Perpetual Check Read online

  For Jonathan and Jeremy

  ONE

  Several Moves Ahead

  They're barefoot, moving silently along the carpeted hallway, searching for some clue to which hotel room might be Jenna McNulty's.

  217? 219? All of the doors look the same. What were they expecting to tip them off? Some definitive prep-school snore?

  Pramod puts a finger to his lips—Like I don't know enough to be quiet, Zeke thinks—and kneels by a room-service tray someone had shoved into the hall. He lifts a silver-colored cover to reveal a sprig of parsley swimming in a congealed smear of steak grease and blood at the edge of the plate. He sticks his tongue from his open mouth and grimaces.

  There's a half-full bottle of Heineken on the tray, recapped and upright. Pramod carefully puts two long, nimble fingers on the neck and raises it from the tray.

  Zeke gives him a look that says, No way you're drinking that.

  Pramod walks—with the beer—a few feet away, so he's equidistant between the doors of rooms 219 and 221. He leans against the pale striped wallpaper and motions Zeke over.

  “He didn't drink from the bottle,” he whispers.

  “Who didn't?”

  “Whoever's in that room.” He points to the tray. “He used a glass, see?”

  There's a clear drinking glass on the tray with an obvious trace of dried beer foam. In other words, the bottle holds untouched Heineken. Warm, certainly, and probably flat.

  Pramod checks to make sure the cap is on tight, then puts the bottle in the pocket of his loose green gym shorts and starts walking toward the elevators. His T-shirt says JESUIT LACROSSE, and his straight black hair is badly mussed.

  Zeke checks his watch. It's 1:09 a.m. The Round of 16 starts in less than eight hours.

  The elevator floor is cool on their bare feet, and it takes a long time for the numbers to change from 2 to 3 to 4. They stop and the door opens and they walk along the hallway. Pramod takes his room key (actually, it's more like a credit card), opens the door, and they go in. Zeke reaches into his own pocket quickly and fishes around, then pulls out his empty hand.

  Pramod unwraps two plastic hotel cups by the sink and pours about three ounces of beer into each. He drinks his in one swig and stands there waiting for Zeke to empty his.

  “Tastes like crap when it's warm,” Pramod says.

  “It's better cold?” Zeke immediately realizes that he's tipped his hand.

  Pramod smirks. “Much better.”

  “I mean, I never had Heineken before. I usually drink other brands.”

  Pramod rolls his eyes. “Like apple juice?”

  “Sometimes. Or vodka.” Zeke's never even tasted vodka.

  “You bring any with you?”

  “No. I forgot.”

  “Sure you did.”

  When Zeke was six, his father decided that he was smart enough to learn to play chess. He didn't go easy on him. After about two weeks of getting his butt kicked, Zeke asked, “Dad, when do you think I'll be able to beat you?”

  Mr. Mansfield smiled and rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “Well, Ace,” he said, “if you keep learning and working at it, I think you'll probably be giving me a good game by the time you're fourteen or fifteen.”

  Three days later, Zeke got lucky and beat him. Soon after that, it wasn't luck at all. He was simply better than his dad. He had the ability to plan several moves ahead. His father didn't.

  Zeke always found it amusing that he could regularly beat someone so much older than he was. Until the same thing started happening to him.

  Last year, Zeke was the top-ranked player on his high school chess team. You won't hear him bragging to his friends about it. He doesn't use it to try to pick up girls. He doesn't have a letterman's jacket with an embroidered rook or a bishop sewn onto the sleeve.

  But he likes the game and he's good at it, and the competitive chess season is basically all winter, fitting between his other sports of soccer and tennis.

  The problem for Zeke is “my fat-ass little brother, Randy.” Randy is a freshman, so he's on the team this year. And he beats Zeke nine times out of ten. So that was the end of Zeke's top ranking.

  The poker game had lasted about two hours, then a bunch of them roamed the halls for the rest of the evening. Just Zeke and Pramod were left by midnight.

