G.W. McClary
It was one of our weekly chess club meet-ups. Thrilling, I know. But this time, there was a new face among the four or five regulars, myself included. He had buzzed hair and piercing blue eyes. His simple dress gave one the impression of a monk, someone devoted to less bodily things. He introduced himself as a beginner and sat down to play. A few games went by and I was doing okay, a win and a draw, but I kept an ear out for the new guy’s results. So far, he’d lost his first two games. He approached me and asked if I wanted to play.
“Sure,” I said, and we set up the pieces. Based on his track record, I thought it would be an easy meal.
“Go easy on me,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts. “I’m Andy, by the way.”
“Ah, you’ll do fine,” I said. “My name’s Michael.” We shook hands and started.
Whoever got the white pieces, an advantage which I’m sure is problematic, was decided by one of the players placing a pawn in each hand, hidden behind their back, one of each color, and having their opponent choose a hand at random. The newbie looked confused as I held out my closed fists. He tapped my left hand. A diabolical choice, I thought. I opened my left hand to reveal a black pawn.
“I guess you got black, too bad,” I said, happy with the outcome. I opened the game with knight to f3, a flexible move with a narrow thread of theory, my preferred weapon with the white pieces. He answered with pawn to d5, a principled response, challenging the center, since white had opted not to occupy it with pawns, but it could have been beginner’s luck. We were only on move one, I assured myself. I carried on in the hypermodern style until I had what I thought was a great position.
He kept asking me questions about the rules and the pieces as if he had to remind himself every two or three moves. That and his intense stare, when he wasn’t shifting his little wooden men around, had me off my game.
At some point during our game, he just gave away one of his pieces. I gobbled it up with my king, a smooth snap of the wrist.
“Crap,” he muttered under his breath. Okay, this guy is just a newbie, I thought.
“Knights move like this, right?” he asked, so innocently I wanted to bash him right there.
I almost fell out of my chair. It was a royal fork, attacking both my king and queen, a winning move. He had cleverly sacrificed a piece, setting me up, not unlike my biggest chess hero, Mikhail Tal. Did I mention I was named after him? I did my best to wipe the amazed look off my face and turned my king over, signaling my surrender.
“Good game,” I said, shaking his hand with my eyes cast downward, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
“Hey, beginner’s luck,” he told me. I already hated the guy.
We all played on for about another hour, and the newcomer lost all his other games. I was the only one he defeated. One of my favorite things about playing at the club was the trash talk. We would rib and prod one another with playful jibes, but after my loss to the new guy, all I could muster were half-muttered attempts at confidence. We said our goodbyes and drifted out of the room toward our cars. One of the older players, a boisterous and bohemian man in his early fifties, Al, hailed me as I was opening my car door. I was hoping to slink away without having to discuss my humiliating loss, but there we were.
“Hey, what happened with that new guy? I heard he beat you pretty bad.”
"I don’t know, he kept asking questions. It threw me off.”
"Well, if he’s here next week, study up and kick his ass.”
“If I can.”
“Sure you can.”
“Something doesn’t seem right about that guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I just have a feeling.”
“You want me to look him up?”
“You can do that?”
“Sure. I used to be a private investigator. I still have some friends in the business who do me favors from time to time. Now that you mention it, I want to see if this guy is who he says he is.”
I followed Al, who drove a pickup of all things, to his house. We walked in and Al led me to his office. It was two computer screens perched precariously on a desk, surrounded by stacks and stacks of documents with what looked like lists of data. He sat down in a hole-ridden swivel chair and slid me a manila folder containing the Sandbagger’s file. He seemed to be reciting it from memory. I read along as he gave me the rundown.
