The Myron Bolitar Series 7-Book Bundle (157 page)

“You’re quite sure about that, are you?”

Myron swallowed. He had thought that his recent experience would help him understand Win better. Win had killed too. Often, in fact. Now that Myron had done likewise, he thought that there would be a fresh bond. But there wasn’t. Just the opposite, in fact. Their shared experienced was opening a whole new chasm.

Win checked his watch. “Why don’t you go get packed?”

“There’s nothing I need to bring.”

Win motioned to the house. Terese stood there, watching them silently. “Then say good-bye to La Derrière and let’s be on our way.”

Terese had put on a robe. She leaned against the doorway and waited.

Myron was not sure what to say. He settled for “Thank you.”

She nodded.

“Do you want to come along?” he asked.

“No.”

“You can’t stay here forever.”

“Why not?”

Myron thought about it for a moment. “You know anything about boxing?”

Terese sniffed the air. “Do I detect the distinct odor of an upcoming sports metaphor?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said.

“Ugh. Go on.”

“This whole thing is sort of like a boxing match,” Myron began. “We’ve been ducking and diving and weaving and trying to keep away from our opponent. But we can only do that for so long. Eventually we have to throw a punch.”

She made a face. “Christ, that was lame.”

“Spur of the moment.”

“And inaccurate,” she added. “Try this. We’ve tasted our opponent’s power. It dropped us to the canvas. Somehow we managed to get back to our feet. But our legs are still rubbery, and our eyes are still hazed over. Another big blow and the fight will be over. Better to keep dancing. Better to avoid getting hit and hope to go the distance.”

Hard to argue.

They fell into silence.

Myron said, “If you come up to New York, give me a call and—”

“Right.”

Silence.

“We know what would happen,” Terese said. “We’d meet up for drinks, maybe hop back in the sack, but it won’t be the same. We’ll both be uncomfortable as all hell. We’ll pretend that we’ll get together again, and we won’t even exchange Christmas cards. We’re not lovers, Myron. We’re not even friends. I don’t know what the hell we are, but I’m grateful.”

A bird cawed. The small waves hummed their soft song. Win stood by the shore, his arms crossed, his body frighteningly patient.

“Have a good life, Myron.”

“You too,” he replied.

He and Win took the dinghy to the yacht. A crew member offered Myron his hand. Myron grabbed it and hoisted himself on board. The yacht took off. Myron stood on the deck and watched the shore grow smaller. He was leaning on a teakwood rail. Teakwood. Everything on this vessel was dark and rich and teak.

“Here,” Win said.

Myron turned. Win tossed him a Yoo-Hoo, Myron’s
favorite drink, kind of a cross between a soda pop and chocolate milk. Myron smiled. “I haven’t had one of these in three weeks.”

“The withdrawal pains,” Win said. “They must have been agony.”

“No TV and no Yoo-Hoo. It’s a wonder I survived.”

“Yes, you practically lived like a monk,” Win said. Then, looking back at the island, he added, “Well, like a monk who gets laid a lot.”

They were both stalling.

“How long until we get back?” Myron asked.

“Eight hours on the boat,” Win said. “A chartered jet is waiting at St. Bart’s. The flight should take about four hours.”

Myron nodded. He shook the can and popped it. He took a deep swig and turned back toward the water.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Win ignored the statement. Or maybe it was enough for him. The yacht picked up speed. Myron closed his eyes and let the water and gentle spray caress his face. He thought a moment about Clu Haid. Clu hadn’t trusted agents—“a small step below pedophile” was how he put it—so he asked Myron to negotiate his contract, even though Myron was merely a first-year student at Harvard Law. Myron did it. He liked it. And MB SportsReps soon followed.

Clu was a lovable screwup. He unapologetically pursued wine, women, and song—not to mention any high he could get his hands/nose/veins on. Clu never met a party he didn’t like. He was a redheaded big guy with a teddy bear gut, handsome in a boyish way, an almost old-fashioned cad, and immensely charming. Everyone loved Clu. Even Bonnie, his long-suffering wife. Their marriage
was a boomerang. She’d throw him out, he’d spin in the air for a while, and then she’d catch him on the return.