  Zeke's not surprised to see a chessboard on the table near the window in Pramod's room, set up as if in midgame. Most of these chess guys are constantly reviewing moves and tactics, reading about it, playing it online, practicing their openings and attacks over and over.

  Zeke boned up a little this past week, but he usually doesn't even think about chess except when he's got a match. There's a lot on the line this weekend, though.

  They're at the Lackawanna Station Hotel in Scranton for the Northeast Regional of the Pennsylvania High School Chess Championships. Sixty-four players got invited here, and they played two rounds earlier tonight, leaving sixteen to decide the regional title tomorrow. They gave the sixteen who advanced free dinner and rooms.

  The regional winner gets a thousand-dollar scholarship. The overall state champion—to be decided next weekend in Philly among the eight regional champions and runners-up— gets five thousand.

  “We never did figure out which room was hers,” Pramod says, taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

  “Who?” Zeke asks, though he knows Pramod is referring to Jenna McNulty. She's the top seed in the tournament and also the best-looking player, by far. And she knows it. About both things.

  “Right. Like you don't know who I'm talking about,” Pramod says. “You stared at her between every move tonight.”

  “And you didn't?”

  “We all did. That's why she's so hard to beat. Instead of concentrating on our chess moves, we're dreaming about what other moves we could be putting on her.”

  Zeke's face gets a little flushed, and he nods. If he wins his first match in the morning, he'll be playing against Jenna in the quarterfinals.

  Earlier that night, Zeke forced a stalemate in his first game against a guy from Carbondale but beat him quickly in the rematch. And his second-round game was over in about five minutes.

  His little brother, Randy, won both of his matches easily. Randy's ranked fifth overall. The tournament officials seeded the top eight based on their computer ratings, and the rest of the players were plugged into the brackets at random.

  It's set up like a basketball tournament. If there were no upsets in the early rounds, then the quarterfinals would have the first seed against the eighth, second versus seventh, third against sixth, and fourth versus fifth. But a couple of ranked players have already been knocked out.

  “You nervous?” Pramod asks.

  “Nah,” Zeke says. “I've been through plenty of things like this before. We made it to the semis of the district soccer tournament. Would have won, but the refs blew some calls.”

  “So it was their fault?”

  “Partly. The game was dead even, then they called a penalty on us in the box. Abington got a penalty kick, and that took the steam out of us.”

  “So it ended 1–0?”

  “Well, it actually ended up 4–0, but only because we lost all our momentum. We could've beat ‘em… Last spring I qualified for the tennis districts.”

  “You win?”

  Zeke shakes his head. “I screwed up my serve and got bounced in the first round because my wrist was sore as hell.”

  “That's a shame,” Pramod says with an obvious touch of sarcasm. “I guess you would have won it all.”

  “I might have. I would have at least advanced a couple of rounds.”

  Pramod yawns widely without covering his mouth. “Yeah, well, I guess I ought to get some sleep,” he says. “I probably need
to be fully awake by noon.”

  He's seeded second and doesn't expect to be tested until at least the semifinals.

  Zeke will need to be fully awake by nine, on the other hand. None of these matches will be easy for him, but he thinks he can work his way through the bracket and upset some people. The guys he beat earlier tonight were pretty competitive.

  “You'd get Buddy Malone in the semis, huh?” Zeke asks, not quite wanting to leave yet.

  Pramod gives a dismissive laugh. “Malone. I'm not even thinking about him.”

  “He beat me a few weeks ago,” Zeke says, shaking his head.

  “Yeah, well, you aren't me.” Pramod tosses his cup into the trash basket and grins. “He did beat me once. That was a year ago, at least. Not since.”

  “Where else did you play him?”

  “I don't know. Tournaments. Be sure the door shuts behind you.” Pramod strips off his shorts as he's crawling into bed.

  “Okay. See you tomorrow,” Zeke says.

  The hallway is deserted. Zeke starts walking toward the elevator and slips his hand into his pocket again for the room key, but it isn't there. He checks his wallet, but he knows it isn't there either.

