by Harlan Coben
“But from us?” Myron countered.
“Yes.”
“Why? She trusts us.”
“Several reasons come to mind. Her attorney probably ordered her not to say anything.”
“That wouldn’t stop her.”
“It might. But more important, Esperanza was probably embarrassed. You have recently promoted her to partner. She was in charge of the entire operation. I know that you believe Esperanza is too tough to care about such things, but I do not think she would relish your disapproval.”
Myron mulled that one over. It made some sense, but he wasn’t sure he bought it entirely. “I still think we’re missing something.”
“That’s because we’re ignoring the strongest motive for her keeping silent.”
“That being?”
“She killed him.”
Win hung up on that cheery note. Myron took Northfield Avenue toward Livingston. The familiar landmarks of his hometown popped into view. He thought about the news report and what Win had said. Could Esperanza be the mystery woman, the reason for Clu and Bonnie’s breakup? If so, why wouldn’t Bonnie say that? Maybe she didn’t know. Or maybe—
Hold the phone.
Maybe Clu and Esperanza met up at Take A Guess. Did they go there together or just bump into each other? Is that how the affair started? Did they go there and participate in—in whatever? Maybe it was an accident. Maybe they both arrived there in disguise and didn’t realize who they were until, well, it was too late to stop? Did that make sense?
He made the right at Nero’s Restaurant and onto Hobart Gap Road. Not far now. He was in the land of his childhood—check that, his entire life. He had lived here with his parents until a year or so ago, when he finally severed the apron strings and moved in with Jessica. Psychologists and psychiatrists and the like, he knew, would have a field day with the fact that he had lived with his parents into his thirties, theorizing all kinds of unnatural preoccupations that kept him so close to Mom and Dad. Maybe they’d be right. But for Myron, the answer had been far simpler. He liked them. Yes, they could be pests—what parents weren’t?—and they liked to pry. But most of the pestering and prying were over the incidentals. They had given him privacy yet made him feel cared for and wanted. Was that unhealthy? Maybe. But it seemed a damn sight better than his friends who thrived on blaming their parents for any unhappiness in their lives.
He turned onto his street. The old neighborhood was wholly unspectacular. There were thousands like it in New Jersey, hundreds of thousands throughout the US of A. This was suburbia, the backbone of this country, the battleground of the fabled American Dream. Corny to say, but Myron loved it here. Sure, there was unhappiness and dissatisfaction and fights and all that, but he still thought that this was the “realest” place he had ever been. He loved the basketball court in the driveway and the training wheels on the new two-wheelers and the routine and the walking to school and the caring too much about the color of the grass. This was living. This was what it was all about.
In the end Myron guessed that he and Jessica had broken up for all the classic reasons, albeit with a gender twist. He wanted to settle down, buy a house in the ’burbs, raise a family; Jessica, fearing commitment, did not. He pulled into the driveway now, shaking his head. Too simple an explanation. Too pat. The commitment stuff had been an ongoing source of tension, no question, but there was more to it. There was the recent tragedy, for one thing.
There was Brenda.
Mom rushed out the door, sprinting toward him with her arms spread wide. She always greeted him like he was a recently released POW, but today was something extra special. She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him over. Dad trailed behind, equally excited but playing it cool. Dad had always been about balance, the total love without the smothering, the caring without pushing. An amazing man, his father. When Dad reached him, there was no handshake. The two men hugged fiercely and without any hint of embarrassment. Myron kissed his father’s cheek. The familiar feel of Dad’s rough skin made him understand a bit what Mrs. Palms was trying to accomplish with the wallpapered images.
“Are you hungry?” Mom asked. Always her opening gambit.
“A little.”
“You want me to fix something?”
Everyone froze. Dad made a face. “You’re going to cook?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“Let me make sure I have the number of poison control.”
“Oh, Al, that’s so funny. Ha-ha, I can’t stop laughing. What a funny man your father is, Myron.”
“Actually, Ellen, go ahead and cook something. I need to drop a few pounds.”
“Wow, what a knee slapper, Al. You’re killing me here.”
“Better than a fat farm.”
“Ho-ho.”
“Just the thought is better than an appetite suppressor.”
“It’s like being married to Shecky Greene.” But she was smiling.
They were in the house now. Dad took Mom’s hand. “Let me show you something, Ellen,” Dad said. “See that big metal box over there? That’s called an oven. O-v-e-n. Oven. See that knob, the one with all the numbers on it? That’s how you turn it on.”
“You’re funnier than a sober Foster Brooks, Al.”
But they were all smiling now. Dad was speaking the truth. Mom didn’t cook. Almost never did. Her culinary skills could cause a prison riot. When he was a kid, Myron’s favorite home-cooked dinner was Dad’s scrambled eggs. Mom was an early career woman. The kitchen was a place to read magazines.
“What do you want to eat, Myron?” Mom asked. “Chinese maybe. From Fong’s?”
“Sure.”
“Al, call Fong’s. Order something.”
“Okay.”
“Make sure you get shrimp with lobster sauce.”
“I know.”
“Myron loves Fong’s shrimp with lobster sauce.”
