WIN

by Coben, Harlan

“Feels like we still do,” I say.

  “Yeah, I know.” Jessica blinks and reaches for the glass. “I really messed up.”

  I don’t correct her.

  “My marriage sucks,” she says.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Are you?”

  “I am now.”

  “Did you hate me when I left Myron?”

  “Hate probably isn’t the right word.”

  “What is?”

  “Loathe.”

  She laughs and raises her glass. “Touché.”

  “I’m joking,” I say. “In truth, you never mattered to me.”

  “That’s honest.”

  “I never saw you as a separate entity.”

  “Just a part of Myron?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like an appendage?”

  “Not that relevant, frankly. Like an arm or a leg? No. Never that important.”

  She tries again. “Like a small satellite orbiting him?”

  “Closer,” I say. “In the end, you caused Myron pain. That’s all I cared about. How you affected him.”

  “Because you love him.”

  “I do, yes.”

  “It’s sweet. So maybe you understand better now.”

  “I don’t,” I say. “But go on, if you wish.”

  “Myron was such a big presence,” Jessica says.

  “Still is.”

  “Exactly. He sucks all the air out of the room. He dominates by just being there. When I was with him, my writing suffered. Did you know that?”

  I try not to scowl. “And you’re blaming him?”

  “I’m blaming us. He’s not a planet I’m orbiting. He’s the sun. When I was with him too much—the intensity—I was afraid I would disappear into it. Like the gravity would draw me too close to his flames, overwhelm me, drown me.”

  Now I do scowl without reservation.

  “What?” she says.

  “Ignoring your mixing metaphors—are you drowning or burning up?—that’s such complete and utter nonsense. He loved you. He took care of you. That intensity you felt was overwhelming? That was love, Jessica. The bona fide ideal, the rarest of the rare. When he smiled at you, you felt a warmth you’d never known before because he loved you. You were lucky. You were lucky, and you threw it away. You threw it away not because of what he did, but because you, like so many of us, are self-destructive.”

  Jessica leans back. “Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “You left him for a boring rich guy named Stone. Why? Because you had true love and it terrified you. You couldn’t handle the loss of control. It’s why you kept breaking his heart—so you’d have the upper hand again. You had a chance at greatness, but you were too scared to grasp it.”

  Her eyes glisten now. She gives them a quick swipe with her index finger and thumb. “Suppose,” she says, “I tried to get him back.”

  I shake my head.

  “Why not? You don’t think he still has feelings for me?”

  “Won’t happen. We both know that. Myron isn’t built that way.”

  “And what about you, Win?”

  “We aren’t talking about me,” I say.

  “Well, we can change topics. You’ve changed, Win. I used to think you and Myron were yin and yang—opposites that complemented each other.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I think you’re more like him than you know.”

  I have to smile at that. “You think it’s that simple?”

  “No, Win. That’s my point. It’s never that simple.”

  * * *

  Jessica wants to walk home alone. I don’t insist otherwise. In fact, even though the car is waiting for me, I choose to do the same. She heads south. I head west and start crossing Central Park by the Sixty-Sixth Street transverse. It’s a beautiful night and it’s a beautiful park and the walk soothes me for perhaps three minutes—until my phone buzzes. The call is coming from Sadie Fisher’s iPhone.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  Before I have a chance to offer up my customary greeting, Sadie half snaps, “Where are you?”

  I do not like the timbre in her voice. There is anger. And there is fear.

  “I’m strolling through Central Park. Is there a problem?”

  “There is. I’m at the office. Get here as soon as you can.”

  She disconnects the call.

  I find a taxi heading south on Central Park West. Traffic is light at this hour. Ten minutes later I’m back at the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue. Jim is working security at the desk. I nod at him and head toward my private elevator. It’s getting late now, north of ten p.m., but this building is filled mostly with financial advisors of one kind or another, many of whom need to work hours that coincide with overseas markets, many more of whom put in wastefully long hours to match the other guy vying for the same promotion. I press the button for the fourth floor, and especially tonight, with a few drinks in me, with images of Jessica Culver still swimming in my head, the memories of MB Reps—the M stood for Myron, the B for Bolitar, Myron would self-flagellate over the name’s lack of ingenuity—swirl though my skull.

  Sadie greets me when I get off the elevator, though “greet” may imply a temperament that is not at all apropos. “What did you do, Win?”

  “Nice to see you too, Sadie.”

  She adjusts her glasses. It feels as though she is doing that more as a statement than a need, but whatever gets you through the night. “Do I really look in the mood?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  Sadie steps into her office. I notice that Taft’s reception desk is empty except for a box of his belongings. Sadie sees me noticing and arches an eyebrow.

  “I had visitors today.”

  “Oh?”

  “They braced me out on the street. Two huge guys.”

  I wait.

  “What did you do, Win?”

  “Who were they?”

  “Teddy Lyons’s brothers.”

  I wait.

  “Win?”

  “Did they threaten you?”

  “Well, they didn’t want to buy me a drink.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They accused me of sending a man to hurt Teddy.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What do you think I said?”

