Harlan Coben - Home

Welcome to Times Square.

Times Square is an assault on every sense, and somehow that includes not only scent but taste. Everything is in motion and swirling and you want to give the entire square a giant Adderall.

There, along with Spider-Man, Elmo, Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, and Olaf from Frozen, stood Big Cyndi in full costume. Tourists were lined up to pose for photographs with her “Batgirl.”

“They love me, Mr. Bolitar,” Big Cyndi called out.

“Who doesn’t?”

Big Cyndi tee-heed and struck poses that would have made Madonna in her “Vogue” days blush. An Asian tourist offered her some cash after taking the picture, but Big Cyndi refused. “Oh, I couldn’t, kind sir.”

“Are you sure?” the tourist asked.

“This is charity.” She bent down closer to him. “If I wanted to be paid for wearing this outfit, I would still be hooking.”

The tourist hurried away.

Big Cyndi looked at Myron. “I was joking, Mr. Bolitar.”

“I know that.”

“I never hooked.”

“Good to know.”

“Though I made beaucoup bucks when I wore this working the pole.”

“Uh-huh,” Myron said, not wanting to go down this particular lane of memory.

“At Leather and Lace, remember?”

“I do, yes.”

“And okay, sometimes things went too far when I’d get hired for a lap dance, if you get my drift.”

“Drift gotten,” Myron said quickly. “So, uh, where’s Patrick? Can you give me an update?”

“Young Patrick sneaked out of his house two hours ago,” Big Cyndi said. “He walked approximately one mile into town and took bus 487. I looked it up. Bus 487’s final destination is Port Authority in New York City. I drove my car and arrived before the bus. I waited for him to get off and followed him here.”

“Here where?” Myron asked.

“Don’t turn suddenly, because you’ll be obvious.”

“Okay.”

“Patrick is standing behind you, between the Madame Tussauds wax museum and Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

Myron waited. Then he said, “Can I look now?”

“Turn slowly.”

Myron did. Patrick stood on Forty-Second Street wearing a baseball cap pulled low. His shoulders were hunched as though he was trying to disappear.

“Has he talked to anyone?” Myron asked.

“No,” Big Cyndi replied. “Mr. Bolitar?”

“Yes?”

“Do you mind if I pose for more photographs while we wait? My public demands it.”

“Go for it.”

Myron kept his eye on Patrick, but he also couldn’t help but watch Big Cyndi work the crowd. Thirty seconds after she got back into action, the queue to have a photo taken with her was so long the Naked Cowboy looked at her askance. She glanced at Myron. Myron gave her a big thumbs-up.

Here was the simple, awful truth: It was often hard to see beyond Big Cyndi’s size. We as a society have many prejudices, but there are very few of our fellow citizens we stigmatize and judge less charitably than what we consider to be “large” women. Big Cyndi was all too aware of that. She had once explained her outgoing lifestyle, if you will, thusly: “I’d rather see shock on their faces than pity, Mr. Bolitar. And I’d rather they see brazen or outrageous than shrinking or scared.”

Myron turned back toward Ripley’s just as a teenage girl sidled up to Patrick.

Who the…?

Myron remembered what Mickey and Ema had told him about Patrick’s claim of having a girlfriend. But if he’d been living in quasi-captivity in London, how would he know anyone in New York City?

Good question.

Patrick and the girl exchanged a quick, awkward hug before heading inside Ripley’s. Big Cyndi was by Myron’s side now. When Myron started toward the ticket window, Big Cyndi stopped him.

“He knows you,” she reminded him.

“You’ll go in?”

Big Cyndi pointed to the sign with an index finger the size of a baguette. “It’s called an ‘odditorium.’ Who better?”

Hard to argue.

“You wait by the exit,” she said. “I’ll text you updates.”

Myron stayed on the street for an hour and people-watched. He liked people-watching. Great views of sunsets and water and greens are wonderful, he supposed, but after a while, they become something you barely notice. But if you’re in a spot where you can watch people walk by-every race, gender, size, shape, religion, language, whatever-you are never bored. Everyone is their own universe-a life, a dream, a hope, a sorrow, a joy, a surprise, a revelation, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end-even when they simply walk by you on the street.

The phone vibrated when Big Cyndi’s text came in: EXITING NOW.

Big Cyndi always texted in capital letters.

Patrick kept his head low as he came out. The teenage girl stood right next to him. Big Cyndi loomed behind them.

The teenage girl gave Patrick a quick peck on the cheek. Then Patrick started heading west, away from Times Square. The girl moved east. They were splitting up. Big Cyndi looked at Myron for instructions. Myron gestured to Patrick. Big Cyndi nodded and started to follow him. Myron fell into a current of humans and tailed the girl.

She turned left on Seventh Avenue and started uptown. Myron followed. She headed all the way up to Fifty-Ninth Street and turned right on Central Park South. They passed the Plaza Hotel and turned north on Fifth Avenue. The teenager walked steadily and confidently and with no hesitation. Myron assumed from this observation that she had made this journey before and probably lived in New York City.

Myron Bolitar, Master of Deduction. Please don’t shun him for his gifts.

She turned east on East Sixty-First Street. When she crossed Park Avenue, Myron saw her reach into her bag and ready her key. The town house in front of her had a wrought-iron gate. She unlocked it. Then she moved down two steps and vanished inside.

A town house near Park Avenue, Myron thought. The girl probably came from money.

Again: Myron Bolitar, Master of Deduction. If you prick him, does he not bleed?

He stood outside and debated his next move. First, he texted Big Cyndi. Update?

Big Cyndi: PATRICK IS ON THE BUS. ASSUME HE’S HEADING BACK HOME.

Myron: I’ll be the Master of Deduction, thank you very much.

Big Cyndi: WHAT?

Myron: Never mind.

He stared at the door and hoped it would open so he could…

So he could what?

Was he going to approach a teenage girl on the street and ask about her relationship with the boy she just met up with at Ripley’s Odditorium? Myron wasn’t a cop. He wasn’t licensed in any way, shape, or form. He would just be a creepy middle-aged stranger approaching a young girl. He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know anything about her.

No, that would be the wrong move here.

He picked up his phone and called Esperanza.

“What’s up?”

“I have an address near Park Avenue.”

“Well, la-di-da. I live in a one-bedroom in Hoboken.”

“That was funny,” Myron said.

“Wasn’t it, though? Give me the address.”

Myron did. “I followed a teenage girl here.”

“Aren’t you engaged?”

“Ha-ha. She met up with Patrick. I need to find out who she is.”

“On it.”

When he hung up again, his phone rang. He saw from the caller ID it was Terese.

He answered the phone saying, “Hey, beautiful.”

“God, you’re smooth.”

“You think so?”

“No,” Terese said. “In fact, I think it’s your lack of smoothness that makes you so damn sexy. Guess what?”

Myron started walking back. He had parked his car in a crowded theater lot by Times Square. “What?”

“The network sent me home on their private jet.”