Michael made eye contact before he left. Then Michael asked Dana to give us a few minutes alone. When she was gone, Michael reached in his suit pocket and came out with a slip of paper.
'Charley likes your game very much,' Michael said. 'We're going to talk more about it when we get back, but he wanted me to tell you his initial reaction.'
He slid the paper across the table to me. It said, simply,
'Is that-?'
'Million,' Michael said. 'Seed money. You draw up the papers.'
'Jesus.'
Then Michael leaned forward and his lips slid back over his teeth. 'Look, you can cut your fuckin' hair and put in your phony eye, but I know what you are. I've always known what you were.
He took the slip of paper back. 'And I know Japanese animation when I see it.'
I took a drink. It had been Louis's idea to pretend that a Japanese cartoon was, in fact, the graphics to Empire. We used one of his favorites, Samurai Sea Battle Number 9, and Louis practiced until he could simulate the action in the cartoon. The VCR out in the hallway wired in to Louis's computer, the TV encased in the computer screen, the phony players, Bryan cutting the power before they got too good a look, Eli's creative fit – the whole drama had worked. Or so I'd thought. But Michael had seen through all of it.
'Are you going to tell him?' I asked.
Michael's eyes narrowed. 'No,' he said. 'Dana likes you. And Charley likes your weird-looking friend. A million- five is a million-five. And even though you're two years away from having anything worthwhile, there's something there.'
He reached out and finished his bourbon.
'Anyway, it's always better to have the crooks working
Dana and Charley were walking back together.
'Do we have an agreement?' he asked again.
'Yes,' I said quietly.
They arrived and Charley picked up his drink. 'To Empire!' he said.
Dana squeezed my arm.
'To Empire,' said Michael, and he put his arm around Dana's waist, pulling her away from me.
He nuzzled her neck and she blushed and turned in to him. And it was at that moment that I first pictured it. It only takes one thought like that, the door opening a crack, and you start imagining how it would work, what you would do, how you might get away with it. It was at that precise moment that it first occurred to me that the world would be a simpler and better place if Michael Langford were not in it.
VII
1
The dead guy is lying on his side, as if he's just fallen out of his chair. He is heavyset, with a round face and wire-frame glasses that are still hooked over one of his ears. His thinning red hair is furrowed with perfect comb lines, except around the ears and back, where it curls like a clown's hair. He is wearing blue jeans, the cuffs rolled up, and a gray T-shirt, and he is barefoot, his legs crossed at the ankle, one of his feet wedged into the carpet – toes down. The room is quiet, and lit only by the humming computer above the corpse, its screen saver alternating pictures of Napoleonic soldiers with idyllic sketches of forested lands and two scrolling messages in big bold letters: EMPIRE, MORE THAN A GAME and EMPIRE, MAKE YOUR OWN RULES. She breathes heavy, through her mouth, and the room seems to close around her and the body – a forced, sad intimacy.
Caroline reaches for the light switch but stops herself before disturbing any prints. She removes her flashlight from her belt and shines it down on the body and the carpet. It's a tight weave, so footprints are unlikely unless the killer – who is she kidding – unless
Blood. From the doorway she can see it spattered everywhere that her flashlight lands: on the computer keyboard, on the ceiling, on a coffee cup on the desk. The main current of blood is on the floor, and it's been here long enough to have its own history, of flow and desiccation, soaking outward from the body, flooding the forest of carpeting, and finally lapping onto the linoleum in the kitchen, where it dried brown and hard like taffy.
She pulls out her phone, punches in the number for the desk sergeant, but doesn't hit the call button. Not yet. The first rule of a crime scene: Don't do anything that might disrupt evidence. But she's also supposed to check for a pulse, and even though the smell and the gallon of spewed blood don't make that very likely, she can always say later that she wanted to make sure the stiff was… well, stiff.
So she puts her gloves on, slides out of her shoes, and steps carefully into the room, letting the door close behind her.
As she walks toward the dead guy, the beam from her flashlight moves across his body and gives the illusion that he is rolling over to face her. And even though she knows it's a trick of light, of perception, she looks away, raising the flashlight to take in the carriage house apartment. It is so sparsely decorated as to feel temporary. Half the apartment is made up of this small office, which is maybe twelve by twelve. A desk is pushed against one wall. The other walls are lined with bookshelves, and these are covered with fantasy and historical novels, stacks of computer magazines and binders with the word EMPIRE written on them. There's a file cabinet just to the left of the doorway, and she thumbs through some papers on top of it – financial documents, investment reports, quarterly statements. She finds a bottom line on one of them.
Just beyond the desk is the door to the kitchen. The stiff fell to his left, pitching slightly forward, and since Caroline doesn't want to step over the body, she shines the light over him, into the kitchen: boxes of sweetened cereal on the kitchen counter, a tower of dirty bowls in the sink. Next to the kitchen is a bedroom, with a futon and a television on the floor. Just to the left of that is a small bathroom.
Looking around the cozy apartment, Caroline forgets, sniffs once through her nose, and almost vomits. She covers her mouth and nose with one hand, and with the other rummages through her bag until she finds a stick of flavored lip balm. She applies it to her upper lip, and the cherry smell under her nose helps calm her stomach.
When the nausea has passed, she opens her eyes and looks down at the cell phone in her hand, the number for the desk sergeant still on the screen.
