The Game

by Scollins, Shane

  After a short drive, Vince pulled into another parking garage on Amsterdam. They made their way to a seedy motel and checked into a room. It was the middle of the night and they needed some sleep.

  Candice and Alexis took up one bed while Vince bunked down in the other. Vince said he needed time to think and he needed some sleep. She used her cash to pay for the room.

  After a couple hours, Candice was still not sleeping. She was somewhat annoyed Vince and Alexis could sleep. They were all nearly burned up, she almost fell to her death, and then they were nearly shot. Yet, these two were sleeping, Vince snoring softly and Alexis occasionally cooing inaudible words.

  She lost a friend in Eddie, even if he was being a jerk. She knew in time he would have forgiven her. He was hurt and would eventually see she was right for ending their relationship. The truth was that Eddie was a transition relationship from Ian.

  Ian Waltz was the man she probably could have married. It was a good relationship for the first couple of years in college, but then Ian changed. He started treating her differently. He’d grown colder, distant. It was all an attempt to assuage his guilt for cheating on her with an older married woman. The woman ended up leaving her husband, and Ian packed his bags and moved out of the apartment they shared.

  It was a harsh blow. She wasted some of her best years on a guy that so easily threw her away for a bigger set of boobs and some bleached-blonde hair. It was hard to understand how she could have wasted so much time on that jerk.

  Candice was finally close to slipping into sleep when the doorknob of their motel room jiggled slightly. She focused her gaze on the door to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. She didn’t. The knob was twisting ever so slightly.

  She felt her pulse quicken with a roar of blood in her ears. She sat up quietly and whispered Vince’s name. He didn’t wake. She was on the side of the bed closest to the door, so she shimmied her way over Alexis, who woke up as Candice was on top of her.

  Candice could read Alexis’s face. She liked the idea too much.

  “It’s not what you think,” Candice whispered. “There’s someone at the door.”

  Candice slid into the space between the beds and shook Vince to wake him up. He sat up as soon as he heard. She pointed to the door. His pistol somehow appeared in his hand.

  He touched his finger to his lips and swung his feet to the floor.

  The doorknob twitched and clicked again. Vince motioned for the girls to get down on the floor between the two beds. She was face to face with Alexis, who appeared to share the same look of fear and uncertainty.

  These people had found them again somehow. She didn’t even have a phone anymore. How they were doing this was a mystery.

  Candice started thinking of verses from The Bible, but sadly, only partial pieces came to her. It was something from Proverbs and something from Psalms but neither one was complete or meaningful to the moment. Maybe it was just her mind’s way of coping.

  After her brother died, her father would walk around quoting the Good Book all day long. It was his way of coping. Right now, coping was about all she had going.

  Chapter 17

  Vince advanced on the tattered motel room door leading with his pistol. The sloppy brass-colored knob twitched and turned. He wasn’t afraid to die, but he wasn’t ready for it yet. It was too soon.

  There was a small closet just to the side of the door. It was more like an open space, with just a shelf overhead. Vince looked back to the room and slid into the nook.

  The knob jiggled and then clicked. The door crept inward. Two men slithered into the room, right past him, never looking. He slid in behind them, and with as much force as he could muster, cracked the trailing invader in the back of the head.

  The man in front turned and raised his gun. Vince shot him. The man he hit had not fallen and instead groaned in pain, but also turned to face Vince. He shot him, too.

  Alexis popped up to her feet. “Nice work!”

  Vince stood over the man who was still alive. The shot must have missed his heart. His breathing was rapid and shallow.

  “Who hired you?” Vince demanded.

  “Fuck y-you!” the man replied.

  “Tell me, and I might call for help. Don’t tell me and you’ll bleed to death in about forty excruciating minutes.”

  The man huffed in pain, seething. He finally said, “I don’t know who she is, she said her name was Rena.”

  Vince nodded. “What was your mission?”

  “Bring the girl back to Jersey.”

  “How did you track us?”

  “Rena told us where you were.”

  They’d wrecked Candice’s phone back on Bleeker Street. It didn’t make sense that they could have tracked them via GPS. Vince pulled out his cell, dialed 911, and they hurried out of the hotel.

  Back on the street, they came to the parking garage. They had to find out how these bastards had tracked them. There was no safe place apparently, and that gave him the willies.

  Until he figured this out, they would need to keep moving. He got some gas and began a random crawl through the city.

  The roads weren’t busy at this hour. Vince just drove in a random circle through the city. Across 8th Avenue, to 33rd Street, over to Central Park West, up to Brooklyn, and back over to the West Side, down past Port Authority and past Madison Square Garden again to Washington Square Park and back again to Columbus Circle.

  The girls were both asleep when he pulled up next to the Pinto Diner on Amsterdam and turned off the Jeep. His eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer.

  This was maddening. He was no technology expert, but he was no dummy, either. And there was no explanation as to how they found them at the hotel.

