by Harlan Coben
Puzzled.
The speaker buzzed. Myron said, Yes?
Big Cyndi said, Your father is on line one, Mr. Bolitar.
Thank you. Myron picked up the receiver. Hi, Dad.
Hey, Myron. How are you?
Good.
You readjusting to being home?
Yeah, I am.
Happy to be back?
Dad was stalling. Yeah, Dad, I'm great.
All this stuff with Esperanza. It must be keeping you hopping, huh?
I guess so, yeah.
Soooo, Dad said, stretching out the word, think you have time for lunch with your old man?
There was a strain in the voice.
Sure, Dad.
How about tomorrow? At the club?
Myron bit back a groan. Not the club. Sure. Noon, okay?
Good, son, that'll be fine.
Dad didn't call him son very often. More like never. Myron switched hands. Anything wrong,
Dad?
No, no, he said too quickly. Everything's fine. I just want to talk to you about something.
About what?
It'll keep, no biggie. See you tomorrow.
Click.
Myron looked at Win. That was my father.
Yes, I picked up on that when Big Cyndi said your father was on the line. It was further
reemphasized when you said 'Dad' four times during the conversation. I'm gifted that way.
He wants to have lunch tomorrow.
Win nodded. And I care because ?
Just telling you.
I'll write about it in my diary tonight, Win said. In the meantime, I had another thought, vis-a
vis Lucy Mayor.
I'm listening.
If you recall, we were trying to figure out who was being injured in all this.
I recall.
Clu obviously. Esperanza. You. I.
Yes.
Well, we must add a new person: Sophie Mayor.
Myron thought about it. Then he started nodding. That could very well be the connection. If you
wanted to destroy Sophie Mayor, what would you do? First, you'd do something to undermine
any support she had with the Yankee fans and management.
Clu Haid, Win said.
Right. Then you might hit her in what has to be a vulnerable spot her missing daughter. I
mean, if someone sent her a similar diskette, can you imagine the horror?
Which raises an interesting question, Win said.
What?
Are you going to tell her?
About the diskette?
No, about recent troop movements in Bosnia. Yes, the diskette.
Myron thought about it but not for very long. I don't see where I have any choice. I have to tell
her.
Perhaps that too is part of the theoretical plan to wear her down, Win said. Perhaps someone
sent you the diskette knowing it would get back to her.
Maybe. But she still has the right to know. It's not my place to decide what Sophie Mayor is
strong enough to handle.
Too true. Win rose. I have some contacts trying to locate the official reports on Clu's
murder autopsy, crime scene, witness statements, labs, what have you. But everyone is tightlipped.
I got a possible source, Myron said.
Oh?
The Bergen County medical examiner is Sally Li. I know her.
Through Jessica's father?
Yes.
Go for it, Win said.
Myron watched him head for the door. Win?
Yes?
You have any thoughts on how I should break the news to Sophie Mayor?
None whatsoever.
Win left then. Myron stared at the phone. He picked it up and dialed Sophie Mayor's phone
number. It took some time, but a secretary finally patched him through to her. Sophie sounded
less than thrilled to hear his voice.
She opened sharply. What?
We need to talk, Myron said. There was distortion on the line. A cell or car phone probably.
We already talked.
This is different.
Silence. Then: I'm in the car right now, about a mile from my house out on the Island. How
important is this?
Myron picked up a pen. Give me your address, he said. I'll be right over.
Chapter 19
On the street the man was still reading a newspaper. Myron's elevator trip down to the lobby featured mucho stops. Not atypical. No one spoke, of course, everyone busying themselves by staring up at the descending flashing numbers as though awaiting a UFO landing. In the lobby he joined the stream of suits and flowed out onto Park Avenue, salmons fighting upstream against the tide until, well, they died. Many of the suits walked with heads high, their expressions kick-ass-runway-model; others walked with backs bent, flesh versions of the statue on Fifth Avenue of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders,
but for them the world was simply too heavy.
Whoa, again with the deep.
Perfectly situated on the corner of Forty-sixth and Park, standing reading a newspaper but
positioned in such way as to watch all entering or leaving the Lock-Home building, was the same
man Myron had noticed standing there when he entered.
Hmm.
Myron took out his cell phone and hit the programmed button.
Articulate, Win said.
I think I got a tail.
Hold please. Maybe ten seconds passed. Then: The newspaper on the corner.
Win keeps a variety of telescopes and binoculars in his office. Don't ask.
Yep.
Good Lord, Win said. Could he be any more obvious?
Doubt it.
Where's the pride in his work? Where's the professionalism?
Sad.
That, my friend, is the whole problem with this country.
Bad tails?
It's an example. Look at him. Does anybody really stand on a street corner and read a
newspaper like that? He might as well cut out two eyeholes.
Uh-huh, Myron said. You got some free time?
But of course. How would you like to play it?
Back me up, Myron said.
Give me five.
Myron waited five minutes. He stood there and studiously avoided looking at the tail. He checked his watch and huffed a bit as though he expected someone and was getting impatient. When the five minutes passed, Myron walked straight over to the tail.
