WIN

by Coben, Harlan

  “Yep. Which was weird.”

  “Why weird?”

  “Because he’d come out over there, to the left. Then he’d circle in front of the building anyway. He’d walk right past me.”

  “So he took more steps this way?”

  “More steps, longer elevator ride, it just didn’t make sense. Except.”

  “Except?”

  “Except the lobby has a ton of cameras. But from his elevator to the exit in the basement, there was only the one.”

  Made sense. “Did he ever talk to you?”

  “The guy in the tower?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not once. He’d go past me like clockwork every Wednesday night. Or, well, it was four a.m. so maybe that was Thursday morning? Still dark out though.” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter, whatever. He’d walk past me. For years this would happen. I would nod and say, ‘Good evening, sir.’ I’m polite like that. He’s one of my tenants. I treat him with respect, no matter how he treats me. Most tenants, well, they’re great. They call me by my first name, tell me to do the same with them. But I don’t. I like to show respect, you know what I’m saying? I’ve been here eighteen years, and I would say I still haven’t met half of the people who live here. They’re in bed by midnight when I come on. But the tower guy? I’d nod to him every time. I would say, ‘Good evening, sir.’ He just kept his head down. Never said anything. Never looked up. Never acknowledged I even existed.”

  I say nothing.

  “Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I know he’s dead and all, so I shouldn’t speak bad about the man. I think he had issues, you know. Glenda, my wife, she watches some show on hoarders and whatnot. It’s a real illness, Glenda tells me. So maybe that was it. It’s not like I’m happy he’s dead or anything.”

  “You said every Wednesday night.”

  “Huh?”

  “You said he walked past you every Wednesday night.”

  “Or Thursday morning. It’s weird having a midnight gig. Like tonight. I arrived Wednesday night but what time is it now?”

  I check my watch. “Almost one thirty.”

  “Right, so it’s not Wednesday night anymore. It’s Thursday morning.”

  “Let’s call it Thursday morning,” I say, because this subject is irrelevant and boring me.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “You said you saw him walk past you every Thursday morning at four a.m.”

  “Yep, that’s right.”

  “So it was a routine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long had he been doing this?”

  “Oh, years and years.”

  “Summer, fall, spring, winter?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I mean, look, there were times he missed. I’m sure of it. There were months I wouldn’t see him at all. Like maybe he flew to Florida for the winter, I don’t know. And there were nights, well, the job is quiet. I sit. I may stick in my AirPods and stream something on Netflix, you know what I’m saying? But as soon as someone touches the door, bam, I’m up. We lock it after midnight. So maybe sometimes he walked by and I didn’t see.”

  “Did you ever see him leave at other times?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Always four a.m. or right around then.”

  I think about that. “And what time did he come back?”

  “He didn’t stay out long. I think he just took a walk. He was back within an hour. Maybe sometimes more. I don’t think it was consistent. Look, I figure he’s a weirdo, wants to be alone. So he takes night walks. I’ve heard of stranger things, right?”

  “When he walked past you heading out,” I continue, “what direction was he going?”

  “East.”

  I glance down across the street in the direction where he’s pointing. “Into the park?”

  “Yep.”

  “Every time?”

  “Every time. I figured he was taking a walk. Like I said. Strange time, and I know the park is a lot safer now than it used to be, but you wouldn’t see me strolling around in there at four in the morning.”

  I think about this. Four a.m. I wonder whether that is a clue.

  I think it is.

  “When was the last time you saw him going out like that?” I ask.

  “Recently. Last week maybe. Or the week before.”

  I realize that would have been the day before he was murdered. Ry Strauss goes out for his usual Thursday morning four a.m. walk. On Friday he goes out again, for the first time in forever during the daytime, and comes back with in all likelihood his killer.

  I have a plan.

  * * *

  I stand in the shadows across the street from Malachy’s.

  The time is four a.m. By law, New York City bars must stop serving alcohol at four a.m. Coincidence? I, for one, hope not.

  They say New York is the city that never sleeps. That may be true, but right about now, her eyes are blinking closed and her head is nodding in exhaustion. My lizard brain, that survival instinct, is wary of shutting itself down. It prefers preparedness. Even as I move about my day, the lizard brain seeks out potential (or erroneously perceived) enemies and threats.

  I stay hidden and watch Malachy’s door. I have changed into jogging attire and a sweatshirt with a hood. No, it’s not a hoodie. It’s a sweatshirt with a hood. I would never wear a hoodie. I am patient. I wear earphones. I’m listening to a playlist Kabir created for me featuring Meek Mill, Big Sean, and 21 Savage. Somewhere in the past year or two, after initially scoffing at what I could not comprehend, I have to come to love what we call rap or hip-hop. I know that this music, like Malachy’s Pub, was not created for me, but the underlying anger appeals. I also enjoy the humanism in the desperate posturing and bravado; they want to appear tough but their neediness and insecurity shine through so brightly I assume they must know that we are in on the joke.

  Right now, as Kathleen and a male bartender lock up for the night, Meek Mill is bemoaning the fact that he can’t trust women because he has issues.