  He nestled his head back against the seat only to rest his eyes, and before he knew it, it was daylight and three hours had passed.

  The city was alive with activity, morning rush was all around them. The sidewalks bustled and the streets swelled with people rushing in every direction. Patrons poured in and out of the Pinto Diner.

  Candice yawned and stretched in the passenger seat. Vince had to look twice, and lingered with his stare. This was the first time he’d seen her in the sunlight. She hadn’t looked so beautiful before but all of a sudden in this early sunlight, she looked amazing.

  He felt a few butterflies beat their wings off the walls of his stomach. She wasn’t groomed, not a shred of makeup. Her chestnut-brown hair was wild and disheveled. There were lines on her face from the stitching of the cloth seat, her large eyes were bright and clear. He couldn’t look away. He’d never seen eyes that color before, they were such a light brown that they were golden.

  She met his eyes. “What is it?”

  Vince shook it off. “Nothing, I was just looking at the diner. I’m hungry.”

  Candice turned and looked at the storefront and agreed. She opened the door and climbed out. Vince looked in the back seat where Alexis was opening her eyes. “Get me a whole wheat bagel with sesame seeds and an orange juice,” she said, closing her eyes again.

  Inside the diner, they grabbed their orders and sat at the rear booth. Vince had been at this place many times before. A lot of the Manhattan cops came in here. Few if any of them would recognize him these days. His hair was too long and he hadn’t shaved in days.

  Candice nursed her coffee. “How long were you a cop?”

  Vince popped the plastic tab on his coffee lid. “A while.”

  “What happened?”

  He placed the cup down. “I burnt out.”

  “Burnt out, huh? Did you get that out of the cop handbook for standard dismissive answers?”

  He looked up at her, taken aback by her response. “What would make you say that?”

  She shrugged. “It just sounds weak. Like it’s the
cliché cop answer from every movie I’ve ever seen. But I guess there’s a reason for that. Slice of life, maybe.”

  “Slice of life?”

  “Yeah, you know, life imitating art, art imitating life…all that intricate narrative that people like to fall back on when they don’t have an explanation or a way to put their thoughts into words.”

  “If you say so. I’ve found life is very strange, very strange indeed, more strange then any movie.”

  “Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Besides, I thought you lost your job because of these people. But, whatever, you don’t have to tell me.”

  Vince scratched his head and studied her. She looked away but he kept staring. She was as intriguing as anyone he’d ever met. Everything about her face was striking, yet there was something common about her beauty, something flawed. She had a quick wit and was adoringly humble, as if she didn’t care how interesting she really was, and that made her even more appealing.

  He finally looked away and caught the eye of a man sitting at the far side of the diner. The man looked away quickly, suspiciously. Vince narrowed his eyes, studied the man and tore off a bite of his egg and ham sandwich. He moved his hand up to his face and glanced through his fingers. It was clear the man was watching them.

  “What’s wrong?” Candice asked as she spotted his wary gaze.

  Vince shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “That’s bull, I can see it in your face. Something’s wrong.”

  “There’s a man over your left shoulder, he keeps looking over here. Take a look and see if you know him.”

  Candice stretched her neck and impressively concealed her intentions while looking around the entire diner. “Nope, I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Okay, let’s see if he follows us.” They quickly finished their food and headed outside.

  They stood near the Jeep. Vince now knew the man was tailing them. He watched the man slowly gather himself and move to another table where he had a clear view of them outside.

  “Walk with me,” Vince said and they headed down the block. Sure enough, the goon followed. He was growing deeply concerned. These people had somehow tracked them again. It wasn’t even possible. He’d turned off his cell, Candice didn’t even have one, and Alexis left hers in the burning apartment. “How are they doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Tracking us…are you positive you don’t have another cell phone? This is ridiculous.”

  “I swear I don’t have any technology at all, not a phone, not an mp3 player, nothing.”

  “How fast can you run?”

  “Fast enough.”

  “Okay, as soon as we casually walk down here and turn into that alley, start running as fast as you can.”

  They walked casually around the corner and the second they were out of sight, ran as fast as they could. Vince expected the alley to be closed off, but it continued on to the next street. He chose to duck behind the second to last green dumpster. Candice closely followed and they both squatted with their backs to the wall.

  Vince pulled his gun and waited. He glanced around the edge of the dumpster and saw the man peering down the alley. The goon just stood there, waiting. Then after a few seconds, the guy left.

  They moved out from behind the dumpster and continued down the alley, all the way around the block until they came up behind the Jeep. There was no sign of the stalker, so they got into the vehicle.

  Vince turned to hand Alexis her bagel, but she was gone.

  Chapter 18

  Angus watched the news story on his tablet computer. He was mad. This wasn’t the best time for a complication, but it didn’t bother him that much on a personal level. They’d found Mark’s body in White Meadow Lake, stuffed into the trunk of his car. He listened to the short follow-up story saying there were still no suspects and no clues.

  Rena entered the office with Caleb following.

