Chapter 4
The men’s names were Roger Teal and Edward Kenney.
They were in their midforties, and had known each other since adolescence.
Both had grown up in Macwahoc, not far from Maine’s border with New Brunswick, although Teal was born in New Hampshire and moved to Macwahoc following his parents’ divorce, when his mother returned there to live with her parents.
He had gone on to become a public servant, marry, and have a daughter, only the first of which brought him much happiness, and then more outside the office than in.
Sometimes it wasn’t what you did, but who you met while you were doing it.
Teal lived in West Gardiner, while Kenney resided farther north, in a suburb of Bangor, and ran a garden-supply company in Orono.
Like Teal, Kenney was married, with a son and daughter.
Unlike Teal, he was a contented man. From time to time, Kenney and Teal crossed paths in Maine, but rarely for longer than it took to exchange a few words in a parking lot or over a quick coffee.
Theirs was not that kind of relationship, publicly at least. But once every three years, they would meet in a city or town outside the state, the arrangements made months in advance over burner phones.
They never stayed at the same hotel, and socialized in bars and restaurants where little attention would be paid to them and cash remained king.
There they would eat, drink, and plan for the Game.
Teal was an averagely handsome man, Kenney less so: “gone to seed” both vocationally and physically, one might have said.
He was a reader, and always had been, while Teal had only a passing interest in books beyond the odd business or educational text.
On the out-of-state trips, Kenney enjoyed visiting art galleries and museums. Teal preferred to shop for clothes, or if bored, watch movies in his room.
Their conversation was general, and in bars they would often end up sitting in semi-companionable silence, especially if there was sports on TV, because they shared that interest. They differed on tennis, which Teal liked to watch and play but which Kenney regarded as deeply tedious, and golf, on which the positions were reversed.
However, these remained small points of difference, and sporting events were their preferred choice of cover, as on this occasion: Pistons versus Celtics at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
Before each out-of-state reunion, one of the men would take responsibility for a reconnaissance visit, even if it was to a location with which both were already familiar, because it was important to be cognizant of any changes to the terrain: new security cameras, recent apartment developments, a basement transformed into a nightclub, or a parking lot become a favored spot for police cars to lurk.
Often, the opportunity to explore a city’s possibilities arose in the course of their day jobs: conferences for Teal, and research or buying trips for Kenney.
The final member of their triad also assisted, when circumstances permitted.
But they only ever hunted in twos, not threes.
That was the rule. It could be challenging.
Fallow years were difficult for the one who was excluded, but it was a question of learning to control one’s appetites.
Kenney found that yoga helped. Teal popped Valium.
The other, the third, immersed himself in his work.
Alcohol was better avoided. It made men bitter and careless. That was a lesson hard-learned.
Because they had once been four.
That year, Kenney was responsible for the bulk of the preparations, but he typically took care of them when his chance came around.
Kenney had an eye for detail, and attention to detail was what kept them safe, allowing them to continue playing the Game.
For example, when they’d started out, they sourced their vehicles from rental car companies.
Minivans were best, or SUVs, something with space, but now many of the big companies routinely fit their rentals with GPS, which meant the vehicle’s movements could be tracked.
The addition of GPS was a shame, because at busy locations the rental companies turned their vehicles round fast, which meant they were cleaned inside and out within a matter of hours, wholly eliminating DNA evidence or contaminating whatever remained after the players had scrubbed it down.
Smaller rental companies didn’t use GPS as much, but the downside was that the renter was more likely to be remembered, and the players didn’t want to be remembered at all.
Kenney’s latest solution was for one of them to purchase, with cash, a used car during the initial scouting trip, and pay to store it until it was needed.
Craigslist was their source at first, later superseded by Facebook Marketplace, though they still had to be circumspect.
It was difficult to buy a vehicle with fake ID or insurance, so they did their homework and picked the sellers who were most desperate.
They always opted for popular models because it made the next part easier, the part in which Kenney was engaged on that particular evening.
He was driving a Toyota Camry, consistently one of the bestselling cars in the United States.
This one was a 2012, but Kenney had flown in a few days earlier to give it a new paint job, so that if someone didn’t know their vehicles, they might have mistaken it for a more recent model.
It bore an out-of-state (and out-of-date) dealer plate, but Kenney was diligent about keeping to minor roads, so the chances of being spotted by a license-plate reader were small.
