Mind Games Read online

  MIND GAMES

  By Alan Brudner

  MIND GAMES. Copyright ©2001 by Alan Brudner

  REB ISBN: 1-930486-24-3

  SALVO PRESS

  http://www.salvopress.com

  [email protected]

  Thank you for buying this Salvo Press ebook. For information about other Salvo Press titles, please visit our website or go to the end of this file.

  Salvo Press

  P.O. Box 9095

  Bend, Oregon 97708

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All Rights Reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  About the Author

  More Salvo Press Titles

  Chapter 1

  To explain how my son Schuyler's life came to depend on a computer program, I have to take you back about seven years. My wife was alive back then, Sky was a whiz kid with a year to go in high school, and the richest man in the world was just a smiling eyeglassed face I often saw on business and news shows about how computer nerds have come to rule the world.

  It all started, like many brilliant ideas (and a hell of a lot of lousy ones, I guess), with desperation—in our case, a need to pay for Sky's college education.

  Our son was creative, like Eliza, but he was also practical, quantitative, had logical reasoning ability far greater than mine. I don't want to sound like an overly proud father, but the truth is that Sky was a genius. We knew it from a young age, but it wasn't until he was a teenager with a perfect 1600 SAT score that I realized the economic impact of what that meant.

  He was bound to be admitted into a prestigious private college, an Ivy, and we somehow had to finance it.

  Needless to say, Eliza came up with a unique plan. She always did.

  "Forbes says Avery Kord is worth more than seventy billion dollars, Cliff," my wife had said that morning a long time ago, looking up from the annual Richest People issue that sat next to her coffee mug on the kitchen table. She often woke up at the crack of dawn. "That's 'Buh' I said, not 'Muh.' Buh-illion. He'll make more in interest before noon today than we'll earn during the rest of our lives."

  "Step on more bodies, too. We may not be rich, Lize, but I can be happy without running the universe."

  "They just don't like him because he's filthy rich, Cliff."

  "Or just plain filthy."

  "Half of those rumors are probably planted by his competitors. Or wanna-be's."

  "Then there's still the other half, Lize. And he doesn't have any real competitors."

  My seventy thousand a year as a client relations specialist for the Terrell Finch brokerage firm was no pittance, I knew. It put me in the highest fifteen percent, income-wise, in the country, but it would never land me in Forbes. Or even in a decent house in a good school district in Westchester. And although Eliza's salary as an insurance investigations photographer helped out—she also freelanced and had the occasional commissioned artsy-fartsy shoot for Audobon or National Geographic—her income was irregular and never enough to change our picture. With its taxes, rents and prices, New York wasn't an easy place to survive on a middle-class income. And saving for a comfortable retirement in Utah or Arizona was somebody else's fantasy.

  "Everything's relative, Cliff," Eliza said, looking at me with wide eyes still as provocative and mischievous as when we first met at NYU. "We send Juanita twenty-five dollars a month, and it goes really far in Santo Domingo. Probably buys her a pair of shoes, a dress or two, meals for her family for a month."

  "That's the kind of thing the Foster Parents Plan prospectus says, anyway."

  "And we don't even miss it."

  "Twenty-five bucks wouldn't go too far at Saks, Eliza. Maybe buy a lunch in the cafeteria."

  "That's my point, Cliff." The gleam was still in her eye. "It's all relative."

  "What is?"

  "A million wouldn't buy Avery Kord a new Brancusi sculpture he likes or a decent enough sound system for his bedroom. He wouldn't even notice a million missing. According to this article, he recently tried—hush-hush—to buy the original, unedited version of the Declaration of Independence. He offered a billion dollars. Think about that. The man wouldn't miss a million any more than we miss the twenty-five bucks we send Juanita."

  "He's just pursuing life, liberty and happiness, Eliza."

  "And doing a better job than anyone else. This guy's leaving Bill Gates behind in a cloud of dust."

  "So we break into Kord's house and steal a Van Gogh?"

  "Of course not. That he'd miss. We write and ask him for some money. We don't have to be greedy. Two hundred thousand would be plenty. And we offer to return it if Sky gets a big academic scholarship."

  "Ask him? That's it? We write and ask him for two hundred grand?" I shrugged. Not voluntarily.

  "You never know unless you ask, Cliff, do you? You might get refused, but sometimes you get what you ask for. I've heard you call that the Casanova Theory."

  "That's in business, Eliza. And I was kind of joking."

  "Maybe. And maybe I am too. But maybe I'm not." She pulled her thick copper-wire hair away from her face. It snapped right back. Sky had inherited the same unruly mop.

  "We could become like his foster children in Santo Domingo," she continued. "You're not a drunk or a drug addict begging him for money on the subway. You're a hardworking guy struggling to make it for your family. But it's gotten tough out there, and I'll bet even Mister Kord knows it. We've done the analysis, and we just can't pay for college. I bet Kord might find the idea intriguing."

