The Girl From Diana Park

by Alec Peche

  With a hoot again for that bit of news, his staff wrapped up their desks and were gone in a burst of noise, filing outside and making carpool arrangements to visit Pete. They. He was smiling at the silence as he left the warehouse for the journey back to his boat. He'd make a brief stop at his island to grab a few things and be on his way to the illegal casino. He had a picture of James Spinnaker so he could recognize him if he walked into the storefront.

  An hour later he was walking through the Mission District with the address up ahead on his right. As an actor, he sucked, so he was going to go in under the guise of being a video game addict. He thought he could portray that persona well. He stepped inside the gloomy room and looked for a computer to sit down at.

  A man just inside the door grabbed his arm and said, “Hey man. I don't recognize you. Where are you going?

  Damian looked down at the arm holding his, shrugged it off, and said, “I heard you have video games. I just want to play.”

  “You look a little old to be playing,” said the bouncer.

  “Oh yeah? Who's your best player? I'll take him on and beat him,” Damian said knowing full well he could while he looked around him at the activity. People were sitting at computers but it didn't look like they were playing video games as they were using standard keyboards rather than mechanical keyboards. Most gamers preferred the color-coded and loud clacking of a mechanical keyboard over standard keyboards.

  “Look, you need to leave. This isn't no public gaming cafe,” the man said grabbing Damian's elbow to turn him around toward the exit door.

  Damian broke his arm from the bouncer's grasp and said, “Hey, I heard about this place from Riot Games. They said that you had good players and I could bet in real money instead of bitcoin.”

  The bouncer shoved him into a chair and mumbled, “Sit here,” and walked back through the back door. The guys at the desktop computers ignored him completely.

  Damian took out his phone and checked email while he snuck some pictures in of the interior. He doubted they would be of use, but who knew?

  The bouncer was gone so long, Damian almost forgot about him. He saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and noted the return of the bouncer. He slouched in his seat and tried to look hip although he had no idea what hip looked like.

  “Follow me,” said the bouncer.

  Damian rose and casually walked, at least in his own brain, following the bouncer into the next room. He was pushed into a seat at a desk in front of another man, and the bouncer left. Damian sat there looking at the man waiting for him to speak.

  The man was trying intimidation techniques on Damian, but they weren't working Damian just stared back. Finally, the man spoke, “What's your name? It'll cost you five big ones to go upstairs.”

  “Okay,” Damian said pulling out five hundred dollar bills.

  “Not so fast. Who are you?”

  “What does that matter? I'm here to beat your best players.”

  “What kinda players?”

  “Look, I told the guy at the door that I heard that you had good players here. I'm tired of beating everyone I play with and I want to go against someone tougher. If you don't want my money to enter the game or you don't have good players just tell me, and I'll go,” Damian said making a move to take his money back.

  The man slammed his hand on the money not willing to let the money go so quickly.

  “What's your name?” he asked again, hand still on the money.

  “Not important.”

  “How do I know you're not going to waste the time of my other gamers. You might lose in ten seconds. You're rather old compared to the usual age group.”

  “Are you going to let me play or not? I've got things to do; places to go. If you're not going to let me play then I'm leaving,” reaching for his money again, but the man had not moved his hand.

  “If you don't give me your name I can't log you in.”

  “Fine, it's Jack Dee Pie, ” Damian said naming a popular gamer name.

  “Sure, buddy what's your real name?”

  “Just gave it to you. Tell you what I'll wait here and you can go ask your other players if they want to take on Jack Dee Pie.”

  The man laughed out loud and when Damian sat there stone-faced, he sighed got up sweeping Damian's money with him and left. Damian was tempted to search the guy's office, but he wasn't the person they were after, so he slumped and closed his eyes. He knew that if this was any kind of decent gaming hall, that the manager would be back in a flash to have Damian play. Damian's alter ego – 'Jack Dee Pie' was a top ten scorer in Minecraft and Terraria. In his years alone, before Ariana and Hermione had come into his life, he'd spend hours online, gaming though now he didn't play nearly as much. He'd never shared his picture online or appeared in public and so no one would know what he looked like and he'd forbid any picture where ever this gaming room was. All he had to do was wait for the return of this money manager and office goon.

  Damian heard the door open behind him and the man approached. He stayed slumped, but looked up beneath the rim of his cap, not saying anything, but raising an eyebrow.

  “You're apparently a famous man and no one has ever seen a picture of you so I don't know if you're the real McCoy, but the other players begged me not to let you in as you'd take all the money.”

  “What's wrong with that? I assume you'd get a cut too.”

  “Yeah, I do. Follow me.”

  He showed Damian up a flight of stairs to a dark room filled with guys and gals wearing headphones and sitting in front of their screens. They looked with apprehension at the person entering the room never having met one of the best gamers in the world.

  Damian smiled and looked for an empty seat. He walked over to a console and sat down cracking his knuckles for effect, knowing the others were watching. He opened the program and said “game on, who wants to play? I've thrown five big ones in the pot.”

