One False Move

by Harlan Coben

  "Game is just beginning, fool."

  Myron looked at Win. Win said, "Decent deliver, but the line lacked originality. Plus, tagging the word fool on the end--that seemed forced. I'll have to give him a thumbs-down, but I look forward to his next work."

  The eight men looped around Myron and Win. Nike/Reebok, the obvious leader, gestured with the baseball bat. "Hey, Wonder bread, get your ass over here."

  Win looked at Myron. Myron said, "I think he means you."

  "Must be because I help build strong bodies in twelve ways." Then Win smiled, and Myron felt his heart stutter. People always did that. They always homed in on Win. At five-ten Win was a half foot shorter than Myron. But it was more than that. The blond, pale-faced, blue-veined, china-boned exterior brought out the worst in people. Win appeared soft, unlabored, sheltered--the kind of guy you hit and he shatters like cheap porcelain. Easy prey. Everyone likes easy prey.

  Win stepped toward Nike/Reebok. He arched an eyebrow and gave him his best Lurch. "You rang?"

  "What's your name, Wonder bread?"

  "Thurgood Marshall," Win said.

  That reply didn't sit well with the crowd. Murmurs began. "You making a racist crack?"

  "As opposed to, say, calling someone Wonder bread?"

  Win glanced at Myron and gave him a thumbs-up. Myron returned the gesture. If this were a school debate, Win would be up a point.

  "You a cop, Thurgood?"

  Win frowned. "In this suit?" He pulled at his own lapels. "Puleeze."

  "So what do you want here?"

  "We wish to speak with one Clay Jackson."

  "What about?"

  "Solar energy and its role in the twenty-first century."

  Nike/Reebok checked his troops. The troops tightened the noose. Myron felt a rushing in his ears. He kept his eyes on Win and waited.

  "Seems to me," the leader continued, "that you white boys are here to hurt Clay again." Moving closer. Eye to eye. "Seems to me that we have the right to use lethal force to protect him. That right, fellas?"

  The troops grunted their agreement, raising their bats.

  Win's move was sudden and unexpected. He simply reached out and snatched the bat away from Nike/Reebok. The big man's mouth formed an O of surprise. He stared at his hands as though he expected the bat to rematerialize at any moment. It wouldn't. Win chucked the bat into the corner of the yard.

  Then Win beckoned the big man forward. "Care to tango, pumpernickel bread?"

  Myron said, "Win."

  But Win kept his eyes on his opponent. "I'm waiting."

  Nike/Reebok grinned. Then he rubbed his hands together and wet his lips. "He's all mine, fellas."

  Yep, easy prey.

  The big man lunged forward like a Frankenstein monster, his thick fingers reaching for Win's neck. Win remained motionless until the last possible moment. Then he darted inside, his fingertips pressed together, transforming his hand into something of a spear. The fingertips struck deep and quick at the big man's larynx, the movement like a bird doing a fast peck. A gagging sound not unlike a dental sucking machine forced its way out the big man's mouth; his hands instinctively flew up to his throat. Win ducked low and whipped his foot around. The heel swept Nike/Reebok's legs. The big man flipped midair and landed on the back of his head.

  Win jammed his .44 into the man's face. He was still smiling.

  "Seems to me," Win said, "that you just attacked me with a baseball bat. Seems to me that shooting you in the right eye would be viewed as perfectly justifiable."

  Myron had his gun out too. He ordered everyone to drop his bat. They did so. Then he had them lie on their stomachs, hands behind their heads, fingers locked. It took a minute or two, but everyone obeyed.

  Nike/Reebok was now on his stomach too. He craned his neck and croaked, "Not again."

  Win cupped his ear with his free hand. "Pardon moi?"

  "We ain't gonna let you hurt that boy again."

  Win burst out laughing and nudged the man's head with his toe. Myron caught Win's eye and shook his head. Win shrugged and stopped.

  "We don't want to hurt anyone," Myron said. "We're just trying to find out who attacked Clay on that rooftop."

