by Harlan Coben
“Myron!” Otto called out pleasantly, waving one of those tiny hands. “Come on over. Have a seat.”
“Wait here,” Myron told Christian. He climbed the steps. The entourage, led by Larry Hanson, stood in unison and marched away.
Myron snapped a salute at them. “Hut two, three, four. Right face.” No one laughed. Big surprise.
“Sit down, Myron,” Otto said, beaming. “Let’s have a chat.”
“You haven’t been returning my calls,” Myron said.
“Did you call?” He shook his head. “I’ll have to get on my secretary about that.”
Myron let out a deep breath and sat. “Why was Christian locked out?”
“Well, Myron, it’s pretty simple, actually. Christian hasn’t signed his contract yet. The Titans don’t have time to invest in someone who may not be part of our future.” He nodded toward the field. “Do you see who’s here for a tryout? Neil Decker from Cincinnati. Fine quarterback.”
“Yeah, he’s great. He can almost throw a spiral.”
Otto chuckled. “That’s funny, Myron. You’re a very amusing man.”
“I’m so glad you think so. Mind telling me what’s going on?”
Otto Burke nodded. “That’s fair, Myron. So let’s talk frankly, shall we?”
“Rationally, frankly, whatever you want.”
“Great. We’d like to renegotiate your client’s contract,” he said. “Downward.”
“I see.”
“We feel your client’s value has depreciated.”
“Uh-huh.”
Burke studied him. “You don’t seem surprised, Myron.”
“So what is it this time?” Myron asked.
“What is what this time?”
“Well, let’s start with Benny Keleher. You invited him to your house, plied him with booze, then had a cop arrest him on his ride home for drunk driving.”
Otto looked properly shocked. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Amazing how he signed the next day. And then there’s Eddie Smith. You had compromising photographs of him taken by a private eye and threatened to send them to his wife.”
“Another lie.”
“Fine, a lie. So let’s cut to the chase, then. What has caused this sudden devaluation?”
Otto sat back. He withdrew a cigarette from a gold case with a Titans emblem on the cover. “It’s something I saw in a rather lewd magazine,” he said. “Something that truly disheartened me.” He didn’t look disheartened. He looked rather pleased.
“A new low,” Myron said. “You should be proud.”
“Pardon me?”
“You set it up. The magazine.”
Otto smiled. “Ah, so you knew about it.”
“How did you get that picture?”
“What picture?”
“The one in the ad.”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“Sure,” Myron said. “I guess you’re just a charter subscriber to Nips.”
“I had nothing to do with that ad, Myron. Honestly.”
“Then how did you get a hold of the magazine?”
“Someone pointed it out to me.”
“Who?”
“I am not at liberty to discuss it.”
“Very convenient.”
“I’m not sure I like your tone, Myron. And let me tell you something else: You’re the one who has done wrong in the case. If you knew about the magazine, you had an ethical responsibility to tell me.”
Myron looked up at the sky. “You used the word ethical. Lightning did not strike. There is no God.”
The smile flickered but stayed on. “Much as we’d like to, Myron, we can’t just wish this away. The magazine exists, and it must be dealt with. So let me tell you what I’ve come up with.”
“I’m all ears.”
“You’re going to take our current offer and knock it down by a third. If not, the picture of Ms. Culver goes public. Think about it. You have three days to decide.” Otto watched Neil Decker throw a pass. It looked like a duck with a broken wing, crashing well short of the receiver. He frowned, stroked his goatee. “Make that two days.”
Chapter 10
Dean of Students Harrison Gordon made sure the door to his office was locked. Double-locked, in fact. He was taking no chances. Not with this.
He sat back down and stared out his office window. Esteemed Reston University in all its glory. The view was a mesh of green grass and brick buildings. No ivy adorned these towers of learning, but it should have. The students were gone for summer break, but the commons still had a sprinkling of people on it—campers from the football and tennis camps, local people who used the campus as a park, the old throwback hippies who pilgrimage to liberal arts institutions like Moslems to Mecca. Lots of red bandannas and ponchos and granola-types. A bearded man tossed a Frisbee. A small boy caught it.
Harrison Gordon saw none of it. He had not spun his chair around to enjoy the view. He had done so to avert his gaze from the … thing on his desk. He wanted simply to destroy the damn thing and forget about it. But he couldn’t. Something held him back. And something kept drawing him toward it, toward that page near the back.…
Destroy it, you fool. If somebody finds it …
What?
He did not know. He spun his chair back around, keeping his eyes away from the magazine. The student file marked CULVER, KATHERINE lay to the right. He swallowed. With a shaking hand he sifted through the stacks of transcripts and recommendation letters. It was an impressive file, but Harrison had no time for that now.
The buzz of his intercom—a horrid noise—startled him upright.
“Dean Gordon?”
“Yes,” he said, nearly shouting. His heart was beating like a rabbit’s.
“I have someone here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment, but I thought you might want to see her.”
Edith’s voice was hushed, a church-whisper.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“It’s Jessica Culver. She’s Kathy’s sister.”
