Cash in Hand, Ghosts Online
The frantic energy of the escape gave way to a bone-deep weariness as Kaizer finally reached the relative safety of his own street. The silence felt heavy, punctuated only by the distant bark of a dog and the rustle of autumn leaves skittering across the pavement. Benny's garage, Vince's rage, the impossible jump shot – it all felt surreal now, like scenes from someone else's adrenaline-fueled dream. But the folded wad of bills in his pocket was undeniably real, a tangible anchor grounding him back in his strange reality. Seventy-five dollars.
He navigated the final block home on autopilot, his mind a whirlwind of relief, lingering fear, and burgeoning plans. He slipped through the back door into the silent kitchen, the familiar scent of home a stark contrast to the smoky, tense air of the garage. Each creak of the floorboards sounded abnormally loud as he crept upstairs, the warped house cue from Benny's clutched guiltily in his hand. He deposited it beside his own maple cue in the closet's darkness – evidence of his transgression he'd need to dispose of later – before collapsing onto his desk chair, the exhaustion hitting him fully.
He pulled out the money, smoothing the fifty, the twenty, and the five-dollar bill on the worn surface of his desk under the dim glow of his desk lamp. Seventy-five bucks. More money than teenage Kaizer probably ever held at one time. Enough for the tournament entry fee ($25) with a crucial fifty left over. Enough to make the McDermott cue feel tantalizingly within reach.
Okay. Plan check.
Tournament: First thing tomorrow morning, head to Rack 'em Up, find Mel, pay the $25 entry fee. Lock it in. Make the legitimate path concrete.
Cue: That left fifty dollars. PoolShark88 wanted $100 for the McDermott D-17. He needed another fifty. Urgently. He had to get online, follow up, secure that deal before the 'other interested guy' materialized.
Vince: Avoid him. Avoid Benny's garage like the plague. Hope Vince's anger cooled or focused elsewhere. A problem for another day, hopefully a day that never came.
Mark: This was the wild card. The digital ghost that wouldn't stay buried. He still hadn't figured out how to handle Mark Jessop's message on 'The Phreak Zone' – the one he'd discovered back before this whole Benny's garage fiasco even started. The message that felt like a targeted strike right at the heart of his secret.
With renewed purpose, fueled by the success (however nerve-wracking) of the night, he flicked on the Packard Bell. The familiar hum filled the room as it slowly booted up. Tonight, the agonizing screech of the dial-up modem felt less like an annoyance and more like a necessary evil, the toll required to cross the digital bridge. He needed to talk to PoolShark88. Now.
He connected to 'The Phreak Zone', the blue screen glowing starkly in the dark room. He navigated the text menus with increasing familiarity, bypassing the main forums for now and heading straight for his private messages.
One new message. From PoolShark88. Exactly who he needed to hear from.
FROM: PoolShark88
DATE: 10/06/95 (Earlier today – Kaizer realized with a jolt this message must have arrived while he was sweating it out at Benny's)
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Your WTB Post
Hey GhostCue, saw your reply. Okay, understand needing to confirm funds. Tell you what, I'm not in a huge rush to sell, but don't want to sit on it forever either. If you can commit and pick it up within, say, a week? $100 is yours. Let me know soonish, got another guy kinda interested but he's flaking.
Relief washed over Kaizer. PoolShark88 was willing to hold it. A week. That gave him precious time to somehow find the remaining fifty dollars. Mowing lawns suddenly seemed slightly more feasible, if still slow. Maybe he could find other odd jobs? He had to make this work.
He quickly typed his reply, fingers flying across the clunky keys:
TO: PoolShark88
FROM: GhostCue
DATE: 10/06/95 (Late - probably past midnight now)
SUBJECT: Re: Re: Re: Your WTB Post
PoolShark88 - Deal. $100. I absolutely commit. Pick up within a week is perfect. Edgewater is doable for me. Let me know specifics when you can - address/time/day that works best. Weekend pickup is possible if that helps. Really appreciate you holding it. Consider it sold.
He hit send, feeling a significant weight lift. Locking down the cue, even provisionally, felt like a major victory, almost as significant as surviving Vince. Step two was firmly in progress.
