Game of Death (36 page)

‘Anywhere.’

‘Thanks.’

I stand and go to the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Nick, one question?’

‘Sure.’

‘How did you feel when you were watching the LifeScene? Did it turn you on?’

It takes a moment for me to decide whether or not to be honest. In the end I figure we’ve been through enough that there’s no point in lying. ‘Yeah, it did. Particularly at the
beginning. More so than anything I’ve ever seen.’

‘And later?’

‘I wanted to save you.’

‘Were you still turned on?’

I have to think about that for a moment. ‘Yes, I was still turned on,’ I admit. ‘Even at the end.’

She nods. ‘Thanks. You saved me. Now you just need to find a way to let some of the darkness out. Let yourself be the person you are without worrying that it will overwhelm all the good in
you.’

‘That’s what you want?’

She shakes her head. ‘It’s what you need.’

It’s morning when I get home. It’s been two days since I’ve slept, and the world has taken on a dreamlike quality. As I walk I can feel the cartilage in my
joints, slipping over the bone. My eyes move faster than my brain can process, so my field of vision has a jerky, disjointed quality to it.

I walk up the steps slowly, open the door. Yvette and Cormack are sitting at the kitchen table. They both look up at me.

Cormack is the first to speak. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Shit would be a step up from how I feel.’

‘Sit down,’ Cormack says. He goes to the cupboard and gets a glass, pours three fingers of whiskey in it. ‘Drink this,’ he says. It’s probably not what a medical
doctor would recommend, but I’ve never really trusted doctors. I sip the drink. ‘What the hell happened?’

‘We got him,’ I say. I figure I might as well lead with the good news.

‘François?’ Yvette says. ‘They caught him?’

I nod.

‘Where was he?’

‘Kendra Madison’s house.’

Yvette sucks in a lungful of air. ‘And you were there, too?’

I look at her. ‘I went over to check on her. I had a feeling . . . ’ I can’t hold her gaze, and so I glance away. ‘Anyway he was there, getting ready to make her his next
victim. I called the police. We got him.’ It’s the abridged version of the story, but I’m not convinced the detailed version will be particularly well received.

‘So it’s over?’ Cormack asks.

‘I’m sure the lawyers will try to have their say, but yeah, it’s over except for that.’

‘Hot damn,’ Cormack says. ‘Finish that drink up and get yourself some rest. You deserve it.’

‘What about Gunta?’ Yvette asks.

I shake my head. ‘He didn’t have anything to do with it, except that I think he knew that François was screwed-up. I don’t think he was deliberately helping him murder
anyone, though. I guess the cops will have to sort all that out.’

‘So the company will be okay?’ I’m surprised that Yvette would care about the status of the company, though I suppose – given the timing and the planned IPO –
it’s on everyone’s mind but mine.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’ll take a PR hit, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to completely undermine the management team or prevent investors from being
interested.’ I take another sip of whiskey. ‘Who knows, the publicity may even drive interest in the IPO higher.’

‘Have you told Josh yet?’

I shake my head. ‘Given that he sent NetMaster over here with a knife just yesterday to have a talk with me, I’m not sure this news will sound best coming from me.’

Yvette nods, looks down at the table. I have a pretty good idea what she’s thinking. ‘Is the girl okay?’

‘The girl?’ I’m not sure why I’m pretending I don’t know who she’s talking about.

She rolls her eyes. ‘Kendra. Was she hurt?’

I shake my head. ‘It was a little ugly,’ I say. ‘He had her tied to the bed.’

‘Nothing she’s not used to, I’m guessing.’

I shoot Yvette an annoyed look. She looks back down at the table.

‘I think I’ll go check to see how your mother’s doing,’ Cormack says. He gets up and heads up the stairs.

‘I’m glad she’s okay,’ Yvette says.

‘I don’t know that she’s okay, but she wasn’t hurt. It was pretty awful.’

‘I’m sorry. Did you take her home?’

I shake my head. ‘They let her go before they let me go. I stopped by when they let me out, just to see that she was alright. Her place was pretty badly messed-up.’

