Game of Death (8 page)

I’m looking at pictures, my mind spinning. I’m still not sure what it all means.

‘What are you saying?’

Killkenny leans back in his chair. ‘We don’t know at this point. All we can tell is that these three girls were all raped and killed, all three of them got paid the same amount of
money around the same time by your company four and a half years back.’

‘That could be a coincidence,’ Yvette says.

Killkenny looks at Welker, who still has neither moved nor spoken. ‘It’s possible,’ he says. ‘But we’re cops. We don’t believe in coincidences. And we sure as
shit don’t believe in them when we’re talking about a connection like this between three dead girls. Plus, you add in the similarities between the NextLife cyber-fantasy you saw . . .
It’s something we have to look into.’

‘But what’s the connection?’ I ask.

Killkenny shakes his head. ‘I have no idea. That’s why we’re looking for your help. We need to know exactly what these girls did for the company. We need to find out as much as
we can about the person whose fantasy Yvette was watching. You need to help us put the pieces together to figure out what the hell is going on here.’

I’m looking at the pictures, thinking about what the girls must have looked like while they were alive, thinking about what they must have gone through when they died. I’m also
thinking about the eyes of the girl in
De Sade
’s fantasy that I’ve walked twice, and the way the spark in her eyes went dead. ‘If we help you with this, will you try to
keep our involvement out of the papers? Keep the investigation quiet for now?’

Killkenny glares at me. ‘Were not looking to jam you up with your company, Nick,’ he says. ‘We’re just trying to figure out who killed these girls.’

‘I need some assurance,’ I say.

‘I can’t promise anything,’ Killkenny says, ‘But to the extent possible, we’ll keep the investigation quiet. I’m going to be joining the investigation
formally, so if you’ve got any concerns as we move forward, you can come to me.’

I look over at Yvette. She is still staring at the first picture, the one of the girl from the feather fantasy. She nods.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘We’ll tell you what we know.’

Mine is the first generation raised online. I was six years old when Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, simplifying navigation on the growing but still largely
underutilized and esoteric Internet. By the time I was sixteen the dot-com bubble was getting ready to pop, and the entire world was plugged in. I sometimes wonder whether the early innovators had
any concept of the Pandora’s Box they were opening when they set out to create our entirely new world. I suspect they viewed the free availability of information as only a good thing. And,
indeed, it has brought much good with it. It has allowed for the education of millions upon millions of children who had previously been cut off from information and opportunity. It has facilitated
the exchange of knowledge and research that has sped development of medicines and useful technology. It has provided an outlet for the free expression of ideas and dissent, and been a key
ingredient in the overthrow of some of the worst dictatorships in history.

Every good must have its evil, though. Ease of access to information has also led to an explosion of new crime. With the push of a button, criminal organizations can transfer funds from their
illicit activities to safe havens around the world, or steal someone’s identity and confiscate their entire net worth, or wipe out businesses or even governments.

Technology has also weakened the tangible human connections that form the basis of societal cohesion. Those of us in the connected masses indulge in a depth of electronic navel-gazing and
self-fascination that the world never before knew was possible. Actual experience no longer seems paramount; posting
evidence
of experience online for the world to see is what matters now.
People these days upload the images of their exploits literally as they happen, without taking the time to fully enjoy the moment. It’s as though they can’t quite distinguish between
what happens online and what happens in the real world. It seems unlikely that the inventors of these technologies foresaw these consequences of their innovations.

And there is no chance that those early pioneers could have anticipated the economic turmoil their creations would bring. In the second half of my short life I’ve seen the rise and fall of
business empires that, in times past, would have taken decades to build, and longer to crumble. It was only a few years ago that we all believed AOL would never be challenged as the dominant player
on the Internet, and MySpace was the definitive social networking platform. Companies like Pets.com, which at one point seemed to have created the definitive platforms in their respective spaces,
are now distant memories. Today fortunes are still willed into existence overnight, and disappear with as little effort or warning.

