Harlan Coben - Home

“Roma won,” Carlo says.

“By cheating,” counters Renato.

“You’re just a bad loser.”

“The referee. He was paid off.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Your man was three meters offside!”

“Stop,” Giuseppe says. “So you see there was a brawl.”

“Crazy bastard tried to kill me,” Carlo says.

“Ah, you so exaggerate!”

“He stabbed me with a knife.”

“It was a pen!”

“It broke skin.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“It scratched for sure. I had a blue mark down my arm!”

“Roma is afraid of the dark.”

“Lazio players wear skirts.”

“You take that back.”

Carlo puts his hand to his ear. “Which team has won more derbies again?”

“Oh, that’s it.” Renato’s face is scarlet. “Let’s go!”

Renato stands and throws a paperclip across the room. It hits the back of Carlo’s chair, going nowhere near Carlo’s face, but Carlo falls to the floor as though he’s been shot.

“My eye! My eye!”

Carlo cups his eye with one hand and rolls back and forth as though in great pain. Giuseppe blows his whistle. He races over to Renato, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a yellow card.

“Sit back down!”

“He’s faking!” Renato shouts.

Carlo is smiling now. He moves his hand away and winks at Renato. When Giuseppe turns toward him, Carlo cups his eye and starts grimacing in pain again.

“He’s faking!” Renato insists.

“I said, sit down. Don’t make me bring out the red card.”

Renato, still fuming, sits back down. Carlo gingerly gets back into his chair.

Giuseppe comes back toward me. “They’re insane, both of them. But they are great at what they do.”

“Which is gaming.”

“Yes. But pretty much anything involving computers.”

“They lost to Fat Gandhi, though.”

Both Carlo and Renato turn in unison: “He cheats.”

“How do you know?”

“No one can beat us fairly,” Carlo says.

“Fat Gandhi has to use more than two players,” adds Renato.

I think back to Myron’s description of the room. “He does.”

Both men stop typing now. “You know for sure?”

“I do.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to us,” Carlo says.

“He took away our title,” adds Renato.

“You’ll have your chance at revenge,” I tell them. “Have you started implementing my plan?”

“One hundred thousand euros?”

“Yes.”

Carlo types with a smile on his face. So does Renato.

Giuseppe says, “We’re ready.”

Esperanza met Myron in the back corner of Baumgart’s.

Baumgart’s restaurant was an old Jewish soda fountain/deli that had been purchased by Chinese immigrant Peter Chin. Wanting to do something both different and wise, Peter had kept all the old touches and added an Asian fusion (whatever that meant) menu and some neon lights and hip décor. Now you could order Kung Bao Chicken or a Pastrami Reuben, the Chinese Eggplant Combo or a Turkey Club.

Peter came over and bowed toward Esperanza. “You do my restaurant a great honor with your presence, Ms. Diaz.”

Myron said, “Ahem.”

“And you don’t completely kick its reputation to the curb.”

“Good one,” Myron said.

“Did you see it?” Peter asked.

“See what?”

Beaming now, Peter pointed behind him. “Look at my wall of honor!”

Like many restaurants, Baumgart’s hung up framed autographed photographs of the celebrities who had dined there. It was an eclectic mix of New Jersey celebrity. Brooke Shields was up there. So was Dizzy Gillespie. Grandpa “Al Lewis” Munster was on the same wall, along with several stars from The Sopranos, a few New York Giants players, local news anchors, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, and an author Myron had once read.

There, hung dead center between a rapper and a villain from the old Batman TV show, was a photograph of Esperanza “Little Pocahontas” Diaz dressed in her suede bikini. The bikini top was starting to slide down her shoulder. Esperanza posed in the ring, sweaty and proud and looking up.

Myron turned to her. “You stole that pose from Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C .”

“I did.”

“I had that poster on my wall when I was a kid.”

“So did I,” Esperanza said.

Peter was still beaming. “Great, right?”

“You know,” Myron said, “I was a professional basketball player.”

“For about three minutes.”

“You’re so nice to your customers.”

“Part of my charm. Your food will be out soon.”

Peter left them alone. Esperanza was killer in an aqua blouse. She wore gold hoop earrings and a thick bracelet. Her cell phone buzzed. She took a look and closed her eyes.

“What?” Myron asked.

“Tom.”

“He’s texting you?”

“No, it’s my attorney. Tom canceled all settlement talks.”

“So he’s going full frontal.”

“Yep.”

“I’d like to help.”

She shook him off. “We’re not here to discuss Tom.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t.”

Nicole the waitress came over with appetizer-sized Cold Sesame Noodles and a Sizzling Duck Crepe. Serious yum. They both went quiet for a moment and ate. Way back when, Myron Bolitar had founded a sports agency cleverly dubbed MB SportsReps. The M stood for Myron, the B for Bolitar, the SportsReps because he repped athletes. Marketing-it’s a gift, really.

Esperanza came on as his receptionist/assistant/confidante/assorted other hats. She went to school at night to get her law degree. Eventually she moved up to full partner, though she didn’t insist on changing the name to MBED because, really, that would be confusing. They did drop “Sports” from the name when they started representing actors and musicians and the like, so that in the end, the company had been called MB Reps.

Big Cyndi took over as receptionist and, well, agency bouncer. Things went along pretty swimmingly until they all fell apart. When Tom started this slash-n-burn custody hearing a year ago-back then he’d claimed Esperanza was an unfit mother because she worked too hard-Esperanza had been so freaked-out by the threat that she asked Myron to buy her out. Myron hesitated, but then when Win disappeared, the thought of continuing without both of them was too disheartening. They ended up selling MB Reps to a mega-agency that took their clients and got rid of the name altogether.

“So I went to the Alpine police station,” Esperanza said, “to see what they were doing with the Moore-Baldwin case.”

“And?”

“They wouldn’t talk.”

Myron stopped eating. “Wait, they wouldn’t talk to you?”

“That’s right.”

He thought about that. “Did you flash cleavage?”

“Two buttons’ worth.”

“And that didn’t work?”

“The new police chief is female,” Esperanza said. “And straight.”

“Still,” Myron said.

“I know, right? I was a little insulted.”

“Maybe I should try,” Myron said. “I’m told I have a terrific ass.”

Esperanza frowned.

“I could meet her. Turn the charm on full blast.”

“And have her disrobe right in the station?”

“You may have a point.”

Esperanza rolled her eyes without actually rolling her eyes. “I don’t think she can help us anyway. The local force has had a lot of turnover since Rhys and Patrick were kidnapped.”

“I doubt they’ll handle the case this time anyway.”

“I’m sure it’ll get kicked up to state or federal, but Big Cyndi did a little digging. The guy who ran the case ten years ago is retired. His name is Neil Huber.”