The three men stopped.
“So let me explain the situation,” Myron said, doing his best Kyle singsong, “so even you’ll understand. The button you have to press to activate all the newfangled features? You guessed it: It’s the off button. In short, everything that’s been said has been recorded. Plus the GPS is on. How far away are you, Win?”
“Heading through the club entrance now. I also activated the three-way caller. Esperanza’s on the line on mute. Esperanza?”
The mute button was clicked off. The club music came through the phone speaker. Esperanza said, “I’m by the side door where they dragged Myron out. Oh, and guess what? I found an old friend here, a police officer named Roland Dimonte. Say hi to my friend Kyle, Rolly.”
The male voice said, “I better see Bolitar’s ugly, untouched mug out here in thirty seconds, asswipe.”
It took more like twenty.
“It might not have been her,” Myron said.
It was two A.M. by the time Myron and Win got back to the Dakota. They sat in a room rich people called “a study,” with Louis the Something wood furniture and marble busts and a large antique globe and bookshelves with leather-bound first editions. Myron sat in a burgundy chair with gold buttons on the arm. By the time things had calmed down at the club, Kitty had vanished, if she’d ever been there in the first place. Lex and Buzz had cleared out too.
Win opened a leather-bound first-edition false front bookcase to reveal a refrigerator. He grabbed a Yoo-hoo chocolate drink and tossed it to Myron. Myron caught it, and reading the directions—“Shake It!”—did just that. Win opened the decanter and poured himself an exclusive cognac called, interestingly enough, The Last Drop.
“I could have been wrong,” Myron said.
Win lifted his snifter and checked it against the light.
“I mean, it’s been sixteen years, right? Her hair was a different color. The room was dark and I saw her for only a second. So really, when I add it up, it might not have been her.”
“It might not have been
she
,” Win said. “Subject pronoun.”
Win.
“And it was Kitty,” Win said.
“How do you know?”
“I know you. You don’t make those kinds of mistakes. Other mistakes, yes. But not those kind.”
Win took a sip of cognac. Myron splashed down some of the Yoo-hoo. Cold, chocolaty, sweet nectar. Three years ago Myron had all but given up this, his favorite beverage, in favor of boutique coffees that eat away the stomach lining. When he returned home from the stress of being overseas, he started up again with Yoo-hoo, more for the comfort than the actual taste. Now he loved it again.
“On the one hand, it doesn’t matter,” Myron said. “Kitty hasn’t been part of my life for a long time.”
Win nodded. “And on the other hand?”
Brad. That was what the other hand, the first hand, both hands, every hand—the chance, after all these years, to see and maybe reconcile with his baby brother. Myron took a moment, shifted his seat. Win watched and said nothing. Eventually Myron said, “It can’t be a coincidence. Kitty in the same nightclub—same VIP room even—as Lex.”
“It would seem unlikely,” Win said. “So what’s our next step?
“Find Lex. Find Kitty.”
Myron stared at the Yoo-hoo label and wondered, not for the first time, what the heck “dairy whey” was. The mind stalls. It dodges, weaves, finds irrelevancies on soda cans, all in the hopes of avoiding the unavoidable. He thought about when he first tried this drink, in that house in Livingston, New Jersey, he now owned, how Brad always had to have one too because Brad always wanted to do what big brother, Myron, did. He thought about the hours he shot baskets in the backyard, letting Brad have the honor of fetching him rebounds so Myron could concentrate on shooting. Myron spent so many hours out there, shooting, moving, getting the pass from Brad, shooting again, moving, hours and hours alone, and while Myron did not regret one moment of it, he had to wonder about his priorities—the priorities of most top athletes. What we so admire and call “single-minded dedication” was really “obsessive self-involvement.” What in that exactly is admirable?
An alarm clock beeping—a truly grating ringtone the BlackBerry people had for some reason labeled “Antelope”—interrupted them. Myron glanced down at his BlackBerry and flicked off the offending noise.
“You might as well take that,” Win said, standing. “I have somewhere to go anyway.”
