Want To Play? (Monkeewrench)

6

Mitchell Cross arrived at the warehouse shortly before noon, parked his black Mercedes in the downstairs garage, and rode the freight elevator up to the loft. The morning had been a disaster.

He’d spent half an hour waiting for Diane in the virtual parking lot at airport arrivals, dodging parking police who were ticketing every car that idled at the curb for longer than two seconds. Then Bob Greenberg caught him on the cellular on the way back, snippy and self-righteous about the SKUD thing, almost threatening outright to pull the Schoolhouse Games account. Only the Lowry Tunnel had saved him, cutting the transmission just before Mitch lost his temper.

They spent fifteen minutes in that black wormhole, blocked by God knew what on the other side. Volume congestion, they called it. Mitch called it too many goddamned people with too many goddamned cars.

Diane’s fretting turned to whining after the first five minutes, and then in the middle of a diatribe about carbon monoxide poisoning, she had actually stuck her head out the window and screamed at a pickup truck full of blaze-orange hunters to shut their motor off. Jesus. Sometimes he thought the woman had a death wish.

He’d been so angry he hadn’t even gotten out of the car at the house, just dropped her off and pulled away. He’d caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, just standing there in the driveway with her hands full of luggage, looking wounded and small.

The elevator workings clunked above him and the cage jerked to a stop. He looked at the loft through the latticework of wood and released a long breath, thinking, Home.

‘Hey, Mitch!’

Annie saw him first, but only because she was over by the coffeemakers, away from her computer. The rest of them were huddled around Roadrunner’s monitor like bad witches making a poison brew, utterly oblivious.

‘Come on out of there, honey. You look like caged Armani.’

‘Hi, Annie.’ He joined her at a wall counter that held four coffeemakers and the large white bakery box.

‘Damn, you look good.’ Fat Annie tucked all her chins and gave him one of those slow, seductive smiles that made most men forget she was carrying an extra hundred pounds. ‘Half-expected you to stay home and celebrate today. Diane’s got to be floating.’

Mitch shrugged. ‘More tired than anything. Maybe we’ll crack some champagne tonight. What’s everybody working on?’ He lifted the lid of the white box and peered inside, hoping for something not quite lethal, like a bagel.

‘Mitch, you scruffy sack of shit, get over here! We’re killing the last son of a bitch, is what we’re doing,’ Harley bellowed. ‘Securing an Ivy League education for your kids.’

‘I don’t have any kids.’

‘I know that, but I’m an eternal optimist. I keep thinking that one of these days you might get it up. Jesus. Did you pay money for that tie?’

Grace felt Mitch’s hand on her shoulder and glanced up at the little white clouds on a field of blue. ‘That’s a Hermès tie and I gave it to him last Christmas.’

‘You gave him a Hermès tie and I got a goddamned keychain?’

‘She gave you an Italian stiletto, you dumbshit,’ Annie said.

Harley thought a minute. ‘Oh yeah. So what cheap prick gave me a keychain?’

Roadrunner leaned back in his chair, exasperated. ‘Do you kids want to go play somewhere else so I can get this done?’

‘Is it really the last one?’ Mitch asked.

Grace nodded. ‘The big two-oh. And we’ve had over three hundred hits on the test site so far. Over half of them preordered the game.’

‘We’re going to need more than that to replace the Schoolhouse account. Greenberg called this morning.’

‘What’s his problem this time?’ Harley asked.

‘Oddly enough, he doesn’t think the company that designs his software for children should be producing a CD-ROM game about serial killers.’

‘It is not a game about serial killers,’ Grace reminded him. ‘It’s a game about catching serial killers.’

‘Grace, the damn thing is called Serial Killer.’

‘Serial Killer Detective,’ a chorus of four corrected him.

‘Apparently the distinction is lost on him. And me, frankly.’

Harley grabbed Mitch by the arm. ‘You and Greenberg have both been pushing paper too long. Come on, partner. I’m going to show you this thing, it’s friggin’ brilliant.’ He rolled an extra chair in front of a desk that looked like it had been sacked by vandals. ‘Sit down, buddy.’ He shoved aside stacks of file folders, printouts, and biker magazines, exposing four purring hard drives and a 21-inch monitor.

Mitch balked, but in the end, when Harley wanted you in a chair, you sat. ‘I’ve seen this –’

‘You saw the text files, not the game,’ Annie said. ‘For Christ’s sake you own twenty percent of this thing and you’ve never even played it.’

‘I don’t want to play it. I was the dissenting vote, remember? As far as I’m concerned, the whole concept is sick.’

‘That’s because you don’t get it,’ Grace snapped. ‘You never got it.’

The comment stung, but Mitch kept his mouth shut.

‘Well, he’s going to get it now.’ Harley’s large fingers started dancing over the keys with surprising agility. The monitor went black for a moment, then snapped back to life. Huge, shadowed block letters began to materialize, then seemed to jump off the screen:

MONKEEWRENCH SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Throw a MONKEEWRENCH into the works

‘Okay, okay!’ Harley was almost quivering with excitement as the screen went black again. ‘Check this out!’