The tail spotted his approach and ducked into the newspaper.
Myron kept walking until he stood directly next to the tail. The tail kept his face in the newspaper. Myron gave him Smile 8. Big and toothy. A televangelist being handed a hefty check. Early Wink Martindale. The tail kept his eyes on the newspaper. Myron kept smiling, his eyes wide as a clown's. The tail ignored him. Myron inched closer, leaned his uber-wattage smile within inches of the taiPs face, wriggled his eyebrows.
The tail snapped closed the newspaper and sighed. Fine, hotshot, you made me. Congratulations.
Still with the Wink Martindale smile: And thank you for playing our game! But don't worry, we won't let you go home empty-handed! You get the home version of Incompetent Tail and a year's subscription to Modern Doofus Yeah, right, see you around.
Wait! Final Jeopardy! round. Answer: He or she hired you to follow me.
Bite me.
Ooo, sorry, you needed to put that in the form of a question.
The tail started walking away. When he looked back, Myron gave him the smile and a big wave. This has been a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production. Good-bye, everybody! More waving.
The tail shook his head and continued down the street, joining another stream of people. Lots of people in this stream; Win happened to be one of them. The tail would probably find a clearing and then call his boss. Win would listen in and learn all. What a plan.
Myron headed to his re
nted car. He circled the block once. No more tails. At least none as obvious as the last. No matter. He was driving out to the Mayor estate on Long Island. It didn't much matter if anyone knew.
He spent his time in the car working on the cell phone. He had two arena football players indoor football on a smaller field, for those who don't know both of whom were hoping to scratch a bench spot on an NFL roster before the waiver wire closed down. Myron called teams, but nobody was interested. Lots of people asked him about the murder. He brushed them off. He knew his efforts were fairly futile, but he stuck to it. Big of him. He tried concentrating on his work, tried to lose himself in the numb bliss of what he did for a living. But the world kept creeping in. He thought about Esperanza in jail. He thought about Jessica in California. He thought about Bonnie Haid and her fatherless boys at home. He thought about Clu in formaldehyde. He thought about his father's phone call. And strangely, he kept thinking about Terese alone on that island. He blocked out the rest.
When he reached Muttontown, a section of Long Island that had somehow escaped him in the past, he turned right onto a heavily wooded road. He drove about two miles, passing maybe three driveways. He finally reached a simple iron gate with a small sign that read THE MAYORS. There were several security cameras and an intercom. He pressed the button. A woman's voice came on and said, May I help you?
Myron Bolitar to see Sophie Mayor. Please drive up. Park in front of the house. The gate opened. Myron drove up a rather steep hill. Tall hedges lined both sides of the driveway, giving the aura of being a rat in a maze. He spotted a few more security cameras. No sign of the house yet. When he reached the top of the hill, he hit upon a clearing. There was a slightly overgrown grass tennis court and croquet field. Very Norma Desmond. He made another turn. The house was dead straight ahead. It was a mansion, of course, though not as huge as some Myron had seen. Vines clung to pale yellow stucco. The windows looked leaded. The whole scene screamed Roaring Twenties. Myron half expected Scott and Zelda to pull up behind him in a slick roadster.
This part of the driveway was made up of small loose pebbles rather than pavement. His tires crunched them as it drew closer. There was a fountain in the middle of the circular drive, about fifteen feet in front of the door. Neptune stood naked with a triton in his hand. The fountain, Myron realized, was a smaller version of the one in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Water spouted up but not very high or with much enthusiasm, as if someone had set the water pressure on light urination.
Myron parked the car. There was a perfectly square swimming pool on his right, complete with lily pads floating on the top. A poor man's Giverny. There were statues in the gardens, again something from old Italy or Greece or the like. Venus de Milo-like except with all the limbs.
He got out of the car and stopped. He thought about what he was about to unearth, and for a brief moment he considered turning back. How, he wondered again, do I tell this woman about her missing daughter melting on a computer diskette?
No answer came to him.
The door opened. A woman in casual clothes led him through a corridor and into a large room with high tin ceilings and lots of windows and a semidisappointing view of more white statues and woods. The interior was art deco, but it didn't try too hard. Nice. Except, of course, for the hunting trophies. Taxidermy birds of some sort sat on the shelves. The birds looked upset. Probably were. Who could blame them?
Myron turned and stared at a mounted deer. He waited for Sophie Mayor. The deer waited too. The deer seemed very patient.
Go ahead, a voice said.
Myron turned around. It was Sophie Mayor. She was wearing dirt-smeared jeans and a plaid shirt, the very essence of the weekend botanist.
Never short of a witty opening gambit, Myron countered, Go ahead and what?
Make the snide remark about hunting.
I didn't say anything.
Come, come, Myron. Don't you think hunting is barbaric?
Myron shrugged. I never really thought about it. Not true, but what the hey.
But you don't approve, do you?
Not my place to approve.
