Win thought about that. “Well, perhaps ‘isn’t good’ was an ineffective way for me to have put it,” he said.
“How should you have put it?”
Win tapped his chin with his index finger. “Really, really bad.”
Myron felt the chill and turned back toward the screen. Win pressed another button on the remote. The camera zoomed out. “Kitty entered the club at ten thirty-three P.M. with approximately ten other people. Lex’s entourage, if you will.”
There she was, turquoise blouse, her face pale. The video was one of those that took pictures every two or three seconds so that the effect was jerky, like one of those flip books or old footage of Babe Ruth running the bases.
“This was taken in a small chamber off the VIP room at ten forty-seven P.M.”
Not long before he and Esperanza arrived, Myron thought. Win hit a skip button and reached a frozen image. Again the camera angle was from above. It was hard to see Kitty’s face. She was with another woman and a guy with long hair tied into a ponytail. Myron did not recognize them. The guy with the ponytail had something in his hand. A rope maybe. Win hit the play button and the actors in this little drama came to life. Kitty put out her arm. Ponytail leaned closer to her and wrapped the . . . nope, not rope . . . around her bicep and tied it off. Then he tapped her arm with two fingers and took out a hypodermic needle. Myron felt his heart sink as Ponytail put the needle in Kitty’s arm with a seemingly practiced hand, pushed the plunger, and untied the cord around her bicep.
“Wow,” Myron said. “That’s new, even for her.”
“Yes,” Win said. “She’s stepped up from cokehead to heroin addict. Impressive.”
Myron shook his head. He should have been shocked, but pitifully he wasn’t. He thought about the Facebook photographs, the big smiles, the family trips. He’d been wrong before. It wasn’t a life. It was a lie. Take “life” and remove the
f
. One big fat ol’ lie. Classic Kitty.
“Myron?”
“Yep.”
“This isn’t the worst part,” Win said.
Myron just looked at his old friend.
“This won’t be easy to watch.”
Win was not one for hyperbole. Myron turned back to the TV and waited for Win to hit the play button. Without looking away from the screen, Myron put the Yoo-hoo on a coaster and put out his hand. Win had the previously poured snifter of the cognac at the ready. Myron accepted it now, took a sip, closed his eyes, let it sting his throat.
“I’m skipping ahead fourteen minutes,” Win said. “In short, this picks up a few minutes before you spotted her entering the VIP room.”
Win finally pressed the play button. The view was the same—that small chamber room from above. But this time there were only two people in the room: Kitty—and the man with the long ponytail. They were talking. Myron risked a quick glance at Win. Win’s face, as always, showed nothing. On the screen, Ponytail started twisting his fingers in Kitty’s hair. Myron just stared. Kitty began to kiss the man’s neck, moving down to his chest, unbuttoning his shirt as she went, until her head disappeared from the frame. The man let his head fall back. There was a smile on his face.
“Turn it off,” Myron said.
Win pressed the remote. The screen went dark. Myron closed his eyes. Utter sadness and deep rage coursed through him in equal measure. His temples started pounding. He dropped his head into his hands. Win was there now, standing over him, his hand on his shoulder. Win did not say anything. He just waited. A few moments later, Myron opened his eyes and sat upright.
“We find her,” Myron said. “Whatever it takes, we find her now.”
“Still no sign of Lex,” Esperanza said.
After another night of limited sleep, Myron sat behind his desk. His body ached. His head pounded. Esperanza sat across from him. Big Cyndi leaned against the door frame, smiling in a way someone with vision trouble might call demure. She was packed in a shimmering purple Batgirl costume, a somewhat bigger-sized replica of the one Yvonne Craig made famous on the old TV show. The fabric looked strained at the seams. Big Cyndi had a pen stuck behind one cat ear, a Bluetooth in the other.
“No hits on his credit card,” Esperanza said. “No cell phone use. In fact, I even got our old friend PT to run a GPS on his smartphone. It’s turned off.”
“Okay.”
“We also got a pretty good close-up of the ponytailed guy who was, uh, friendly with Kitty at Three Downing. Big Cyndi is going to head down to the club in a few hours with the still frame and question the staff.”
Myron looked over at Big Cyndi. Big Cyndi batted her eyes at him. Picture two tarantulas on their backs baking in the desert sun.
