Harlan Coben: Stay close

“Not yet. But we will.”

From the TV, Del could hear the home crowd cheering. Something good had happened for the Sixers. His son was dead, but people were cheering. No one cared. The electricity in the house still worked. Cars still drove by. People still cheered for their favorite teams.

“Thank you for telling me in person,” Del heard himself say.

“Do you have someone who can stay with you?”

“My wife will be home soon.”

“Do you want me to stay with you until then?”

“No. I’ll be fine. I appreciate you coming by.”

Goldberg cleared his throat. “Del?”

He looked up at Goldberg’s face. There was genuine compassion there, but there was something else too.

Goldberg said, “We don’t want any more innocents hurt. You know what I’m saying?”

Del did not reply.

“Call those psychos off,” Goldberg said, handing him a cell phone. “There’s been enough death for one night.”

Through the blinding agony, there was indeed the crushing clarity. Goldberg was right. Too much blood had been spilled. Del Flynn took the phone from Goldberg’s hand and dialed Ken’s number.

But no one answered.

Broome called Sarah Green. “Will you be home in an hour?”

“Yes.”

“Can I come by?”

“Something new?”

“Yes.”

There was a brief pause. “It doesn’t sound like good news.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

The streetlights in front of Ray Levine’s residence were too bright and too yellow, giving everything a jaundiced feel. Four Atlantic County squad cars were parked in front of the modest dwelling. As Broome approached, he saw the feds pull up in a van. He hurried inside and found Dodds.

“Anything?” Broome asked.

“Nothing surprising, if that’s what you mean. No murder weapons. No hand trucks. Nothing like that. We already started going through the photographs on his computer. On that score, at least, the guy was telling the truth-the pictures by the old iron-ore mill were taken on various February eighteenths, not Mardi Gras.”

That backed Ray Levine’s story in a pretty big way.

Dodds looked out the window. “That the feds?”

“Yep.”

“They taking over?”

Broome nodded. “It’s their baby now.” He looked at his watch. There was no reason to hang here. He could get to Sarah’s and start to explain. “If there’s nothing else…”

“Nope, not really. Just one thing I found weird.”

“What’s that?”

“Ray Levine. That’s the guy’s real name?”

“It is.”

Dodds nodded more to himself. “You know any other Levines?”

“A few, why?”

“They’re Jewish, right? I mean, Levine is a Jewish name.”

Broome looked around this dump of a basement and frowned at Dodds. “Not all Jews make a lot of money. You know that, right?”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not stereotyping or nothing like that. Look, just forget it, okay? It’s no big deal.”

“What’s no big deal?” Broome asked.

“Nothing. But, okay, like I said, we didn’t find anything incriminating. It’s just that, well”-he shrugged-“what would a Jewish guy be doing with this?”

He handed Broome a small plastic evidence bag. Broome looked down at the contents. At first he didn’t comprehend what this was, but a few seconds later, when he did, when it finally registered, Broome felt a sense of vertigo, like he was falling and falling and couldn’t stop. His world, already teetering, took another sudden, jarring turn, and it was almost hard to stay upright.

“Broome?”

He ignored the voice. He blinked, looked again, and felt his stomach drop, because there, inside the plastic bag, was a medal of Saint Anthony.

From his spot across the street, Ken watched Lorraine leave La Creme by the back door. It took her a fair amount of time to get through the lot. Her departure seemed to be something of an event. Every girl who worked in that cesspool called out to the older barmaid and gave her a long hug. Lorraine in turned accepted the embrace and then seemed to give each one of them something they craved-a sympathetic ear, a crooked I-get-it smile, a kind word.

Like she was their mother.

When she was finally through the crush of girls and headed for home, Ken followed at a safe distance. The walk to her place wasn’t far. The barmaid lived, of course, in some two-bit dump, a house that one might kindly say had seen better days, though it was probably grimy from day one.

Lorraine used a key to open the door and disappeared inside. Two lights went on toward the back. Before that there was no illumination in the house. That seemed to indicate that she was here alone. Ken circled the house, peeking in through the windows. He found Lorraine in the kitchen.

She looked, he thought, exhausted. Her high heels had been kicked off, her bare feet up on a chair. She warmed her hands on a cup of tea, gently sipping it and closing her eyes. In this harsher light, she was far less attractive, far older, than she had looked in the dim light of that strip joint.

That made sense, of course.

Some life this barmaid had made for herself, Ken thought. He’d be doing her a favor if he just put her out of her misery. Ken felt that itch return in full force. His hands tightened into fists. He looked at that kitchen table and thought, Yes, it would probably be sturdy enough to do the job.

Time to get to work.

As Ken approached Lorraine’s door, his phone vibrated. He checked the number, saw it wasn’t Barbie, decided not to answer it. He knocked, patted down his hair, and waited. There was a shuffling sound, and then Ken could hear the top lock’s deadbolt sliding open. Odd how many people just did that. You have the most expensive lock and yet you just open the door to any knock.

Lorraine’s eyes widened a little when she saw Ken, but she didn’t slam the door closed or anything like that. “Well, well. If it isn’t the handsome mourner who looks like my ex.”

She tried to give the crooked smile, the one he’d seen in the club, but it wasn’t quite working. Ken spotted… fear maybe? Yes, fear. The tiniest trace rippled across her weather-beaten face, and that excited him.

Ken offered up his most gentle expression. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Lorraine looked reluctant-maybe scared too-but she wasn’t the type to make a scene or turn someone away.

“It’s really important,” he said. “May I come in?”

“I don’t know,” Lorraine said. “It’s kinda late.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” He gave her the smile with all the teeth. “This will only take a second, I promise.”

And then Ken pushed his way in and closed the door behind him.

It was getting cold outside, so Ray took the stairs back down into the vaulted “stomach room” of Lucy. It had been a dumb idea to come here. What, really, was the point? Yes, he had wonderful memories here. Maybe he thought that Cassie would too. But so what? Did he think bringing her here would somehow soften the blow? Did he think that if he could get her to go back to that time and place it would help her see why he did what he did?

Dumb.

Yes, some things could be made better by setting and context, but was he really naive enough to think, what, that there would be a hormonal rush just being inside this edifice, and that that rush would somehow make what he had done more palatable? He suddenly felt like a bad real estate agent believing location, location, location could somehow make his confession that much better.

Ray looked at his cell phone. No text messages from Cassie or Megan or whatever the hell her name was. He debated calling her again, but what was the point of that? He’d wait another hour, maybe two, and then he’d leave. Where would he go? The cops were probably finishing up at his place, but did he really want to go back to that dingy basement?