The Manolo Matrix Read online

  That’s the point of the game, after all.

  Winner take all. And I don’t intend to lose.

  Chapter

  3

  JENNIFER

  I spent Sunday afternoon sitting in Starbucks reading the Times, the Post, and Backstage while I sipped a venti mocha and munched on a blueberry scone. I’m tall, a size six or eight depending on the designer, and I maintain my relatively thin thighs and reasonably tight ass through deprivation coupled with binging.

  Here’s my rule: I go the entire week on salads and fruit, with a can of tuna (packed in spring water, of course) to give me a little protein. My standard drink is water or black coffee, with one grande skim latte tossed into the mix every morning. Just for the calcium, you understand. Alcohol I don’t worry about (though I should), and if I do binge with a friend or on a date, then a day or two of nothing but Diet Coke, rice cakes, and sugar-free gum puts me back in full diet equilibrium.

  With a routine like that, is it any wonder that on Sundays, I go a little wild? A pastry at Starbies and a mocha. With whole milk. It’s just decadent enough to hold me over for an entire week. And I like my system a hell of a lot better than Atkins or Weight Watchers or whatever fad is currently in fashion. My way is tried and true; it’s kept me thin since high school. It may be boring, but it works. And I’m not inclined to meddle with success. Not entirely true, actually. I used to be a size four. But that was back during my pack-a-day years. And while my size four jeans still hang in the back of my closet for nostalgia’s sake, I don’t expect to ever return to those heady days. The ciggies may have kept me thin, but they also did a number on my voice. Plus, there’s that whole cancer thing to worry about.

  At any rate, the scones at Starbies are one of my guilty pleasures, and I look forward to my two hours of heaven every Sunday. (Since I don’t bother with the international or financial sections, about two hours is all it takes to plow through my various bits of reading material.)

  I’d awakened at my usual time, showered, and arrived at Starbucks shortly before noon. By two I was heading back home, which these days is a tiny studio apartment in midtown Manhattan, walking distance to both my job and the theater district.

  My new studio is way smaller than my old place, but what it lacks in square footage it makes up with fresh paint, new carpet, and plumbing that actually transports water in the appropriate direction. It also has decent security—a keyed entrance to the foyer and then another keyed entrance from the foyer to the stairs. Not as ka-ching as having a doorman, but still pretty safe. After what happened to my roommate last year, I’m all about safety.

  Which explains why I totally freaked when I stepped onto the sixth-floor landing and saw that my door was cracked open.

  Now, I am not one of those idiot girls in horror films who hears the scary noise in the creepy house and decides to run toward it while everyone in the audience is yelling “No! No! Go back! Go back! He’s in there with an ax!!”

  So instead of taking a step forward, I spun around and headed back down to the lobby to calmly and rationally dial911. After the cops were on the way I’d have my little paranoid breakdown, thank you very much. Until then, I was playing the role of the coolheaded diva. Totally calm. Totally in charge of my surroundings.

  I use an oversized Marc Jacobs tote bag (a gift from the parental units) in lieu of a purse, since I’m always schlepping scripts, paperbacks, and flat-heeled shoes (Manhattan is hell on your feet). I adore the soft leather and classic lines of the bag, but I hate the way my stuff just falls to the bottom. And now, as I trotted down the stairs toward the lobby, I pawed through the detritus, trying to find my phone. My fingers found it about the time I hit the second-floor landing, and I whipped it out triumphantly, unlocked the keypad, and started to dial.

  I’d hit the 9 and the 1 and then the phone rang. I stared at it, totally befuddled. I swear, it took me a full minute to realize I had an incoming call. Not the brightest of moments, but there you go.

  Since I have no clue how to work my phone, I didn’t know how to get rid of the call so that I could finish dialing the cops. So I answered. It wasn’t like a masked gunman was barreling down on me. In fact, I fully anticipated that the police would find no one in my apartment. They’d also find no stereo, no laptop, no television, no cash. Oh, wait. I didn’t have any cash in the first place…

  “I can’t talk,” I snapped. “I need to call—”

  “Jenn! Where the hell did you go?”

