by Harlan Coben
“So you think Otto Burke might be behind it?” she asked.
“Otto has a motive: knocking down Christian’s asking price. He certainly has the resources: lots of money. And it would also explain why Christian got a copy in the mail.”
“He was sending Christian a message,” she added.
“Right.”
“But how would Burke forge my sister’s handwriting?”
“He could have hired an expert.”
“Where did he get a writing sample?”
“Who knows? It can’t be that difficult.”
Her eyes glazed over. “So this was all a hoax? This was all some plot to gain leverage in a negotiation?”
“It’s possible. But I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Something just doesn’t mesh. Why would Burke go through all that trouble? He could have blackmailed us with just the photo. He didn’t have to put it in a magazine. The photo was enough.”
She grasped on to his hope as if it were a life preserver. “Good point,” she said.
“The question then becomes,” he continued, “how did Otto get a copy of the magazine?”
“Maybe someone in his organization picked up a copy at a newsstand.”
“Very unlikely. Nips”—the word felt grungy again, good—“has a very low circulation rate. The chances that someone in the Titans organization bought that particular magazine, had time to read it carefully, somehow spotted Kathy’s picture in the bottom row on a page of ads in the back—it’s fairly remote at best.”
Jessica snapped her fingers. “Someone mailed it to him too.”
He nodded. “Why should Christian have been the only one? For all we know, dozens of people were sent that magazine.”
“How do we find out?”
“I’m working on it.”
He managed to salvage a sliver of crispy duck before it was sucked into the black hole. It was delicious. He turned his attention back to Kathy’s files. Her bad grades continued during her first semester at Reston. By second semester, her grades had picked up considerably. He asked Jessica about this.
“She settled into college life, I guess,” she said. “She joined the drama group, became a cheerleader, started dating Christian. She went through culture shock in her first semester. It’s not uncommon.”
“No. I guess not.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
He shrugged. Myron Bolitar, Señor Skepticalo.
Kathy’s recommendation letters were next. Three of them. Her high school guidance counselor called her “unusually gifted.” Her tenth-grade history teacher said, “Her enthusiasm for life is contagious.” Her twelfth-grade English teacher said, “Kathy Culver is bright, witty, and fun-spirited. She will be a welcome addition to any institution of learning.” Nice comments. He scanned down to the bottom of the page.
“Uh-oh,” he said.
“What is it?”
He handed her the glowing recommendation letter from Kathy’s twelfth-grade English teacher at Ridgewood High School. A Mr. Grady.
A Mr. Gary, aka “Jerry” Grady.
Chapter 14
Myron was startled awake by the telephone. He’d been dreaming about Jessica. He tried to remember specifics, but the details disintegrated into small pieces and blew away, leaving behind only a few frustrating snippets. The clock on his nightstand read seven o’clock. Someone was calling him at home at seven o’clock in the morning. Myron had a pretty good idea who it was.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Myron. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Myron recognized the voice. He smiled and asked, “Who is this?”
“It’s Roy O’Connor.”
“The Roy O’Connor?”
“Uh, yes, I guess so. Roy O’Connor, the agent.”
“The superagent,” Myron corrected. “To what do I owe this honor, Roy?”
“Would it be possible for us to meet this morning?” The voice had a discernible quake to it.
“Sure thing, Roy. My office, okay?”
“Uh, no.”
“Your office, Roy?”
“Uh, no.”
Myron sat up. “Should I keep guessing places and you can say hotter or colder?”
“You know Reilly’s Pub on Fourteenth Street?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be in the booth in the back right-hand corner. One o’clock. We’ll have lunch. If that’s okay with you.”
“Peachy, Roy. Want me to wear anything special?”
“Uh, no.”
Myron hung up, smiled. A night visit from Win, usually while sleeping soundly in your bedroom, your innermost sanctuary. Worked every time.
He got out of bed. He heard his mother in the kitchen above him, his father in the den watching television. Early morning at the Bolitar house. The basement door opened.
“Are you awake, Myron?” his mother shouted.
Myron. What a goddamn awful name. He hated it with a passion. The way he looked at it, he’d been born with all his fingers and toes, he didn’t have a harelip or a cauliflower ear or a limp of any kind—so to compensate for his lack of ill fortune, his parents had christened him Myron.
“I’m awake,” he answered.
“Daddy bought some fresh bagels. They’re on the table.”
“Thanks.”
He got out of bed and climbed the steps. With one hand he felt the rough beard he’d have to shave; with the other he picked the yellow sleep-buggers out of the corner of his eyes. His father was sprawled on the den couch like a wet sock, wearing an Adidas sweatsuit and eating a bagel oozing with whitefish spread. As he did every morning, Myron’s father was watching a videocassette of people exercising. Getting in shape through osmosis.
“Good morning, Myron. There’re some bagels on the table.”
“Uh, thanks.” It was like one parent never heard the other.
