Harlan Coben: Don’t Let Go

“Look who’s back,” one guy calls out.

The others join in: “How was the honeymoon, Romeo?” “You’re not supposed to be tan, dude.” “Yeah, you’re supposed to stay indoors, if you catch my drift,” to which Myron says, “Yeah, I didn’t get that at first, but once you added ‘if you catch my drift,’ it became clear to me.”

Lots of good-natured laughing and congrats to the groom.

Remember Myron Bolitar, Leo? How Dad would take us to watch him play high school basketball in Livingston, just to show us what greatness was? Myron used to be a confirmed old bachelor. Or so I thought. He got married recently to a cable-news anchorwoman. I can still remember Dad’s voice in the stands: “Seeing greatness,” he would tell us, “is always worth it.” That was Dad’s philosophy. Myron ended up being great — a huge superstar at Duke University and a first-round NBA draft pick. Then, boom, he had a freak injury and never made it in the pros.

There’s a lesson there too, I guess.

But here on these courts he’s still treated like a hero. I don’t know if that’s due to nostalgia or what, but I get it. He’s still something special to me too. We are both adults now, but some part of me still feels a little intimidated and even uplifted when he shows me attention.

I blend into the group greeting him. When Myron gets to me, I shake his hand and say, “Congrats on the nuptials.”

“Thanks, Nap.”

“But you’re a bastard for abandoning me.”

“On the positive side, you’re now the hottest bachelor in the area.” Then, spotting something on my face, Myron pulls me aside. “What’s up?”

“I’m looking for Hank.”

“He do something wrong?”

“No, I don’t think. I just need to talk to him. Hank usually plays Monday nights, right?”

“Always,” Myron tells me. “Of course, you never know what Hank you’re going to get.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Hank, uh, fluctuates. Behaviorally.”

“Meds?”

“Meds, chemical imbalance, whatever. But, look, I’m not the guy to ask. I haven’t been around in over a month.”

“Extended honeymoon?”

Myron shakes his head. “I wish.”

He doesn’t want me to ask a follow-up, and I don’t have time for it.

“So who knows Hank the best?”

Myron gestures at a handsome man with his chin. “David Rainiv.”

“For real?”

Myron shrugs and heads onto the court.

I can’t imagine two lives on more opposite trajectories than Hank’s and David Rainiv’s. David was president of our high school class’s National Honor Society and is now CEO of one of the country’s biggest investment firms. You may have seen him on TV a few years ago when Congress was grilling big-shot bankers. David has a penthouse in Manhattan, but he and his high school sweetheart — cum — wife, Jill, raise their children here in Westbridge. We don’t really have socialites in suburbia — more like “keeping up with the Joneses” — but whatever you label it, the Rainivs would be at the top of any heap.

As the next game starts up, David and I find a bench on the other side of the court and sit. David is fit and looks like the love child of a Kennedy and a Ken doll. If you’re casting the cleft-chinned senator, you could do worse than David Rainiv.

“I haven’t seen Hank in three weeks,” David tells me.

“Is that unusual?”

“He pretty much comes every Monday and Thursday.”

“And how is he?” I ask.

“He’s fine, I guess,” David says. “I mean, he’s never fine, if you know what I mean. Some of the guys...” He looks out at the court. “They don’t really want Hank here. He acts out. He doesn’t shower enough. On the sidelines when he has to wait a game, he starts pacing and screaming various rants.”

“What kind of rants?”

“Nonsensical stuff. He started shouting once about how Himmler hates tuna steaks.”

“Himmler like the old Nazi?”

David shrugs. He keeps his eyes on the court, following the game. “He rants, he paces, he scares some of the guys. But on the court” — David smiles now — “it’s like he transforms into Hank again. For a little while, the old Hank comes back.” He turns to me. “You remember Hank in high school?”

I nod.

“Lovable, right?” David says.

“Yes.”

“I mean, a total nerd, but — do you remember that time he pranked the teachers’ Christmas party?”

“Something to do with their snacks, right?”

“Right. So the teachers are all getting smashed. Hank sneaks in. He’s mixed together bowls of M&M’s with bowls of Skittles—”

“Oh gross.”

“... so the teachers, they’re wasted, right, and they reach and grab a fistful of candies and...” He starts laughing. “Hank filmed it. It was hilarious.”

“I remember now.”

“He didn’t mean any harm. That was Hank. It was more a science experiment to him than a prank.” David grows quiet for a moment. I follow his eyes. He’s watching Myron take a jump shot. Swish.

“Hank isn’t well, Nap. It isn’t his fault. That’s what I tell the guys who don’t want him here. It’s like he has cancer. You’d never tell a guy he can’t play with us because he has cancer, right?”

“Good point,” I say.

David is focused a little too much on the court. “I owe Hank.”

“How so?”

“When we graduated, Hank went to MIT. You know that, right?”

“Right,” I say.

“I got accepted to Harvard, a mile away. A thrill, right? We were close to each other. So freshman year, Hank and I still hung out. I’d come pick him up and we’d grab a burger somewhere or we’d go to parties, mostly on my campus but sometimes his. Hank could make me laugh like no one else.” There is a smile on his face now. “He wasn’t one for drinking, but he would stand in the corner and observe. He liked that. And girls liked him too. There was a certain type drawn to him.”

The night has a hush to it now. The only sounds are the concentrated cacophony on the court.

The smile slides off David’s face like a veil. “But things started to change,” he says. “The change was so slow, I barely noticed it at first.”

“Change how?”

“Like when I’d come to pick him up, Hank wouldn’t be ready. Or as we left, he’d check the door lock two or three times. It got worse. I’d come and he’d still be in a bathrobe. He would shower for hours. He would keep locking and unlocking the door. Not two or three times, but twenty or thirty. I’d try to reason with him: ‘Hank, you already checked it, you can stop now, no one wants any of the crap in your room anyway.’ He started to worry his dorm would burn down. There was a stove in a public room. We’d have to stop by it and make sure it was off. It would take me an hour to get him outside.”

David stops. We watch the game for a few moments. I don’t push him. He wants to tell it his own way.

“So one night, we’re going out on a double date at this expensive steak house in Cambridge. He says to me, ‘Don’t pick me up, I’ll take the bus.’ I say fine. I get the girls. We’re there. I’m not telling this right. This girl, Kristen Megargee, I can see Hank is crazy about her. She’s gorgeous — and a math geek. He was so excited. Anyway, you can probably guess what happened.”

“He didn’t show.”

“Right. So I make up some excuse and take the girls home. Then I drive over to his dorm. Hank’s still locking and unlocking the door. He won’t stop. Then he starts blaming me. ‘Oh, you said that was next week.’”

I wait. David lowers his head into his hands, takes a deep breath, lifts his head back up.

“I’m in college,” David continues. “I’m young, it’s exciting, I’m making new friends. I got my studies, I got a life, and Hank, he isn’t my job, right? Going over to fetch him is getting to be a real pain in the ass. So after that, I start going less. You know how it is. He texts, I don’t answer so fast. We drift apart. Suddenly it’s a month. Then a semester. Then...”