No one understands this better than Josh Pinkerton, the founder of NextLife. At thirty-nine, he is a veteran of the Internet business battlefield. NextLife is his third company. He started the
first – Boats.com – in early 2000, when he was in his mid-twenties and angel financiers were desperate to shower millions upon every entrepreneur with a domain name and a half-baked
business plan. He raised ten million dollars in his first round of financing; twenty in his second. It was all gone within six months, washed away along with more than six trillion dollars in
investments in similar start-ups when the bubble burst. Pinkerton went from being a pauper to a millionaire and back to a pauper in a matter of weeks, and the experience taught him to make sure
that, no matter what happened to any company he was involved with, his financial position would be protected.

He applied that lesson to his second start-up, which sustained its success for long enough that Pinkerton was able to pull three-quarters of his equity out of it before it crashed. It was a
company called Adspace, and it promised to revolutionize the manner in which Internet companies would be able to track and target advertising. At the time it was acquired by Google in 2006 industry
insiders predicted that the technology it had developed would be the answer to the prayers of website developers and CEOs from Silicon Valley to Boston’s Route 128 corridor. The predictions
were overblown, but the technology did help Google begin to develop strategies that would result in a moderate advertising profit. In exchange, Pinkerton walked away with sixty million dollars in
cash and Google stock.

He was happy . . . for about a month. But he quickly discovered that while sixty million dollars might make him comfortable, it would never make him a player. Not a
real
player. Not the
kind of player who could grant or crush dreams with a smile or a frown. He found that he was unsatisfied with the metaphorical pat on the head the real deal-makers gave him, and so he set out to
create a company that would change the rules; something that would make people gape in wonder, and would make him a legend with resources beyond those ever contemplated by a single individual.

NextLife is his chance of fulfilling that goal. It’s widely recognized as a company of breadth and vision, which will either succeed in changing the way everything online works or will lie
upon the scrapheap of the Internet junkyard – the largest wreck in the short but spectacular history of Internet failures.

I know this. I understand the pressure Pinkerton has put on himself – and that he therefore places on others. And so I am also fully aware of the wrath that my cooperation with the police
will bring forth. It’s not that Pinkerton is a bad guy
per se
. It’s just that he’s so singularly focused on NextLife’s success that he regards anything which
threatens that success as anathema. No, more than that: he views any such threat as an enemy . . . a living, breathing foe to be vanquished at all cost. I get this, and so I am careful when I
approach him to explain that the threat is the fact that the murders may be connected to the company, not the fact that the police have become aware of the possible connection. I also stress that I
am friends with one of the detectives who will be coordinating with the company. I think this will mitigate the concerns he’ll have. I am wrong, of course.

I’m in his office, a 1,000-square-foot palace perched on the top floor of the NextLife building, on the southeast corner. I’m standing in front of his desk. NetMaster,
Pinkerton’s gargantuan head of security, is standing to my right, just slightly behind me, as if he’s there to prevent me from running. The views, like those in the conference room a
floor below, are spectacular, but one hardly notices them. The room itself is so overwhelming in its eclectic ostentation that even with the floor-to-ceiling windows, anything beyond the boundaries
of Pinkerton’s base of operations seemingly ceases to exist. It’s like the decorator was given an unlimited amount of money and instructed to satisfy equally both a well-heeled captain
of industry and a nine-year-old boy with ADD and a twisted sense of humor. Modern art, loosely representational in style, with bold strokes of outrageous color covers one wall. They are expensive
works – I recognize at least one Picasso in the center – and they assault the senses with their contrasting interpretations of the human form. It’s like a ten-million-dollar
collage made up of the fractured dreams of a dozen disturbed geniuses.