  He busied himself entering his login information after ensuring that he was running in an incognito mode and no one else could steal his information. When there was still silence he looked up and said, “Who among you is the best?”

  The other plays all pointed to one man, and so Damian said, “Com'on aren't you dying to take me on? Think of the money and reputation you'll have when you beat Jack Dee Pie.”

  Damien knew the man would fall for that line from him. He also hoped he wasn't wasting his time and James Spinnaker would show up at this illegal gaming casino within the hour. If he didn't arrive within that time frame then according to his past behavior, he wouldn't be visiting today. He also hoped the police had no plans to bust this place or he'd be in a heap of trouble. He wished he thought of that before he came up with this hair-brained scheme.

  Pretty soon he was giving his full concentration to the game at hand. He'd already overwhelmed three of the gamers and he was gaining a margin on the best player when he lost his concentration for a moment when James Spinnaker entered. Damian took a quick glance at the time and registered in the recesses of his mind that the guy had arrived within his usual time frame. He then rededicated his skills at defeating the gamer who'd gained some ground on him. Damian's fingers weren't necessarily the fastest, but his brain grasped strategy so fast that he could easily make up for his keystroke speed against other players. It was as if he had instant insight into the game designer's brain and could find the fastest way to defeat despite his keystroke speed. It was a case of cunning over speed.

  In another twenty minutes, he had the final player close to a monumental defeat, he was just waiting for him to concede and then he'd concentrate on his new target. Damian heard an F-bomb from the location of where his final player was dying a slow death. He smiled and pushed harder and in another two minutes, he knew the last player had to concede defeat. Damian earned backed his five-hundred dollars plus took some of the other player's money. He looked up to see what Spinnaker was up to wondering if he was watching or playing his own game. He was into his own game and
Damian discovered it was a different one then he'd just been playing. He also understood how the man could play it an hour at a time and walk away; he was playing against a computer rather than another human who would allow him to stop and start as met his schedule. Damian could see that Spinnaker was an addicted gambler as the game he played was rumored to have given an unfair advantage in the computer code to its own artificial intelligence. Once gamers understood that they deserted the game, but Spinnaker kept coming back on the hope that this would be the day he would beat the machine, except that there would never be a day he could beat the computer.

  Damian untangled himself as soon as he could from the people and location of the gaming casino. He couldn't wait to be back on his boat in the fresh air of the Bay which was so much better than inhaling the despondent air of the casino. He'd kept his face away from Spinnaker as much as possible and for tomorrow morning he would confront him regarding the poster. He was reasonably certain that someone was using Spinnaker's computer gaming addiction to his or her advantage to find Hermione. Did whoever was behind Spinnaker actually know where Hermione's parents were or were they hoping to capture her to bring the parents out of hiding?

  Looking at his watch, he thought that Ariana and Hermione were likely home from school and soccer practice.

  “Hello, Damian. What have you been up to?”

  “I've just left an illegal video gaming parlor.”

  “Are you still the king of the video world?”

  “I am and I'm two-hundred richer! I hope I never enter that place again. The desperation of the other men and women there while they played was a drag to experience. There was no pleasure in playing. It took me about forty minutes to put away their best gamer after I coerced him into a game. No one wanted to play with me at first.”

  “Gee I wonder why?”

  “Anyhow, Spinnaker did show up and he's addicted to a game that he plays against a computer which is a sure way to lose your money. I had no interaction with him, but that addiction makes him vulnerable. So maybe someone reached out to him there. I still don't understand the connection to Pete's bar.”

  “Did he get a look at you?”

  “Only in passing. As I play a different game, he wasn't much interested in me. I also wore a ball cap, slouchy jeans and a plaid button down shirt – I was trying to look like a hipster.”

  He could hear Ariana laughing at the vision on the other end of the phone.

  “That's too funny. You really are a computer genius and here you are wearing a costume to look like one! I wish I'd been a fly on the wall to watch this whole episode.”

  “It's a good thing you weren't there besides the bad atmosphere, the acting on my end was terrible. I actually said the words, 'five big ones' as an indicator of five hundred dollars. The things I do for Hermione!”

  There was more laughter and he could hear Hermione's giggles in the background.

  “Did you put me on speaker phone?”

  “I had to share your vivid descriptions with Hermione so we could both be rolling on the floor with laughter.”

  “Haha. Well ladies, I'll head back to the courthouse tomorrow morning, and I'm glad I could provide some laughter at my expense.”

  “Stay safe Damian, and next time record yourself acting so we can enjoy it.”

  He just smiled and ended the connection.

  Chapter 16

  As Damian made arrangements to leave his boat at the marina and call for a taxi in San Francisco the next morning, he reflected he'd possibly made more trips across the Bay journeys this past week, then perhaps the entire first year he lived on the island. His island was designed to be self-sufficient, and he'd initially made arrangements with the harbormaster in Richmond for food and parcel deliveries to the island. Now he was off the island so much with his warehouse and to do things for and with Ariana and Hermione that he hadn't used the harbormaster's services in almost a year. He made a mental note to thank the man the next time he saw him.

