The Never Game

She dropped the bottle in. “Couple years ago a friend of mine, she told me she was breaking up with this guy. I knew him pretty well too. She told me he hit her and pushed her down a flight of stairs. She went all drama on me, sobbing. So, naturally, I drove over to his place and beat the crap out of him. I mean, what else was there to do?”

As good an answer as any.

“Only, it turned out, she lied to me. Can you believe it? He dumped her and she wasn’t used to that. She was spreading rumors that he was abusive so it wouldn’t look so bad for her.” A shake of her head. “And you know what? If I’d thought about it, I’d’ve known in my heart that boy’d never do any such thing. I jumped too fast. After, I tried to patch it up but, uh-uh, didn’t work.”

Shaw said, “No reset button.”

“No reset.”

“Anyway, Colt, even if you hadn’t called I was going to come by. I’ve got this rule. Life’s short. Never miss a chance to say hello to somebody, never miss a chance to say good-bye... Hey, look at that. I finally got a smile out of you. Okay, better hit the road.”

They embraced, briefly, and then she walked out the door. He watched her through the window as she slid into her car. A moment later she left two black, wavy tread marks, accompanied by ghosts of blue smoke, as she fishtailed onto Google Way and vanished.

Shaw let the curtain fall back, thinking: Never did find out what the tattoo meant.

74

The story was already on the air.

Shaw had turned on the TV to a local station.

Tony Knight, the cofounder of Knight Time Gaming, has turned himself in to the Joint Major Crimes Task Force headquarters in Santa Clara. Knight was wanted for questioning in connection with the kidnappings and murders that terrorized Silicon Valley this past weekend. James Foyle, the other cofounder of the company and its chief game designer, was arrested earlier tonight...

Shaw shut down the feed. That was all he needed to know. He wondered what conversations were going on in the offices of law enforcers around the state and in Washington at the moment. He suspected heated words, high blood pressures and very worried hearts.

He could still hear Knight’s voice in the cabin off the clearing as he stared at the screen of Shaw’s phone.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Shaw had nodded at the mobile. “Tomorrow morning at six a.m. that gets uploaded to the web and sent to fifty newspapers and feeds around the world.”

$1 MILLION REWARD

FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF ANTHONY (“TONY”) ALFRED KNIGHT, WANTED FOR MURDER, KIDNAPPING, ASSAULT AND CONSPIRACY IN CALIFORNIA.

Below were a number of pictures of Knight — some Photoshopped to represent him with a changed appearance — and other information about him that might lead a reward seeker to him. There were details too on how to claim the money.

“I don’t... I don’t understand. Who’s offering this? Not the police? They agreed...” He fell silent, probably deciding it best not to shine a light on the deal he’d arranged.

“I’m offering it,” Shaw told him.

“You?”

He was personally funding the reward through one of his LLCs. When he said he made his living by seeking rewards, a more accurate way to phrase it was that he made some of his living with rewards. Colter Shaw had resources beyond that.

“Let me explain something to you, Knight. As soon as that hits the news, hundreds of people’re going to be making plans to track you down. All over the world. Wherever you think you might want to go. No extradition laws? That doesn’t mean a thing. A mercenary’ll find you, smuggle you back to the States and claim the money.

“I’ve crossed paths with a lot of these folks and they aren’t the nicest kids on the block. For that kind of money, some’ll be thinking: bounty. And even if the announcement doesn’t say dead or alive, that’s what they’re reading. You’ll spend every minute of every day for the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

The man glanced at his helpless minders in disgust.

Shaw said, “Only I can stop that from being uploaded. If anything happens to me, six o’clock, off it goes to the world.”

“Fuck.”

“You’ve got your friends in high places, Tony. Your clients. If they can put a hiatus on the investigation, they can put in a recommendation for a sentence. Something less than life. Now, put the phone down.”

He read the announcement once more and set the iPhone on the table.

“Back up.”

When he had, Shaw retrieved and pocketed the unit.

“Six a.m., Knight. Your move.”