Reckless Disregard

by Robert Rotstein

  I hold a serving plate while Philip puts the beef on it and tents it with aluminum foil. “It needs another rest,” he said. “Ten to twelve minutes. Just enough time to finish our salad.”

  We go inside. Joyce and Brenda are standing at the butcher-block kitchen table, filling up salad plates. Brenda pours red wine, a Malbec from Argentina that I brought, into three of the four glasses and sits down near the empty glass. She and I drove over together from The Barrista. We seem only to have the lawsuit in common, and yet that’s OK—I’ve found that I like being near her. She’s earnest and dedicated and idealistic in a way I haven’t been since I was a second-year lawyer. And she respects privacy—there’s no pressure to talk about my life or to ask about hers.

  I toast the host and hostess, Brenda sipping water from her wine glass. She’s never said she doesn’t drink, but I’ve never seen her consume alcohol.

  “So Joyce, Parker went out to visit Harmon’s father Harry yesterday,” Philip says. “You met him a few times at firm gatherings.”

  “Oh yes,” she says. “A nice man. Much more relaxed than his son. Though I remember him swearing a lot.”

  “He’s suffering from dementia,” Philip says.

  “If I get that Alzheimer’s or whatever, I hope I realize it and have the guts to check myself out and save everyone else the trouble,” Brenda says. “If I live to be old enough to get it, which I probably won’t.”

  We’re all quiet, and her neck becomes splotchy. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  I get the impression that Brenda has never been to a dinner party, even a casual one, doesn’t know how to make conversation, and so just blurted something out in an attempt to fight her shyness.

  “You did nothing wrong,” Philip says. “So many people believe that today. All human life is sacred no matter how damaged. The way Sonja still dotes on and protects Harry is proof of that.” Philip might have left the priesthood, but he hasn’t abandoned his faith. He’s consistent in his views—capital punishment and euthanasia are as abhorrent to him as abortion.

  “What a depressing thing to talk about during dinner,” Joyce says. “I don’t know why you brought it up, Phil.” She’s the only person I’ve ever heard call him Phil.

  “It’s relevant to our lawsuit,” he says. “Harry has a long history with Bishop.”

  “Ah yes, the lawsuit,” Joyce says, glancing at me with a frown. “I think that’s an even more depressing subject.”

  “Alzheimer’s is a terrible affliction,” Philip says. “I just try to keep my mind active and hope. That’s one of the reasons I decided to go back to work. I don’t want my brain to atrophy. It’s been good to get back into the game.”

  Joyce’s face tightens, and she purses her lips and raises her shoulders, a woman making a decision. “I have to say this, Parker.”

  “Not now, Joyce,” Philip says in his soft voice.

  “No, I have to. I didn’t want Philip to go back to work. Or more accurately, I didn’t want him to go back to work for you.”

  I’ve always gotten along with Joyce. Or so I thought. But I was arrogant back in the firm days. “Joyce, if I’ve ever said or done anything to—”

  “It isn’t because I don’t like you,” she says. “I do. You’re a great lawyer, firm in your beliefs. Admirable. And that’s the problem. The case is too dangerous. You’re a magnet for trouble, and Philip isn’t getting any younger. He’s had some physical problems recently.”

  He waves his fork at her and says mid-bite of salad, “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Philip, I truly don’t want to risk your health. I can find someone else.”

  “Not as good as I am,” he says. “And I say that in all humility. I agree with Joyce. The case is definitely dangerous and you do attract trouble. Which is exactly why I’m working with you. It keeps me young, and it keeps my brain clear and in shape. And besides, you and Brenda need my help. Now let’s finish the salad so the tri-tip doesn’t rest too long.”

  For the rest of the meal—which is excellent, even Brenda’s chocolate chip cookies—I make sure to avoid talking about the case, which is the only thing I really want to talk about. So we discuss sports and art and politics, though we tread lightly on politics based on some engrained disagreements in views. Brenda knows a surprising amount about comic book and graffiti art (hence her admiration for Banksy, the English street artist)—she only half-jokingly talks about a boyfriend who was a tagger—and makes a strong case for why it should be taken seriously. Later, Philip and I recycle some old stories about Harmon Cherry and other former colleagues that neither of us tires of hearing. At around eight o’clock, Brenda and I announce that we’re going to leave.

