Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome (10 page)

Put like that, Newport Beach sounded
like Beirut.

“Officer, I understand what you’re
saying, but–”

“It’s Sergeant, Mr. Archer. Here’s my
card. We’ve dusted the entryways for prints, we’ve checked for
signs of forced entry, we’ve shot the crime scene, we’ve talked to
your neighbors. There isn’t a lot more we can do. Most of the time
these things are either someone you know, or a crazy. You don’t
know anyone who would do this, so that leaves crazy. If anything
comes up or you see anything suspicious, or if something occurs to
you you’ve left out, then call me.”

Time to get out and handle real crime.
Dog butchering vs. drunken bar fight. Tough call.

Steven could appreciate this was going
nowhere fast. It’s not like they could call in satellite footage of
the area and isolate who entered between the hours of six and
eight-thirty.

“He was such a gentle dog. You should
have seen him. A teddy bear.” Steven was choking up. God damn
whoever did this.

“Call Doug at 24/7 Locks in Costa Mesa.
He’s in the book. He’ll fix you up and won’t charge an arm and a
leg. Try to get some sleep.” He took a few steps towards the door.
“I have a chocolate lab. I’d want to kill the son of a bitch if it
happened to me. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just I can’t do
anything. I’m really sorry. Honest to God.” He seemed sincere, and
Steven recognized he was right. There was nothing more to be
done.

“Thanks for spending the time,
Sergeant. I’ll call if anything else comes up.”

“I’ll have a car drive by every hour or
so tonight just to keep an eye out. It’s a little slow – you’re
lucky it isn’t Saturday night.”

Peter was having a hell of a time
figuring out why most of the Griffen data was inaccessible to him.
He’d been doing the PI thing long enough and knew enough people on
the inside of various law enforcement agencies to usually get all
the info he needed within a few hours. Not this time. He was
running into a lot of brick walls. And that set off his
alarms.

This smelled different, and dangerous.
He kept hitting roadblocks, dead ends, sanitized reports,
stonewalling. He’d never encountered anything like it before,
outside of the top-secret, clandestine world of international
espionage. But this was a money manager, not the undercover station
chief in Uzbekistan, so why all the subterfuge?

Peter was developing a nagging sense of
something far larger than what appeared on the surface. An iceberg
of shady dealings, of carefully crafted secrecy, of influence and
access far beyond what he’d expected. And that worried him. Why had
Steven taken on something this dangerous? Why invite a street fight
with unknown adversaries? Who needed this kind of grief?

But that was Steven for you. Ever since
a boy, he’d been stubborn as a mule. Peter could still remember
times when they’d butted heads, Steve no more than twelve or so,
with that look of determination in his fierce little eyes; a look
that said, ‘Talk all you want, I’m still going to do it my way’.
That had been one of the primary reasons he’d steered Steven into
martial arts. The combination of discipline and physical demand was
perfect for his temperament and offered positive ways to channel
and develop his energy. If he didn’t figure out a way to get it
under rein, that quality could easily have gone down a more
destructive path. Steven liked to play by his own rules, and that
could turn criminal if he wasn’t guided correctly.

Peter got up and walked over to the
coffee maker, pouring another cup into the oversized mug that was
his perpetual companion when he was working. His eyes absently
roved over the plaques, the awards lining the walls of his study, a
tribute to his skill and professional dedication. He’d been good at
his job, and responsible for a lot of twisted examples of humanity
getting locked up. He paced a little, then slid back into the worn
high-back chair that had been one of his few luxuries when he set
up his home office.

Peter had always wanted a son, but
fickle chromosomes had conspired against him. That had been a
regret for years, but he’d mellowed with time and eventually made
peace with his lot in life. He was successful at a career he
enjoyed, with enough money to do anything he felt like, within
reason. He had a wonderful marriage, their union blessed with two
beautiful daughters, now long out of the house and through college,
making their own ways in the world. There were no
complaints.

Steven represented the son he would
have wanted and Peter reveled in his every success. Over the years
he’d developed from a gangly, slightly rebellious kid into a
strong, confident alpha male, capable of anything he set his mind
to. He couldn’t have been prouder, although he’d never said the
words out loud to Steven. He didn’t have to. They knew each other
too well.

So it wasn’t a comforting thought that
Steven’s conflict had put him at odds with a group that all
preliminary signals flagged as dangerous. Peter knew Steven would
never back down, and further, that he hated crooks. He’d gotten
into trouble in school a few times for confronting bullies, always
defending less capable classmates; it was in his hardwiring. This
had all the elements that would make for a cage fight for Steven.
Powerful interests screwing little guys, abusing the system,
breaking the rules.

He needed to quickly get to the bottom
of whatever was going on, so he could understand the malevolence he
was sensing, and persuade Steven to stand down if this was an
un-winnable battle. Peter had been around long enough to understand
life wasn’t fair, and it didn’t surprise him that bad guys did bad
things all the time and got away with it. He was all for moral
outrage, but it was foolish to take on an enemy who had you
outgunned.

He hoped against hope that wasn’t the
case here. It seemed like Steven was already in deep water, and as
smart and resourceful as he was, he wasn’t bulletproof.

Peter leaned back in his chair, stared
at his computer screen, then made a few notes on the ever-present
yellow legal pad on his desk. Old habits died hard, and he’d never
gotten used to substituting his pads for a computer file; he did
his best work writing longhand. There was something cathartic about
the flow of ink upon paper. And you couldn’t doodle on a word
document…

He jotted down several names and
numbers and picked up the phone. Time was wasting. It was late, but
he knew a lot of home numbers and had collected a lot of favors
over the years. He hammered out the first set of digits – and
resigned himself to a late one.