“They call him the Sandbagger. He’s an honorary grandmaster (christened by the Online Chess University, whatever the hell that is, but more on that later) who goes from chess club to chess club, posing as a beginner and losing to every player but one. There’s no pattern to his victims that I can see. He’s beaten everyone from ‘fellow’ grandmasters to day one beginners, but he seems to target those he thinks it will devastate the most, the most emotionally vulnerable, you could say. He’s a diagnosed sociopath. Spent some time in a mental hospital. The guy has had several facial reconstructive surgeries just to continue his terrible ruse. My take is that he’s a rich man with nothing better to do. I managed to track him down. He’s staying in a Motel 6 near the highway. Here’s the address.” He scribbled hurriedly on a scrap of paper. “Be careful, this guy could be dangerous.”
I brandished my cherished chess piece, whose top could be unscrewed to reveal a pen knife, keen and shimmering.
“Wait, you said he’s an honorary grandmaster.”
“I was going to get to that. He was awarded the title posthumously.”
“He faked his own death?”
“This guy is that serious.”
The hotel was almost empty, better for my purposes. The hotel clerk was a short, energetic man in a purple polo shirt. He didn’t offer any deals or memberships, just a no-nonsense transaction. I checked into a room, 206, just one floor beneath where the bastard was staying. I paced around in my newly rented room for a few minutes until I decided to go for the direct route. I grabbed my portable chess set and made for the elevator. The carpeted hall had a slightly grimy feel, like seedy things were happening behind its doors. The ride to the floor above felt like ages, no thanks to the Kenny G swooning over the speakers. I crept to the door of his room and listened. I could hear a TV droning, nothing more. I rapped on the cheap wood.
“Who is it?” the bastard said.
“Yes, I’m here to fix your heater,” I fumbled, hoping to deceive him just enough to let me in.
“But it’s mid-July,” he replied.
“It’s part of the AC unit, plus there’s a cold snap coming in soon. I just need to adjust some settings. It will only take a few minutes.”
He relented, and as soon as the door opened a crack, I kicked it open and wielded my chess piece pen knife.
“Listen, motherfucker, I know who you are. I know what you do. This game has gone on long enough, Sandbagger.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the shit. I’m taking you out. But before I do, we’re going to play a game of chess, and you’re going to lose. Don’t try anything, or I’ll put this knife through your heart.”
“That thing looks like it couldn’t get past my ribs.”
“Then I’ll hack them open.”
I’ll admit it was difficult playing chess while holding someone at knifepoint, but I poured every ounce of concentration I could into the game. But despite my efforts, it appeared I was going to lose. How? Even at the threat of death, he kept his thief’s integrity. I had to respect that.
“Look, I know you’re a cheater, I just don’t know how you do it. What’s your secret? Tell me or I’ll knife you.”
“Anal beads.”
“What?”
“Vibrating anal beads. They’re connected through Bluetooth and a nearby cell phone sends moves via morse code.”
“Wait, who’s sending the moves?”
“Your friend, Al, of course.”
This was too much, but I looked out the window and there was Al, shrugging at me, like, “What are you gonna do?” I looked again and he was gone.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I dashed the chess board to the floor with a dissatisfying thump as the wood scattered on the carpet. I lunged at the Sandbagger, hoping to throttle him with one hand and impale him with the other. But just as the knife was about to meet its mark, right on my enemy’s neck, the door of the hotel room was kicked open once again. Two detectives appeared with their pistols drawn.
“Put the weapon down, sir. I’m detective Marsh, this is detective Meadows. We’ve been looking for this guy for months. Nice work tracking him down for us.”
“I was going to kill this man. He deserves to die.”
“I understand that you’re upset, but he has to be tried like you or I would.”
“You can go to prison for sandbagging at chess?”
“For artistic falsification, he’ll be going down for a long time. A life sentence. And I’ll see to it that he never so much as sees another chess board again. This madness stops now.”
After they arrested the Sandbagger, I went back to the club, but it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t think straight. My mind would drift back to my losses against that monster. He had to go. I began to plot a way to get myself imprisoned and shank him, but not before I produced a smuggled (or even hand-made?) chess set and beat the bastard once and for all. I even thought of ‘hooping’ them, as they say in prison, but I didn’t want to stoop to his level. I couldn’t just bust out a window or something. I thought I might be able to work out something with those two detectives.
