“Hey,” I said, sitting down across from him. “This is Chloe.”
Chloe sat down beside me and shook hands with Russell.
“Hey, Chloe. K tells me you’re looking for a UX designer?”
So, yeah, I’d kind of lied to Russell about why we wanted to meet.
“Not exactly,” Chloe said.
Russell’s face darkened a little as he realized what was happening.
“I told you to stay away from that thing,” he said as he stood up and started to leave.
“Alan Scarpio said something was wrong with the game and asked for my help,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s happening.”
Russell stopped walking and turned around.
Even though he’d clearly experienced something horrible related to the game, I could tell he was intrigued—excited, even—by the mention of Alan Scarpio. Then, just as quickly as that flash of excitement had appeared, it was gone.
He took a few steps back toward our table and lowered his voice. “What’s happening is stay away from the game if you want to stay alive.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about what’s going on? Anything at all?” Chloe asked.
“Just leave it alone. It’s nothing but trouble, I promise you.”
“Please,” I said. “It’s important.”
“You’re really not going to stop, are you?” he asked, resigned.
“I don’t think we can,” I said.
Russell looked at Chloe, then over at me.
“You could try the phone number.”
“What phone number?” I asked.
“Hazel’s phone number.”
“Hazel has a phone number?”
“Yeah, an 800 number. Like Bill Murray.”
“Bill Murray the actor?”
Russell sighed. “Bill Murray doesn’t have an agent or a manager, so the only way to get in touch with him if you want him in your movie is to track down his 800 number and leave a message.”
“You’re fucking with us,” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “That’s the rumor.”
I looked over at Chloe. She just shrugged.
“There was a Rabbits player in Bali who claimed they’d set up a meeting with Hazel using some kind of 800 number,” Russell continued. “Most people believe the number’s nothing but an unsubstantiated myth, but I heard it from a couple of sources I trust. The phone number is real.”
“Do you have the number?” I asked.
“No. I never went looking for Hazel, but I can point you in the direction of somebody who might know how to get in touch.”
“Who?”
“No offense, K, but if I give you this, do you promise I’ll never see you again?”
“I promise,” I said.
He nodded at Chloe. “You too.”
“But we just met.”
He stared at her, unimpressed.
“Fine,” Chloe said.
Russell looked at me, then Chloe, and finally back to me. After shaking his head one last time, he grabbed my phone and entered the name “Amanda Obscura” along with a number.
“Text her and tell her you’re playing,” he said, then he got up and left.
Chloe took a sip of her coffee. “Fun guy.”
Per Russell’s instructions, I sent a text message to Amanda Obscura.
I received an answer a few minutes later. It was an address and a time. The address was about twenty minutes away, and we had fifteen minutes to get there.
* * *
—
Amanda Obscura’s place was a thrift store called Bloom Vintage. I’d actually been there a few times before. They had great prices on used vinyl.
The front of the store was filled with vintage clothing, including a huge selection of genuine rock T-shirts from the seventies and eighties. The back section was a combination used-record store and junk shop. There was a sixtysomething-year-old man with thick silver hair that had been roughly pulled back into a long ponytail sitting behind the front counter reading a novel called Elf when we arrived. We told him we were there to speak with Amanda. Without looking up from his book, he pointed toward the back of the store.
We found her sitting behind a desk, working on a crossword puzzle.
“What’s an eight-letter word for ‘know-it-all’？” she asked without looking up.
Amanda Obscura appeared to be in her midthirties. She wore round pink-tinted sunglasses and a tight blue jean pantsuit from the seventies. Her untamed bleached-blond hair was wrapped up in a pink-and-blue paisley scarf.