Killer Sudoku (3 page)

“That was probably the biggest sudoku story to date,” Charley said, “at least, until now. We’re going from Mistrial Sudoku to . . . Killer Sudoku.”

“The name’s taken.” Liza stopped as the looks on both Will’s and Charley’s faces told her that point had been discussed before. No need to explain that killer sudoku was a variant where, in addition to the usual sudoku rules, solvers had to fill in random-shaped “cages” with digits that would add up to a specified total.

“Yes, your base audience might know that, but our audience won’t. I’ve got our lawyers looking into whether it’s been copyrighted,” Charley murmured, and this time Liza sent Will a more charitable look. As many in the forefront of a trend discover the hard way, the suits—and even a perky, petite suit like Charley Ormond—are more concerned with audience expansion, control . . . and branding.

If you don’t watch out, Will, this could end up as Killer SINN-doku,
Liza silently warned as Will and Charley walked off, the camera crew trailing behind.

“Will must be commended for bringing sudoku to a wider public,” a voice at Liza’s elbow said. “Too bad he had to turn into a media whore to do it.”

Liza bit back a retort when she saw who it was. If Will Singleton was the Father of American Sudoku, Ian Quirk was the Wicked Stepbrother. She’d run into him at sudoku conferences over the years. Ian had a devious genius at creating puzzles. And his grasp of the issues behind the puzzles impressed even academic audiences.

The rules of sudoku were simple. Take a square grid with eighty-one spaces, spread twenty to thirty clues around, and fill in the empty spaces with the digits 1 to 9 without repeating them in any of the puzzle’s nine rows or columns. To kick it up a bit, the puzzle is also divided into nine three-by-three subgrids, sets of nine spaces that also must be filled with the magic digits . . . again with no repetitions.

Millions of sudoku lovers around the world tackled the challenge. They didn’t have to crunch numbers, just use logic to place the right digits in the right places. Introductions to sudoku always stressed the fact that no arithmetic was required, but the theory underpinning the puzzles depended on the kind of math that filled blackboards in places like M.I.T.

Ian Quirk was a guy who massaged numbers for a living—his civilian job was with a Las Vegas odds maker. And his devious streak didn’t just stop at creating puzzles.

“So what brings you out of the desert, Ian?” Liza asked.

Quirk smiled, a brief twitch on his sharp, intense features. “A tournament with the backing to offer a generous prize,” he replied, “not like those penny-ante contests the newspapers come up with.”

“I thought you’d given up on tournaments,” Liza said in surprise. And vice versa. Ian Quirk had a reputation somewhere between John McEnroe and Bobby Fisher. His complaints and demands on matters like heating, lighting, noise, allergens, and seat position had become the stuff of legend—and not in a good way.

“You didn’t want tournament staff within twenty feet of you—but TV cameramen are okay?”

Quirk gave her a smile with all the genuine emotion of a casino croupier. “We all have to make sacrifices to expand the audience—and win a fat purse on TV.”

And he calls Will a media whore,
Liza thought.

“You were the only sudoku name at last year’s tournament.” Quirk suddenly changed the subject.

“I don’t know that I’d call myself a sudoku name,” Liza said, “but Will did ask me to come.”

“The prize then was basically a plastic trophy,” Quirk went on. “And that actor won it—the one who later got killed.”

My friend,
Liza thought,
not that it seems to mean much to you.
She let the silence between them stretch.

He finally realized she wasn’t taking his bait and spoke up.

“This year I’ve seen more sudoku types attending.” He suddenly turned, extending a hand. “Do you know Barbara Basset—of the Sonoma Beach Bassets?”

“Call me Babs.” The blond woman was maybe a few years older than Liza, but she had the same petite, near-anorexic figure as Charley Ormond—and the manner of Queen Elizabeth. If anything, she was more consescend ing. “And you are?”

“Liza Kelly.” Liza kept her best publicity agent mask in place as she shook hands. She’d never met Babs Basset, but she’d heard of her—generally horror stories from sudoku fans in the Greater San Francisco area. If Babs fell off the Golden Gate Bridge, that end of Sudoku Nation would pray for the sharks.