  “That you didn’t.” Then I ask, “Did they believe you?”

  “No, Win, they didn’t believe me.” She moves closer to me. “You were at that basketball game.”

  “So were seventy thousand other people.”

  “Are you really going to lie to me?”

  “What exactly do you think I did, Sadie?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “No, Win, that isn’t true.” Sadie gestures to the empty desk. “Taft told you what Teddy Lyons did to Sharyn, didn’t he?”

  “As did you.”

  “Not until after he was hurt. You know Teddy Lyons may never walk again.”

  “Seems he’s able to talk though,” I say. “So you fired Taft?”

  “I don’t like spies in my office.”

  Fair enough.

  “Do I need to find a new workspace?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, Win. What were you thinking?”

  “That Sharyn deserved justice.”

  “Are you serious?”

  I wait.

  “We are law-abiding,” Sadie says. “We are trying to change hearts and minds—and laws.”

  “Taft said Teddy was currently stalking someone else.”

  “Probably.”

  “He wasn’t going to stop because you wanted to change laws,” I say, realizing that I’m echoing the words I’d told Vanessa Hogan about the Hut of Horrors perpetrators.

  “So you took care of it?”

  I see no reason to reply.

  “And
now we have these goons coming after us.”

  “I’ll handle them.”

  “I don’t want you to handle them.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Is that the world you want to live in?” Sadie shakes her head. “Do you really want people to take the law into their own hands?”

  “People? Heavens, no. Me? Yes.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “I trust my judgment,” I say. “I don’t trust the common man’s.”

  “You hurt us. Do you realize that? We had a chance of changing—”

  “A chance,” I say.

  “What?”

  “A chance didn’t help Sharyn. It probably wouldn’t help Teddy’s next victim either. I love what you’re doing, Sadie. I believe in it. You should continue without reservation.”

  “And you continue to do what you do?”

  I shrug. “You work on the macro level,” I say. “What you do is important.”

  “And, what, your hope is that my work will one day make your work obsolete?”

  I smile with no humor behind it. “My work will never be obsolete.”

  She thinks about it. “You can’t spy on me.”

  “You’re right.”

  “And whatever you do, it can’t involve me or my clients.”

  “You’re right.”

  She shakes her head. The truth is, I may indeed have messed up here. I don’t care about Teddy Lyons, of course. He crossed the line and earned any and all repercussions. I don’t look at it as vigilantism. I look at it as preventive offense. Think schoolyard rules. The bully hits someone. Even if the teacher is told, even if the teacher punishes the bully, the bully should expect someone to hit back.

  I’d known that there was the potential for unexpected consequences, even disastrous ones, but I had added up the pros and cons and chosen to act. Perhaps I was wrong. I’m not infallible.

  You need to break a few eggs to make an omelet. I don’t know if that’s true, but if you break the eggs, better to make an omelet than a mess.

  Enough with the analogies.

  “I almost called the police after the brothers threatened me,” she says.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “And say what? You assaulted their brother.”

  “They could never prove it. But if I may make an observation?”

  She frowns and gestures for me to go ahead.

  “You didn’t call the police,” I say, “because you realized that the law couldn’t protect you.”

  “And damn you for putting me in that position.” Sadie squeezes her eyes shut. “Do you see what you’ve done? I went to law school. I swore an oath. I know that our legal system isn’t perfect, but I believe in it. I follow it. And now you’ve forced me to abandon my integrity and principles.”

  She takes a deep breath.

  “I’m not sure I can stay in this office, Win.”

  I say nothing.

  “I may want out of our agreement.”

  “Think it over for a bit,” I say. “You’re right. Your anger—”

  “It’s not just anger, Win.”

  “Whatever you want to call what you’re feeling. Anger, disappointment, disillusionment, compromise. It’s justified. I did what I thought was best, but perhaps I was wrong. I am still learning. It’s on me. I apologize.”

  She seems surprised by my apology. So do I.

  “So what do we do now?” she asks.

  “You’ve had a chance to chat with the brothers,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think they are just going to leave us alone?”

  Sadie’s voice is soft. “No.”

  “So the eggs are broken,” I say. “The question now is, Do we want to make an omelet or a mess?”

  CHAPTER 19

  I like to walk.

  Most days, I walk to and from work. The route from my office to my apartment—from the Lock-Horne Building to the Dakota—is approximately two miles and takes slightly more than half an hour at a brisk pace. My routine is to head north on Fifth Avenue until I hit Central Park in front of the Plaza Hotel on Fifty-Ninth Street. I stay to the left of the Central Park Zoo, diagonally traipsing north and west until I hit Strawberry Fields and then my home in the Dakota. During my morning walk, I often stop for coffee at Le Pain Quotidien, which is located in the middle of the park. The dogs run free in this area, and I enjoy watching that. I don’t know why. I’ve never owned a dog. Perhaps I should remedy that.