He drove to the Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, where he prowled the lot until he found a similar Camry over by Nordstrom.
He parked alongside and changed out the license plate before striking the rear bumper of the other car hard with a hammer, denting it where the plate should have been.
With luck, if the absence was noted, the driver would assume it had fallen off following a collision and would not immediately report the plate as stolen.
Kenney and Teal had once come close to being caught in Indianapolis, when the owner of a Taurus noticed that their plate was missing, and someone nearby must have heard her talking and connected the theft to a man seen kneeling by the car moments earlier.
Mall security arrived so quickly that Kenney and Teal could see the gumball lights in their rearview mirror as they drove off.
They’d been forced to abandon the car in a Walmart lot before splitting up, and the Game was postponed; Kenney didn’t think he’d managed to breathe properly again until he was safely back in his bed in Maine.
That was a few years before COVID, which was a hard time for them, throwing the rotation into disarray.
It was now back on track, but the enforced hiatus had caused disagreements when they spoke about resuming, since it meant one of them would have to endure a longer gap.
In the end, Teal bowed out, but more from necessity than goodwill, owing to a brush with prostate cancer.
The clock was ticking as Kenney drove away from Twelve Oaks.
Should the owner of the other Camry spot the missing plate, they’d have to go to the DMV to replace it, as well as report a possible theft to the police in case the plate was used in the commission of a crime.
The cops would add the missing plate to a hot-sheet, which meant that plate readers and cameras would respond if it was spotted.
Kenney and Teal probably had until the following morning to play the Game, at which point the stolen plate would be more of a hindrance than a help.
At that point, common sense would dictate that they should walk away and try again at a later date, but deferred pleasures were for the young.
The older a man got, and the more aware he was of his mortality, the more he came to realize that pleasure deferred would soon be pleasure denied.
In the early years, the players preferred to target prostitutes and junkies, because bottom-dwellers were easy marks and wouldn’t be missed.
A combination of factors, not least hookers seeking proof of ID before meeting, or electing to visit and work only out of hotels, led them to change their tactics.
If they were desperate, they might still resort to a streetwalker, a drunk, or an addict—better something than nothing—but the thrill of the chase had a part to play, as well as the quality of the flesh.
Their tastes had developed, and they now preferred unspoiled meat—not literally, they weren’t cannibals, but “unspoiled” meaning women whose bodies hadn’t yet slipped.
As far as Kenney was concerned, the best ever was a freshman that Mike Hurvich—the late Mike Hurvich, back when they were still four—had spotted throwing up in an alley in Austin, Texas.
She’d become separated from her friends and could barely stand without a wall to support her, so it was the work of a moment to get her in the back of the minivan.
She scarcely struggled, and stopped doing even that when they assured her they were going to take her home.
By then Kenney was going through her pocketbook to find her ID—and her smartphone, which he destroyed, because gone were the days when batteries were easy to remove.
The girl was just nineteen and very clean.
Kenney and Hurvich had a lot of fun with her. They made her last.
When they were done, they tossed a coin and Kenney lost, which meant Hurvich got to finish her off while Kenney held her feet.
They then laid her on a sheet of plastic and scrubbed her from head to toe with bleach before burying her, after which they went over the interior of the van with handheld vacuums followed by more bleach, heavily diluted.
Kenney always found that part a downer. In an ideal world, they’d have let someone else take care of the detailing, or hand it back to the rental company to be sanitized, but this world was far from ideal, as multiple women had learned to their cost at the players’ hands.
The reason they’d been able to keep playing was because they were careful and stuck to the rules.
Only Out-of-State Games. One Fallow Year in Three for Every Player.
Restricted Contact Immediately After. Clean As You Go.
And No Extracurricular Activities. That was the big one.
You had to learn to control your urges. No escalations.
You lived off the memories until your turn came round again.
It wasn’t easy, and some found it harder than others, like Mike Hurvich.
He’d made two mistakes: He’d killed a girl outside of the Game, which was the first, then admitted what he’d done, which was the second.
Hurvich’s car was discovered up by Presque Isle, far from his home in Greenville, but his body was never located, and only Kenney knew for certain where it was buried.
As a token of gratitude, Teal and the Saint drew straws, the Saint lost, and Kenney took his spot that year.
Ever since, they’d been three. Kenney liked it that way, Teal too. But the Saint—
The Saint was wavering.