Josh Perry had done nothing wrong. A little reckless, answering a shady ad for a fake TV show, but that was it. But being stupid and gullible wasn’t a crime.
Besides, Perry had been through the wringer.
What had Ivy called the winning strategy? Tit-for-tat? Nice guy strat?
By all accounts, Perry was a nice guy.
Vaughn put the phone back to his ear.
“Let him go.”
“You sure?” Delaney sounded surprised.
“Yep. Just forget about him. Actually, on second thought, is Horowitz with you?”
“He is.”
“Have him follow Perry.”
“Well, I drove, so—”
“Have Horowitz follow him on foot.”
“Onfoot? Perry just bought a new—”
“On foot.”
Darnell chuckled at this. A little petty, but Vaughn was still pissed at the cop for ratting on him to the captain.
“Okay. Hey, Detective Ryan, about that thing?”
“I already put a word in with the captain.”
Vaughn had.
“Thanks. Owe you.”
He hung up.
“So Tristan actually paid out the Bitcoin, huh?” Darnell mused.
“Seems that way.”
“You think that’s weird? Killing all those people and yet he pays out when someone beats one of his games?”
“Not really. I mean, he was a math guy. Had a set of rules.”
“Rules that involved killing innocent people.”
“He probably didn’t see it that way. Probably thought he was giving them a chance—a chance his father never had. I dunno.”
Darnell shook his head and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. The man seemed to be replacing all of his alcohol intake with terrible coffee. Made him piss twenty times a day. Still, they were both better off for it.
“I still can’t believe it. All this for a fucking math solution?”
It was more than that, though.
Ivy had tried to explain the Riemann hypothesis to him, but Vaughn didn’t get it. Not even close. All he understood was that Gene and Steve’s work was worth a lot of money.