  A short time later he was in place and looking for James Spinnaker's arrival at his office. He knew the direction he arrived from and so it was just a matter of stopping the man. Damian was wearing completely different clothing than he was at the gaming casino including sunglasses, so he wasn't worried about being recognized.

  Damian saw him walking towards the entrance to the building and said, “James Spinnaker, I would like to talk to you about the phone number listed on a poster for a missing child.”

  That stopped the man in his tracks as he quickly looked at Damian and then around him to see who heard Damian's questions.

  “Yes?” he said guiding Damian to stand farther from the building entrance. His co-workers would likely pass by their conversation, and he didn't want it overheard.

  “I know you're with Homeland Security. Why are you carrying a phone that connects you to a missing child poster?”

  Damian watched the man switch through a bunch of responses in his head, he knew he had caught the man off-guard. It was evident he was searching for an answer to Damian's question.

  “I can see I've caught you unprepared to give me the truth or at least a good lie. Who told you to post a missing child poster?”

  “Ah, I don't know the person's name?”

  “So why would a government employee be involved in the search for a missing child?”

  “Who are you? I missed your name?”

  “That's because I didn't give it to you as it's not important. Why are you searching for a child?”

  “How do you know I'm looking for a child?” the man asked confused as though his brain was not thinking fast enough to figure out who Damian was.

  “Because you're carrying a phone with a number related to a missing child announcement,” Damian replied.

  “How do you know I'm carrying a phone?” the man asked, not believing that Damian could know.

  Damian pulled a phone out of his own pocket that he had purchased just for this occasion. He entered the number listed on Hermione's poster and a phone was heard ringing inside the man's briefcase.

  “Oh.”

  “You work for the Department of Homeland Security. Since when did that department start looking for missing children? It's not in your scope of responsibility.”

  In a hesitating voice, he said, “We sometimes look for children missing from people who have illegally entered the United States.”

  “The girl and her parents are United States citizens born and you know that. What's another excuse for your department looking for the girl? Or does the search have anything to do with your department? Are you searching on behalf of someone else? Do I need to show the poster to your superiors along with the phone records and let them decipher what you've been up to?”

  Damian was leaning into the man as he talked and Spinnaker had taken a few steps backward while they were talking. He was at the curb now and had nowhere to go to get away from Damian and his questions.

  Spinnaker was looking worried as he had no idea who this stranger was and yet he seemed to know all kinds of information about him. He'd been slow on paying some of his debts at the casino, and the people he owed money to offered to forgive his debt if he would act as a go-between on a poster of a missing child. He'd been carrying the phone around for months and had received one call from an old neighbor of the missing child. Now he was confronted by an angry man who looked vaguely familiar, though James couldn't quite put his finger on where he knew the man from.

  “Look, do you know where the child is? If you don't, we have nothing to talk about,” Spinnaker said sidestepping Damian to head toward his office.

  “Who hired you? Who's standing behind you wanting Hannah?” Damian was beginning to feel frustrated with himself for dealing with this man instead of notifying his superiors about his side job searching for a missing child for a friend.

  “Do you know where the parents are? Have you met them?”

  Spinnaker stopped and looked back at Damian and said, “Look I'll arrange a
video call with her parents if you tell me you know how to contact the child. Are you hiding her?” Spinnaker asked suspiciously.

  “You arrange that video call and if it's the girl's parents on the other end of the video then I might tell you where the kid is.”

  “Does she live with you?” Spinnaker asked.

  “No she doesn't. Look, when you're ready to set up the call here is my contact information,” Damian said giving the man a number tied to a phone that was in no way attached to him.

  James Spinnaker nodded and turned away with Damian's card when he asked a final question that was bugging him.

  “I saw the missing child poster in downtown Oakland. Where all did you put that notice up?”

  “I put it up in every restaurant in Oakland because that's the closest major city to Shepard Canyon where the child lived.”

  Damian nodded and the two men parted ways. At least he had one question answered. No way was he going to expose Hannah to a video call. They, and Damian didn't know who the 'they' were, likely didn't plan to have her parents on the other end of that call. Of that he was sure.

  There was nothing for him to do but head back to the marina and his boat and wait for the call to come through setting up the video call. He'd give the guy four days to call him, and if he didn't, he would provide the evidence he collected on the guy to his supervisor. In the meantime he wanted to find a fake Hannah Sherwood AKA Hermione that he could put on a video call.

  He decided he would collect from Hermione all of the pictures she had of herself a year ago. He could transform them into a holographic image that would make it seem real like she was really in the room with Damian. He'd take the call on his island as they would be unable to trace him. He owned the satellite in the sky that he bounced his transmissions off of. He was both the owner and sole user of the satellite, and he could refuse any calls from any government agency to identify himself. He turned his boat towards Ariana house as he needed the pictures now, but then Damian remembered that Hermione was still in school and he would have to wait for her to find the photos he needed. He wouldn't violate her privacy by searching her room for pictures. So he changed course again and headed toward Richmond and his warehouse.