by Harlan Coben
“A lifetime ago.”
“College sweethearts, if I recall.”
“Like I said, a lifetime ago.”
“So,” Calvin said, starting to walk again, “you were even better with the women than Greg.”
Myron ignored the comment. “Does Clip know about my so-called past with Emily?”
“He’s very thorough.”
“So that explains why you chose me,” Myron said.
“It was a consideration, but I don’t think it’s too important.”
“Oh?”
“Greg hates Emily. He’d never confide in her. But since this whole custody battle started there’s definitely been a change in Greg.”
“How so?”
“For one thing, he signed a deal with Forte sneakers.”
Myron was surprised. “Greg? An endorsement deal?”
“It’s very hush-hush,” Calvin said. “They’re supposed to announce it end of the month, right before the playoffs.”
Myron whistled. “They must have paid him a bundle.”
“A bundle and a half, I hear. Upwards of ten million a year.”
“Makes sense,” Myron said. “A popular player who has refused to endorse any products for more than a decade—it’s an irresistible draw. Forte does well with track and tennis shoes, but they’re fairly unknown in the basketball world. Greg gives them instant credibility.”
“That he does,” Calvin agreed.
“Any idea why he changed his mind after all these years?”
Calvin shrugged. “Maybe Greg realized he wasn’t getting any younger and wanted to cash in. Maybe this whole divorce thing. Maybe he got whacked on the head and woke up with an iota of sanity.”
“Where’s he been living since the divorce?”
“In the house in Ridgewood. It’s in Bergen County.”
Myron knew it well. He asked for the address. Calvin gave it to him. “What about Emily?” Myron asked. “Where’s she staying?”
“She and the kids are with her mother. I think they’re in Franklin Lakes or thereabouts.”
“Have you done any checking yet—Greg’s house, his credit cards, bank accounts?”
Calvin shook his head. “Clip thought this thing was too big to trust to an agency. That’s why we called you. I’ve driven past Greg’s house a few times, knocked on the door once. No car in the driveway or garage. No lights on.”
“But no one’s checked inside the house?”
“No.”
“So for all you know he slipped in the bathtub and hit his head.”
Calvin looked at him. “I said, no lights on. You think he bathed in the dark?”
“That’s a good point,” Myron said.
“Some hotshot investigator.”
“I’m a slow starter.”
They arrived at the team room. “Wait here,” Calvin said.
Myron took out his cellular. “Mind if I make a call?”
“Go ahead.”
Calvin disappeared behind the door. Myron turned on the power and dialed. Jessica answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“I’m going to have to cancel dinner tonight,” Myron said.
“You better have a good excuse,” Jessica said.
“A great one. I’ll be playing professional basketball for the New Jersey Dragons.”
“That’s nice. Have a good game, dear.”
“I’m serious. I’m playing for the Dragons. Actually, ‘playing’ is probably not the right word. Might be more accurate to say I’ll be getting fanny sores for the Dragons.”
“Are you for real?”
“It’s a long story, but yes, I’m now officially a professional basketball player.”
Silence.
“I’ve never boffed a professional basketball player,” Jessica said. “I’ll be just like Madonna.”
“Like a virgin,” Myron said.
“Wow. Talk about a dated reference.”
“Yeah, well, what can I say. I’m an eighties kinda guy.”
“So, Mr. Eighties, you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“No time now. Tonight. After the game. I’ll leave a ticket at the window.”
Calvin stuck his head back in. “What’s your waist? Thirty-four?”
“Thirty-six. Maybe thirty-seven.”
Calvin nodded and withdrew. Myron dialed the private line of Windsor Horne Lockwood III, president of the prestigious investment firm of Lock-Horne Securities in midtown Manhattan. Win answered on the third ring.
“Articulate,” Win said.
Myron shook his head. “Articulate?”
“I said articulate, not repeat.”
“We have a case,” Myron said.
