Deal Breaker

by Harlan Coben

  "Do you know what your husband did with those pictures, Mrs. Culver?"

  "No. They were so awful. So painful to look at. I think Adam destroyed them."

  Myron doubted it. They both sat in silence for several minutes. Finally Myron said, "Jessica is going to want to know."

  Carol Culver nodded. "You tell her, Myron."

  She showed him to the door. He stopped at his car and turned back around. He studied the gray Victorian house. Twenty-six years ago a young family had moved in. They'd put up swings in the backyard and a basketball hoop in the driveway. They'd owned a station wagon, carpooled to Little League and choir practice, attended PTA meetings, hosted birthday parties. Myron could almost see it all happening, like a life insurance commercial playing in his head.

  He slid into his car and drove away.

  Chapter 42

  Myron was thinking about threads again.

  Threads like Gary Grady. Dean Gordon. Nancy Serat. Carol Culver. Christian Steele. Fred Nickler. Paul Duncan. Ricky Lane. Horty and the thugs. But there was one thread he had overlooked.

  Otto Burke.

  Suppose Jake was right. Suppose the magazines had been sent out to wreak vengeance or maybe to satisfy some misguided or irrational anger. Either way, it meant that everyone who had received a copy of Nips was in some way connected to Kathy Culver.

  Except Otto Burke.

  How did he fit in? Otto hadn't even known Kathy Culver.

  Or had he?

  Myron got off Route 4 at the Garden State Plaza Mall and took Route 17 south to Route 3. New Jersey, land of routes. He pulled into the Meadowlands and parked near the Titans' executive offices. He found the general manager's office and asked for Larry Hanson.

  He was let in almost immediately. He quickly explained the reason for his visit.

  Larry Hanson watched him without expression. His huge hands were folded on his desk. His neck strained the top button. Larry was about fifty, but he hadn't gone to flab. He looked, Myron thought not for the first time, like Sergeant Rock in the old comic strips. Should have been chewing on a big cigar.

  The office was adorned with trophies. Larry had been named league MVP twice. He'd been All-Pro twelve times. He had been elected into the Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot. There were plenty of his old football photos, from high school through college and into the pros. Black-and-whites and colors. Same crew cut. Same gritty smile. Different poses, including plenty of knee-up, straight-arm favorites from yesteryear.

  When Myron finished, Larry studied his big hands for a minute, as if they were something he'd never noticed before.

  "Why ask me?" he said. "Why don't you ask Otto Burke about the magazine?"

  "Because he won't tell me."

  "And what makes you think I will?"

  "Because you're not a complete asshole."

  Larry's mouth twitched toward a smile, but he caught himself. "Coming from you," he said, "that really means a lot."

  Myron said nothing.

  "This is important, huh?"

  Myron nodded.

  Larry sat back. "Burke didn't get the magazine in the mail. He heard about it from a private detective."

  Myron shifted in his chair. "Otto was having Christian investigated?"

  Larry's tone was flat. "A man of Otto Burke's unquestionable integrity would never stoop to such a level."

  "Under the desk," Myron said, "you're crossing your fingers."

  Again the twitch/smile. "This doesn't leave this room, Bolitar. You understand?"

  "Cross my heart." Myron motioned such with his hand.

  "Burke has a whole security division," Larry explained. "They poke into everyone on the payroll. Including yours truly. They also have a source network all over the place. The credo is pretty simple: If you got dirt on a Titan, Burke will pay top dollar for it. So one of these sources came across the magazine."

  "How?"

  "I don't know. Maybe he's a steady reader."

  "Do you know his name?"

  "Brian Sanford. A true sleazeball. He works out of Atlantic City. The casino route. Spies on gamblers, that kind of thing. A Titan puts a quarter in a slot machine, he reports it, especially since that whole Michael Jordan thing started. Burke likes to be kept informed. Gives him the edge in negotiating."

  Myron stood. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

  "Hey, Bolitar. This don't make us buddies or nothing. We talk again, I still hate your guts. You got it?"

  Myron said, "We're having a warm moment now, aren't we, Larry?"

  Hanson leaned his elbows on the desk, pointing a finger at Myron. "I still think you're a little pissant piece of dog shit. And next time I see you, I'll prove it."