  “Wait,” Philip says. “I want to show you something on Abduction!”

  “I’ll clean up,” Joyce says. “Just make sure you keep the sound down on that horrible game.”

  Philip leads us into a small bedroom that he uses as an office and game room. He turns on his television, powers on his Xbox, and connects to the Internet.

  “Video games are the new creative medium,” he says. “One has to know these things to keep current.”

  The game launches, depicting an upscale bar, all chrome and glass and din, which I recognize as being located in a Westside mall. Philip maneuvers the viewer toward a man sitting with an attractive redhead in the corner booth. We elbow our way past jostling patrons who form a barrier between the player and the man in the booth. As we approach, it becomes clear that the man is William Bishop. Is the woman Felicity McGrath? We don’t know, because just as we get close, Bishop’s facial features melt and rearrange themselves into those of a faceless demon. The woman transforms into a gap-toothed crone with warts.

  Brenda looks at the screen with hands on hips. “How strange,” she mumbles.

  “You’re telling me,” Philip says. “I’ve been stuck in this bar for days. No one online has solved it either. Just when you think Poniard is making a point . . .” He takes a couple more passes at approaching the Bishop character, but the same thing happens. He shrugs. “Maybe next time.”

  I move close. “Philip, listen, about what Joyce said, I really don’t want you to do this if—”

  He puts a fatherly hand on my shoulder. “My wife is a worrier. I’m loving this and grateful that you have the confidence in me to let me work on such an important case.”

  For days, Brighton has rattled the front gate outside the rundown building, pressing the intercom button over and over again. A woman with an old hag’s voice keeps saying, “Go away, we don’t want any!” He’s tried circling around to the back alley and climbing the concrete wall, only to have suffered deep wounds from the barbed wire. He knows this because when he disturbed the wire, blood started dripping down from his POV onto the screen, and his movements were restricted for a suitable healing period—Poniard’s way of penalizing the player for stupidity. There seems to be no solution to this level. Brighton has gotten so frustrated that he seriously might give up on Abduction!

  Then, on a Saturday, he comes home from an under-12 league soccer game, in which he’s scored two goals but has also gotten a yellow card for shoving this overgrown kid who pulled his shirt to stop him from scoring a hat trick. The HF Queen made him play soccer, but of course she doesn’t show up at games, always too busy. So Bugsy watches from the sideline and shouts advice, though he’s never played the game himself. At this game, he got a red card and a one-game ban from watching because he cussed at the linesman. Afterward, they went for pizza, and that’s when Brighton remembered Leon’s Pizza Parlor in Abduction! He’s gone inside there just once, but it seemed like a dead end, a module leading nowhere populated by cardboard characters who don’t react, who just sit and eat pizza. Besides, all the action is in the upscale Scott’s Bar across the street, where everyone is looking for the mysterious “Scotty,” and where William the Conqueror himself sometimes sits in a corner booth drinking scotch with a beautiful
woman. This seemed like an important opportunity the first time Brighton saw Bishop there, but when Brighton approached the table, the Conqueror dissolved into a pig in a business suit. Poniard has created the perfect diversion with that fancy bar, because ninety-nine out of a hundred people will search there and ignore other possibilities. That’s what Brighton did until he and Bugsy went to get pizza after the soccer game.

  Now, he opens the door to the pizza parlor, passes by a couple of scruffy non-interactive characters scarfing down an extra-large pizza topped with what at first looks like olives and anchovies but turns out to be scurrying cockroaches and black mold. Absolutely disgusting. No wonder Poniard has posted a health department “D” rating in the pizza parlor’s window. He probes and prods the place until he gets the idea to explore the restroom, remembering that Poniard’s earlier games featured drains and sewers and storm pipes as passageways to other worlds. He has to knock a grumpy pizza chef unconscious with a rolling pin to get into the bathroom, but once he does he plunges into the toilet and flushes himself into darkness.