He entered the kitchen. His mom was nearly sixty, but she looked much younger. Say, forty-five. She acted much younger too. Say, sixteen.
“You came in late last night,” she said.
Myron made a grunting noise.
“What time did you finally get home?”
“Really late. It was almost ten.” Myron Bolitar, the late-night scream machine.
“So,” Mom began, struggling to look and sound casual, “who were you out with?” Mistress of the Subtle.
“Nobody,” he said.
“Nobody? You were out all night with nobody?”
Myron looked left and right. “When are you going to bring in the hot lights and jumper cables?”
“Fine, Myron. If you don’t want to tell me—”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Fine. Was it a girl?”
“Mom …”
“Okay, forget I asked.”
Myron reached for the phone and dialed Win’s number. After the eighth ring he began to hang up when a weak, distant voice coughed. “Hello?”
“Win?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Hello?”
“Win?”
“Yeah.”
“What took you so long to answer the phone?”
“Hello?”
“Win?”
“Who is this?”
“Myron.”
“Myron Bolitar?”
“How many Myrons do you know?”
“Myron Bolitar?”
“No, Myron Rockefeller.”
“Something’s wrong,” Win said.
“What?”
“Terribly wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Some asshole is calling me at seven in the morning pretending to be my best friend.”
“Sorry, I forgot the time.” Win was not what one would call a morning person. During their years at Duke, Win was never out of bed before noon—even on the days he had a morning class. He was, in fact, the heaviest sleeper Myron had ever known or imagined.
Myron’s parents, on the other hand, woke up when somebody in the Western hemisphere farted. Before Myron moved into the basement, the same scenario was played out nightly:
Around three in the morning, Myron would get out of bed to go to the bathroom. As he tiptoed past his parents’ bedroom, his father would stir ever so slowly, as though someone had dropped a Popsicle on his crotch.
“Who’s that?” his father would shout.
“Just me, Dad.”
“Is that you, Myron?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Are you okay, son?”
“Fine, Dad.”
“What are you doing up? You sick or something?”
“I’m just going to the bathroom, Dad. I’ve been going to the bathroom by myself since I was fourteen.”
During their sophomore year at Duke, Myron and Win lived in the smallest double on campus with a bunk bed that Win said “creaks slightly” and Myron said “sounds like a duck being run over by a back hoe.” One morning, when the bed was quiet and he and Win were asleep, a baseball crashed through their window. The noise was so deafening that their entire dorm jumped out of bed and rushed to see if Myron and Win had survived the wrath of whatever gigantic meteorite had fallen through the roof. Myron rushed to the window to yell obscenities. Dorm members stamped across the underwear-carpeted floor to join in the tirade. The ensuing reverberations were loud enough to disturb a diner waitress on her coffee break.
Win just lay asleep, a blanket of broken glass strewn over his blanket.
The next night, Myron called through the darkness of his bottom bunk. “Win?”
“Yes.”
“How do you sleep so soundly?” But Win didn’t answer because he’d fallen asleep.
On the phone Win asked, “What do you want?”
“Did all go well last night?”
“Mr. O’Connor hasn’t called you yet?”
“He has.” End of subject. Myron didn’t want details.
“I know,” Win continued, “that you did not awaken me to question my effectiveness.”
“Kathy Culver got only one A in her senior year at Ridgewood High. Guess who her teacher was.”
“Who?”
“Gary Grady.”
“Hmm. Dial-a-porn and high school English. Interesting vocational mix.”
“I was thinking we could go see Mr. Grady this morning.”
“At the school?”
“Sure. The two of us can pretend we’re concerned parents.”
“For the same kid?”
“Putting the rainbow curriculum to the test.”
Win laughed. “This is going to be fun.”
Chapter 15
“How do we find him?” Win asked.
They arrived at Ridgewood High School at nine-thirty. It was a warm June day, the kind of day where you stared at the window and daydreamed about the end of school. Not much movement around the building—as though the entire school, even the edifice, were coasting toward summer vacation.
Myron remembered how miserable such days were. It gave him an idea.
“Let’s pull the fire alarm,” he said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“We’ll get everyone outside. It’ll be easier to spot him.”
“Idiotically ingenious,” Win said.
“Besides, I always wanted to pull a fire alarm.”
“Walk on the wild side.”
No one noticed them when they entered the school. There were no guards, no locks on the door, no hall monitors of any kind. This was not an urban high school. Myron found a fire alarm not too far from the entrance.
“Kids, don’t try this at home,” Myron said. He pulled. Bells went off. Then cheers from the kids. Myron felt good about his deed. He thought about pulling alarms more often but decided some might construe the act as immature.
Win held the door open and pretended to be a fire marshal. “Single file,” he told the students. “And remember: Only you can prevent fires.”
Myron spotted Grady. “Bingo.”
“Where?”
“Turning the corner. On the left. Mr. Fashion.”
