by Harlan Coben
“Maybe she saw me flexing on the security tape,” Myron said. “Wanted to get to know me better.”
Granite Man did not laugh. “You ever think about doing this comedy thing professionally?”
“There have been offers.”
“I bet. Get in the car.”
“Okay, but I have a curfew, you know. And I never French-kiss on the first date. Just so we understand each other.”
Granite Man shook his head. “Man, I’d like to waste you.”
They got in the car. Two blue-blazers sat in front. The car ride was silent except for Granite Man and His Magic Cracking Knuckles. The Lex building emerged grudgingly through the dark. Myron traveled through the security travail again. As Win predicted, they confiscated his phone. Granite Man and the two blazers turned left this time instead of right. They escorted him into an elevator. It opened into what appeared to be living quarters.
Susan Lex’s office had been done sort of Renaissance palatial, but the apartment up here—it looked like an apartment anyway—did a one-eighty. Modern and minimalism were the major themes. The walls were painted stark white and had nothing on them. The floors were a pigeon-gray wood. There were black and white bookshelves made of fiberglass, most empty, some with indistinct figurines. The couch was red and shaped like two lips. There was a well-stocked see-through bar constructed out of Lucite. Two metallic swivel stools were painted red on the base, looking about as inviting as rectal thermometers. A fire danced lazily in the fireplace, fake logs casting an unnatural glow over the black mantel. The whole place had a feel and aura about as warm as a cold sore.
Myron strolled, feigning interest. He stopped at a crystal statue with a marble base. Something modern or cubist or what-have-you. Symmetrical Bowel Movement maybe. Myron put his hand on it. Substantial. He looked out the one-way glass. Too low for much of a view beyond the hedges lining the front gate. Hmm.
The two blue-blazers did the Buckingham Palace Guard thing on either side of the door. Granite Man followed Myron, his hands clasped behind his lower back. A door on the other side of the room opened. Myron was not surprised to see Susan Lex enter, again keeping her distance. There was a man with her this time. Myron did not bother approaching.
“And you are?” he called out.
Susan Lex answered this one. “This is my brother Bronwyn.”
“Not the brother I’m interested in,” Myron said.
“Yes, I know. Please sit down.”
Granite Man gestured toward the lips-couch. Myron sat on the lower lip, waiting to be swallowed. Granite Man sat right next to him. Cozy.
“Bronwyn and I would like you to answer some questions, Mr. Bolitar,” Susan Lex said.
“Could you move a little closer?”
She smiled. “I think not.”
“I showered.”
She ignored the remark. “I understand that you occasionally do some investigative work,” Susan Lex said.
Myron did not reply.
“Is that correct?”
“Depends on what you mean by investigative work.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Susan Lex said.
Myron gave her a suit-yourself shrug.
“Is that why you’re searching for our brother?” she asked.
“I already told you why I was searching for him.”
“That bit about him being a bone marrow donor?”
“It’s not a bit.”
“Please, Mr. Bolitar,” Susan Lex said with that rich-people air. “We both know that’s a lie.”
Myron started to rise. Granite Man put a hand on Myron’s knee. It felt like a cinder block. Granite Man shook his head. Myron stayed where he was. “It’s not a lie,” he said.
“We’re wasting time,” Susan Lex said. She flicked her eyes at Granite Man. “Show him the pictures, Grover.”
Myron turned to him. “Grover is the name of my very favorite Sesame Street character. I want you to know that.”
“We’ve been following you, Myron.” Granite Man handed him a pile of photographs. Myron looked at them. They were eight-by-tens of him at the condo with Stan Gibbs. The first one showed him knocking on the door. The second one showed Stan sticking his head out. The third one showed them both heading inside the condo.
“Well?”
Myron frowned. “I have no knack for accessorizing.”
“We know that you’re working for Stan Gibbs,” Susan Lex said.
“Doing what exactly?” Myron asked.
“Investigating. As I stated earlier. So now that we understand your true motive, tell me how much it will cost for you to go away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Simply put, how much will it cost to have you cease and desist?” Susan Lex asked. “Or are you going to force us to destroy you too?”
Too?
Brain click.
Myron turned his attention to the silent brother. “Let me ask you something, Bronwyn,” he said. “You and Dennis were both going to nursery school. You both disappeared. Two weeks later, only you came back. How come? What happened to your brother?”
Bronwyn’s mouth opened and closed, marionette style. He looked to his sister for help.
“It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth after that,” Myron went on. “For thirty years, he’s totally off the radar. But now, well, it’s like he’s come back for some reason. He changed his name, opened a small checking account, donated blood to a bone marrow center. So what gives, Bron? You got a clue?”
Bronwyn said, “That simply cannot be!”
His sister silenced him with a look. But Myron felt something in the air. He mulled the feeling over and another thought hit him: Maybe the Lex siblings didn’t know the answer themselves. Maybe they were looking for Dennis too.
