WIN

by Coben, Harlan

  “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

  “The FBI will have to play this strictly by the rules,” he says, giving me a meaningful glance. “Do I need to add, ‘You don’t’?”

  “Seems you just did.”

  “If you’ll pardon the pun,” PT says, “it’s win-win, Win.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Won’t?”

  “Pardon the pun.”

  That gets a smile out of him. “Yeah, fair enough, though it’s accurate. For your part, you get to stay involved and protect the interest of your family and more specifically your cousin.”

  “And for your part?”

  “It’s a big case to solve.”

  I consider that and say, “I don’t buy it.”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “The last thing you need,” I continue, “is another notch in your retired-undefeated championship belt.” There are a lot of questions, but one keeps bubbling to the surface. So I ask it: “Why is this so important to you?”

  PT answers in two words: “Patrick O’Malley.”

  “The agent Sugarman shot?”

  “I was the rookie partner who screwed up.”

  CHAPTER 7

  My plane is fueling up as PT walks me through the telephone-book-thick file. There is a lot for me to digest, but time is also of the essence. We both agree the first person I should speak to is Lake Davies.

  “She changed her identity after being released,” PT says.

  “Not unusual,” I reply.

  “Not unusual, but in this case, suspicious. At first, she just got an official name change. Okay, fine. But two years later, after she figured that we stopped keeping tabs on her, she set up with an entirely fake ID.”

  But of course, PT had never stopped keeping tabs.

  “Her name now is Jane Dorchester. She owns a dog-boarding business on the outskirts of Lewisburg, West Virginia, with her husband, a local real estate developer named Ross Dorchester. No biological kids, but then again, they got married twenty years ago, so she would have been mid-forties. Ross has two grown girls from his first marriage.”

  “Does the husband know her real identity?”

  “Can’t say.”

  There is no reason to waste time. We are already at Teterboro Airport. Kabir quickly arranges for my plane to take me to Greenbrier Valley Airport. Less than two hours after I say goodbye to PT, the jet’s wheels are touching down in West Virginia. I keep sets of clothes on board, so I change into the closest thing I own to local garb—slim-fit Adriano Goldschmied faded blue jeans, a Saint Laurent plaid flannel shirt, and Moncler Berenice hiking boots.

  Blending in.

  A vehicle awaits my arrival on the tarmac—a chauffeur-driven Chevy Silverado pickup truck. More blending in.

  Fifteen minutes after the plane has slowed to a stop, the Chevy Silverado pulls up to a long ranch house on the end of a cul-de-sac. A depressingly cheerful sign in the yard—one where every letter is a different color—reads:

  Welcome to the RITZ SNARL-FUN

  Hotel & Resort

  I sigh out loud.

  And under that, in smaller lettering:

  West Virginia’s Top-Rated Doggie Spa,

  Hounds Down!

  I sigh again and wonder about state-mandated justification for discharging my firearm.

  The website, which I scanned through on the flight, touts the “Rated Five Paws” pet hotel and all its merit. The facility is a “cage-free canine establishment” for both “day care” and “overnight stays” for the “posh pup.” There was an oversaturation of appropriate buzz words/phrases—pampering, grooming, positively-reinforcing, and, I’m not making this up, Zen wellness.

  For a dog.

  The “hotel” (as it were) is a generic ranch-style suburban home with extended eaves and low-pitched roofs. Barking dogs serenade me up the walk and through an open front door. A young woman behind the desk offers up a toothy smile and too much enthusiasm:

  “Welcome to the Ritz Snarl-Fun!”

  “How many times a day do you have to say that?” I ask.

  “Huh?”

  “Does a sliver of your soul leave your body every time?”

  The young woman does maintenance on the toothy smile, but there is nothing behind it anymore. “Uh, can I help you with something?” She leans over the desk and looks down by my feet. “Where’s your dog?”

  “I’m here to see Jane Dorchester,” I say.

