Even a sociopath can look surprised. “Why the hell would you want to know about that?”
“Myron represents his partner.”
“So?”
“I know in the past that you handled his gambling debts.”
“And you think that should be illegal? It’s fine if the government sells lottery tickets. It’s fine if Las Vegas or Atlantic City or a bunch of Indians take bets, but if an honest businessman does it, somehow that’s a crime?”
Win tried very hard not to yawn. “So, do you still handle Gabriel Wire’s gambling?”
“I can’t see how any of this is your business. Wire and I have legitimate business arrangements. That’s all you have to know.”
“Legitimate business arrangements?”
“That’s right.”
“But I’m confused,” Win said.
“About?”
“What possible legitimate business arrangements involve Evan Crisp guarding Wire’s house on Adiona Island?”
Still holding his driver, Ache froze. He handed it back to the caddie and snapped the white glove off his left hand. He moved closer to Win. “Listen to me,” he said softly. “This is not a place you and Myron want to interfere. Trust me here. Do you know Crisp?”
“Only by reputation.”
Ache nodded. “Then you know it won’t be worth it.”
Herman gave Win one more hard glare and returned to his caddie. He put his glove back on and asked for his driver. The caddy handed it to him and then headed toward the woods on the left because that was the real estate Herman Ache’s golf balls seemed to favor.
“I have no interest in hurting your business,” Win said. “I have no interest in Gabriel Wire, for that matter.”
“So what do you want here?”
“I want to know about Suzze T. I want to know about Alista Snow. I want to know about Kitty Bolitar.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Would you like to hear my theory?”
“About?”
“Let’s go back sixteen years,” Win said. “Gabriel Wire owes you a substantial sum of money for gambling debts. He’s a drug addict, a pleated-skirt chaser—”
“Pleated?”
“He likes them young,” Win explained.
“Oh. Now I get it. Pleated.”
“So glad. Gabriel Wire is also—more important to you—a compulsive gambler. In short, he’s a mess, albeit a profitable one. He has money and tremendous earning potential, ergo the interest owed keeps compounding. Are you with me?”
Herman Ache said nothing.
“Then Wire goes too far. After a concert at Madison Square Garden, he invites Alista Snow, a naïve sixteen-year-old girl, back to his suite. Wire slips her Rohypnol and cocaine and whatever other drugs he has lying around, and the girl ends up leaping off a balcony. He panics. Or perhaps, being that he is such an important asset, you already have a man on the scene. Perhaps Crisp. You clean up the mess. You intimidate the witnesses and even buy off the Snow family—whatever it takes to protect your boy. He owes you even bigger now. I don’t know what ‘legitimate business arrangement’ you made, but I imagine Wire has to pay you, what, half his earnings? That would be several million dollars per year minimum.”
Herman Ache just looked at him, trying very hard not to fume. “Win?”
“Yes?”
“I know you and Myron like to think you’re tough guys,” Ache said, “but neither one of you is bulletproof.”
“Tsk-tsk.” Win spread his arms. “What happened to Mr. Legal? Mr. Legitimate Businessman?”
“You’ve been warned.”
“By the way, I visited your brother in prison.”
Herman’s face fell.
“He sends his regards.”
22
B
ack at the office, Big Cyndi was at the ready.
“I have some information on Gabriel Wire’s tattoo, Mr. Bolitar.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Big Cyndi wore all pink today with enough blush on her cheeks to coat a minivan. “According to Ma Gellan’s extensive research, Gabriel Wire had one tattoo. It was on his left thigh, not his right. This may sound a little strange, so please bear with me.”
“I’m listening.”
“The tattoo was a heart. That tattoo itself was permanent. But what Gabriel Wire would do is fill in a name temporarily.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“You have seen what Gabriel Wire looks like, correct?”
“Yes.”
“He was a rock star and an absolute major yummy, but he had a certain predilection.”
“That being?”
“He liked underage girls.”
“He was a pedophile?”
“No, I don’t believe so. His targets were fully developed. But they were young. Sixteen, seventeen.”
