For the Sake of the Game

by Laurie R. King

  Her injuries and admitting complaints are telling. A gashed lip and broken cheekbone she claimed to have incurred in a fender bender. When presenting with suture-worthy tears at the introitus and vaginal mucosa, she confessed to being into rough sex. Clavicle and distal radius fractures she chalked up to a snowboarding fall. Deep scrapes to her upper arm required antibiotic ointment and dressings; she explained that she’d been clawed by a dog. Photographs had been taken at the nurse’s insistence for legal reasons, should Leanne want to press charges against the dog’s owner. The watcher studies them. He has been clawed by many a dog and her wounds feature none of the trademark gouges. They do however look familiar. He has seen this nasty little trick twice before, once in Zagreb, once in Bangkok. The lacerations are caused by a potato peeler.

  He is now ninety-nine percent sure, but with what he’s considering, there can be no shadow of a doubt, not an eyelash of uncertainty. This is the First Commandment: Assume Nothing.

  Before he acted, he would be well acquainted with every last detail, as intimate with each particular as Sherlock was with the number of steps leading from the ground floor to the door of his flat at 221B Baker Street.

  He slips out of the hospital unobserved, stops for a quick lunch, and returns to his hotel. The woman behind the reception desk is attractive and her eye contact direct, but he pretends not to notice.

  As he passes, she asks, “In town for business?” and he gives a benign nod.

  In his room, he again accesses the security cameras from the estate, splitting the screen to watch multiple feeds at once. Radack’s goons are only now stirring. Radack is in the pool house, showering. A squat, middle-aged housekeeper finishes cleaning up the bowling alley with a dustpan and broom. In the screening room, Leanne sits on a padded bench, tapping at an iPad. She wears large round retro eyeglasses that accent her round face and somehow make it prettier still.

  When Radack emerges from the shower, he admires himself in the mirror. A scar runs zipper-like from above his navel to the base of his throat where they cracked his chest to resuscitate him. Another scar to the side indicates where the pacemaker was inserted. He dresses and enters the main house, crossing paths with Padilla in the foyer.

  “Erase the footage from last night,” he says. “Bowling alley and front yard. The pond. Get that shit gone.”

  Padilla nods and shuffles off to the adjoining study. Deleting evidence seems to be a habit of Radack’s, a habit that will prove useful.

  As Padilla sits at the computer, the watcher brings up another screen. From inside the system, he sees the previous night’s footage vanish from the net video recorder application. The watcher notes the precise time of Padilla’s meddling—15:31. The archives already look like Swiss cheese, showing an extensive history of holes where Radack has ordered illicit activity excised from the record.

  Back to the live feeds. Radack is walking down a long hall. He enters the screening room. Leanne jolts upright and turns off her iPad. Radack crosses his arms.

  “You e-mailed your mom to get you a plane ticket,” he says.

  The air leaks from Leanne; she seems literally to deflate on the bench. Her fingers twist together in her lap, tugging.

  “I’m a software visionary, you dumb cooze. Do you really think you can do anything without me noticing?”

  Her words are almost too quiet to be picked up by the speakers. “Why don’t you let me go?”

  Radack leans back on his heels, appeals to the upholstered ceiling. “I don’t want to break up with you,” he says. “I want to ruin you so no one else will ever want you.” He wipes at his nose with finger and thumb. “What do you have to say to that?”

  She has nothing to say to that.

  He points through the wall. “Kane and Padilla, they are my blood brothers. My guard dogs. Wherever you go, they will hunt you down. And bring you back to me.”

  She says, “Go to hell, Steve.”

  He moves like a flash, two quick strides and a backhand, and she is sent sprawling off the couch. On all fours, she gropes for her broken glasses.

  He stands over her, wide-postured, legs spread. “Hell ain’t a place. It’s a state of mind.”