  I hear you, my troubled friend.

  Kathleen waves goodbye to the bartender. He heads west toward Broadway, probably to the One train. Kathleen crosses Columbus Avenue and continues to walk with purpose east on Seventy-Second Street. She lives, I know from Kabir’s research, on Sixty-Eighth near West End Avenue.

  In short, she is not going home.

  I follow from across the street. Two minutes later, she walks past the Dakota and crosses into Central Park. At this hour, the park is pretty much abandoned. I see no one else. Trailing her will be more difficult. We all possess lizard brains, don’t we? And in a situation when you are a woman alone in a park and a man in a hooded sweatshirt, however tasteful that hooded sweatshirt may be, is following you, you take notice.

  When she heads north on the sidewalk running along what is simply called the Lake, I take a parallel path west of her that goes through the brush. This path is dark and in some ways not the safest at night, but one, I am always armed, and two, if you are any sort of experienced mugger, you wouldn’t set to pounce in an area so remote that you’d have to wait days, weeks, or months for a profitable target to happen by, would you?

  I lose sight of Kathleen for seconds at a time, but so far, this appears to be working. She is making her way north toward the entrance to the wildlife thicket known as the Ramble on the north shore of the Lake. The Ramble is a nearly forty-acre protected natural reserve with winding paths and old bridges and a tremendous variety of topography and fauna and the like. There is bird-watching, yes, but in a less enlightened day, the Ramble was best known for hosting homosexual encounters. It was a spot where gay men would “cruise,” as we used to say. It was supposedly the safest place to avoid being assaulted by those who meant them harm, which is to say, of course, it hadn’t been very safe at all.

  Kathleen stops on the bridge that crosses over the Lake and into the heart of the Ramble. The moon glistens off the water, and I can see her silhouette. A minute passes. She doesn’t
move. There is no reason to pretend anymore.

  I come down the path. Kathleen hears my approach and turns expectantly.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I say when she sees me.

  Kathleen jolts back a little. “Wait, I know you.”

  I don’t reply.

  “What the hell, are you following me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Ry Strauss won’t be coming tonight.”

  “Huh? Who?” But I can see the fear in her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I move closer, so she can see my disappointed frown. “You can do better than that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “Ry was murdered.”

  I just say it like that, too matter-of-factly. Breaking bad news is not my forte.

  “He was…?”

  “Murdered, yes.”

  Tears push into her eyes. Kathleen makes a fist and places the back of it against her mouth to stifle a cry. I wait, give her a moment or two. She puts the fist down and blinks into the moonlight.

  “Did you kill him?” she asks me.

  “No.”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “If that were my plan, you’d be dead by now.”

  That doesn’t seem to comfort her much.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I need your help,” I repeat.

  “With what?”

  “With trying to catch his killer.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Kathleen doesn’t say a word as we head back down Central Park toward Seventy-Second Street and my abode. The gate over the arch entrance of the Dakota is locked for the night. I ring the bell. Tom comes out and unlocks it for me. He’s used to seeing me bring women back here at all hours, though not as many in recent years, but I think Kathleen’s advanced age surprises him.

  We head through a courtyard with two fountains and take the elevator up to my apartment overlooking the park. Some people are intimidated by this place. She is not one of them. She used the walk over here to regain her bearings. She moves straight toward the window and looks out. Kathleen moves with confidence, head high, eyes dry. Her clothes are wrinkled from a long night, the blouse is still working-barmaid-one-button-too-low at the neckline. I bought this apartment fully furnished from a famed composer who lived here for thirty years. You may already be conjuring up the layout in your mind’s eyes—dark cherrywood, high ceilings, inlaid woodwork, antique armoires, crystal chandeliers, oversized fireplace with brass tools, ornate silk oriental carpets, red-maroon velvet chairs. If so, you are correct. Myron describes my abode as “Versailles redux,” which is both spot-on in terms of impression and technically incorrect in every way, since I own nothing from that particular geography or era.

  I pour Kathleen a cognac and hand it to her.

  “How did you know?” she asks.

  I assume that she is talking about her weekly meetings in the park with Ry Strauss. I hadn’t known for certain, of course. I just followed my intuition. “For one, you have a police record for twelve arrests, all for civil disobedience at various progressive rallies.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s ‘for one.’”

  “And for two?”

  “You told me that you started working at Malachy’s in 1978. Frankie Boy told me you were a part-timer as early as 1973.”

  “Frankie Boy has a big mouth.” She takes a deep sip. “Is Ry really dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “I loved him, you know. I loved him for a very long time.”

  I had figured this. Kathleen hadn’t “rescued” Lake Davies—or if she had, only inadvertently. Her real goal in facilitating Lake’s surrender was simpler: Remove the competition for Ry Strauss’s affection.

  “Who killed him?” she asks.

  “I was hoping that perhaps you could help me with that.”

  “I don’t see how,” she says. “Do the police have any suspects?”

  “Not a one.”

  Kathleen takes a deep sip and turns back to the window. “Poor tormented soul. All of them really. The Jane Street Six. They never meant to hurt anyone that night.”

