The Losing Game (7 page)

The dank, heavy air whispered of the winter to come. Inside the cemetery gates, Lucas kicked the leaves like a child, not a man of thirty. Somehow it made him feel older still.

At her graveside, he laid Grace’s pink carnation down and stood for a while. When the fog began to form and his fringe began to stick to his forehead, he pushed off toward the cemetery exit. Dew rested in fat droplets from naked twigs and branches and bejeweled the grass around the headstones. The earthy smell of decay lingered.

Grace’s funeral had been a day similar to this, at the opposite end of the seasons. Now, drifts of russet leaves blanketed the grassy borders, below hedgerows flashed with red berries. Nestled amongst the leaves—Lucas almost missed it—a rabbit crouched motionlessly, as if it was unafraid of human visitors.

Lucas stilled. He stood in the rabbit’s line of sight, watching, fascinated, until the sickening realization hit him, and he turned away.

Usually they died in the meadows by the eastern coastal path, away from built-up areas. Lucas had seen the corpses when he was out running, arch-backed, stiff-limbed, and fur mangy. He’d never seen one still alive, counting its borrowed time in the dark and the quiet.

If Lucas had been a braver man, he’d have put it out of its misery. A boot coming down on its skull, crushing it, would be quick. Quicker and less painful than the weeks it took for this ugly disease, myxomatosis, to kill it.

Lucas wasn’t wearing boots. He was wearing a soft pair of dove-gray suede shoes that would be ruined by the wet grass. By the blood. Worse, someone might see his feet on his way out and wonder what atrocity he’d committed.

The security cameras only monitored the footpaths and the gate. Lucas didn’t have to worry about those. He cast his eyes about, scanning the footpaths and lines of headstones for mourners. The coast was clear, so slowly—very, very slowly—he stepped onto the grass. The rabbit didn’t move. It probably couldn’t hear him or see him. Its eyes were swollen closed. Its chest vibrated rapidly, as if its heart was struggling inside its chest.

When he reached the failing creature, Lucas recoiled. The clumps of pus at the corners of the rabbit’s eyes made his stomach turn. The thought of getting close, even behind the armor of the sole of his shoe, was too repulsive.

The rabbit twitched. Its fur sagged dully, and it shuddered as it lurched forward a few centimeters.

The Roseport Island Council considered rabbits a pest and didn’t care about their bodies littering the countryside, except during the worst myxomatosis outbreaks. Veterinary clinics charged to put an animal to sleep and to incinerate the body. No one wanted to deal with the problem. To help.

Unraveling the fine wool scarf from around his neck, he draped it over the rabbit, and clasped the animal with both hands about its ribs. It didn’t struggle so much as it convulsed and twitched. Nothing a pair of strong hands couldn’t manage.

Lucas had only ever seen this happen in films. He talked himself through the motions, fighting the urge to gag. The rabbit felt fragile. Lucas had the physical strength. All he needed was the nerve.

He wound the scarf around and around the rabbit like swaddling, from tail to head. Acquainting himself with the animal’s shape and weight, and its lack of strength, Lucas tried to calm himself.

He closed his fingers around the neck, one hand beside the other, and thought of Grace. She’d always been the strong one. She wouldn’t have hesitated.

Except Lucas wasn’t Grace. He wasn’t the one who’d cycled across Europe and back, over ragged mountains and through foreign cities—only to be run over and killed three miles from home.

Lucas couldn’t do it. He put the quivering bundle on the grass, freeing the rabbit from its premature shroud. The poor creature shuddered and dragged itself into the undergrowth, where it would probably die a slow, miserable death.

Lucas wound his scarf into a tight ball. As he walked, head down, his arms around his body, Lucas muttered over and over, under his breath, “It’s okay. You weren’t prepared. You didn’t have time to psych yourself up.”

He threw the scarf into the bin at the exit, and during the rest of the walk home, he carried on telling himself the same thing. “You weren’t prepared. You didn’t have time to psych yourself up.”

Heavy clouds and damp air took what remained of the daylight. Lucas had to put on the lights in his hallway and kitchen, which also meant closing every curtain and blind. He couldn’t afford for one of his neighbors to inadvertently spy him.