  Eliza had on a white cotton madras dress, a loose thin translucent thing, and when she got up to open the window and the pale yellow sun streamed through, it became apparent to me she had nothing on underneath it, top or bottom. I found her quirky tenderness beguiling even in the kitchen before breakfast on a weekday. I stood behind her, gently fondled the back of her neck with my fingers and pulled her toward me. I was glad Schuyler was a sound sleeper. Sometimes the Casanova Theory produced tangible results even early in the morning.

  Soon Schuyler's radio alarm clock started to blast some electronic jumble that sounded like a serious malfunction. It was 7:15. Time for a quick cup of coffee, a shower, a few minutes with Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel on The Today Show, and the number 2 train to Wall Street for another day at the hamster wheel. I folded my Times into eighths so it would fit in the one inch space I claimed as my own in the jammed subway car. I glanced at some front-page articles: a bank r
obber who scared tellers into submission with a toy gun; the recall of millions of nylon disposable diapers because they could melt in hot weather and burn a baby's skin; the tense standoff in a chess match between a massive IBM computer and the undisputed human world champion from Russia.

  Although the paper looked intriguing and I appropriated enough space to read it, I was daydreaming about whether Eliza might have actually stumbled onto something. In my mind, I drafted and re-drafted a request letter, and when I reached the office I actually scribbled one out. I was lousy at the keyboard and too embarrassed to show it to Lucille, my secretary, so I brought the scrap home to type up. We owned an Apple Mac for Sky to use in school, but both Eliza and I still used the old Smith Corona electric. Ribbon cartridges and erasable bond paper were getting increasingly difficult to find, so we kept a stockpile in the hall closet.

  I never actually expected a reply to the letter, of course. I spilled a scalding hot cup of coffee during a conference call that day a month later when Eliza marched into my office carrying a manila package. I still have the burn scar on my hand.

  "It came in the mail this morning, Cliff." She held the package out so I could see it.

  I pushed the MUTE button so the other parties on the line wouldn't be able to hear my end through the speakerphone. I read the return address, upside down from where I sat: it was a handwritten label that said Avery Kord, c/o The Cybronics Corporation, Portland, Oregon 97210.

  The only other correspondence I had ever wondered about with such trepidation had been the letter from Harvard 30 years earlier. I recalled thinking that you could predict the outcome, yeah or nay, by the weight of the letter. I guess I got the fattest rejection letter an Ivy League school had ever sent out.

  This one was even fatter and heavier. I figured it was probably a polite rebuff accompanied by a glossy catalog of Cybronics computer products and software.

  "Lightman, you there?" the general counsel yelled during the conference call. "Lightman?"

  "He must've gotten cut off," said one of our outside lawyers, who I think was happy about my being off the phone. The purpose of the call was to ride him about the excessiveness of his law firm's bills, and I was most familiar with the details of his firm's work.

  "No, I'm here," I said, hitting MUTE to reopen the line. "Two thousand clients lost thirty bucks apiece on every trade for a year. The total is over a million."

  "It's a complex lawsuit," said Begwell, the senior lawyer at our outside firm. "This computer virus that caused thousands of the firm's customers to be overbilled on their commissions is the real culprit. Not any particular firm employee."

  "I know what it relates to," said our general counsel. "But the computer angle is irrelevant. We'll end up paying our clients their damages anyway, even if it's the fault of a friggin' computer defect. So the only thing I'm betting is that by the end of this phone call, your bill's going to shrink or we'll be hiring a different law firm. Now let's edit it item by item. Take out your scissors and your white-out."

  I hit MUTE again while our firm's chief legal auditor read the legal bill.

  Eliza sat down across the desk and ripped open the manila envelope.

  "It looks like a contract," she said, holding the crisp document between her thumb and forefinger at its edge, like a match that had burned down too far. She scanned the first eggshell-white page until her eyes froze about midway down.

  "He'll give us the money, Cliff," she blurted out, after what seemed like an hour. "Five times more than we asked for!"

  "Yeah, right. When George Steinbrenner wins Miss Congeniality at the Miss America pageant."

  "No, really!" Her voice rose ten decibels. "He says he thinks we underestimated our needs and he'll provide us with a million dollars right away!"

  "In return for what?"

  Her eyebrows moved up perceptibly as she flipped through the pages. "We have to promise him Sky. For two years. After college."

  "What?"

  She tossed the stapled document my way. I quickly forgot about the conference call as I leafed through the pages. She hadn't been kidding.

  "Sky can still go to Yale or any other college he's admitted to. Still do everything he wants," I said, my heart fluttering. "But when college ends, he'll have to spend two years working for Cybronics. Sort of an internship or a scholarship. On minimal pay, a small stipend. Discounted room and board arranged by the company. Like the ROTC. He'll also get stock options that vest when the two years are up. He lasts two years, he gets a million dollars worth of Cybronics stock."

  "That's it, Cliff?"