  It’s dark now, the park so hushed I can hear the echo of my footsteps on the pavement. Times may be better, but most people still don’t stroll through Central Park at night. I recall my rather violent youth when I would “night tour” the most dangerous areas of the city. As I mentioned earlier, I no longer trawl for trouble in the so-called mean streets, craving to right some vague wrong whilst satisfying certain of my own cravings. I’m more careful with where I wreak havoc now—albeit, as I now see with Teddy “Big T” Lyons, my targeting skills are far from perfect.

  I confess I’m not good about considering long-term repercussions.

  I cross the Imagine mosaic, and up ahead I can start making out the gables of the Dakota. I am thinking about too many things at once—the Jane Street Six, the Vermeer, the Hut of Horrors, Patricia, Jessica—when my phone buzzes.

  It’s PT again.

  I answer with “Articulate.”

  “I got what I could on Strauss’s shell company. First off, it’s called Armitage LLC.”

  Good name, I think. Tells you nothing. That’s Rule Number One in setting up an anonymous shell—have a name that has nothing to do with you.

  “What else?”

  “It was filed in Delaware.”

  Again no surprise. If you want anonymity, there are three states you use—Nevada, Wyoming, or Delaware. Since Philadelphia is very close to Delaware, the Lockwoods have always gone that route.

  “It’s also not a single shell,” PT says.

  Yet again no surprise.

  “Seems to be part of a network. You probably understand this better than I do, but LLC X owns LLC Y which owns LLC Z which owns Armitage LLC. So it’s very difficult to trace back. The checks come out of someplace called Community Star Bank.”

  When I hear the name of the bank, I slow my pace. My grip on the phone tightens.

  “Who set up the Armitage LLC?”

  “It has no name. You know that.”

  “I mean, what attorney?”

  “Hold on.” I can hear him shuffle papers. “No specific lawyer, just a firm. Duncan and Associates.”

  I freeze.

  “Win?”

  Duncan and Associates, I know, is just one man.

  Nigel Duncan. Butler, trusted friend, bar-admitted attorney with but one client.

  In short, the shell company paying Ry Strauss’s bill was set up by one of my family members.

  I am about to ask PT exactly when the shell company was formed when something hard, like a tire iron, crashes into the side of my skull.

  The rest happens in two or maybe three seconds.

  I stagger, woozy from the blow, but I stay upright.

  I hear PT’s tinny voice from my phone say, “Win?”

  The tire iron lands with a loud splat on the other side of my skull.

  The blow jars my brain. My phone drops to the pavement. The side of my scalp splits open. Blood trickles down my ear.

  I do not see stars—I see angry bolts of light.

  A thick arm snakes around my neck. I am ready to make the automatic move—head butt to the nose of the man behind me—but a second man, this one with a ski mask, points a gun in my face.

  “Don’t fucking move.”

  He stands just far enough away so that even if I had all my faculties, a move to disarm him would be precarious. Still, I would have gone for it had it not been for the blows to the skull. There are two strategies when a gun is pointed at you. One—the more obvious strategy—is surrender. Give them what they want
. Don’t resist in any way. This is an excellent strategy if the purpose of the gun is, for example, to rob you. To take your wallet or your watch and abscond into the night. Option Two, the one I normally prefer, is to strike fast. Train yourself to skip over the part where you are shocked into paralysis and attack immediately. It is unexpected. The gun bearer often expects you to obey and act cautiously when you first see the gun—ergo, by moving without hesitation, you can catch them unawares.

  Option Two obviously has its risks, but if you suspect the gun bearer means you great harm, as I do here, it’s my preferred choice out of a host of bad solutions.

  But for Option Two to be effective, you need to be in full command of your skillset. I am not. My equilibrium is off. My feet are unsteady. Something dark is closing in on me—if I don’t fight it, I may black out entirely.

  Instead I choose not to move. To use another sports metaphor, I take the standing eight count and hope that my head will clear.

  The man with his arm around my neck is big. He pulls me tight against his chest as I hear a vehicle screeching to a halt. I am lifted in the air. I still don’t resist and within seconds I am tossed in the back of what I assume is a van. I land hard. My two abductors, both wearing ski masks, jump in behind me. I hear the tires screech. The van is moving before the side door is fully slammed shut.

  One chance.

  Before my abductors can react, I summon whatever I have in reserve and roll toward the partially-open-and-closing-fast sliding door. My faint hope now is to fall out of the gathering-speed van. No, this isn’t a great option, but it is the best one currently available. I will protect my skull with my arms and let the rest of my body take the brunt. If I’m lucky, I will end up with a broken bone or three.

  Small price to pay.

  My head and shoulders are out of the van now. I can feel the wind whipping at my eyes, making them water. I close them and tuck my chin and brace for the impact of my body on New York City street asphalt.

  But that doesn’t happen.

  A strong hand grabs me by my collar and flings me. My body goes airborne like a rag doll. I hear the van door slide shut at the exact moment my back slams against the far side of the van. The whiplash effect drives my skull into the metal side.

  Another blow to the head.

  I crumble to the cold floor of the van, facedown.

  Someone leaps on top of me, straddling my back. I consider a move—quick spin, elbow strike—but I’m not sure I can pull it off.