Kip Cross attracted scant attention when he parked his Ferrari in the small lot beside a venerable Mid-City hot dog stand, established in the 1930s. The patrons and employees were used to seeing just about everything and everyone. Expensive automobiles were of minor interest.
Kip walked up to the counter. Behind it were vats of boiling hot dogs, steaming sauerkraut, and lumpy, brownish red chili that was swirled with grease. French fries and onion rings churned as they boiled in oil. Dozens of soft hot dog buns were piled in a steamer. Two televisions were suspended above each side of the L-shaped counter.
The women who worked the counter had a well-known and even beloved reputation for abrasiveness. Three were working today. One was a stout blonde; the other two were thin brunettes. All of them appeared to be in their twenties, and they were all chewing gum. They wore blue, button-front dresses splattered with grease, and little folded hats attached to their pinned-up hair. One of them nudged her partner in the ribs as Kip approached.
A man standing at the counter shoving a chili dog into his mouth initially ignored Kip until he noticed Kip’s flip-flops. He then took a step away as if by reflex.
“One chili kraut dog with cheese and extra onions, onion rings, and a large Coke,” Kip said to the blonde.
She didn’t move to fill his order and gave him a long up-and-down look as she snapped her gum. The other two women looked apprehensively from the blonde to Kip and back.
“What’s going on?” Kip asked.
“Onion rings!” the woman shouted over her shoulder. She grabbed a bun, piled the ingredients Kip requested into it, wrapped it in a piece of wax paper, and shoved it toward him across the counter. It would have slipped off the other side if Kip hadn’t caught it.
One of the brunettes carelessly plopped a greasy wax paper sack of onion rings next to the dog, spilling several rings onto the dirty counter. The third set the Coke down.
Kip angrily eyed them.
They returned his stare, snapping their gum and ignoring the other customers who had queued up behind him.
He was about to comment on their rudeness, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He recalled other visits to this joint before Bridget’s murder when the help was surly. They’d treated him this way millions of times before. Their attitude today had nothing to do with their thinking he was a murderer, he reassured himself.
Out of a corner of his eye, Kip spotted people waiting behind him, talking quietly among themselves. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he heard them murmuring. What else could they be talking about except him? What else could be keeping them so entertained? He quickly spun around. He’d confront them. If they had anything to say, they could say it to his face. A woman who had been discussing menu selections with her husband reared back, startled, when Kip abruptly turned. Two guys didn’t pay any attention to Kip and continued pointing at the menu and talking. A man directly behind Kip gave him a fatigued look and hitched his head in the direction of the counter, indicating Kip had business there.
“What?” Kip said, returning his attention to the big blonde.
“Four eighty-nine,” she said, scowling. “You deaf or something?”
“Oh.” He retrieved his nylon wallet from a back pocket of his worn Levi’s, pulled open the Velcro-lined flap, and handed the woman some bills. He gathered his food and walked with it to the picnic tables and benches beneath an aluminum awning at the side of the establishment.
“Wife-killer.”
Kip twisted his neck and glared at the blonde. “What did you say?”
“Your change!” she shouted.
“Keep it.”
“Big spender.”
There were no empty tables. He headed toward a spot at the end of a table where two men were already sitting, dumped his food on top, and slid onto the bench. He saw the two men looking at him and he stared back until they looked away. He unwrapped his chili kraut dog and took a big bite. A glop of chili dripped from his mouth onto the table. The two men began gathering their remaining food. Kip figured they were finished but saw them move to another table a few feet away. One of the men said something to the others sitting there. Slowly, everyone turned to peer at him like one might stare at a traffic accident.
Kip knew he was not imagining this. “I didn’t do it,” he tried to explain. “I loved my wife.”
They seemed stunned that he had spoken to them. They began whispering among themselves. People at other tables were now shooting glances at Kip.