It was while he was lost in that thought that Granite Man punched him deep in the stomach. The fist followed through to the point where it seemed the knuckles must have reached the fabric of the couch. Myron snapped closed at the waist. He dropped to the floor, struggled to regain a breath, suffocating from within. He lowered his head to his knees, consumed with one thought: air. He needed air.
Susan Lex’s voice boomed in his ears. “Stan Gibbs knows the truth. His father is a disgusting liar. His accusations are totally without merit. But I’ll defend my family, Mr. Bolitar. You tell Mr. Gibbs he has not yet begun to suffer. What has happened to him so far is nothing compared to what I will do to him—and you—if he doesn’t stop. Do you understand?”
Air. Gulps of air. Myron managed not to throw up. He took his time, looked up, met her eye. “Not even a little,” he said.
Susan Lex looked at Grover. “Then make him.”
With that, she left the room. Her brother took one last look and followed.
Myron gathered his breath a hitch at a time. “Nice sucker punch, Grover,” he said.
Grover shrugged. “I went easy on you.”
“Next time, go easy when I’m looking, tough guy.”
“Won’t change the outcome.”
“We’ll see.” Myron sat up. “So what the hell is she talking about?”
“I thought Ms. Lex made herself very clear,” he said. “But because you appear to be a little vacant between the ears, I’ll restate her position. She doesn’t like people interfering with her affairs. Stan Gibbs, for example, interfered. You can see what happened to him. You interfered. You’re about to see what’s going to happen to you.”
Myron struggled to his feet. The blue-blazers stayed by the door. Granite Man started cracking his knuckles again. “Listen closely, please,” he said. “I’m going to break your leg. Then you’re going to limp your sorry ass out of here and tell Gibbs that if he sniffs around again, I will exterminate you both. Any questions?”
“Just one,” Myron said. “Don’t you think leg breaking is a tad cliché?”
Grover smiled. “Not the way I do it.”
Myron looked around the room.
&nb
sp; “Nowhere to run, my friend.”
“Who wants to run?” Myron countered.
Without warning, he grabbed the heavy bowel-movement statue. The blue-blazers drew their guns. Granite Man ducked. But Myron wasn’t going for them. He heaved the statue, straightened his arms, spun around like a discus thrower, and hurled it marble-base-forward at the plate-glass window. The window exploded.
And that was when the gunfire began.
“Hit the deck!” Myron shouted.
The blue-blazers obeyed. Myron dove. The bullets continued. Sniper fire. One took out the overhead light. One hit the lamp.
Gotta love that Win.
“You want to live,” Myron shouted, “stay down.”
The bullets stopped. One of the blue-blazers started rising. A bullet sang out, nearly parting the man’s hair.
The blazer dropped back down, flattening himself into a bearskin rug.
“I’m getting up now,” Myron said. “And I’m leaving. I’d advise you guys to stay down. And, Grover?”
“What?”
“Radio downstairs. Tell them not to stop me. I can’t be certain but I’m pretty sure my friend will lob in grenades if I’m unduly delayed.”
Granite Man made the call. No one moved. Myron stood up. He almost whistled as he walked out.
26
It was midnight when Myron knocked on the door of Stan Gibbs’s condo. “Let’s take a walk,” Myron said to him.
Stan threw down his cigarette, smothered it with his toe. “A drive might be better,” he countered. “The feds use long-range amplifiers.”
They got into Myron’s Ford Taurus, aka the Chick Trawler. Stan Gibbs flicked on the radio and started playing with the stations. Commercial for Heineken. Does anyone really care that it’s imported by Van Munchin and Company?
“Are you wearing a wire, Myron?”
“No.”
“But the FBI spoke to you,” Stan said. “After you left.”
“How did you know?”
“They’re watching me,” he said with a shrug. “It would only be logical to assume they questioned you.”
“Tell me about your connection with Dennis Lex,” Myron said.
“I already told you. I don’t have one.”
“A big guy named Grover picked me up tonight. He and Susan Lex gave me a very stern warning not to play with you anymore. Bronwyn was there too.”
Stan Gibbs closed his eyes and rubbed them. “They knew about your visit here.”
“Had eight-by-ten glossies.”
“And they concluded that you’re working for me.”
“Bingo.”
Stan shook his head. “Get out of this, Myron. You don’t want to mess with these people.”
“Is that advice you wished someone had given you earlier?”
His smile had nothing behind it. Exhaustion came off him like heat squiggles on a hot sidewalk. “You have no idea,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“No.”
“I can help,” Myron said.
“Against the Lexes? They’re too powerful.”
“And being powerful, you wanted to do a story on them, right?”
He said nothing.
“And they didn’t like that. In fact, they took exception.”
More nothing.
“You started digging where they didn’t want you to. You learned that there was another brother named Dennis.”
“Yes.”
“And that really pissed them off.”
Stan started biting a hangnail.
“Come on, Stan. Don’t make me drag this out of you.”
“You’ve pretty much got it.”
