The Myron Bolitar Series 7-Book Bundle (187 page)

FJ leaned back, recrossed the legs, folded his hands, and placed them on his lap. “Quite a spin, Myron.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

FJ tilted his head in a maybe-yes, maybe-no fashion. “Let me tell you how I see it,” he began. “Clu Haid’s old agency, MB SportsReps, was clearly screwing him. In every way. His agent—that would be you, Myron—abandoned him when he needed him most. Your partner—that would be the lovely and rather lithe Esperanza—was engaging in a lick fest with his wife. True?”

Myron said nothing.

FJ unfolded the hands, took a sip of foam, refolded the hands. “What I did,” he continued, “was take Clu Haid out of this awful situation. I brought him to an agency that would not abuse his trust. An agency that would look out for his interests. One of the ways we do that is through information. Valuable information. So the client understands what is happening to him. That’s part of an agent’s job, Myron. One of our agencies engaged in questionable ethics here. And it wasn’t TruPro.”

It was a reverse spin, but it was also true. One day, when Myron had the time to dwell upon them, the words would undoubtedly wound. But not now.

“So you admit it?”

FJ shrugged.

“But if you were following Esperanza, you know she didn’t do it.”

Again the head tilt. “Do I?”

“Stop playing games with me, FJ.”

“Please hold a moment.” FJ took out his cell phone and dialed a number. He stood, walked toward the corner, chatted. He put the phone between his shoulder and ear, took out a pen and paper, jotted something down. He hung up and returned to the table.

“You were saying?”

“Did Esperanza do it?”

He smiled. “You want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. Honest. Yes, I followed her. But as I am sure you know, even lesbian scenes get repetitive. So after a while we’d stop watching her once she crossed the Washington Bridge. There was no point.”

“So you really don’t know who killed Clu?”

“Afraid not.”

“Are you still following me, FJ?”

“No.”

“Last night. You didn’t have a man on me?”

“No. And truth be told, I didn’t have a man on you when you came in here yesterday.”

“The guy I spotted outside my office wasn’t yours?”

“Sorry, no.”

Myron was missing something here.

FJ leaned forward again. His smile was so creepy that
his teeth seemed to wiggle. “How far are you willing to go to save Esperanza?” he whispered.

“You know how far.”

“The ends of the earth?”

“What are you getting at, FJ?”

“You’re right, of course. I did learn about Esperanza and Bonnie. And I saw an opening. So I called Clu at the apartment in Fort Lee. But he wasn’t there. I left a rather intriguing message on his machine. Something to the effect of ‘I know who your wife is sleeping with.’ He called me back on my private line within the hour.”

“When was this?”

“What … three days before his death?”

“What did he say?”

“His reaction was the obvious. But the
what
is not nearly as important as the
where.
”

“The where?”

“I have caller ID on my private line.” FJ sat back. “Clu was out of town when he returned my call.”

“Where?”

FJ took his time. He picked up the coffee, took a long sip, made an aaah noise as if he were filming a 7-Up commercial, put the cup back down. He looked at Myron. Then he shook his head. “Not so fast.”

Myron waited.

“My specialty, as you’ve now seen, is gathering information. Information is power. It’s currency. It’s cash. I just don’t give away cash.”

“How much, FJ?”

“Not money, Myron. I don’t want your money. I could buy you ten times over; we both know that.”

“So what do you want?”

He took another long sip. Myron wanted so very much
to reach across the table and throttle him. “Sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

“Cut the crap, FJ.”

“Temper, temper.”

Myron made two fists and hid them under the table. He willed himself to stay calm. “What do you want, FJ?”

“You are familiar, are you not, with Dean Pashaian and Larry Vitale.”

“They’re two of my clients.”

“Correction. They are seriously considering leaving MB SportsReps and joining TruPro. They are on the fence as we speak. So here is my deal. You stop pursuing them. You don’t call them and hand them crap about TruPro being run by gangsters. You promise to do that”—he showed Myron the piece of paper he’d been writing on in the corner—“I give you the number Clu called from.”

“Your agency will destroy their careers. It always does.”