  “I can take care of you.” She hands me a clipboard. “If you can just fill out—”

  “No, no, I need to see Jane first,” I protest. “I was told by my good friend Billy Bob”—more blending in—“to ask specifically for Jane Dorchester before I fill out any paperwork.”

  She slowly puts the clipboard back on the desk and rises. “Uh, okay. Let me see if she’s available. Your name?”

  “They call me Win.”

  She looks at me. I give her a reassuring smile. She leaves.

  My phone rings. It’s Cousin Patricia. I don’t answer, instead text-replying:

  I’ll fill you in later.

  I don’t yet know how much of what PT told me I should share with Patricia, but it can wait. Do one thing at a time, as my father, who rarely did even that much, always told us. I prefer the way Myron’s mother said the same thing with a delivery that rivaled the greatest of the Borscht Belt: “You can’t ride two horses with one behind.” At the time, she was talking to me about my womanizing, so her point didn’t really take root with me, but I adore Ellen Bolitar and her wisdom just the same.

  On my right, I see a multihued playroom of sorts—slides, tunnels, ramps, chew toys. There are rainbows painted on the walls. The floor is made of large rubber tiles that snap together in green, yellow, red, and orange. The place is bursting with more color than a preschool.

  A big man comes out led by his big gut. He frowns at me. “Can I help you?”

  I point to the playroom. “Aren’t dogs color-blind?”

  He looks confused. Then he asks again, this time allowing a little more irritation into his cadence, “Can I help you?”

  “Are you Jane Dorchester?” I ask.

  Big Gut doesn’t like that. “Do I look like a Jane Dorchester?”

  “Maybe in the boob area.”

  He doesn’t like that either. “If you want to sign up your dog for a stay—”

  “I don’t,” I say.

  “Then I think you better leave.”

  “No, thank you. I’m here to see Jane Dorchester.”

  “She isn’t available.”

  “Tell her I was sent here by a Miss Davies. Miss Lake Davies.”

  His reaction would have been about the same if I’d landed a roundhouse kick on the gut. No doubt. He knows Jane Dorchester’s true identity. I’m thinking that this man must be her husband, Ross.

  “Debbie,” he says to the toothy young woman at the desk, “go out back and help with the spa baths.”

  “But Dad—”

  “Just go, honey.”

  Merely from her use of the word “Dad,” I infer that Debbie of the Desk must be one of Ross’s daughters. Don’t be too impressed. It’s bad form to toot your own horn, but I’m pretty adept at deductive reasoning. My phone buzzes. Three short beeps. Surprising. Three short beeps indicate an incoming request from my no-name rendezvous app. I’m tempted to glance at it now. Requests don’t come in that often without the male being the instigator. I am intrigued.

  But the Ellen Bolitar wisdom comes to me again: One horse, one behind.

  “You should leave,” Big Gut says when Debbie is out of earshot.

  “No, Ross, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Just get in your car—”

  “It’s a truck, not a car. Very manly, don’t you think?”

  “We don’t know anyone named Lake Davies.”

  I offer him my patented skeptical eyebrow arch. When applied correctly, words like “Oh please” become superfluous.


  “We don’t,” Ross insists.

  “Fine, then you won’t mind if I go to the media and tell them that Lake Davies, famed flamethrower from the Jane Street Six, is now hiding in West Virginia under the pseudonym Jane Dorchester.”

  He steps toward me, the big gut swinging. “Look,” he says in movie-tough-guy sotto voce, “she served her time.”

  “So she did.”

  “And this is still the United States of America.”

  “So it is.”

  “We don’t have to talk to you.”

  “You don’t, Ross. Your wife does.”

  “I know the law, pal, okay? My wife doesn’t have to say a word to you or anyone else. She has rights, including the right to remain silent. We are going to exercise that right.”

  His belly is so close I’m tempted to pat it. “And you don’t exercise that often, do you, Ross?”

  He doesn’t like that, but to be fair, it isn’t my best work. He inches closer. The belly is almost touching me now. He looks down on me. Big men so often make this mistake, don’t they?

  “Do you have a warrant?” he asks me.

  “I do not.”