Birds of a feather,
Liza thought, looking at the two.
Or maybe snakes of a scale might be a better description. I expect Will knows what he’s getting into. He’s a big boy, after all.

Babs gave her a well-practiced smile. “You’ve got that sudoku column the
Chronicle
picked up.” Liza had nothing to complain about in the words, but Babs’s tone made the venture sound like the quaintest, most amateur thing imaginable.

“Yes,” Liza said. She didn’t add anything to the statement. Why give Babs a handle to belittle her?

“I’m staking out a presence in new media,” Babs went on. The implication that Liza’s column was hopelessly old media dropped with all the subtlety of a meteor impact. “The website is set up, and we’re looking to cement a network connection.” Babs’s eyes strayed to Charley Ormond and her camera crew. “I certainly wish you every success—”

“LIES!” a deep voice thundered out.

For a second, Babs lost her façade of hauteur.

But no, it wasn’t someone calling Babs on her flow of insincere good wishes. It was just that Scottie Terhune tended to shorten everyone’s name to just one syllable. Beefy arms surrounded Liza in a bear hug. “How ya doin’, Lize?” he said, still holding on to her like a cute prize he’d won at a circus sideshow.

Scottie finally let her loose with an irrepressible grin. “I see you hooked up with IQ and BB,” he said, again displaying his reductive genius with names.

Babs Basset recoiled as if she were afraid Scottie would soil the hem of her dress. Ian was already striding away.

Scottie’s grin just got bigger. “Sweethearts, the two of them.” He barely bothered to moderate his booming voice. “Sorry I missed you last year, but I had a conflict—a
Trek
convention down in San Diego.”

Liza laughed out loud, fingering the woefully inadequate
Trek
uniform top stretched across Scottie’s chunky torso. “Aren’t you tempting fate, wearing this? I thought
Trek
guys in red shirts were the first to get eliminated.”

“That’s Classic
Trek
, and this is a
New Generation
costume. Besides, it’s my lucky shirt. I won my first sudoku tournament wearing this.”

Liza didn’t suggest that Scottie’s victory must have been some years and several sizes ago.

Scottie must have seen something in her eyes, though, because he said, “I wouldn’t go talking trash about eliminations, Lize. This time around, you’ve got some serious competition. Believe it or not, there’s a Vegas betting line on this hoedown. The favorite is Ian Quirk.”

“Sentiment for the local boy?” Liza asked.

Scottie shook his head. “Those guys would run down their own mothers rather than give them even odds. Your new best friend Babs is rated to come in fourth.”

His grin returned. “They’ve got me for second.”

Liza laughed and shrugged. “Does that make me number three?”

“Try again!” Scottie held up one hand with all fingers outstretched. “You’re number five. Looks like the boys in Vegas don’t like your touchy-feely articles. They don’t think you have the killer instinct to come out on top.”

He turned, snagging the arm of a passing figure. “Here’s number three.”

Even with the kidding and horseplay, Liza couldn’t repress a spurt of annoyance. The Vegas mavens thought that Roy Conklin was more of a competitor than she was?

Liza watched Roy trying to shake Scottie loose. “Leggo, Terhune.” The guy was just a tad younger than Liza, but an adolescent whine crept into his voice.

Admittedly, he looked much younger, with a round face and a snub nose—and an expression that looked as if he’d just had his hair ruffled and been given a wedgie.

He might be teaching high-order math up in Seattle,
Liza thought,
but Roy still has flashbacks to the days when he was a nerd.

“Maybe we’d better get this show on the road before you start a riot,” Liza told Scottie.

He backed off, looking abashed. “Sorry, man.”

Liza spotted Will off in a corner, listening on his cell phone. He was just about glowing with anticipation as he clicked the phone shut and headed for a podium in the front of the room.

He settled behind it, and a silence fell on the crowd.

“Thank you, everyone, for attending our tournament kickoff here at the splendid Rancho Pacificano,” Will said. “Even more to the point, thank you to our generous sponsors.”

Liza noticed that Charley Ormond was too busy to acknowledge the props, directing her camera crew.

