Long Lost (Myron Bolitar) (27 page)
My chest started hitching again. Panic swept through me. My eyes did not want to close. When they did, when I managed to start a nocturnal voyage of any kind, nightmares would jerk me back to consciousness. I could not recall the dreams, but the fear stayed behind. Sweat covered me. I sat in the dark, terrified, like a child.
At three in the morning, a bolt of memory flashed across my brain. Underwater. Not able to breathe. It lasted less than a second, this image, no more, and was quickly replaced with another, aural one.
“Al-sabr wal-sayf . . .”
My heart pounded as if it were trying to break free.
At three thirty AM, I tiptoed up the stairs and sat in the kitchen. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but I knew. My father was the world’s lightest sleeper. As a kid, I would try to sneak past his door late at night, just to make a quick bathroom trip, and he’d startle awake as though someone had dropped a Popsicle on his crotch. So now, as a full-grown middle-aged adult, a man who considered himself braver than most, I knew what would happen if I tiptoed into the kitchen:
“Myron?”
I turned as he made his way down the stairs. “I didn’t mean to wake you, Dad.”
“Oh, I was awake anyway,” he said. Dad wore boxers that had seen better days and a threadbare gray Duke T-shirt two sizes too large. “You want me to make us some scrambled eggs?”
“Sure.”
He did. We sat and talked about nothing. He tried not to look too concerned, which only made me feel even more cared for. More memories came back. My eyes would well up and then I would blink the tears away. Emotions swirled to the point where I couldn’t really tell how I felt. I was in for a lot of bad nights. I could see that now. But I just knew one thing for certain: I couldn’t stand still any longer.
When the morning came I called Esperanza and said, “Before I disappeared, you were looking up some stuff for me.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. You were saying?”
“You were checking into Sam Collins’s suicide and that opal code and the Save the Angels charity,” I said.
“Right.”
“I want to know what you found.”
For a moment I expected an argument, but Esperanza must have heard something in my tone. “Okay, let’s meet in an hour. I can show you what I got.”
“SORRY I’m late,” Esperanza said, “but Hector spit up on my blouse and I had to change it and then the babysitter started talking to me about a raise and Hector started clinging to me—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
Esperanza’s office still semi-reflected her colorful past. There were photographs of her in the skimpy suede costume of Little Pocahontas, the “Indian Princess,” played by a Latina. Her Intercontinental Tag Team Championship Belt, a gaudy thing that if actually wrapped around Esperanza’s waist would probably run from her rib cage to just above her knee, was framed behind her desk. The walls were painted periwinkle and some other shade of purple—I could never remember the name of it. The desk was ornate and serious oak, found in an antique shop by Big Cyndi, and even though I was here when they delivered it, I still don’t know how it fit through the doorway.
But now the dominant theme in this room, to quote the politician’s handbook, was change. Photographs of Esperanza’s infant son, Hector, poses so ordinary and obvious they bordered on the cliché, lined the desk and credenza. There were the standard kid portraits—the swirling rainbow background à la Sears Portrait Studio—along with the on-Santa’s-lap image and the colored-egg Easter Bunny. There was a photograph of Esperanza and her husband, Tom, holding a white-clad Hector at his baptism, and one with some Disney character I didn’t recognize. The most prominent photograph featured Esperanza and Hector on some little kiddie ride, a miniature fire truck maybe, with Esperanza looking up at the camera with the widest, most dumbstruck smile I had ever seen on her.
Esperanza had been the freest of free spirits. She’d been a promiscuous bisexual, proudly dating a man, then a woman, then another man, not caring what anyone thought. She had gone into wrestling because it was a fun buck, and when she got tired of that, she put herself through law school at night while working as my assistant during the day. This will sound awfully uncharitable, but motherhood had smothered some of that spirit. I had seen it before, of course, with other female friends. I get it a little. I didn’t know about my own son until he was almost full grown, so I have never experienced that transforming moment when your baby is born and suddenly your entire world shrinks down to a six-pound, fifteen-ounce mass. That was what had happened with Esperanza. Was she happier now? I don’t know. But our relationship had changed, as it was bound to, and because I am self-absorbed, I didn’t like it.
“Here’s the time line,” Esperanza said. “Sam Collins, Rick’s father, is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease approximately four months ago. He commits suicide a few weeks later.”
“Definitely a suicide?”
“According to the police report. Nothing suspicious.”
“Okay, go on.”
“After the suicide, Rick Collins visited Dr. Freida Schneider, his father’s geneticist. There are several phone calls to her office too. I took the liberty of calling Dr. Schneider’s office. She is rather busy, but she’ll give us fifteen minutes during her lunch break today. Twelve thirty sharp.”
“How did you wrangle that?”
“MB Reps is making a large donation to Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center.”
“Fair enough.”
“It’s coming out of your bonus.”
“Fine, what else?”
“Rick Collins called the CryoHope Center near New York- Presbyterian. They do a lot with cord blood and embryonic storage and stem cells. Five doctors from a variety of specialties run it, so it’s impossible to know which one he was dealing with. He also called the Save the Angels charity several times. So here is the chronology: First he speaks to Dr. Schneider, four times over the course of two weeks. Then he speaks to CryoHope. That somehow leads to Save the Angels.”
“Okay,” I said. “Can we get an appointment with CryoHope?”
“With whom?”
“One of the doctors.”
