The Desperate Game: (InterMix) (4 page)

“Secret project!”

Guinevere laughed at his astounded expression. “Don’t get excited, Zac. Larry and Cal were secretly designing a computer game. Larry’s been anxious for Cal to get back to work so they can finish it. The idea is to sell it to a software firm that will market it to all the kids in the nation who have their own home computers. Larry and Cal have plans to retire early on the proceeds.”

“So why is it a secret?” Zac asked pointedly.

She explained painstakingly. “Because when they hired on at StarrTech, both Larry and Cal had to sign one of those cute little papers that say anything they invent on the job automatically becomes the property of StarrTech.”

“Standard employment forms.”

“Exactly. But neither Larry nor Cal has any intention of giving StarrTech rights to their new game. Why should they? StarrTech specializes in the manufacture and marketing of communication and test equipment, not children’s games. Relax, this is no earthshaking conspiracy. Furthermore,” Guinevere said coolly, “if you tell Elfstrom about the game, I will personally take pains to screw up your big investigation.”

“I’m supposed to be the one threatening you if you’ll recall.” Zac paused as the waitress returned with the espresso.

“I haven’t forgotten. But somehow I don’t think you’ll turn in Larry and Cal. They’re not big enough fish, are they?”

Zac tilted his head thoughtfully. “Not unless they’re the ones responsible for the missing shipments of test equipment.”

Guinevere frowned. “They aren’t.”

“How can you be sure? They’re in the right place to organize that kind of scam. They have access to the computerized shipping program, the accounting programs, the payroll programs, and the scheduling program. They could do all sorts of neat tricks.”

“So could a lot of other people. Almost anyone could get into the computer room after hours.”

“From what Russ has told me,” Zac said, “it takes someone who knows what he’s doing. From what we can piece together it looks like the day before a marked shipment is due to go out, someone issues address instructions via the computer and then goes back in and erases the instructions after the stuff has left the loading dock. There’s no record left. The packing and shipping people just follow orders on the computerized forms they get with each shipment. The whole process is automated. Neat, simple, cost-effective. And almost nothing left in the way of a paper trail.”

“StarrTech makes thousands of shipments a year. How did anyone even realize a few of the shipments were going astray?” Guinevere asked.

“A new inventory control program apparently turned up some discrepancies. Small differences the old program would never have caught. Some guy in accounting discovered them and brought them to Russ’s attention. Russ told Hampton Starr what was happening.”

“And Starr hired you to ask some discreet questions.”

“Speaking of questions,” Zac interrupted, “I’ve been curious about something.”

“You’re curious about a great many things,” she said complainingly.

“I know, but this relates to you.”

“I was afraid of that.” She picked up the hot espresso cup and waited with a resigned expression. “What now?”

“You don’t really know much about computers, do you? I mean, the work you do in the department is largely clerical.”

“True. Most temporary help work is clerical. I’m terrific at typing and answering phones. Probably missed my calling. Could have been a full-time receptionist. Instead, I blew it and became a big-time industrial spy.”

He moved his hand slightly, cutting off the sarcasm. “If you don’t know much about computers, how did you manage the little trick you pulled on StarrTech? You drained ten thousand dollars out of the benefits program without anyone’s realizing what had happened for months. Russ said if he hadn’t been tearing things apart looking for answers to the missing shipments, he wouldn’t ever have stumbled across your little project.”

She smiled brilliantly. “I’m a quick study.”

Which, translated, Zac knew, meant he wasn’t going to get any more out of her on that score. Later, he promised himself. He was a patient man. Some even said he was on the slow side. But eventually he always got where he was going. One of these days he would answer the questions he was formulating on the subject of Guinevere Jones.

As far as Guinevere was concerned, the man could drown in his own curiosity.
Let him guess forever
, she thought.
Damned if I’ll help him
. She had little enough as it was with which to retaliate against the man who was blackmailing her. Making him shell out for an expensive meal hardly counted as real vengeance.

The note waiting on her desk after lunch was predictable enough. She frequently heard from her sister during working hours. It didn’t matter how many times she told Carla to call only in the event of a genuine emergency. That logic floundered because nearly every new development in Carla’s life these days constituted an emergency. Glancing at the clock, Guinevere decided she had a few minutes left on her lunch hour, so reluctantly she dialed Carla’s apartment.