  "Why?" a voice asked. Myron turned to the screen door. A young man hobbled out on crutches. The cast protecting the tendon looked like some puffy sea creature in the process of swallowing his entire foot.

  "Because everyone thinks Horace Slaughter did it," Myron said.

  Clay Jackson balanced himself on one leg. "So?"

  "So did he?"

  "Why do you care?"

  "Because he's been murdered."

  Clay shrugged. "So?"

  Myron opened his mouth, closed it, sighed. "It's a long story, Clay. I just want to know who cut your tendon."

  The kid shook his head. "I ain't talking about it."

  "Why not?"

  "They told me not to."

  Win spoke to the boy for the first time. "And you have chosen to obey them?"

  The boy faced Win now. "Yeah."

  "The man who did this," Win continued. "You find him scary?"

  Clay's Adam's apple danced. "Shit, yeah."

  Win grinned. "I'm scarier."

  No one moved.

  "Would you care for a demonstration?"

  Myron said, "Win."

  Nike/Reebok decided to take a chance. He started to scramble up on his elbows. Win raised his foot and slammed an ax kick into the spot where the spine met the neck. Nike/Reebok slumped back to the ground like wet sand, his arms splayed. He did not move at all. Win rested his foot on the back of the man's skull. The Nike hat slipped off. Win pushed the still face into the muddy ground as though he were grinding out a cigarette.

  Myron said, "Win."

  "Stop it!" Clay Jackson cried. He looked to Myron for help, his eyes wide and desperate. "He's my uncle, man. He's just looking out for me."

  "And doing a wonderful job," Win added. He stepped up, gaining leverage. The uncle's face sank deeper into the soft earth. His features were fully embedded in the mud now, his mouth and nose clogged.

  The big man could no longer breathe.

  One of the other men started to rise. Win leveled his gun at the man's head. "Important note," Win said. "I'm not big on warning shots."

  The man slinked back down.

  With his foot still firmly planted on the man's head, Win turned his attention to Clay Jackson. The boy was trying to look tough, but he was visibly quaking. So, quite frankly, was Myron.

  "You fear a possibility," Win said to the boy, "when you should fear a certainty."

  Win raised his foot, bending his knee. He angled himself for the proper heel strike.

  Myron started to move toward him, but Win froze him with a glance. Then Win gave that smile again, the little one. It was casual, slightly amused. The smile said that he would do it. The smile hinted that he might even enjoy it. Myron had seen the smile many times, yet it never failed to chill his blood.

  "I'll count to five," Win told the boy. "But I'll probably crush his skull before I reach three."

  "Two white guys," Clay Jackson said quickly. "With guns. A big guy tied us up. He was young and looked like he worked out. The little old guy--he was the leader. He was the one who cut us."

  Win turned to Myron. He spread his hands. "Can we go now?"

  Back in the car, Myron said, "You went too far."

  "Uh-hmm."

  "I mean it, Win."

  "You wanted the information. I got it."

  "Not like that I didn't."

  "Oh, please. The man came at me with a baseball bat."

  "He was scared. He thought we were trying to hurt his nephew."

  Win played the air violin.

  Myron shook his head. "The kid would have told us eventually."

  "Doubtful. This Sam character had the boy scared."

  "So you had to scare him more?"

  "That would be a yes," Win said.

  "You can't do that again, Win. Y
ou can't hurt innocent people."

  "Uh-hmm," Win said again. He checked his watch. "Are you through now? Is your need to feel morally superior satiated?"

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  Win looked at him. "You know what I do," he said slowly. "Yet you always call on me."

  Silence. The echo of Win's words hung in the air, caught in the humidity like the car fumes. Myron gripped the steering wheel. His knuckles turned white.

  They did not speak again until they reached Mabel Edwards's house.

  "I know you're violent," Myron said. He put the car in park and looked at his friend. "But for the most part you only hurt people who deserve it."

  Win said nothing.

  "If the boy hadn't talked, would you have gone through with your threat?"

  "Not an issue," Win said. "I knew the boy would talk."

  "But suppose he hadn't."

  Win shook his head. "You are dealing with something out of the realm of possibility."

  "Humor me then."