Kneeling down in front of the end unit in the kitchen, he wiggled the plinth free. In the gap between the bottom of the base cabinet and the floor, Lucas’s gun lay wrapped in a tea towel. The bullets, twenty in all, he’d kept stored in the same tatty cardboard box Adam had given him. Right next to the gun.

Lucas ran his fingers along the muzzle. Traced the bumps on the handle and the writing on the side: 380 AUTO. RUGER. PRESCOTT. AZ. USA. Lucas had carefully done some research, at a busy Internet café on a chilly evening earlier in the week, where it didn’t look too strange for him to wear his scarf up to his nose.

These tiny handguns were a favorite with illegal importers. Millions had been made over the years. They were easy to use, easy to conceal, and cheap enough to treat as disposable. Not to mention, there was no safety. Only a slide and a magazine that held six bullets plus one in the barrel.

Lucas practiced loading and unloading the magazine, but he didn’t take any chances with the bullets. With a double and triple check that the gun was empty, he held the weapon, arm extended, the sight and the top of his hand in line with his eyes. He squeezed the trigger and heard the dull click, as he had every night for the last week. He pulled back the slide and fired, pulled back the slide and fired. He needed to make sure the motion was automatic.

Oh yes. When it came to killing Shaw, the outcome would be a far cry from the day’s failure with the rabbit.

It was going to be so much easier killing with a gun.

LOIS WAS
losing her patience. Dante could see it in the way she stood in the office doorway, hands on hips, nostrils flared.

“Are you going to be long? There’s a man in the shop. He wants to talk to you about cock rings.”

Dante returned his gaze to the three monitor screens he had set up on his desk. Nothing had changed in the last ten seconds. “You know everything there is to know.”

“Yes. But I don’t have a cock. Neither do Kit or Selena. He wants to talk to a man.”

It wasn’t unusual. Many men were uncomfortable talking to a woman about sex toys for themselves.

“I’ll be thirty seconds.” Dante scribbled on his notepad:
1803. Lucas and Shaw at home
as Lois angled her body into the room, craning her neck toward the monitors. “Your Lucas about to go for his run?”

“He’s not
my
Lucas.” Dante didn’t mention that so far Lucas had never been running before eight. Usually much later, ten or eleven. Or that he’d only arrived home from work ten minutes ago.

“You talk to him like he is.”

“It helps to pass the time.”

Ten days of external surveillance, during whatever time Dante could spare. That added up to a significant number of hours, staring at closed doors and empty streets.

“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.” She jutted her chin at the monitors.

“You don’t need to know.”

“You’ve always told Kit and me when you were planning something. Like that bet with Thierry and Rashid. And the time you and Cecile secretly arranged for Thierry to be kidnapped.”

Dante wanted to smile at the recollection of Chief Superintendent Thierry Balon being bundled into the back of a black van, with his masked, leather-clad wife in the back, ready to take over the next part of their kinky adventure. Except the look on Lois’s face didn’t warrant any kind of mirth.

“This isn’t like those times.”

It should have been, but it wasn’t. Over the last ten years, once he’d befriended the likes of Thierry Balon and Rashid Khan, Dante might have dabbled here and there, planning what amounted to sometimes elaborate pranks. Always with consent. Or full disclosure afterward. In this way he entertained his friends, as well as himself.

Lucas, however, wasn’t benefitting from Dante’s intrusion, any more than Richard Shaw. Nor could Dante claim any entertainment from his current subterfuge. Watching Lucas, day in, day out, left Dante feeling increasingly seedy and grim.

“Shall I tell the customer you’re unavailable?”

“No. I’m coming.”

Lois returned to the shop floor. Dante took a last look at the central monitor, at Lucas’s front door.

“Stay home tonight. It’s too cold to be outside running.”

At the front half of Le Plaisir, several customers browsed or queued for purchases. Lois used her eyes to gesture toward the man looking for a cock ring. He was a tall, handsome, athletic type, his hair completely gray. He stood taller as Dante approached, like a man drumming up courage to face the gallows.

Dante held out his hand. “Good evening. How can I help you?”

“I find myself back in the saddle, after some years.”