“Carla? I got your message—”

“Oh, my God, Gwen, she’s cutting off the Valium! I’ll die. I will just lay down and die!”

“Carla, please. Calm down. I don’t understand.” But Guinevere was very much afraid she did comprehend. Completely. This was not going to be the kind of news she needed just now.

“You’ve got to talk to her, Gwen.” Her sister’s soft, husky voice was filled with despair and a threat of tears. “Explain to her that it’s just too soon. I’m not ready for this. Gwen, you know I’m not ready. I’ll really fall apart.” Her tone took on aspects of a wail. “I can’t handle it, Gwen!”

“Carla, listen to me. I’m sure Dr. Estabrook knows what she’s doing. She’s a very competent psychiatrist. You’ve told me you trust her—”

“It was all your idea to pick a woman therapist! You said she’d understand, but she doesn’t, Gwen. She just doesn’t know how hard this has been on me. She’s trying to make me go cold turkey!”

Guinevere took a firm grip on her shaky temper. “Carla, this is my lunch hour, and it’s almost gone. I’m not in the office. I’m at a client’s. I have to watch this sort of thing. You know that. It’s not good for a temp to be seen spending too much time on the client’s phone. Now just calm down and wait until this evening. I’ll talk to you then.”

“Call her, Gwen. She’ll listen to you. Please, call her for me. I just want one more renewal on the prescription. Is that too much to ask?”

“Dr. Estabrook obviously thinks so.” But she’d heard the broken sound in her sister’s words and was worried.

“Dr. Estabrook is some sort of radical feminist! She thinks all women should abandon men and live like amazons or something!”

Guinevere groaned. “Carla, she’s a happily married woman herself.”

“That’s just it!” Carla replied triumphantly. “She tries out her theories on patients like me while in the meantime, she’s got it all. Nice husband, expensive home, and a good career. I want to change psychiatrists, Gwen. I’ve had it with her.”

Something clicked. Guinevere began to see where the conversation was going. “I don’t think so, Carla. I think Dr. Estabrook is handling your case very well.”

“Cutting off my Valium is not handling me well! Gwen, I want another doctor. I need a different one, someone who understands me, someone who is capable of some degree of empathy. I’m going to start phoning around this afternoon.”

Guinevere shoved her red tote into the bottom drawer of the desk. It took some doing, but she finally managed to get the drawer closed. “You’re welcome to shop around for a different psychiatrist,” she told her sister very calmly, “but the only bill I’m picking up is the one from Dr. Estabrook.”

A charged, furious silence greeted that bit of news. And then the phone went dead in Guinevere’s ear as her sister hung up. Smiling wryly, Guinevere replaced her own instrument. Then, with five minutes left on her lunch hour, she quickly dialed the office of Diane Estabrook. She was put right through by a receptionist who knew her well. She ought to, Guinevere thought. It was Guinevere Jones’s name on the monthly check that paid for Carla Jones’s therapy.

“Hello, Gwen.” Diane Estabrook’s warm voice came on the line. “Heard from Carla already, have you?”

“How did you guess? Did you really cut off the Valium?”

“Of course. She’s been on it long enough. We all know it. I started it only to help her get through the initial trauma. There was never any plan to keep her on it for more than a few weeks.”

“I know you’re right,” Guinevere said. “It’s just that things have been so much more pleasant while she’s been on it!”

Dr. Estabrook laughed. “I can imagine. Things have been more pleasant for me during the past few weeks too. You should have heard the language in my office this morning when I informed her I was not renewing the prescription. But she has to take charge of her own life, Gwen. If she won’t do it of her own accord, then we’re going to have to force her to do it. She’s become obsessed with that incident a few months ago. She’s using it as an excuse for everything from failing to look for a job to chronic depression.”

“All right. Thanks, Diane. Just thought I’d get the facts straight before I went home tonight.”

“Yes, well, don’t let her take it out on you, Gwen. You’ve got your hands full running your own life. Still paying Carla’s rent as well as my bill?”

“You’d better believe it. It’s worth every cent just to keep her from moving in with me!”

“Good. Whatever happens, I hope you won’t offer her that alternative. She’s got to be made to stand on her own two feet. Sooner or later you’d probably better tell her you won’t be picking up either tab much longer.”