“Oh yippee,” he drawled in that preppy, Philly Main-Line accent of his. “I’m enthralled. I’m elated. But before I completely wet myself, I must ask but one question.”
“Shoot.”
“Is this case of your customary charity persuasion?”
“Wet away,” Myron said. “The answer is no.”
“What? No moral crusade for brave Myron?”
“Not this time.”
“Heavens be, do tell.”
“Greg Downing is missing. It’s our job to find him.”
“And for services rendered we receive?”
“At least seventy-five grand plus a first round draft pick as a client.” Now was not the time to fill Win in on his temporary career change.
“My, my,” Win said happily. “Pray tell, what shall we do first?”
Myron gave him the address of Greg’s house in Ridgewood. “Meet me there in two hours.”
“I’ll take the Batmobile,” Win said and hung up.
Calvin returned. He held out a purple-and-aqua Dragon uniform. “Try this on.”
Myron did not reach for it right away. He stared at it, his stomach twisting and diving. When he spoke his voice was soft. “Number thirty-four?”
“Yeah,” Calvin said. “Your old number at Duke. I remembered.”
Silence.
Calvin finally broke it. “Go try it on.”
Myron felt something well up in his eye. He shook his head. “No need,” he said. “I’m sure it’s the right size.”
Chapter 3
Ridgewood was a primo suburb, one of those old towns that still calls itself a village, where ninety-five percent of the students go on to college and no one lets their kids associate with the other five percent. There were a couple of strips of tract housing, a few examples of the mid-sixties suburban explosion, but for the most part Ridgewood’s fine homes dated from an earlier, theoretically more innocent time.
Myron found the Downing house without any problem. Old Victorian. Very big but not unwieldy, three levels with perfectly faded cedar shingles. On the left side there was one of those rounded towers with a pointy top. Lots of outdoor porch space with all the Rockwellian touches: the kind of double swing where Atticus and Scout would share a lemonade on a hot Alabama night; a child’s bicycle tipped on its side; a Flexible Flyer snow sled, although it hadn’t snowed in six weeks. The required basketball hoop hung slightly rusted over the driveway. Fire Department “Tot Finder” stickers glistened red and silver from two upstairs windows. Old oak trees lined the walk like weathered sentries.
Win hadn’t arrived yet. Myron parked and rolled down a window. The perfect mid-March day. The sky was robin-egg blue. The birds chirped in cliché. He tried to picture Emily here, but the picture would not hold. It was far easier to see her in a New York high rise or one of those nouveau-riche mansions all done in white with Erté sculptures and silver pearls and too many gaudy mirrors. Then again he hadn’t spoken to Emily in ten years. She may have changed. Or he may have misjudged her all those years ago. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Funny being back in Ridgewood. Jessica had grown up here. She didn’t like coming back anymore, but now the two loves of his life—Jessica and Emily—had something else in common: the village of Ridgewood. That could be added to the list of commonalit
ies between the two women—stuff like meeting Myron, being courted by Myron, falling in love with Myron, crushing Myron’s heart like a tomato under a stiletto heel. The usual fare.
Emily had been his first. Freshman year of college was late to lose one’s virginity, if one were to listen to the boasts of friends. But if there had indeed been a sexual revolution among American teenagers in the late seventies/early eighties, Myron had either missed it or been on the wrong side. Women had always liked him—it wasn’t that. But while his friends discoursed in great detail on their various orgylike experiences, Myron seemed to attract the wrong girls, the nice girls, the ones who still said no—or would have had Myron had the courage (or foresight) to try.
That changed in college when he met Emily.
Passion. It’s a word bandied about quite a bit, but Myron thought it might apply here. At a minimum, unconfined lust. Emily was the type of woman a man labels “hot,” as opposed to “beautiful.” See a truly “beautiful” woman and you want to paint or write a poem. See Emily and you want to engage in mutual fabric-ripping. She was raw sexuality, maybe ten pounds bigger than she should have been but those pounds were exquisitely distributed. The two of them made a potent mix. They were both under twenty, both away from home for the first time, both creative.