  He walks out. She waits frozen for a few moments and then clamps a palm over her mouth and sobs into it. Finally she rises, weak on her legs, clutching her shattered eyeglasses. She pokes her head through the doorway, then moves quietly down the hall and turns left. The watcher loses her, not knowing which feed to pick up. He finds her in the maid’s quarters, where the housekeeper looks stunned to see her. Leanne asks her to read the Bible with her, and the woman nods. They kneel together at the side of the bed before the worn book. Leanne holds up one intact lens to read through. She laces her free hand in the housekeeper’s.

  In the living room, Radack gathers his H&K 94 and his bodyguards. They head to the screening room first and find Leanne missing. They begin a march through the house, prowling, opening doors.

  Leanne reads faster. Her body tenses. Her eyes squeeze shut. The housekeeper looks terrified.

  The hunting party nears. The door to the maid’s quarters opens.

  Radack says, “Go home, Marisol.”

  Marisol rises. She has to pull her hand free of Leanne’s. Marisol nods respectfully to Radack and slides out through the men. Rushing down the hall to the foyer, she begins to weep soundlessly.

  In the room, Leanne has still not looked up. Her eyes remain closed; her lips are moving soundlessly. Radack steps forward and places the muzzle of the submachine gun to her forehead.

  The watcher knows now. She is the one.

  She is the catalyst for his reinvention.

  Leanne’s lips stop moving but even now she does not open her eyes.

  “The killings in Rwanda,” Radack says. “Know what the Hutu tribesmen did? They made their victims buy the bullets they’d be killed with if they didn’t want to get hacked to death.”

  Behind him, Kane laughs at the thought of this.

  “So,” Radack says. “What do you say, Leanne? Wanna buy a bullet?”

  Leanne remains very still for a long time, maybe a full minute. Finally she shakes her head. He clocks her with the barrel of the carbine, knocking her over. Then he tugs down his pants and advances. The bodyguards look on. He finishes and rises. There are smiles and high fives.

  As Radack exits, he says, “Have a go.”

  The men are willing. They step forward, already unbuckling, and set upon her like dogs. The watcher does not flinch. He does not look away.

  When it is over, he turns to the window. It is night.

  Night is good.

  He packs up, walks downstairs, and checks out. The receptionist says, “How was everything?” and he smiles and says, “Fine, thank you.”

  He drives over to Radack’s estate, abiding the speed limit, and parks on the quiet street behind the compound. A check of the laptop shows Radack shirtless, playing a first-person-shooter video game in the living room, the real submachine gun resting on the cushion beside him. He has seemingly ordered Leanne to the facing couch, for she lies there fetally, shuddering. Padilla mixes margaritas on the kitchen island behind them, and Kane patrols the halls. Both bodyguards wear satiated grins. There are white lines on the coffee table before Radack and white lines on the granite slab of the island and the three men’s motions have more zip than seems standard.

  The watcher applies Superglue to his fingertips, covering the prints, and then pops the hood and trunk. He climbs out, removing the floor mat and hanging it over his open door. He takes the battery from the engine and jumper cables from the back and throws them over the fence. He pays the security cameras no mind; he will make sure later that no footage from tonight exists. In the archives, it will appear as though Padilla shut down the security cameras altogether during his visit to the study at 15:31.

  The watcher slings the floor mat up to cover the spikes and scrambles over the fence.

  The wet wind is blowing out, buying him time be
fore his scent travels. He slices through the maze of the gardens, darting between pea planting beds. Emerging from a row of corn stalks, he sprints for the fish pond.

  At the bank, he kneels. He has just attached a jumper cable to the positive terminal on the battery when he hears the dogs’ snarling approach. He slings the other cable into the pond and trawls it, a few paralyzed fish rolling up to the surface.

  The Dobermans explode into view. He drags the cable clear of the water to preserve the battery for his ride to Los Angeles, and puts the pond and its offerings between him and the dogs. Sure enough, they catch sight of the fish and their interest is diverted. They wade heavily into the pond, dip their snouts, and come up with dinner. He walks boldly between them, signaling his fearlessness. They pause from gnawing, their eyes rolling to track him.

  “Sit,” he says in a low, hard voice.

  They sit.