FJ smiled again. “I can guarantee you, Myron, that no one on my staff will have a lesbian affair with their wives.”

“No deal.”

“Good-bye then.” FJ stood.

“Wait.”

“Your promise or I walk.”

“Let’s talk about this,” Myron said. “We can come up with something.”

“Good-bye.”

FJ started for the door.

“Okay,” Myron said.

FJ put a hand to his ear. “I missed that.”

Selling out two clients. What would he stoop to next, running political campaigns? “You have a deal. I won’t talk to them.”

FJ spread his hands. “You really are a master negotiator, Myron. I’m in awe of your skills.”

“Where did he call from, FJ?”

“Here’s the phone number.” He handed Myron the piece of paper. Myron read it and sprinted back to the car.

Myron was on the cell phone before he reached Win. He pressed in the number and heard three rings.

“Hamlet Motel,” a man said.

“Where are you located?”

“In Wilston. On Route Nine off Ninety-one.”

Myron thanked the man and hung up. Win looked at him. Myron dialed Bonnie’s number. Bonnie’s mother answered. Myron identified himself and asked to speak with Bonnie.

“She was very upset after you left yesterday,” Bonnie’s mother said.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Why do you want to talk to her?”

“Please. It’s very important.”

“She’s in mourning. You realize that. Their marriage may have been in trouble—”

“I understand that, Mrs. Cohen. Please let me speak to her.”

A deep sigh, but two minutes later Bonnie came on. “What is it, Myron?”

“What does the Hamlet Motel in Wilston, Massachusetts, mean to you?”

Myron thought he heard a short intake of air. “Nothing.”

“You and Clu lived there, didn’t you?”

“Not at the motel.”

“I mean, in Wilston. When Clu was playing for the Bisons in the minor leagues.”

“You know we did.”

“And Billy Lee Palms. He lived there too. At the same time.”

“Not Wilston. I think he was in Deerfield. It’s the neighboring town.”

“So what was Clu doing staying at the Hamlet Motel three days before he died?”

Silence.

“Bonnie?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“Think. Why would Clu need to go up there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was visiting an old friend.”

“What old friend?”

“Myron, you’re not listening. I don’t know. I haven’t been up there in almost ten years. But we lived there for eight months. Maybe he made a friend. Maybe he went up there to fish or take a vacation or get away from it all. I don’t know.”

Myron gripped the phone. “You’re lying to me, Bonnie.”

Silence.

“Please,” he said. “I’m just trying to help Esperanza.”

“Let me ask you something, Myron.”

“What?”

“You keep digging and digging, right? I asked you not
to. Esperanza asked you not to. Hester Crimstein asked you not to. But you keep digging.”

“Is there a question in there?”

“It’s coming now: Has all your digging helped? Has all your digging made Esperanza look more guilty or less?”

Myron hesitated. But it didn’t matter. Bonnie hung up before he had the chance to answer. Myron put the phone back in his lap. He looked at Win.

“I’ll take Awful Songs for two hundred, Alex,” Win said.

“What?”

“Answer: Barry Manilow and Eastern Standard.”

Myron almost smiled. “What is ‘Time in New England,’ Alex?”

“Correct answer.” Win shook his head. “Sometimes when our minds are that in tune—”

“Yeah,” Myron said. “It’s scary.”

“Shall we?”

Myron thought about it. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Call Terese first.”

Myron nodded, started dialing. “You know how to get there?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll probably take three hours.”

Win hit the accelerator. No easy trick in midtown Manhattan. “Try two.”

Wilston is in western Massachusetts, about an hour shy of the New Hampshire and Vermont borders. You could still see remnants of the old days, the oft artistically rendered New England town with V-shaped brick walks, colonial clapboard homes, the historical society bronze signs welded onto the front of every other building, the white-steepled chapel in the center of the town—the whole scene screaming for the lush leaves of autumn or a major snowstorm. But like everywhere else in the US of A, the superstore boom was playing havoc with the historical. The roads between these postcard villages had widened over the years, as though guilty of gluttony, feeding off the warehouse-size stores that now lined them. The stores sucked out the character and the quaintness and left in their wake a universal blandness that plagued the byroads and highways of America. Maine to Minnesota, North Carolina to Nevada—there was little texture and individuality left. It was about Home Depot and Office Max and the price clubs.