Clu had seemed to be slowing down a bit. After all the times Myron had gotten him out of trouble—drug suspensions, drunk driving charges, whatever—Clu had gone puffy, reached the end of his charm reign. The Yankees had traded for him, putting him on strict probation, giving him one last chance at redemption. Clu had stayed in rehab for the first time. He’d been attending the AA meetings. His fastball was back up in the nineties.

Win interrupted his thoughts. “Do you want to hear what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Myron said.

“Oh?”

“I screwed up last time. You warned me, but I didn’t listen. A lot of people died because of me.” Myron felt the tears come to his eyes. He pushed them back down. “You have no idea how bad it ended.”

“Myron?”

He turned to his friend. Their eyes met.

“Get over yourself,” Win said.

Myron made a noise—one part sob, two parts chuckle. “I hate when you coddle me.”

“Perhaps you would prefer it if I served up some useless platitudes,” Win said. He swirled his liquor and tasted a bit. “Please select one of the following and then we’ll move on: Life is hard; life is cruel; life is random; sometimes good people are forced to do bad things; sometimes innocent people die; yes, Myron, you screwed up, but you’ll do better this time; no, Myron, you didn’t screw up, it wasn’t your fault; everyone has a breaking point and now you know yours. Can I stop now?”

“Please.”

“Then let us begin with Clu Haid.”

Myron nodded, took another swig of Yoo-Hoo, emptied the can.

“Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for our old college chum,” Win said. “He was pitching well. Domestic bliss seemed to reign. He was passing his drug tests. He was making curfew with hours to spare. That all changed two weeks ago when a surprise drug test produced a positive result.”

“For what?”

“Heroin.”

Myron shook his head.

“Clu kept his mouth shut to the media,” Win said, “but privately he claimed the test was fixed. That someone had tampered with his food or some such nonsense.”

“How do you know that?”

“Esperanza told me.”

“He went to Esperanza?”

“Yes, Myron. When Clu failed the test, he naturally looked to his agent for help.”

Silence.

“Oh,” Myron said.

“I don’t want go into the fiasco that is MB SportsReps right now. Suffice to say that Esperanza and Big Cyndi did the best they could. But it’s your agency. Clients hired you. Many have been more than unhappy by your sudden disappearance.”

Myron shrugged. He would probably care one day. “So Clu failed the test.”

“And he was immediately suspended. The media moved in for the kill. He lost all his endorsement deals. Bonnie threw him out. The Yankees disowned him. With nowhere else to turn, Clu repeatedly visited your office.
Esperanza told him that you were unavailable. His temper rose with each visit.”

Myron closed his eyes.

“Four days ago Clu confronted Esperanza outside the office. At the Kinney parking lot, to be more exact. They had words. Harsh and rather loud words. According to witnesses, Clu punched her in the mouth.”

“What?”

“I saw Esperanza the next day. Her jaw was swollen. She could barely talk, though she still managed to tell me to mind my own business. My understanding is more damage would have been inflicted had Mario and several other parking attendants not pulled them apart. Supposedly Esperanza made threats of the I’ll-get-you-for-this-you-limp-dick-son-of-a-bitch variety as they were being held back.”

Myron shook his head. This made no sense.

“The next afternoon Clu was found dead in the apartment he rented in Fort Lee,” Win continued. “The police learned about the earlier altercation. They were then issued a slew of search warrants and found the murder weapon, a nine millimeter, in your office.”

“My office?”

“MB’s office, yes.”

Myron shook his head again. “It had to be a plant.”

“Yes, perhaps. There were also fibers that matched the carpeting in Clu’s apartment.”

“The fibers are meaningless. Clu was in the office. He probably dragged them there.”

“Yes, perhaps,” Win said again. “But the specks of blood in the trunk of the company car might be harder to explain.”

Myron almost fell over. “Blood in the Taurus?”

“Yes.”

“And the police confirmed the blood as Clu’s?”

“Same blood type. The DNA test will take several weeks.”

Myron could not believe what he was hearing. “Had Esperanza been using the car?”

“That very day. According to the E-Z Pass records, the car crossed the Washington Bridge back into New York within an hour of the murder. And as I said, he was killed in Fort Lee. The apartment is maybe two miles from the bridge.”

“This is crazy.”

