by Harlan Coben
“Has a customer ever insisted?”
“No, sir. I don’t think any customers even know we have it.”
“Can you tell me who was using the pay phone at nine-eighteen P.M. last Saturday?”
That question got his attention. “Excuse me?” Myron started to repeat the question but Hector interrupted him. “Why would you want to know that?”
“My name is Bernie Worley,” Myron said. “I’m a product supervising agent with AT&T.” A product what? “Somebody is trying to cheat us, sir, and we are not happy about it.”
“Cheat you?”
“A Y511.”
“A what?”
“A Y511,” Myron repeated. You start tossing the bull, your best bet is to just keep tossing. “It’s an electronic monitoring device built in Hong Kong. It’s new on the market, but we’re onto it. Sold on the streets. Somebody used one on your phone at nine-eighteen P.M. on March eighteenth of this year. They dialed Kuala Lumpur and spoke for nearly twelve minutes. The total cost of the call is twenty-three dollars and eighty-two cents, but the fine for using a Y511 will be at least seven hundred dollars with the potential for up to one year in prison. Plus we’ll have to remove the phone.”
Hector’s face became a mask of pure panic. “What?” Myron wasn’t thrilled with what he was doing—scaring an honest, hard-working immigrant like this—but he knew that the fear of government or big business would work in a situation like this. Hector turned around and shouted something in Spanish to a teenager who looked like him. The teenager took over the grill. “I don’t understand this, Mr. Worley.”
“It’s a public phone, sir. You just admitted to a product supervising agent that you used the public phones for private use; that is, for your employees only and denying public access. This violates our own code, section one-twenty-four B. I wouldn’t report it normally, but when you add in the use of a Y511—”
“But I didn’t use a Y511!”
“We don’t know that, sir.” Myron was playing Mr. Bureaucrat to the hilt; nothing made a person feel more impotent. There is no darker pit than the blank stare of a bureaucrat. “The phone is on your premises,” Myron continued in a bored singsong voice. “You just explained to me that the phone was only used by your employees—”
“Exactly!” Hector leaped. “By my employees! Not me!”
“But you own this establishment. You are responsible.” Myron looked around with his best, bored expression—the one he learned while waiting on line at the Division of Motor Vehicles. “We’ll also have to check out the status of all your employees. Maybe we can find the culprit that way.”
Hector’s eyes grew big. Myron knew this would hit home. There wasn’t a restaurant in Manhattan that didn’t employ at least one illegal alien. Hector’s jowls slackened. “All this,” he said, “because someone used a pay phone?”
“What someone did, sir, was use an illegal electronic device known as a Y511. What you did, sir, was refuse to cooperate with the product supervising agent investigating this serious matter.”
“Refuse to cooperate?” Hector was grasping at the possible life preserver Myron had offered up. “No, sir, not me. I want to cooperate. I want to very much.”
Myron shook his head. “I don’t think you do.”
Hector bit down and set his polite meter on extra-strength now. “No, sir,” he said. “I want to help very much. I want to cooperate with the phone company. Tell me what I can do to help. Please.”
Myron sighed, gave it a few seconds. The diner bustled. The cash register dinged while the guy who looked homeless with the Thom McAn sneakers picked out greasy coins from a dirty hand. The griddle sizzled. The aroma from the various foods battled each other for dominance with none winning outright. Hector’s face grew more and more anxious. Enough, Myron thought. “For starters, you can tell me who was using the pay phone at nine-eighteen P.M. last Saturday.”
Hector held up a finger imploring patience. He shouted something in Spanish to the woman (Mrs. Hector maybe?) working the cash register. The woman shouted something back. She closed the drawer and walked toward them. As she drew closer, Myron noticed that Hector was suddenly giving him an odd look. Was he starting to see through Myron’s rather husky load of bull-dooky? Perhaps. But Myron looked back at him steadily and Hector quickly backed down. He might be suspicious, but not suspicious enough to risk offending the all-powerful bureaucrat by questioning his authority.
