Harlan Coben - Live Wire

“Hi, Mee.”

“This is my friend, Yu.”

Myron held back the sigh and said hello. Yu nodded. When the two women left the room, Win grinned at Myron. Myron just shook his head. “Yu?”

“Yep.”

When Win had first started up with Mee, he loved to share jokes using her name. “Mee so horny… It’s Mee time… Sometimes I just want to make love to Mee.”

“Yu and Mee?” Myron said.

Win nodded. “Wonderful, don’t you think?”

“No. Where have you been all night?”

Win leaned in conspiratorially. “Between Yu and Mee…”

“Yes?”

Win just smiled.

“Oh.” Myron sighed. “I get it. Good one.”

“Be happy. It used to be all about Mee. But then I realized something. It’s about Yu too.”

“Or, uh, in this case, Yu and Mee together.”

“Now you’re in the spirit,” Win said. “How was your sojourn to Adiona Island?”

“You want to hear this now?”

“Yu and Mee can wait.”

“By that, you mean the girls, not us, right?”

“It does get confusing, doesn’t it?”

“Not to mention perverse.”

“Don’t worry. When I’m not around, Yu can keep Mee occupied.” Win sat, steepled his fingers. “Tell me what you learned.”

Myron did. When he finished, Win said, “Methinks Lex doth protest too much.”

“You got that too?”

“When a man does that much philosophizing, he’s covering.”

“Plus that last line about her going back to Chile or Peru in the morning?”

“Throwing you off the track. He wants you to stay away from Kitty.”

“Do you think he knows where she is?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Myron thought about what Suzze said, about transparency and everyone having secrets. “Oh, one more thing.” Myron fumbled for his BlackBerry. “Gabriel Wire had a guard working the gate. He looked familiar to me, but I can’t place him.”

He handed Win the BlackBerry, the photograph on the home screen. Win studied it for a moment.

“This,” Win said, “is also not good.”

“You recognize him?”

“I haven’t heard his name in years.” Win handed the BlackBerry back. “But it looks like Evan Crisp. Big-time pro. One of the best.”

“Who’d he work for?”

“Crisp was always freelance. The Ache brothers used to bring him in when there was serious trouble.”

The Ache brothers, Herman and Frank, had been two leading Old-World mobsters. RICO had finally moved in and closed them down. Like many of his elder brethren, Frank Ache was serving time in a maximum security federal penitentiary, mostly forgotten. Herman, who had to be seventy by now, had managed to slither out of his indictment and used his ill-gotten booty to feign legitimacy.

“A hit man?”

“To some degree,” Win said. “Crisp was brought in when your muscle needed a little finesse. If you wanted someone to make a lot of noise or shoot up a place, Crisp wasn’t your man. If you wanted someone to die or vanish without raising suspicion, you called Crisp.”

“And now Crisp works as a rent-a-cop for Gabriel Wire?”

“That would be a no,” Win said. “It’s a small island. Crisp got tipped off the moment you arrived and then awaited your imminent arrival. My theory is, he knew you’d take the photograph and that we would figure out his identity.”

“To scare us away,” Myron said.

“Yes.”

“Except we don’t scare easily.”

“Yes,” Win said with only a small eye roll. “We are so very macho.”

“Okay, so first we have this weird post on Suzze’s board, probably put there by Kitty. Then we have Lex meeting up with Kitty. We have Crisp working for Wire. Plus Lex hiding out at Gabriel Wire’s place and probably lying to us.”

“And when you add those together, what do you come up with?”

“Bubkes,” Myron said.

“No wonder you’re our leader.” Win rose, poured himself a cognac, tossed Myron a Yoo-hoo. Myron did not shake or open it. He just held the cold can in his hand. “Of course, just because Lex may be lying, that doesn’t mean his basic message to you is wrong.”

“What message is that?”

“You interfere with the best intentions. But you interfere nonetheless. Whatever your brother and Kitty are going through, perhaps it isn’t your place. You haven’t been part of their lives for a very long time.”

Myron thought about that. “That may be my fault.”

“Oh, please,” Win said.

“What?”

“Your fault. So when Kitty, for example, told Brad that you hit on her, was she telling the truth?”

“No.”

Win spread his hands. “So?”

“So maybe she was just striking back. I said some horrible things about her. I accused her of trapping Brad, manipulating him. I didn’t believe the baby was his. Maybe she was using the lie to defend herself.”

“Boo”-Win started playing air violin-“hoo.”

“I’m not defending what she did. But maybe I messed up too.”

“And, pray tell, how would you have messed up?”

Myron said nothing.

“Go ahead,” Win said. “I’m waiting.”

“You want me to say, ‘by interfering.’ ”

“Bingo.”

“So perhaps this is my chance to make amends.”

Win shook his head.

“What?”

“How did you mess up in the first place? By interfering. How do you intend to make up for it? By interfering.”

“So I should just forget what I saw on that surveillance camera?”

“I would.” Win took a deep long sip. “But, alas, I know you can’t.”

“So what do we do?”

“What we always do. At least in the morning. Tonight I have plans.”

“And those would again be between Yu and Mee?”

“I would say bingo again, but I so hate repeating myself.”

“You know,” Myron said, choosing his words carefully, “and I don’t mean to moralize here or judge.”

Win crossed his legs. When he did it, the crease remained perfect. “Oh, this is going to be rich.”

“And I recognize that Mee has been a part of your life for longer than any woman I remember, and I’m glad that you seem to have at least curtailed your appetite for hookers.”

“I prefer the term ‘upscale escorts.’ ”

“Super. In the past, your womanizing, your being a cad…”

“A rakish cad,” Win said with a rakish smile. “I always liked the word ‘rakish,’ don’t you?”

“It fits,” Myron said.

“But?”

“When we were in our twenties and even thirties, it was all somewhat, I don’t know, endearing.”

Win waited.

Myron stared at the can of Yoo-hoo. “Forget it.”

“And now,” Win said, “you think my behavior, for a man of my years, is somewhat closer to pathetic.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You think I should settle down a bit.”

“I just want you to be happy, Win.”

Win spread his hands. “So do I.”

Myron gave him the flat eyes. “You’re referring to the Yu in the other room again, aren’t you?”

The rakish grin. “Love me for all my faults.”

“Again, by me, do you mean, uh, Mee?”

Win stood. “Don’t worry, old friend. I am happy.” Win started moving toward the bedroom door. He stopped suddenly, closed his eyes, looked troubled. “But you may have a point.”

“That being?”

“Maybe I’m not happy,” he said, a wistful distant look on his face. “Maybe you’re not either.”

Myron waited, almost sighed. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“So perhaps it’s time to make Yu and Mee happy.”

He vanished into the other room. Myron stared at the Yoo-hoo can for a little while. There was no noise. Win had mercifully soundproofed his room years ago.