Programmed for Peril

terrier, shaking the life out of the opponent. “I like to watch ’em squirm,” Bobby Fischer said. Yes!
    Rahsaan was playing two saxes at once. The desperate haste of his play hinted at his instinctive knowledge of oncoming stroke and death. Nicholas gripped Kirk’s line and black’s best chessboard variation and steadied himself to grind....
    Yet, this weekend something was different. Into the impregnable keep of the castle of his concentration glided... Trish Morley and her problems. What had she become if not his white queen? White jumpsuits, black hair, white and black like the sixty-four squares. Just as queens ruled the game, she was the most powerful piece on the board of his life. Long live the queen! For so long he had been the subject of a black queen—Lois, Sweetest Sister. Trish had played queen-take-queen and now swept unopposed into the warming chambers of his heart. As she entered there his concentration wavered and wobbled. In the tournament’s third game he had made an atypical oversight, then had to call on ail his creative chess powers to extricate himself from difficulties.
    At that moment he broke a personal rule: Rather than study only the board, he looked at his opponent during a game. The lad’s cheeks and forehead were sprinkled with acne, purplish lumps, some ruptured to scabheads. His nose was large, his lips heavy and pressed together. From deep in his chest came a stream of barely audible grunts, Unh-unh-unh-unh, as though within worked some steady engine adjacent to the left ventricle. Nicholas thought of him as Gruntman.
    What did his smile mean?
    He should be analyzing on Gruntman’s clock, not letting his mind wander. Fifty moves in two hours, a total of four available to play the game to its end. How precious those last few minutes could be! Now was the time to hoard seconds, yet...
    The weekend had brought with it an undercurrent of excitement for Nicholas. Friday he had pulled out all stops, arrayed his most sophisticated equipment, and taken it to PC-Pros. He needed the best part of daylight to get a fix on the transmissions from the bugs and clearly identify the angle and degree of the signals. Along that line somewhere lay the receiver. Beside it sat Trish’s tormentor. He had identified the likely site just as darkness fell. Fatigue and a weekend totally committed to chess broke off his investigation. To be resumed Monday, he told himself.
    Now he was in the thick of the delicately balanced middle game. Thoughts of successfully serving his white queen and turning over the rock that would expose the worm of her adversary intruded on his systematic exploration of the available variations. Bald and spidery he might be, but overwhelming success could transform the ugly like a wizard’s wand working wonders on pumpkins and mice. In gratitude Trish might bestow on him a gracious smile or a touch of her long cool hand....
    Trish My Wish!
    Gruntman’s queen arched across the board in a foray Nicholas had to admit he had overlooked. Ringside pressure. He had to take great care. Analyze, analyze! He must sit on his hands till he was absolutely sure his chosen move was the strongest response. He sat, but the teeth of his concentration had loosened in their gums. He studied for twenty minutes, searching for an adequate reply. In the face of possible time pressure he moved a pawn. His opponent made a hasty knight foray—typical of the hothead—and Nicholas sought the crushing refutation that usually lay hidden to all but the deepest analysis. He began his search. Only slowly did he comprehend....
    He could not answer the move!
    He saw that Gruntman’s haste to make it lay in its obvious, irrefutable strength.
    Nicholas was going to lose a bishop!
    What happened then, he scarcely remembered. He managed to get two pawns for the piece. That meant strong drawing chances. Five moves later he bungled away a pawn, leaving him with a difficult if not impossible endgame. On another, earlier day he would have anchored in his concentration and determination like a barnacle and willed himself to a draw.
    But not today.
    On Move 46 he blundered.
    He toppled his king and skipped both congratulating his opponent and officially withdrawing.
    He fled, defeated. Not by Gruntman. By love!
    Monday morning he resumed his quest for the receiver. His instruments pointed him to a block a quarter mile from pC-Pros. Once there, finer calibrations led to a rundown four-story apartment house squatting