  Myron spread his arms. "Come on, Larry. How about that hug now?"

  "Wiseass."

  "Does that mean no?"

  "Do me a favor, Bolitar."

  "Name it, bright eyes."

  "Get the fuck out of my office."

  Chapter 43

  Myron called Brian Sanford. Answering machine. Myron said he had a real big case, one that paid ten grand, and he'd stop by his office tonight at seven o'clock. Brian Sanford would be there. For ten grand, a guy like Sanford would let his mother take a bullet in the gut.

  Myron dialed his office.

  Esperanza said, "MB SportReps."

  "Did you show Lucy the photo?"

  "Yep."

  "And?"

  "You found your buyer."

  Myron said, "Lucy was sure?"

  "Positive."

  "Thanks."

  He hung up. An hour to kill. Myron headed over to the county medical examiner's office--Dr. Adam Culver's old office. Just a hunch, but worth checking out.

  The building was a one-level brick building. Institutional, almost like a small elementary school. The furniture was metal chairs with thin padding, again like a schoolteacher's. The waiting room magazines were preWatergate. The tiled floor was worn and yellowed with age, like the "before" shot on a Mr. Clean commercial. There was nothing even remotely decorative.

  "Is Dr. Li in?" he asked the receptionist.

  "I'll buzz her."

  Sally Li was dressed in hospital scrubs, but there was no blood or anything on them. She was Chinese, approaching forty, but she could have passed for much younger. She wore bifocals. A pack of cigarettes was stashed in her front pocket. Cigarettes with a surgeon's gown. Like bowling shoes with a tuxedo.

  They had met a couple of times in the past. Sally Li came to many Culver family functions. She had been Adam's right-hand woman for the past decade. Myron greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.

  "Jessica told me you were looking into Adam's death," she said without preamble.

  He nodded. "Can we talk for a minute?"

  "Sure." She led him to her office. Again, institutional. No personal stuff. Lots of pathology textbooks. A metal desk. Metal chair. A small tape recorder she probably used during autopsies. Her degrees on the wall. She wasn't married, had no children, so there was no picture on the desk. Big ashtray, though. Overflowing.

  She struck a match, lit up, and said, "How's tricks?"

  "An MD smoking," Myron said. "Tsk, tsk."

  "My patients never complain."

  "Good point."

  She took a deep drag. "So what do you want to know?"

  "Did you and Adam ever have an affair?"

  "Yes." No hesitation. She looked him right in the eye. "About four years ago. Lasted a week."

  "Did Adam have a lot of affairs?"

  "Got me. A few, I guess. Why do you ask?"

  "I'm just trying to put a few things together."

  "Vis-a-vis his murder?"

  "Right."

  She took off her glasses. "What does Adam's love life have to do with it?"

  "Probably nothing," Myron admitted. "How had Adam been acting the last couple months?"

  "A bit wacko," she said. Again no hesitation.

  "In what way?"

  She gave that one some though
t. "Businesswise, he wasn't letting me help him on a lot of big cases. He was keeping them all to himself."

  "And that was unusual?"

  "That was unheard of. We always worked on big cases together."

  "These cases," Myron said. "Were they the girls found in the woods upstate?"

  She looked at him. "You want to tell me how you knew that?"

  "Just a guess."

  "Hell of a guess, Myron."

  "You said big cases. I read the papers. Those are the big cases they keep talking about."

  Sally didn't believe him, but she didn't push it either.

  Myron said, "So what else was there?"

  She took another deep drag. "He was very distracted. You'd talk to him, he'd nod, but he wouldn't listen."

  "Anything else?"

  Sally crushed out the cigarette, though it still had plenty to go. She lit another. "A new way to quit smoking," she said. "I smoke the same amount of cigarettes, but I take less puffs each day. Gradual slowdown until I quit entirely. At this rate it should take no more than twelve years."

  "Good luck."

  "Thanks."

  "So what else was there?"

  Another puff. "Adam was ordering a lot of weird tests on the last girl they found in the woods."

  "What do you mean, weird tests?"

  "Superfluous tests. In my opinion, anyway."

  Myron said, "You never got a positive ID on her, right?"

  "Right."

  "So maybe he was running the tests to see if he could get a handle on her whereabouts."