  “Mel?” Now, Melanie Prescott is my best friend and former roommate, and I’m thrilled to talk to her pretty much any time. But not now. Especially when she was talking nonsense.

  I pushed through the final door, emerging near the mailboxes. “Listen, I gotta call you back. I think someone broke into my apartment. I need to—”

  “I’m in your apartment.”

  I stood stupidly for a moment as her words oozed along my cognitive paths.

  “Jenn? Did you hear me?”

  One synapse fired. “What do you mean, you’re in my apartment?”

  “It’s not a difficult concept. I was watching the street from the window and saw you coming. I’m making appletinis for us, so I opened the door for you and went back to the kitchen. But now I’m drinking an appletini all by myself. Which totally begs the question of where the hell are you?”

  “Oh.” I felt a little bit foolish. I cast about for an excuse, then noticed Terrence Underhill from 5B coming in through the front door. “I, um, bumped into a neighbor. We started chatting. You know.”

  “Cute?”

  I gave Mr. Underhill’s octogenarian frame a once-over. “Oh, yeah. A real hottie. Definitely worthy of lobby flirtation.”

  “In that case, I forgive you and I won’t drink your ’tini. But get up here, already.”

  “On my way.”

  I slunk back upstairs feeling like an idiot for totally overreacting. By the time I reached the sixth floor, however, I’d completely changed my attitude. What could Mel have possibly been thinking? This is New York. A kindler and gentler New York, perhaps, but I’ve watched enough Law & Order episodes to know that we’re not safe even in these post-Giuliani kick-a-little-criminal-butt days.

  By the time I got inside the apartment, I was in a full-blown snit. “What the heck were you doing leaving the door open like that? I was just about to dial 911. Did you want to spend the afternoon with the cops?”

  Mel pressed a drink into my hand. Since I know her well, I could tell she was trying really hard not to laugh.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “I thought you got held up in the lobby.”

  “I did. I—oh,” I finished lamely. So much for my career as a professional liar. “It’s your fault, you know. I come home to an open apartment, and what am I supposed to think?”

  “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “It’s my own fault for giving you a key. Why didn’t you call and let me know you were coming?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “It worked,” I said dryly. “My pulse is still pounding triple time.” Not entirely true, but I like being in the limelight. It’s a curse.

  She nodded at the drink. “Go ahead. You’ll feel better.”

  I scowled at the translucent green drink, then took a sip. Okay. She was right. I did feel better. “Have you got more of these?”

  “I filled your martini pitcher.”

  Back during the days when women stayed home and greeted their men at the door with a cocktail (like Samantha in Bewitched, though why Darrin bothered to hold down a job, I’ll never know), my mom and dad bought a fabulously sleek glass martini pitcher. Tall and skinny, with a long glass stick for stirring, the thing managed to survive not only me and my siblings’ rampages through the living room of our youth, but it also survived a trip to New York (albeit well-packed in bubble wrap and Styrofoam peanuts). That was my mom’s idea. “You’re moving to Manhattan, sweetheart,” she’d said. “I’ve seen Sex and the City. Y
ou need the pitcher.” My mom is very cool.

  Which has nothing to with anything, really. But the fact that Mel had filled the entire pitcher (which holds about eight drinks total) told me that she was serious about getting shit-faced. I put my diet on hold, mentally planned to eat nothing but water and aspirin tomorrow, and finished my drink.

  “So why are you here?” I asked, then immediately got worried. “You and Matthew aren’t—?”

  “Stryker’s great,” she assured me, referring to her live-in boyfriend, Matthew Stryker. I think it’s more than a little bizarre that she calls him by his last name, but Mel says she can’t break the habit. Me, I think I’d try a little harder. “We’re great,” she added, a hint of self-satisfaction coloring her voice.