  Swirling algae and murky water, a pinpoint of light far in the distance. He swims through wads of toilet paper, fighting off a couple of gigantic sewer alligators that Poniard has thrown in just for sport. He can almost smell the rank water, feel the bacterial chill on his skin as if he were wearing one of those haptic suits he’s read about in Ready Player One. Why didn’t he remember that Poniard tries to make you feel everything when you’re in his world, including nausea and revulsion?

  He reaches the light and emerges through a breach in the wall, the sewer water pouring into the room. He’s entered a space just beneath a photograph of a short gray-haired man with a moustache who’s posing with a totally buff African American man standing in a boxer’s pose. There’s writing on the photo that reads, What’s up, Doc? Thanks for everything. We both champs, and then a signature that Brighton can’t recognize.

  He turns around to find the other walls filled with photographs of the guy with the moustache. There’s a large receptionist desk in the middle of the room. When he maneuvers the mouse around the desk to investigate, he finds that all the drawers have been pulled out. The floor is strewn with papers that have fake video game writing on them. Two of the wall photos have fallen, leaving gleaming shards of broken glass that reflect light so brilliant that Brighton wonders if the glass is really a radioactive mineral. The soundtrack starts blaring out creepy music—creaks and squeals of a violin, punctuated with an eerie string-bass line, the kind of music they play right before someone is brutally murdered in one of those old black-and-white movies that Bugsy likes to watch. He moves the mouse and taps the keyboard gingerly—he doesn’t want to die and have to start the game over.

  He finds a closed door on the right. He tries the knob, not expecting it to open—too easy. There’s a loud bash-boom, and from the other side of the wall a man moans what sounds like an “awwww!!!” of aggrievement and surrender, and Brighton reflexively tries the knob again, and this time a woman squeals, her scream reaching a crescendo and then morphing into a piercing electronic screech that makes Brighton let go of the mouse and cover his ears for fear that his eardrums will burst.

  The HF Queen bursts into his room and says, What the hell was that?

  Brighton didn’t know she was home. He points to the screen. The animated door opens of its own accord, and the screen draws the viewer into a back office. Brighton manipulates the mouse, but he has no control. This is now a cutscene. An old woman lies face up on the floor, her legs twisted under her in a grotesque knot. There’s a scroll-handled dagger stuck in her chest. Her uninhabited eyes stare at the viewer, and even if you move so she’ll stop looking at you, those eyes follow you everywhere.

  The man in the chair moans again. “I’ve been gut shot!” And then he dies a video game character’s death, dissolving into glittering pixels and nothingness.

  “Oh my god,” the HF Queen says, and she actually puts her arms around Brighton and draws him close. “What happened?”

  Brighton shrugs and wriggles out of her grasp. He isn’t sure whether he’s killed a level boss or whether something in the game has gone terribly wrong.

  Two days after the Paulsen dinner, Herman “Bud” Kreiss and his wife Isla are found dead in their Century City office. She was stabbed several times in the chest, and he died of multiple gunshot wounds. I phone the police and tell them that I have information that could implicate William Bishop in the murders. A callow detective comes out to the coffee shop and takes my statement. The stories in the media report that the police department has no leads but speculate that the Kreisses were killed by one of the many spouse abusers or deranged fans or hardened criminals with whom Bud Kreiss clashed while guarding his celebrity clients. The list of suspects is endless.

  Poniard, however, doesn’t hesitate to name William Bishop as the killer. The day after the bodies are discovered, Abduction! plays online in a modified form. A level that challenged the player to find Kreiss’s office has become a cutscene, in which the viewer passively watches Bishop stab Isla and shoot Bud Kreiss in the stomach.

  The Kreiss murders are horrifying, but with a lawyer’s perverse narcissism, I keep thinking that we’ve lost our most important witness. I also feel an odd sense of responsibility—would they be alive if I hadn’t showed up at their office that day?

  I send a spate of e-mails to Poniard but don’t get a reply until the next morning. I’m already on my third Barrista macchiato.

  Poniard:

  >Hey, Parker Stern. You e-mailed me. Responding

  PStern

  >Your accusation that Bishop killed the Kreisses. Frantz will amend the complaint to add that to the defamation claim.