  "Maybe. But he sent them out one at a time. He'd wait for one test to come back before he'd ask for the next one. Anthropological measurements, shape and size of cranium, pelvic bones, ossification of the bones, fusing of sutures on the skull--all one at a time."

  "So what do you make of that?"

  She shrugged again. "I don't make anything out of that. It's just an example of what I meant by acting strangely. Distracted. The case was a weird one to start off. The girl's skull had been crushed by the perp, but that wasn't what killed her. In other words, she had been buried alive in those woods. She died trying to claw her way out."

  Silence.

  "This girl," Myron said, "what was she wearing?"

  Sally stiffened a little. Then she leaned forward. "Okay, Myron, what's going on?"

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "You know why."

  Myron stopped. "The girl's clothes are missing."

  "Yes."

  He felt his heart crash into the pit of his stomach, like a skydiver with a ripped parachute. "Oh, shit."

  "What is it?"

  "Sally, I need you to run a test for me."

  Chapter 44

  The address of Brian Sanford, private investigator, was a go-go bar conveniently located one block from Merv Griffin's Resorts. Atlantic City was like that. The big hotels were like beautiful flowers untouched and unbothered by the unseemly weeds of poverty and sleaze that surrounded them. The big flowers had not beautified the neighborhood as promised by the casino owners. The contrast, if anything, had made the weeds more glaringly hideous.

  The go-go bar was called Eager Beaver, and it was exactly what one would expect. Blinking sign with missing letters on the outside. Lots of lowlights around the bar, lots of bright spotlights on the stage. Bored women danced in shifts, most of them unattractive. Lots of flab. Lots of implants. Lots of herpes.

  Myron made the key mistake of entering what might loosely be designated a bathroom. The urinals were stuffed with ice cubes--an adequate substitute, Myron supposed, for an actual flushing mechanism. No doors were on the stalls, which did not deter the defecators at all. One man smiled and waved to Myron from a squat.

  Myron decided he could wait.

  He called over a bartender. "Could you tell me how to get to Brian Sanford's office?"

  "Michelob, Bud, Bud Light, Coors."

  "I just want to know--"

  "Michelob, Bud, Bud Light, Coors."

  Myron took out five dollars. The bartender pocketed it.

  "Door in the back. Take the stairs up a level."

  He didn't wait for Myron to thank him. Capitalism.

  A dancer on break approached him. She smiled. Each tooth was angled in a different direction, as if her mouth were the masterwork of a mad orthodontist.

  "Hi," she said.

  "Hi."

  "You're really cute."

  "I don't have any money."

  She spun and walked away. Ah, romance.

  The stairs did not creak. They cracked. Myron kept waiting for them to collapse. On the landing there was only one door. It was open. Myron knocked on the wall and peeked in.

  Myron called out, "Hello."

  A man he assumed was Brian Sanford came to the door. All smiles. Dressed in a beige suit that had last been pressed during the Bay of Pigs. "You the guy who left the message?"

  "Yes."

  The office was a minicasino. No desk but a roulette table. A one-armed bandit in the corner. Decks of cards everywhere. Souvenir dice, the kind that have a hole drilled in them, littered the floor. So did racing forms. Keno cards too.

  The man put out his hand. "Brian Sanford. But everyone calls me Blackjack. You know who gave me that nickname?"

  Myron shook his head.

  "Frankie. That's what I call Frank Sinatra. Frankie. Not Frank. Frankie, I call him." He paused, waited.

  Myron said, "Good nickname."

  "See, Frankie and me were playing at the Sands one night, right, and I was on one of my streaks, you know. And Frankie turns to me and says, 'Yo, check out Blackjack. He can't lose.' Just like that. Frankie says, 'Hey, Blackjack.' Out of nowhere. The name stuck. Now everyone calls me Blackjack. All 'cause of Frankie."

  "Great story," Myron said.

  "Yeah, well, you know how it is. So what can I do for you, Mr. ...?"

  "Olson. Merlin Olson."

  Blackjack smiled knowingly. "Okay, I can play it that way. Have a seat, Mr. Olson."

  Myron sat.

  "But before we start, Mr. Olson, I have to tell you one thing right up front."

