by Harlan Coben
“By whom?”
“Owners, management. Agents have done some good for the athletes. They’ve helped raise their salaries, assure free agency, get them endorsement money.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Myron thought a moment. “Two things,” he said. “First of all, some agents are crooks. Plain and simple. They see a young, rich kid, and they take advantage. But as the athletes get more sophisticated, as more stories like what happened to Kareem Abdul-Jabar become known, most of the crooks will be weeded out.”
“And second?”
“Agents have to wear too many hats,” he said. “We’re negotiators, accountants, financial planners, hand-holders, travel agents, family counselors, marriage counselors, errand boys, lackeys—whatever it takes to get the business.”
“So how do you do it all?”
“I give two of the biggest hats to Win—accountant and financial planner. I’m the lawyer. He’s the MBA. Plus we have Esperanza, who can do almost anything. It works well. We all check and balance one another.”
“Just like the branches of the federal government.”
He nodded. “Jefferson and Madison would be proud.”
A hand reached out and opened Box 785.
“Show time,” Myron said.
Jessica snapped her head around to look. The man was slim. Everything about him was too long, eerily elongated, as if he had spent time on a medieval rack. Even his face seemed stretched like a cartoon imprint on Silly Putty.
“Recognize him?” Myron asked.
She hesitated. “Something about him … but I don’t think so.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They hurried down the steps and got in the car. Myron had parked illegally in front of the building, putting a police emergency sign in his front windshield. A gift from a friend on the force. The emergency sign came in handy—especially during sale days at the mall.
The slim man came out two minutes later. He got into a yellow Oldsmobile. New Jersey plates. Myron shifted into drive and followed. Slim took Route 3 to the Garden State Parkway north.
“We’ve been driving almost twenty minutes,” Jessica said. “Why would he go to a mailbox so far from his home?”
“Could be that he’s not going to his house. Maybe he’s going to work.”
“The dial-a-porn office?”
“Maybe,” Myron said. “Or it could be that he travels a long way so no one will see him.”
He got off at Exit 160, jumped on Route 208 heading north, and pulled off at Lincoln Avenue, Ridgewood.
Jessica sat up. “This is my exit,” she said.
“I know.”
“What the hell is going on here?”
The yellow Oldsmobile turned left at the end of the ramp. They were now within three miles of Jessica’s house. If he took Lincoln Avenue all the way to Godwin Road, they’d be …
Nope.
Mr. Slim turned on Kenmore Road, a half-mile before the Ridgewood border. They were still in the heart of suburbia—the suburb in question being Glen Rock, New Jersey. Glen Rock was so named because of a giant rock that sat on Rock Road. The key word here is rock.
The yellow Olds pulled into a driveway. 78 Kenmore Drive.
“Look casual,” he said. “Don’t stare.”
“What?”
He didn’t answer. He drove past the house without pausing, turned at the next street, and stopped the car behind some shrubs. He picked up the car phone and dialed the office. It was picked up midway through the first ring.
“MB SportReps,” Esperanza said.
“Get me all you can on 78 Kenmore Street, Glen Rock, New Jersey. Owner’s name, credit check, the works.”
“Got it.” Click.
He dialed another number. “My friend at the phone company,” he explained to Jessica. Then: “Lisa? It’s Myron. Look, I need a favor. Seventy-eight Kenmore Road, Glen Rock, New Jersey. I don’t know how many lines the guy has, but I need you to check them all. I want to know every number he calls for the next two hours. Right. Hey, what did you find out about that 900 number? What? Oh, okay, I understand. Thanks.”
He hung up.
“What did she say?”
“The 900 number isn’t operated by the phone company. Some small outfit out of South Carolina takes care of it. She can’t get anything on it.”
“So what do we do now?” she asked. “Just watch his house?”
“No. I go inside. You wait here.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You were the one who didn’t want to scare anyone away,” he continued. “If this guy has something to do with your sister, how do you think he’ll react to seeing you?”
She folded her arms across her chest and fumed. She knew he was right, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. “Go,” she said.
He got out of the car. It was one of those no-variety neighborhoods, each house cookie-cut from the same mold—split-levels on three-quarters of an acre. Sometimes the house was backward, the kitchen on the right instead of the left. Most had aluminum siding. The street reeked of middle class.
Myron knocked. The thin man opened the door.
“Jerry?”
Slim’s face registered confusion. Up close he was better looking, his face more brooding than freakish. Give him a cigarette and a black turtleneck, and he could be reading poetry in a village café. “May I help you?”
“Jerry, I’m—”
“You must have the wrong house. My name isn’t Jerry.”
“You look like Jerry.”
Something dark crossed his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, closing the door. “I really don’t have time right now.”
“Sure about that, Jer?”
“I already told you—”
“Do you know Kathy Culver?”
It was a sneak attack. And it drew blood. “Wha—what’s this all about?” he snapped.
“I think you know.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Myron Bolitar.”
“Am I supposed to know you?”
