Back Spin

by Harlan Coben

  This made no sense. A mall? The kidnapper had dragged Chad Coldren to a mall and made him scream into a phone?

  "Thanks, Lisa."

  He hung up and turned back toward the porch. Win was standing directly behind him. His arms were folded, his body, as always, completely relaxed.

  "The kidnapper called," Myron said.

  "So I overheard."

  "I could use your help tracking this down."

  "No," Win said.

  "This isn't about your mother, Win."

  Win's face did not change, but something happened to his eyes. "Careful" was all he said.

  Myron shook his head. "I have to go. Please make my excuses."

  "You came here to recruit clients," Win said. "You claimed earlier that you agreed to help the Coldrens in the hopes of representing them."

  "So?"

  "So you are excruciatingly close to landing the world's top golf protege. Reason dictates that you stay."

  "I can't."

  Win unfolded his arms, shook his head.

  "Will you do one thing for me? To let me know if I'm wasting time or not?"

  Win remained still.

  "You know how I told you about Chad using his ATM card?"

  "Yes."

  "Get me the security videotape of the transaction," he said. "It may tell me if this whole thing is just a hoax on Chad's part."

  Win turned back to the porch. "I'll see you at the house tonight."

  8

  Myron parked at the mall and checked his watch. Seven forty-five. It had been a very long day and it was still relatively early. He entered through a Macy's and immediately located one of those big table blueprints of the mall. Public telephones were marked with blue locators. Eleven altogether. Two at the south entrance downstairs. Two at the north entrance upstairs. Seven at the food court.

  Malls were the great American geographical equalizer. Between shiny anchor stores and beneath excessively floodlit ceilings, Kansas equaled California, New Jersey equaled Nevada. No place was truly more Americana. Some of the stores inside might be different, but not by much. Athlete's Foot or Foot Locker, Rite Aid or CVS, Williams-Sonoma or Pottery Barn, the Gap or Banana Republic or Old Navy (all, coincidentally, owned by the same people), Waldenbooks or B. Dalton, several anonymous shoe stores, a Radio Shack, a Victoria's Secret, an art gallery with Gorman, McKnight, and Behrens, a museum store of some kind, two record stores--all wrapped up in some Orwellian, sleek-chrome neo-Roman Forum with chintzy fountains and overstated marble and dentist-office sculptures and unmanned information booths and fake ferns.

  In front of a store selling electric organs and pianos sat an employee dressed in an ill-fitting navy suit and a sailor's cap. He played "Muskrat Love" on an organ. Myron was tempted to ask him where Tenille was, but he refrained. Too obvious. Organ stores in malls. Who goes to the mall to buy an organ?

  He hurried past the Limited or the Unlimited or the Severely Challenged or something like that. Then Jeans Plus or Jeans Minus or Shirts Only or Pants Only or Tank Top City or something like that. They all looked pretty much the same. They all employed lots of skinny, bored teenagers who stocked shelves with the enthusiasm of a eunuch at an orgy.

  There were lots of high school kids draped about--just hanging, man--and looking very, er, rad. At the risk of sounding like a reverse racist, all the white boys looked the same to him. Baggie shorts. White T-shirts. Unlaced black hundred-dollar high-top sneakers. Baseball cap pulled low with the brim worked into a nifty curve, covering a summer buzzcut. Thin. Lanky. Long-limbed. Pale as a Goya portrait, even in the summer. Poor posture. Eyes that never looked directly at another human being. Uncomfortable eyes. Slightly scared eyes.

  He passed a hair salon called Snip Away, which sounded more like a vasectomy clinic than a beauty parlor. The Snip Away beauticians were either reformed mall girls or guys named Mario whose fathers were named Sal. Two patrons sat in a window--one getting a perm, the other a bleach job. Who wanted that? Who wanted to sit in a window and have the whole world watch you get your hair done?

  He took an escalator up past a plastic garden complete with plastic vines to the crowned jewel of the mall: the food court. It was fairly empty now, the dinner crowd long since gone. Food courts were the final outpost of the great American melting pot. Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Middle Eastern (or Greek), a deli, a chicken place, one fast food chain like McDonald's (which had the biggest crowd), a frozen yogurt place, and then a few strange offshoots--the ones started by people who dream of franchising themselves into becoming the next Ray Kroc. Ethiopian Ecstasy. Sven's Swedish Meatballs. Curry Up and Eat.

