Game of Death (6 page)

Paul agrees to meet me at a bar near Fenway Park at around five o’clock on Tuesday. It’s a hole in the wall and it’s empty when I arrive, except for two men in their sixties
who sit motionless at the end of the bar, staring forward like zombies. I wonder, as I sit there waiting on Paul, whether they are wax statues – decorations to make the place feel more
crowded. Only when one of them moves a hand to tip his whiskey into his mouth am I sure they’re alive. Even still, he moves with a stiffness that makes it seem as though he might merely be
mechanized at a rudimentary level.

Paul walks in ten minutes late, pauses at the door to let his eyes adjust to the dark. He’s about my height, just under six feet, with thick black hair pulled back from an angular
forehead. He’s good-looking in a street way, with a square jaw and symmetrical features thrown off only by a nose that’s been broken more than once. We often competed for girls when we
were younger, and I still feel that rivalry.

He scans the room, seeming to scrutinize the place. When he sees me, he walks over, moving with a loose, confident gait. It’s the same walk I’ve seen over the years from so many cops
on the street. Something in the way they carry themselves lets people know that they not only enforce the law, but, when the spirit moves them, they are the law. They are, at some level,
untouchable. It comes through clearly in their every move and every word. I suppose it’s a fair trade for all the crap that cops have to put up with.

‘Nick,’ he says as he slides into the booth across from me. He nods at the bartender, who watched him enter. It seems they know each other. ‘Scotch,’ he says. The
bartender moves quickly. Paul turns back to me.

‘You on duty?’ I ask, looking at the bartender as he pours the drink.

‘You gonna report me?’ He smiles, and it occurs to me that, friend or not, Killkenny would be a bad person to be on the wrong side of. ‘How’s it goin’,
Nick?’

I shrug. ‘Can’t complain. Business is good.’

‘So I’ve seen.’ I look at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘I read the financial pages,’ he says with a laugh. ‘It’s the new BPD. You can’t just follow
the Sox if you want to get ahead; you’ve got to be able to talk business and politics and art and shit.’

‘Brave new world,’ I say.

‘Well, new, anyways.’

‘You get back to the old neighborhood at all?’

He shakes his head. ‘Not recently. I stopped by my folks’ place back around Christmas, but you know my dad. He wasn’t all that thrilled to see me, so I didn’t stay
long.’

‘He always was a pisser.’

‘Yeah. Still is.’ Killkenny spits out a bitter laugh. ‘He pulled a gun on me. You believe that shit?’

‘Pulled a gun?’

‘Yeah. He said he didn’t want any cops in his house. I told him I was just going in to wish Ma a merry Christmas. He stood on that porch and pulled his piece out. Told me to get off
his property.’ He laughs again. ‘I swear to God, I almost shot the old fucker. Hand to Christ.’

I laugh with him. ‘Shit! What happened?’

‘Ma came out screaming. He’s waving his gun around, probably ten Jamesons into the evening; I’m reaching into my jacket for my piece, just to show I’m not afraid of him,
like I was when I was a kid; neighbors are starting to come out to watch. It almost turned into an ugly scene.’

‘Almost,’ I say without irony.

‘Ma starts beating on him, asking what the fuck he’s doing, until he finally goes out the back, gets into his car to drive to O’Malley’s.’

‘Close call.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. I almost got into my car to pull him over for drunk driving, just to fuck with him. I was so pissed.’ He smiles and sips the drink the bartender
has placed in front of him. ‘It was good to see Ma again, though. It’d been a while. And Theresa Pesci poked her head out on her porch to watch the whole scene. I got a smile from
her.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I say, closing my eyes. ‘Theresa Pesci. God, she was hot back in the day. How’s she looking now?’

‘Not bad. She’s got two kids, but I’d still throw a shot into her if I had the chance. She’s still got those tits.’ He takes another sip of his drink. ‘So,
how’s your ma?’

I shake my head. ‘She’s not good.’

He’s silent for a moment. ‘Life’s a cold bitch. You got a sense of timing?’

I shake my head. ‘She’s a tough old broad.’

‘She is that,’ Killkenny agrees. ‘If anyone’s gonna tangle with death and come out on top, my money’s on her. If there’s anything I can do . . . ’

‘Thanks, we’re good.’