Kip resolutely ate his food, mopping up every last glob of chili and sauerkraut with his onion rings. When he had finished, he gathered the soiled wax paper, napkins, and empty drink container, dropped them into a garbage bin, and walked out. In the parking lot, a man was admiring his Ferrari.
“Nice steel,” the man commented.
“Thanks.” Kip smiled, grateful for the small kindness.
The man went on. “It’s true what they say about the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules.”
Kip climbed into the Ferrari. The top was down and he turned and squinted at the man, not getting his point.
“Rich man’s justice.”
Kip cranked the Ferrari’s engine and burned rubber as he tore from the lot.
Kip pulled, then banged on Pandora’s glass front door. “Why is this freaking door locked?” he yelled. He answered his own question. “Because of the people who want to see me dead.” He fumbled in his pants pocket for his keys, then startled when someone approached him from behind. “What do you want?”
The man looked to be in his early twenties. He was tall and lanky with limbs that dangled loosely from his joint sockets. His straight, dark brown hair reached the middle of his back. The sun had bleached the top layer a reddish hue. His skin was a warm, dark color, deeply tanned on top of already dark skin. His eyes were slightly almond-shaped. “It’s really you, man!” He shook his head as if to dislodge something. “It’s the Kipmeister!”
“Who the hell are you?”
The young man wore a tie-dyed T-shirt, printed with an image of the Grateful Dead’s top-hatted skeleton holding a long-stemmed rose, over baggy, rumpled black shorts that reached his knees. On his feet were huge white basketball sneakers and ankle-high white socks. Between the tops of his socks and the hem of his pants, his brown legs, covered with coarse black hair, were visible. One strap of a blue nylon backpack was slung over his shoulder. “Banzai.”
“Bonsai? Like the miniature tree?”
“No. Banzai, like the war cry—banzai!” He raised his fist.
“Are you here to harass me or something?”
“Harass you? I’m a mega-fan. You’re a god, man. You’re my hero.”
“I am?” Kip brightened.
“You’re the Kipmeister!” He playfully punched Kip in the arm.
Kip looked the kid over and decided he probably was just a game geek and not an assassin. “Hey, I’m sorry, man. It’s just that people are looking at me like I have blood on my hands or something.”
Banzai swatted at his hair. “I can’t believe I’m here. This is so hot. I sent you E-mail, man, when you were in jail. Did you get it?”
Kip smiled tentatively. “Ah, yeah.” He started to unlock the door. “You want to come inside?”
“That would be sooo great, man! I would love it.”
“You have a last name?”
“Jefferson.”
“Banzai Jefferson. Sounds like a character in one of my games.” Kip pulled open the door.
“Yeah, I know. My mom’s Japanese-American and she’s into the culture thing. She thought Banzai was a powerful name. My dad’s African-American. People are always looking at me and going, ‘What are you, anyway?’ I say I’m the multicultural man. I’m the future.” He laughed and followed Kip into the hangar, slowly walking across the floor as if he were in a daze. “Dude, this place is greater even than on TV. It’s…majestic.” He shook his head with his mouth gaping as if speech eluded him.
Kip surveyed his empire and nodded. “I like it.”
Banzai pointed at Kip, his mouth still gaping. “I want to work for you, man. I want to soak in your brilliance.”
“Do you do any coding?”
“Yeah.” Banzai blinked at him as if the answer were obvious. “Heck, yeah.”
Kip nodded. “Come up.”
They walked across the floor and up the wooden stairs to the catwalk. On the catwalk traversing the loft on the opposite side of the hangar, Banzai spotted Today going into his office carrying a Styrofoam container of one of his many daily cups of coffee. “Today Rhea!” he cried. “You the man!”
Today squinted across the hangar, then ducked into his office and returned with a megaphone. “Do I know you?”
“He’s a fan,” Kip shouted. “I’m showing him around.”
“Name’s Banzai!”
“Banzai?” Today repeated. “Look, Kip, when are we going to meet on the new game?”
“I’m working on the engine now.”
