Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

“They overreacted to your visit. Tossing you out would have been one thing. Roughing you up a bit would have been one thing. But this sort of interrogation complete with knife slashes and electrocution-that's overkill.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that you struck a nerve, poked the hive, stirred the nest, choose your favorite cliche.”

“So they're connected into all this.”

“Logical,” Win said, again doing his best Spock.

“How?”

“Heavens, I haven't a clue.”

Myron chewed it over a bit. “I had thought maybe Clu and Esperanza hooked up there.”

“And now?”

“Let's say they did hook up there. What would be the big deal about that? Why the overkill?”

“So it's something else.”

Myron nodded. “Any more tangents?”

“The big one,” Win said. “The disappearance of Lucy Mayor.”

“Which happened more than ten years ago.”

“And we must confess that her connection is tenuous at best.”

“So confessed,” Myron said.

Win steepled his fingers and raised the pointers. “But the diskette was addressed to you.”

“Yes.”

“Ergo we cannot be sure that Lucy Mayor is connected to Clu Haid at all-”

“Right.”

“-but we can be sure that Lucy Mayor is somehow connected to you.”

“Me?” Myron made a face. “I can't imagine how.”

“Think hard. Perhaps you met her once.”

Myron shook his head. “Never.”

“You might not have known. The woman has been living in some sort of clandestine state for a very long time. Perhaps she was someone you met in a bar, a one-night stand.”

“I don't one-night stand.”

“That's right,” Win said. Then with flat eyes: “God, I wish I were you.”

Myron waved him off. “But suppose you're right. Suppose I did meet her but didn't know it. So what? She decides to repay me by sending me a diskette of her face melting into a puddle of blood?”

Win nodded. “Puzzling.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Puzzled.”

The speaker buzzed. Myron said, “Yes?”

Big Cyndi said, “Your father is on line one, Mr. Bolitar.”

“Thank you.” Myron picked up the receiver. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, Myron. How are you?”

“Good.”

“You readjusting to being home?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Happy to be back?”

Dad was stalling. “Yeah, Dad, I'm great.”

“All this stuff with Esperanza. It must be keeping you hopping, huh?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Soooo,” Dad said, stretching out the word, “think you have time for lunch with your old man?”

There was a strain in the voice.

“Sure, Dad.”

“How about tomorrow? At the club?”

Myron bit back a groan. Not the club. “Sure. Noon, okay?”

“Good, son, that'll be fine.”

Dad didn't call him son very often. More like never. Myron switched hands. “Anything wrong, Dad?”

“No, no,” he said too quickly. “Everything's fine. I just want to talk to you about something.”

“About what?”

“It'll keep, no biggie. See you tomorrow.”

Click.

Myron looked at Win. “That was my father.”

“Yes, I picked up on that when Big Cyndi said your father was on the line. It was further reemphasized when you said ‘Dad’ four times during the conversation. I'm gifted that way.”

“He wants to have lunch tomorrow.”

Win nodded. “And I care because-?”

“Just telling you.”

“I'll write about it in my diary tonight,” Win said. “In the meantime, I had another thought, vis-a-vis Lucy Mayor.”

“I'm listening.”

“If you recall, we were trying to figure out who was being injured in all this.”

“I recall.”

“Clu obviously. Esperanza. You. I.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we must add a new person: Sophie Mayor.”

Myron thought about it. Then he started nodding. “That could very well be the connection. If you wanted to destroy Sophie Mayor, what would you do? First, you'd do something to undermine any support she had with the Yankee fans and management.”

“Clu Haid,” Win said.

“Right. Then you might hit her in what has to be a vulnerable spot-her missing daughter. I mean, if someone sent her a similar diskette, can you imagine the horror?”

“Which raises an interesting question,” Win said.

“What?”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“About the diskette?”

“No, about recent troop movements in Bosnia. Yes, the diskette.”

Myron thought about it but not for very long. “I don't see where I have any choice. I have to tell her.”

“Perhaps that too is part of the theoretical plan to wear her down,” Win said. “Perhaps someone sent you the diskette knowing it would get back to her.”

“Maybe. But she still has the right to know. It's not my place to decide what Sophie Mayor is strong enough to handle.”

“Too true.” Win rose. “I have some contacts trying to locate the official reports on Clu's murder-autopsy, crime scene, witness statements, labs, what have you. But everyone is tight-lipped.”

“I got a possible source,” Myron said.

“ Oh?”

“The Bergen County medical examiner is Sally Li. I know her.”

“Through Jessica's father?”

“Yes.”

“Go for it,” Win said.

Myron watched him head for the door. “Win?”

“Yes?”

“You have any thoughts on how I should break the news to Sophie Mayor?”

“None whatsoever.”

Win left then. Myron stared at the phone. He picked it up and dialed Sophie Mayor's phone number. It took some time, but a secretary finally patched him through to her. Sophie sounded less than thrilled to hear his voice.

She opened sharply. “What?”

“We need to talk,” Myron said. There was distortion on the line. A cell or car phone probably.

“We already talked.”

“This is different.”

Silence. Then: “I'm in the car right now, about a mile from my house out on the Island. How important is this?”

Myron picked up a pen. “Give me your address,” he said. “I'll be right over.”

On the street the man was still reading a newspaper.

Myron's elevator trip down to the lobby featured mucho stops. Not atypical. No one spoke, of course, everyone busying themselves by staring up at the descending flashing numbers as though awaiting a UFO landing. In the lobby he joined the stream of suits and flowed out onto Park Avenue, salmons fighting upstream against the tide until, well, they died. Many of the suits walked with heads high, their expressions kick-ass-runway-model; others walked with backs bent, flesh versions of the statue on Fifth Avenue of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, but for them the world was simply too heavy.

Whoa, again with the deep.

Perfectly situated on the corner of Forty-sixth and Park, standing reading a newspaper but positioned in such way as to watch all entering or leaving the Lock-Home building, was the same man Myron had noticed standing there when he entered.

Hmm.

Myron took out his cell phone and hit the programmed button.

“Articulate,” Win said.

“I think I got a tail.”

“Hold please.” Maybe ten seconds passed. Then: “The newspaper on the corner.”

Win keeps a variety of telescopes and binoculars in his office. Don't ask.

“Yep.”

“Good Lord,” Win said. “Could he be any more obvious?”

“Doubt it.”

“Where's the pride in his work? Where's the professionalism?”

“Sad.”

“That, my friend, is the whole problem with this country.”

“Bad tails?”

“It's an example. Look at him. Does anybody really stand on a street corner and read a newspaper like that? He might as well cut out two eyeholes.”