“Well, if you’re a big basketball fan … actually, no. But I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I have nothing to say.”
Ace of spades time. Myron pulled out the magazine. “Sure about that, Jerry?”
The whites of Slim’s eyes grew tenfold, looking like Wedgwood china on the elongated face. “You have me mixed up with someone else. Good-bye.”
He slammed the door.
Myron shrugged, headed back to the car.
“Well?” Jessica asked.
“We shook him,” Myron said. “Let’s see what falls out.”
The neighborhood newsstand.
Win remembered a time when the phrase conjured up nostalgia and Rockwellian images of real America. No more. Any street, any corner, any hickville town was the same. Candy, newspapers, greeting cards—and porno mags. Kids could pick up a Snickers bar and get an eyeful, all in one. Porno had become a staple of American life. Hardcore porn. The kind of porn that made Penthouse look like Highlights magazine.
Win approached the man behind the lottery ticket dispenser. “Pardon me,” Win said.
“Yeah?”
“Would you be able to tell me if you have the most recent issues of Climaxx, Jiz, Orgasm Today, Licks, Quim, and Nips?”
An elderly woman gasped and gave him an icy stare. Win smiled at her. “Let me guess,” he said. “Playmate of the Month, June 1926?”
She made a harumph noise and turned away.
“Check over there,” the man said. “Between the comic books and Disney videos.”
“Thank you.”
Win found three of them—Climaxx, Orgasm Today, and Quim. He tried three other newsstands and was able to pick up Lick, but there was no sign of Jiz or Nips. He finally found copies of them at a hardcore shop on Forty-second Street called King David’s Smut Palace. They had a big sign out front that said OPEN 24 HOUR
S. How very convenient. Win considered himself fairly worldly, but the items and photographs in the “palace” proved that both his life experiences and his imagination had at best been limited.
It was almost noon when he exited the palace. A productive and quasi-educational morning.
With a total of six magazines lodged under his arm, Win caught a taxi to midtown. He skimmed through a few in the backseat.
“So far so good,” he said out loud.
The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror, shrugged, looked back to the road.
When Win arrived at his office, he spread the magazines across the vast breadth of his desk. He studied them closely, comparing them. Incredible. His suspicion had been sound. It was just as he thought.
Five minutes later, Win put the magazines in his desk drawer. Then he buzzed Esperanza.
“Kindly send Myron to my office as soon as he comes in.”
Chapter 9
“I have a confession,” Jessica said.
They were coming out of the Kinney garage on Fifty-second Street, the smell of fumes and urine dissipating as they hit the relatively fresh air on the sidewalk. They turned down Fifth Avenue. The line for passports stretched past the statue of Atlas. A black man with long dreadlocks sneezed repeatedly, his hair flapping about like dozens of snakes. A woman behind him tsk-tsked a complaint. Many of the people waiting faced St. Patrick’s across the street as though pleading for divine intervention, their faces lined with anguish. Japanese tourists took pictures of both the statue and the line.
“I’m listening,” Myron replied.
They kept walking. Jessica did not face him, her gaze fixed on nothing straight ahead. “We weren’t close anymore. In fact, Kathy and I barely spoke.”
Myron was surprised. “Since when?”
“The last three years or so.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head, but she still did not look at him. “I don’t know exactly. She changed. Or maybe she just grew up and I couldn’t handle it. We just drifted apart. When we saw each other, it was as if she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s no big thing. Except Kathy called me the night she disappeared. First time in I don’t know how long.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know. I was on my way out the door. I rushed her off.”
They fell into silence the rest of the way to Myron’s office.
When they got off the elevator, Esperanza handed him a sheet of paper and said, “Win wants to see you right away.” She glared at Jessica the way a linebacker might glare at a limping quarterback on a blindside blitz.
“Otto Burke or Larry Hanson call?” Myron asked.
She swerved her glare toward Myron. “No. Win wants to see you right away.”
“I heard you the first time. Tell him I’ll be up in five minutes.”
They moved into Myron’s office. He closed the door and skimmed over the sheet. Jessica sat in front of him. She crossed her legs the way few women could, turning an ordinary event into a moment of sexual intrigue. Myron tried not to stare. He also tried not to remember the luscious feel of those legs in bed. He was unsuccessful in both endeavors.
“What’s it say?” she asked.
He snapped to. “Our slim friend on Kenmore Street in Glen Rock is named Gary Grady.”
Jessica squinted. “The name sounds familiar.” She shook her head. “But I can’t place it.”
“He’s been married seven years, wife Allison. No kids. Has a $110,000 mortgage on that house, pays it on time. Nothing else yet. We should know more in a little while.” He put the paper on his desk. “I think we have to start attacking this on a few different fronts.”
“How?”
“We have to go back to the night your sister disappeared. Start with that, and move forward. The whole case needs to be reinvestigated. The same with your father’s murder. I’m not saying the cops weren’t thorough. They probably were. But we now know some things they don’t.”