With the immediate task completed, however, the other anxiety, the one he'd successfully suppressed during the life-or-death tension of the garage games, resurfaced with a vengeance. Mark. The MarkJ message.
He hesitated, finger hovering over the keys. He hadn't responded back when he first saw it before heading out tonight. Confronting it now, exhausted and emotionally frayed, felt daunting. But ignoring it felt worse. It was a loose end, dangling precariously, threatening to unravel everything. How had Mark even made the connection? Was it the talk filtering through school about the 'new kid' at Rack 'em Up? Had Kaizer let something slip in their awkward conversations? Was Mark just taking a wild guess based on... what? The shared first name? The location? It seemed impossibly thin, yet Mark had asked. Directly.
He navigated reluctantly back to the main Billiards forum on 'The Phreak Zone'. He scrolled down, finding the thread easily, his own stomach twisting into a knot as he reread Mark's words:
Subject: GhostCue - You wouldn't happen to be from Northwood, would you?
From: MarkJ
Date: 10/06/95
P.S. GhostCue, any chance your real name is... Kaizer Saint?
Staring at it now, after the night he'd had, the message felt even more jarring. Mark, his quiet, unassuming friend who seemed more interested in pixels and comic book panels than pool cues and hustlers, had somehow peered directly into his secret. Or had he? Was it just a shot in the dark?
What was the play here?
Ignore it completely? Hope Mark assumed he was wrong, or that GhostCue simply wasn't active? Risky. Silence could be interpreted in many ways, and Mark might bring it up in person.
Deny it outright? "Nope, not me. Wrong guy. Never heard of Northwood or Kaizer Saint." Plausible, maybe, but potentially suspicious if GhostCue continued posting expert advice that seemed beyond a random stranger. And lying directly to Mark, even online, felt… wrong. Complicated.
Deflect? Be vague? "Lots of Saints in the world." "Northwood? Nice town, visited once." Too cute? Might just fuel Mark's suspicion.
A partial truth? Admit to being near Northwood but deny the name? Still risky.
He chewed on his lower lip, staring at the blinking cursor. The best defense, the old Kaizer knew, was often a good offense, or failing that, misdirection. Create confusion. Sow doubt.
He began typing, slowly, deliberately choosing his words, aiming for a tone that was casual, slightly amused, and utterly dismissive without being directly confrontational.
TO: MarkJ
FROM: GhostCue
DATE: 10/07/95 (Technically Saturday morning now)
SUBJECT: Re: GhostCue - You wouldn't happen to be from Northwood, would you?
@MarkJ - Heh, reading my mind? Or just my message history? ;) Appreciate the interest, but trying to keep a low profile here, you know how it is online. Let's just say I know my way around a table, and leave the guessing games for the mystery novels.
As for names... 'GhostCue' works just fine. Keeps things simple.
Good shooting to you.
-GC
He read it over. It didn't confirm anything. It didn't deny anything directly. It used online privacy as a shield, deflected with light humor ('reading my mind?'), and subtly dismissed the name question. It acknowledged Mark's message without validating the suspicion. It felt… slippery. Vague enough, hopefully, to make Mark second-guess his own intuition. It was the best he could come up with on short notice, running on fumes and adrenaline comedown.
He hit send, the message disappearing into the digital ether. He had no idea if it would work, if Mark would buy the deflection or see right through it. Another gamble made, another uncertain outcome hanging in the balance.
He logged off the BBS, the modem emitting its final dying screech. The silence in his room felt profound. Seventy-five dollars in his pocket. A deal secured for a crucial piece of equipment. A tournament entry within grasp. Tangible progress.
But shadowed by the lingering threat of Vince's retribution, and now, the acute awkwardness and potential exposure stemming from Mark's unsettlingly accurate guess online. He was moving forward, yes, but the path ahead felt increasingly treacherous, mined with dangers both physical and digital. He finally crawled into bed, the first hints of dawn painting the edges of his window grey, wondering if this second chance was less a gift and more an elaborate, exhausting game of survival on multiple fronts.