Hector whispered something to the woman. She urgently whispered back. He made an understanding “ah” noise. Then he faced Myron and shook his head.
“It figures,” he said.
“What?”
“It was Sally.”
“Who?”
“At least I think it was Sally. My wife saw her on the phone around then. But she said she was only on for a minute or two.”
“Does Sally have a last name?”
“Guerro.”
“Is she here now?”
Hector shook his head. “She hasn’t been here since Saturday night. That’s what I mean by, figures. She gets me in trouble and then she runs out.”
“Has she called in sick?”
“No, sir. She just up and left.”
“You got an address on her?” Myron asked.
“I think so, let me see.” He pulled out a big carton that read “Snapple Peach Iced Tea” on the side. Behind him, the griddle hissed when fresh pancake batter touched down upon the hot metal. The files in the box were neat and color coded. Hector pulled one out and opened it. He shuffled through the sheets, found the one he was looking for, and frowned.
“What?” Myron prompted.
“Sally never gave us an address,” Hector said.
“How about a phone number?”
“No.” He looked up, remembering something. “She said she didn’t have a phone. That’s why she was using the one in the back so much.”
“Could you tell me what Ms. Guerro looked like?” Myron tried.
Hector suddenly looked uncomfortable. He glanced at his wife and cleared his throat. “Uh, she had brown hair,” he began. “Maybe five-four, five-five. Average height, I guess.”
“Anything else?”
“Brown eyes, I think.” He stopped. “That’s about it.”
“How old would you say she was?”
Hector checked the file again. “According to this, she was forty-five. That sounds about right.”
“How long has she worked here?” he asked.
“Two months.”
Myron nodded, rubbed his chin vigorously. “It sounds like an operative who goes by the name Carla.”
“Carla?”
“A notorious phone fraud,” Myron continued. “We’ve been after her for a while.” He glanced left, then right. Trying to look conspiratorial. “Have you ever heard her use the name Carla or hear someone call her Carla?”
Hector looked at his wife. She shook her head. “No, never.”
“Did she have any visitors? Any friends?”
Again Hector checked with his wife. Again the head shook. “No, none that we ever saw. She kept to herself most of the time.”
Myron decided to push a little further and confirm what he already knew. If Hector balked at this stage, so what? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He leaned forward; Hector and his wife did likewise. “This may sound insensitive,” Myron whispered, “but was this woman large chested?”
Both nods were immediate. “Very large,” Hector said.
Suspicion confirmed.
He asked a few more questions, but any useful information had already been culled from these waters. Before leaving, he told them that they were in the clear and could continue to violate code section 124B without fear. Hector almost kissed his hand. Myron felt like a louse. What did you do today, Batman? Well, Robin, I started off by terrorizing a hard-working immigrant’s livelihood with a bunch of lies. Holy Cow, Batman, you’re the coolest! Myron shook his head. What to do for an encore—throw empty beer bottles at
the dog on the fire escape?
Myron exited the Parkview Diner. He debated going to the park across the street, but suppose he became overcome by a lustful need to feed rats? No, he couldn’t risk it. He’d have to stay away. He began to head to the Dyckman Street subway station when a voice stopped him.
“You looking for Sally?”
Myron turned. It was the homeless-looking man with the Thom McAns from the diner. He sat on the pavement, his back leaning against the brick building. He had an empty plastic coffee cup in his hand. Panhandling.
“You know her?” Myron asked.
“She and I …” He winked and crossed his fingers. “We met because of that damn phone, you know.”
“Really.”
Using the wall for support the man stood. His facial hair was whitish, not full enough to be a beard yet past the stage of a Miami Vice wanna-be. His long hair was black as coal. “Sally was using my phone all the time. It pissed me off.”
“Your phone?”