I contacted the detectives and worked out a deal. They agreed to frame me for an equally punishable crime so that I could eventually be housed in the same prison as the Sandbagger, on the condition that I defeat him in a game of chess, but not murder him. They didn’t tell me it would take years of transfers and sleepless nights. But after all that toil, I was finally transferred to his prison.
He was being held in a protective custody yard, or PC for short. Luckily, I had complained enough to the guards about my safety for that to be my automatic destination. The timing was right. I made my way to his cell, armed with a chess set and my shank, which I had sharpened personally on the rec yard fence. My lookout (who I had paid off some time earlier) stood in the doorway. The Sandbagger stared at me like a wounded deer as I set up the pieces. I brandished my shank at him.
“Bend over and lift your sack,” I told him. He silently obeyed, trembling. I gave his cavity a long and loving inspection. Nothing. I washed my hands in his sink.
I moved first, having hijacked the advantage of the white pieces (in more ways than one, if you catch my drift). We played a close game, but I eventually bested him, stripped as he was of his outside assistance. My final move, right before he resigned, was an elegant knight sweep of my knight onto its target square, forking his queen and rook, ‘winning the exchange,’ as they say. He flicked over his king.
“I let you win,” he said. “I threw the game.”
That was the last straw. I knifed him until I couldn’t anymore. My lookout glanced in at us and called for the guards. I guess he assumed I wouldn’t actually go through with it, but I had stabbed plenty of people to get to where I was. When the guards spotted us, only after slow-walking it, as they do with guys with certain charges, they handcuffed me, locked down the unit, and called in the goon squad. I was dragged off to the hole and eventually given twenty-five to life for my crime. I guessed my deal with the detectives was off. But it was worth it. The glory of victory was worth it. I had won. I had beaten him. Because the knight.
“Sure,” I said, and we set up the pieces. Based on his track record, I thought it would be an easy meal.
“Go easy on me,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts. “I’m Andy, by the way.”
“Ah, you’ll do fine,” I said. “My name’s Michael.” We shook hands and started.
Whoever got the white pieces, an advantage which I’m sure is problematic, was decided by one of the players placing a pawn in each hand, hidden behind their back, one of each color, and having their opponent choose a hand at random. The newbie looked confused as I held out my closed fists. He tapped my left hand. A diabolical choice, I thought. I opened my left hand to reveal a black pawn.
“I guess you got black, too bad,” I said, happy with the outcome. I opened the game with knight to f3, a flexible move with a narrow thread of theory, my preferred weapon with the white pieces. He answered with pawn to d5, a principled response, challenging the center, since white had opted not to occupy it with pawns, but it could have been beginner’s luck. We were only on move one, I assured myself. I carried on in the hypermodern style until I had what I thought was a great position.
He kept asking me questions about the rules and the pieces as if he had to remind himself every two or three moves. That and his intense stare, when he wasn’t shifting his little wooden men around, had me off my game.
At some point during our game, he just gave away one of his pieces. I gobbled it up with my king, a smooth snap of the wrist.
“Crap,” he muttered under his breath. Okay, this guy is just a newbie, I thought.
“Knights move like this, right?” he asked, so innocently I wanted to bash him right there.
I almost fell out of my chair. It was a royal fork, attacking both my king and queen, a winning move. He had cleverly sacrificed a piece, setting me up, not unlike my biggest chess hero, Mikhail Tal. Did I mention I was named after him? I did my best to wipe the amazed look off my face and turned my king over, signaling my surrender.
“Good game,” I said, shaking his hand with my eyes cast downward, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
“Hey, beginner’s luck,” he told me. I already hated the guy.