“I’d also like to thank our host. Let’s have a few words from Mr. Fergus Fleming.” Will’s phone began to ring. “And not a moment too soon.”

Fergus—wasn’t that the name Kevin mentioned when he talked about pulling strings to get into the resort?

A tall man with a head of flaming red hair and a beard to match came over to loom beside Will. As Fergus Fleming bent forward to the microphone, Liza could see that even though his suit was expensively and conservatively cut, it certainly didn’t hide his wide shoulders.

“Thank you, Will, and let me say it’s a pleasure to welcome all of you.”

For some reason, that seemed to provoke a fit of coughing from Babs Basset, who had moved front and center before the podium.

Glancing at her, Fleming checked his smooth flow of words, his voice taking on more of a Celtic burr. “As managing partner, I’ve tried to make Rancho Pacificano a premier modern lifestyle destination.”

Well, that explains the Spanish-Scottish combination,
Liza thought.

“For all of those staying here, our amenities are at your service. For those of you who aren’t, well, you can see all you’re missing.”

That got a laugh from the assembled guests.

“And for the contestants in this tournament, the best of luck to you!” Fleming waved as some flash cameras went off. Then he stepped over to shake hands with Will, who had to jam his phone into a jacket pocket. More camera flashes and jockeying from the video crews.

Liza just happened to spot a blond head moving from behind the podium—where Will had left his portfolio.

Well, maybe the contents weren’t for competitors’ eyes. But unless Babs had a photographic memory, even if there were originals of tournament sudoku in there, she couldn’t hope to memorize them.

Will moved back to the podium. “In a moment I’ll introduce some of the sudoku experts who have come from several nearby states and cities to participate in this year’s tournament,” he said. “But first I have a surprise announcement. Could I direct your attention to the main entrance, please?”

Charley Ormond was glaring daggers at Will for departing from the agreed-upon script, but she turned her camera crew around.

“It turns out we have a sudoku fan who registered under an alias for reasons of privacy,” Will said. “Now, though, she has graciously agreed to let me introduce her, although she really needs no introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Gemma Vereker.”

The double doors in the rear of the room opened, and Gemma Vereker strode into the room. She couldn’t have looked more like a movie star if she’d made her entrance trailing a mink coat behind her.

What Liza really found impressive was that Gemma did the job strictly on presence rather than props. Gemma’s suit was stylish but understated, and the star’s hair was shorter and more silvery than Liza remembered from recent pictures.

The newspeople immediately began peppering the star with questions, but Gemma struck the perfect tone. “I’ve enjoyed sudoku puzzles for some years now—they’ve helped pass a lot of time on film sets. And when I heard of a tournament only a short distance from Hollywood . . . well, I had to give it a try.”

She gave the photographers a dazzling smile. “But I’m hardly a star at sudoku, so I hope you’ll give your attention to the serious competitors at this tournament.”

As Will introduced the sudoku pros, Liza kept her publicist’s smile in place and glanced around. Even laid-back Scottie and shy Roy looked less than overjoyed at Gemma’s surprise appearance.

Sharing the spotlight with a genuine A-list celebrity definitely cuts into their fifteen minutes of fame—more like fifteen seconds these days,
Liza thought.
The press, not to mention the paparazzi, will be glued to her from here on out.

Fergus Fleming joined Gemma and Will at the podium. “And now—a toast to success!”

Uniformed waiters began circulating through the room, carrying trays of long-stemmed glasses.

“Champagne, ma’am?” a voice at Liza’s elbow asked.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea before a competition,” Liza began, then broke off as she gawked at the familiar face above the uniform jacket.

“Kevin! You’re not supposed to be here!” she hissed.

“Well, I don’t have a formal invite, that’s true.” Kevin’s tanned face cracked into a smile. “But Fergus is a little shorthanded, and I thought this was a way I could earn my room . . . not to mention catching a few minutes with you.”

He raised the tray again. “Shall we drink to it?”

Liza took a glass for the toast but then returned it. “Not too long after this, I’ll have to tackle the first round of competition. I don’t think a drink is the right preparation.”