Easy for you to say
, Guinevere thought as she hung up the phone. For a moment she conjured up an image of Carla as a homeless waif, forced to seek shelter at one of the gospel missions along with the other picturesque Seattle derelicts. Carla might just be capable of acting out the whole scene for the sake of its dramatic impact.

“Hey, Gwen, any doughnuts left?” Larry Hixon sauntered through the door, tossing aside an empty can of cola.

Guinevere eyed him with an affectionate smile. “A chocolate one, I think. You’re going to have to watch the calories, Larry.”

“I know.” He patted his stomach. “Programmer’s paunch.” He threw himself down in front of his littered desk and idly tapped a couple of keys on his keyboard. “I think I’m eating too much because of incipient depression.”

“You should meet my sister,” Gwen muttered wryly.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. My sister’s feeling a little depressed lately, that’s all. It just occurred to me that the two of you have something in common.”

Larry brightened. “Oh, yeah? She into computers?”

“Unfortunately she’s not into anything at the moment. She used to work as a secretary, but . . .” Guinevere let the sentence disintegrate. It was not a safe topic around StarrTech. “Still worrying about finishing the game? Can’t you go any farther without Cal?”

“Yeah, I could, I suppose, but I didn’t want to mess with Cal’s end of things. This was supposed to be a joint effort, you know. He’d be pissed when he got back if he thought I’d gone on ahead without him. It’s just that we were so close to finishing this week. I thought we’d be done by Friday. I want to get the program out to a software house. I’m sure it’ll be snapped up right away. It’s brilliant, even if I do say so myself. Now it looks like we’ll have to postpone the big
Take This Job and Shove It
scene for a while.” Larry exhaled loudly. “I’m really looking forward to that scene, Gwen. I have such fantasies,” he went on dreamily. “First I’m going to come in real late that last day and wait until the Elf starts into his usual lecture on the unreliability of idiot savant programmers. Then, about halfway through, I’m going to tell him I really can’t bear to cause him one more day of grief.”

Guinevere picked up a pile of papers on her desk. “And then you’ll turn around and wave good-bye forever, leaving him with that month’s payroll half done, right?”

“Something along those lines.” Larry straightened as his computer began talking silently back to him. “The bastard ought to be grateful to me. After all, Cal and I are going to immortalize the sucker.”

Arching one eyebrow, Guinevere slid him a questioning glance. “How?”

Larry grinned evilly. “Know what we’re calling the game?”

“I think I’m getting a horrible premonition.”

“Elf Hunt.”

“Oh, Lord.”

Guinevere swung around to her computer and began the laborious task of inputting a six months’ backlog of sales figures. It was the clerical job Elfstrom had assigned her this morning, and she was fairly certain he’d done it out of sheer spite. The monotonous task was sure to deaden the brain of one of the less advanced species of worms, let alone a human being.

There was a wide spectrum of jobs that needed doing in the brave new world of computers, and a lot of them lacked anything resembling challenge and creativity, advertising to the contrary notwithstanding. Many of the jobs were, in fact, just routinely clerical, the same as they had always been. They were also somewhat painful. Guinevere’s lower spine already ached a bit from this morning’s session in front of the computer. Russ Elfstrom did not believe in wasting StarrTech’s money on computer furniture designed to ease the strains of his employees.

“You know, I’m really beginning to wonder what Cal’s up to,” Larry said wearily as he went back to work. “I can’t even get him on his home phone. He’s a natural-born loner, but sometimes he takes it to extremes.”

It was another voice that answered, that of Liz Anderson, a computer operator. As she walked back into the room she swung her purse down from her shoulder. “Maybe he took an impromptu vacation after the last time Elfstrom yelled at him. Cal worked hard on that new inventory control program, you know, and the Elf didn’t even tell him he’d done a good job.” She poured herself a cup of coffee from the machine that sat in the corner, smiled at Guinevere, and took a seat in front of some printouts on her desk. “For crying out loud, you act like he’s a missing brother, Larry. What do you think happened to him?” An attractive woman in her late twenties, Liz was still carrying some weight left over from her pregnancy. She stuck scrupulously to diet colas and coffee. She’d even limited herself to half a doughnut earlier.