In a word: kaboom.
The car phone rang. Myron picked it up.
“I assume,” Win said, “that you plan on having us break into the Downing residence.”
“Yes.”
“Then parking your car in front of said residence would not be a sound decision, would it?”
Myron glanced about. “Where are you?”
“Drive down to the end of the block. Make a left, then your second right. I’m parked behind the office building.”
Myron hung up and restarted the car. He followed the directions and pulled into the lot. Win leaned against his Jaguar with his arms crossed. He looked, as he always did, as if he were posing for the cover of WASP Quarterly. His blond hair was perfectly in place. His complexion slightly ruddy, his features porcelain and high and a little too perfect. He wore khaki pants, a blue blazer, Top-Siders sans socks, and a loud Lilly Pulitzer tie. Win looked like what you’d picture a guy named Windsor Horne Lockwood III to look like—elitist, self-absorbed, wimpy.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
The office building held an eclectic mix. Gynecologist. Electrolysis. Subpoena delivery service. Nutritionist. Women-only health club. Not surprisingly Win was standing near the entrance to the women-only health club. Myron approached.
“How did you know I was parked in front of the house?”
Keeping his eye on the entranceway Win motioned with his head. “Up that hill. You can see everything with a pair of binoculars.”
A woman in her early twenties wearing a black Lycra aerobics suit walked out carrying a baby. It hadn’t taken her long to get her figure back. Win smiled at her. The woman smiled back.
“I love young mothers,” Win said.
“You love women in Lycra,” Myron corrected.
Win nodded. “There’s that.” He snapped on a pair of sunglasses. “Shall we begin?”
“You think breaking into that house will be a problem?”
Win made his I’ll-pretend-you-didn’t-ask-that face. Another woman exited the health club; sadly, this one did not warrant a Win smile. “Fill me in,” Win said. “And move away. I want to make sure they can see the Jag.”
Myron told him all he knew. Eight women came out in the five minutes it took to tell the story. Only two of them were awarded The Smile. One wore a tiger-striped leotard. She was treated to the Full-Wattage Smile, the one that almost touched Win’s eyes.
Win’s face did not seem to register anything Myron said. Even when he told him about taking Greg’s temporary slot on the Dragons, Win went on staring hopefully at the health club door. Normal Win behavior. Myron finished up by asking, “Any questions?”
Win bounced a finger against his lip. “Do you think the one in the tiger-striped leotard was wearing any underwear?”
“I don’t know,” Myron said, “but she was definitely wearing a wedding band.”
Win shrugged. Didn’t matter to him. Win didn’t believe in love or relationships with the opposite sex. Some might take this for simple sexism. They’d be wrong. Women weren’t objects to Win; objects sometimes got his respect.
“Follow me,” Win said.
They were less than half a mile from the Downing house. Win had already scouted it out and found the path with the least chance of being seen or arousing suspicion. They walked in the comfortable silence of two men who had known each other a long time and very well.
“There’s one interesting aside in all this,” Myron said.
Win waited.
“Do you remember Emily Schaeffer?” Myron asked.
“The name rings a bell.”
“I dated her for two years at Duke.” Win and Myron had met at Duke. They had also been roommates for all four years. It had been Win who had introduced Myron to the martial arts, who had gotten him involved with feds. Win was now a top producer at his Lock-Horne Securities on Park Avenue, a securities firm that had been run by Win’s family since the market had first opened. Myron rented space from Win, and Win also handled all money-matters for MB SportsReps’ clients.
Win thought a bit. “Is she the one who used to make the little monkey noises?”
“No,” Myron said.
Win seemed surprised. “Who was the one who made the little monkey noises?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe it was someone I was with.”
“Maybe.”
Win considered this, shrugged. “What about her?”
“She used to be married to Greg Downing.”
“Divorced?”
“Yep.”
“I remember her now,” Win said. “Emily Schaeffer. Built.”
Myron nodded.