Alista Snow, for example. And now that he thought about it, Suzze T, back in those days.
“So even though Gabriel Wire was a tasty rock star, he often needed to convince a girl that she meant something to him.”
“I’m not sure how the tattoos fit in.”
“It was a red heart.”
“So?”
“So it was plain inside. Just red. Gabriel Wire would then take a Sharpie and write in the name of the girl he was pursuing. He would pretend that he had gotten the tattoo especially for that particular girl.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
“Talk about diabolical.”
Big Cyndi sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the things men will do to land some of us hotties.”
Myron tried to process this. “How did it work exactly?”
“It would depend. If Gabriel wanted to close the sale immediately, he would actually take the girl to a tattoo parlor that night. He would tell her he was going to the back room and to wait for him. Then he’d draw in the name. Sometimes he would do it before a second date.”
“Sort of, say, ‘I care about you so much, look, I got a tattoo with your name on it’?”
“Precisely.”
Myron shook his head.
“You have to admit,” Big Cyndi said, “it is sort of genius.”
“More like sick.”
“Oh, I believe that was part of it,” Big Cyndi said. “Gabriel Wire could have any girl he wants—even young ones. So I ask myself, why would he go to all that trouble? Why not just move on to the next girl?”
“And?”
“And I think, like many men, he needed the girl to truly fall for him. He liked them young. So my guess is he was developmentally stunted, stuck in that stage when a boy gets off breaking a girl’s heart. Like in high school.”
“Could be.”
“It’s just a theory,” Big Cyndi said.
“Okay, this is all interesting, but what does this have to do with the other tattoo—the one that Suzze had too?”
“The design appears to be original artwork of some kind,” Big Cyndi said. “So Ma Gellan theorized that Suzze and Gabriel became lovers. Suzze got the tattoo and—to impress or fool her—Gabriel got one too.”
“So it was temporary?”
“There’s no way to know for certain,” Big Cyndi said, “but it is certainly, based on his past, a strong possibility.”
Esperanza was standing in the doorway. Myron looked over at her. “Thoughts?”
“Just the obvious,” Esperanza said. “Suzze and Gabriel were lovers. Someone posts a tattoo that both of them wore with a message about the paternity of her child.”
“Kitty admitted that she posted it,” Myron said.
“That might add up,” Esperanza said.
“Why’s that?”
The office phone rang. Big Cyndi moved back to her desk and put on her sugary-sweet voice. “MB Reps.” She listened a moment and shook her head at them, pointing to herself: She could handle it.
Esperanza signaled Myron to follow her into her office. “I got Suzze’s mobile phone records.”
On television, they make getting phone records seem difficult or, for the purposes of the plot, that it takes days or weeks. In truth, it could be done in minutes. In this case, it would take even less. Suzze, like many of MB Rep’s clients, had set up all her bill paying via MB Reps. That meant that they had her phone number, her address, her passcodes, her social security number. Esperanza was able to get the calls online as though it were her own phone.
“Her final call was to Lex’s cell, but he didn’t pick up. I think that he may have been on the plane flying back. But Lex had called her earlier in the day. Right after that—this is the morning before Suzze died—she also called an untraceable disposable mobile. My guess is, the police will believe that she was calling her drug dealer to set up a buy.”
“But that wasn’t the case?”
Esperanza shook her head. “The number matches the one ol’ Crush gave you for Kitty.”
“Whoa.”
“Yes,” Esperanza said. “And maybe that’s how Suzze got the drugs.”
“From Kitty?”
“Yep.”
Myron shook his head. “I still don’t believe it.”
“What don’t you believe?”
“Suzze. You saw her in here. She was pregnant. She was happy.”
Esperanza sat back and looked at him for several beats. “Do you remember when Suzze won the US Open?”
“Of course. What does that have to do with anything?”
“She’d cleaned up her act. She focused solely on her tennis, and bam, right away, Suzze wins a major. I never saw someone want something so badly. I can still see that final cross-court forehand to win, the look of pure undiluted joy on her face, the way she threw her racket up in the air and turned and pointed at you.”