  “Yeah?” I glanced at her left hand, then found myself gaping at the solitaire that winked at me, sparkling brilliantly even in my apartment’s crappy lighting.

  Mel saw me looking and held her hand out proudly. “He picked it out himself. Awesome, isn’t it?”

  “It’s fabulous.” I realized I was standing there like some slackjawed yokel, so I threw my arms around her and gave her a hug, managing to spill her drink in the process. She laughed, we both filled our glasses again, then toasted ourselves, Matthew, men, sex, and alcohol. In that order.

  “How’d he do it?”

  “The traditional way,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink. “Dinner. Flowers. Down on one knee.”

  Mel is a really pretty woman, but she’s also a geek (and I say that in the most loving way possible). Seriously, the woman has a computer for a brain. And although she’s got as much fashion sense (or more) as I do, she’s always approached life from a purely analytical perspective. So to now see her blushing—blushing—about this guy was not only disconcerting, it was absolutely thrilling.

  “This is so cool!” I said with genuine enthusiasm. “And your job. You still love your your job, don’t you?”

  “Totally.” Mel now works for the NSA—the National Security Agency for idiots like me who originally thought it was a new television network—doing something. I’m not entirely sure what, but I know it has to do with codes and spy-type stuff. Very hush hush. Very John le Carré. And very, very Mel.

  I gave her a quick hug. “I’m proud of you. Everything you wanted, you’re totally getting.”

  “Thanks.” Her eyes darkened. “Sometimes I think about the price, though…”

  I shuddered, then nodded sympathetically. The thing is, Mel probably would never have met Matthew, never gotten the job at the NSA, never have gotten her life off the fast-track to Dullsville, if the unthinkable hadn’t happened. Honestly, I still can’t get my head around the freak show that was her life last summer. I’d been visiting my sister and my new niece, and I’d returned to find that my roommate had been at the center of some maniac’s scheme to kill her.

  She’d survived (well, obviously), and she’d even profited—not only had she gotten Matthew out of the deal, but her bank account had been nicely enriched as a result. But the cost had been high.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  She nodded, and I saw a shadow cross her face before she chased it off with a smile. “I’m doing great. And I’m not here to talk about last year or my personal life or anything else. I’m here to visit you.”

  “You came all the way up to New York to visit me?”

  “Actually, I came all the way up here to go to a conference and meet with a colleague.”

  “NSA stuff?”

  Mel shook her head. “No. This one is off the clock.” She avoided my eyes and displayed a rampant fascination with the signed poster from The Producers I have hanging over my sofa.

  “PSW,” I said, making it a statement, not a question. PSW is shorthand for Play. Survive. Win, an incredibly popular online game that Mel had played for a while. The game was also the centerpiece of the nightmare that had been Mel’s life—and near death—last summer. And because I’m cast as the overprotective best friend, it bothers me more than a little that, now that she’s safe and the horror is over, Mel can’t seem to just let it go.

  PSW (the real game, not the freak show Mel got stuck in) takes place in an elaborate cyberworld with three players: a target, an assassin, and a protector. The players—and there can be an infinite number of games going on at any one time—run around an online version of Manhattan, with the target solving a series of clues. Pretty basic stuff, except that the clues are specifically generated for each target based on the profile that player submitted when he’d first signed up to play the game. So a player who was a nuclear physicist would have a totally different set of clues than a player who was a biker dude. Pretty cool stuff. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Basically, once PSW went live, everything else out there in the online gaming world looked like sloppy seconds.

  The way the game works is that as the target interprets each clue, he gets that much closer to the final prize. All well and good, except that while the target’s busy solving clues, the assassin is busy hunting the target. And the protector’s job is to stand up for the target.

  The nature of the clues got PSW noticed, but it was the final prize that really put PSW on the map. Real cash money for the winner, whether that was the assassin or the target. So much money that a lot of folks who would never have played an online game signed up to take a shot. I even tried to play once, but got killed right off. I gave it up then, prize or no prize. I’m not big on computer games, much preferring the real-life drama of a shoe sale over a cyber-fight. But even with my limited experience, I could see why the game was so popular. And the inventor—a geek named Archibald Grimaldi—soon found himself up there in the financial stratosphere, along with Bill Gates and Donald Trump and all those other financial guru guys.