“The pay phone in the back,” he said, licking his lips. “It’s right by the back door. I hang out in the back alley a lot so I can hear it, you know? It’s kind of like my business phone.” Myron couldn’t guess his age. His face was boyish but leathered—from the passing years or hard living, Myron couldn’t say. His grin was missing a couple of prominent teeth, reminding Myron of that beloved Christmas classic “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” Such a nice song really. No toys, no Sega Genesis video game. The kid just wanted teeth. So selfless really.
“I used to have my own cellular,” the man continued. “Two of them, as a matter of fact. But they got stolen. And the damn things are so unreliable, especially around the high buildings. And anyone can listen in with the right equipment. Me, I need to keep what I do secret, you see. Spies are everywhere. And they also give you brain tumors. The electrons or something. Brain tumors the size of beach balls.”
Myron kept his face blank. “Uh huh.” Speaking of tossing the bull.
“So anyway Sally started using it, too. It pissed me off, you know? I mean, I’m a businessman. I got important calls coming in. I can’t have the line tied up. Am I right?”
“As rain,” Myron said.
“See, I’m a Hollywood screenwriter.” He stuck out his hand. “Norman Lowenstein.”
Myron tried to remember the fake name he used with Hector. “Bernie Worley.”
“Nice to meet you, Bernie.”
“Do you know where Sally Guerro lives?”
“Sure. We used to be …” Norman Lowenstein crossed his fingers.
“So I heard. Could you tell me where she lives?”
Norman Lowenstein pursed his lips and used his pointer finger to scratch a spot near his throat. “I’m not real good with addresses and stuff,” he said. “But I could take you there.”
Myron wondered how big of a waste of time this was going to be. “Would you mind?”
“Sure, no problem. Let’s go.”
“Which way?”
“The A train,” Norman said. “Down to One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street.”
They walked toward the subway.
“You go the movies much, Bernie?” Norman asked.
“Much as the next guy, I guess.”
“Let me tell you something about movie-making,” he began, growing more animated. “It’s not all glamour and glitz. It’s a dog-eat-dog business like no other, making dreams for people. All the back-stabbing, all that money, all that fame and attention … it makes people act funny, you know? I got this screenplay with Paramount right now. They’re talking to Willis about it. Bruce Willis. He’s really interested.”
“Good luck with it,” Myron said.
Norman beamed. “Thanks, Bernie, that’s real nice of you. I mean it. Real nice. I’d like to tell you what my flick is about, but well, my hands are tied. You know how it is. Hollywood and all the theft out there. The studio wants it kept hush-hush.”
“I understand,” Myron said.
“I trust you, Bernie, it’s not that. But the studios insist. I can’t blame them really. They got to protect their interests, right?”
“Right.”
“It’s an action-adventure flick, that much I can tell you. But with heart too, you know? Not just a shoot-em-up. Harrison Ford wanted in, but he’s too old. I guess Willis is okay. He’s not my first choice, but what can you do?”
“Uh huh.”
One Twenty-fifth Street was not the nicest stop in the city. It was safe enough during the day, Myron surmised, but the fact that he was now carrying a gun made him feel a tad more secure. Myron did not like “packing heat” and rarely did so. It was not that Myron was particularly squeamish; it had more to do with comfort. The shoulder holster dug into his armpit and made it itch like he was wearing a tweed condom. But after last night’s soiree with Camouflage Pants and Brick Wall, it would be foolhardy to walk around unarmed.
“Which way?” Myron asked.
“Downtown.”
They headed south on Broadway. Norman regaled him with tales of Hollywood. The ins and outs. Myron nodded and kept walking. The farther south they headed, the better the area became. They passed the familiar iron gates of Columbia University, then turned left. “It’s right up here,” Norman said. “Toward the middle of the block.”
The street was lined with low-rise apartments that were mostly used by Columbia’s grad students and professors. Strange, Myron thought, that a diner waitress would live here. But then again nothing else about her involvement in all this made sense—why should where she lived? If she lived here at all, and not, say, with Bruce Willis in Hollywood.