Today’s amplified voice carried throughout the hangar. “Why don’t you show me what you have? I can at least start sketching out some ideas.”
“Give me a few days, man. I’ve got a lot of things on my mind.”
Today didn’t respond but went into his office, closing the door behind him.
Kip scowled across the expanse at the closed door.
“All this genius.” Banzai wove his head as he surveyed the hangar. “It’s good. It’s all good.”
“This is my office.”
On one side of the large room were four long tables lined end to end, cluttered with computer equipment. The floor beneath the tables was covered with thick plastic on top of which were two rolling chairs. Two more chairs were in the middle of the room, apparently resting where they had rolled after having been shoved. A wood desk, piled high with books, magazines, and a single framed photograph of Bridget and Brianna occupied the opposite side of the room. Along that wall a string of large white boards was hung. Many of the boards bore scribblings in different colors of dry-erase ink.
Kip nervously stepped toward the door when he saw that Banzai had slipped his backpack off his shoulder and was digging inside it.
Banzai pulled out his hand, holding a stack of diskettes bound with rubber bands. He was beaming, his broad smile white against his dark skin as he clutched the diskettes between both hands. “It’s a game, man.” He humbly held the diskettes toward Kip.
Kip, feeling foolish at his thought that the kid might be pulling a gun on him, took the diskettes. “What do you call it?”
Banzai took two steps back as if preparing to make a jump. “Accelerator.”
Kip looked at the diskettes.
“I know the name’s hokey, but—”
“No, not at all. I think it’s good. Let’s see it.”
Banzai exhaled fiercely, moaning slightly as he did so, as if in ecstasy. “I’ve been living for this moment. The Slade Slayer games were my inspiration. You broke so many barriers. You took computer gaming into the next dimension. Suckers Finish Last is just…” He exhaled hard again.
Kip pulled off the rubber band and sorted through the black diskettes. They made a slight clicking noise in his palm. Each had a handwritten adhesive label numbering it. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” He walked to one of the long tables and pressed the switch on a power strip, turning on a computer. He rolled a chair over and indicated that Banzai should do the same.
Kip put the first diskette into the drive. “Install?”
“Yeah.”
Kip loaded all the diskettes.
“To run it, enter A, C, C, E, L,” Banzai said. “I haven’t added sound yet.” His knobby knees protruded from underneath his long shorts.
Kip typed in the command. Shortly, an image came on the screen of the steering wheel and front end of a long, shiny black car, presented from the point of view of the driver. A country road meandered in front of the car. “Arrow keys, control, space bar, the usual?”
Banzai’s eyes were riveted on the screen. “Yeah.”
Kip pressed the arrow keys to maneuver the car down the road, avoiding obstacles, killing enemies, going through dark tunnels and mazes. He didn’t say anything. The work was competent, even clever at points, but it wasn’t extraordinary. The influence of the Slade Slayer games was obvious.
Banzai divined his thoughts. “It starts a little slow.” He jerked along with the screen image and anxiously shot glances at Kip as he impassively worked the keyboard.
On the screen, a group of men clad in green Army fatigues leapt from behind a clump of trees and started shooting at the car.
Banzai was on the edge of his seat. “Get ‘em!”
Kip was late firing his weapon and didn’t seem to care.
The car, its tires shot out, flipped end over end and sailed off the side of a cliff, expelling the driver. The image turned topsy-turvy as the driver fell, legs and arms spinning, his body colliding against the cliff. The driver’s hands clutched passing shrubs, pulling them free. The image did not disintegrate as the point of view neared the cliff or as the scene spun wildly. Everything held. Kip was getting motion sick. It was wonderful.
Banzai detected Kip’s heightened interest and grinned. “I worked forever on that algorithm.”
Kip shook his head to try and clear the vertigo, then watched as far beneath the driver, the car hit the ground and exploded into leaping flames. The driver headed right into the flames and wreckage. Kip pressed the arrow keys to no avail. As the flames touched the driver, his flesh began to burn and melt. The image froze.