  He walks to the house. The front door opens, Kane ambling out onto the porch, already shouting: “Thor! Zeus! C’mon, b—”

  Kane stops, on his heels.

  The watcher is ten feet away.

  Now five.

  Kane’s hand flies to his shoulder holster and the revolver is out, swinging toward the watcher’s head. Hopping the step onto the porch directly into the path of the muzzle, the watcher grabs the gun around the wheel, clenching so the cylinder cannot rotate and the weapon cannot fire. For a split-second, he is staring straight down the bore. Kane is still tugging the trigger, confused, when the watcher torques Kane’s gun hand, forcing him to spin to keep the elbow intact. The watcher slides neatly behind him. His free hand moves to Kane’s front right pocket and he rakes the Emerson knife free, knowing that the shark-fin hook riding the blade top will snare the pocket edge and snap the knife open. Kane is arched backwards, his vitals bared, and the blade work is direct and efficient. The scents of tequila and deodorant are joined by a fresh, coppery tang.

  Better than Baritsu, the watcher thinks.

  He eases the collapsing form to the concrete and pivots to the door, his momentum barely slowed.

  He is inside.

  The house smells of teak and lavender—it smells of money. He strides through the foyer but Padilla is already stepping into view from the living room on the far side, surprising him. It is clear now just how large Padilla is.

  The men halt and consider each other across the six-foot span.

  “What the hell?” Radack calls out from behind. “Where’d Kane go?”

  The watcher lunges before Padilla can go for his hip holster. Padilla leads with a jab and the watcher sidesteps and flicks the Emerson. But the big man is well trained, parrying the swipe and countering with a cross that whistles overhead. The watcher lunges with the blade and Padilla catches his arm midflight, one giant hand crushing his wrist. His arm and the knife are going nowhere; the men are locked up. Padilla draws back his fist, but before he can swing, the watcher does the unexpected; he opens the hand clenched around the knife handle. The blade tumbles past their eyes, their chins, their chests, Padilla seeming to realize what is coming an instant before it does.

  The watcher’s free hand darts forward, grabbing the tumbling knife as it falls between them and driving it into Padilla’s gut. He punches it two more times up Padilla’s left ribs— smack smack—and the man falls away in slow motion.

  The watcher is already gliding down the steps into the sunken living room, angling for the kitchen. As the watcher hoped, Radack has the H&K 94 in hand. He swings the submachine gun blindly as the watcher hip-slides across the sleek granite slab and drops behind the island.

  Radack dumps all thirty-two rounds in a single wild burst. Wine bottles shatter. Bullets ping off the Sub-Zero. The Viking stove crumples inward and emits a puff of gray smoke. Lighting fixtures spark overhead. Chunks of the ceiling dump down. Somewhere on the floor beside the couch, Leanne screams.

  The island remains, predictably, untouched. The watcher could have stood in plain view and every last bullet would have sailed overhead.

  He rises now and crosses to Radack, who struggles to drop the magazine from the useless gun, his panic tangible. Drops of sweat cling to the tips of his disheveled hair. As the watcher nears, Radack gives up on the mag and clubs at him with the barrel. The watcher knocks the weapon wide and, with the butt of his palm, delivers a single stun blow to the heart.

  Radack makes a noise like a bark and veins pop in his throat. He takes a step back, his clawed hand hovering an inch off his chest. The skin has gone to scarlet, the sutures scars standing out in defiant white. He lean-sits against the couch back and his eyes widen and widen some more and then his head lolls forward and he is dead.

  The room is thick with smoke and dust billowing from the torn-open ceiling.

  Leanne resolves through the debris-filled air. She lies on her stomach, half twisted over one hip like the crippled girl from that Wyeth painting.

  The watcher says, “You’re safe now.”

  He takes the knife and balls it into Radack’s hand for the prints, then lets it fall to the carpet by the man’s bare feet.

  “Radack went crazy,” he tells her. “Hopped-up on coke. They beat and raped you. Then he went paranoid. Killed his own guards and shot up the place. The security cameras will be wiped.”