“I never liked her,” Win said. “Except for those little monkey noises. They were rather interesting.”
“She wasn’t the one who made monkey noises.”
Win smiled gently. “The walls were thin,” he said.
“And you used to listen in?”
“Only when you pulled down the shade so I couldn’t watch.”
Myron shook his head. “You’re a pig,” he said.
“Better than a monkey.”
They reached the front lawn and proceeded to the door. The secret was to look like you belonged. If you scurried around back, hunched over, someone might take notice. Two men in ties approaching the door does not normally lead one to think thief.
There was a metal keypad with a little red light. The light was on.
“Alarm,” Myron said.
Win shook his head. “Fake. It’s just a light. Probably bought it at Sharper Image.” Win looked at the lock and made a tsk-tsk noise. “A Kwiktight brand on a pro basketball player’s salary,” he said, clearly disgusted. “Might as well use Play-Doh.”
“What about the dead bolt?” Myron asked.
“It’s not locked.”
Win already had out his strip of celluloid. Credit cards are too stiff. Celluloid worked much better—known as ’loiding the lock. In no more time than it would take with a key, the door was open and they were inside the front foyer. The door had a chute and the mail was all over the place. Myron quickly checked some postage dates. No one had been here in at least five days.
The decor was nice in a fake-rustic, Martha Stewart sort of way. The furniture was what they called “simple country” where the look was indeed simple and the price outrageous. Lots of pines and wickers and antiques and dry flowers. The smell of potpourri was strong and cloying.
They split up. Win went upstairs to the home office. He turned on the computer and began to download everything onto floppy disks. Myron found the answering machine in a room that used to be called a “den” but now went by such lofty titles as the “California r
oom” or “great room.” The machine announced the time and date of each message. Awfully convenient. Myron pressed a button. The tape rewound and started playing. On the first message, which according to the digital voice was received at 9:18 P.M. the night Greg vanished, Myron hit bingo.
A shaky woman’s voice said, “It’s Carla. I’ll be in the back booth until midnight.” Click.
Myron rewound and listened again. There were lots of noises in the background—people chatting, music, glasses clinking. The call had probably been placed from a bar or restaurant, especially with that back-booth reference. So who was this Carla? A girlfriend? Probably. Who else would call that late to set up a meeting for even later that night? But of course this had not been just any night. Greg Downing had vanished sometime between the time this call was made and the next morning.
Strange coincidence.
So where did they meet—assuming Greg had indeed made their back-booth liaison? And why did Carla, whoever she might be, sound so shaky—or was this just Myron’s imagination?
Myron listened to the rest of the tape. No other messages from Carla. If Greg hadn’t shown up at said back booth, wouldn’t Carla have called again? Probably. So for now, Myron could safely assume that Greg Downing had seen Carla sometime before his disappearance.
A clue.
There were also four calls from Martin Felder, Greg’s agent. He seemed to grow more perturbed with each message. The last one said, “Jesus, Greg, how can you not call me? Is the ankle serious or what? And don’t go incommunicado on me now, not when we’re wrapping up the Forte deal. Call me, okay?” There were also three calls from a man named Chris Darby, who apparently worked for Forte Sports Incorporated. He too sounded panicked. “Marty won’t tell me where you are. I think he’s playing a game with us, Greg, trying to up the price or something. But we had a deal, am I right? Let me give you my home number, okay, Greg? How bad’s this injury anyhow?”
Myron smiled. Martin Felder’s client was missing, but he was doing all he could to turn it into a positive lever. Agents. He pressed the mode button on the answering machine several times. Eventually the LCD screen scrolled to reveal the code number Greg had set to call in for messages: 317. A fairly new trick of the trade. Now Myron could call in anytime, press 317, and hear what messages had been left on the machine. He hit the redial button on the phone. Another fairly new trick. Find out who Greg called last. The phone rang twice and was picked up by a woman saying, “Kimmel Brothers.” Whoever they were. Myron hung up.