“At two thirty A.M.? You want to tell me her name?”
Win smiled. “Maybe later.”
Given the demand for the one computer in the area, two thirty A.M., Eastern Daylight Time—seven thirty A.M. in Angola—was pretty much the only time that Myron could get his fiancée, Terese Collins, alone, if only technologically.
Myron signed on to Skype, the Internet equivalent of a videophone, and waited. A moment later, a video box came up and Terese appeared. He felt the heady rush and the lightness in his chest.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said to her.
“Good opening line.”
“I always open with that line.”
“It doesn’t get old.”
Terese looked great, sitting at the desk in a white blouse, hands folded so that he could see the engagement ring, her bottle-brunette hair—she was normally a blonde—pulled back into a ponytail.
After a few minutes, Myron said, “I was with a client tonight.”
“Who?”
“Lex Ryder.”
“The lesser half of HorsePower?”
“I like him. He’s a good guy. Anyway, he said the secret of a good marriage is being open.”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I love that I can just blurt that out. I never had that before. I’m too old to feel this way.”
“We are always eighteen, waiting for our lives to begin,” Myron said.
“That’s corny.”
“You’re a sucker for corny.”
“True enough. So Lex Ryder said we should be open. Aren’t we?”
“I don’t know. He had this theory on flaws. That we should reveal them to each other—the worst things about us—because somehow that makes us more human and thus closer.”
Myron gave her a few more details from the conversation. When he was done, Terese said, “Makes sense.”
“Do I know yours?” he asked.
“Myron, remember when we first got to that hotel room in Paris?”
Silence. He remembered.
“So yeah,” she said softly, “you know my flaws.”
“I guess I do.” He shifted in his seat, trying to meet her eyes by gazing straight into the camera. “I’m not sure you know all mine.”
“Flaws?” she said, feigning shock. “What flaws?”
“I’m pee shy, for one.”
“And you think I don’t know that?”
He laughed a little too hard.
“Myron?”
“Yes.”
“I love you. I can’t wait to be your wife. You’re a good man, maybe the best man I’ve ever known. The truth won’t change that. Whatever you’re not telling me? It may fester or whatever Lex said. Or it may not. Honesty can be overrated too. So don’t torment yourself. I will love you either way.”
Myron sat back. “Do you know how great you are?”
“I don’t care. Tell me how beautiful I am again. I’m a sucker for that.”
7
T
hree Downing was closing up for the night. Win watched the patrons stumble outside, blinking in the unnatural light of Manhattan at four A.M. He waited. After a few minutes he spotted the large man who had used the stun gun on Myron. The large man—Kyle—was tossing someone out as though he were a bag of laundry. Win stayed calm. He thought back to a time not that long ago when Myron had vanished for weeks, was tortured probably, a time when he, Win, couldn’t help his best friend or even avenge him after the fact. Win remembered the horrible feeling of powerlessness. He hadn’t felt that way since his youth in the wealthy suburbs on Philadelphia’s Main Line, since those who hated him on sight tormented and beat him. Win had sworn back then that he would never feel that way again. Then he did something about it. Now, as an adult, the same rule held.
If you are hurt, you strike back. Massive retaliation. But with a purpose. Myron didn’t always agree with this doctrine. That was okay. They were friends, best friends. They would kill for each other. But they weren’t the same person.
“Hello, Kyle,” Win called out.
Kyle looked up and scowled.
“Do you have a moment for a private conversation?” Win asked.
“You kidding me?”
“Normally, I’m a great kidder, a regular Dom DeLuise, but no, Kyle, tonight I kid you not. I want us to chat in private.”
Kyle actually licked his lips. “No cell phones this time?”
“None. No stun guns either.”
Kyle looked around, making sure that the proverbial coast was clear. “And that cop is gone?”
“Long gone.”
“So it’s just you and me?”
“Just you and me,” Win repeated. “In fact, my nipples are getting hard at the thought.”
Kyle moved closer. “I don’t care who you know, pretty boy,” Kyle said. “I’ll bust your ass up but good.”
