Walter Williams - This Is Not a Game

Dagmar had dressed for the memorial in hose, Blahnik satin shoes, a Marc Jacobs skirt, and a navy Chanel jacket, the last three items of which she’d picked up in a Beverly Hills secondhand store, the sort of place where Orange County trophy wives dumped the previous year’s fashions. Dagmar, whose usual tastes ran to khakis and freebie game-convention T-shirts, didn’t care if her clothes were eighteen months out of date-and the Chanel jacket, in any case, was timeless.

Style sense had always been something she’d planned to acquire, if she ever had the time to think about such things.

Most of the people in the room were Austin’s partners and employees, and though she knew a few faces from Austin’s parties, they were mostly strangers. Charlie either hadn’t arrived or was off organizing something. Dagmar helped herself to some coffee from a brushed-aluminum urn and took a seat.

Half a minute later, BJ dropped into the seat next to her.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, yourself.” She felt suddenly more cheerful.

He wore gray polyester slacks and a brown twill jacket. Hours spent eating junk food while squinting at low-end monitors had added about thirty pounds to BJ’s stocky frame, but the arms and shoulders were still powerful. His fair hair hung over his ears, and he’d added a set of muttonchop whiskers to his mustache. There were fine lines around his eyes, and he wore a pair of rimless spectacles that made him look like a down-at-the-heels grad student.

She put her coffee on the table, slid her chair closer to his, and reached out to give him a hug. He patted her bemusedly on the back.

“Good to see you,” he said.

He looked around the room. Mischief sparkled in his blue eyes.

“Where’s Charlie? ” he said. “Hiding? ”

The question made Dagmar uneasy. She had not ceased wondering if Charlie was in truth hiding, not from BJ, but from Litvinov or what he represented.

“He’s probably organizing something,” Dagmar said.

“I’ve been looking at your game,” BJ said. “Nice, devious stuff.”

“Thanks.”

Charlie entered at that point, with a man and a woman who were slightly familiar to Dagmar and who she assumed were more of Austin’s business associates. He spared BJ a glance, but nothing more than that. He said hello to Austin ’s parents and introduced the two people he was with, then took a seat at the far end of the table.

BJ stared at him throughout, his blue eyes hard. Charlie’s face was mild.

One of Austin’s associates stood and introduced himself as Stephen. He introduced Austin’s parents to the group and then suggested that if people would like to talk about Austin, they should feel free to do so.

Then he sat down, an expression of satisfaction on his face.

Oh great, Dagmar thought. It’s like a Quaker Meeting. No one is in charge.

She would have preferred a little more direction in this enterprise. Or at least some warning, so that she could have had something prepared.

Or, failing any of that, she could have used the Spirit of God descending on her, as it was alleged to for the Quakers.

A silence followed. Dagmar feigned sipping at her coffee while she ransacked her brain for anecdotes of Austin that would make sense to everyone here, including the parents.

BJ bounced up from his chair. Dagmar looked at him in surprise.

“Hi,” BJ said. He spoke directly to Austin’s parents. “My name is Boris Bustretski, and I’ve known Austin since freshman year at college. We were in the same gaming group-and since he mentioned that you were gamers, you know what that’s like.”

The Katanyans listened with interest. The mention of gaming had touched something that the impersonal world of business and crime and investigation had not.

“Austin was a detail-oriented gamer,” BJ said, “like he was in his other life, I guess-you don’t do as well as Austin did without paying attention to the fine print.”

Dagmar saw Austin’s father nod-he understood business as well as gaming.

“Austin’s games,” BJ went on, “were full of interesting technicalities that told you a lot about his game worlds and that told you a lot about Austin. He always did his research. I remember there was one game where the plot point hinged on metallurgy-it depended on the details of how people with a low tech level counterfeit gold and silver coins, which were used by an enemy to destabilize a kingdom. That’s just an example of Austin’s interest in detail, and how markets work, and how you tell good money from bad.”

BJ offered the Katanyans a wistful smile. “When he came west, he brought your old games with him-that original D &D rule set, and Empire of the Petal Throne, and those others. He ran those games for us, and I think sharing his parents’ games with us was maybe his way of honoring you.” For the first time he looked over the room, and then he looked back at the Katanyans. “Thank you,” he said, and sat.

Mrs. Katanyan was weeping silently. The anger that had simmered in Mr. Katanyan had gone, and he was looking at BJ with gratitude.

Somehow BJ had hit exactly the right note.

Others spoke-for the most part they were Austin’s partners or employees, and their focus was toward the business: Austin’s traits as a boss, Austin’s uncanny knack for finding successful start-ups.

Charlie spoke, mentioning that he, too, had met Austin as a result of gaming in college, and that he’d subsequently had the opportunity to help Austin set up his company.

“I knew he would be a success,” Charlie said. “With that mind of his, there was no way he wouldn’t be.”

As he spoke, he very carefully did not look in BJ’s direction.

When Dagmar spoke, she mentioned that she, too, was an old friend from the college gaming group, and that as a result of that group, she now wrote games for a living.

She knew she couldn’t top BJ’s anecdote about gaming, and everyone else had covered Austin’s professional life, so she told the story of how she’d gotten herself and Austin thrown out of the restaurant. She changed the story a bit, to make it better-she made the restaurant Austin’s favorite, and she avoided mentioning that this had happened on the day when Austin had been murdered.

Her anecdote faded out rather than came to an end, and she sat down in silence. Her stories were really much better when she wrote them down than when she had to tell them aloud.

Afterward there was a buffet in the company dining room. Dagmar noticed that the Katanyans sought out BJ and spent an hour talking to him.

For someone whom Austin had barely seen in the past six or seven years, he had certainly made an impression.

FROM: Hanseatic

Is Great Big Idea seriously expecting us to spend US dollars for this cryptography program?

FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

Apparently, yes.

FROM: Vikram

Have we found a hidden sponsor?

FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

A remarkably unsubtle one, if so.

FROM: Desi

I’m not spending any money on this!

FROM: Chatsworth Osborne Jr.

That’s your privilege. But I ask myself if my entertainment is worth a special introductory price of $31.99 for some software that may have applications outside the game, and I have to conclude the answer is yes.

FROM: Corporal Carrot

So says the spook!

FROM: Vikram

It’s not whether the game is worth the money, but whether they

should be making us spend it at all.

FROM: Desi

Yeah! This is really pissing me off.

FROM: Hanseatic

With the euro under attack, I very soon may not HAVE $31.99.

FROM: Desi

I think I’m going to drop this game. There are plenty of cheaper