  Myron checked for numbers on the seven phones. All had been whited out. Not surprising, the way people abused them nowadays. No problemo either. He took out his cellular phone and punched in the number from the Caller ID. A phone starting ringing immediately.

  Bingo.

  The one on the far right. Myron picked it up to make sure. "Hello?" he said. He heard the hello in his cellular phone. Then he said to himself through the cellular, "Hello, Myron, nice to hear from you." He decided to stop talking to himself. Too early in the evening to be this goofy.

  He hung up the phone and looked around. A group of mall girls inhabited a table not far away. They sat in a closed circle with the protectiveness of coyotes during mating season.

  Of the food stands, Sven's Swedish Meatballs had the best view of the phone. Myron approached. Two men worked the booth. They both had dark hair and dark skin and Saddam Hussein mustaches. One's name tag read Mustafa. The other Achmed.

  "Which one of you is Sven?" he asked.

  No smiles.

  Myron asked about the phone. Mustafa and Achmed were less than helpful. Mustafa snapped that he worked for a living, and didn't watch phones. Achmed gestured and cursed him in a foreign tongue.

  "I'm not much of a linguist," Myron said, "but that didn't sound like Swedish."

  Death glares.

  "Bye now. I'll be sure to tell all my friends."

  Myron turned toward the table of mall girls. They all quickly looked down, like rats scurrying in the glare of a flashlight. He stepped toward them. Their eyes darted to and fro with what they must have thought were surreptitious glances. He heard a low cacophony of "ohmygod!ohmygod!ohmygod!he'scomingover!"

  Myron stopped directly at their table. There were four girls. Or maybe five or even six. Hard to say. They all seemed to blend into one another, into one hazy indistinct mesh of hair and black lipstick and Fu Manchu-length fingernails and earrings and nose rings and cigarette smoke and too-tight halter tops and bare midriffs and popping gum.

  The one sitting in the middle looked up first. She had hair like Elsa Lancaster in The Bride of Frankenstein and what looked like a studded dog collar around her neck. The other faces followed suit.

  "Like, hi," Elsa said.

  Myron tried his most gentle, crooked smile. Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

  The girls all looked at one another. A few giggles escaped. Myron felt his face redden, though he wasn't sure why. They elbowed one another. No one answered. Myron proceeded.

  "How long have you been sitting here?" he asked.

  "Is this, like, one of those mall surveys?"

  "No," Myron said.

  "Good. Those are, like, so lame, you know?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "It's like, get away from me already, Mr. Polyester Pants, you know?"

  Myron said "uh-huh" again. "Do you remember how long you've been sitting here?"

  "Nah. Amber, you know?"

  "Like, we went to the Gap at four."

  "Right, the Gap. Fab sale."

  "Ultra sale. Love that blouse you bought, Trish."

  "Isn't it, like, the total package, Mindy?"

  "Totally. Ultra."

  Myron said, "It's almost eight now. Have you been here for the past hour?"

  "Like, hello, anybody home? At least."

  "Thi
s is, like, our spot, you know?"

  "No one else, like, sits here."

  "Except that one time when those gross lame-os tried to move in."

  "But, like, whoa, don't even go there, 'kay?"

  They stopped and looked at Myron. He figured the answer to his prior question was yes, so he plowed ahead. "Have you seen anybody use that pay phone?"

  "Are you, like, a cop or something?"

  "As if."

  "No way."

  "Way."

  "He's too cute to be a cop."

  "Oh, right, like Jimmy Smits isn't cute."

  "That's, like, TV, dumb wad. This is real life. Cops aren't cute in real life."

  "Oh, right, like Brad isn't totally cute? You, like, love him, remember?"

  "As if. And he's not a cop. He's, like, some rent-a-uniform at Florsheim."

  "But he's so hot."

  "Totally."

  "Ultra buff."

  "He likes Shari."

  "Eeeuw. Shari?"

  "I, like, hate her, you know?"

  "Me too. Like, does she only shop at Sluts 'R' Us, or what?"

  "Totally."

