Харлан Кобен - Win

Night tour. Back in the day, I used to put on my dandiest suit and stroll through the most crime-ridden streets in the thick of the night. I would whistle. I would make sure all could see my blond locks and alabaster-to-ruddy complexion. I am rather small boned and, from a distance, appear frail — a bully’s irresistibly tasty morsel. It is only when you get close to me that you sense there is considerable coil under the clothes. But by then, it is usually too late. You’ve seen the easy mark, you’ve laughed about me with your friends, you can’t back out.

I wouldn’t let you even if you tried.

“I do not,” I tell him.

“See? Change.”

I stopped night touring years ago. It was oddly discriminatory and all too random. I am now more selective with my targets.

“How are you doing, Win?”

“I’m fine, PT.”

PT has to be in his mid-seventies by now. He recruited me for my brief stint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was also my handler. Very few agents know about him, but every FBI chief and president has met with him their first day on the job. Some people in our government are considered shadowy. PT is shadowy to the point of nonexistence. He barely makes a blip on anyone’s radar. He lives somewhere near Quantico, but even I don’t know where. I also don’t know his real name. I could probably find out, but while I enjoy violence, I don’t relish playing with fire.

“How was the basketball game last night?” PT asks.

I stay silent.

“The NCAA finals,” he says.

I still say nothing.

“Oh, relax,” he says with a chuckle. “I watched the game on TV. That’s all. I saw you sitting courtside next to Swagg Daddy.”

I wonder whether this is true.

“I love his stuff, by the way.”

“Whose stuff?”

“Swagg Daddy’s. Who else are we talking about? That song where he juxtaposes bitches ripping out a man’s heart to bitches ripping off a man’s balls? I feel that. It’s poetic.”

“I’ll let him know,” I say.

“That would be great.”

“Last time I heard from you,” I say, “you told me you retired.”

“I did,” PT says. “I am.”

“And yet.”

“And yet,” he repeats. “Is your line secure, Win?”

“Do we ever know for certain?”

“With today’s technology, we do not. I understand the FBI located your property today.”

“For which I’m grateful.”

“There is more to it, however.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Always,” he agrees with a sigh.

“Enough to get you out of retirement?”

“Tells you something, doesn’t it? I assume there is a reason you aren’t fully cooperating.”

“I’m just being careful,” I say.

“Can you stop being careful by the morning? Let me rephrase.” His tone did not change — nothing you could hear anyway — and yet. “Stop being careful by the morning.”

I do not reply.

“I’ll have a plane meet you at Teterboro at eight a.m. Be there.”

“PT?”

“Yes?”

“Have you identified the victim?”

I hear a muffled female voice through the line. PT tells me to hold on and calls to the woman that he’ll only be a moment more. A wife maybe? It’s shocking how little I know about this man. When he comes back on the line, he says, “Do you know the expression ‘this one’s personal’?”

“When you trained us,” I say, “you stressed that it was never personal.”

“I was wrong, Win. Very wrong. Tomorrow, eight a.m.”

He hangs up.

I lean back, throw my feet on the desk, and replay the conversation in my head. I am looking for nuance or hidden meanings. None come to me other than the obvious. There is a knock-pause-double knock on my office door. Kabir sticks his head through it.

“Sadie wants to see you,” he tells me. “She sounds... unhappy.”

“Gasp oh gasp,” I say.

I take the elevator back down to Sadie’s law office, where I’m greeted by the receptionist-cum-paralegal, a recent college graduate named Taft Buckington III. Taft’s father — he is known to all as Taffy — is a fellow member of Merion Golf Club. We play a lot of golf, Taffy and I. Young Taft meets my eye when I enter and shakes his head in warning. There are four attorneys in total at Fisher and Friedman, all female. I told Sadie once that perhaps she should hire one man to make it look good. Her response, which I loved, was simple:

“Shit no.”

Instead the sole male is the receptionist-cum-paralegal. Make of that what you will.

When Sadie spots me standing next to Taft’s desk, she beckons me to her office and closes the door once we are both inside. I sit. She stands. This was Myron’s old office. Sadie kept Myron’s desk. It was still here when she took over the lease and so she asked whether she could purchase it. I called Myron to see what he’d charge, but as I expected, he said to give it to her. Still, it’s disconcerting to be in here because nothing else is the same. The small refrigerator where Myron kept his stash of Yoo-hoos has been replaced by a printer stand. The posters from Broadway shows — there is no straight male in North America, with the possible exception of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who loves musicals more than Myron — are gone now. Myron’s office was eclectic and nostalgic and colorful. Sadie’s is minimalist and white and generic. She wants no distractions. It’s all about the client, she once told me, not the attorney.

“I have permission to tell you this,” Sadie begins. “Just so we are clear. It’s no longer attorney-client privilege because, well, you’ll see.”

I say nothing.

“You know about my hospitalized client?”

“Just that.”

“Just what?”

“That you have a client who was hospitalized.”

This isn’t true, by the way. I know more.

“How did you find out?” Sadie asks.

“I overheard someone in the office talking about it,” I say.

This is also a lie.

“Her name is Sharyn,” Sadie continues. “No last name for now. It doesn’t matter. Names don’t matter. Anyway, her case is textbook. Or it starts out textbook. Sharyn is doing a graduate degree at a large university. She meets a man who works at the same university in a somewhat prestigious job. It starts off great. So many of these do. The man is charming. He flatters her. He’s super attentive. He talks about their grand future.”

“They always do that, don’t they?” I say.

“Pretty much, yeah. It’s not fair to label every guy who starts sending you flowers and showering you with tons of attention as a psycho — but, I mean, there is something to it.”

I nod. “Not all overly attentive boyfriends are psychos — but all psychos are overly attentive boyfriends.”

“Well put, Win.”

I try to look modest.

“So anyway, the romance starts off great. Like so many of these do. But then it starts to grow weird. Sharyn is in a study group that includes both men and women. The boyfriend — I’m going to call him Teddy, because that’s the asshole’s name — doesn’t like that.”

“He gets jealous?”

“To the nth degree. Teddy starts asking Sharyn a lot of questions about her guy friends. Interrogating her, really. One day, she checks the search history on her laptop. Someone — well, Teddy — has been looking up her guy friends. Teddy shows up at the library unannounced. To surprise her, he says. One time he brings a bottle of wine and two glasses.”

“As cover,” I say. “A faux romantic gesture.”

“Exactly. The behavior escalates, as again it always does. Teddy gets upset if her study sessions run too late. She’s a student. She wants to go to a campus party or two with her friends. Teddy, who works as an assistant coach, insists on going. Sharyn starts to feel the walls closing in. Teddy is everywhere. If she doesn’t respond to his texts fast enough, Teddy throws a fit. He starts accusing her of cheating. One night, Teddy grabs Sharyn’s arm so hard he bruises her. That’s when she breaks up with him. And that’s when his psycho stalking starts.”