Thousands of sparkling red pixels started to materialize on the screen, bonding together into giant, red, scrawled letters.

WANT TO PLAY A GAME?

‘You like the font on that or what? I did it – I call it my serial killer font.’

Mitch shuddered. ‘Oh, good Christ.’

‘Okay, here comes the good part. We’re entering the game now. First thing that comes up is a digital photo of the murder scene.’

Mitch watched in horror as a picture of a dead jogger appeared on the screen. ‘Jesus Christ! Did you have to use real people? I thought this was going to be animated!’

‘Nah, this is better. Much more realistic. Looks just like a police photo, doesn’t it? Except this is art.’ Harley stabbed a thick finger toward the screen. ‘Check out how I used the shadows from that tree to enhance the negative space. Really pulls your eye toward the subject, doesn’t it?’

‘But . . . aw . . . aw, God.’ Mitch grimaced at Roadrunner. ‘It’s you?’

Roadrunner leaned back in his chair far enough to see Harley’s monitor. ‘God, I’m good.’ He grinned. ‘I look so dead. Hey, Harley, skip to murder two.’ He winked at Mitch. ‘That’s my best performance.’

‘Performance my ass,’ Harley snorted. ‘Everyone knows the real genius here is the photographer.’ He was working his magic with the mouse now, nodding enthusiastically at Mitch. ‘Roadrunner’s right, though. Number two’s a great one. Probably the best, although I can’t take credit for the creativity, much as I’d like to. This one was Grace’s idea.’ Harley punched a few keys and a new photo appeared.

Mitch leaned forward and squinted at the image. Roadrunner – well, Roadrunner dressed as a prostitute – was draped over the wings of an enormous stone angel, looking quite dead. ‘What the hell . . . ?’

‘Neat, huh? I really got some incredible backlighting here . . .’

‘It’s grotesque. Where did you take this?’

‘Lakewood Cemetery.’

‘That statue’s huge. How could anybody hoist a dead body up there?’

Harley nodded in approval. ‘Good question, Grasshopper. That’s something you’ve gotta figure out, because it’ll give you a clue.’

Mitch cocked his head, more curious now than repulsed, relaxing just a little. ‘Actually, it’s not so bad. I was expecting more gore.’

Harley beamed. ‘See? Tasteful, isn’t it?’

‘There’s just a little spot of blood, right there . . . looks like she was shot.’

‘Right. And when you click on it, you get a nice close-up of the brain matter splattered on the . . .’

Mitch pinched his eyes shut. Harley gave him a gentle punch to the arm that nearly knocked him off his chair. ‘Kidding. You get the ME report. Cause of death: a single .22 caliber bullet to the brain; and when you punch on another part of the body you get info about other stuff – any defensive cuts, ligature marks, blood type and chemistry, time of death . . .’

‘What’s that?’ Mitch pointed to a shadowy smear on the concrete at the base of the statue’s pedestal.

‘That’s a footprint. Click on that and you get a pull-down menu of the police workup. Rubberized sole, jogging shoe, Reebok, men’s size 11 . . .’

Mitch cocked his head. ‘Hmm. So you figure it’s a man . . .’

‘Or a really large woman, or a smaller woman wearing men’s shoes . . .’

‘No way the killer is a woman. A woman wouldn’t have the physical strength to hoist a body up there. It’s gotta be a man.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. You gotta figure it out.’

‘So then what? How do you solve it?’

‘There’s a list of five hundred possible suspects in the game’s databank. It lists their stats, stuff like occupation, hobbies, DOB, where they live, criminal records, shit like that. Every crime scene has a lot of clues, but some of them are really hard to find, and only a few of them help you eliminate some of the suspects in the databank.’

‘How?’

‘There’s a million ways. We didn’t actually use this, because it’s too simple, but say for instance you found a clue that proves the killer was right-handed. Then you eliminate all the left-handed people on the suspect list.’

‘Oh-h-h.’ Mitch’s eyebrows went up. ‘That’s cool.’

Grace and Annie exchanged a glance, then silently rolled their chairs a little closer to Harley’s station. Mitch never noticed.

‘Anyhow,’ Harley continued, ‘since the murders are all committed by the same perp, the deeper into the game you get, the more suspects you eliminate and the more you learn about him. Or her. Our killer has fifty-seven profile characteristics. Identify two of those characteristics, plus find the right clues and eliminate the right suspects from the list, and then, and only then, will the program move you from the first murder to the second.’

Mitch was nodding. ‘And then you get a few more clues about the killer from the second murder, and you eliminate a few more suspects . . .’

‘There you go. You’re getting it.’

Mitch leaned forward and pointed at the screen. ‘What’s that?’

‘Gotta click it to find out, buddy.’

Mitch’s right index finger was poised over the mouse when he heard Grace chuckle softly behind him and say, ‘Gotcha.’

Mitch jerked his hand away from the mouse and spun in his chair. They were all there: Grace, Annie, Roadrunner; so close he couldn’t believe they’d gotten there without him noticing. And they were all grinning. ‘What?’

‘You’re playing. You’re playing the game, Mitch,’ Roadrunner needled him.