  Shit. They signed release forms saying they'd be in their rooms by midnight. He can't go to the front desk for a new key.

  The truth is, Zeke hadn't realized that the card thing was a key. He thought it was a credit card to use for room service. He also didn't realize that the door would lock automatically when he closed it.

  He takes the elevator down one flight and tries his door handle, but it won't open. So he pounds on the door across the hall to get his little brother out of bed.

  TWO

  Beneath Her

  Randy had said virtually nothing on the way over in the car that afternoon. He just sat in the back and listened to Zeke and their father go on about strategy and pressure and being remorseless to an opponent.

  “These chess people, they'll fold up against an athlete like you,” Mr. Mansfield said to Zeke. He cleared his throat and added—a comment Randy was certain was aimed at him— that “these thinkers are basically soft, you see. They might know the game a little better than you do, but when you turn up the heat, they'll run back to their books. You've got to finish, you know? Wear them down psychologically. Show them what it's like to be in the crunch zone.”

  Zeke just kept nodding, looking confident. Randy stared at trucks as his father sped past them on Route 81. He read the billboards for Applebee's and Scranton Toyota and Mercy Hospital. He stared at the leather upholstery on the back of the driver's seat.

  “We're just as smart as any of these chess geeks,” Mr. Mansfield was saying. “But our major advantage is our toughness. Nobody knocks us down; and when they do, we get up and belt ‘em in the teeth.”

  Randy winced and checked his own front teeth with his thumb. Zeke'd given him a sharp elbow to the mouth a few days ago. Zeke was doing the dishes, and Randy bent over to toss a banana peel into the garbage can beneath the sink.

  “Totally inadvertent,” said Mr. Mansfield, who witnessed the whole thing. “Wise up, Randy. Don't put your head where it doesn't belong.”

  Randy wakes up suddenly, unsure where that pounding is coming from or even where he is. He reaches for his glasses and remembers that he's in a hotel room and one of the idiots from the tournament is trying to get him up.

  He opens the door to his brother.

  “What do you want?” Randy says.

  “I gotta crash here. I lost my key.”

  Randy shakes his head but opens the door farther. “What time is it?” he asks, rubbing one eye with his finger.

  “I don't even know.”

  Randy sighs audibly. “Were you drinking?”

  “Some. What do you care?”

  “I don't.” Randy climbs back into bed, the one nearer the door.

  Zeke flops onto the other bed and turns on the light. He frowns at the photo on the table between the beds—Randy's girlfriend, Dina.

  Dina's at the house all the time, but Zeke's never even acknowledged her.

  “How the hell did you lose your key?” Randy asks.

  “I don't know. I guess I left it in my room.”

  Randy rolls over and presses the pillow against his ear. “Can you shut the light?” he says.

  Zeke turns it off. “What time did you go to sleep?” he asks.

  “Who knows? I watched the news at eleven. Then I was abook for a few minutes. After that.”

  “You were a book? What the hell does that mean?”

  “I wasn't a book,” Randy says. “I was reading. Abook. It's an adverb. Like aboard a train. Aloft in the air. Abook.”

  “That's not even a word.”

  “Well, it should be.”

  Randy loves making up words, especially since it annoys his brother.

  They're quiet for several minutes. Finally, Zeke says, “I thought I won pretty easily tonight. Both matches.”

  “The early rounds should be easy,” Randy says.

  “Not for everybody. I mean, three-quarters of the field are already gone, so it wasn't easy for them. Everybody I played was supposedly as good as I was or better.”

  “Yeah,” Randy says. “I forgot you didn't get seeded.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “I did forget.”

  “Believe me, getting seeded makes a big difference. Unseeded players are always at a disadvantage, whether they deserve to be or not.”

  “We still have to win the games,” Randy says.

  “Yeah, but you start out with an expectation.”

  “We earned it.”