We all played on for about another hour, and the newcomer lost all his other games. I was the only one he defeated. One of my favorite things about playing at the club was the trash talk. We would rib and prod one another with playful jibes, but after my loss to the new guy, all I could muster were half-muttered attempts at confidence. We said our goodbyes and drifted out of the room toward our cars. One of the older players, a boisterous and bohemian man in his early fifties, Al, hailed me as I was opening my car door. I was hoping to slink away without having to discuss my humiliating loss, but there we were.
“Hey, what happened with that new guy? I heard he beat you pretty bad.”
"I don’t know, he kept asking questions. It threw me off.”
"Well, if he’s here next week, study up and kick his ass.”
“If I can.”
“Sure you can.”
“Something doesn’t seem right about that guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I just have a feeling.”
“You want me to look him up?”
“You can do that?”
“Sure. I used to be a private investigator. I still have some friends in the business who do me favors from time to time. Now that you mention it, I want to see if this guy is who he says he is.”
I followed Al, who drove a pickup of all things, to his house. We walked in and Al led me to his office. It was two computer screens perched precariously on a desk, surrounded by stacks and stacks of documents with what looked like lists of data. He sat down in a hole-ridden swivel chair and slid me a manila folder containing the Sandbagger’s file. He seemed to be reciting it from memory. I read along as he gave me the rundown.
“They call him the Sandbagger. He’s an honorary grandmaster (christened by the Online Chess University, whatever the hell that is, but more on that later) who goes from chess club to chess club, posing as a beginner and losing to every player but one. There’s no pattern to his victims that I can see. He’s beaten everyone from ‘fellow’ grandmasters to day one beginners, but he seems to target those he thinks it will devastate the most, the most emotionally vulnerable, you could say. He’s a diagnosed sociopath. Spent some time in a mental hospital. The guy has had several facial reconstructive surgeries just to continue his terrible ruse. My take is that he’s a rich man with nothing better to do. I managed to track him down. He’s staying in a Motel 6 near the highway. Here’s the address.” He scribbled hurriedly on a scrap of paper. “Be careful, this guy could be dangerous.”
I brandished my cherished chess piece, whose top could be unscrewed to reveal a pen knife, keen and shimmering.
“Wait, you said he’s an honorary grandmaster.”
“I was going to get to that. He was awarded the title posthumously.”
“He faked his own death?”
“This guy is that serious.”
The hotel was almost empty, better for my purposes. The hotel clerk was a short, energetic man in a purple polo shirt. He didn’t offer any deals or memberships, just a no-nonsense transaction. I checked into a room, 206, just one floor beneath where the bastard was staying. I paced around in my newly rented room for a few minutes until I decided to go for the direct route. I grabbed my portable chess set and made for the elevator. The carpeted hall had a slightly grimy feel, like seedy things were happening behind its doors. The ride to the floor above felt like ages, no thanks to the Kenny G swooning over the speakers. I crept to the door of his room and listened. I could hear a TV droning, nothing more. I rapped on the cheap wood.
“Who is it?” the bastard said.
“Yes, I’m here to fix your heater,” I fumbled, hoping to deceive him just enough to let me in.
“But it’s mid-July,” he replied.
“It’s part of the AC unit, plus there’s a cold snap coming in soon. I just need to adjust some settings. It will only take a few minutes.”
He relented, and as soon as the door opened a crack, I kicked it open and wielded my chess piece pen knife.
“Listen, motherfucker, I know who you are. I know what you do. This game has gone on long enough, Sandbagger.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the shit. I’m taking you out. But before I do, we’re going to play a game of chess, and you’re going to lose. Don’t try anything, or I’ll put this knife through your heart.”
“That thing looks like it couldn’t get past my ribs.”
“Then I’ll hack them open.”
I’ll admit it was difficult playing chess while holding someone at knifepoint, but I poured every ounce of concentration I could into the game. But despite my efforts, it appeared I was going to lose. How? Even at the threat of death, he kept his thief’s integrity. I had to respect that.