“At us,” Myron said.
“Don’t patronize me, please. You’ve always been her agent and her friend, but you can’t be blind here. I want you to think what happened next.”
Myron tried to remember. “We had a huge party. Suzze brought the trophy with her. We drank out of it.”
“And then?”
Myron nodded, seeing where Esperanza was going. “She crashed.”
“Big-time.”
Four days after the biggest victory of her career—after appearing on the
Today
show,
Late Show with David Letterman
, and a bunch of other high-profile venues—Myron found Suzze crying, still in bed at two in the afternoon. They say that there is nothing worse than having a dream come true. Suzze had thought the US Open trophy would bring her instant happiness. She thought her breakfast would taste better in the morning, the sun would feel better on her skin, that she’d look in the mirror and see someone more attractive, smarter, more worthy of love.
She thought that winning would change her.
“Just when things were at their best for her,” Esperanza said, “she started using again.”
“And you think that’s what happened here?”
Esperanza raised one weighing hand, then the other. “Happiness, crash. Happiness, crash.”
“And her visit to Karl Snow after all the years? Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“Nope. But I think he brought up a lot of emotion. That plays for her using, not against. Meanwhile I checked the addresses you gave me from Suzze’s GPS. The first, well, you figured that one out—Karl Snow’s ice cream parlor. The rest are all easy to explain, except I don’t have a clue about that second one.”
“The intersection in Edison, New Jersey?” Then: “Wait. Didn’t you say Kitty’s disposable phone was purchased at T-Mobile in Edison?”
“Right.” Esperanza brought something up on the computer. “Here’s the Google Earth satellite picture.”
Myron looked. A ShopRite. A Best Buy. A bunch of stores. A gas station.
“No T-Mobile,” Esperanza said.
But, Myron thought, worth a drive anyway.
23
M
yron’s car Bluetooth picked up his cell phone. He spent the first half hour on the phone with clients. Life doesn’t stop for death. If you ever need proof of that, head back to work.
A few minutes before arriving, Win called.
“Are you armed?” Win asked.
“I assume you upset Herman Ache.”
“I did.”
“So he’s involved with Gabriel Wire?”
“It would seem so, yes, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Myron asked.
“I presented him with our theory about them controlling Wire via blackmail and gambling debts.”
“Right.”
“After several minutes,” Win said, “Mr. Ache finally admitted that our theory was correct.”
“Which means?”
“Herman Ache would lie about what he ate for lunch,” Win said.
“So we’re missing something.”
“Yes. In the meantime, arm yourself.”
“I’ll pick up a gun when I get back,” Myron said.
“No need to wait. There is a thirty-eight under your seat.”
Terrific. Myron reached under his seat, felt the bump. “Anything else I need to know?”
“I birdied the last hole. Shot two under par for the round.”
“Talk about burying the lead.”
“I was trying to be modest.”
“I think,” Myron said, “that at some point, we will need to talk to Gabriel Wire face-to-face.”
“That might mean storming the castle,” Win said. “Or at least his estate on Adiona Island.”
“Think we can get through his security?”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t ask that.”
When Myron arrived at the intersection in Edison, he parked in the lot of yet another strip mall. He looked to see whether there was an ice cream parlor in this one—he’d start there this time if that was the case—but no, this one was somewhat more generic, Strip Mall USA, featuring a Best Buy, a Staples, and a shoe store called DSW that had the approximate square footage of a small European principality.
So why here?
He worked out yesterday’s timeline in his head. First Suzze received a phone call from her husband Lex Ryder. The call lasted forty-seven minutes. Thirty minutes after hanging up, Suzze placed a call to Kitty’s disposable cell phone. That call was shorter—four minutes. Okay, fine, what next? There was a time gap now, but four hours later, Suzze confronted Karl Snow at his ice cream parlor about the death of his daughter Alista Snow.
So he needed to try to fill in the four hours.