The man’s self-effacing smile and friendly brown eyes warmed Dante to the core. He continued, his voice unsteady, reaching out for the corner of the central oak display table, “I’m a widower. But there’s still life in me. You know?”

“Of course there is. And now you have a lucky new partner.”

“I don’t know if she’s lucky. I certainly feel I am.” His eyes darted about the shop, then over his shoulder. “She’s younger and rather more adventurous than me.”

Some people, like this man, found it incredibly difficult to speak openly and frankly about the private and personal matter of their sex life. Over the years, Dante had learned the meaning of the various codes shyer people used, perhaps inadvertently, to describe their desires, their anxieties, and sometimes their problems. A quiet, matter-of-fact attitude was the best way to put them at ease.

“My assistant mentioned you’re interested in penis rings.” Dante motioned to the display behind them. “Might I ask if you had a particular type in mind?”

“No. I didn’t even know there was such a thing until a few weeks ago.”

The man followed Dante to the display. His face had turned from cool tan to hot cerise, and a thin sheen of sweat shone on his forehead.

This sort of customer was Dante’s favorite. Helping them to help themselves was an exquisite sort of seduction.

“Okay.” Dante opened the cabinet and pulled out the shelf. “These ones are targeted at enhanced stimulation, both for you and your partner. This one goes halfway along the penis and stimulates the woman’s G-spot during vaginal sex.”

“The ladies like that?”

“I wouldn’t know from experience. But I hear they do.”

The man apologized and didn’t take Dante’s offer to examine any of the products. Dante continued, “Then there are these. They provide additional stimulation for both partners, but also help the wearer to maintain an erection and/or delay orgasm. Some men also use these to heighten the intensity of their eventual climax.”

The man’s expression lifted. Dante smiled and said, “I can tell you from experience, these work very well.” It had been a while, but the recollection generated a frisson of heat that Dante couldn’t deny was a blush.

The man’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. I’ll take a look at some of those.”

Dante explained the biofeedback mechanisms used in modern rings and the range of customizable features. It became apparent, after some coaxing, that Dante’s customer was having trouble sustaining an erection. It was little wonder.

The man had lost his wife. He’d never had intercourse with another woman, before her or after her. He wanted to please his new, younger lover. Add to that his age—Dante guessed his late fifties, early sixties—and an inexplicable but obvious lack of confidence.

The man tentatively examined the three rings Dante had removed from their packaging. Dante surreptitiously checked the time on the wall clock.

“Would you like me to give you a few minutes? I expect I’m making you feel uncomfortable standing at your shoulder.”

“A bit. It’s silly. I know it is. I look at these young folks, so confident and open. No one cares anymore who you have sex with or whether you have sex at all or how you like to have it when you do. I wasn’t raised that way.”

“It’s not silly. Everyone is different, and everyone has different reasons for being here.”

“I expect you’ve seen all sorts.”

“You could say that.” Dante hadn’t planned on it, but he gave the man’s forearm a reassuring squeeze. “Take all the time you need. I’ve got to return to my office for a moment, but I’ll be back shortly. Or one of our other assistants will be happy to help you.”

Dante ought not to have fled. He ought to have completed the sale. But his screens beckoned.

Back at his desk, the three monitors, each displaying four live feeds, showed nothing out of the ordinary. Dante had installed cameras outside Lucas’s and Shaw’s houses. A dozen other of the live feeds Dante watched were public cameras, readily accessible online. The result was a real-time (though incomplete) view of Lucas’s route from home to work, plus some parts of his running routes.

Thus far, Lucas had run four times a week, for anything from forty to sixty minutes. Dante had mapped the routes as thoroughly as he could, working out Lucas’s most likely paths based on the time it took him to run from one camera to the next. It hadn’t been easy. Lucas favored parks and footpaths not covered by the camera network.

Rewinding the feed trained on Lucas’s front door, Dante played back at double speed. Nothing. Lucas was home. Shaw was still alive.

Dante made another note of the time:
18:27.

In the last ten days, Lucas hadn’t gone out except to work or to go running. He left for his job at Excelsior Inc. at eight in the morning, taking the bus there and back, and arrived home shortly before six. From the looks of things, he didn’t own a car.