“Then tell me.”
“I wanted to do a story on them. An exposé, really. I even had a publisher all lined up for a book deal. But then the Lexes got wind of it. They warned me to stay away. A big man came to my apartment. I didn’t catch his name. Looked like Sergeant Rock.”
“That would be Grover.”
“He told me that I could stop or I could be destroyed.”
“And that only made you more curious.”
“I guess.”
“So you found out about Dennis Lex.”
“Just that he existed. And that he vanished into thin air when he was a young child.” Stan turned to him. Myron slowed the car and felt something creep along the top of his scalp.
“Like the Sow the Seeds victims,” Myron finished.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s different.”
“How?” Myron asked.
“This is going to sound silly,” Stan said, “but the family doesn’t have that same sense of terror that the other families have.”
“The rich are good with façades.”
“It’s more than that,” Stan said. “I can’t put my finger on it exactly. But I’m sure Susan and Bronwyn Lex know what happened to their brother.”
“But they want to keep it a secret.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a guess why?”
“No,” Stan said.
Myron glanced back. The feds were following at a discreet enough distance.
“Do you think Susan Lex is responsible for that novel surfacing?”
“The thought has crossed my mind.”
“But you never looked into it?”
“I started to. After the scandal hit. But I got a call from the big guy. He told me that it was just the beginning. That he was just flicking his finger and next time he would crush me between both palms.”
“He can be a poetic fellow,” Myron said.
“Yes.”
“But I still don’t get something.”
“What?”
“You don’t scare easily. When they warned you away the first time, you ignored it. After what they did to you, I’d have thought you’d fight back even harder.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Stan said.
“What?”
“Melina Garston.”
Silence.
“Think about it,” Stan said. “My mistress, the only person who can back up my meeting with the Sow the Seeds kidnapper, ends up dead.”
“Her father claims she retracted that.”
“Oh, right. In some bizarre before-death confession.”
“You think the Lexes arranged that too?”
“Why not? Look at what happened here. Who’s the lead suspect in Melina’s murder? I am, right? That’s what the feds told you. They think I killed her. We know that the Lexes have enough juice to dig up this novel I supposedly plagiarized. Who knows what else they can do?”
“You think they could frame you for the murder?”
“At the very least.”
“Are you saying they killed Melina Garston?”
“Maybe. Or it could have been the Sow the Seeds kidnapper. I don’t know.”
“But you think Melina was a warning.”
“She was definitely a warning,” Stan Gibbs said. “I just don’t know who sent it.”
On the radio, Stevie sang out about a landslide coming down. Oh yeah.
“You’re leaving something out, Stan.”
Stan kept his eyes forward. “What’s that?”
“There’s a personal connection here,” Myron said.
“What do you mean?”
“Susan Lex mentioned your father. She said he was a liar.”
Stan shrugged. “She might be right.”
“What does he have to do with this?”
“Take me back.”
“Don’t hold back on me now.”
“What do you really want here, Myron?”
“Excuse me?”
“What’s your interest here?”
“I told you.”
“That boy who needs a bone marrow transplant?”
“He’s thirteen years old, Stan. He’ll die without it.”
“And what if I don’t believe you? I did a little research of my own. You used to do
government work.”
“A long time ago.”
“And maybe now you’re helping the FBI. Or even the Lex family.”
“No.”
“I can’t take that chance.”
“Why not? You’re telling me the truth, right? The truth can’t hurt you.”
He snorted. “You really believe that?”
“Why did Susan Lex mention your father?”
Nothing.
“Where is your father?” Myron said.
“That’s just it.”
“What?”
Stan looked at him. “He vanished. Eight years ago.”
Vanished. That word again.
“I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. My father wasn’t a well man. He had been in and out of institutions all his life. We’ve always assumed he ran off.”
“But you never heard from him.”
“That’s right.”
“Dennis Lex vanishes. Your father vanishes—”
“More than twenty years apart,” Stan interjected. “It’s not connected.”
“So I still don’t get it,” Myron said. “What does your father or his disappearance have to do with the Lexes?”
“They think he’s the reason I wanted to do the story. But they’re wrong.”
“Why would they think that?”
“My father was a student of Raymond Lex’s. Before Midnight Confessions came out.”
“So?”
“So my father claimed the novel was his. He said that Raymond Lex stole it from him.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“No one believed him,” Stan added quickly. “Like I said, he wasn’t right in the head.”
“Yet you suddenly decided to investigate the family?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me that’s just a coincidence? That your own investigation had nothing to do with your father’s accusations?”
Stan leaned his head against the car window like a little kid longing for home. “No one believed my father. That includes me. He was a sick man. Delusional even.”
“So?”
“So at the end of the day, he was still my father,” Stan said. “Maybe I owed it to him to at least give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Do you think Raymond Lex plagiarized your father?”
“No.”
“Do you think your father is still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“There has to be a connection here,” Myron said. “Your story, the Lex family, your father’s accusations—”