Win smiled and gestured for him to lead the way. “Oh, I can’t wait.”
Sleep used to be an escape for Myron.
No more. He would lie in bed for hours, stare at the ceiling, afraid to close his eyes. It brought him back often to a place he was supposed to forget. He knew that he should deal with this—visit a shrink or something—but he also knew that he probably wouldn’t. Trite to say, but Terese was something of a cure. When he slept with her, the night terrors kept their distance.
His first thought when the alarm clock jarred him back to the present was the same as when he’d tried to close his eyes: Brad. It was odd. Days, sometimes weeks, maybe even months passed without thinking about his brother. Their estrangement worked a bit like grief. We are often told during times of bereavement that time heals all wounds. That’s crap. In truth, you are devastated, you mourn, you cry to the point where you think you’ll never stop—and then you reach a stage where the survival instinct takes over. You stop. You simply won’t or can’t let yourself “go there” anymore because the pain was too great. You block. You deny. But you don’t really heal.
Seeing Kitty last night had knocked away the denial and sent Myron reeling. So now what? Simple: Talk to the two people who could tell him something about Kitty and Brad. He reached for his phone and called his house in Livingston, New Jersey. His parents were visiting from Boca Raton for the week.
His mom answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mom,” Myron said, “how are you?”
“I’m great, honey. How are you?”
Her voice was almost too tender, as if the wrong answer could shatter her heart.
“I’m great too.” He’d thought about asking her about Brad, but no, this would take some tact. “I thought maybe I’d take you and Dad out to dinner tonight.”
“Not Nero’s,” she said. “I don’t want to go to Nero’s.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’m not in the mood for Italian. Nero’s is Italian.”
“Right. No Nero’s.”
“You ever have that?”
“Have what?”
“Where you’re just not in the mood for a kind of food? Take me right now, for example. I simply don’t want Italian.”
“Yep, I got that. So what kind of food would you like?”
“Can we do Chinese? I don’t like the Chinese in Florida. It’s too greasy.”
“Sure. How about Baumgart’s?”
“Oh, I love their kung pao chicken. But, Myron, what kind of name is Baumgart’s for a Chinese restaurant? It sounds like a Jewish deli.”
“It used to be,” Myron said.
“Really?”
He had explained the origin of the name to her at least ten times. “I really have to hurry here, Mom. I’ll be by the house at six. Tell Dad.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself, honey.”
Again with the tender. He told her to do the same. After he hung up, he decided to text his father to confirm tonight. He felt bad about that, as if he were somehow betraying his mother, but her memory . . . well, enough with the denial, right?
Myron quickly showered and got dressed. Since returning from Angola, Myron had, at Esperanza’s rather strong suggestion, made walking to work a morning ritual. He entered Central Park at West Seventy-second and took it south. Esperanza loved to walk, but Myron had never really gotten it. His temperament was not suited for head clearing or settling his nerves or solace or whatever putting one foot in front of the other was supposed to accomplish. But Esperanza had convinced him that it would be good for his head, making him promise to give it three weeks. Alas, Esperanza was wrong, though maybe he hadn’t given it a fair shake. Myron spent most of the time with the Bluetooth in his ear, chatting up clients, gesturing wildly like, well, like most of the other park dwellers. Still it felt better, more “him,” to be multitasking. So with that in mind, he jammed the Bluetooth into his ear and called Suzze T. She picked up on the first ring.
“Did you find him?” Suzze asked.
“We did. Then we lost him. Have you heard of a nightclub called Three Downing?”
“Of course.”
Of course. “Well, Lex was there last night.” Myron explained about finding him in the VIP room. “He started talking about festering secrets and not being open.”
“Did you tell him the post wasn’t true?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“We kind of got interrupted.” Myron walked past the children frolicking in the fountain in Heckscher Playground. There might be happier kids somewhere else on this sunny day, but he doubted it. “I have to ask you something.”
“I already told you. It’s his baby.”
“Not that. Last night, at that club, I could have sworn I saw Kitty.”
Silence.