Harlan Coben - Deal Breaker

“I’m just telling you,” Myron said.

“They can call her a slut a million different ways. I don’t care.”

“What about your mom?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what she wants either. I just want Kathy found.”

“So you want to tell them,” Myron said.

“No.”

He looked at her, confused. “Care to elaborate?”

Her words came slow, measured, the ideas coming to her even as she spoke. “Kathy has been gone for more than a year now,” she began. “In all that time the cops and the press have come up with zip. Not one thing. She’s just vanished without a trace.”

“So?”

“But now we get this magazine. Someone sent it to Christian, which means someone-maybe Kathy, maybe not-is trying to make contact. Think about it. For the first time in over a year there is some form of communication. I don’t want that taken away. I don’t want a lot of attention scaring away whoever is out there. Kathy might disappear again. This”-she held up the magazine-“this thing is disgusting, but it’s also encouraging. It’s something. Don’t get me wrong. I’m shocked by this. But it’s a solid thread-a thread as confusing as all hell, but nonetheless a thread of hope. If the cops and the press are called in, whoever did this might get scared and vanish again. Permanently this time. I can’t risk that. We have to keep this to ourselves.”

Myron nodded. “Makes sense.”

“So what’s next?” she asked.

“We go to the post office in Hoboken. I’ll pick you up early. Say six.”

Jessica smelled great.

They were at Uptown Station in Hoboken. She stood very close to him. Her hair had that freshly washed smell he had tried for four years to forget. Inhaling made him feel light-headed.

“So this is playing detective,” she said.

“Exciting, isn’t it?”

They had been trying to look inconspicuous-no easy task when a man is six-four and a woman is a total knee-knocker-for the better part of an hour, having arrived at the post office at six-thirty in the morning. No one had touched Box 785 yet.

Boredom set in quickly. Jessica looked over the prices of different mailing containers. Not very interesting. She read the wanted ads, all of them, found them a bit more interesting. Wanted posters in a post office. Like they wanted you to write the guy a letter.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said.

“That’s why they call me Captain Fun.”

She laughed. The melodic sound twisted his stomach.

“Do you like being an agent, Captain Fun?”

“Very much.”

“I always thought of agents as a bunch of sleazeballs.”

“Thank you.”

“You know what I mean. Leeches. Vipers. Greedy, money-hungry, bloodsucking parasites, swindling naïve jocks, doing lunch at Le Cirque, destroying everything that’s good about sports-”

“The problems in the Middle East,” he interrupted. “That’s our fault too. And the budget deficit.”

“Right. But you’re not any of those things.”

“Not a leech, viper, or parasite. That’s quite a rave.”

“You know what I mean.”

He shrugged. “There are plenty of sleazy agents. There are also plenty of sleazy doctors, lawyers-” He stopped, the words sounding familiar. Hadn’t Fred Nickler used the same argument in justifying his magazines? “Agents are a necessary evil,” he continued. “Without them, athletes get taken advantage of.”

“By whom?”

“Owners, management. Agents have done some good for the athletes. They’ve helped raise their salaries, assure free agency, get them endorsement money.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Myron thought a moment. “Two things,” he said. “First of all, some agents are crooks. Plain and simple. They see a young, rich kid, and they take advantage. But as the athletes get more sophisticated, as more stories like what happened to Kareem Abdul-Jabar become known, most of the crooks will be weeded out.”

“And second?”

“Agents have to wear too many hats,” he said. “We’re negotiators, accountants, financial planners, hand-holders, travel agents, family counselors, marriage counselors, errand boys, lackeys-whatever it takes to get the business.”

“So how do you do it all?”

“I give two of the biggest hats to Win-accountant and financial planner. I’m the lawyer. He’s the MBA. Plus we have Esperanza, who can do almost anything. It works well. We all check and balance one another.”

“Just like the branches of the federal government.”

He nodded. “Jefferson and Madison would be proud.”

A hand reached out and opened Box 785.

“Show time,” Myron said.

Jessica snapped her head around to look. The man was slim. Everything about him was too long, eerily elongated, as if he had spent time on a medieval rack. Even his face seemed stretched like a cartoon imprint on Silly Putty.

“Recognize him?” Myron asked.

She hesitated. “Something about him… but I don’t think so.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They hurried down the steps and got in the car. Myron had parked illegally in front of the building, putting a police emergency sign in his front windshield. A gift from a friend on the force. The emergency sign came in handy-especially during sale days at the mall.

The slim man came out two minutes later. He got into a yellow Oldsmobile. New Jersey plates. Myron shifted into drive and followed. Slim took Route 3 to the Garden State Parkway north.

“We’ve been driving almost twenty minutes,” Jessica said. “Why would he go to a mailbox so far from his home?”

“Could be that he’s not going to his house. Maybe he’s going to work.”

“The dial-a-porn office?”

“Maybe,” Myron said. “Or it could be that he travels a long way so no one will see him.”

He got off at Exit 160, jumped on Route 208 heading north, and pulled off at Lincoln Avenue, Ridgewood.

Jessica sat up. “This is my exit,” she said.

“I know.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

The yellow Oldsmobile turned left at the end of the ramp. They were now within three miles of Jessica’s house. If he took Lincoln Avenue all the way to Godwin Road, they’d be…

Nope.

Mr. Slim turned on Kenmore Road, a half-mile before the Ridgewood border. They were still in the heart of suburbia-the suburb in question being Glen Rock, New Jersey. Glen Rock was so named because of a giant rock that sat on Rock Road. The key word here is rock .

The yellow Olds pulled into a driveway. 78 Kenmore Drive.

“Look casual,” he said. “Don’t stare.”

“What?”

He didn’t answer. He drove past the house without pausing, turned at the next street, and stopped the car behind some shrubs. He picked up the car phone and dialed the office. It was picked up midway through the first ring.

“MB SportReps,” Esperanza said.

“Get me all you can on 78 Kenmore Street, Glen Rock, New Jersey. Owner’s name, credit check, the works.”

“Got it.” Click.

He dialed another number. “My friend at the phone company,” he explained to Jessica. Then: “Lisa? It’s Myron. Look, I need a favor. Seventy-eight Kenmore Road, Glen Rock, New Jersey. I don’t know how many lines the guy has, but I need you to check them all. I want to know every number he calls for the next two hours. Right. Hey, what did you find out about that 900 number? What? Oh, okay, I understand. Thanks.”

He hung up.

“What did she say?”

“The 900 number isn’t operated by the phone company. Some small outfit out of South Carolina takes care of it. She can’t get anything on it.”

“So what do we do now?” she asked. “Just watch his house?”