Part 19 (1/2)
Catastrophe. She thought he'd said he didn't know anything about the game-including its name.
”So did you get a piece of the game?” Bebe asked Sam, as she came back into the room, holding an open can of beer.
”No,” Sam said. Or Andy, her a.s.sociate at the office, would have called to tell her. No, Lucas hadn't sent her a piece. He'd just left her a message on her answering machine telling her to take care of-something. Someone. Zack, obviously. ”How about you?”
”Me?” Bebe cried. ”Lucas wouldn't give me the time of day!”
”Who do you think does have a piece of it?” Sam asked, watching Bebe.
Bebe shrugged as she handed Eric the beer and sloshed some of the brew onto the carpet. He gave her a dirty look as she rubbed the spilled liquid into the rug with her bare foot.
”So what's in it for you?” Bebe asked her pointedly.
”I just want to find out who killed Lucas and why,” Sam said.
”Got any ideas?” Bebe asked.
Sam shook her head and looked over at Will. They'd hit another wall. Then she remembered the credit card she'd found in Zack's backpack. ”Do you know anyone named Robert Walker?”
”Bobby?” Bebe cried. ”Sure, he invested in Lucas's game. Wouldn't invest in any of Eric's though.”
”Shut up, Bebe,” Eric snapped, this time more forcefully. ”How do you know Bob?” he asked Sam.
”I just heard his name somewhere,” she said vaguely, and shrugged as if it didn't matter, but she watched Bebe's face. The girl's gaze flicked nervously to Eric, but she said nothing as Sam reluctantly followed Will out the door.
”You think she'll be all right?” Will asked, obviously referring to Bebe.
Sam glanced back to see Bebe trying to make up to Eric, cuddling against him and talking fast. ”I hope so. What bothers me is why Eric was lying about having a piece of the game,” she said as Will opened her side of the pickup and she slipped in. ”Charley told me that the cops didn't mention the name of the game or that there were five pieces mailed out. The only way Eric could have known that was if he got one-and the note with it.”
ROBERT WALKER was playing tennis under a large white bubble in his impressive backyard. He wiped his face with a towel before coming over. He was a handsome, athletic man in obviously good shape.
”You must be Samantha Murphy,” he said congenially as he offered a hand. His handshake was firm, his gaze steady and strong. He didn't look like the kind of man who would know Eric, let alone Bebe. Nor did he look like a man who went by ”Bobby.” ”My secretary said you'd be dropping by.”
”This is my a.s.sociate, Will Sheridan.”
If Eric or Bebe had called to warn him, he didn't show it.
He shook Will's hand. ”Can I offer you something to drink? Juice? Or something stronger?”
”No, thanks,” she said, and Will declined, as well. ”I just wanted to ask you some questions about Whiz Kidz, the computer game company you invested in.”
Bobby frowned but motioned to the lounge chairs along the edge of the covered court. A sleek, lean woman continued to hit b.a.l.l.s from a machine at the other end of the huge building.
”Whiz Kidz? The name doesn't mean anything to me. I've invested in a lot of companies. I don't have much firsthand knowledge of their day-to-day operations,” Bobby said.
”I'm mostly interested in Lucas...o...b..ien, a computer game designer and one of the partners in Whiz Kidz.”
She could tell the name rang a bell.
”Oh. Lucas. Sure.” He turned to watch the woman on the court smack a few b.a.l.l.s before he looked at the two of them again. ”I really don't understand why you'd be interested in my investments.”
”Lucas was in partners.h.i.+p with Whiz Kidz. It was in financial trouble. So was Lucas.”
Bobby smiled. ”A lot of small computer businesses in Seattle are just getting on their feet. It takes a while in the game business. The average computer game sells twenty thousand copies-the successful game, one-hundred thousand. Less than one percent of the games written sell more than one-hundred thousand copies.” He held up his hands. ”It's a tough industry. You have to be very clever to survive.”
”And Lucas was clever?”
Bobby grinned.
”How much can a successful game make?” Will asked.
”A megahit? Three-hundred thousand dollars a month for a year, maybe more.”
”Wow, I didn't realize there was that kind of money in games,” Will said.
”You'd be surprised. It's just a matter of finding the right game at the right time. The game market is incredible,” Bobby said enthusiastically.
”I guess I'm surprised you'd invest in a company that hadn't had a hit game in five years,” Sam said.
He smiled. ”I didn't invest in Whiz Kidz. I invested in Lucas...o...b..ien. The top games are being designed by guys with about seven years of experience. That's what it takes to know if you have a game that's going to work. Lucas was at that point. Plus, he had something he was working on that interested me.”
”Really?” she said. ”This game he was working on was separate from his partners.h.i.+p with Whiz Kidz?” She wondered if Buzz knew this.
Bobby nodded. ”He wanted to do something different, something on his own.”
”He told you about the game?”
”Not a lot-just that he thought he had something. That was good enough for me. I usually go on my gut feelings with these things.” He glanced around the tennis court. ”So far, it's paid off.”
She was sure now that neither Eric nor Bebe had called to warn Bobby about her. Probably didn't want to admit that they'd been the ones who'd told her about him.
”How did you find out about Lucas and his game, to invest in the project?” she asked.
Bobby looked surprised.
”I mean,” she continued, ”it sounds like Lucas was pretty hush-hush about the game.”
He nodded and seemed to be searching for the answer. ”I don't remember. Probably a mutual friend.”
That didn't seem likely, and they both knew it.
”You didn't happen to lose a credit card recently, did you?” she asked.