  “Well, don't go getting a big head about it like these other guys,” Zeke says. “Pramod thinks he's such hot shit. And Jenna or whatever her name is—the top seed—she wouldn't even play poker with us. Acted like we were all so far beneath her.”

  “She told me she was too sleepy to play.”

  “When did you talk to her?”

  “After dinner,” Randy says. “In the lobby.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don't know. Maybe twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes?” Zeke says. “What could you possibly have twenty minutes of stuff to talk to her about?”

  “I don't know. Classic rock. She likes Dylan. The Grateful Dead. Tracy Chapman.”

  “Who?”

  “Some singer.”

  After dinner, Randy had found Jenna leaning against the wall outside a room on the third floor, talking to Buddy Malone. The door was propped open with somebody's suitcase, and Randy could see about a half dozen guys in there setting up for a poker game, including Zeke. He was hoping Zeke wouldn't be there, but it was a moot point anyway, since Randy didn't have any money to buy into the game.

  “You guys playing?” Randy asked.

  “Probably not,” said Malone, a tall guy with frizzy red hair and a scruffy goatee. “It's already after ten and I'm beat.”

  Jenna wiggled her mouth and looked like she was thinking it over. “I think I'll pass,” she said. “You?”

  “Can't,” Randy said. “No cash. No big deal, though. My brother is pretty much the last guy I'd want to get in a poker game with.”

  “Because he's too good?” Jenna asked.

  “Because he's toxic.”

  Jenna laughed. “Which one is he?”

  Randy peered around the door and jutted his chin toward the poker game. “That one. Dark curly hair.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “He's pretty cute.”

  Randy shrugged. “Looks are deceiving.”

  “You two look different.”

  Randy is on the pudgy side and only five foot six—which is actually a half inch taller than Zeke—with freckles and no facial hair yet. Could easily pass for a seventh grader, even though he's in ninth. He gets his dominant features from their mother; Zeke is lean and wiry and looks much more like their dad.

  Malone looked at his watch and yawned. “I'll see you guys tomorrow,
” he said. He caught Randy's eye. “Your brother almost beat me a couple of weeks ago. But I hear you're better than he is.”

  “Heard right,” Randy said. “He doesn't think so, but the record speaks for itself.”

  There was a lot of laughing and cursing coming from the poker game. Jenna frowned and asked Randy if he'd liked to go down to the lobby and talk.

  “Sure.” All these guys her age here and she wants to hang out with me?

  They started walking down the hallway but turned back when they heard a loud crash from the poker room.

  Pramod stuck his head out the door and grinned at Jenna. “A lamp broke,” he said, shoving the suitcase back into the room with his foot.

  “Just like that, huh?”

  Pramod smirked and laughed. “Spontaneously… Why aren't you in here, gorgeous?”

  “Too tired,” she said. “Big day tomorrow.”

  “This your servant?” Pramod asked, pointing at Randy. He didn't wait for an answer. “I can blow off this card game, if you're looking for a companion. If you need a massage or something.”

  Jenna frowned. “I don't think so. You better go clean up that lamp.”

  “They got it under control. I'll be in room 407 later if you change your mind. Call anytime; I'll come running.”

  She turned and started walking. “Don't hold your breath.”

  Downstairs, she took a seat on a leather couch in the lobby and folded one knee over the other. She was still wearing the beige skirt she wore to dinner; most of the others had put on jeans or sweats for the evening.

  Randy had worn a black Guns n’ Roses T-shirt to the dinner, and Zeke told him he was pathetic. But it hadn't occurred to Randy to bring anything dressier.

  “You into classic rock?” Jenna asked, pointing to the shirt.

  “Absolutely,” Randy said. “My brother hates it, so I blast it as much as possible.”

  “You don't like him very much, huh?”

  Randy rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “He never gives me a chance to.”

  Randy flicks on the light, climbs out of bed, and walks over to the window. The clock says 1:56. He glances out at downtown Scranton—the gray piles of old snow around the courthouse square, the dim lights of the storefronts, the ancient Electric City neon sign atop a building across the way.