Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

So maybe Clu didn't have an affair with Esperanza after all. Maybe Clu told her he was leaving the agency and she got upset and then he got upset. Maybe Clu gave her a good-bye smack in that garage.

Hmm.

But there were problems with that scenario too. If there was no affair, how do you explain Esperanza's hairs at the crime scene? How do you explain the blood in the car, the gun in the office, and Esperanza's continued silence?

FJ was still smiling.

“Let's cut to it,” Myron said. “How do 1 get you off my back?”

“Stay away from my clients.”

“The same way you stayed away from mine?”

“Tell you what, Myron.” FJ sipped more shaving cream. “If I desert my clients for six weeks, I give you carte blanche to pursue them with as much gusto as you can muster.”

Myron looked at Win. No solace. Scary as it might sound, FJ had a point.

“Esperanza has been indicted for Clu's murder,” Myron said. “I'm involved until she's cleared. Outside of that, I'll stay out of your business. And you stay out of mine.”

“Suppose she's not cleared,” FJ said.

“What?”

“Have you considered the possibility that Esperanza did indeed kill him?”

“You know something I don't, FJ?”

FJ put his hand to his chest. “Me?” The most innocent lamb ever to lie next to a lion. “What would I know?” He finished his coffee whatever and stood. He looked down at his goons, then at Win. Win nodded. FJ told Hans and Franz to get up. They did. FJ ordered them out the door. They went out, heads high, chests out, eyes up, but still looking like a pair of whipped dogs.

“If you find anything that might help me get Clu's contract reinstated, you'll let me know?”

“Yeah,” Myron said. “I'll let you know.”

“Great. Then let's stay in touch, Myron.”

“Oh,” Myron said. “Let's.”

They took the subway to Yankee Stadium. The 4 train was fairly empty this time of the day. After they found seats, Myron asked, “Why did you beat up those two mus-cleheads?”

“You know why,” Win said.

“Because they challenged you?”

“I hardly call what they mustered a challenge.”

“So why did you beat them up?”

“Because it was simple.”

“What?”

Win hated repeating himself.

“You overreacted,” Myron said. “As usual.”

“No, Myron, I reacted perfectly.”

“Meaning?”

“I have a reputation, do I not?”

“As a violent psycho, yes.”

“Exactly-a reputation that I've culled and created through what you call overreacting. You trade off that reputation sometimes, do you not?”

“I guess I do.”

“It helps us?”

“I guess so.”

“Guess nothing,” Win said. “Friends and foes believe I snap too easily-overreact, as you put it. That I'm unstable, out of control. But that's nonsense, of course. I'm never out of control. Just the opposite. Every attack has been well thought out. The pros and cons have been weighed,”

“And in this case, the pros won?”

“Yes.”

“So you knew you were going to beat up those two before we entered?”

“I considered it. Once I realized that they were unarmed and that taking thern out would be easy, I made the final decision.”

“lust to enhance your reputation?”

“In a word, yes. My reputation keeps us safe. Why do you think FJ was ordered by his father not to kill you?”

“Because I'm a ray of sunshine? Because I make the world a better place for all?”

Win smiled. “Then you understand.”

“Does it bother you at all, Win?”

“Does what?”

“Attacking someone like that.”

“They're goons, Myron, not nuns.”

“Still. You just walloped them without provocation.”

“Oh, I see. You don't like the fact that I sucker-punched them. You would have preferred a fairer fight?”

“I guess not. But suppose you miscalculated?”

“Highly unlikely.”

“Suppose one of them was better than you thought and didn't go down so easily. Suppose you had to maim or kill one.”

“They're goons, Myron, not nuns.”

“So you would have done it?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I guess I do.”

“Who would have mourned their passing?” Win asked. “Two scums in the night who freely chose a profession that bullies and maims.”

Myron did not answer. The train stopped. Passengers exited. Myron and Win stayed in their seats.

“But you enjoy it,” Myron said.

Win said nothing.

“You have other reasons, sure, but you enjoy violence.”

“And you don't, Myron?”

“Not like you.”

“No, not like me. But you feel the rush.”

“And I usually feel sick after it's all over.”

“Well, Myron, that's probably because you're such a fine humanitarian.”

They exited the subway at 161st Street and walked in silence to Yankee Stadium. Four hours to game time, but there were already several hundred fans lining up to watch the warm-ups. A giant Louisville Slugger bat cast a long shadow. Cops aplenty stood near clusters of unfazed ticket scalpers. Classic detente. There were hot dog carts, some with-gasp!-Yoo-Hoo umbrellas. Yum. At the press entrance Myron flashed his business card, the guard made a call, they were let in.

They traveled down the stairs on the right, reached the stadium tunnel, and emerged into bright sunshine and green grass. Myron and Win had just been discussing the nature of violence, and now Myron thought again about his dad's phone call. Myron had seen his father, the most gentle man he had ever known, grow violent only once. And it was here at Yankee Stadium.

When Myron was ten years old, his father had taken him and his younger brother, Brad, to a game. Brad was five at the time. Dad had secured four seats in the upper tier, but at the last minute a business associate had given him two more seats three rows behind the Red Sox bench. Brad was a huge fan of the Red Sox. So Dad suggested that Brad and Myron sit by the dugout for a few innings. Dad would stay in the upper tier. Myron held Brad's hand, and they walked down to the box seats. The seats were, in a word, awesome.

Brad started cheering his five-year-old lungs out. Cheering like mad. He spotted Carl Yastrzemski in the batter's box and started calling out, “Yaz! Yaz!” The guy sitting in front of them turned around. He was maybe twenty-five and bearded and looked a bit like a church image of Jesus. “That's enough,” the bearded guy snapped at Brad. “Quiet down.”

Brad looked hurt.

“Don't listen to him,” Myron said. “You're allowed to yell.”

The bearded man's hands moved fast. He grabbed the ten-year-old Myron by his shirt, bunching the Yankee emblem in his seemingly giant fist, and pulled Myron closer to him. There was beer on his breath. “He's giving my girlfriend a headache. He shuts up now.”

Fear engulfed Myron. Tears filled his eyes, but he wouldn't let them escape. He remembered being shocked, scared, and mostly, for some unknown reason, ashamed. The bearded man glared at Myron another few seconds and then pushed him back. Myron grabbed Brad's hand and rushed back to the upper tier. He tried to pretend everything was all right, but ten-year-olds are not great actors, and Dad could read his son as if he lived inside his skull

“What's wrong?” Dad asked.

Myron hesitated. Dad asked again. Myron finally told him what happened. And something happened to Myron's father, something Myron had never seen before or since. There was an explosion in his eyes. His face turned red; his eyes went black.

“Til be right back,” he said.

Myron watched the rest through binoculars. Dad moved down to the seat behind the Red Sox dugout. His father's face was still red. Myron saw Dad cup his hands around his mouth, lean forward, and start screaming for all he was worth. The red in his face turned to crimson. Dad kept screaming. The bearded man tried to ignore him. Dad leaned into his ear a la Mike Tyson and screamed some more. When the bearded man finally turned around, Dad did something that shocked Myron to the core. He pushed the man. He pushed the man twice and then gestured toward the exit, the international sign inviting another man to step outside. The guy with the beard refused. Dad pushed him again.