by Harlan Coben
When we got to the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue--again Win's full name is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, so you do the math--Dad said, "You want me to just drop you off?"
Sometimes my father leaves me awestruck. Fatherhood is about balance, but how can one man do it so well, so effortlessly? Throughout my life he pushed me to excel without ever crossing the line. He reveled in my accomplishments yet never made them seem to be all that important. He loved without condition, yet he still made me want to please him. He knew, like now, when to be there, and when it was time to back off.
"I'll be okay."
He nodded. I kissed the rough skin on his cheek again, noticing the sag now, and got out of the car. The elevator opens up directly into my office. Big Cyndi was at her desk, wearing something that looked like it'd been ripped off Bette Davis after shooting the climactic beach scene in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? There were pigtails in her hair. Big Cyndi is, well, big--as I said before, north of six five and three hundred pounds--everywhere. She has big hands and big feet and a big head. The furniture around her always looks like Toys "R" Us specials built for toddlers, an almost Alice-in-Wonderland effect where the room and all its belongings seem to shrink around her.
She rose when she saw me, nearly toppling her own desk, and exclaimed, "Mr. Bolitar!"
"Hey, Big Cyndi."
She gets mad when I call her "Cyndi" or, uh, "Big." She insists on formalities. I am Mr. Bolitar. She is Big Cyndi, which, by the way, is her real name. She had it legally changed more than a decade ago.
Big Cyndi crossed the room with an agility that belied the bulk. She wrapped me in an embrace that made me feel as if I'd been mummified in wet attic insulation. In a good way.
"Oh, Mr. Bolitar!"
She started sniffling, a sound that brought images of moose mating on the Discovery Channel.
"I'm fine, Big Cyndi."
"But someone shot you!"
Her voice changed depending on her mood. When she first worked here, Big Cyndi didn't talk, preferring to growl. Clients complained, but not to her face and usually anonymously. Right now Big Cyndi's pitch was high and little-girlish, which frankly was a hell of a lot scarier than any growl.
"I shot him worse," I said.
She let go of me and giggled, covering her mouth with a hand the approximate size of a truck tire. The giggling echoed through the room, and all over the tristate area, small children were reaching up and grabbing their mommies' hands.
Esperanza came to the door. Back in the day, Esperanza and Big Cyndi had been tag-team wrestling partners for FLOW, the Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling. The federation had originally wanted to call themselves "Beautiful" instead of "Fabulous" but the network balked at the ensuing acronym.
Esperanza, with her dark skin and looks that could best be described--as they often were by the panting wrestling announcers--as "succulent," played Little Pocahontas, the lithe beauty who was winning on skill before the bad guys would cheat and take advantage of her. Big Cyndi was her partner, Big Chief Mama, who rescued her so that they could, together and with the roar of the crowd, vanquish the scantily clad and implant-enhanced evildoers.
Entertaining stuff.
"We got work," Esperanza said, "and lots of it."
Our space was fairly small. We had this foyer and two offices, one for me, one for Esperanza. Esperanza had started here as my assistant or secretary or whatever the politically correct term for Girl Friday is. She'd gone to law school at night and taken over as a full partner right around the time I freaked out and ran away with Terese to that island.
"What did you tell the clients?" I asked.
"You were in a car accident overseas."
I nodded. We headed into her office. The business was a bit in shambles after my most recent disappearance. There were calls to be made. I made them. We kept most of the clients, almost all, but there were a few who did not like the fact that they could not reach their agent for more than two weeks. I understood. This is a personal business. It involves a lot of hand-holding and ego stroking. Every client needs to feel as if they are the only one--part of the illusion. When you're not there, even if the reasons are justified, the illusion vanishes.
I wanted to ask about Terese and Win and a million things, but I remembered the call from this morning. I worked. I just worked and I confess that it was therapeutic. I felt jittery and anxious for reasons I can't quite explain. I even bit my nails, something I hadn't done since I was in the fourth grade, and searched my body for scabs I could pick. Work somehow helped.
When I had a break, I did some Web searches for "Terese Collins" and "Rick Collins" and "Karen Tower." First I did all three names. Nothing came up. Then I tried Terese alone. Very little, all of it old from her days at CNN. Someone still kept a Web site about "Terese the AnchorBabe," complete with images, mostly head shots and video grabs from news shows, but it hadn't been updated in three years.
Then I tried Google Newsing Rick and Karen.
I'd expected to find little, maybe an obituary, but that wasn't the case. There was plenty, albeit most of it from papers in the United Kingdom. The news somehow shocked me and yet it all made bizarre sense:
REPORTER AND WIFE MURDERED BY TERRORISTS
Cell Broken Up, Killed in Wild Shoot-out
I started reading. Esperanza came to my door. "Myron?"
I held up a finger asking for a moment.
She came around my desk and saw what I was doing. She sighed and sat.
"You knew about this?" I asked.
"Of course."
According to the articles, "special forces working on international terrorism" engaged and "eliminated" legendary terrorist Mohammad Matar, aka "Doctor Death." Mohammad Matar had been born in Egypt but raised in the finest schools in Europe, including Spain (thus the name, combining the Islamic first name with a last name that meant "death" in Spanish), and was indeed a medical doctor who'd done his training in the United States. The special forces also killed at least three other men in his cell--two in London, one in Paris.