Yvette’s ever-evolving hair is pushed back from her forehead, a single lock falling in front of her left eye. I know that she has barely slept in days as well, and yet she looks beautiful.
Just being near her sends shockwaves through my body, and in my addled state I worry that I may be overcome. I’m in love with her, I realize. I’m as sure of that as I can be of anything
at this moment. And yet, life is never that easy. There’s something between me and Kendra that remains unfinished, and I know that I can’t escape it. It’s as though I’ve
discovered some dark place in my soul – a corner I never knew existed – and I need to know what’s there. I need to know how deep the darkness goes, and there is only one person
who can show me. Yvette picks up my glass of whiskey, throws back what remains. ‘Are you gonna see her again?’

We’re looking at each other now, and I know I can’t lie to her. ‘Probably.’

‘Is it love?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

‘She’s very pretty.’

‘She is,’ I agree. ‘So are you.’

Yvette looks down into the empty glass. ‘Don’t patronize me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘What is it about her, do you think?’

‘I wish I knew.’ I’m staring at her, desperate for any words that might make sense of this, but there are none, and we both know it. She stands, and I do too. I move toward
her, but she shakes her head.

‘No,’ she says. If she’s fighting back tears, she’s doing a good job. ‘You need to figure this out for yourself.’ She touches my cheek for just a moment
before she heads to the door.

‘You gonna be okay?’ I ask her.

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’m pretty resilient.’ She walks out the door and calls over her shoulder, ‘Get some sleep. You’ll need a clear head to figure any of
this out.’

She’s right, and suddenly I feel more tired than I ever have in my life. I wonder whether I can even make it up to my room. As I turn to go up, I hear Cormack coming down the stairs.

‘How’s she doing?’ I ask as he walks into the kitchen.

‘She’s okay. She’s tough, too.’

‘She is that.’

‘She’d like to see you.’

‘I’ll stick my head in on my way to bed,’ I say. ‘If I don’t fall down before I get there.’

‘You’ll make it.’ He nods toward the screen door through which Yvette disappeared moments before. ‘How’s she doing?’

‘Yvette?’ I shrug. ‘She’s okay. She’s tough.’

‘She is that.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder as he walks past me on his way out. ‘Get some rest, Nicky. Things will seem brighter in the morning.’

I can hear my mother’s labored breathing as I approach her room. ‘Ma, you need anything?’ I ask as I poke my head in.

She’s lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling. She turns her head to face me. ‘Not a thing,’ she says. It comes out almost defensively. ‘Cormack told me it’s
over.’

‘It is.’

‘Good. Everyone’s alright?’

‘More or less.’

She nods. ‘You can tell me more in the morning.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m going to bed.’ I pull my head out of her room and start down the hall.

‘Nick!’ she says quickly.

I turn back and stick my head in her room again. ‘Yeah?’

She looks at me, and I have the sense that she’s trying to make up her mind about something. ‘I loved your father,’ she says slowly.

‘I know, Ma.’

‘Let me finish,’ she says sharply. She takes a deep, rumbling breath. ‘I loved your father, but there were others. Before him, not after we were married – he’d have
killed me if there was anything after he married me. But before that there were other men I loved. At least I thought I loved them.’

‘I understand, Ma,’ I say.

‘Do you?’ She shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure. Eventually you choose. It’s the way it has to be. Do you understand?’

‘I do.’

‘And once you choose, what happened before gets left behind.’ She looks at me, her eyes clear, her expression serious. ‘Do you understand that?’

‘I think so.’

‘I hope so. Because if you hold someone’s past against them, it will never be right. Your father and I both knew that.’ She turns her head back to the ceiling and closes her
eyes. ‘Good night, Nicky,’ she says heavily.

I watch her for a moment. ‘Good night, Ma.’

I sleep through the day and wake as the sun is starting to crest. I stumble out of bed, throw on some jeans and a T-shirt, head downstairs. Ma is sitting at the kitchen table,
sipping some coffee. She looks stronger, and that is a relief to me.

‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ she says.

‘I’m not sure you could have.’

‘Last night sounds like it was bad.’

I sit at the table, pat her hand. ‘It was, but now it’s better.’

‘Is it?’ She passes a sheet of paper over to me. ‘A woman named Kendra called. Asked you to meet her at the Liberty Hotel in Boston tonight at ten.’

I take the message and read it. ‘Thanks.’