  Win thought about it for a moment. "I never intentionally hurt innocent people," he said. "But I never threaten idly either."

  "That's not an answer, Win."

  Win looked at Mabel's house. "Go inside, Myron. Time's awasting."

  Mabel Edwards sat across from him in a small den. "So Brenda remembers the Holiday Inn," she said.

  A small yellowish trace of the bruise remained around her eye, but hey, it would go away before the soreness in Big Mario's groin did. Mourners were still milling about, but the house was hushed now; reality set in with the darkness. Win was outside, keeping watch.

  "Very vaguely," Myron replied. "It was more like deja vu than anything concrete."

  Mabel nodded as though this made sense. "It was a long time ago."

  "Then Brenda was at the hotel?"

  Mabel looked down, smoothed the bottom of her dress, reached for her cup of tea. "Brenda was there," she said, "with her mother."

  "When?"

  Mabel held the cup in front of her lips. "The night Anita disappeared."

  Myron tried not to look too confused. "She took Brenda with her?"

  "At first, yes."

  "I don't understand. Brenda never said anything--"

  "Brenda was five years old. She doesn't remember. Or at least that's what Horace thought."

  "But you didn't say anything before."

  "Horace didn't want her knowing about it," Mabel said. "He thought it would hurt her."

  "But I still don't get it. Why did Anita take Brenda to a hotel?"

  Mabel Edwards finally took a sip of the tea. Then she set it back down gently. She smoothed the dress again and fiddled with the chain around her neck. "It's like I told you before. Anita wrote Horace a note saying she was running away. She cleared out all his money and took off."

  Myron saw it now. "But she planned on taking Brenda with her."

  "Yes."

  The money, Myron thought. Anita's taking all of it had always bothered him. Running away from danger is one thing. But leaving your daughter penniless--that seemed unusually cruel. But now there was an explanation: Anita had intended to take Brenda.

  "So what happened?" Myron asked.

  "Anita changed her mind."

  "Why?"

  A woman poked her head through the doorway. Mabel fired a glare, and the head disappeared like something in a shooting gallery. Myron could hear kitchen noises, family and friends cleaning up to prepare for another day of mourning. Mabel looked like she'd aged since this morning. Fatigue emanated from her like a fever.

  "Anita packed them both up," she managed. "She ran away and checked them into that hotel. I don't know what happened then. Maybe Anita got scared. Maybe she realized how impossible it would be to run away with a five-year-old. No matter. Anita called Horace. She was crying and all hysterical. It was all too much for her, she said. She told Horace to come pick up Brenda."

  Silence.

  "So Horace went to the Holiday Inn?" Myron asked.

  "Yes."

  "Where was Anita?"

  Mabel shrugged. "She'd run off already, I guess."

  "And this all happened the first night she ran away?"

  "Yes."

  "So Anita could not have been gone for more than a few hours, right?"

  "That's right."

  "So what made Anita change her mind so fast?" Myron asked. "What could possibly have made her decide to give up her daughter that quickly?"

  Mabel Edwards rose with a great sigh and made her way to the television set. Her normally supple, fluid movements had been stiffened by her grief. She reached out with a tentative hand and plucked a photograph off the top. Then she showed it to Myron.

  "This is Terence's father, Roland," she said. "My husband."

  Myron looked at the black-and-white photograph.

  "Roland was shot coming home from work. For twelve dollars. Right on our front stoop. Two shots in the head. For twelve dollars." Her voice was a monotone now, dispassionate. "I didn't handle it well. Roland was the only man I ever loved. I started drinking. Terence was only a little boy, but he looked so much like his father I could barely stand to look at his face. So I drank some more. And then I took some drugs. I stopped taking care of my son. The state came and put him in a foster home."

  Mabel looked at Myron for a reaction. He tried to keep his face neutral.

  "Anita was the one who saved me. She and Horace sent me away to get clean. It took me a while, but I straightened myself out. Anita took care of Terence in the meantime, so the state wouldn't take him away from me." Mabel lifted the reading glasses off her chest and put them on her nose. Then she stared at the image of her dead husband. The longing in her face was so raw, so naked, that Myron felt a tear push into his own eye.