  Poniard:

  >No worries counselor—truth is a defense

  PStern

  >There’s no evidence that Bishop has anything to do with it.

  Poniard:

  >The Conqueror obviously found out that Kreiss was going to finally tell the truth . . . so he had him killed

  PStern

  >Speculation.

  Poniard:

  >Truth

  PStern

  >So you keep repeating. But where’s the proof?

  Poniard:

  >The Felicity/Scotty letters . . . Bishop denies they exist, which proves he’s a liar, that he’s covering up

  PStern

  >Yes, Bishop is a liar. But that doesn’t make him a killer.

  Poniard:

  >What Kreiss told you was solid proof. And now he’s dead. That’s no coincidence

  PStern

  >It’s my professional advice that you stop making disparaging statements about William Bishop, true or not. It’s too late to avoid potential liability, but if you keep this up, you’re going to look bad to the judge and jeopardize your case.

  Poniard:

  >Duly noted counselor. Consider your ass totally covered. Bye

  Almost knocking my coffee cup off the table, I put my fingers on the keyboard and try to cyber-shout Wait, I’m not done talking to you! but the chat program flashes Poniard has signed off. I want to throttle my client. But who is my client? As his fans must have done, I try to picture him in the flesh. A pierced, tattooed scofflaw with a James Dean face? A plump albino misfit who lives on Cheetos and beer? A Harvard-educated investment banker with a unique hobby?

  My cell phone rings. Caller ID shows that the call is from Frantz’s law firm. I tap the answer button.

  “Parker, it’s Lovely Diamond.” As if I wouldn’t know. Her tone is formal, as it usually is to people other than me.

  “Another frivolous motion?” I say.

  “Your client is blaming Bishop for the Kreiss killings. It’s bullshit.”

  I clench and unclench my fingers. “So I’m right. You did call to threaten me.”

  “No, it’s . . . no one knows I’m calling. But that horrible video game showed the Kreiss murders before they happened.”

  It takes me a moment
to process the fact that she’s implicating my client in murder. “Sounds like I’m getting an advance preview of Bishop’s new propaganda campaign.”

  “I’d never lie to you.”

  “Oh, really? Then tell me why you left me.”

  “Goddamn it, Parker. The game showed the murders before they happened.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been playing too much Abduction!, Ms. Diamond.”

  “If there’s one thing you should’ve learned about me it’s that I don’t play games. Your client knew about the murders beforehand. Draw your own conclusions. And . . . and watch out for yourself.” She clicks off, though I don’t realize it until I’ve repeated, Hello, are you still there? three times. Her voice lingers like a coming-of-age song that can move you to tears decades after you first hear it. I stare at the phone, willing it to ring again and wondering whether she’s truly called me out of concern.

  I power on my laptop and launch the e-mail program, sending a message to Poniard. “URGENT. WE MUST COMMUNICATE IMMEDIATELY!!!” While I wait for a response, I search the Web for anything substantiating Lovely’s claim. Nothing at first. But within thirty minutes, reports surface that Abduction! depicted the murders before they occurred. And then the speculation explodes with volcanic magnitude. Poniard’s supporters accuse Bishop of trying to frame Poniard by hacking the game. Others maintain that Poniard is clairvoyant and was trying to warn Kreiss. Still others call Poniard a murderer. One blogger points out that Isla Kreiss was killed with a dagger—also called a poniard.

  Homicide detective Angela Tringali—a thin, plain woman with short brown hair who looks more like a real estate broker than a police officer—shows up at The Barrista at opening time and interrogates me for an hour about how Poniard could have predicted the murders. I explain why Bishop had a motive to send someone over to kill the Kreisses—Bud was going to come clean about Boardwalk Freddy, the witness who saw Bishop drive away from the scene of the abduction. I don’t know whether Lovely Diamond called her or whether she simply responded to the rampant Internet chatter. Harmon Cherry would say that a lawyer is at his most strident when advocating for a client he doesn’t trust, and at the moment that’s true for me—when Tringali treats my story dismissively, I rudely invoke the attorney-client privilege and tell her to leave, which only causes her to order a patrol car to park in front of the shop and scare the customers away.