Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

“Uh-huh,” Myron said. “You got some free time?”

“But of course. How would you like to play it?”

“Back me up,” Myron said.

“Give me five.”

Myron waited five minutes. He stood there and studiously avoided looking at the tail. He checked his watch and huffed a bit as though he expected someone and was getting impatient. When the five minutes passed, Myron walked straight over to the tail.

The tail spotted his approach and ducked into the newspaper.

Myron kept walking until he stood directly next to the tail. The tail kept his face in the newspaper. Myron gave him Smile 8. Big and toothy. A televangelist being handed a hefty check. Early Wink Martindale. The tail kept his eyes on the newspaper. Myron kept smiling, his eyes wide as a clown's. The tail ignored him. Myron inched closer, leaned his uber- wattage smile within inches of the taiPs face, wriggled his eyebrows.

The tail snapped closed the newspaper and sighed. “Fine, hotshot, you made me. Congratulations.”

Still with the Wink Martindale smile: “And thank you for playing our game! But don't worry, we won't let you go home empty-handed! You get the home version of Incompetent Tail and a year's subscription to Modern Doofus”

“Yeah, right, see you around.”

“Wait! Final Jeopardy! round. Answer: He or she hired you to follow me.”

“Bite me.”

“Ooo, sorry, you needed to put that in the form of a question.”

The tail started walking away. When he looked back, Myron gave him the smile and a big wave. “This has been a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production. Good-bye, everybody!” More waving.

The tail shook his head and continued down the street, joining another stream of people. Lots of people in this stream; Win happened to be one of them. The tail would probably find a clearing and then call his boss. Win would listen in and learn all. What a plan.

Myron headed to his rented car. He circled the block once. No more tails. At least none as obvious as the last. No matter. He was driving out to the Mayor estate on Long Island. It didn't much matter if anyone knew.

He spent his time in the car working on the cell phone. He had two arena football players-indoor football on a smaller field, for those who don't know-both of whom were hoping to scratch a bench spot on an NFL roster before the waiver wire closed down. Myron called teams, but nobody was interested. Lots of people asked him about the murder. He brushed them off. He knew his efforts were fairly futile, but he stuck to it. Big of him. He tried concentrating on his work, tried to lose himself in the numb bliss of what he did for a living. But the world kept creeping in. He thought about Esperanza in jail. He thought about Jessica in California. He thought about Bonnie Haid and her fatherless boys at home. He thought about Clu in formaldehyde. He thought about his father's phone call. And strangely, he kept thinking about Terese alone on that island. He blocked out the rest.

When he reached Muttontown, a section of Long Island that had somehow escaped him in the past, he turned right onto a heavily wooded road. He drove about two miles, passing maybe three driveways. He finally reached a simple iron gate with a small sign that read THE MAYORS. There were several security cameras and an intercom. He pressed the button. A woman's voice came on and said, “May I help you?”

“Myron Bolitar to see Sophie Mayor.” “Please drive up. Park in front of the house.” The gate opened. Myron drove up a rather steep hill. Tall hedges lined both sides of the driveway, giving the aura of being a rat in a maze. He spotted a few more security cameras. No sign of the house yet. When he reached the top of the hill, he hit upon a clearing. There was a slightly overgrown grass tennis court and croquet field. Very Norma Desmond. He made another turn. The house was dead straight ahead. It was a mansion, of course, though not as huge as some Myron had seen. Vines clung to pale yellow stucco. The windows looked leaded. The whole scene screamed Roaring Twenties. Myron half expected Scott and Zelda to pull up behind him in a slick roadster.

This part of the driveway was made up of small loose pebbles rather than pavement. His tires crunched them as it drew closer. There was a fountain in the middle of the circular drive, about fifteen feet in front of the door. Neptune stood naked with a triton in his hand. The fountain, Myron realized, was a smaller version of the one in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Water spouted up but not very high or with much enthusiasm, as if someone had set the water pressure on “light urination.”

Myron parked the car. There was a perfectly square swimming pool on his right, complete with lily pads floating on the top. A poor man's Giverny. There were statues in the gardens, again something from old Italy or Greece or the like. Venus de Milo-like except with all the limbs.

He got out of the car and stopped. He thought about what he was about to unearth, and for a brief moment he considered turning back. How, he wondered again, do I tell this woman about her missing daughter melting on a computer diskette?

No answer came to him.

The door opened. A woman in casual clothes led him through a corridor and into a large room with high tin ceilings and lots of windows and a semidisappointing view of more white statues and woods. The interior was art deco, but it didn't try too hard. Nice. Except, of course, for the hunting trophies. Taxidermy birds of some sort sat on the shelves. The birds looked upset. Probably were. Who could blame them?

Myron turned and stared at a mounted deer. He waited for Sophie Mayor. The deer waited too. The deer seemed very patient.

“Go ahead,” a voice said.

Myron turned around. It was Sophie Mayor. She was wearing dirt-smeared jeans and a plaid shirt, the very essence of the weekend botanist.

Never short of a witty opening gambit, Myron countered, “Go ahead and what?”

“Make the snide remark about hunting.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“Come, come, Myron. Don't you think hunting is barbaric?”

Myron shrugged. “I never really thought about it.” Not true, but what the hey.

“But you don't approve, do you?”

“Not my place to approve.”

“How tolerant.” She smiled. “But you of course would never do it, am I right?”

“Hunt? No, it's not for me.”

“You think it's inhumane.” She gestured with her chin to the mounted deer. “Killing Bambi's mother and all.”

“It's just not for me.”

“I see. Are you a vegetarian?”

“I don't eat much red meat,” Myron said.

“I'm not talking about your health. Do you ever eat any dead animals?”

“Yes.”

“So do you think it's more humane to kill, say, a chicken or a cow than it is to kill a deer?”

“No.”

“Do you know what kind of awful torture that cow goes through before it's slaughtered?”

“For food,” Myron said.

“Pardon?”

“Slaughtered for food.”

“I eat what I kill, Myron. Your friend up there”-she nodded to the patient deer-“she was gutted and eaten. Feel better?”

Myron thought about that. “Uh, we're not having lunch, are we?”

That got a small chuckle. “I won't go into the whole food chain argument,” Sophie Mayor said. “But God created a world where the only way to survive is to kill. Period. We all kill. Even the strict vegetarians have to plow fields. You don't think plowing kills small animals and insects?”

“I never really thought about it.”

“Hunting is just more hands-on, more honest. When you sit down and eat an animal, you have no appreciation for the process, for the sacrifice made so that you could survive. You let someone else do the killing. You're above even thinking about it. When I eat an animal, I have a fuller understanding. I don't do it casually. I don't depersonalize it.”