Харлан Кобен - Win

“I do not.”

“Leo Staunch.”

“Okay,” I say. “And that matters because...?”

“Leo Staunch is Nero’s nephew. More to the point, Leo is Sophia Staunch’s baby brother.”

“Ah,” I say. “Interesting.”

“Not to mention dangerous.”

“Where is this black Lincoln now?”

“Open up the map app on your iPhone. I’ve dropped a pin from the tracker device, so you can keep tabs on it.”

“Okay, good. Anything else?”

“Remember how yesterday tons of media outlets wanted interviews because your Vermeer had been found at a murder scene?”

“Yes.”

“Now imagine adding onto that the murder victim was Ry Strauss.”

It would indeed be a feeding frenzy. “What are you telling them?”

“I’ve learned how to say ‘No comment’ in twelve languages.”

“Thank you.”

“ Ei kommenttia ,” Kabir says. “That’s Finnish.”

“Anything else?”

“Tomorrow morning. You have Ema for breakfast.”

The one appointment I would never miss or forget.

I hang up. Jessica stares out the window.

“Would you like to go for an early dinner?” I ask her.

She considers it for a moment, and then says, “Why not?”

We arrive at the grill room at the Lotos Club, an elegant private social club whose early members include Mark Twain. It’s located in a French Renaissance town house on the Upper East Side. The grill room is in the basement. It is all dark woods and rich burgundy walls. The bar is front and center. Men must wear a jacket and a tie, something you rarely find in Manhattan anymore; some consider this dress code outdated, but I relish these old-world touches.

Charles, the head waiter, recommends the sole meunière, and Jessica and I both choose it. I select a Château Haut Bailly, a Bordeaux wine from the Pessac-Léognan appellation. Their whites are underrated.

I feel my phone buzz and excuse myself. You never pull out your phone at the Lotos Club. You instead make your way into a private phone booth, the only place where you are allowed to use it. As expected, it’s PT. I answer.

“Articulate.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” PT says. “As you can imagine, it’s been an insane day.”

“Anything new on your end?”

“Nothing worth reporting. You any closer to catching my killer?”

“Killers,” I say. “Plural.”

“You think there’s more than one?”

“You don’t?”

“I’m really only interested in the one.”

PT was talking about Arlo Sugarman, of course — the man he’d witnessed shoot his partner, Patrick O’Malley. “Here,” I say, “our interests may differ.”

“That’s fine,” he says. “What do you need from me?”

“There was a robbery at the Bank of Manhattan four months ago,” I say.

“Okay, so?”

“I need to know everything I can about it, especially suspected perpetrators.”

“Bank of Manhattan,” he repeats. “I think we caught one of them.”

That surprises me. “Where is he?”

“How do you know it’s not a she?”

“Where is she?”

“It’s a he. I just want you to be woke, Win.”

I wait.

“I’ll look into it.”

“Also, do you have anything on the shell company Strauss set up to buy his apartment and pay his bills?”

“It’s anonymous. You of all people know how hard it is to get information.”

Oh, I do. “You can still find out the setup date, the state, the attorney, perhaps even the bank used to pay the bills. Someone was paying for Ry Strauss to live in the Beresford.”

“On it.”

I rejoin Jessica. The wine is opened. Jessica is, no surprise, delightful company. We laugh a lot. We finish one bottle and open a second. The sole is superb.

“Odd,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“Have we ever been alone before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We always had Myron in the room.”

“Feels like we still do,” I say.

“Yeah, I know.” Jessica blinks and reaches for the glass. “I really messed up.”

I don’t correct her.

“My marriage sucks,” she says.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Are you?”

“I am now.”

“Did you hate me when I left Myron?”

“Hate probably isn’t the right word.”

“What is?”

“Loathe.”

She laughs and raises her glass. “Touché.”

“I’m joking,” I say. “In truth, you never mattered to me.”

“That’s honest.”

“I never saw you as a separate entity.”

“Just a part of Myron?”

“Yes.”

“Like an appendage?”

“Not that relevant, frankly. Like an arm or a leg? No. Never that important.”

She tries again. “Like a small satellite orbiting him?”

“Closer,” I say. “In the end, you caused Myron pain. That’s all I cared about. How you affected him.”

“Because you love him.”

“I do, yes.”

“It’s sweet. So maybe you understand better now.”

“I don’t,” I say. “But go on, if you wish.”

“Myron was such a big presence,” Jessica says.

“Still is.”

“Exactly. He sucks all the air out of the room. He dominates by just being there. When I was with him, my writing suffered. Did you know that?”

I try not to scowl. “And you’re blaming him?”

“I’m blaming us. He’s not a planet I’m orbiting. He’s the sun. When I was with him too much — the intensity — I was afraid I would disappear into it. Like the gravity would draw me too close to his flames, overwhelm me, drown me.”

Now I do scowl without reservation.

“What?” she says.

“Ignoring your mixing metaphors — are you drowning or burning up? — that’s such complete and utter nonsense. He loved you. He took care of you. That intensity you felt was overwhelming? That was love, Jessica. The bona fide ideal, the rarest of the rare. When he smiled at you, you felt a warmth you’d never known before because he loved you. You were lucky. You were lucky, and you threw it away. You threw it away not because of what he did, but because you, like so many of us, are self-destructive.”

Jessica leans back. “Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

“You left him for a boring rich guy named Stone. Why? Because you had true love and it terrified you. You couldn’t handle the loss of control. It’s why you kept breaking his heart — so you’d have the upper hand again. You had a chance at greatness, but you were too scared to grasp it.”

Her eyes glisten now. She gives them a quick swipe with her index finger and thumb. “Suppose,” she says, “I tried to get him back.”

I shake my head.

“Why not? You don’t think he still has feelings for me?”

“Won’t happen. We both know that. Myron isn’t built that way.”

“And what about you, Win?”

“We aren’t talking about me,” I say.

“Well, we can change topics. You’ve changed, Win. I used to think you and Myron were yin and yang — opposites that complemented each other.”

“And now?”

“Now I think you’re more like him than you know.”

I have to smile at that. “You think it’s that simple?”

“No, Win. That’s my point. It’s never that simple.”

Jessica wants to walk home alone. I don’t insist otherwise. In fact, even though the car is waiting for me, I choose to do the same. She heads south. I head west and start crossing Central Park by the Sixty-Sixth Street transverse. It’s a beautiful night and it’s a beautiful park and the walk soothes me for perhaps three minutes — until my phone buzzes. The call is coming from Sadie Fisher’s iPhone.

I have a bad feeling about this.