  I nodded. "That, and we have to promise never to tell anyone. The cover letter says Kord's checked Sky out. God only knows how. Sky's I.Q. and mental profile fit The Cybronics Corporation's anticipated needs. Kord'll teach Sky to be a software architect or some such thing. Prepare him for life in the new millennium."

  "You think this all sounds fishy?" She was obviously trying to check the enthusiasm in her voice.

  "I don't know," I said. "I would be pretty skeptical if this thing came from anywhere else. But Avery Kord is in the Forbes 400. He's for real. It's a known fact his company always has a need for the best and the brightest. It's how they got to the top and how they plan to stay there. And many of their employees have become multi-millionaires along the way."

  "I know, I've seen it all on 20/20 or 60 Minutes or both." She was beaming again.

  "We should leave it up to Sky, Lize. It's his life. But something about Kord scares me. All those investigations. Congress, DOJ, the FTC—"

  "Except that if we don't take the offer, I don't know how on earth we'll pay for college. We're not poor, we're not a minority. Smart as Sky is, the Lightmans won't qualify for a nickel of financial aid. Or an athletic scholarship. He didn't even inherit your pitching arm."

  "At least he won't get sued for hitting batters." We both laughed at one of the results of my short-lived minor league pitching career.

  "Cliff, you know what I mean. You've seen the application forms. We're right in the center of the middle-class bubble. And I don't want Sky to owe his life out in student loans before he even turns 21. It's ridiculous."

  "We'll tell all that to Sky. Be open about everything. But let him decide."

  "He can attend a decent university even if we don't accept the money, Cliff. He still might get an academic scholarship."

  "This is better than any scholarship I ever heard about. Plus it's already in the bag." I didn't want to, but I was already seeing green—and not just the clean cut grass on the Yale quad. "A million sure would change a few things. Not to mention the stock Sky would get down the road. Help set him up for a great life."

  Eliza glanced over at the speakerphone, which blared a dial tone. The conference call had ended. I replaced the receiver. I wondered whether the general counsel knew I had left him on mute for most of the call. For once, I didn't really care what my boss thought.

  Eliza walked around the desk to where I sat and we looked closely, deeply, into one another's eyes.

  "We could really use that money," Eliza said softly, taking my hand, her eyes watery. I always felt like melting when they got like that.

  "It's the American Way, Lize. The pursuit of happiness. But it'll be up to Sky."

  I wondered whether I could still exert enough subtle influence over my son to prompt him to reach the right conclusion. He was, after all, getting older and more independent, and it wasn't just a simple matter of reverse psychology any longer. On the other hand, this offer seemed like a no-brainer. Unless he wanted to become a doctor or go for a Ph.D. right after college, he'd have nothing to lose and everything to gain by going for the bucks. He could always get an advanced degree a few years later.

  We talked to him that night.

  He made the decision in a split second. He had, after all, scored 1600.

  Worst that can happen is I waste a couple of years. We'd still be way ahead, Dad.

  We uncorked a bottle of Dom Perignon, a
nd I promised him a new BMW and plenty of spending money for college. All three of us knew our lives were about to change forever, courtesy of Avery Kord and the Cybronics Corporation.

  Too bad we couldn't foresee exactly how, or how much.

  Chapter 2

  Sky finished Yale on time, in four years. A drinking problem and Eliza's accident almost killed one, but he and I worked it all out together and he attended summer school and fought to graduate with his class and did, at the top, as I knew he would. Now he had almost completed his promised two years of service as an intern at Cybronics. I saw him regularly while he was at Yale, but Cybronics was out in Portland and his visits dwindled to every five or six months. It felt too long.

  When he finally came home, I couldn't have guessed what I was to discover a couple of weeks later about the computer program that could end his life. There wasn't the slightest hint of anything amiss.

  "Hey, Dad," Sky said as he walked into my study. I put down my pen and glanced up, then stood to hug him. He reached for my hand instead, and clasped it.

  "You look really healthy, Sky," I said. He was tan and slim, but what I was thinking was how disastrously fast he had grown up. Gone was the coy 13-year old with the plastic Concorde jetliner who smiled at me from an eight-by-ten wooden frame that still faced me from the corner of my office desk after a decade. Sky had beaten alcohol and depression and had somehow managed to cope with his mother's death. I was immensely proud of him. But the childish dreamer deep down inside me made me want to blink and magically call back the kid and the model airplane and the time and the life that had vanished with them.

  "Still at it, Dad?" He glanced at the paperwork spilled across my desk. "Wait, don't tell me." He shielded his eyes with his palms. "Customer records, right? You're reviewing outside law firm bills, at least two handwritten customer complaints and your draft responses. Maybe a copy of the latest Terrell Finch client newsletter. And a couple of evaluation forms for the people who report to you."

  I laughed but felt oddly defensive. My basic routine hadn't changed in years, despite everything, and Schuyler knew it.