“We also checked on your brother and Kitty,” Esperanza continued. “Nothing in the United States. No credit cards, no driver’s license, no property, no liens, no tax returns, no parking tickets, no marriage or divorces listed, nothing.”
“I have another idea,” Myron said. “Let’s check out Buzz.”
“Lex’s roadie?”
“He’s more than a roadie. Anyway, Buzz’s real name is Alex I. Khowaylo. Let’s try his credit cards and cell phone—he might have left his on.”
“Pardon me,” Big Cyndi said. “I have a call coming in.” Big Cyndi tapped her Bluetooth and put on her receptionist voice. “Yes, Charlie? Okay, yes, thank you.” Charlie, Myron knew, was the security guard downstairs. Big Cyndi tapped the Bluetooth off and said, “Michael Davis from Shears is coming up the elevator.”
“You got this?” Esperanza asked him.
Myron nodded. “Show him in.”
Shears, along with Gillette and Schick, dominate the razor blade market. Michael Davis was the VP in charge of marketing. Big Cyndi waited at the elevator for the new arrival. New arrivals often gasped when the elevator first opened and Big Cyndi was standing there. Not so with Michael. He barely broke stride, rushing ahead of Big Cyndi and directly into Myron’s office.
“We got a problem,” Michael said.
Myron spread his arms. “I’m all ears.”
“We’re taking Shear Delight Seven off the market in a month.”
Shear Delight Seven was a razor or, if you believe the Shear marketing department, the latest in “shaving innovation technology” featuring a “more ergonomic grip” (who has trouble holding a razor?), a “professional blade stabilizer” (Myron had no idea what that meant), “seven thinner, precision blades” (because other blades are fat and imprecise) and “micro-pulse power operation” (it vibrates).
Myron’s NFL All-Pro defensive back, Ricky “Smooth” Sules, was featured in the ad campaign. The tagline: “Get Twice as Smooth.” Myron didn’t really get it. In the TV commercial, Ricky shaves, smiling as though it is a sex act, says the Shear Delight Seven gives him the “closest, most comfortable shave possible,” and then a hot girl coos, “Oh, Smooth . . . ,” and runs her hands along his cheeks. In short, it is the same shaving commercial all three companies have been running since 1968.
“Ricky and I were under the impression it was doing great.”
“Oh, it is,” Davis said. “Or it was. I mean, the response is through the roof.”
“So?”
“It works too well.”
Myron looked at him, waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, Myron said, “And that’s a problem how?”
“We sell razor blades.”
“I know.”
“So that’s how we make money. We don’t make it selling the actual razors. Heck, we practically give away the razors. We make it by selling you the refills—the razor blades.”
“Right.”
“So we need people to change blades at least, say, once a week. But the Shear Delights are working better than expected. We have reports of people going six to eight weeks on a single razor. We can’t have that.”
“You can’t have blades that work too well.”
“Exactly.”
“And because of that, you’re going to cancel the whole campaign?”
“What? No, of course not. We’ve built tremendous goodwill off the product. The consumer loves it. What we will do is start offering a new, improved product. The Shear Delight Seven Plus with a new comfort lubricant strip—for the best shave of your life. We feed it slowly into the market. Over time, we phase out the Shear Sevens in favor of the improved Plus.”
Myron tried not to sigh. “And—let me make sure I follow—the Plus blades won’t last as long as the regular blades.”
“But”—Davis held up a finger and smiled widely—“it gives the consumer a comfort strip. The comfort strip will make it the most comfortable shave possible. It is like a spa for your face.”
“A spa where the refills will have to be changed once a week rather than once a month.”
“It’s a wonderful product. Ricky will love it.”
Myron would make a moral stand here, but, well, nah. His job was to represent his client’s best interest, and in the case of endorsements, that meant getting said client the most money possible. Yes, there were always ethical questions to consider. Yes, he would tell Ricky exactly what was up with the Plus versus the regular model. But it was Ricky’s decision and there was little doubt if it meant more money, he would and should go for it. One could spend a lot of time bemoaning how this was clearly an attempt to con the public via advertising, but one would be hard-pressed to find any product or marketing campaign that did not do exactly that.
“So,” Myron said, “you want to hire Ricky to endorse the new product.”