“I know, Ellen. I raised him too, remember?”
“You might forget.”
“We’ve been ordering from Fong’s for twenty-three years. We always order shrimp with lobster sauce.”
“You might forget, Al. You’re getting old. Didn’t you forget to pick up my blouse at the laundry two days ago?”
“It was closed.”
“So you never picked up my blouse, am I right?”
“Of course not.”
“I rest my case.” She looked at her son. “Myron, sit. We need to talk. Al, call Fong’s.”
The men obeyed her orders. As always. Myron and Mom sat at the kitchen table.
“Listen to me closely,” Mom said. “I know Esperanza is your friend. But Hester Crimstein is a fine lawyer. If she told Esperanza not to talk to you, it’s the right thing.”
“How do you know—”
“I’ve known Hester for years.” Mom was a defense attorney, one of the best in the state. “We’ve worked cases together before. She called me. She said you’re interfering.”
“I’m not interfering.”
“Actually she said you’re bothering her and to butt out.”
“She talked to you about this?”
“Of course. She wants you to leave her client alone.”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
Myron squirmed a bit. “I have some information that might be important.”
“Such as?”
“According to Clu’s wife, he was having an affair.”
“And you think Hester doesn’t know that? The DA thinks he was having an affair with Esperanza.”
“Wait a second.” It was Dad. “I thought Esperanza was a lesbian.”
“She’s a bisexual, Al.”
“A what?”
“Bisexual. It means she likes both boys and girls.”
Dad thought about that. “I guess that’s a good thing to be.”
“What?”
“I mean, it gives you double the options of everyone else.”
“Great, Al, thanks for the in
sight.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to Myron. “So Hester already knows that. What else?”
“Clu was desperate to find me before he was killed,” Myron said.
“Most logically, bubbe, to say something incriminating about Esperanza.”
“Not necessarily. Clu came to the loft. He told Jessica that I was in danger.”
“And you think he meant it?”
“No, he was probably exaggerating. But shouldn’t Hester Crimstein judge the significance?”
“She already has.”
“What?”
“Clu came here too, darling.” Her voice was suddenly soft. “He told your father and me the same thing he told Jessica.”
Myron didn’t push it. If Clu had told his parents the same thing he told Jessica, if he had used all that death talk when Mom and Dad didn’t know where Myron was …
As though reading his mind, Dad said, “I called Win. He said you were safe.”
“Did he tell you where I was?”
Mom took that one. “We didn’t ask.”
Silence.
She reached over and put a hand on his arm. “You’ve been through a lot, Myron. Your father and I know that.”
They both looked at him with the deep-caring eyes. They knew part of what happened. About his breakup with Jessica. About Brenda. But they would never know it all.
“Hester Crimstein knows what’s she doing,” Mom went on. “You have to let her do her job.”
More silence.
“Al?”
“What?”
“Hang up the phone,” she said. “Maybe we should go out to eat.”
Myron checked his watch. “It’ll have to be quick. I have to get back to the city.”
“Oh?” Mom raised an eyebrow. “You have a date already?”
He thought about Big Cyndi’s description of Take A Guess.
“Not likely,” he said. “But you never know.”
CHAPTER
15
From the outside Take A Guess looked pretty much like your standard Manhattan cantina-as-pickup-joint. The building was brick, the windows darkened to highlight the neon beer signs. Above the door, faded lettering spelled out Take A Guess. That was it. No “Bring Your Perversions.” No “The Kinkier the Better.” No “You Better Like Surprises.” Nothing. A suit trudging home might happen by here, stop in, lay down his briefcase, spot something attractive, buy it a drink, make a few quasi-smooth moves warmed over from college mixers, take it home. Surprise, surprise.
Big Cyndi met him at the front door dressed like Earth, Wind, and Fire—not so much any one member as the entire group. “Ready?”
Myron hesitated, nodded.
When Big Cyndi pushed open the door, Myron held his breath and ducked in behind her. The interior too was not what he’d visualized. He had expected something … blatantly wacko, he guessed. Like the bar scene in Star Wars maybe. Instead Take A Guess just had the same neodesperate feel and stench of a zillion other singles’ joints on a Friday night. A few patrons were colorfully dressed, but most wore khakis and business suits. There were also a handful of outrageously clad cross-dressers and leather devotees and one babe-a-rama packed into a vinyl catsuit, but nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find a Manhattan nightspot that didn’t have any of that. Sure, some folks were in disguise, but when it came right down to it, who didn’t wear a facade at a singles’ bar?
Whoa, that was deep.
Heads and eyes swerved in their direction. For a moment Myron wondered why. But only for a moment. He was, after all, standing next to Big Cyndi, a six-six three-hundred-pound multihued mass blanketed with more sparkles than a Siegfried and Roy costume party. She drew the eye.
Big Cyndi seemed flattered by the attention. She lowered her eyes, playing demure, which was like Ed Asner playing coquettish. “I know the head bartender,” she said. “His name is Pat.”
“Male or female?”
She smiled, punched him on the arm. “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”
A jukebox played the Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.” Myron tried to count how many times Sting repeated the words every little. He lost count at a million.