  Angus spun in his office chair to face her. “Have you done what I asked?”

  “We got her,” Rena informed him.

  “Did you pay the muscle?”

  “Yup, he’s counting his cash and forgetting he ever saw me, as usual.”

  Angus nodded. “Caleb, take the punk girl to The Mountain. Then come back here and get Zyanna, take her there, too. But put her on the other side of the building by the torture rooms.”

  Caleb said, “Why can’t I take them both now?”

  “No,” Angus replied. “Too risky, we can’t afford another mistake so close to show time.”

  Caleb pivoted on his heels and headed back out the door.

  Rena sat in the chair next to Angus. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “I’m going to put Alexis in the game. She’ll make a good pawn. Zyanna will stay around for motivation as needed.”

  “What about Candice? This guy that’s helping her is savvy.”

  Angus shrugged. “We can still track her and that’s all that matters. If we raise the stakes for both of them, they’ll come to us.” He nodded toward the computer screen that showed Zyanna, still strapped to the bed in her underwear.

  “It hasn’t worked so far.”

  “Well, it will.”

  “But how do we get in touch with her? She’s obviously scrapped her phone.”

  “She’ll get another one, they all do. No one can live today unconnected. She’ll either get a phone or visit an Internet café, and as soon as she logs on, we can send her a nice video and a definitive message that Zyanna will live through a horrible fate if she doesn’t come play.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Angus felt his anger rise, and he slapped Rena hard across the face with the back of his hand. “I’m always right, you ignorant bitch. If you don’t stop questioning me constantly I’m going to get upset.”

  She looked at him with fire in her eyes, a seductive glare. Angus smiled subtly. It wasn’t the first time he’d slapped her, to her it was some form of twisted flirting. She didn’t even flinch, but instead took out a cigarette and lit it up.

  As she blew out the smoke from the first drag she said, “When’s the first show?”

  She just loved to try and get a reaction out of him. But as much as Angus might have wanted to, he couldn’t kill Rena and she knew it. Though he had a need for sex, he resisted it. He liked to deny himself things of the flesh, it made him stronger, smarter. And he got used to it, living in that place for so long. Rena was the ultimate temptation. If he could resist her, he could accomplish anything.

  She took one more drag of the smoke and put it out. “How many networks are we up to?”

  “In addition to twenty major websites, I now have several hijacked apps. But that’s all we need. After the first show, everyone will be hooked.”

  “If we can’t get Candice, does Jackson have another viable lead?”

  “No, Candice is the one.”

  “What is it about her that you think is so special?”

  Angus didn’t reply right away. He looked at Rena. “People will fall in love with her. She’s beautiful, smart, empathetic. The camera loves her. Lest we forget, my dear Rena, even the best show needs a lovable lead character or it’s doomed to fail.” He laughed. “Admittedly we don’t have a great script. We’re geared more for exploitation than anything else.”

  He turned back to the screen and started typing.

  “Well, you’re the genius.”

  Angus smiled and nodded. He liked when someone acknowledged his genius, and Rena often did. She was a smart girl and knew great genius when she saw it. He’d been trying to tell people all his life what a great mind he was, but they didn’t believe him. Most often, they thought he was crazy, dangerous. But maybe they were right. He was definitely dangerous.

  W
hat he pulled off back when he was only twelve was a miracle. He was too young to understand the complexities of his own genius. He was acting on pure instinct and every move he made worked out perfectly, even if that wasn’t his initial intention.

  Chapter 19

  Vince felt the fire in his belly and the flicker in his head that had been driving him all these years. He had been close to answers before, but nothing like since he started chasing Angus and his crew. Whatever these people were up to, it had something to do with his past.

  Alexis had helped him more than anyone had before, and now he led her to the slaughter.

  Candice pulled the note off the windshield and read it aloud. “If you want to see her again, get a new cell phone.”

  Vince slammed the door and started the Jeep. “Get in!”

  They tore away from the curb, dangerously swerving into the river of traffic on Amsterdam Avenue.

  “Vince, I’m sorry.”

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  “But it is my fault. If I would have just given up they would’ve stopped chasing, and Alexis would be here.”

  “It’s my fault. We have to find them before they want us to.”

  “But how?”

  “First thing we need to do is find out how they keep finding you.”

  “How are they finding me?”

  He glanced behind and quickly changed lanes. “I have a suspicion, and I know just the man to confirm it.”

  Vince headed down to Greenwich Village and stopped in front of an old walkup brick building. The area had that familiar smell of fried foods and the unfamiliar smell of some unknown chemicals. The two aromas mixed to form an unappealing stench. The ambience came courtesy of the two flanking buildings, that housed Johnny Fry’s and Cobalt Synthetics.

  Vince pushed in the old door with a creak. It was thick with many layers of paint and didn’t swing smoothly. They walked up a long flight of stairs and came to another door. Vince balled up a fist and pounded on the old wooden blockade.