  "It's, like, 'Hello, Dial-a-Disease, this is Shari speaking.' "

  Giggles.

  Myron looked for an interpreter. "I'm not a cop," he said.

  "Told you."

  "As if."

  "But," Myron said, "I am dealing with something very important. Life-and-death. I need to know if you remember anyone using that phone--the one on the far right--forty-five minutes ago."

  "Whoa!" The one called Amber pushed her chair back. "Clear out, because I'm, like, gonna barf for days, you know?"

  "Like, Crusty the Clown."

  "He was, like, so gross!"

  "Totally gross."

  "Totally."

  "He, like, winked at Amber!"

  "As if!"

  "Totally eeeuw!"

  "Gag city."

  "Bet that slut Shari would have Frenched him."

  "At least."

  Giggles.

  Myron said, "You saw somebody?"

  "Serious groatie."

  "Totally crusty."

  "He was, like, hello, ever wash your hair?"

  "Like, hello, buy your cologne at the local Gas-N-Go?"

  More giggles.

  Myron said, "Can you describe him to me?"

  "Blue jeans from, like, 'Attention, Kmart shoppers.' "

  "Work boots. Definitely not Timberland."

  "He was, like, so skinhead wanna-be, you know?"

  Myron said, "Skinhead wanna-be?"

  "Like, a shaved head. Skanky beard. Tattoo of that thing on his arm."

  "That thing?" Myron tried.

  "You know, that tattoo." She kind of drew something in the air with her finger. "It kinda looks like a funny cross from, like, the old days."

  Myron said, "You mean a swastika?"

  "Like, whatever. Do I look like a history major?"

  "Like, how old was he?" Like. He'd said like. If he stayed here much longer, he'd end up getting some part of him pierced. Way.

  "Old."

  "Grampa-ville."

  "Like, at least twenty."

  "Height?" Myron asked. "Weight?"

  "Six feet."

  "Yeah, like six feet."

  "Bony."

  "Very."

  "Like, no ass at all."

  "None."

  "Was anybody with him?" Myron asked.

  "As if."

  "Him?"

  "No way."

  "Who would be with a skank like that?"

  "Just him by that phone for like half an hour."

  "He wanted Mindy."

  "Did not!"

  "Wait a second," Myron said. "He was there for half an hour?"

  "Not that long."

  "Seemed a long time."

  "Maybe like fifteen minutes. Amber, like, always exaggerates."

  "Like, fuck you, Trish, all right? Just fuck you."

  "Anything else?" Myron asked.

  "Beeper."

  "Right, beeper. Like anybody would ever call that skank."

  "Held it right up to the phone, too."

  Probably not a beeper. Probably a microcassette player. That would explain the scream. Or a voice changer. They also came in a small box.

  He thanked the girls and handed out business cards that listed his cellular phone number. One of the girls actually read it. She made a face.

  "Like, your name is really Myron?"

  "Yes."

  They all just stopped and looked at him.

  "I know," Myron said. "Like, ultra lame-o."

  He was heading back to his car when a nagging thought suddenly resurfaced. The kidnapper on the phone had mentioned a "chink bitch." Somehow he had known about Esme Fong arriving at the house. The question was, how?

  There were two possibilities. One, they had a bug in the house.

  Not likely. If the Coldren residence was bugged or under some kind of electronic surveillance, the kidnapper would also have known about Myron's involvement.

  Two, one of them was watching the house.

  That seemed most logical. Myron thought a moment. If someone had been watching the house only an hour or so ago, it was fair to assume that they were still there, still hiding behind a bush or up a tree or something. If Myron could locate the person surreptitiously, he might be able to follow them back to Chad Coldren.

  Was it worth the risk?

  Like, totally.

  9

  Ten o'clock.

  Myron used Win's name again and parked in Merion's lot. He checked for Win's Jaguar, but it was nowhere to be seen. He parked and checked for guards. No one. They'd all been stationed at the front entrance. Made things easier.

  He quickly stepped over the white rope used to hold back the galley and started crossing the golf course. It was dark now, but the lights from the houses across the way provided enough illumination to cross. For all its fame, Merion was a tiny course. From the parking lot to Golf House Road, across two fairways, was less than a hundred yards.

