26. CARSON

Sometimes being a nerd can come in handy. I mean, outside of building and selling multi-billion-dollar tech companies.

The computer server room in my penthouse is something to see, although no one else ever has. The window wall that looks out on the Manhattan skyline actually acts as my monitor, reflecting multiple desktops projected from a lens that’s set into the ceiling. It allows me to see images at almost life size.

I created a program the night the Chase began that’s been helping me narrow down my leads. It combines facial recognition software with a reverse search engine for image files, and it all works in a Tor browser. Translated, that just means I upload photos I’ve taken and the program analyzes the facial features. Then it searches the dark web for any potential matches in its clandestine databases.

Of course, that might all be unnecessary; the information might be out there on the plain old Internet, so I’m also running the program on social media.

Personally, I limit just about everything about me online. Nobody needs to know where I live, or what I’m doing, or how much I’m worth. That’s one of the reasons I’ve managed to stay off the Forbes list for so long.

So between the dark web and Facebook, I should be able to wrap up the Chase long before my competitors. Richard Linkletter may have more money in the bank, but he’s Forrest Gump compared to me when it comes to gray matter.

Even with the hardware I’ve rigged up, the process takes time. The system is currently working on camera phone pics I snapped of three different women I’ve seen multiple times in different spots around midtown. All during the day, which precludes a regular job.

None of them were in expensive designer clothes or shoes, so they’re probably not rich. All of them are stunning, and they move like they’ve had training. Little things like walking with their feet pointed forward, instead of at an angle.

It stabilizes the knees and makes it easier to avoid injury in a fight-or-flight situation. One of the many things I learned from Matthias.

I find myself comparing all of them to Cassie, and to that woman they come up short. I don’t know what she does to stay in shape, but it’s probably CrossFit or something else regimented. She moves like a natural athlete these days, which is amazing, since she never got involved in sports in school.

Then again, neither did I, and look at me now.

I’m staring at the screen from my custom-made gaming chair as thousands of potential matching images stream by on the window wall, when my phone chimes.

It’s a text from Maksim: I am being downstairs. Up I come.

I leave the program to its task and head out into the living room. There’s a half-full decanter of Macallan’s on the bar – I picked up a bottle after my encounter with Red Dress at the Regent bar because damn, it was good.

Of course, it better be at thirty grand a bottle.

The aroma hits my nostrils as I pour the scotch into a couple of crystal glasses. I carry them to the elevator door that opens onto my living room just as I reach it. Maksim’s hand is open to receive it as soon as he walks into the room. After all, when you’re born into money, you become accustomed to the little details.

From the outside, it must look like a choreographed scene out of a movie. It’s just one of the rituals we’ve developed over the course of our friendship. We’re cool like that.

Says the geek who threw together a computer program in one night.

“What is up, my homey?” Maks grins, raising his hand for a fist-bump. Every time he does it I want to slap him – fist bumps are so ten years ago – but I indulge him. He’s trying.

“Chillin’ like a villain,” I grin back as we amble over to the study that adjoins the living room.

Unlike the modern functionality of the rest of the 6,000 square feet, the study is done in rich wood and hand-woven Persian rugs. I designed it to look like the British gentlemen’s clubs I used to read about in Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid.

We take our seats in a pair of antique wingback chairs. All that’s missing is a couple of Cuban cigars. Matthias would literally beat me with a rusty rake if he ever found out I’d been smoking, of course, so the air remains unpleasantly clear.

Maks holds the first sip of scotch in his mouth for a moment, savoring it before it goes down. At least he has enough class to do that.

We catch up for a while on what we’ve been up to. I’m sparse on details, of course, because we can’t talk about the Chase, even behind closed doors.

Then Maks decides to throw me a curveball.

“So, Carson,” he says with a grin. “When were you going to be telling me about your new red hair friend?”

I almost choke on my drink.

“What are you talking about?” I say, trying to be nonchalant.

“The other day, I am walking past that Patty’s icy cream place you go to and I see you talking to the lovely red hair lady through the window glass.”

His grin is supposed to put me at ease, but for some reason it only succeeds in annoying me.

“She’s a friend of mine from high school,” I say. “No big deal.”

“Yes big deal! Front of Wall Street Journal kind of deal. She is drop down gorgeous, my friend. I hope you enjoyed your time with her. When is, how you say, acquisition and merger?”

“Merger and acquisition,” I correct him automatically. “But it wasn’t like that. She’s a friend.”

She’s obviously more than that; she said so herself. But I don’t know what I think anymore.

Maks smiles and nods.

“You are making joke,” he says. “I get it.”

“No joke. Cassie and I aren’t … together.”

“Cassie,” he sighs. “Like Cassiopeia, the constellation of stars. Breathtaking.”

I can’t argue with him there.

“So you are not with her? You are not pulling on my leg, are you?”

“No pulling,” I say. “Besides, we both know I’m … busy on something else right now. I have other things on my mind.”

He nods thoughtfully.

“So you will not be angry if I am making the move on this beautiful red hair?”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hell to the no.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I say, desperately searching my brain for a plausible reason to say that.

“But why are you saying so? You are not interested.”

Suddenly it comes to me.

“Cassie and I used to be really good friends,” I say. “If you started ... you know, pursuing her, it would just be weird. Like if you were dating my sister. You know?”

Maks frowns. “It would be the honor if you dated my sister,” he says.

I bet it would be. I’ve seen his sister – her eyebrows are even thicker than his.

“You know what I mean,” I say.

“I think I know that you don’t want anyone else to have her, even if you don’t want her yourself. That is not cool, tovarishch.”

“Look, I’m not going to go after any woman until I’m finished with … my activities for the next couple of weeks. After that, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Cassie and I might develop into something.”

Maks drains his glass and stands up. I can’t remember him ever being angry with me, but right now he’s about as close as I’ve ever seen.

“I think that is being pretty selfish,” he says. “And you are not the boss of me. If I want to talk to Cassie the red hair, I will do it. Maybe she will like me. You don’t know that she won’t.”

“Maks…”

I follow him into the living room, where he calls up the express elevator that only comes to my floor. He avoids my gaze, flipping through messages on his phone as he waits.

“We’re friends,” I say. “Friends do favors for friends.”

He looks up from his phone, as serious as I’ve ever seen him.

“Like introduce you to women everywhere we go?” he asks. “Like make sure there is always party going on with beautiful ladies?”

Okay, he’s right on that one. I’ve hit him below the belt.

The bell rings as the doors open. Maks steps in and turns to face me.

“I am thinking maybe you need to look at yourself in the mirror,” he says. “If you have so many thoughts of Cassie the red hair, why are you chasing someone else you don’t know even know what she looks like?”

I have no answer as the elevator doors close in front of him, sending him straight to the ground floor.