  She pulls herself up to sit against the base of the couch, holding one hand to the side of her head. Bruises are coming up around her left eye and there are small cuts where Radack shattered the eyeglasses against her temple earlier. Tears stream, though she makes no noise.

  He crouches, keeping a distance, not wanting to crowd her. In the air is the familiar hot-metal taste of a gunfight’s aftermath. “You’re free.”

  Her face is tilted to the ceiling and her lips move in a quiet murmur. It seems she is speaking more to herself than to him. He thinks he makes out her hoarse whisper.

  —thank God thank God thank—

  “I have to go now. I have one thing to ask of you. Only one thing. So please listen carefully.”

  She tries to speak but coughs dryly instead. Then she squints at him through the swirling dust. “Who are you?”

  He hesitates. He hasn’t used the name, not in several years and never in this context.

  “The Nowhere Man,” he says.

  THE GIRL IN THE KEY OF C

  by Weston Ochse

  Los Angeles was the sort of town that, if you aren’t watching television, you might not even know it was Christmas. What’s Christmas to a movie star who has a three-picture deal and graces every red carpet at the Kodak Theater? What’s Christmas to a homeless guy who just wants his next meal? What’s Christmas to a surfer other than a bullshit story about a red and white fat man whose entire gig was to be a mythical creature who gives children toys they don’t need? No, Christmas might be important to some, but to the denizens of Los Angeles, especially those of us working the docks down in L.A. Harbor, Christmas meant only two things: you weren’t with your family and you were getting time and a half.

  And of course, the occasional hooker in red spandex and a white fleece collar was the added bonus.

  She was a relatively new addition to our dock-side mart, and looked as out of place as a sleigh and reindeer—although I admired her skin-tight red pants tucked into her loosely laced army boots as she bent into the window of the beat-up Cadillac Seville. I couldn’t hear her but imagined a sweet voice as she tried to talk her way into the driver’s wallet. He could be a lovelorn husband sick and tired of the holidays, or a middle-aged divorcée with no one to share hot chocolate, or a cop—a serial killer, even—but she didn’t care. She was on the job and ready to let strangers tour her architecture for a few twenties and a possible smile.

  She backed out of the window and turned to gaze back at me, as if my attention had all the power of the moon and she was unable to resist its tidal effects. In a surprising moment of audacity, I held her gaze. We stared at each other and I felt my stomach begin to flutter. Then she ended it, opened the car door, and
got in. The pair were silhouetted in the dark front seat by the lights of the cranes for a brief second, then the driver put the Caddie in gear, and took her away.

  I sighed as I turned back to my hotdog cart. I checked the temperature of the water, peered at the condiments to make sure no flies had settled in, and slouched against the cool metal. Night shift in L.A. Harbor. Who ate hotdogs at night? I’d wondered when I’d taken the job. The longshoremen who came on shift at 8 P.M., that’s who. The commercial fishermen coming in from several days fishing the western shoals of Catalina Island for yellowtail, that’s who. The cops and Homeland Security officers who patrolled the place for possible terrorist incursions, that’s who. And more often than not those who came needed more than hot dogs.

  I glanced over at the coffee truck that also sold meth if you knew the signal. Next to it was the chowder truck, offering seven different kinds of clam and fish chowder, served either in a plastic bowl or one made with sourdough, which was primarily reserved for the odd tourist who had absolutely made a wrong turn.

  We were an unhappy lot. We lived in a world with no sun. The smell of diesel engines and the constant metal-on-metal noises from the longshoremen unloading and loading containers on the ships was our constant tympanic soundtrack. That this was Christmas made us doubly unhappy. The longshoremen got overtime, and all we got was the same bullshit like it was any other night.

  Frank, the guy who sold coffee and other stimulants—I didn’t know his last name and had never thought to ask—had been in the military until an IED took the lower third of his right arm. He lived hand-to-mouth in a one-room shack in Wilmington. The meth belonged to the Eighth Street Angels, and he was lucky to get a one percent cut.