by Rick Dakan
Paul looked out the rapidly fogging windows at the parking lot and street beyond. He in fact did know this neighborhood pretty well - which was unusual for him in San Jose.
"Actually I have a friend in this neighborhood," he said softly. "Or at least I used to."
"Really?" said Chloe. "Will he be happy to help us out?"
"Probably not. But maybe it's worth a try."
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"Who're you thinking of?"
"You're not going to like it," he said.
"I haven't liked anything for three days. Who're you thinking of?"
"Greg."
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CHAPTER 37
Paul had met Greg in high school, when they'd both played in the same weekly Dungeons and Dragons game on Saturday afternoons. They'd hit it off almost immediately, which surprised many onlookers since outwardly they had almost nothing in common. Back then - the late eighties - Paul's image and fashion sense hovered somewhere between punk and goth, with lots of black leather and band t-shirts (although in retrospect he was the textbook example of a poseur ). Greg was chubby and socially awkward but brilliant. Pretty much your stereotypical nerd, except for his love of water skiing and jet skis.
Below the surface, though, they had almost everything in common. They had both been fanatical Dr. Who fans as kids. They shared a passion for the same sci-fi and fantasy authors, from the comedy of Douglas Adams and Piers Anthony, to the hard sci-fi of Poul Anderson and Isaac Asimov, to the morbid and depressing fantasies of Stephen Donaldson and Michael Moorcock. They obsessed over the X-Men and read The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen with mouths agape in awe. And of course they rejoiced in Star Wars and watched Start Trek the Next Generation religiously. They were, in short, geeks of a feather.
But more than anything, they had in common a love of games. Their Dungeons and Dragons group became the center of their social lives, with every Saturday game stretching through the night and into the following Sunday evening. During the week they talked constantly about their adventures and their characters and various ways they could tweak or improve the rules to make their games better. In their most speculative midnight reveries, they plotted and planned the game company they would create if they had a chance, describing in every detail how they'd do things better.
After high school they always stayed in touch, even as they went off to different colleges hundreds of miles apart. Greg studied computer systems engineering at Georgia Tech, where he knew more than most of the teachers and found he had a special talent for computer chip design and engineering. Paul went to Oberlin College in Ohio, where he got a degree in fine arts and illustration. Every Christmas break and summer vacation the old D&D group would get together again, and the core group of five players stayed thick as thieves.
Seven years after graduating from college, Greg had started a chip design company and sold it to another, much larger company, netting over twenty-million dollars for himself in the process. Paul had worked as an artist for various comic companies before self-publishing his own series, Metropolis 2.0 , which became one of the better selling indie-comics of the late nineties. He didn't have anything resembling the kind of money Greg had made, but they were both successful and happy in their chosen careers.
The next step was obvious; a plan hatched over a series of excited phone calls that resulted in the foundation of Fear and Loading Games. Greg brought the money and some technical know how, and Paul brought the intellectual property and inspiration for their first game, based on his comic book. Greg's network of contacts in Silicon Valley made finding the other founding partners pretty easy. Evan, Jerry, and, of course, Frank soon joined their team. They incorporated, rented an office, and got to work making the next smash hit game.
That was three years ago now, and things hadn't quite worked out as Paul had expected. Two and a half years of working together had strained Paul's friendship with Greg. Paul found Greg to be strangely distant and yet oppressively controlling. Greg no doubt thought Paul was moody and lazy and hard to work with. They spent less and less time together socially, and by the end Paul would've been hard pressed to remember the last time the two old friends had seen a movie or had a meal together.
"And you're sure this is a good idea?" Chloe asked Paul for the fifth time. They were standing on the front porch of Greg's modest house in San Jose. For all his money, Greg was not the kind of guy to buy big expensive houses and cars just because he could. This was the same house he'd bought when he first moved out to San Jose. It had more room than he needed as it was, and since he spent most of his time at the office CHAPTER 37
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anyway, he saw no reason to upgrade.
"No," said Paul, "For the fifth time, I'm not sure this is a good idea at all. But it's definitely an idea."
"A bad idea," Chloe insisted.
"Do you have a better one?" he asked, tired of this conversation.
"I haven't had time to come up with one. I've been too busy trying to convince you that this plan is bullshit."
"Too late," Paul said and pressed the doorbell.
"This is fucking insane," Chloe said under her breath. She reached her hand into her shoulder bag. Paul knew that it was the stun gun, not the laptop that she was getting ready.
They heard footsteps from inside and then the door swung open. There was Greg, in shorts and a Fear and Loading t-shirt, a twenty-dollar bill in his hand. "You're not pizza," he said, confused at first glance.
"Nope," Paul agreed.
Recognition hit Greg like a ton of bricks. He reeled back from the door, saying "Jesus...Paul..."
"Hi, Greg. Can we come in?"
"What...?" Greg stammered. "What are you doing here?" There was no fear, just utter surprise in his voice.
"I need to talk to you, Greg. About everything that's happened. I need to talk to you."
Greg stepped back from the doorway and held out an awkward arm, motioning them into the living room.
