The Never Game

Plan how you’re going to avoid or eliminate a threat. Shaw’d assume the guard was armed and that Knight was not. While Shaw knew little about boxing or martial arts, his father had taught all the children grappling skills... And there were all those wrestling trophies from his Ann Arbor days.

Taking down the minder by the door would be relatively easy. Knight — and his ego — would have instructed the muscle to expect threats to their boss’s life, not their own.

Shaw planted his feet on the floor and casually put a hand on the edge of the table. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the minder had missed the maneuver. Shaw’s legs — strong from hiking and rock climbing — tensed and he adjusted his balance. Ten feet to the guard. Lunge and, at the same time, shove the table toward Knight. Body-slam the minder, maybe a palm to the jaw, an elbow to the solar plexus. Get the weapon, pull the slide to make sure a round was chambered, even if it meant ejecting one. Control the two men in the room. Get a phone, go out the way he came in, call LaDonna Standish.

Grim-faced, Knight now rose angrily.

Revise slightly. When he got close, grab his lapels and drive him back into the guard, get the weapon.

One...

The CEO strode to Shaw and leaned down, close, hands continuing to flex and unflex.

Two...

Shaw readied himself, judging distances. Apparently no video cameras here. Good.

It was then that Tony Knight, at an ear-ringing decibel, raged, “Conundrum VI is not vaporware. Can’t you get that through your fucking skulls?”

He returned to his chair and sat down, crossing his arms and fixing Shaw with a petulant glare.

36

Colter Shaw had been accused of committing any number of offenses in his life, real and imagined.

The word vaporware had never figured in any of them.

There were many arrows of reply available in Shaw’s quiver. He chose the most accurate: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Knight licked his lip, just the tip of his tongue. The flick wasn’t exactly serpentine but wasn’t far off.

“I heard it all.” The accent placed his roots in Ontario. He tapped his phone. “The questions you were asking my people... You’re not a gamer. We tagged your face and went back to the video, checked you out from the minute you entered the convention center. No interest in any other booths but mine. And asking bullshit questions, playing dumb, just to get information. You think this hasn’t happened before? Trying to get somebody to turn? An employee? Turning against me? Do you really think that would ever fucking happen?”

Knight gestured in the general direction of the front of the booth. “You saw the promo outside. Did it look like vaporware to you? Did it?”

The door opened again and the other minder, the bigger one, stepped inside. He bent down to Knight and whispered. Knight’s eyes remained on Shaw. When the guard stood up, his boss asked, “Verified?”

The muscle nodded. When Knight waved his hand, the man left. The other remained where he’d been, in Tower of London Beefeater mode.

Knight’s anger had morphed to confusion. “You’re like a private eye?”

“No. Not a PI. I make my living collecting rewards.”

“You were the one who found that girl’d been kidnapped?”

A nod.

“You don’t have any tech background.”

“No.”

“So nobody hired you to play corporate spy.”

“I don’t even know what vaporware is.”

It would be dawning on Knight that Shaw wasn’t a threat. It was dawning on Shaw that his hypothesis about Knight plotting to destroy a competitor might have a few holes.

“Vaporware’s when a software company announces a new product that’s either fake or won’t be ready for a while. It’s a tactic to gin up excitement, get some press. And keep the hordes at bay when you need more time to tweak the install. Because your fans can also be your biggest enemies if you don’t deliver what you promised when you first promised it.”

Shaw said, “That’s the rumor about Conundrum VI? Vaporware?”

“Yeah.” Knight’s voice was sardonic. “It’s just taken a little longer than I’d planned.”

Fifteen quadrillion planets would understandably require some time.

Knight gazed at Shaw closely. “So, what’s going on here?”

Sometimes you don’t play the odds. Sometimes your gut gives you direction.

“Can we get out of here?” Shaw asked.

Knight debated. He nodded and the guard opened the door. The three of them stepped into a larger, brighter room, the inner sanctum of the booth. Two young women and a young man, wearing the corporate T-shirt and jeans uniform, labored away furiously at computer terminals. They shot wary looks toward their boss when he emerged and then their attention snapped back to their clattering tasks.

Shaw and Knight sat at the only table that didn’t have an impressive computer perched upon it. A young woman with a crew cut brought Shaw the box containing his personal effects. He slipped them where they belonged.

Knight barked, “So?”

“You sued Marty Avon a few years ago.”