Gary Grady was wearing a yellow Century 21–like blazer with Keith Partridge orange-striped pants. Win looked visibly pained at the sight. They made their approach.
“Hi, Jerry.”
Grady’s head shot around. “That’s not my name.”
“Yeah, you told me. It’s your alias, right? When you do business with Fred Nickler. Your real name is Gary Grady.”
Nearby students stopped walking.
“Keep moving!” Gary snapped.
The students restarted their grudging trudge.
“Impatient teachers,” Myron said.
“Sad,” Win agreed.
Gary’s thin face seemed to stretch even further. He stepped closer so that no one could overhear.
“Perhaps we can continue this conversation later,” he whispered.
“I don’t think so, Gary.”
“I’m in the middle of a class.”
“Tough tittie,” Myron said.
Win arched an eyebrow. “Tough tittie?”
“Something about being back in high school,” Myron said. “Besides, I thought it appropriate considering the situation.”
Win considered for a moment. “Okay, I can accept that.”
Myron turned back to Gary. “The fire drill will last a little while. Then it will take a little while for the kids to file back in. Then they’ll want to goof around in the halls for a while. By then we’ll be all done.”
Gary crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”
“Option two, then.” Myron took out a copy of Nips. “We can play Show and Tell with the principal.”
Grady coughed into his fist. A loud fire whistle sounded. Sirens came closer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, taking a few more steps away from the kids.
“I followed you.”
“What?”
Myron sighed, gave him exasperation. “You were in Hoboken yesterday morning. You picked up the mail at an address used for advertising sex lines in porno rags. Then you went home to Glen Rock, saw me, panicked, and called Fred Nickler, the managing editor of said rags.”
“Amateur,” Win added with disgust.
“Now, we can discuss this with you or with the school board. Up to you.”
Gary glanced at his watch. “You have two minutes.”
“Fine.” Myron gestured to the right. “Why don’t we step into the teachers’ lavatory? I assume you have a key.”
“Yes.”
He opened the door. Myron had always wanted to see a teachers’ bathroom, see how the other half lives. It was unremarkable in every way.
“Okay, you have me here,” Gary said. “What do you want?”
“Tell me about this ad.”
Gary swallowed. His enlarged Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a boxer’s head avoiding jabs. “I don’t know anything about it.”
Myron and Win exchanged a glance.
“Can I stick his head in a toilet?” Win asked.
Gary straightened his back. “If you are trying to frighten me, it won’t work.”
Win’s voice was semipleading. “One quick dunk?”
“Not yet.” Myron turned his attention back to Gary. “I have no interest in busting you, Gary. You’re a perv, that’s your business. I want to know about your connection with Kathy Culver.”
Sweat appeared above Gary’s upper lip. “She was a student of mine.”
“I know. Why is her picture in Nips? In your ad?”
“I have no idea. I saw it for the first time yesterday.”
“But that’s your ad, right?”
He hesitated, giving silent half-shrugs to no one in particular. “Okay,” he said, “I admit it. I advertise in Mr. Nickler’s publications. No law against that. But I did not put that picture of Kathy in the ad.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
&nbs
p; “But you admit operating sex lines?”
“Yes. It’s harmless. I do it to make extra money. Nobody gets hurt.”
“Another prince,” Myron said. “How much extra money?”
“In the business’s heyday I was making twenty thousand dollars a month.”
Myron wasn’t sure he heard right. “Twenty thousand dollars a month from phone sex?”
“In the mid-eighties, yes. Before the government got involved and began to crack down on 900 lines. Now I’m lucky to clear eight grand a month.”
“Damn bureaucrats,” Myron said. “So how does Kathy Culver fit into all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Gee, Gary, a naked picture of her is in your ad this month. Maybe that’s what I mean.”
“I already told you. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Then I guess it’s a coincidence, her being a student of yours and all.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t hold him under long,” Win promised. “Please.”
Myron shook his head. “You wrote her a glowing recommendation letter for college, correct?”
“Kathy was a wonderful student,” Gary replied.
“And what else?”
“If you are suggesting that my relationship with Kathy was something other than student-teacher—”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
Once again he crossed his arms over his chest. “I will not dignify that with a response. And I am now terminating this conversation.”
Gary was addressing them in that way teachers do. Sometimes teachers forget that life is not a classroom.
“Dunk him,” Myron said.
“With pleasure.”
Gary probably had two inches on Win. He leaned up on his toes and gave Win his most withering glare.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Gary said.
“Mistake number one.”
Win moved with a speed that videocameras would not catch. He took hold of Gary’s hand, twisted it, and pulled down. Hapkido move. Gary dropped to the tile floor. Win pressed his knee against the point of Gary’s elbow. Gently. Not too much pain. Just enough to let him know who was in control.
“Damn,” Win said.
“What?”
“All the toilets are clean. I hate when that happens.”
“Anything to add before the dunk?” Myron asked.
Gary’s face was white. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone,” he managed.
“You’ll tell us the truth?”