There is a bar along the second wall. Not the heavy oak kind one might expect to find in the office of an indulgent CEO’s office, but an Art Deco stainless-steel version of a 1950s soda
fountain. The furniture throughout most of the space is a mix of 1960s high-end design – where function has been sacrificed entirely to form, with low-slung chairs that force the spine into
an uncomfortably prone position and sofas with no backs. They are placed in a deliberately chaotic arrangement, all facing the centerpiece of the room: a gigantic crystal desk angled in front of
the corner where the two giant walls of glass meet, looking out and down upon Boston’s skyline.

The desk is magnificent and bizarre and alarming. It has the general design of what one might expect in a desk – drawers, a writing surface, places for pens and papers and personal items,
both trivial and precious – but it is entirely transparent. It looks as though it might have been carved from a single block of perfect crystal, and there is no way to tell how the drawers
and working parts came together in a way to make it functional. Pinkerton keeps nothing in the drawers and so, standing before him, it’s like he is some sort of magic force – some deity
hovering, suspended between a world that’s real and one that’s nothing more than a figment of his own imagination. I confess that I have always admired the impact the office has on most
people, and the forethought it must have taken to put all of it together. I can also say, truthfully, that I have never found it particularly intimidating myself. I think that goes back to where I
grew up. In Charlestown the guys with real power – the guys we knew we had to be worried about – didn’t need illusions to make their point. You just knew not to fuck with them
from the way they looked, and the way they stood and made you feel just being around them. Pinkerton never really had that, and so I’m not intimidated by him. The worst he can do to me is
fire me, and I feel secure enough now to believe that I’ll find another job with medical benefits for Ma.

Still, that doesn’t mean I’m thrilled that I have to have this conversation, particularly with NetMaster standing there behind me. I haven’t been around him enough to know how
full of crap he is, but his mere size is intimidating.

I talk slowly and clearly to Pinkerton, laying out exactly what the police are looking for. I explain that they’ve agreed to keep the company’s involvement with the investigation out
of the press, and to keep a low profile, so that there is no damage done to NextLife’s reputation. Pinkerton is quiet as I talk, and he lets me get the whole story out. Part of the reason he
has been so successful in business is because he has always been able to keep his thoughts to himself. He’s impossible to read.

‘What assurances do we have that the company’s name will be kept out of it?’ he asks.

NetMaster gives a deep snort. ‘We have none, that is clear,’ he says. He reaches out and pushes me hard in the shoulder. His hand feels like a Volkswagen.

I turn and look at him. ‘Don’t ever fuckin’ touch me again,’ I say. He smiles back at me, and I can see three gold teeth. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen
him smile, and now I can understand why; it’s not an attractive sight. My attention goes back to Pinkerton. ‘I know one of the detectives who’s working on the case,’ I say.
‘He’s a straight shooter. He’s done some security work for us before.’

‘What’s his name?’ Pinkerton demands.

‘Killkenny.’

Pinkerton looks again at NetMaster, who nods. ‘He was assigned to the million-user party we had last year. He was in charge of the doors.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘So he’s not antagonistic to the company, and he said he’s going to try to keep the company’s name out—’

‘
Try . . . ?
’ Pinkerton’s stare intensifies as he cuts me off. ‘He’s going to
try
to keep our involvement in the investigation out of
it?’

As Pinkerton is talking, NetMaster reaches out and pushes me again. I whirl on him quickly, swinging my elbow with as much force as I can, landing it directly in his solar plexus. He makes a
noise that is somewhere between a pig-squeal and a grunt and doubles over, gasping for breath. I stand over him with a fist cocked. ‘I told you not to touch me.’ He’s looking up
at me with hatred in his eyes, still unable to stand. ‘We done here?’ I ask.

There is silence for a moment, and then Pinkerton says, ‘You’re both done.’ NetMaster looks angrily at his boss, but Pinkerton waves him off. ‘We have more important
things to deal with,’ he says. ‘Tell me about this policeman.’

‘He has no reason to jam us up,’ I say.

‘I find that so reassuring.’ Sarcasm drips from his lips as he leans forward, puts his elbows on his invisible desk, folds his hands together. ‘You understand the danger,
don’t you?’