“The magazine,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“How can I help?” she asked.
“Start finding out all you can about what she was up to when she disappeared. Talk to her friends, roommates, sorority sisters, fellow cheerleaders—anyone.”
“Okay.”
“Also get her school records. Let’s see if there’s anything there. I want to see what courses she was taking, what activities she was involved with, anything.”
Esperanza threw open the door. “Meal Ticket. Line two.”
Myron checked his watch. Christian should be in the middle of practice by now. He picked up the phone. “Christian?”
“Mr. Bolitar, I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Myron could barely hear him. It sounded as if he were standing in a wind tunnel. “Where are you?”
“A pay phone outside Titans Stadium.”
“What’s the matter?”
“They won’t let me in.”
Jessica stayed in the office to make a few calls. Myron rushed out. Fifty-seventh Street to the West Side Highway was unusually clear. He called Otto Burke and Larry Hanson from the car. Neither one was in. Myron was not astounded.
Then he dialed an unlisted phone in Washington. Few people had this particular number.
“Hello?” the voice answered politely.
“Hi, P.T.”
“Ah shit, Myron, what the fuck do you want?”
“I need a favor.”
“Perfect. I was just telling someone, gee, I wish Bolitar would call so I could do him a favor. Few things bring me such joy.”
P.T. worked for the FBI. FBI chiefs come and go. P.T was a constant. The press didn’t know about him, but every president since Nixon had had his number on their speed dial.
“The Kathy Culver case,” Myron said. “Who’s the best guy to talk to about it?”
“The local cop,” P.T. answered without hesitation.
“He’s an elected sheriff or something. Great guy, good friend of mine. I forget his name.”
“Can you get me an appointment?” Myron asked.
“Why not? Serving your needs gives my life a sense of purpose.”
“I owe you.”
“You already owe me. More than you can pay. I’ll call you when I have something.”
Myron hung up. The traffic was still clear. Amazing. He crossed the Washington Bridge and arrived at the Meadowlands in record time.
The Meadowlands Sports Authority was built on useless swampland off the New Jersey Turnpike in a place called East Rutherford. From west to east stood the Meadowlands Race Track, Titans Stadium, and the Brendan Byrne Arena, named for the former governor who was about as well liked as a whitehead on prom night. Angry protests equal to the French Revolution had erupted over the name, but to no avail. Mere revolutions are hardly worthy adversaries for a politician’s ego.
“Oh, Christ.”
Christian’s car—or he assumed it was Christian’s—was barely visible under the blanket of reporters. Myron had expected this. He had told Christian to lock himself in his car and not say a word. Driving away would have been useless. The press would have just followed, and Myron was not up for a car chase.
He parked nearby. The reporters turned toward him like lions smelling a wounded lamb.
“What’s going on, Myron?”
“Why isn’t Christian at practice?”
“You pulling a holdout or what?”
“What’s happening with his contract?”
Myron no-commented them, swimming through the sea of microphones, cameras, and flesh, squeezing his way into the car without allowing any of the slime to ooze in with him.
“Drive off,” Myron said.
Christian started the car and pulled out. The reporters parted grudgingly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bolitar.”
“What happened?”
“The guard wouldn
’t let me in. He said he had orders to keep me out.”
“Son of a bitch,” Myron muttered. Otto Burke and his damn tactics. Little weasel. Myron should have been looking for something like this. But a lockout? That seemed a tad extreme, even by Otto Burke’s standards. Despite the posturing, they had been fairly close to signing. Burke had expressed strong interest in getting Christian to minicamp as soon as possible, to get him ready for the season.
So why would he lock Christian out?
Myron didn’t like it.
“Do you have a car phone?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
It didn’t matter. “Turn back around,” Myron said. “Park by Gate C.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just come with me.”
The guard tried to stop them, but Myron pushed Christian past him. “Hey, you’re not allowed in there!” he called after them. “Hey, stop!”
“Shoot us,” Myron said without stopping.
They strode onto the field. Players were hitting the tackle dummies hard. Very hard. No one was holding back. These were tryouts. Most of these guys were fighting for a spot on the team. Most had been high school and college superstars, accustomed to unadulterated greatness on the field. Most would get cut. Most would not allow the dream to end there, scrounging other teams’ rosters for a possible opening, holding on, slipping endlessly, dying slowly all the while.
A glamour profession.
The coaches blew whistles. The running backs practiced wind sprints. Kickers were knocking down field goals at the far goal post. Punters boomed slow lazy arcs high into the air. Several players turned and spotted Christian. A buzz developed. Myron ignored it. He had spotted his target, sitting in the first row on the fifty-yard line.
Otto Burke sat like Caesar at the Colosseum, that damn smile still plastered to his face, his arms spread over the seats on either side of him. Behind him sat Larry Hanson and a few other executives. Caesar’s senate. Occasionally Otto would lean back and award his entourage a comment that brought on aneurysm-like fits of laughter.