His face softened into what was almost a smile.
“Now, I don’t know about you, Mr. Kapinsky, but I’m not one who believes much in coincidence. No effect without cause.” He leaned into the light again, lowering his voice as if sharing a confidence. “But here’s the thing. Before we could even lift a finger to do anything about it, the money was gone again. And that account erased. Almost before our very eyes. Again, no record that it had ever existed, and so no name to hang it on. As you can imagine, we were more than perplexed by now.”
He stabbed a finger toward a ceiling hidden by the dark.
“But wait. Fortune favoured us yet again. Because guess what? That self-same exact amount turned up in yet another account. The same day the second one vanished. And do you know whose account that was, Mr. Kapinsky?” But he raised his hand. “No, don’t answer. We both know whose account it was. It was your account, Mr. Kapinsky.”
He sat back again.
“Very clever. I have to confess to a certain admiration. From a purely professional standpoint. But from a personal one, Mr. Kapinsky, I have to tell you that I am extremely pissed off. In fact, I can’t even begin to convey to you just how pissed off I am. But we’ll come to that. Many things we will come to, very soon. But first things first.”
He reached in front of him to the flat object lying on the desk and lifted its lid. As he turned it around, Michael saw that it was a laptop computer. The screen was lit up and displaying the Second Life welcome page. The SL eye/hand logo seemed to be mocking him now. The man nodded, and a shadow emerged from the dark, light catching the blade of a large hunting knife. Michael flinched as the hand that wielded it swooped to cut through the bindings that held his wrists and ankles.
The red-haired man rose from behind his desk and walked around to the front of it. He took a folded sheet of paper out from an inside pocket and smoothed it open on the desk beside the laptop.
“Quite simple, Mr. Kapinsky. Here you have the name of an AV. You log yourself in, and transfer our money into his account. Quite painless, and all over in sixty seconds.”
Michael made no attempt to get to his feet, until rough hands grabbed him from behind and forced him into a standing position. He was breathing in short, sharp bursts, aware that there was only one possible way this could end. “I can’t do it,” he said.
And a fist came from nowhere, like bunched steel, driving itself into his diaphragm. The pain was nauseating, and completely robbed him of the power to breathe. He doubled over and dropped to his knees, before the same rough hands as before pulled him back to his feet.
“There is no such word as ‘can’t’ in our lexicon, Mr. Kapinsky.”
Michael shook his head, trying to find breath to fuel his voice. Finally he managed what was little more than a forced whisper. “I can’t make the transfer because the money is no longer in my account.”
All animation deserted the face of the man in front of him. It was as if he had laid eyes on the Gorgon and turned to stone. “Show me.”
Michael was shoved forward to the computer. With shaking fingers he typed in his AV name and password, and there was Chas standing in the familiar surroundings of Twist’s office. If only he could just be subsumed into the virtual. Become Chas, and escape this hell. The man with the red hair leaned toward the screen to check out the linden total at the top right. There were less than two hundred Lindens in Chas’ account. He turned back toward Michael, who saw a blind fury in the cold green of his eyes, belied by the calm, even tone of his voice.
“You’d better put it back, then.”
“I don’t have it any more.”
“You’ve spent it?” His voice became modulated by incredulity for the first time.
“I paid off my home loan.”
The man leaned in toward him, till Michael could smell the stale garlic on his breath. “Then you’d better take out another, hadn’t you?” He snatched the sheet of paper from the desk and stuffed it into the breast pocket of Michael’s polo shirt. “I’ll give you just twenty-four hours, Mr. Kapinsky. If you haven’t paid the money into this AV’s account by then, you will be seriously dead.”
He turned around angrily and snapped the lid of the laptop shut, as light crashed through Michael’s skull, blinding him again before darkness fell and pain vanished with consciousness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The pain was the first thing to return. A thumping headache that felt like his head had been locked in a vice. From somewhere at the back of his skull he became aware of a different kind of pain. Sharp, persistent, throbbing. And even before he could open his eyes, he reached a hand around to the back of his neck and felt dried, sticky blood where it had run down from a wound in his scalp. Then came the awareness of an ache in his gut. A painful, muscular ache where a clenched fist had left its bruising. And then the stinging around his mouth where the tape that gagged him had been so unceremoniously ripped away.
Finally he opened his eyes, and even the light of the overhead street lamps hurt him.
He was completely disoriented, without the least idea of where he was, before slowly the familiarity of his SUV began to rez into his consciousness and he realised he was slumped in the driving seat. His nostrils were filled with the smell of stale food, and he turned his head to see his take-out pizza box on the passenger seat where he had left it. He checked the time. It was after nine. Somehow he had lost more than two hours.
The memory of what had transpired sometime during those lost hours was slowly finding form in his brain, and with it came a returning fear. A fear that impaled him, keeping him pinned back in his seat. Twenty-four hours to find more than three million dollars. Jesus! He didn’t even want to think about it.
He peered through the windshield and for a moment was unable to place where he was. A tree-lined street. A car park. And then he saw, next to a covered passage leading to the marina, the familiar blue canopy of Offshore West, Inc, opposite his dentist’s surgery. He turned his head and saw the windows of Stanley Armbruster’s surgery and waiting room one floor up. And he realised in a moment of incongruous irrationality that he would no longer be able to afford Stanley’s services. Not that it was likely to matter much. He would probably be dead by this time tomorrow.
He forced himself to sit up and felt his stomach heaving. He fumbled for the door handle and threw it open, leaning out to empty the bile that rose into his throat in a sudden rush. As he looked up, he saw a passing couple watching him with horrified fascination. The girl averted her eyes quickly. But the young man was embarrassed and felt somehow obliged to nod in Michael’s direction. And Michael felt obliged to nod back. So the two men nodded acknowledgement of each other, and the girl tugged her lover’s arm and pulled him off down the tunnel toward the marina.
Michael could see the lights of the waterfront restaurants, hear the sounds of diners laughing and talking, and he pulled the door of his SUV wearily shut. He felt completely dissociated from the world, dislocated and alone. He closed his eyes and wondered what the hell he was going to do.
By the time he got back to the house in Dolphin Terrace, all his aches and pains had receded to a dull background discomfort. Foremost in his mind was a deep depression, closely followed by the fear that snapped constantly at his heels. He clicked the remote on his sun visor and the garage door lifted to allow him access. He drove in, cut the engine, and eased himself stiffly out of the vehicle, taking his pizza box with him. At the door leading to the utility room, he hit the switch to lower the garage door and went through to the house.