Panic punctured his heart like an icicle.
“Dean Gordon?”
He clamped his hand over his mouth, afraid he might scream.
“Dean Gordon? Are you there?”
There were no true options. He would have to see her and find out what she wanted. To act in any other manner would raise suspicion.
He opened his bottom drawer and scooped the contents of his desk into it. He shut it, took out his key ring, and locked his desk. Better safe than sorry. Last, he unbolted his door.
“Send Ms. Culver in,” he said.
Jessica was at least as beautiful as her sister, which was saying something quite extraordinary. He debated on how to greet her and settled for funeral director mode—detached sympathy, warm professionalism.
He shook her hand with gentle firmness. “Miss Culver, I’m so sorry we have to meet under such circumstances. Our prayers are with your family during this difficult time.”
“Thank you for seeing me without an appointment.”
He waved his hand as if to scoff, It’s nothing. “Please have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, soda?”
“No, thank you.”
He moved back to his chair. He sat and folded his hands on the desk. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I need my sister’s file,” Jessica replied.
Harrison felt his fingers bunch, but he kept his face steady. “Your sister’s school file?”
“Yes.”
“May I inquire as to why?”
“It involves her disappearance.”
“I see,” he said slowly. His voice, he was surprised to hear, remained calm. “I believe the police were very thorough with the file. They made copies of everything in it—”
“I understand that. I’d like to see the file for myself.”
“I see,” he said again.
Several seconds passed. Jessica shifted in her chair. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
&n
bsp; “No, no. Well, perhaps. I’m afraid it may not be possible to give you the file.”
“What?”
“What I mean to say is, I’m not sure you have any legal right to it. Parents certainly do. But I’m not sure about siblings. I’ll need to check this with a university attorney.”
“I’ll wait,” Jessica said.
“Uh, fine. Would you mind waiting in the other room, please?”
She stood, turned, stopped. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “You knew my sister, didn’t you, Dean Gordon?”
He managed a smile. “Yes, I did. Wonderful young lady.”
“Kathy worked for you.”
“Filing, answering the phone, that sort of thing,” he said quickly. “She was a terrific worker. We all miss her very much.”
“Did she seem okay to you?”
“Okay?”
“Before she disappeared,” Jessica continued, her eyes boring into his. “Was she acting strangely?”
Beads of sweat popped onto his forehead, but he dared not wipe them away. “No, not that I could see. She seemed perfectly fine. Why do you ask?”
“Just checking. I’ll wait out front.”
“Thank you.”
She closed the door.
Harrison let loose a long breath. What now? He would have to give her the file; to do otherwise would do far more than merely raise suspicion. But he could not, of course, just pull the file out of his bottom drawer and hand it to Jessica. No, he would wait a few minutes, walk down to the filing room to handle her case “personally,” then return with the file.
Why, he wondered, did Jessica Culver need the file? Was there something he had missed?
No. He was sure of that.
Harrison had spent the last year hoping, praying, that it was over. But he should have known better. Matters like this never truly die. They hide, take root, grow stronger, prepare for a fresh onslaught.
Kathy Culver was not dead and buried. Like some gothic ghost, she had arisen, haunting him, crying out from some great beyond.
For vengeance.
Myron returned to the office.
“Win buzzed down twice,” Esperanza said. “He wants to see you. Now.”
“On my way.”
“Myron?”
“What?”
Esperanza’s lovely dark eyes were solemn. “Is she back? Jessica, I mean.”
“No. She’s just visiting.”
Her face registered doubt. Myron did not press it. He no longer knew what to think himself.
He ran up the stairs two at a time. Win was two floors above him, but he might as well have been in another dimension. As soon as he opened the big steel door, the tireless clamor swarmed in, attacking. The large open space was in perpetual motion. Two, maybe three hundred desks covered the huge floor like throw rugs. Every desk had at least two computer terminals on it. There were no partitions. Hundreds of men sat and stood at every angle, each wearing a white button-down shirt with tie and suspenders, suit jackets draped from the back of their chairs. There were painfully few women. The men were all on the phone, most covering the mouthpiece to scream at someone else. They all looked alike. They all sounded alike. They were all pretty much the same person.
Welcome to Lock-Horne Investments & Securities.
All six floors were exactly the same. In fact, Myron often suspected that Lock-Horne had only one floor and that the elevator was set to stop on the same floor no matter which number you hit from floor fourteen to floor nineteen, giving the illusion of a bigger company.
Office after office made up the compound’s perimeter. These were saved for the head honchos, the top dogs, the numero unos, or in securities talk, the Big Producers. The BPs all had windows and sunshine, unlike the peons on the inside, who sickened and paled from the unnatural light.
Win had a corner office with a view of both Forty-seventh Street and Park Avenue—a view that screamed major dinero. His office was decorated in Early American Wasp. Dark-paneled walls. Forest green carpet. Wing-back chairs. Paintings of a fox hunt on the wall. Like Win had ever seen a fox.