The house took on a hanging emptiness
once the police left. Steven called the locksmith the cop had
recommended, to be told that two hundred dollars would get the
locks changed. Jennifer came down the stairs and perched uneasily
on the couch furthest away from the blanket covering the
bloodstain.

“I know how much you loved him. I loved
him, too.” She had tears streaming down her face; her body language
turned inwards, defensive, borderline shock setting in.

“He was such a good dog.” Steven choked
up, he didn’t know what else to say.

“Why? Why would anyone do this?” she
asked.

Steven debated telling her about his
concerns, then thought better of it. There was no evidence the
break-in was anything but a nutcase on a meth binge. He had his
doubts, but after the last few hours tonight wasn’t the time to
start the sharing-fest.

“It doesn’t make any sense, honey.
Listen, I called a locksmith, he’ll be here in a few minutes. I’m
going to get the locks changed and set the alarm.” She needed to
see he was doing something to safeguard them. Against what or
whom…well, that was a more difficult question. “The cop felt this
was some crazy, or a drug-induced crank gone wrong. I don’t know
what to think.” He looked over at the blanket.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not
stupid, and I know you well enough to know you’re worried. You were
agitated over the Gas Company visit, and now this happens. Have you
done anything that would make you a target? Could it be something
to do with your website?”

Jennifer was smart, and sensed his
unease. He didn’t know what to tell her. It all sounded so
far-fetched, and he’d been so painstaking...

“I’ve been extremely careful. Am I
concerned? Yes. Do I think it’s really possible? No. These guys
aren’t psychic. The site’s tied to a dummy e-mail account using a
phony name. I use an alias on the boards. No one knows who I am. If
they’re looking for somebody, they’re looking for some guy named
Stanley living in New Orleans and working in a bar. I don’t want to
get all paranoid and see boogie-men everywhere. There’s no chance
at all they could trace me.” It was all true, but it sounded hollow
to him.

“I don’t know, Steven. I hear you, but
I have to tell you I never liked what you were doing – it just
seems like you’re asking for trouble. I hope you’re
right.”

“Jen, I appreciate the sentiment, but
tonight’s really not the night. We’ve both been through a lot, I’m
beat, and nothing I say’s going to make any of this better. So can
we just agree you don’t like me doing the site, and leave it at
that for now?” It came out sounding terse, which isn’t how Steven
intended it, but it was too late.

She pouted. “Sure. You know best,
right? I’m going to go to bed, Steven. I agree we’ve both been
through a lot, and this conversation isn’t helping.”

“Jen…” Too late. She was already on her
way up the stairs, fear easily replaced by anger. He should have
expected it, but what was done was done. He’d deal with it
tomorrow.

Doug showed up a few minutes later, and
true to his word, had the locks changed in twenty minutes flat, and
was gone in twenty-five. Steven took the time to log on and check
his e-mail. A quick scan showed eighteen messages; most of them
suggestions from the Group for additional security, mirroring, etc.
for the site. He realized as he read he was fading in and out;
exhausted, but still jittery from adrenaline.

When he got up to the bedroom, Jennifer
was asleep, out cold. He envied her. Steven went back downstairs
and set the alarm, checked all the locks again, and took a sleeping
pill. It did little good. Eventually he drifted into an uneasy
slumber. Bad things were happening was the last thought he had
before he went under.

* * * *

The next day was surrealistic for
Steven, in no small part due to the residual effects of the pill.
He felt like someone had thrown a wet blanket on his senses. He
barely made it through his morning run, as much from a lack of will
as from exhaustion; this was the first time he’d ever done it
without Avalon by his side.

Steven halfheartedly checked in on the
stock and the boards, and there was little action today. He put off
dealing with the cleanup issues presented by Avalon’s untimely
demise, unwilling to confront the gory reminder of that reality,
and instead went upstairs to wake Jennifer. He stood over her in
the soft morning light and watched as she slept, her face
untroubled and looking all of eighteen years old. She really had
been put through the wringer in the last twelve hours. He debated
letting her sleep, but then remembered she had a job and couldn’t
just fan all her obligations due to a late night.

Steven slipped into bed next to her,
kissed her.

She jerked awake, opened one eye and
peered at him. “God, Steven, you scared me. What time is
it?”

“About 7:45.”

“I’m going to call in sick again and
help you deal with the house. I feel like shit. How about you?” She
opened both eyes and appraised him.

“I’ve had better days. The run was
hard. You don’t have to stay home, you know. I can deal with
things.”

“I’ll be useless today in an office.
Let me catch another hour or so, and I’ll be up and around. Try not
to piss anyone off while I’m asleep.” She apparently wasn’t going
to let up on him.

“All right. I’m gonna go get some
bagels.” He pulled on a baseball cap and grabbed his sunglasses off
the dresser. As he made his way down the stairs, he was again
confronted by the area still covered by the blanket. Sickened, he
grabbed his keys, wallet and cell phone and climbed into the
car.

Steven considered the events of the
previous day as he drove. The break-in was hugely disturbing, the
hacking only mildly troubling, the Gas Company visit ultimately
noise. He thought about taking the website down, but rebelled at
the thought. He’d be damned if he’d intimidate himself by jumping
to conclusions and throw in the towel when he’d just started;
Steven had absolutely zero logical reason in the cold light of day
to believe Avalon’s murder was related. It would serve no purpose
to get overly suspicious and assume everything that happened was
caused by Griffen’s invisible hand.

Even if he was inclined to take it
down, which he wasn’t, would that change anything? Griffen’s
problem was that the information was now out there. That damage was
done. You couldn’t stuff the toothpaste back into the
tube.

And there was the ultimate issue,
namely that Steven was plain old stubborn. He had a strong sense of
right and wrong, and didn’t like being controlled or told what to
do by anyone.