Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome Read online

  “Wow. Someone could get lucky tonight if she wanted. You fully recovered?”

  Jennifer smiled. “Better by the minute. What does a girl have to do to get a decent Cosmopolitan in this town?”

  “Hop into the beach-mobile. Your chariot awaits.” He grabbed his keys and cell phone, and escorted her to the garage. The engine turned over with a meaty roar, the top went smoothly down, and soon they were cruising down Pacific Coast Highway with the warm summer breeze in their hair.

  Monday night at the restaurant was relatively quiet, so there wasn’t much of a crowd. Jennifer ordered her Cosmo, and he a Malbec. They were seated in a booth overlooking the kitchen, and enjoyed watching the crew frantically turning out the orders and preparing the food, rushing about in a controlled and well-choreographed pandemonium. They made small talk – she complaining about her job, he about property taxes being raised on the boat. They deliberately stayed away from any discussion of Allied. Jennifer had made it clear she didn’t enjoy that topic, and at this point, Steven sort of agreed with Jennifer that Allied had gotten enough of his attention for a while.

  It was a pleasant enough dinner, although a tension existed between them that was only somewhat eased by the alcohol. That had been a recurring theme for the last few weeks, but Steven didn’t know what to do about it. She’d just turn distant on him, with no explanation.

  Their relationship worked because they both wanted the same things, or at least they had until recently, since Jennifer’s younger sister gave birth to a daughter. Ever since, Jennifer had been probing his sentiment about families and marriage, but that wasn’t on his radar at the moment. The nesting noises kept coming up, and he knew he needed to discuss things with her, but it was bad timing right now, what with all his focus being on the market and the site. He just wanted to get past this period and have a more normalized life, and then he’d be in a better position to consider things with her. He figured they’d work things out with time. Just not right now.

  The beach traffic was dying down as they returned to the house. Steven pulled into the garage and shut off the engine, returning the top to its closed position. He kissed Jennifer softly, but she pulled away from his embrace. The romance had evidently been put on hold for the evening. Such was life – he’d long ago given up on trying to predict feminine behavior. They entered the house, she following him, and she almost ran headfirst into his shoulder blades.

  He’d stopped abruptly in the hallway leading into the living room.

  “Steven, what the hell are you...” and then she saw what had frozen him in his tracks.

  He turned, his hand over her mouth, and whispered in her ear. “Back out to the car. Now.”

  They moved quickly back into the garage, and he raised the door and started the engine. He pulled out, so he could see his front door and garage while parked diagonally, and dialed 911. Jennifer opened the car door and quietly vomited her dinner into the street, then sat sobbing quietly beside him.

  “Newport Beach Police, Emergency,” the voice on the line declared.

  “I need police at 811 Boardwalk on the Peninsula immediately. My name is Steven Archer, I live there, and I’m reporting a break-in and a killing.” Steven’s voice was steady, with only the slightest quaver to it.

  “Sir, I’m dispatching two cars at once. What is your location and telephone number, and can you please describe what’s happened? You’re being recorded.”

  “I’m parked outside the house in a blue Porsche. I don’t know if the intruders are still inside, or whether they’re armed or not, but I do know they’ve killed my dog and left him in the middle of the living room. I’ll stay on the line until someone gets here.” He choked down some rising bile, caught his breath. “You should hurry.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 12

  The crime scene van arrived twenty minutes after the first squad car. According to the police, there was no sign of a forced entry; and the house appeared undisturbed, other than the butchered corpse of Avalon lying in a rust-colored pool of blood on the living room carpet and the heavy metallic smell of expended bodily fluids sullying the air.

  Avalon’s head had been severed and placed on the small coffee table in the living room, positioned so it would appear to be waiting for and watching anyone entering from the garage. The effect was chilling, and the cruelty and sickness of it resonated in the room even after the technicians had removed the remains.

  The police were sympathetic to the situation, but given that the alarm hadn’t been activated and nothing had been stolen, the actual teeth for a serious investigation weren’t there. Everyone was horrified by the viciousness of the crime, but at the end of the day it was a B&E and cruelty to animals charge – not exactly murder one.

  Jennifer was deeply shaken, and after the police took her statement she adjourned upstairs and left them to Steven.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this? An angry ex or disgruntled employee? Has anyone threatened you?” Sergeant Matthews was courteous and efficient, but clearly not the sharpest.

  “No. It’s the first time anything like this has ever happened to me. I don’t know anyone who would do something like this.” Steven considered telling him about the website, but decided against it. What would the theory be? Steven wanted to point the finger at Griffen, but even in his head it sounded pretty stupid that a multi-millionaire Wall Street icon would be butchering pets at a beach rental as retribution for speculating that one of his companies was junk. That, and he didn’t want to go on record as being the creator of the site. What would be the point of going down that road?

  He did mention the Gas Company visit, and the sergeant noted it, however, even as he uttered the words he realized how idiotic his concerns sounded.

  “Okay then,” the sergeant ventured. “You mentioned you had a software company, correct? Did you ever do anything business-wise that might have come back to haunt you?”

  Getting colder, colder.

  “No. I just don’t understand why anyone would do this,” Steven said. “I mean, what kind of sadistic rat fuck would cut a dog’s head off? And such a good dog, not a mean-spirited bone in his body.”

  “I know, it’s a weird one, but it’s not the first weird one around here during the season. Look, there are a lot of oddballs in town, street people, crazies, kids high on all kinds of wild shit. Summer brings them out of the woodwork. It’s possible one of them got in somehow, or that it was some kind of really fucked-up skinhead initiation, or a dare or something.” Poor Sergeant Matthews, eyes glazing over even as he said it.

  Steven was becoming annoyed with all the holes in the idiotic theory the cop was trying to force the situation into fitting. “There’s no sign of a struggle, and no blood anywhere but where he was hacked up.”

  “Good points.” The officer walked towards the door, Steven following. “Let me offer some advice. Change your locks, set your alarm, and be watchful for any odd characters loitering around. The majority of destructive or vandalism crimes don’t make a lot of sense, and most of the time we get nothing like all the facts. This one is probably no exception. It’s one of the frustrations we all have when something bad happens. There are no resources to do a full-scale multi-day investigation on something like this. I know that isn’t comforting, but this week we’ll probably have fifty vandalisms, double that many DUIs, a whole busload of B&Es, fights, assaults, two or three rape charges per night, stabbings, hit-and-runs…you get the picture.”

  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 su
spicious, 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.

  * * * *

  Chapter 13

  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.