Win looked up from his massive oak desk when Myron entered. The desk weighed slightly less than a cement mixer. He’d been studying a computer print-out, one of those never-ending reams with green and white stripes. The desk was blanketed with them. They sort of matched the carpet.
“How did your morning rendezvous go with our friend Jerry the Phone-icator?” Win asked.
“Phone-icator?”
Win smiled. “I spent the whole morning working that one.”
“It was worth it,” Myron said.
He filled Win in on his encounter with Gary “Jerry” Grady. Win sat back and steepled. Myron then filled him in on his encounter with Otto Burke. Win leaned forward and unsteepled.
“Otto Burke,” Win said, his voice measured, “is a scoundrel. Perhaps I should pay him a private visit.” He looked up at Myron hopefully.
“No. Not yet Please.”
“Are you quite positive?”
“Yes. Promise me, Win. No visits.”
He was clearly disappointed. “Fine,” Win said, grudgingly.
“So what did you want to see me about?”
“Ah.” Win’s face lit up again. “Take a look at this.”
He lifted the reams of computer print-outs and unceremoniously dumped them on the floor. Underneath were a pile of magazines. The top one was called Climaxx. The subheadline read, “Double Xs for Double the Pleasure.” Nifty sales technique. Win fanned them out as if he were doing a card trick.
“Six magazines,” he said.
Myron read the titles. Climaxx, Licks, Jiz, Quim, Orgasm Today, and of course, Nips. “Nickler’s publications?”
“God, you are good,” Win said.
“Years of training. So what about them?”
“Take a look at the pages I have marked off.”
Myron started with Climaxx. The cover featured another freakishly endowed woman, this time licking her own nipple. Handy. Win had used leather bookmarks to mark the page. Leather bookmarks in porno magazines. Like cigarettes in an aerobics class.
The page marked off was already too familiar. Myron felt his stomach churn all over again.
Live Fantasy Phone—Pick Your Girl
There were still three rows, still four in each row. His eyes immediately moved down to the bottom row, second from the right. It still read, “I’ll Do Anything!” The phone number was still 1-900-344-LUST. Still $3.99 per minute. Still discreetly billed to your telephone or charge card, Visa and MasterCard accepted.
But the woman in the picture was not Kathy Culver.
He quickly scanned the rest of the page. Nothing else was different. The same Oriental girl was still waiting. The same buttock still craved a spanking. “Tiny Titties” had not pubesced.
“This same advertising page is in all six magazines,” Win explained. “But only Nips has Kathy Culver’s picture.”
“Interesting.” Myron thought a moment. “Nickler probably sells package deals to advertisers—buy space in six for the price of three, that kind of thing.”
“Precisely. I would venture to say that all six magazines have the exact same ads.”
“But someone stuck Kathy’s picture in Nips.” Myron was getting used to saying the name of the magazine. It no longer felt grimy on his lips, which in itself made him feel grimier.
Win said, “Do you remember Nickler telling us that Nips was doing poorly?”
Myron nodded.
“Well, I had a devil of a time locating it. Most of the other rags were fairly easy to find on corner newsstands. But I had to go to a hardcore porno palace on Forty-second Street to come up with Nips.”
“Yet,” Myron added, “Otto Burke was able to get a copy.”
“Precisely. I am sure you’ve considered the possibility that Mr. Burke is behind it.”
“The idea has crossed my mind.”
There was a knock on the door. Esperanza entered.
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“Your handwriting expert is on the phone,” she said. “I put it on Win’s line.”
Win picked up the receiver and handed it to Myron.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Myron, it’s Swindler. I just went over the two samples you gave me.”
Myron had given Swindler the envelope Nips had come in as well as a letter in Kathy’s handwriting.
“Well?”
“They match. It’s her or a very professional forgery.
Myron felt his stomach dive. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thanks for calling.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
Myron handed the receiver back to Win.
“A match?” Win asked.
“Yep.”
Win tilted back in his chair and smiled. “Yowzer.”
Chapter 11
Myron ran into Ricky Lane in the corridor. He hadn’t seen him in three months. Ricky looked a lot bigger. The Jets would be pleased.
“What are you doing here?” Myron asked.
“I made an appointment with Win,” Ricky said with a big grin. “Just like my agent advised.”
“Good to see you listen to your agent.”
“Always. The man is brilliant.”
“And he never argues with a client.”
Ricky laughed. “Say, I heard Christian got locked out of camp.”
News traveled fast. “Where did you hear that?”
“The FAN.”
WFAN was New York’s all-sports radio station. “Have you spoken to him lately?”
Ricky made a face. “Christian?”
“Yeah.”
“Not since my last college football game, what, year and a half ago.”
“I thought you were friends.” Myron had, in fact, assumed that Ricky had recommended his services to Christian.
“We were teammates,” Ricky replied steadily. “We were never friends.”
“You don’t like him?”
Ricky shrugged. “Not really. None of us did.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“Guys on the team.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Long story, man. Not worth telling.”
“I’d be interested.”
“Put it like this,” Ricky said. “Christian was a little too perfect for most of us, okay?”