Kip sat staring at the screen, his hands on the keyboard.
“That’s the end of that segment,” Banzai said. “There’s a parachute and oxygen shield on the road that you can pick up. Can I?”
Kip moved the chair out of the way and turned the keyboard over to Banzai, who demonstrated the game’s finer features, as proud as a new father showing off baby pictures. “If you activate the oxygen shield you can survive the fire, see?” He looked at Kip for approval.
Kip silently watched, his crossed arms over his chest, rocking slightly back and forth as he stroked his eyebrow. He commented circumspectly. “It’s not bad. You’ve got some good ideas.”
“Really? You think so?” Banzai nervously looped a lock of his long hair behind his ear. “A friend of mine helped with the graphics, but the coding is basically mine. Let me show you the side road. Took me forever.”
“It’s got possibilities. Like you said, it’s kind of rough.” Kip continued to slowly rock back and forth. “The sequence when the car was going down the cliff, how did you do that?”
Banzai opened his tiny eyes wide. “You want to see the source code?”
Kip stopped rocking. “You have it with you?”
“Yeah, man!” Banzai dug inside his backpack and pulled out several bundles of rubber-banded diskettes. “I carry it around with me. I don’t want my roommates getting any ideas about ripping me off. Especially my algorithm for the cliff dive. That’s my signature piece. But I’ll show it to you, man. I’d be honored to show it to you.” He breathlessly exited the game and started copying up the diskettes.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“You go to school?”
“I kind of took a leave of absence. That’s what I told my parents, anyway. I really sort of dropped out. I need the space to do my own stuff. I told my parents I’m going back.” He shrugged as if it wasn’t likely. “Hey, Jobs and Gates dropped out of college.” He smiled broadly at Kip. “And so did you.”
Lines of code filled the screen, spinning past in a blur as Banzai scrolled through them. Reaching the section he wanted to show Kip, he began clicking through it line by line, describing how he’d designed the sequence of the car and driver crashing and burning.
Kip intently studied the screen, periodically frowning, raising his eyebrows, and nodding. There was one section he found particularly interesting. He scooted closer.
Banzai babbled on. “This is so great. I’m so honored that you’d even look at my work. So, you think I could work here?”
Kip held up his hand, indicating he wanted silence, and continued studying the screen.
Banzai didn’t get the message. “So, man, you think, like, I could work for you?”
Kip still studied the screen.
“I could start out testing software or something. I don’t expect to start at the top. Dude, what do you think?”
Kip leaned back from the screen and looked at Banzai as if he’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, yeah. Uh, let me…let me think about it, okay?” He deleted the files from his hard disk, gathered Banzai’s diskettes, and handed them to him.
“You don’t have to delete it, man. Show it to Today Rhea or something. It’s sort of like my résumé.”
“I don’t want it hanging around.”
“You’re so right, man. Like my old man says, it’s a dog-eat-dog world.”
“It sure as hell is.”
Banzai tightly clutched the diskettes. “So, Kip, what do you say?” He paused, then went on, “About a job?”
“I’ll call you, okay?” Kip stood.
“Great. I am so stoked.” Banzai stood and awkwardly held out his palm. “Even if nothing comes of this, you’ve totally made my day.”
Kip shook his hand. “I’ll show you out.”
Banzai put up both hands. “No, man. I can find my way. I don’t want to bother you anymore. I’ve taken enough of your time.” He put the diskettes into his backpack and slipped one of the straps over his shoulder. At the door to Kip’s office, he jutted one thumb into the air. “Keep the faith, man. We’re behind you.”
Kip smiled. “Thanks.”
Banzai left the office, giving Kip another thumbs-up through the window before walking out of view. The tall kid was wearing sneakers, but his footsteps were still loud on the wood catwalk.
Before Banzai’s footsteps had faded, Kip had started coding.