There was a photograph of Matar. It was the same mug shot that Berleand had sent me. I looked at the man I had, to use the journalistic term, eliminated.
The articles further noted that news producer Rick Collins had gotten close to the cell, trying to infiltrate and expose it, when his identity was breached. Matar and his "henchmen" murdered Collins in Paris. Matar slipped through a French dragnet (though apparently one of his men was killed in it), made his way to London and tried to clean up all evidence of his cell and his "fiendish terrorist plot" by killing Rick Collins's longtime production partner Mario Contuzzi and Collins's wife, Karen Tower. It was there, in the home Collins and Tower shared, that Mohammad Matar and two members of his cell met their demise.
I looked up at Esperanza. "Terrorists?"
She nodded.
"So that explains why Interpol freaked out when we showed them the picture."
"Yes."
"So where's Terese?"
"No one knows."
I sat back, tried to process that. "It says government agents killed the terrorists."
"Yep."
"Except they didn't."
"True. You did."
"And Win."
"Right."
"But they left our names out of it."
"Yes."
I thought about the sixteen days, about Terese, about the blood tests, about the blond girl. "What the hell is going on?"
"Don't know about the details," she said. "Didn't really care."
"Why not?"
Esperanza shook her head. "You can be such a dope sometimes."
I waited.
"You were shot. Win saw that. And for more than two weeks we had absolutely no idea where you were--if you were alive or dead or anything."
I couldn't help it. I grinned.
"Stop grinning like an idiot."
"You were worried about me."
"I was worried about my business interest."
"You're a pain in the ass."
"I still don't get it," I said, and the grin slid off my face. "How can I not remember where I was?"
"Just let it go. . . ."
My hands started shaking. I looked down at them, tried to make them stop. They wouldn't. Esperanza was looking too.
"You tell me," she said. "What do you remember?"
My leg started twitching. I felt something catch in my chest. Panic began to set in.
"You okay?"
"I could use some water," I said.
She hurried out and came back with a cup. I drank it slowly, almost afraid I would choke. I looked at my hands. The quake. I couldn't make it stop. What the hell was wrong with me?
"Myron?"
"I'm fine," I said. "So what now?"
"We have clients who need our help."
I looked at her.
She sighed. "We thought you might need time."
"For?"
"To recover."
"From what? I'm fine."
"Yeah, you look great. That shake is a terrific addition. And don't get me started on your new facial tic. Tres sexy."
"I don't need time, Esperanza."
"Yeah, you do."
"Terese is missing."
"Or dead."
"You trying to shock me?"
She shrugged.
"And if she's dead, I still need to find her daughter."
"Not in your condition."
"Yeah, Esperanza, in my condition."
She said nothing.
"What is it?"
"I don't think you're ready."
"Not your call."
She thought about that. "I guess not."
"So?"
"So I have some stuff on the doctor Collins saw about Huntington's disease and that angel charity."
"Like?"
"It can wait. If you're really serious about this, if you're really ready, you need to call this number on this phone."
She handed me a cell phone and left the room, closing the door behind her. I stared at the phone number. Unfamiliar, but I wouldn't have expected anything else. I put in the digits and pressed Send.
Two rings later, I heard a familiar voice say, "Welcome back from the dead, my friend. Let's meet in person at a secret locale. We have much to discuss, I'm afraid."
It was Berleand.
25
BERLEAND'S "secret locale" was an address in the Bronx.
The street was a pit, the location a dive. I checked the address again, but there was no mistake. It was a strip joint called, according to the sign, UPSCALE PLEASURES, though to my eye the establishment appeared to be neither. A smaller sign written in neon script noted that it was a CLASSY GENTLEMEN'S LOUNGE. The term "classy" here is not so much an oxymoron as an irrelevance. "Classy strip club" is a bit like saying "good toupee." It might be good, it might be bad--it's still a toupee.
The room was dark and windowless so that noontime, which was when I arrived, looked the same as midnight.
A large black man with a shaved head asked, "May I help you?"
"I'm looking for a Frenchman in his midfifties."
He folded his arms across his chest. "That's Tuesdays," he said.
"No, I mean--"
"I know what you mean." He stifled the smile and pointed a beefy arm tattooed with a green D toward the dance floor. I expected Berleand to be in a quiet shadowy corner, but no, there he was by the stage, front and center, eyes up and focused on the, uh, talent.
"Is that your Frenchman over there?"
"It is."
The bouncer turned back to me. His name tag said ANTHONY. I shrugged. He looked through me.
"Anything else I can do for you?" he asked.
"You can tell me I don't look like the type of guy who'd come to a place like this, especially during the daytime."
Anthony grinned. "You know what type of guy doesn't come to a place like this, especially during the daytime?"
I waited.
"Blind guys."