  "When I needed her most," Mabel said, "Anita was there for me. Always."

  She looked at Myron again.

  "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

  "No, ma'am, I don't."

  "Anita was there for me," Mabel repeated. "But when she was in trouble, where was I? I knew she and Horace were having problems. And I ignored it. She disappeared, and what did I do? I tried to forget her. She ran off, and I bought this nice house away from the slums and tried to put it all behind me. If Anita had just left my brother, well, that would have been awful. But something scared Anita so bad she abandoned her own child. Just like that. And I keep asking myself what that something was. What could have scared her so bad that twenty years later she still won't come back?"

  Myron shifted in the chair. "Have you come up with any answers?"

  "Not on my own," she said. "But I asked Anita once."

  "When?"

  "Fifteen years ago, I guess. When she called to check up on Brenda. I asked why she wouldn't come back and see her own daughter."

  "What did she say?"

  Mabel looked him straight in the eye. "She said, 'If I come back, Brenda dies.'"

  Myron felt a cold gust chill his heart. "What did she mean by that?"

  "Like it was just a given. Like one and one equals two." She put the photograph back on top of the television. "I never asked Anita again," she said. "The way I see it, there are some things you're just better off never knowing."

  Myron and Win took separate cars back to New York City. Brenda's game started in forty-five minutes. Just enough time to run into the loft and change clothes.

  He double-parked on Spring Street and left his key in the ignition. The car was safe: Win was waiting in the Jag for him. Myron took the elevator up. He opened the door. And Jessica was standing there.

  He froze.

  Jessica looked at him. "I'm not running away," she said. "Not ever again."

  Myron swallowed, nodded. He tried to step forward, but his legs had other ideas.

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "A lot," he said.

  "I'm listening."

  "My friend Horace was murdered."

  Jessica closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."<
br />
  "And Esperanza's leaving MB."

  "You couldn't work something out?"

  "No."

  Myron's cellular phone rang. He snapped the power off. They stood there, neither of them moving.

  Then Jessica said, "What else?"

  "That's it."

  She shook her head. "You can't even look at me."

  So he did. Myron lifted his head and stared right at her for the first time since entering the loft. Jessica was, as always, achingly beautiful. He felt something inside him start to rip.

  "I almost slept with someone else," he said.

  Jessica did not move. "Almost?"

  "Yes."

  "I see," she said. Then: "So why almost?"

  "Pardon?"

  "Did she stop it? Or did you?"

  "I did."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "Why?"

  "Yes, Myron, why didn't you consummate the act?"

  "Jesus, that's a hell of a question."

  "No, not really. You were tempted, right?"

  "Yes."

  "More than tempted even," she added. "You wanted to go through with it."

  "I don't know."

  Jessica made a buzzing noise. "Liar."

  "Fine, I wanted to go through with it."

  "Why didn't you?"

  "Because I'm involved with another woman," he said. "In fact, I'm in love with another woman."

  "How chivalrous. So you held back for me?"

  "I held back for us."

  "Another lie. You held back for you. Myron Bolitar, the perfect guy, the one-woman wonder."

  She made a fist and put it to her mouth. Myron stepped toward her, but she backed away.

  "I've been dumb," Jessica said. "I admit that. I've done so many dumb things it's a wonder you haven't dumped me. Maybe I did all those dumb things because I knew I could. You'd always love me. No matter how dumb I acted, you'd always love me. So maybe I'm owed a little payback."

  "This isn't about payback," Myron said.

  "I know, goddamn it." She wrapped her arms around herself. As though the room had suddenly gone very cold. As though she needed a hug. "That's what terrifies me."

  He kept still and waited.

  "You don't cheat, Myron. You don't fool around. You don't have flings. Hell, you don't even get tempted much. So the question is, How much do you love her?"

  Myron held up his hands. "I barely know her."

  "You think that matters?"

  "I don't want to lose you, Jess."

  "And I'm not about to give you up without a fight. But I want to know what I'm up against."