“Look, I know you’re a cheater, I just don’t know how you do it. What’s your secret? Tell me or I’ll knife you.”
“Anal beads.”
“What?”
“Vibrating anal beads. They’re connected through Bluetooth and a nearby cell phone sends moves via morse code.”
“Wait, who’s sending the moves?”
“Your friend, Al, of course.”
This was too much, but I looked out the window and there was Al, shrugging at me, like, “What are you gonna do?” I looked again and he was gone.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I dashed the chess board to the floor with a dissatisfying thump as the wood scattered on the carpet. I lunged at the Sandbagger, hoping to throttle him with one hand and impale him with the other. But just as the knife was about to meet its mark, right on my enemy’s neck, the door of the hotel room was kicked open once again. Two detectives appeared with their pistols drawn.
“Put the weapon down, sir. I’m detective Marsh, this is detective Meadows. We’ve been looking for this guy for months. Nice work tracking him down for us.”
“I was going to kill this man. He deserves to die.”
“I understand that you’re upset, but he has to be tried like you or I would.”
“You can go to prison for sandbagging at chess?”
“For artistic falsification, he’ll be going down for a long time. A life sentence. And I’ll see to it that he never so much as sees another chess board again. This madness stops now.”
After they arrested the Sandbagger, I went back to the club, but it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t think straight. My mind would drift back to my losses against that monster. He had to go. I began to plot a way to get myself imprisoned and shank him, but not before I produced a smuggled (or even hand-made?) chess set and beat the bastard once and for all. I even thought of ‘hooping’ them, as they say in prison, but I didn’t want to stoop to his level. I couldn’t just bust out a window or something. I thought I might be able to work out something with those two detectives.
I contacted the detectives and worked out a deal. They agreed to frame me for an equally punishable crime so that I could eventually be housed in the same prison as the Sandbagger, on the condition that I defeat him in a game of chess, but not murder him. They didn’t tell me it would take years of transfers and sleepless nights. But after all that toil, I was finally transferred to his prison.
He was being held in a protective custody yard, or PC for short. Luckily, I had complained enough to the guards about my safety for that to be my automatic destination. The timing was right. I made my way to his cell, armed with a chess set and my shank, which I had sharpened personally on the rec yard fence. My lookout (who I had paid off some time earlier) stood in the doorway. The Sandbagger stared at me like a wounded deer as I set up the pieces. I brandished my shank at him.
“Bend over and lift your sack,” I told him. He silently obeyed, trembling. I gave his cavity a long and loving inspection. Nothing. I washed my hands in his sink.
I moved first, having hijacked the advantage of the white pieces (in more ways than one, if you catch my drift). We played a close game, but I eventually bested him, stripped as he was of his outside assistance. My final move, right before he resigned, was an elegant knight sweep of my knight onto its target square, forking his queen and rook, ‘winning the exchange,’ as they say. He flicked over his king.
“I let you win,” he said. “I threw the game.”
That was the last straw. I knifed him until I couldn’t anymore. My lookout glanced in at us and called for the guards. I guess he assumed I wouldn’t actually go through with it, but I had stabbed plenty of people to get to where I was. When the guards spotted us, only after slow-walking it, as they do with guys with certain charges, they handcuffed me, locked down the unit, and called in the goon squad. I was dragged off to the hole and eventually given twenty-five to life for my crime. I guessed my deal with the detectives was off. But it was worth it. The glory of victory was worth it. I had won. I had beaten him. Because the knight.
G. W. McClary is a native of Ohio, with a B.A. in literature. His stories have appeared in Pulp Lit Mag, Altered Reality, The Fear of Monkeys, Mobius Blvd and an anthology, Visions [Pages Promotions], and are forthcoming in Mystic Mind, Schlock! webzine, Nova Literary-Arts Magazine, CC&D [Scars Publications], and Dark Horses.