  Unfortunately for Grimaldi, he’s not around to spend his money. He died a while back, but his game lives on. It’s still hugely popular. So popular, apparently, that some psycho decided to mimic it in the real world, sending my best friend racing for her life.

  Just thinking about it made me antsy, so I got up and topped off my martini. I realized Mel had kept quiet, and I debated whether I should press my point. It wasn’t a long debate; I have a tendency to say whatever’s on my mind. “I’m right, aren’t I? You came up here because you’re still trying to figure out who’s behind the whole thing.”

  “It was an online gamers convention. I thought I might—”

  “—find someone else who got sucked into your version of the game?”

  “Trust me,” she said with a definite edge to her voice, “it wasn’t my version of anything.”

  I nodded, immediately guilty for sounding heartless. Chalk it up to the vodka and schnapps. “So, how did it go?” I asked, hesitating just a little over my words.

  She glanced sideways at me. “You really want to know?”

  Had she nailed me, or what? “It’s just that I think you’re wasting your time and your money. Have you found even one other person who’s gotten sucked into a real-life version of the game?” I didn’t think she had. “You’ve got a great job. A great boyfriend. Maybe it’s time you let it go. You won the game. It’s over.”

  She met my eyes dead-on, and I could tell right off that I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

  “We did find another one. The colleague I said I came up here to meet? He’s been helping us for about three months now.”

  “Shit. Really?”

  “Andrew Garrison,” Mel said. “He’s got a loft over in Tribeca. Nice guy. Got sucked into the game as a protector.”

  “His target?”

  “Dead.”

  I licked my lips.

  “Andy took a bullet for him—went right through his abdomen, too. Andy was lucky. The target wasn’t. The second bullet nailed him.”

  “How’d this guy find you?”

  “One of the feelers we put out. We sent the information to the FBI, but the trail’s gone cold again.”

  “Shit.” I wa
s repeating myself, but my brain wasn’t clear enough to find vocabulary words, and shit summed up the situation nicely. “So he’s working with you now?”

  “Pretty much,” she said. “He’s a freelance programmer, so his schedule is pretty flexible. When he’s got a big chunk of time, he comes down to D.C. and stays in my guesthouse.” Mel bought a huge place in Maryland after she took the job at the NSA. It’s got a house, a pool, a guesthouse, and an office. The office is where she obsesses about PSW.

  “So is he much help?” I asked, trying to sound interested.

  “Yeah, I think so. We haven’t uncovered much, but he’s got a good head and he’s good with computers.”

  “A geek.”

  “Not totally. He can carry on a conversation, he’s cute, and he always starts coffee in the morning.” She cocked her head. “Actually, you should give him a call. He’s nice. You’d like him.”

  That point was debatable, but she was already scribbling his number on the back of her business card. She handed it to me, and I tried to look grateful. Ever since Mel hooked up with Matthew, she’s been trying to fix me up, too. Not that I couldn’t use the help, but Andy the Geek didn’t sound like my type.

  I took the card, though, then put it on my coffee table. “I’m sorry somebody else got sucked into the game, but I guess it’s good he found you.”

  “That’s my point. If Andy found us, others will, too. Enough information from enough sources, and we can shut this game down.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t argue with her. And, honestly, I didn’t want to. I hated that she was still living the nightmare every day, but I understood why. “So was the conference any help?”

  “Who knows? I go to these things, put the word out. We’ll see if something comes up.” She got up, paced the length of the apartment. “But I’m off the clock now. The conference ended a couple of hours ago, and I’m catching the last shuttle back to D.C. In the meantime, I’m all yours. And I promise I didn’t come here to talk about this stuff. I have another agenda entirely.”