‘So what’s this all about?’ he asks directly. ‘You didn’t ask to meet me to reminisce about our childhood. You got another security gig for me?’

I shake my head. ‘Nothing in the immediate future, but I’ve got you on the list if anything comes up.’

‘Do that,’ he says. ‘That party you put me in charge of last year got me the down-payment on my car. Dealing with that prick Net-Minder, or whatever-the-fuck his name is, was a
pain in the ass, but it’s hard to turn down that kind of money.’

‘NetMaster,’ I say.

‘Right, him. A real asshole, he is. But like I say, money’s money. So what’s this about, then?’

I decide to put my toe in the water. ‘You know that murder that happened the other day in West Roxbury?’ I ask. He frowns as he looks at me. ‘The one with the girl tied to the
chair with the feathers?’

‘Yeah,’ Killkenny says noncommittally. ‘One of the guys in my unit caught that.’

‘I might have some information on it,’ I say hesitantly. ‘Off the record. I mean, it’s possible, but I don’t know for sure.’ All of a sudden, I feel a little
foolish. After all, what do I really know?

‘What kind of information?’

‘It’s probably nothing, but there is a guy who goes on NextLife pretty regularly. You know how the site works?’

‘A little,’ he says. ‘I’m not big into computers, but I get the idea. It’s like all that fake fantasy shit, right?’

‘Right. Well, this guy goes on all the time. He’s someone we refer to as a High Use Member – we call them “Hummers”.’

Killkenny smiles. ‘Nice.’

‘Anyway, this guy, this Hummer, he’s got this one LifeScene he created where he’s with this girl – a fake girl, an avatar he created – and he ties her up and teases
her with these feathers.’

‘And he lets people watch him?’

‘Not really,’ I say. This is where it’s going to get a little dicey. I knew that going into the conversation. I don’t want to say anything that’s going to cause a
problem for the company. ‘It’s a private LifeScene, so it’s one that’s just for him, but we do some research on how people use our system. It’s to gather information
to make the technology better, and offer more things that people would like. Things like that. It’s all harmless.’

‘And he knows you’re there?’

‘Probably not. But it’s in our Terms of Use, so technically he’s agreed to it.’

‘Yeah, in tiny letters at the end of forty pages of legal bullshit,’ Killkenny says skeptically.

‘Legally binding bullshit,’ I point out.

He raises his hands. ‘Like I care? People who want to go online and do freaky shit should know that someone’s watching, always. That’s my view.’

‘Yeah, but that’s why this is sensitive. This is all allowed under our Terms of Use, but we still don’t want people to focus on the fact that we’re doing this. It would
cause a major public-relations hassle.’

‘Yeah, I get you,’ Killkenny says. ‘Still, it doesn’t sound like much. I mean, feathers are a little different, but not unheard of. It’s probably just a
coincidence.’

‘That’s not it,’ I say. ‘He’s got her tied to a chair, and he’s whipping her and then using the feathers, on and off, and when he’s done, he kills
her.’

‘Oh,’ Killkenny says. He sips his drink contemplatively. ‘Yeah, that’s a little more interesting,’ he says after a moment. He frowns and goes quiet again,
considering the information. ‘Look, it’s still probably nothing. But I’m happy to pass the guy’s name on to my guy, and he can check the guy out. That’d be the best
thing, just to make sure.’ He takes out a notebook and a pen and looks at me expectantly.

‘I don’t know his name,’ I say.

‘Can you get it?’

I shake my head. ‘There’s no way to find it out.’ I can see he looks puzzled. ‘The system’s designed for complete anonymity; that’s one of the things we
offer.’

‘I thought you could track anything through computers,’ Killkenny says. ‘You have to be able to find something, right?’

I shake my head again. ‘When you log on, you are run through a series of dummy servers that hide the IP address. It uses algorithms that even we can’t crack. That’s the point.
People need to know their identities are hidden, particularly with respect to the LifeScene part of the site. I mean, people are also using this for their email and their networking and their
online shopping. Every aspect of their lives is in our system. If someone had the power to put all the pieces together, they could know literally everything about that person. And not just that
person, but everyone they know. You could end up with a complete map of everyone on the system – what they buy, who they know, what they like – everything. Add in the LifeScenes, and
you now have their deepest fantasies.’

Killkenny lets out a low whistle. ‘That’s a little frightening.’