He walked away. I made my way toward Berleand and the bar. The soundtrack blasted Beyonce singing to her boyfriend that he must not know about her, that she could have another man in a minute, that he was replaceable. This indignation was kind of silly. You're Beyonce, for crying out loud. You're gorgeous, you're famous, you're rich, you're buying your boyfriend expensive cars and clothes. Gee, yeah, it will be impossible for you to land another guy. Girl power.
The topless dancer onstage had moves that I would describe as "languid" if she dialed it up several notches. Her bored expression made me think she was watching C-SPAN 2, the pole not so much a tool of the dance trade as something that kept her upright. I don't want to sound prudish, but I don't quite get the appeal of topless places. They simply don't do it for me. It isn't that the women are unappealing--some are, some aren't. I discussed this once with Win, always a mistake when it comes to anything involving the opposite sex, and concluded that I can't quite buy into the fantasy. It may be a weakness in my character but I need to believe that the lady is really, truly into me. Win could care less, of course. I do get the merely physical, but my ego doesn't like sexual encounters to be mixed with commerce, resentment, and class warfare.
Label me old-fashioned.
Berleand wore his shiny gray Members Only jacket. He kept pushing his dorky glasses up and smiling up at the bored dancer. I sat next to him. He turned, did his hand-rub-wash thing, and studied me for a moment.
"You look terrible," he said.
"Yeah," I said, "but you look great. New moisturizer?"
He tossed back a few beer nuts.
"So this is your secret locale?"
He shrugged.
"Why here?" Then, thinking about it: "Wait, I get it. Because it's so off the radar, right?"
"That," Berleand agreed, "and I like looking at naked women."
He turned back to the dancer. I'd already had enough.
"Is Terese alive?" I asked.
"I don't know."
We sat there. I started chewing a fingernail.
"You warned me," I said. "You said it was more than I could handle."
He watched the dancer.
"I should have listened."
"It wouldn't have mattered. They would have killed Karen Tower and Mario Contuzzi anyway."
"But not Terese."
"You, at least, put a stop to it. It was their screwup, not yours."
"Whose screwup?"
"Well, mine in part." Berleand took off the too-big glasses and rubbed his face. "We go by many names. Homeland Security is probably the most well-known. As you may have surmised, I am a French liaison working for what your government termed the war on terror. The British equivalent should have been watching closer."
The busty waitress came over wearing a neckline that plunged to somewhere just above her knee. "Want some champagne?"
"That's not champagne," Berleand said to her.
"Huh?"
"It's from California."
"So?"
"Champagne can only be French. You see, Champagne is a place, not merely a beverage. That bottle in your hand is what those who lack taste buds dub 'sparkling wine.' "
She rolled her eyes. "Want some sparkling wine?"
"My dear, that stuff shouldn't be used as a gargle for a dog." He held up his empty glass. "Please get me another tremendously watered-down whiskey." He turned to me. "Myron?"
I didn't think they would have Yoo-hoo here. "Diet Coke." When she sauntered away, I said, "So what's going on?"
"As far as my people go, the case is over. Rick Collins stumbled across a terrorist plot. He was murdered in Paris by the terrorists. They killed two more people connected with Collins in London--before being killed themselves. By you, no less."
"I didn't see my name in any of the papers."
"Were you looking for credit?"
"Hardly. But I do wonder why they kept my name out."
"Think about it."
<
br /> The waitress came back. "Korbel calls it champagne, Mr. Smarty Pants. And they're from California."
"Korbel should call it septic-tank droppings. That would be closer to the truth."
She dropped our drinks down and went away.
"Government forces aren't trying to hog the credit," he said. "There are two reasons to leave your name out. First off, your safety. From what I understand, Mohammad Matar made it personal with you. You took out one of his men in Paris. He wanted to make you watch Karen Tower and Terese Collins die--before killing you. If it somehow gets out that you killed Dr. Death, there are people who will seek retribution on you and your family." Berleand smiled at the dancer and held his palm out toward me. "Do you have any singles?"
I dug into my wallet. "And the second reason?"
"If you weren't there--if you weren't at the scene of the killings in London--then the government doesn't have to explain where you've been for the past two-plus weeks."
The antsy feeling came back. I shook my leg, looked around, wanted to get up. Berleand just watched me.
I said, "Do you know where I've been?"
"I have an idea, yes. So do you."
I shook my head. "I don't."
"You have absolutely no memory of the past two weeks?"
I said nothing. My chest tightened. I found it hard to catch my breath. I grabbed my Diet Coke and started taking little sips.
"You're shaking," he said.
"So?"
"Last night. Did you have bad dreams? Nightmares?"
"Of course. I was in a hospital. Why?"
"Do you know what twilight sleep is?"
I thought about it. "Doesn't it have something to do with pregnancy?"
"Childbirth actually. It was quite popular in the fifties and sixties. The theory was, why should a mother have to suffer through the horrible pain of childbirth? So they would give the mother a combination of morphine and scopolamine. In some cases it would knock the mother out. Other times--the end goal--the morphine would lessen the pain while the combination would make it so she didn't remember. Medical amnesia--or twilight sleep. The practice was stopped because, one, the babies would often come out in something of a drug stupor, and two, there was the whole experience-the-moment movement. I don't get that second one exactly, but I'm not a woman."