  He was holding dice in his hand, moving them around in his hands the way some people do with those Chinese balls that are supposed to help circulation.

  "What's that?"

  "I'm a very busy man. Lots of big stuff going on right now. You know how I started in this business?"

  Myron shook his head.

  "I used to be chief of security for Caesars Palace in Vegas. Head chief. You know how it is. I was in Vegas, right? But Donny--that's what I call Donald Trump, Donny--Donny asked me to head up security for his first hotel on the strip. Then he started nagging me to set up the Taj Mahal's security. I told him, I said, 'Donny, I got too much on my plate, you know?'"

  Myron looked up. A small crop plane flew overhead, leaving mucho cow manure in its wake.

  "So my problem is this, you see. I got a meeting tomorrow morning with Stevie--Steve Wynn. First thing, seven A.M. sharp. Great guy, Stevie. Morning guy. Up at five every day. You know he's practically blind? Got cataracts or something. He keeps it hidden. Only tells his closest friend. So anyway Stevie wants me to do something for him. Normally I'd tell him no, but it's a personal favor and Stevie's a good friend. Not like Donny. I'm not crazy about Donny. Thinks he's some hot stud now that he's got Marla."

  "Mr. Blackjack--"

  "Please," he said throwing up his hands, "just call me Blackjack."

  "I'd like to ask you a few questions, uh, Blackjack. I need your particular expertise on an important matter."

  He nodded. Very understanding. He didn't hitch up his pants importantly, but he should have. "What's this all about?"

  "You performed some work for a friend of mine recently," Myron said. "Mr. Otto Burke."

  A big smile now. "Sure. Otto. Swell kid. Smart as a whip. He calls me whenever he comes down."

  Probably calls him Ottie, Myron thought.

  "You gave him a magazine a few d
ays ago. An issue of Nips."

  Blackjack looked wary now. He rolled the dice on the table. A three. "What about it?"

  "We need to know how you located it."

  "Who is 'we'?"

  "I work with Mr. Burke." Even saying it made Myron feel nauseous.

  "So why didn't Ken call? He's the usual contact."

  Myron leaned forward. Conspiratorial. "This is bigger than Ken, Blackjack. We don't feel anyone can be trusted with this but you."

  He nodded. Again very understanding.

  "Frankly, Blackjack--and this has to remain hush-hush."

  "Of course."

  "You're our first choice to replace Ken. But we know how busy you are."

  His eyes gleamed a bit. "I appreciate that, Mr. Olson, but for someone like Otto Burke, I could try to open--"

  "Let's talk about this case first, okay? How did you come across the magazine?"

  The wary look again. "Don't take this the wrong way," he said, "but how do I know you work with Otto? How do I know you're not some schmo off the street?"

  Myron smiled. "I knew it."

  "What?"

  "I told Otto you were the right guy for the job. You're not sloppy. You're careful. We like that. We need that."

  Blackjack shrugged. He picked up the dice, gave another roll. Snake eyes. "I'm a professional," he said.

  "Clearly," Myron agreed. "So why don't you call Otto yourself on the private line? He'll confirm everything. I'm sure you know the number."

  That slowed him down a bit. He swallowed, trying to disguise it, looked around like a cornered rabbit. Myron could see the wheels churning. "Uh, no reason to bother Otto with this," Blackjack said. "You know how he hates that. I can tell you're an honest Joe. Besides, how would you know about the magazine if Otto hadn't told you?"

  Myron shook his head. "You're an amazing man, Blackjack."

  He waved a hand of modesty.

  "How did you find the magazine?" Myron asked.

  "Shouldn't we talk about my fee? On the phone you said something about ten grand."

  "Otto said you were a trustworthy guy. He said to bill him through Ken. Whatever you think is fair."

  Another nod. He picked up the dice. Rolled again. Another three. Practice, practice. "I didn't find the magazine," Blackjack said. "It found me."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I was hired to do a job. Part of it was to send out copies of that mag to some people."

  "Was Christian Steele one of those people?"

  "Yup. That's how I got suspicious. I mean, the envelopes were given to me already addressed and sealed. I didn't recognize any of the names except Christian's. Otto had already put out word he wanted anything, anything, on Steele. So I opened it up and took a peek. That's when I saw the picture."