"Oooookaaaaay," he drawled warily. The living room remained sparsely decorated, as always. Two fluffy Rooms-to-Go couches facing Greg's one big splurge - a 66" plasma screen TV and a top end sound system.
Chloe and Paul stood uncomfortably in the middle of the living room, while Greg shut the door and then looked back at them with equal discomfort.
"So," Greg finally said, "Frank said he ran into you the other night." Paul recognized this as typical understatement for Greg.
"Yeah," said Paul. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. It's not what everyone's saying it is."
"You didn't knock him out and tie him up in a closet?"
"I don't know anything about that, Greg, I swear. I was at that fund raiser thing, but I had nothing to do with Frank and whatever happened to him."
"Uh-huh," Greg replied. "That's not what Frank says."
"I'm going to go talk to him next," said Paul. "Try and get this straightened out. My face is all over the news and shit and it's scaring the hell out of me."
Greg gestured towards Chloe. "Can't your lawyer here help you?"
Paul looked at Chloe for help, but her face was a stone mask. "I should explain that, too. She's my girlfriend, CHAPTER 37
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Greg. She's not really a lawyer. I just got her to help me out with that boardroom thing because..." he started to falter. "Because I didn't know who else to turn to and I was kind of in shock and well..."
He looked up at Greg, hoping for some sign of empathy from his old friend, but he just stood there, looking as grave and inscrutable as Chloe did. "Listen, I'm really sorry about how all that went down. But you have to understand, Greg, I was so pissed and..."
Greg suddenly interrupted him. "You blackmailed me, Paul. You blackmailed all of us into paying you off.
You read private e-mails, raided the company servers. How am I supposed to understand that kind of betrayal?"
Paul saw that Greg was getting angry and, in spite of hims
elf, he felt his own gorge rising. "I wasn't the first person to do some betraying here. You betrayed me, Greg. You and Frank and all of them, you fired me without cause. Without warning. It was my fucking game and you fucking fired me."
"We fired you because you were impossible to work with!" Greg retorted. "You were lazy and insufferable to talk to. You took the smallest criticism as a personal affront. Your design documentation was difficult to understand at best and you were never around to explain things when the programmers or artists had questions. You left me no choice, Paul."
"I was impossible to talk to?" Paul was near shouting. "Have you ever had a conversation with Frank where he didn't belittle you? Have you ever tried to get Evan to make a decision in less than three days? Has Jerry ever said the same thing to your face that he says behind your back? None of us were perfect there. You know that better than anyone."
Greg mulled this over for a minute, before responding. "You're right, Paul, they're hard to work with. But they're also something you ceased to be. They're indispensable. I need them all to finish the game. But you, you hadn't really added anything to the mix in over a year. Sure it was your idea and your comic. But what have you done for me lately?"
"Isn't that enough? There wouldn't even have been a game or a company if it weren't for me!"
"No, not at first there wouldn't have been. But I've got news for you. The company's still there and it's doing fine without you, even better in many ways. You failed to make us need you Paul, and once that happened, it was only a matter of time."
Deep down Paul knew that everything Greg was saying was true. He'd known it long before they fired him, which was why he'd started coming in later and leaving earlier. No one really did need him there, and certainly no one wanted him. His place in the company had evaporated long before they'd made it official and fired him. Paul's head started to pound, a migraine-level headache coming on. He sat down on one of the couches, covering his face in his hands.
Chloe spoke up for the first time. "Greg, I'm really sorry for my part in all this." There was a quiver of fear in her voice. "I just wanted to help Greg out - he was so upset when you fired him and, well, I was angry for him.
I'd never met any of you guys and all I saw was someone I cared about who was in pain. I wanted to do right by him, and I'm sorry that meant doing wrong by you."
Greg really focused on Chloe for the first time since they'd shown up at his door. "How come I never heard Paul mention you before?"
"Well, you two weren't exactly close anymore by the time Paul and I met. I know you guys have been best friends forever, so it must be hard to have grown apart like this. Lord knows I know what that's like." A touch CHAPTER 37
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of sadness crept into Greg's features at the mention of their lost friendship. Chloe pressed the opening.
"You've been friends for years," she continued. "That's why we're here, because when I asked Paul who he trusted, who he could count on in a jam, he said 'Greg.' Without even thinking, he said he could trust you."
Greg looked in surprise over at Paul, who still had his face down in his hands. She saw a hint of wetness in the corners of Greg's eyes. "And we're in a hell of a jam now. Way over our heads."
"Yeah," Greg said, turning back to look Chloe. "I saw the news on TV."
"That's not what it seems. Not by a long shot," She moved over and sat down next to Paul, putting a comforting arm around him and squeezing him close. "It's complicated and hard to explain, but the short version is, I got us into some pretty nasty trouble. The guy who organized that fundraiser thing where Frank saw us? His name's Ralph Kryswiki and he's an old acquaintance of mine and he asked us to help him out.
That's all. We had no idea it was all a scam. But when things went wrong he blamed it all on Paul. He's just a scapegoat."
Greg moved into the center of the room and stared down at the two of them. "Is this true Paul?"