“There’s an ob-gyn,” Esperanza said. “Should I tell him you need a pap smear?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are, but I’m not sure who to try. I’m trying to figure out which doctor he called.”
“Maybe Dr. Schneider can help.”
“Could be.”
“Oh, did you come up with anything on that opal to-do note?”
“No. I Googled all the letters. Opal of course had a million hits. When I Googled ‘HHK,’ the first thing that came up is a publicly traded health-care company. They deal with cancer investments.”
“Cancer?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t see how that fits.”
Esperanza frowned.
“What?”
“I don’t see how any of this fits,” she said. “This seems, in fact, like a colossal waste of time.”
“How so?”
“What exactly do you hope to find here? The doctor treated an old man for Huntington’s disease. What could it possibly have to do with terrorists murdering people in Paris and London?”
“I have no idea.”
“Not a clue?”
“None.”
“Probably no connection at all,” she said.
“Probably.”
“But we have nothing better to do?”
“This is what we do. We flail until something gives. This whole thing started with a car crash a decade ago. Then we have nothing until Rick Collins found out his father has Huntington’s. I don’t know what the connection is, so the only thing I can think to do is go back and follow his path.”
Esperanza crossed her legs, started twirling a free lock of hair. Esperanza had very dark hair, black-blue, that always had that just-mussed thing going on. When she twirled a hair, it meant something was bugging her.
“What?”
“I never called Ali while you were missing,” she said.
I nodded. “And she never called me, right?”
“So you two are done?” Esperanza asked.
“Apparently.”
“Did you use my favorite dumping line?”
“I forget it.”
Esperanza sighed. “Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: you.”
“Uh, no. Might be more apt to say, ‘Population: me.’”
“Oh.” We sat there. “Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay.”
“Win said you did the sheet mambo with Terese.”
I almost said,
Win did the sheet mambo with Mee
, but I worried that Esperanza might misinterpret.
Win did the sheet mambo with Mee
, but I worried that Esperanza might misinterpret.
“I don’t see the relevance,” I said.
“You wouldn’t do the mambo-sheet thing, especially when you’re ending with someone else, unless you really care about Terese. A lot.”
I sat back. “So?”
“So we need to go full blast, if that will help. But we also need to understand the truth.”
“Which is?”
“Terese is probably dead.”
I said nothing.
“I’ve been there when you’ve lost loved ones,” Esperanza said. “You don’t take it well.”
“Who does?”
“Good point. But you’re also dealing with whatever else happened to you. It’s a lot.”
“I’ll be fine. Anything else?”
“Yes,” she said. “Those two guys you and Win beat up.”
Coach Bobby and Assistant Coach Pat. “What about them?”
“The Kasselton police have been by a few times. You’re supposed to call when you get back. You know that the guy Win popped belongs to the force, right?”
“Win told me.”
“He had knee surgery and is recuperating. The other guy, the one who started it, used to own a small chain of appliance stores. He got knocked out of business by the big boys and now works as floor manager at Best Buy in Paramus.”
I stood. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“We have time before we meet up with Dr. Schneider. Let’s head out to Best Buy.”
27
THE Best Buy employee blue polo shirt stretched across the beer belly of Coach Bobby. He was leaning on a TV, talking to an Asian couple. I looked for remnants of the beating and saw none.
Esperanza was with me. As we crossed the store a man wearing a logger flannel shirt ran over to her. “Excuse me,” he said, his face alight like a child’s on Christmas morn. “But, oh my God, aren’t you Little Pocahontas?”
I stifled a smile. It never fails to shock me how many people still remember her. She shot me a glare and turned to her fan.
“I am.”
“Wow. Oh, I can’t believe this. I mean, double wow. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thanks.”
“I used to have your poster in my bedroom. When I was like sixteen.”
“I’m flattered—” she began.
“Got some stains on that poster too,” he said with a wink, “if you know what I mean.”
“—and nauseous.” She finger-waved and walked away. “Bye now.”
I followed her. “Stains,” I said. “You have to be a little touched.”
“Sadly, I kind of am,” she said.
Forget what I said before about motherhood smothering her spirit. Esperanza was still the best.
We moved past Mr. Waaaay Too Much Information and toward Coach Bobby. I heard the Asian man ask what the difference was between a plasma TV and an LCD TV. Coach Bobby puffed out his chest and gave the pros and cons, none of which I understood. The man then asked about the DLP televisions. Coach Bobby liked DLPs. He started explaining why.
I waited.
Esperanza gestured with her head toward Coach Bobby. “Sounds like he deserved what he got.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t fight people to teach them a lesson—you fight for survival or self-protection only.”
Esperanza made a face.
“What?”
“Win is right. You can be such a little girl sometimes.”
Coach Bobby smiled at the Asian couple and said, “Take your time, I’ll be right back and we can discuss free delivery.”
He came over to me and held my gaze. “What do you want?”
“To say I’m sorry.”
Coach Bobby didn’t move. Three seconds of silence. Then: “There, you said it.”
He spun around and headed back over to his customers.
Esperanza slapped me on the back. “Boy, that was cleansing.”
DR. Freida Schneider was short and stocky with a big trusting smile. She was an Orthodox Jew, complete with modest dress and beret. I met her in the cafeteria at Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center on Fifth Avenue by 103rd Street. Esperanza was out front making some calls. Dr. Schneider asked me if I wanted anything to eat. I declined. She ordered a complicated sandwich. We sat down. She said a prayer to herself and began to devour said sandwich as though it had called her a bad name.
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