  “So I keep hearing.”

  “Idealistic kids. We all were. We wanted to change the world for the better.”

  I want to get off this overly worn excuse-justification track and back on one more fertile to my investigation. “Did you know where Ry was living this whole time?”

  “Yeah, of course. At the Beresford.” She turns to me. “Have you seen old pictures of him? I mean, when Ry was young? God, he was so beautiful. Such charisma. Sexy as all get-out.” I could see her smile in the window’s reflection. “I knew he was damaged—I could see that right away—but I’ve always been a sucker for the dangerous type.”

  “Who else knew Ry lived at the Beresford?”

  “No one.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Did you ever visit him?”

  “At the Beresford? Never. He’d never allow a guest. I know that sounds odd. Well, Ry was odd. Became odder by the day. A hermit really. He’d never let anyone else in. He was too scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “Who knew? He had an illness.” Then, thinking on it for a moment, she adds, “Or so I thought. But maybe, I don’t know now, maybe he was right to be scared.”

  “How did Ry end up there?”

  “In that tower, you mean?”

  I nod.

  “After Lake surrendered, Ry and I, we got together. He moved in with me. I had a place on Amsterdam near Seventy-Ninth. A walk-up above a Chinese restaurant. Then it became a mattress store. Then a shoe store. Then a nail salon. Now it’s Asian fusion, which sounds like a fancy name for a Chinese restaurant to me. Everything that goes around comes around, am I right?”

  “As rain.”

  “What does that mean anyway? Why would someone describe rain as being right?”

  I sigh. “Anyway.”

  “Anyway, I shared a floor with one of those massage parlors. Not what you’re thinking. They were legit. Cheap, no frills, but legit. At least I think they were legit. But who knows? All that happy-ending stuff. Who cares, I’m just babbling, sorry.”

  I try to sound kind as I say, “It’s okay,” so as to encourage her to keep talking.

  “We were happy, Ry and me. I mean, sort of. Like I said, I knew what I was getting in for. It wasn’t going to be forever, but I’m not big on forever. My relationships with men are like a wild buckaroo ride at a rodeo—it’s exciting and crazy and I know it’s going to be me who gets thrown off in the end and breaks a rib when I smack the ground.”

  I like her.

  Kathleen turns now and gives me a well-crafted, oft-used side smile that lands.

  “That ride lasted longer than I would have thought.”

  “How long?”

  “As a couple? On and off for years. As a friend? Well, right up until today.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I bet the Staunch family found him.”

  “Nero Staunch?”

  “The family always wanted revenge, you know. One of the people who died that night was a niece or something. Ry always figured they got to the others.”

  “The Staunches?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ry thought that the Staunches killed the other Jane Street Six members?”

  “Something like that, yeah. The Staunch girl who got killed? I think her brother runs the family business now.” She shrugs. “Ry got nuttier and more paranoid as time passed. He was erratic at best. Sometimes, for no reason, he’d start thinking the cops or Staunch was closing in on him. Maybe because he heard a funny noise or someone gave him a weird look. Maybe because Mercury was in retrograde. Who knew? So Ry would run off for a while. Sometimes he’d be gone for months. Then he’d just show up one day
and want to live with me again. He’d do that—come back and stay with me—until he got the place in the Beresford.”

  “When was that?”

  “What year? Oh, let me think. Mid-nineties maybe.”

  Hmm. That would be around when the paintings were stolen.

  “You set up a weekly meet?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Whatever was wrong with Ry, it was getting worse. You take all his issues, which are really an illness, you know, like cancer or heart diseases. Incurable maybe, I don’t know. But you take all that and you take his paranoia and then you add in the fact that he really did have people after him—the FBI, the Staunches, whatever. Then pile on the guilt from that horrible night and, kaboom, like with the Molotov cocktails. So by the time Ry moved into that tower, he couldn’t handle life anymore. He shut out the world.”

  “Except you.”

  “Except me.” The R-rated smile again. “But I’m pretty special.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  Are we flirting?

  I move on: “When you two met for your weekly rendezvous in the park, what did you do?”

  “Talked mostly.”

  “About?”

  “Anything. He didn’t make much sense in recent years.”

  “But you still met?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you talked?”

  “I also gave him the occasional hand job.”

  “Nice of you.”

  “He wanted more.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Right? And I’d try. For old times’ sake. Like I said, he used to be so damn beautiful, like you, but, I don’t know, by 2000, maybe 2001, he lost his physical appeal. To me at least.” Kathleen arched an eyebrow. “Still, a hand job isn’t nothing.”

  “Truer words,” I agree.

  Kathleen stares me down a bit. I like that. I am, I confess, tempted. She may be on the older side, but she’s got that innate sexual allure you can’t teach—and I did lose out earlier tonight. Kathleen saunters now toward the crystal decanter and gestures whether it would be okay to pour herself another. I do the honors.

  “To Ry,” she says.

  “To Ry.”

  We clink glasses.

  “He was also afraid people would steal his stuff.”