Mikey FX (Michael Deane) hiding in the basement of his target’s apartment building in Washington Heights. By MICHAEL WILSON
It was as though Michael Deane, a 32-year-old transplant from London, did not get the memo that crime is way down in Manhattan. He looked like something out of “Death Wish” as he drove slowly past his Riverside Drive apartment in broad daylight, his bloodshot eyes darting from pedestrians to parked cars to old people sitting on park benches.
Mr. Deane staking out the building of an intended victim in the StreetWars tournament.
Near his building, a man washing windows with a bottle of Windex returned his stare, but Mr. Deane kept driving. Would getting sprayed with Windex kill him? Something to think about.
He had been sneaking around like a noir hero for two and a half weeks, finding new and shadowy exits to his regular places. He was tired from lack of sleep, and while it was early yet, he was looking forward to a stiff cocktail when he got upstairs.
But first he had to get there alive. He parked his car a couple of blocks away and started the treacherous walk, his only friend of late tucked under his black shirt, a curiously damp bulge.
His yellow-and-orange Uzi-style squirt gun.
Mr. Deane, a freelance audiovisual technician, was becoming a player to be reckoned with in this year’s StreetWars tournament. With only a few days left, he stood a fighting chance at being the last person standing, the $500 prize in one hand and his dripping gun in the other. But with the pool dwindling, his own would-be killer could not be far.
When StreetWars started on Sept. 7, each of the 250-plus contestants was handed a black envelope marked “Shadow Government,” with the name, home address, workplace, e-mail address, cellphone number and photograph of a player to kill by squirting. After each kill, the shooter acquires the dead rival’s target and begins stalking this new person, all the while looking over a shoulder for whoever is hunting him. It is permissible to shoot in self-defense.
“I told my doorman that if he sees anyone suspicious with a water pistol, then he’s not to let them in the building,” Mr. Deane said.
He shaved the beard he wore for the picture his pursuer is carrying. He is considering borrowing a wheelchair to use as part of a disguise. By Friday evening, he had logged four kills; he was one of 16 players left. “I’ve been walking around like a crazy person,” he said, “wondering when they’re going to get me.” His wife, who works promoting nightclubs, is very patient about the whole thing.
StreetWars was created in 2004 by Franz Aliquo, then a 28-year-old securities lawyer, as a cure for a boredom phase he was working through. Mr. Aliquo named himself Supreme Commander and, with a friend known as Mustache Commander and other helpers, has held several killing tournaments in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London and Paris. The game resembles the 1980s campus phenomenon Assassin, itself a reminder of the 1985 film “Gotcha!” starring Anthony Edwards and his paintball gun.
The contestants are mostly in their 20s or early 30s, from what could be called the kickball set; about 35 percent in the current war are women. “We had a 76-year-old grandmother in San Francisco,” said Mr. Aliquo, who lives in Long Island City, Queens, and now is the events director at Thrillist.com, a Web site that distributes daily e-mailed lists of events in various cities. “She got two kills.”
This year’s New York battle began with combatants directed to arrive on a particular Chinatown street corner at midnight. Men with squirt guns led them in small groups to what the Supreme Commander described as “a real-live, working sweatshop” near Mulberry Street, where the Mustache Commander gave everyone an envelope and a shot of whiskey.
On Sunday, the game enters sudden death: however many are left hunt one another. A player can also win by killing the Supreme Commander, a legendarily elusive quarry.
Ezra Donellan, 22, who signed up as Agent Zeb, received a target on Staten Island, where he lives, and immediately turned to his computer for stalking assistance.
“I learn the most amazing things on the Internet without doing anything wrong at all,” he said. “No connections, no calling in favors.”
He and a teammate — up to five can play together — staked out the target’s apartment for an hour and a half on Sept. 8. They grew bored and thirsty, and drove to a nearby CVS for cold drinks.
“Randomly, he just pulls up,” Mr. Donellan said of his prey. What followed is best described as a low-speed chase.
“Up and down two highways on Staten Island, just going,” he recalled. “He thought he lost us and went back home. We beat him back to his house.” Mr. Donellan squirted the target as he parked his car.
The next target was a woman, and the hunting was a bit bumpier. “My partner and I were parked down her block, and we got rolled up on by undercover narcotics officers,” Mr. Donellan said. “They got out and shined their flashlights and asked us what we were doing. My partner said: ‘Just chilling. Well, actually, we’re stalking this girl.’ I just looked at him, like, ‘Really, man?’ And they were like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”
The players explained — “We showed him our water guns, we showed him our IDs” — and the officers left. His partner shot the woman outside the Cargo Cafe bar on Staten Island on Sept. 13.
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