Harlan Coben - Home

“But you changed your mind.”

“Yes.”

“Because I would have spotted the men. And I would have brought more men. And I would have killed your men and killed you. And even if you and your group somehow got the upper hand on us-”

Zorra makes a choking noise and laughs out loud. “On Zorra?”

“We are talking hypotheticals,” I assure him. I turn back to Fat Gandhi. “Even if you somehow could kill us, you knew that it wouldn’t end there. Myron would go after you.”

Fat Gandhi nods. “It would never end. I would have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

“You’re wiser than I thought,” I say. “So let’s make it simple. Give me Rhys. I take him home. The end. I never think of you again. I forget you exist. You forget I exist.”

It is a good deal, I think, but I wonder whether I can keep it. Fat Gandhi had tried to eliminate Myron. That was no small matter. I wouldn’t kill him out of revenge for that act-it was, in its own way, quite understandable-but I have to worry about both his mental stability and self-interest. He wanted to show strength to his workers. He wanted to show power. That motive was still present.

His “looking over my shoulder” concern works both ways.

“It’s not that simple,” Fat Gandhi says.

I put a little steel in my voice. “It’s just that simple. Give me Rhys.”

He lowers his eyes and shakes his head. “I can’t.”

There is a moment’s hesitation, no more. I know that it is coming, but I do nothing to stop it. With grace that never fails to surprise me, Zorra spins and sweeps Fat Gandhi’s legs. Fat Gandhi drops like a sack of peat moss onto his back. He makes an oof noise as the air leaves his lungs.

Zorra stands over his prone form. He raises his razor-sharp (literally) heel, perfectly poised to stomp down on Fat Gandhi’s face. Instead Zorra lowers the point of the heel so that the blade is scant millimeters (again literally) from Fat Gandhi’s cornea.

“Bad answer, dreamboat,” Zorra tells him. “Try again.”

Myron sat in his dad’s chair in the TV room.

Dad asked, “Are you going to wait up for Mickey?”

When Myron was a teenager, his father would sit in this chair at night and wait for his children to come home. He never gave Myron a curfew-“I trust you”-and he never told Myron that he waited up for him. When Myron would come through the door, Dad would either pretend to be asleep or have already sneaked upstairs.

“I will.” Then with a smile on his face, Myron said, “You think I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“That you stayed awake until I came home.”

“I couldn’t sleep until I knew you were safe.” Dad shrugged. “But I knew you knew.”

“How?”

“I never gave you a curfew, remember? I said I trusted you.”

“Right.”

“But when you realized I stayed awake, you started coming home earlier. So I wouldn’t have to stay up and worry.” Dad arched an eyebrow at him. “Ergo, you actually came home earlier than if I gave you a curfew.”

“Diabolical,” Myron said.

“I just took advantage of what I knew.”

“Which was?”

“You were a good boy,” Dad said.

Silence. Silence that was broken when Mom shouted from the kitchen: “This is a very touching father-and-son moment. Can we go to bed now?”

Dad chuckled. “On my way. Are we going to Mickey’s game tomorrow? It’s home.”

“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” Myron said.

His mother leaned her head in from the kitchen. “Good night, Myron.”

“How come you never stayed awake until I came home?” Myron asked her.

“A woman needs her beauty sleep. What, you think I stay this hot by accident?”

“It’s a good lesson on marriage,” Dad said.

“What is?”

“Balance. I stayed awake at night. Mom slept like a baby. It doesn’t mean she didn’t care. But our strengths and weaknesses complement each other. We’re a couple. See? That was my contribution. I took night watch.”

“But you were also first up in the morning,” Myron said.

“Well, yes, that’s true.”

“So what was Mom good at?”

Mom from the kitchen: “You don’t want to know.”

“Ellen!” Dad shouted.

“Oh, relax, Al. You’re such a prude.”

Myron already had his fingers in his ears. He started saying, “La, la, la, I can’t hear you,” as his father trudged toward the kitchen. He took his fingers out when they had both gone upstairs. He sat back and looked out the window. Funny. The chair was perfectly set up so you could watch both the television and any car approaching from the street.

Diabolical indeed.

It was almost one A.M. when Myron spotted Mickey’s car. He wondered whether he too should feign being asleep, but Mickey wouldn’t buy it. Myron had waited up for three reasons. One: General concern. Two: So his father wouldn’t have to. And three-most obvious: To find out what had happened after Myron left Mickey and Ema at the Moore house.

Myron sat in the dark and waited. Five minutes passed. Myron looked out. The car was still there. No lights. No movement. Myron frowned. He picked up his mobile and sent Mickey a text: All ok?

No reply. Another minute went by. Nothing. Myron checked his phone for a reply. Nada. A feeling of unease began to descend upon him. He called Mickey’s phone. It went straight to voicemail.

What the hell?

He got out of Dad’s chair and started for the front door. No, that would be too direct. He headed into the kitchen and out the back. The yard was pitch dark, so Myron used the flashlight on his mobile phone. He circled toward the driveway where the streetlights provided enough illumination.

Still nothing.

Myron ducked low and crept toward the back of the car. Dad had watered the lawn recently. Myron’s slippers were quickly waterlogged. Terrific. He was twenty yards from the trunk of the vehicle. Then ten. Then he was ducking behind the back bumper.

He did a mental check, sifting through his brain in search of probable explanations for why no one would have come out of the car yet. Then just as Myron made the leap and grabbed the door handle and pulled open the driver’s door, the answer came to him…

… a second too late.

Ema screamed.

Mickey shouted, “What the hell, Myron?”

Two teenagers. In a car. Late at night.

Myron flashed back to a time when his own father had walked in on him and Jessica, his old love, during a most indelicate moment. His father had just stood there, unmoving, frozen, and at the time, Myron didn’t get it, why his father didn’t quickly apologize and close the door.

He got it now.

“Oh,” Myron said. Then: “Oh.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Mickey snapped.

“Oh,” Myron said again.

They were both, Myron was glad to see, dressed. Clothes, hair, makeup, showed some degree of distress. But they were dressed.

Myron pointed with his thumb behind him. “Maybe I should wait in the house.”

“Ya think?”

“Right. Okay, then.”

“Go!” Mickey shouted.

Myron turned and slouched his way back toward the house. Before he got to the door, Mickey and Ema were out of the car, doing slight wardrobe adjustments and following him. When Myron opened the door and they all stepped inside, Dad was standing there in the Homer Simpson pajamas Myron had bought him last Father’s Day.

Dad looked at Myron. Then he looked at Mickey and Ema.

“You went outside?” he asked Myron.

“Yes.”

“Weren’t you a teenager once?” Dad shook his head, trying to hold in the smile. “I knew I shouldn’t have left the night watch to you. Good night, all.”