On the other hand, whining about the changes progress imposes upon us and longing for the good ol’ days make
for easy pickings. Harder to answer the question of why, if these changes are so bad, do every place and everybody so quickly and warmly welcome them.

Wilston had the classic New England Christmas card—conservative facade, but it was a college town, the college in question being Wilston College, and was thus liberal—liberal in the way only a college town can be, liberal in the way only the young can be, liberal in the way only the isolated and protected and rose-tinted can be. But that was okay. In fact, that was how it should be.

But even Wilston was changing. Yes, the old signs of liberalism were there: the tofu sweet shop, the migrant-friendly coffeehouse, the lesbian bookstore, the shop with the black lightbulbs and the pot paraphernalia, the clothing store that sold only ponchos. But the franchises were sneaking in quietly, slowly eating away at the gray stone corners: Dunkin’ Donuts, Angelo’s Sub Shop, Baskin-Robbins, Seattle Coffee.

Myron started softly singing “Time in New England.”

Win looked at him. “You realize, of course, that I’m well armed.”

“Hey, you’re the one who got the song stuck in my head.”

They sped through town—with Win driving, you only sped—and arrived at the Hamlet Motel, a quasi-dump on Route 9 hovering on the town’s edge. A sign advertised
FREE HBO!
and the ice machine was so large you could see it from your average space station. Myron checked his watch. Less than two hours to get here. Win parked the Jag.

“I don’t get it,” Myron said. “Why would Clu stay here?”

“Free HBO?”

“More likely because he could pay in cash. That’s why
we didn’t see anything about this on his credit cards. But why wouldn’t he want anyone to know he was here?”

“Such good questions,” Win said. “Perhaps you should go inside and see if you can find some of the answers.”

They both stepped out of the car. Win noticed a restaurant next door. “I’ll try there,” he said. “You take the desk clerk.”

Myron nodded. The desk clerk, definitely a college kid on break, sat behind the counter and stared straight ahead at nothing. He could have looked more bored, but only if a qualified physician induced a coma. Myron took a glance around and spotted the computer terminal. This was a good thing.

“Hello?”

The kid’s eyes slid toward Myron. “Yeah?”

“This computer. It keeps track of outgoing calls, right? Even local ones.”

The kid’s eyes narrowed. “Who wants to know?”

“I need to see records for all outgoing guest calls from the tenth and eleventh of this month.”

That got the kid to his feet. “You a cop? Let me see your badge.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Then—”

“I’ll pay you five hundred dollars for the information.” No sense in playing around here, Myron thought. “No one will ever know.”

The kid hesitated but not for long. “Hell, even if I get canned, that’s more money than I clear in a month. What dates did you need?”

Myron told him. The kid punched a few buttons. The printer started cranking. It all fitted on one sheet. Myron
handed the kid the money. The kid handed him the sheet. Myron quickly scanned the list.

Instant bingo.

He spotted the long-distance call to FJ’s office. It had come from room 117. Myron looked for other calls made from the same room. Clu had called his answering machine at home twice. Okay, good, fine. Now how about something more local? No reason to come up here just to make long-distance calls.

Bingo again.

Room 117. The first call on the list. A local number. Myron’s heart started pumping, his breath growing shallow. He was close now. So close. He walked outside. The driveway was gravel. He kicked it around a bit. He took out his phone and was about to dial the number. No. That might be a mistake. He should learn all he could first. If he called, he might tip someone off. Of course, he didn’t know whom he’d tip off or how they’d be tipped off or what they’d be tipped off about. But he didn’t want to screw up now. He had the phone number. Big Cyndi at the office would have a reverse directory. These were easy to come by now. Any software store sold CD-ROMs that had the entire country’s phone books on them or you could visit www.infospace.com on the Web. You plug in a number, it tells you who the number belongs to and where they live. More progress.

He called Big Cyndi.

“I was just about to call you, Mr. Bolitar.”