  “Then you’re on a private property. We have rights.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Saying what?”

  “About having rights. Can we cut to the chase? I’m not with law enforcement. They need to follow rules. I don’t.”

  “Don’t have to…” He shakes his head in amazement. “Are you for real?”

  “Let me explain. If Jane refuses to talk to me, I will go to the press and reveal her true identity as the notorious Lake Davies. I have no problem with that. But it won’t end there. I will hire subordinates to hang around your home, your businesses, your upscale canine auberge, barraging her with questions wherever she goes—”

  “That’s harassment!”

  “Shh, don’t interrupt. I already spotted a one-star review for your hotel on Yelp from a woman who claims her poodle was bitten by a bichon frise whilst in your care. I’ll encourage her to sue, give her my personal attorney to handle the case pro bono, perhaps locate others to join a class action lawsuit against you. I will hire investigators to look into every aspect of your personal and business life. Everyone has something to hide, and if I can’t find something, I’ll make it up. I will be relentless in my attempt to destroy you both, and I will be effective. Eventually, after much unnecessary suffering, you will both realize the only way to stop the hemorrhaging is to talk to me.”

  Ross Dorchester’s face reddens. “That’s…that’s blackmail.”

  “Hold on, let me find my line in the script.” I mime flipping pages. “Here it is.” I clear my throat. “‘Blackmail is such an ugly word.’”

  For a moment Ross looks as though he might take a swing at me. I feel that rush in my veins. I want him to, of course—to make a move so I can counter. I learned a long time ago that I cannot quiet that part of me, even as I recognize that in this instance, violence would be counterproductive to my interests.

  When he speaks again, I hear pain in his voice. “You don’t know what she’s been through.”

  I give him nothing in return. This, I think to myself. This is why PT wanted me to handle this. This is why he did not want to rely on his colleagues.

  “To have you barge in here like this, after all the work she’s done to put the past behind her, to build a good life for us and our family…”

  Part of me wants to break out one of my top-ten mime moves: playing the world’s smallest violin. But again: counterproductive. “I have no intention of hurting anyone,” I assure him. “I need to speak to your wife. After that, I will probably suggest you both pack a bag and take a trip for a little while.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, like it or not, the past is coming back.”

  He blinks a few times and looks away. “Get out.”

  “No.”

  “I said—”

  Then another voice says, “Ross?”

  I turn. Her hair is short and white. She wears denim pants, an oversized brown work shirt rolled to the elbows, tired-gray sneakers. Her gloves are latex and she’s carrying a bucket. Her eyes find me, perhaps hoping for mercy or understanding. When I don’t give her any, I can see the resignation slowly cross her face. She turns her gaze back to her husband.

  “You don’t have to,” Ross begins, but Jane-Lake shakes him off.

  “We always knew this day would come.”

  Now he too has the look of surrender.

  “What’s your name?” she asks me.

  “Call me Win.”

  “Let’s take a walk out back, Win.”

  CHAPTER 8

  How did you find me?”

  We are in the backyard now. The dogs run free in two large pens—one apparently for smaller dogs, one for larger. A bearded collie is being groomed on a table. A bullmastiff is taking a bath. The sun is bright.

  She waits for my answer, so I simply say, “I have my ways.”

  “It was a long time ago. I don’t say this as an excuse. And my role was small. I don’t say that as an excuse either. But not a day goes by that I don’t think about that night.”

  I feign a yawn. She gives me a little laugh.

  “Okay, yeah, maybe I deserve that. Maybe that was a bit sanctimonious.”

  “Oh, just a bit,” I reply.

  She strips off the gloves, washes her hands thoroughly, dries them with a towel. She beckons me with her head to follow her toward a path in the woods.

  “Why are you here, Win?”

  I ignore the question by saying, “Tell me about the day Ry Strauss drowned in Michigan.”

  Her head is down as she walks. She sticks her hands in her back pockets—I’m not sure why, but I find this gesture endearing.

  “Ry didn’t drown,” she says.

  “Yet you told the police that?”