‘That’s why the system is designed the way it is. No one – including the company – knows anything other than what a user wants to tell us about themselves, and
there’s no way to match that up with anything else. It’s the safest way.’

‘So what good is this information you’ve got about this guy’s fantasy? We can’t even use it to find him.’

I shrug. ‘Maybe it’s no good at all, but I felt like I should tell someone. Like you say, it may just be a coincidence.’

‘Probably. Either way, without anything more, I’m not sure there’s anything I can do. I’ll mention it to my guy, and maybe if he gets desperate he’ll follow
up.’

‘Thanks. I just wanted to make sure that someone had the information, in case it turns out to be important.’

He finishes his drink. I’d finished mine a few minutes before. I reach into my pocket to grab my wallet, but he stops me. ‘Don’t bother,’ he says.

‘I’ll expense it,’ I say. ‘I asked you to come here. I’m not gonna let you pay.’

He shakes his head. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t pay for drinks in here.’ I look up at the bartender and notice that he’s still casting furtive glances our way.
Killkenny follows my gaze and nods at the bartender, who looks at the ground. ‘I helped him out with something a couple years back,’ Killkenny says. ‘He won’t let me pay
now. It’s like that at a bunch of places around here.’

I look at him and I can see that he’s studying me, gauging my reaction. ‘Must be nice,’ I say.

‘One of the few perks.’ I put my wallet away and we start toward the door. ‘By the way,’ he says, ‘how’d he do her?’

‘What?’

‘The guy on the computer with the feathers. You said he killed the girl, but you didn’t say how? Did he shoot her? Stab her? What?’

I look at him. ‘Why?’

‘Professional curiosity.’

‘I didn’t see it; it was one of my employees watching. She said he wrapped her face in cellophane.’ I am walking through the door, headed out onto the street. Truth be told,
I’d like to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. There’s a part of me that is sorry I decided to bring this up.

I feel Killkenny’s hand on my arm. He’s strong. I’m not a small guy, but his fingers feel like a vice-grip. I turn and look at him, and I can see the mixture of surprise and
excitement in his eyes.

‘What the fuck did you say?’

‘He put cellophane over her face,’ I repeat. ‘Suffocated her.’

He looks like a shark with the taste of fresh blood in the water. ‘Are you serious?’ he demands.

‘Yeah. Why?’ I ask the question, but I already know the answer just from the look on his face, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. ‘It’s him,’ I say.
‘It’s the same guy, isn’t it?’

He holds my gaze for a moment. Then finally he says, ‘I’ll get back to you.’

‘He’s looking into it.’

Yvette and I are sitting in my office in the bunker in Cambridge. It’s a strictly utilitarian space with a steel desk and three chairs. There is nothing on the walls; I’ve never
viewed the place as an extension of my personality, the way some do. It simply provides the privacy that is occasionally required by the responsibilities of management. Yvette is hunched over, her
elbows on her knees, looking like she might get sick. I don’t blame her; I’ve been feeling the same since my conversation with Paul Killkenny.

‘When is he going to get back to you?’ she asks.

‘He didn’t say. It should be soon. It’s a murder investigation, after all.’

She is staring at the floor. ‘Do you think they’ll want to talk to me?’

‘I’d think so. I didn’t GhostWalk the Scene with the feathers. I can tell them about the other scene, but that doesn’t really help them with the murder of the
girl.’ She sighs heavily and sits up, rubbing her neck as though all her muscles have stiffened. ‘What did you think was going to happen when I told him about this?’ I ask her.
‘You were the one who was so convinced these things were connected. Did you think they wouldn’t look into it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t sure they’d take it seriously. I don’t know that I was taking it seriously, but . . . shit!’

‘Yeah, well, for the moment they appear to be taking it seriously. Are you ready for that?’

She takes a deep breath. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’

The beeper on my phone goes off, startling both of us. I take a look and see that it is the notification I set up to let me know when
De Sade
logs on to the system. I’m
embarrassed. I set the notification because of the obsession I’d developed over the girl in the LifeScene, and I’m not sure how to explain this to Yvette.

‘What is it?’ she asks.

‘It’s him,’ I say. She looks at me with an expression of confusion. ‘
De Sade
. I set an administrative alert so I’d know when he was getting on the
site.’