How tolerant. She smiled. But you of course would never do it, am I right?
Hunt? No, it's not for me.
You think it's inhumane. She gestured with her chin to the mounted deer. Killing Bambi's
mother and all.
It's just not for me.
I see. Are you a vegetarian?
I don't eat much red meat, Myron said.
I'm not talking about your health. Do you ever eat any dead animals?
Yes.
So do you think it's more humane to kill, say, a chicken or a cow than it is to kill a deer?
No.
Do you know what kind of awful torture that cow goes through before it's slaughtered?
For food, Myron said.
Pardon?
Slaughtered for food.
I eat what I kill, Myron. Your friend up there she nodded to the patient deer she was
gutted and eaten. Feel better?
Myron thought about that. Uh, we're not having lunch, are we?
That got a small chuckle. I won't go into the whole food chain argument, Sophie Mayor said.
But God created a world where the only way to survive is to kill. Period. We all kill. Even the
strict vegetarians have to plow fields. You don't think plowing kills small animals and insects?
I never really thought about it. Hunting is just more hands-on, more honest. When you sit down and eat an animal, you have no appreciation for the process, for the sacrifice made so that you could survive. You let someone else do the killing. You're above even thinking about it. When I eat an animal, I have a fuller understanding. I don't do it casually. I don't depersonalize it.
Okay, Myron said, while we're on the subject, what about those hunters who don't kill for
food?
Most do eat what they kill.
But what about those who kill for sport? I mean, isn't that part of it?
Yes.
So what about that? What about killing merely for sport? As opposed to what, Myron? Killing for a pair of shoes? Or a nice coat? Is spending a full day outdoors, coming to understand how nature works and appreciating her bountiful glory, is that worth any less than a leather pocketbook? If it's worth killing an animal because you prefer your belt made of animal skin instead of something man-made, is it not worth killing one because you simply enjoy the thrill of it?
He said nothing. I'm sorry to ride you about this. But the hypocrisy of it all drives me somewhat batty. Everyone wants to save the whale, but what about the thousands of fish and shrimp a whale eats each day? Are their lives worthless because they aren't as cute? Ever notice how no one ever wants to save ugly animals? And the same people who think hunting is barbaric put up special fences so the deer can't eat their precious gardens. So the deers overpopulate and die of starvation. Is that better? And don't even get me started on those so-called ecofeminists. Men hunt, they say, but women are too genteel. Of all the sexist nonsense. They want to be environmentalists? They want to stay as close to a state of nature as possible? Then understand the one universal truth
about nature: You either kill or you die.
They both turned and stared at the deer for a moment. Proof positive.
You didn't come here for a lecture, she said.
Myron had welcomed this delay. But the time had come. No, ma'am.
Ma'am? Sophie Mayor chuckled without a hint of humor. That sounds grim, Myron.
Myron turned and looked at her. She met his gaze and held it.
Call me Sophie, she said.
He nodded. Can I ask you a very personal, maybe hurtful question, Sophie?
You can try.
Have you heard anything from your daughter since she ran away?
No.
The answer came fast. Her gaze remained steady, her voice strong. But her face was losing color.
Then you have no idea where s
he is?
No idea.
Or even if she's
Alive or dead, she finished for him. None.
Her voice was so monotone it seemed on the verge of a scream. There was a quaking near her
mouth now, a fault line starting to give way. Sophie Mayor stood and waited for his explanation,
afraid perhaps to say any more.
I got a diskette in the mail, he began.
She frowned. What?
A computer diskette. It came in the mail. I put it in my A drive, and it just started up. I didn't
have to hit any keys.
Self-starting program, she said, suddenly the computer expert. That's not complicated
technology.
Myron cleared his throat. A graphic came on. It started out as a photograph of your daughter.
Sophie Mayor took a step back.
It was the same photograph that's in your office. On the right side of the credenza.
That was Lucy's junior year of high school, she said. The school portrait.
Myron nodded, though he didn't know why. After a few seconds her image started melting on
the screen.
Melting?
Yes. It sort of dissolved into a puddle of, uh, blood. Then a sound came on. A teenage girl
laughing, I think.
Sophie Mayor's eyes were glistening now. I don't understand.
Neither do I.
This came in the mail?
Yes.
On a floppy disk?
Yes, Myron said. Then he added for no reason: A three-and-a-half-inch floppy.
When?
It arrived in my office about two weeks ago.
Why did you wait so long to tell me? She put a hand up. Oh, wait. You were out of the
country.
Yes.
So when did you first see it?
Yesterday.
But you saw me this morning. Why didn't you tell me then?
I didn't know who the girl was. Not at first anyway. Then when I was in your office, I saw the
photograph on the credenza. I got confused. I wasn't sure what to say.
She nodded slowly. So that explains your abrupt departure.
Yes. I'm sorry.
Do you have the diskette? My people will analyze it.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew it. I don't think it'll be any help.
Why not?
I took it to a police lab. They said it automatically reformatted itself.
So the diskette is blank?