He finally looked up, rubbing his temples. "Yeah Greg, it is. I don't know how this happened. I don't know what's going on, but this Ralph guy is really screwing with my life. Turns out he's some sort of con man and now he knows everything about me. About my family. He's threatening to destroy my whole life."
Greg stared in silence, his expression aghast at what Paul was saying.
"I need your help Greg. This guy's watching every move I make and I need your help."
"What can I do?" he asked. "Do you need money or something...?"
"No," said Paul. "No, you've given me more than enough money, Greg. I just need you to do me a favor. I need you to pick something up for me."
"Pick up what?"
"Do you remember that Spring Break when we went to New Orleans and stayed with my cousin?"
"Yeah," Greg said, an unconscious smile of remembrance crossing his features. "Sure, I remember that."
"Well she lived out here before I moved to San Jose, you remember me telling you that?"
"Vaguely."
"Well, she left a bunch of stuff in a storage locker here in town when she moved. I've been using the locker too, and I need you to get something out of it for me."
"Why do you need me to get it?"
"This Ralph guy, he's all over us. Watching every move we make. I can't risk going there myself."
Greg started to look skeptical again, "Maybe you should just go to the police," he said.
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"I will!" Paul said. "God knows I want to, but I need to get a few things sorted out and see a lawyer first. But I can't do that until tomorrow and I'm afraid of what might happen if I don't get the bag out of there tonight."
"I know this sounds a little out of the ordinary," Chloe chimed in, "But we've got no one else we can turn to."
Greg regarded them both in turn, thinking things over. They just stared back at him, looking as helpless and sad as one could imagine, huddled together on the edge of Greg's couch. "What's in the bag?" he finally asked.
"Money," said Paul. "The money you paid me for my stock."
Greg had to laugh at that, although there wasn't a lot of humor in it. "You're kidding, right?"
"No, I'm serious," Paul pleaded. "I wouldn't be asking like this if I weren't serious."
"You want me to help you get back the money you extorted from me before someone else steals it from you?"
Greg asked incredulously. "That takes some nerve."
"I know, Greg, I know. But at this point all I want to do is make sure this Ralph guy doesn't get it or get me arrested. That's all I care about - I just want my life back."
"Uh-huh," Greg said, his face was starting to set in stone again and Paul knew he had to act fast.
"Listen, if you do this for me, you can take whatever you want from the bag. Leave me whatever it is you think I deserve. But please, I need your help on this."
Greg turned away and walked out of the living room, leaving Chloe and Paul alone and staring at each other in surprise. "I told you," Chloe whispered to him. But a moment later Greg came back with a pad of paper and a pen, which he tossed in Paul's lap.
"Write down the storage locker info and how you want me to get the bag to you," he said.
Relief flooded through Paul's body. "Do you mean it?" he said. "I really can't thank you enough..."
Greg held out his hand for Paul to stop. "Hey," he said with a tight-lipped smile, "Just be good from now on, ok?"
Paul could only nod in agreement and, maybe, shame.
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CHAPTER 38
"Do you not want this money?" Chloe asked, as they drove away from Greg's house. "Is that why you keep trying to give it away?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked angrily.
"Telling him he could take whatever he wanted from the money, basically making it ok for him to take it all."
She kept on talking before he could respond. "And before that the thing that got us into this mess - telling the Crew you'd give them the cash
if your scam failed. If you hadn't done that..."
"If I hadn't done that Raff would've found some other way to get at me!" Paul shouted. "He'd already had his gun toting buddy try and shake me down before that, if you remember. And he'd already brought that guy into it before we got back from the beach!"
"Yeah," Chloe conceded, "Ok, but..."
"And as for Greg," Paul said, "He doesn't care about the money. You've got to trust me; I've known this guy forever. He's got his own very strong views about what's right and wrong. He's not pissed about me stealing $850,000 from him; he's pissed at me for taking something he thinks I didn't deserve. I had to convince him that it wasn't about the money at all, that I was looking for forgiveness and help. If I'd tried to hide what was in the bag or tried to buy him off with just a portion of the cash he'd have frozen up on us. Trust me, I know this guy."
"Ok, ok, I'll grant you that this may have been the only way to play him. Fine. But..."then she stopped herself and just concentrated on driving.
"But what?" Paul asked.
"Never mind. We've got to plan our next move now. If Greg is going to pick the bag up in an hour like he said he will, we need to get ready to give him some cover." They'd thought about telling Greg to wait for their signal that it was all clear, but decided that the less his actions seemed like part of some criminal enterprise, the more likely he was to cooperate. And so they'd let him choose his own time frame, which amounted to waiting until he'd finished his pizza and changed clothes. About an hour.
"How do we do that then?" Paul asked.
"We go in first, draw their attention."
"You mean draw their fire," Paul corrected.
"Hopefully not, but yeah, maybe. We can't let Greg just walk in there with them watching. They won't recognize him, but they might follow him anyway, just because of the timing of his visit. If they follow him home or run his plates and then figure out his connection to you, they'd move in on him."
"We don't even know if they really have someone watching the storage locker," Paul pointed out. "If it's just the three or four of them working together, they couldn't have the manpower."