Norman interrupted his thoughts. “You’re trying to help her, right?”
“What?”
Norman stopped walking. He was less animated now. “All that stuff about being from the phone company. That was all crap, right?”
Myron said nothing.
“Look,” he said, putting his hand on Myron’s forearm, “Hector is a good man. He came to this country with nothing. He works his ass off in that diner. He and his wife and son—they slave there every day. No days off. And every day he’s scared someone’s going to take it all away from him. All that worry … it clouds the thinking, you know? Me, I got nothing to lose so I’m not afraid of anything. Makes it easier to see some stuff. Know what I mean?”
Myron gave a slight nod.
Norman’s bright eyes dimmed as a bit of reality swept through him. Myron looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time. He made his eyes stop sweeping by him with barely a notice of age or height or even species. Myron realized that behind the lies and self-delusion lay the dreams of any man, the hopes and wants and needs that are the sole reserve of the human race.
“I’m worried about Sally,” Norman went on. “Maybe that’s clouding my thinking. But I know she wouldn’t just up and leave without saying good-bye to me. Sally wouldn’t do that.” He stopped, met Myron’s eyes with his own. “You’re not from the phone company, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You want to help her?”
“Yes,” Myron said. “I want to help her.”
He nodded and pointed. “In here. Apartment two E.”
Myron walked up the stoop while Norman stayed on the street level. He pressed the black button reading 2E. No one answered. No surprise there. He tried the entrance door, but it was locked. You had to be buzzed in.
“You better stay there,” he told Norman. Norman nodded, understanding. These buzzer-protected doors were mild deterrents to crime, but their true purpose was to prevent vagrants from coming in and setting up camp in the lobby. Myron would just wait. Eventually an occupant would leave or enter the building. While said occupant opened the door, Myron would enter as though he belonged. No one would question a man dressed in khakis and a button-down BD Baggies shirt. If Norman stood next to him, however, that same occupant might react differently.
Myron moved down two steps. When he saw two
young women approach the door from the inside, he slapped his pockets as though looking for keys. Then he walked purposefully up to the door, smiled, and waited for them to push it open. He need not have bothered with the dramatics. The two young women—college students, Myron guessed—went through the portal without looking up or decelerating their oral activities. Both were talking nonstop, neither listening. They paid absolutely no attention to him. Amazing restraint really. Of course from this angle they couldn’t see his ass, so their self-control was not only admirable but somewhat understandable.
He looked back at Norman, who thankfully waved him off. “You go yourself,” he said. “I don’t want to cause a problem.”
Myron let the door close.
The corridor was pretty much what he expected. It was painted off-white. No stripes or designs. There were no wall-hangings other than a huge bulletin board that read like a schizophrenic political manifesto. Dozens of leaflets announced everything from a dance sponsored by the Native American Gay and Lesbian Society to poetry readings by a group calling itself the Rush Limbaugh Review. Ah, the college life.
He ascended a stairway lit by two bare bulbs. All this walking and stair climbing were starting to take a toll on his bad knee. The joint tightened up like a rusted hinge. Myron felt himself dragging the leg behind him. He used the railing for support and wondered what the knee would be like when he reached arthritis age.
The floor plan of the building was far from symmetrical. Doors seemed to be placed in the wall as though at random. Off in a corner, a good distance from the other apartments, Myron found the door marked 2E. The positioning made the apartment look like an afterthought, as if someone had spotted some extra space in the back and decided to add an extra room or two. Myron knocked. No answer. No surprise. He checked the corridor. No one in sight. He was thankful that Norman was not here because he wouldn’t want someone to witness him breaking in.
Myron was not great at the lock-picking game. He had learned a bit over the years, but picking locks was a bit like playing a video game. You work at it enough, and eventually you move up levels. Myron hadn’t worked at it. He didn’t like it. He really didn’t have much natural talent for it. In most cases, he relied on Win to handle the mechanical stuff, like Barney used to do on Mission: Impossible.