  Myron trudged forward. Humidity hung in the air in a heavy blanket of beads. Myron's shirt began to feel sticky. The crickets were incessant and plenteous, their swarming tune as monotonous as a Mariah Carey CD, though not quite as grating. The grass tickled Myron's sockless ankles.

  Despite his natural aversion to golf, Myron still felt the appropriate sense of awe, as if he were trespassing over sacred ground. Ghosts breathed in the night, the same way they breathed at any sight that had borne legends. Myron remembered once standing on the parquet floor at Boston Garden when no one else was there. It was a week after he had been picked by the Celtics in the first round of the NBA draft. Clip Arnstein, the Celtics' fabled general manager, had introduced him to the press earlier that day. It had been enormous fun. Everybody had been laughing and smiling and calling Myron the next Larry Bird. That night, as he stood alone in the famed halls of the Garden, the championship flags hanging from the rafters actually seemed to sway in the still air, beckoning him forward and whispering tales of the past and promises of what was to come.

  Myron never played a game on that parquet floor.

  He slowed as he reached Golf House Road and stepped over the white rope. Then he ducked behind a tree. This would not be easy. Then again, it would not be easy for his quarry either. Neighborhoods like this noted anything suspicious. Like a parked car where it didn't belong. That had been why Myron had parked in the Merion lot. Had the kidnapper done likewise? Or was his car out on the street? Or had someone dropped him off?

  He kept low and darted to another tree. He looked, he assumed, rather doofy--a guy six feet four inches tall and comfortably over two hundred pounds darting between bushes like something left on the cutting room floor of The Dirty Dozen.

  But what choice did he have?

  He couldn't just casually walk down the street. The kidnapper might spot him. His whole plan relied on the fact that he could spot the kidnapper before th
e kidnapper spotted him. How to do this? He really did not have a clue. The best he could come up with was to keep circling closer and closer to the Coldren house, looking out for, er, uh, something.

  He scanned the surroundings--for what, he wasn't sure. Someplace for a kidnapper to use as a lookout spot, he guessed. A safe place to hide, maybe, or a perch where a man with binoculars could survey the scene. Nothing. The night was absolutely windless and still.

  He circled the block, dashing haphazardly from one bush to another, feeling now very much like John Belushi breaking into Dean Wormer's office in Animal House.

  Animal House and The Dirty Dozen. Myron watched too many movies.

  As he continued to spiral closer to the Coldrens' residence, Myron realized that there was probably a good chance that he'd be the "spottee" rather than the "spotter." He tried to hide himself better, to concentrate on making himself become part of the night, to blend in to the background and become invisible.

  Myron Bolitar, Mutant Ninja Warrior.

  Lights twinkled from spacious homes of stone and black shutters. They were all imposing and rather beautiful with a tutelary, stay-away coziness about them. Solid homes. The third-little-piggie homes. Settled and staying and proud homes.

  He was getting very close to the Coldren house now. Still nothing--not even a single car parked on the roads. Sweat coated him like syrup on a stack of pancakes. God, he wanted to take a shower. He hunched down and watched the house.

  Now what?

  Wait. Be on the lookout for movement of some kind. Surveillance and the like was not Myron's forte. Win usually handled that kind of stuff. He had the body control and the patience. Myron was already getting fidgety. He wished he'd brought a magazine or something to read.

  The three minutes of monotony was broken when the front door opened. Myron sat up. Esme Fong and Linda Coldren appeared in the door frame. They said their good-byes. Esme gave Linda the firm handshake and headed to her car. Linda Coldren shut the front door. Esme Fong started her car and left.

  A thrill a second, this surveillance stuff.

  Myron settled back behind a shrub. There were lots of shrubs around here. Everywhere one looked, there were shrubs of various sizes and shapes and purposes. Rich blue bloods must really like shrubs, Myron decided. He wondered if they had had any on the Mayflower.

  His legs were beginning to cramp from all this crouching. He straightened them out one at a time. His bad knee, the one that ended his basketball career, began to throb. Enough. He was hot and sticky and in pain. Time to get out of here.

  Then he heard a sound.

  It seemed to be coming from the back door. He sighed, creaked to his feet, and circled. He found yet another comfy shrub and hid behind it. He peered out.