“What do you mean, hire?” Davis looked deeply offended. “He’s already under contract.”
“But now you want him to redo the commercials. For the new Plus blades.”
“Well, yes, of course.”
“So I’m thinking,” Myron said, “that Ricky should get twenty percent more money for the new commercial.”
“Twenty percent more how?”
“Twenty percent over what you paid him to endorse the Shear Delight Seven.”
“What?” Davis shouted, hand to heart as though warding off a heart attack. “Are you kidding? It’s practically a reshoot of the first. Our lawyers say that under the contract, we can ask him to do the reshoot and not pay one cent more.”
“Your lawyers are wrong.”
“Come on. Let’s be reasonable. We are generous people, aren’t we? Because of that—even though, really, we shouldn’t—we can give him a ten percent bonus over what he’s already getting.”
“Not enough,” Myron said.
“You’re joking, right? I know you. You’re a funny guy, Myron. You’re being funny right now, right?”
“Ricky is happy with the razor as it is,” Myron said. “If you wish to have him endorse a whole new product with a whole new marketing campaign, he will certainly need to make more money.”
“More? Are you out of your mind?”
“He won Shear’s Stubble Destroyer’s Man of the Year. That upped his worth.”
“What?” Total outrage now. “We gave him that award!”
And so it goes.
Half an hour later, when Michael Davis left cursing under his breath, Esperanza came into Myron’s office.
“I found Lex’s friend Buzz.”
10
A
diona Island is exactly five miles wide, exactly two miles long, and, as Win once put it, the “epicenter of the WASP.” It is located a scant four miles off the coast of Massachusetts. According to the Census Bureau, 211 people inhabited the island year-round. That number grew—it was hard to say by how much but it was at least several fold—during the summer months as the blue bloods from Connecticut, Philadelphia, and New York flocked in by jet or ferry. Recently, the Adiona Golf Course was named one of the top twenty-five courses by
Golf Magazine
. This upset rather than pleased the club members because Adiona Island was their private world. They don’t want you to visit or even know about the island. Yes, there was a “public” ferry, but the ferry was small, the departure schedule hard to figure out, and if you somehow managed to get there, the beaches and pretty much all land on the island were private and guarded. There was only one restaurant on Adiona Island, the Teapot Lodge, and it was more of a drinking pub than an eatery. There was one food market, one general store, one church. There were no hotels or inns or anyplace to stay. The mansions, most with cute names like Tippy’s Cottage or The Waterbury or Triangle House, were both spectacular and understated. If you wanted to buy one, you could—this was a free country—but you wouldn’t be welcomed, wouldn’t be allowed to join the “club,” wouldn’t be allowed on the tennis courts or the beaches and you would be discouraged from patronizing the Teapot Lodge. You had to be invited onto this private enclave or agree to go it alone as a social outcast—and pretty much no one chose to go it alone. The island was kept secure less by real guards and more with Old-World scowls of disapproval.
With no true restaurant, how did the well-heeled dine? They ate meals prepared by help. Dinner parties were the norm, almost in rotation, Bab’s turn and then a night at Fletcher’s place and maybe Conrad’s yacht on Friday and, well, Windsor’s estate on Saturday. If you summer here—and one clue might be that you use the word “summer” as a verb—chances are your father and grandfather summered here too. The air was heavy with ocean spray and eau du blue blood.
On either side of the island, there were two mysterious, fencedoff areas. One was near the grass tennis courts and owned by the military. No one knew exactly what went on there, but the rumors of covert operations and Roswell-type secrecy were endless.
The other secluded enclave was on the southern tip of the island. The land was owned by Gabriel Wire, the eccentric, ultra-reclusive lead singer of HorsePower. Wire’s compound was bathed in secrecy—a full twenty-one acres protected by security guards and the latest in surveillance technology. Wire was the exception on this island. He seemed fine alone, secluded, an outcast. In fact, Myron thought, Gabriel Wire insisted upon it.
Over the years, if rumors were to be believed, the island’s blue bloods had pretty much accepted the reclusive rocker. Some claim that they see Gabriel Wire shopping at the market. Others say that he often swam, either alone or with only a stunning beauty, on a quiet strip of beach in the later afternoons. Like much with Gabriel Wire, nothing could be confirmed.