Deadfall by Robert Liparulo Page A

it fall back over the gun’s grip.
    He said, “We—me and the guys—are competitive by nature. Business, extreme sports. We don’t mind people trying to best us, because it makes besting them that much sweeter.”
    At his sides, his fingers began to waggle, fast, more Beethoven than Mahler. He faced Tom, stepped toward him, turned away again. Pentup energy, anxious to do whatever it was he had planned.
    â€œBad? The black guy?” Declan said. “One of the best skateboarders in the world.We’re developing a game that’ll make Tony Hawk’s look like Pong.” He turned a squinting eye on Tom’s blank expression. “You know Tony Hawk?”
    â€œSorry.”
    Declan sighed. “Okay, Pru . . . Pruitt? Major Unreal player. Up there on Quake too.You do know Unreal? Quake?”
    Tom shook his head. He was thinking of Laura. Dillon.
    â€œOnline shooter games. Hundred thousand players worldwide. Really big deal outside of Podunk towns like this. Get this . . .” Somehow, his face reflected even more self-satisfaction. “The guy’s a geek, working for, I don’t know, Radio Shack, right? Rushes home every day and gets on the computer. I’m watching the stats. He’s good. So I call him, say, ‘You wanna real job? come join my posse. See the world. Be all you can be.’” He laughed, a dry, humorless sound.
    Tom didn’t know why, but he thought it was a good idea to keep the man talking. Maybe he’d give something away Tom could use. He nodded toward the kid who’d wanted the Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga games. “And him?”
    â€œKyrill . . . just a young kid, right? Seventeen. The guy wrote a video game that’s about to outsell Halo 2, another game you wouldn’t know. Exclusive to Xbox, but it still sold 3.5 million copies. By year’s end, Kyrill’s will have that beat. And he’s working on another one. I’m telling you, the kid’s brilliant. This next one’s gonna blow everybody away. It’ll change gaming forever.”
    Tom met his eyes. “What do you do?”
    He smiled. “I run the company that makes Kyrill’s games. I sponsor Bad, Pruitt, some others. I’m the money man and the mastermind.”
    He said it without irony.
    Seeming to take Tom’s silence as an incitement, he said, “Funny thing is, the most valuable people aren’t always the ones with a single extraordinary talent. It’s the person who knows how to bring them together, orchestrate them into achieving something much bigger than their individual skills could do on their own. It’s the person who recognizes talent, nurtures it, makes it work for him. Henry Ford didn’t know how to design a combustible engine, but he knew how to bring together the people who did. Vince Lombardi never played pro ball, but what a coach, huh? He knew how to motivate players and taught them how to reach their potential and work together to make great teams. My father . . .”
    He stopped. His jaw tightened, and he turned away.
    Something there.
    â€œYour father?”
    â€œForget it.”
    His father . . . in the context of that speech, with everything else Tom knew about Declan: Seattle, moneyman, video games. His last name . . .
    â€œBrendan Page?”
    Declan faced him. “Yes, that Page.”
    Self-made billionaire, many times over. Into just about everything: software, telecommunications, entertainment, publishing, military equipment. Tom wasn’t into following the sordid lives of tycoons or celebrities, but you’d have to live with bears to avoid running into Brendan Page’s name. It was usually associated with negative news: allegations of price-fixing and unfair competition; outcries from family organizations because one of his companies had planned a particularly distasteful book or a movie that pushed the limits of decency; it was often his company’s weapons that