‘Friend of yours?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The Liberty’s the hotel they built in the old jail, right? Pretty swanky, from what I hear. Ten seems awful late for a date.’

‘Mind your own business, Ma,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna go take a shower.’

She raises her hand in surrender. ‘You’re right, not my business. Yvette called too, just to see if you were alright. I guess that’s not my business either, but I thought
you’d want to know. She left no message.’

‘Thanks, Ma.’

The Liberty Hotel is located on the back side of Beacon Hill, behind Massachusetts General Hospital, just across the river from both Charlestown and Cambridge. It’s an
imposing granite structure looming over the water, which for more than a century and a half was a prison that housed some of Boston’s most dangerous criminals. In the late 1970s it was the
site of a prisoner revolt, organized to protest against the deplorable conditions. A decade and a half later it was decommissioned, and the remaining prisoners were sent to more modern
facilities.

The building sat fallow for many years, as the city and Mass. General, which had acquired the property for development, considered proposals for renovations. Eventually it was decided that the
building would be converted into a new boutique hotel. The architects called in were careful to keep many of the original elements of the jail, including the prison bars and steel doors to give the
place a mysterious Gothic feel. The restaurants all have themes relating to incarceration, and the hotel offers romance packages catering to the adventurous, including pleasure kits of handcuffs
and restraints.

I’ve never been to the place before. It’s only been open for a few years, and it’s become a mainstay of the cutting-edge world of upper-class Boston. It’s as far away
from my little street in Charlestown as two miles can feel. As I walk up to the front door, the huge granite facade stares down at me in judgment. Stepping into the lobby, I am awed by the
seven-story central atrium that was the guard station when the prison was in use. Looking up, I can see the catwalks that ring every floor. Four radiating wings split off from the central
structure; these were the cell blocks where the prisoners were kept, and now they are used for the guest rooms. The feel of the place, with its dark-brick interior and fire-lit ambience, is a
little overwhelming to me. All around the city’s beautiful people move with a sense of belonging that I’ve never felt. More than one woman glances at me and gives a smile, but I
can’t seem to smile back. A man in a red vest approaches me. ‘Can I be of assistance, sir?’ he asks.

‘I’m meeting someone at Clink,’ I say.

‘Yes, of course. It’s the restaurant in the back.’ He raises his arm to the left. ‘This way.’

Clink is the main restaurant at the hotel, and it’s in a warren of what used to be ground-floor cells. The bars remain, and the stone and brick walls give the place the feel of a
refurbished castle dungeon. I walk through the place, peering into every nook, growing dizzy with the effort as the gas lights on the brick throw off moving shadows that flicker and disappear. I
find Kendra tucked away at one of the private tables in a section just off the bar. She’s sitting by herself, staring ahead, the expression on her face one of calm contemplation and subdued
anticipation.

She looks perfect. She’s wearing a red dress that clings to her in all the right places, black stiletto heels. It’s a simple, clean outfit that doesn’t look as though
she’s trying too hard. And yet as understated as the look is, she makes it look like an open invitation. Something about her breathes desire into the air, like a neurotoxin that paralyzes
everyone around her. I can see it in the people at the tables nearby; their heads are drawn to her with a sense of sexual fury.

I walk over and sit across from her. ‘You look spectacular.’

‘You look rested.’

‘I feel better. I collapsed this morning and slept through the afternoon. It’s been years since I got that much sleep.’

‘It’s awful, isn’t it? I’m the same way; I haven’t slept for more than a few hours at a time since I was in my teens. It doesn’t matter how tired I
am.’

The waitress comes over and I order us drinks. She’s having Scotch, and I join her, ordering her a second. ‘Thanks for calling.’

‘I said I would.’

‘I know. That didn’t mean you had to. Are you staying here?’

‘For tonight. Tomorrow . . . who knows?’ The waitress returns and puts the drinks down. We sip them in silence for a few minutes. It’s a comfortable silence, though. My mind
isn’t darting from one thought to another, searching for conversation. I am content just sitting there in her presence. She smiles at me. ‘Tell me about your job,’ she says.

‘Small talk?’

‘A lot can be learned from small talk. There’s really nothing small about it, if you listen hard enough.’ I wonder whether that’s something she’s learned in her
professional life.