They found two stools at the bar. Big Cyndi looked for Pat. Myron cased the joint, very detectivelike. He turned his back to the bar, eased his elbows against it, bobbed his head slightly to the music. Señor Slick. The babe-a-rama in the black catsuit caught his eye. She slithered to the seat next to him and curled into it. Myron flashed back to Julie Newmar as Cat Woman circa 1967, something he did far too often. This woman was dirty blond but otherwise frighteningly comparable.
Catsuit gave him a look that made him believe in telekinesis. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi back.” The Lady Slayer awakens.
She slowly reached for her neck and started toying with the catsuit’s zipper. Myron managed to keep his tongue in the general vicinity of his mouth. He took a quick peek at Big Cyndi.
“Don’t be too sure,” Big Cyndi warned.
Myron frowned. There was cleavage here, for crying out loud. He stole another look—for the sake of science. Yep, cleavage. And plenty of it. He looked back at Big Cyndi and whispered, “Bosoms. Two of them.”
Big Cyndi shrugged.
“My name is Thrill,” Catsuit said.
“I’m Myron.”
“Myron,” she repeated, her tongue circling as though testing the word for taste. “I like that name. It’s very manly.”
“Er, thanks, I guess.”
“You don’t like your name?”
“Actually, I’ve always sort of hated it,” he said. Then he gave her the big-guy look, cocking the eyebrow like Fabio going for deep thought. “But if you like it, maybe I’ll reconsider.”
Big Cyndi made a noise like a moose coughing up a turtle shell.
Thrill gave him another smoldering glance and picked up her drink. She did something that could roughly be called “taking a sip,” but Myron doubted the Motion Picture Association would give it less than an R rating. “Tell me about yourself, Myron.”
They started chatting. Pat, the bartender, was on break, so Myron and Thrill kept at it for a good fifteen minutes. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was sort of having fun. Thrill turned toward him, full body. She slid a little closer. Myron again looked for telltale gender signs. He checked for the two Five O’clocks: Shadow and Charlie. Nothing. He checked the cleavage again. Still there. Damn if he wasn’t a trained detective.
Thrill put her hand on his thigh. It felt hot through his jeans. Myron stared at the hand for a moment. Was the size odd? He tried to figure out if it was big for a woman or maybe small for a man. His head started spinning.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Myron finally said, “but you’re a woman, right?”
Thrill threw her head back and laughed. Myron looked for an Adam’s apple. She had a black ribbon tied around the neck. Made it hard to tell. The laugh was a touch hoarse, but oh, come on now. This couldn’t be a guy. Not with that cleavage. Not when the catsuit was so tight about the, er, nether region, if you catch the drift.
“What’s the difference?” Thrill asked.
“Pardon?”
“You find me attractive, don’t you?”
“What I see.”
“So?”
Myron raised his hands. “So—and let me just state this plainly—if, during a moment of passion, there is a second penis in the room … well, it definitely kills the mood for me.”
She laughed. “No other penises, eh?”
“That’s right. Just mine. I’m funny that way.”
“Are you familiar with Woody Allen?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Then let me quote him.” Myron stayed still. Thrill was about to quote the Woodman. If she was a she, Myron was close to proposing. “ ‘Sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five it’s fantastic.’ ”
“Nice quote,” Myron said.
“Do you know what it’s
from?”
“His old nightclub act. When Woody did stand-up comedy in the sixties.”
Thrill nodded, pleased that the pupil had passed the test.
“But we’re not talking group sex here,” Myron said.
“Have you ever had group sex?” she asked.
“Well, uh, no.”
“But if you did—if there were, say, five people—would it be a problem if one of them had a penis?”
“We’re talking hypothetically here, right?”
“Unless you want me to call some friends.”
“No, that’s okay, really, thanks.” Myron took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay, hypothetically, I guess it wouldn’t be a huge problem, as long as the man kept his distance.”
Thrill nodded. “But if I had a penis—”
“A major mood killer.”
“I see.” Thrill made small circles on Myron’s thigh. “Admit you’re curious.”
“I am.”
“So?”
“So I’m also curious about what goes through a person’s mind when he jumps out of a skyscraper. Before he goes splat on the sidewalk.”
She arched an eyebrow. “It’s probably a hell of a rush.”
“Yeah, but then there’s that splat at the end.”
“And in this case …”
“The splat would be a penis, yes.”
“Interesting,” Thrill said. “Suppose I’m a transsexual.”
“Pardon?”
“Suppose I had a penis, but now it’s gone. You’d be safe, right?”
“Wrong.”
“Why?”
“Phantom penis,” Myron said.
“Pardon?”
“Like in a war when a guy loses his limb and still thinks it’s there. Phantom penis.”
“But it’s not your penis that would be missing.”
“Still. Phantom penis.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Exactly.”
Thrill showed him nice, even white teeth. Myron looked at them. Can’t tell much about gender from teeth. Better to check the cleavage again. “You realize that you’re massively insecure about your sexuality,” she said.
“Because I like to know if a potential partner has a penis?”