Win said nothing.

“What’s her motive?” Myron asked.

“The police don’t have a solid one yet. But several are being offered.”

“Such as?”

“Esperanza was a new partner at MB SportsReps. She’d been left in charge. The company’s inaugural client was about to walk out the door.”

Myron frowned. “Pretty flimsy motive.”

“He had also recently assaulted her. Perhaps Clu blamed her for all the bad things that were happening to him. Perhaps she wanted vengeance. Who knows?”

“You said something before about her not talking to you.”

“Yes.”

“So you asked Esperanza about the charges?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And she told me that she had the matter under control,” Win said. “And she told me not to contact you. That she did not wish to speak with you.”

Myron looked puzzled. “Why not?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

He pictured Esperanza, the Hispanic beauty he had met in the days when she wrestled professionally under the moniker Little Pocahontas. A lifetime ago. She had been with MB SportsReps since its inception—first as a secretary and now that she’d graduated law school, as a full-fledged partner.

“But I’m her best friend,” Myron said.

“As I am well aware.”

“So why would she say something like that?”

Win guessed the question was rhetorical. He kept silent.

The island was out of sight now. In every direction there was nothing but the churning warm blue of the Atlantic.

“If I hadn’t run away,” Myron began.

“Myron?”

“What?”

“You’re whining again. I cannot handle whining.” Myron nodded and leaned against the teakwood.

“Any thoughts?” Win asked.

“She’ll talk to me,” Myron said. “Count on it.”

“I just tried to call her.”

“And?”

“No answer.”

“Did you try Big Cyndi?”

“She now rooms with Esperanza.”

No surprise. “What’s today?” Myron asked.

“Tuesday.”

“Big Cyndi still bounces at Leather-N-Lust. She might be there.”

“During the day?”

Myron shrugged. “Sexual deviancy has no off hours.”

“Thank God,” Win said.

They fell into silence, the ship gently rocking them.

Win squinted into the sun. “Beautiful, no?”

Myron nodded.

“Must be sick of it after all this time.”

“Very,” Myron said.

“Come below deck. I think you’ll be pleased.”

Win had stocked the yacht with videos. They watched episodes of the old
Batman
show (the one with Julie Newmar as Cat Woman and Lesley Gore as Pussycat—double meow!), the
Odd Couple
(Oscar and Felix on
Password
), a
Twilight Zone
(“To Serve Man”), and for something more current,
Seinfeld
(Jerry and Elaine visit Jerry’s parents in Florida). Forget pot roast. This was comfort food. But on the off chance that it wasn’t substantial enough, there were also Doritos and Cheez Doodles and more Yoo-Hoos and even rewarmed pizza from Calabria’s Pizzeria on Livingston Avenue.

Win. He might be a sociopath, but what a guy.

The effect of all this was beyond therapeutic, the time spent at sea and later in the air an emotional pressure chamber of sorts, a chance for Myron’s soul to adjust to the bends, to the sudden reemergence into the real world.

The two friends barely spoke, except to sigh over Julie Newmar as Cat Woman (whenever she came on the screen in her tight black cat suit, Win said, “Puuuurrrrfect”). They’d both been five or six years old when the show first aired, but something about Julie Newmar as Cat Woman
completely blew away any Freudian notions of latency. Why, neither man could say. Her villainy perhaps. Or something more primal. Esperanza would no doubt have an interesting opinion. He tried not to think about her—useless and draining when he couldn’t do anything about it—but the last time he had done something like this was in Philadelphia with both Win and Esperanza. He missed her. Watching the videos was not the same without her running commentary.

The boat docked and they headed for the private jet.

“We’ll save her,” Win said. “We are, after all, the good guys.”

“Questionable.”

“Have confidence, my friend.”

“No, I mean us being the good guys.”

“You should know better.”

“Not anymore I don’t,” Myron said.

Win made his jutting jaw face, the one that had come over on the
Mayflower.
“This moral crisis of yours,” he said. “It’s
très
unbecoming.”

A breathy blond bombshell like something out of an old burlesque skit greeted them in the cabin of the Lock-Horne company jet. She fetched them drinks between giggles and wiggles. Win smiled at her. She smiled back.

“Funny thing,” Myron said.