I took it out. His office was at the state police homicide office on the second floor of the Middlesex County Courthouse. I hoped that was where they’d taken Teitlebaum.
I screamed up Mem Drive doing sixty, checking my rearview mirror every so often and praying that the patron saint of speeders and scofflaws was on duty. I made the trip in record time, slid into a parking spot on the street. Even at this hour there were people ahead of me, getting t
heir credentials checked and passing through the courthouse metal detectors.
The homicide unit was on the second floor, just around the corner from the elevator. Go the other way, and there was the cafeteria, now closed but still oozing the smell of stale coffee. Up a few floors were courtrooms. The floors above that housed the jail.
There was a small reception area with an oversized metal desk. The American and state flags were the only color in an otherwise gray room. The desk sergeant, a woman, was talking on the phone. She had dark hair, medium-length, a lot of shoulders, and no ring. She gave me a quick glance and a tight nod, and continued her conversation. Then she turned to a microphone and barked some instructions, listened to some static, then barked some more.
I couldn’t remember if there had been any female cops at the Babikian crime scene. Another officer came out and mumbled something to her. I didn’t recognize him either, couldn’t tell you if he’d been at the Babikian house two weeks earlier, or if he’d been at mine an hour ago. I’d make a lousy eyewitness.
Finally, she turned to me. “Yes, sir?” She was giving me that blank look cops give you when you roll down your window and they’ve got out their pencil poised to write you up.
“Dr. Richard Teitlebaum was just brought in?” I said.
“And you are?”
“His”—if I were his lawyer, I’d be able to get in; but I wasn’t—“colleague. Has he called a lawyer?”
She gave me a look, like, How the hell should I know?
Just then Boley came striding through.
“Detective Boley!” I said.
He stopped. Recognition turned to wariness. “What are you doing here?”
“They picked up Teitlebaum.”
“Yeah, thanks for the tip.” He started to walk off.
“He was at my house.”
He paused. “So?”
“He’s distraught.” I knew I sounded crazy. First I’d ratted on the guy. Now I was doing an about-face and worrying about his welfare.
Boley gazed back at me, like why was this his problem? Looked like “Easy Al,” as Annie called him, was going to blithely trade Nick for Teitlebaum and nail the sucker.