  “I did.”

  “So you lied.”

  “I did.”

  We walk deeper into the woods.

  “I’m guessing,” she says, “that Ry has surfaced.”

  I do not reply.

  “Is he dead or alive?”

  Again I ignore her question. “When was the last time you saw Ry Strauss?”

  “You’re not an FBI agent, are you?”

  “No.”

  “But you have a big interest in this?”

  I stop. “Mrs. Dorchester?”

  “Call me Lake.” She has, I admit, a rather potent smile. I like it. There is a quiet strength to this woman. “Why not, right?”

  “Why not,” I repeat. “My interests are irrelevant, Lake. I need you to focus. Answer my questions and then I’ll be out of your life. Is that clear?”

  “You’re something.”

  “I am, yes. When was the last time you saw Ry Strauss?”

  “More than forty years ago.”

  “So that would be…?”

  “Three weeks before I turned myself in.”

  “You’ve had no contact with him since?”

  “None.”

  “Any idea where he’s been?”

  Her voice is softer this time. “None.” Then she adds, “Is Ry alive?”

  Yet again I ignore her query. “Where were you the last time you saw him?”

  “I can’t see how it matters now.”

  I smile at her. My smile says, Just answer.

  “We were in New York City. There’s a pub called Malachy’s on Seventy-Second Street near Columbus Avenue.”

  I know Malachy’s. It’s a legit dive bar, with harried hay-straw-haired barmaids who call you hon and laminated bar menus that make you reach for a hand sanitizer. Malachy’s is not an artificially created “dive,” not some Disney reproduction of what a dive bar is supposed to look like so that hipsters can feel authentic whilst remaining safe and comfy. I go to Malachy’s sometimes—it is only a block from my abode—but when I do, I don’t pretend I belong.

  “Back in the seventies,
” Lake continues, “there was an underground network of supporters taking care of us. Ry and me, we moved around a lot. These people helped keep us hidden.” She snags my gaze. Her eyes are an inviting gray that goes well with the hair. “I’m not going to tell you any of their names.”

  “I have no interest in busting old hippies,” I say.

  “Then what do you have an interest in?”

  I wait. She sighs.

  “Right, right, anyway, we moved around—communes, basements, abandoned buildings, camping grounds, no-name motels. This went on for more than two years. You have to remember, I was only nineteen years old when this started. We’d planned to blow up an empty building. That’s all. No one was supposed to get hurt. And I didn’t even throw one of the Molotov cocktails that night.”

  She is getting off track. “So you’re at Malachy’s in New York,” I prompt.

  “Yes. Stuck in a storage room in the basement. The smell was awful. Stale beer and vomit. It still haunts me, I swear. But the big thing is, Ry, he isn’t stable. He never was, I guess. I can see that now. I don’t know what part of me was so broken I thought only he could fix it. My upbringing was troubled, but you don’t want to hear about that.”

  She is correct. I don’t.

  “But locked in that foul, tiny basement, Ry was really starting to unravel. I couldn’t stay with him anymore. It was just too abusive a relationship. No, he never hit me. That’s not what I mean. The woman who got us the room under Malachy’s? She saw it too. That kind woman—I’ll call her Sheila but that’s not her real name—Sheila could see I needed help. She became a sympathetic ear. I had to leave him. No choice. But where would I go? I thought about staying underground. Sheila knew someone who could sneak me into Canada and then to Europe. But I’d been on the run for two years now. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life this way. The stress, the dirt, the exhaustion, but mostly the boredom. You either travel or you hide all day. More than anything, I think wanted people turn themselves in to escape the monotony. I just craved normalcy, you know what I mean?”

  “Normalcy,” I repeat to keep her talking.

  “So Sheila introduced me to this sympathetic lawyer who taught up at Columbia. He thought that if I turned myself in, maybe I wouldn’t get that much time, you know, being so young and under Ry’s influence and all that. So we came up with a plan. I made my way to Detroit. I hid out there for a few weeks. When enough time had passed, I turned myself in.”