‘I’m not playing. I’m just trying to get a handle on this thing. And I really don’t have any more time for this.’

The others watched as he got up in a huff and headed for the glass-block wall that divided his office from the rest of the loft. He turned at the last minute. ‘Grace, you got a minute?’

‘Sure.’

‘And, Harley?’

‘Yeah, buddy?’

‘This thing on my computer?’

Harley grinned. ‘Always has been.’

Grace followed Mitch into his office and dropped into the client chair. She watched as he went through his arrival ritual.

Suitcoat on the wooden hanger, button top button.

‘How was Diane’s flight?’

‘Long.’

Suitcoat in the closet, closet door closed.

‘She called me from LA last night.’

‘She told me. Said you talked for half an hour.’

Cross the room to the desk, unfasten cuff links, drop them in the center compartment of the center drawer.

Grace watched him, smiling to herself. ‘She was funny. Giddy. Still high from the show.’

‘Well, she made a pile of money. Sold out every painting in the first hour or so. Again.’

‘She’s our star. Does she know we put the game on-line this week?’

Roll up sleeves, three turns each, sit down.

‘She knows. Why?’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t mention it. Seemed a little strange.’

Mitch grunted softly. ‘There’s nothing more either one of us could say at this point. It’s out there now. Too late to stop it.’

Wet-dry out of a pack, wipe desktop.

‘It’s just a game, Mitch.’

‘Would I be stating the obvious if I said murder isn’t a game?’

Grace blew out a short, exasperated puff of air. ‘This from a man who created Time Warrior.’

‘That was different. The Time Warrior is a good guy fighting evil . . .’

‘So’s this. Good detective, evil serial killer.’

‘ . . . and the Warrior uses an atom shifter. No blood, no guts . . .’

‘Oh, I get it. Murder is okay as long as it isn’t messy.’

‘No, damnit, it’s more than that. For one thing the Time Warrior is fighting a war. He’s a soldier.’

‘Oh-h. Murder is okay as long as it isn’t messy, and as long as you wear a uniform and couch that murder in the paper-thin cloth of patriotism . . .’

‘Goddamnit, Grace, don’t start this again.’

‘You started it.’

‘It’s totally off the point, which is exactly where you wanted to be. So you muddy the waters with an esoteric argument; Bob Greenberg’s argument, for God’s sake, which is not to say there aren’t a lot of Bob Greenbergs out there who are going to think we’re all a little twisted for putting out something like this. But the real point is that when he called the whole concept sick today, all I could think of was, buddy, you don’t know the half of it.’

Grace pretended he hadn’t said that.

He moved a pencil cup an inch to the right. ‘So what is it? I’ve been wondering ever since you came up with the idea. Catharsis? Empowerment?’

She pretended he hadn’t said that, either. She simply crossed a jeans-clad leg and looked over at the side wall, away from him. One of Diane’s first paintings hung there; a quiet abstract with a lot of white space. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

He gave her his eyes, and they gave her everything else.

‘What would happen if you ever wiped the desk first?’

He smiled his first genuine smile of the day. ‘Armageddon.’

She smiled back, a little wickedly, he thought, but not soon enough to save himself. He shouldn’t have said that thing about catharsis. He shouldn’t have alluded to that at all, and now she was going to punish him.

‘No one’s going to find out, Mitch.’

He sighed and decided to play straight man. ‘Find out what?’

‘About the Speedo thing.’

‘Oh, God. Grace, for heaven’s sake, this is not about that.’

‘Come on, Mitch. You nearly passed out when you read it in the text file.’

‘It surprised me, that’s all. I hadn’t thought about it in years.’ He shook his head a little, eyes closed. ‘Christ. I can’t believe you put that in there.’

Grace shrugged happily. ‘I needed a clue.’

‘Uh-huh. And the one and only clue you could think of was a necklace with “Speedo” engraved on it.’

‘You loved that necklace. It looked just like dog tags, which went perfectly with your Army Surplus Grunge couture, I might add. You laughed till you cried when you opened it, and you wore it all the time.’

‘Under my clothes, if you remember, so no one would ever see it. And I had to wear it. It was a gift. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Did you know that damn thing turned my chest green?’

It had turned his chest green, and still he wouldn’t take it off, just because she had given it to him. ‘I thought you’d get a kick out of seeing it in the game.’

‘Oh, really? You thought I’d get a kick out of being reminded of one of the most humiliating experiences of my life?’

Grace looked positively merry. ‘Hey, you were a babe. You still have the pictures?’

‘No, I do not still have the pictures, and would you please keep your voice down? Do you have any idea of what kind of flak I’d get from those guys out there if they found out . . .’

‘That you modeled Speedos?’

‘It was a one-time thing. I needed the money. And they were not Speedos.’

‘They were tiny. Really tiny.’ She grinned, waiting for the blush to start creeping up his neck, for his eyes to start blinking rapidly the way they always did when she teased him about something, but he surprised her.

‘You’re bringing it all up again, Grace,’ he said, his expression deadly serious. ‘I never thought you’d want to do that.’

And then Grace was the one who blinked.