I shut the door to my office and ring up Pez.
“Pescare and Associates, please hold,” says the man who answers.
“Wait—it’s me! I know you don’t have a receptionist. Don’t—”
Too late. My call goes to music. But after only an instant, Pez comes back on the line.
“Caitlyn, is that you?”
“You put people on hold now?”
“It makes it seem like my time is important and I’m completely swamped with clients. Actually, I’m doing the crossword, and I was just about to take a nap. I’m sorry about your father, by the way. I sent you some candied pecans.”
“The New York head of Twitter sent me a lasagna from Pio’s. It’s incredible. Come over and help me eat it. I have work for you.”
“Right now?”
“How soon can you get here?”
“I’m on my way,” he says.
Vic “Pez” Pescare is a weird little man, but he has always been extremely effective at finding things out for both me and my father. We’ve been retaining him for years, ever since we got into a corporate espionage war with the game company Rascal Tinies back in the nineties. They made handheld electronic games for preteens. They were mainly lame sports games where pixels very slowly moved around on puke-colored screens to mimic baseball, tennis, hockey, and so on. You can tell a game is bad when it is impossible to be good at it. If everybody has the same experience playing a game, it is likely that the game is shit.
I get another plate from the kitchen and make space on my desk.
Pez arrives in fifteen minutes. He is slightly winded as he sits down at my desk and I pour him a tall glass of water from the pitcher next to a leather-bound photo array of Olivia and Jane.
“It’s so humid,” he says, taking the glass gratefully. “The air is like a single fibrous mass, like a jungle canopy. I am chewing the air. But then also I have these allergies. Hold on—” He sneezes. “You see?”
He takes a long sip of water.
“Your father was a great man,” he says finally. “I was at the funeral. You gave a very good speech. What a tragedy. I loved him like a brother.”
Pez is about five feet tall, and he is thick all over, but there isn’t an ounce of fat on him. He moves like a knuckleball, dipping and dodging, always looking at everything askance. His eyes are shiny and always a little wet and he often has a sensual leer on his face that people mistake for lust, though he’s actually quite reserved, almost priest-like. He is about fifty years old, but he has a full head of black hair and no wedding ring. I have never asked him very much about his personal life.
His slightly dopy demeanor isn’t any kind of act, but he makes you reevaluate your definition of what a smart person is like. I always get the impression that his ability to read people and to find things out about them is a result of having a perfectly clean conscience. It is a rare conversation in which he doesn’t declare his absolute love for the human race in a way that seems out of step with the time and place, possibly out of step with every time and place.
“Pez, something very strange is going on and I need your help,” I say. “I’ll just get right to the point. It is Dad’s last will and testament that all of his children play a game against each other for his fortune. We are in the middle of it right now.”
“Strange, but oddly symmetrical and appropriate,” says Pez. “Tell me more. I am awestruck by the beauty of the future of the Nylo Corporation being decided by Prescott Nylo’s very last game.”
“Yes, well, I find it slightly less appropriate,” I say. I heap an oozing square of lasagna on the plate in front of him and scoop myself a second serving. I give him half of the buttered, toasted bagel and take a long swig of my beer. While we eat, I tell him everything I know. He takes it all in, listening with a smile on his face, pausing every now and then to let me know exactly how good the lasagna is.
When I am finished, he frowns for the first time and leans back in his seat.
“Aren’t you cheating by calling me in here to help you?”
“There’s nothing in the rule book that says I can’t bring in outside help,” I say. “And anyway, I don’t need any help with the clues. I want to know about the game itself. I want to know who the Game Master is, where these phones come from, what the deal is with these stupid T-shirts. I want to know how much Angelo Marino knows. I want to know how involved Alistair was in the creation of this augmented reality system.”
“You want an edge,” he says, rubbing his knees.
“Name your price, obviously,” I say. He frowns, looking down at his hands, sort of disappointed.
“I have some questions,” says Pez after a long time, his face resuming its sad smile. I can see he doesn’t want to talk costs and expenses. I pick up a basket full of lavender macarons and bite into one. It’s heaven. Whatever. I am going to run like ten miles tonight. It’s fine. I’m grieving.
“First of all,” he says. “How long did you say it has been since Henley was in town?”
I think about it.
“Years. Two years.”
“That’s what I thought,” says Pez. “I have known your family for a long time and I don’t think I have ever seen all
