Six Years

by Harlan Coben

  Benedict started rubbing his chin.

  "They're looking for her," I said. "I can't just back away. Don't you see?"

  He shook his head. "I don't see." His voice was so weary, so broken and exhausted. "I don't see how you can do anything but get her killed. Listen to me, Jake. I get your point, but we've circled the wagons. We've protected the group. Everyone has gone underground until this blows over."

  "But Natalie is--"

  "Is safe, as long as you leave it alone. If you don't--if we are all discovered--it could mean death not only to her but to Marie-Anne and me and many, many others. I get what you're saying, but you're not seeing straight. You don't want to accept the truth. You want her so badly that you're twisting the facts into a call for action. Don't you see that?"

  I shook my head. "I don't. I really don't."

  He glanced at his watch. "Look, I have to go to class. Let's talk about this later. Don't do anything until then, okay?"

  I said nothing.

  "Promise me, Jake."

  I promised. This time, however, I kept the promise for closer to six minutes than six years.

  Chapter 29

  I hit the bank and took out four thousand dollars in cash. The window teller had to get permission from the head teller, who had to find the bank manager. I tried to remember the last time I had used a bank teller rather than the ATM, but I couldn't dredge up the memory.

  I stopped at CVS and bought two disposable phones. Knowing that the cops could trace your phone anytime it was on, I powered down my iPhone and stuck it back in my pocket. If I needed to make calls, I'd use the disposables and keep them off as much as possible. If the cops could trace these phones, so, I figured, might a guy like Danny Zuker. I didn't know this for a fact, but my paranoia level was justifiably at an all-time high.

  I might not be able to stay off the grid long, but if I could for a few days, that would be all I'd need.

  First things first. Benedict said that no one involved with Fresh Start knew where Natalie was. I wasn't so sure. The organization had started at Lanford at the behest, in part anyway, of one Professor Malcolm Hume.

  It was time to call my old mentor.

  The last time I saw the man whose office I now inhabit was two years ago at a poly-sci seminar on Constitutional abuses. He flew up from Florida looking robust and tan. His teeth were shockingly white. Like many retired Floridians, he appeared rested and happy and very old. We had a nice time, but there was a distance between us now. Malcolm Hume could be like that. I loved the man. Aside from my own father, he was the closest thing I had to a role model. But he had made it clear that retirement was an ending. He had always detested the academic hangers-on, those elderly professors and administrators who stayed on well past their expiration date, like aging ballplayers who won't face the inevitable. Once he left our hallowed halls, Professor Hume didn't enjoy returning. He didn't buy into nostalgia or living off past laurels. Even at the age of eighty, Malcolm Hume was a forward-looking guy. The past was just that to him. The past.

  So despite what I considered our rich history, we didn't speak regularly. This part of his life was over. Malcolm Hume now enjoyed golf and his mystery book club and his bridge group down in Florida. Fresh Start, too, might have been something he put behind him. I didn't know how he'd respond to my call--if it would agitate him or not. I didn't much care either.

  I needed answers.

  I dialed his phone number down in Vero Beach. After five rings his machine picked up. Malcolm's booming recorded voice, graveled a bit with age, invited me to leave a message. I was about to, but then I realized that I didn't really have a callback number, what with my phone off most of the time. I would try him again later.

  Now what?

  My brain started buzzing again, settling for the umpteenth time on Natalie's father. He was the key here. Who, I wondered, could possibly shine some light on what happened to him? The answer was fairly obvious: Natalie's mom.

  I considered calling Julie Pottham and asking her if I could speak to her mother, but again that felt like a complete waste of time. I headed to the local library and signed in to use the Internet. I searched for Sylvia Avery. The address listed was Julie Pottham's in Ramsey, New Jersey. I leaned back for a second and considered that. I brought up the Yellow Pages website and asked for all assisted-living facilities in the Ramsey area. Three came up. I called them and asked to speak to Sylvia Avery. All three said that they had no "resident" (they all used that term) with that name. I headed back to the computer and spread out the search to Bergen County, New Jersey. Too many came up. I brought up the map and started calling the ones closest to Ramsey. On the sixth call, the operator at Hyde Park Assisted Living said, "Sylvia? I believe she's doing crafts with Louise. Would you like to leave a message?"

  Crafts with Louise. Like she was a child at summer camp. "No, I'll call back, thanks. Do you have visiting hours?"

  "We prefer that guests come between eight A.M. and eight P.M."

  "Thank you."

  I hung up. I checked the Hyde Park Assisted Living website. They had a daily schedule online. Crafts with Louise was listed. According to the itinerary, Scrabble Club was next, followed by Armchair Travel Social--I had no idea what that meant--and then Baking Memories. Tomorrow, there would be a three-hour outing to the Paramus Park Mall, but today, nope, everything was in house. Good.

  I headed over to the rent-a-car dealership and asked for a midsize. I got a Ford Fusion. I had to use a credit card, but that couldn't be helped. Time for another road trip--this time to visit Natalie's mother. I wasn't too worried about her not being there when I arrived. Residents in assisted living rarely take unscheduled trips. If by some chance she did, it would be brief. I could wait. I had nowhere else to go anyway. Who knows? Maybe another delightful evening with Mabel at the Fair Motel was in the cards.

  When I had just hit Route 95, my mind immediately went to my ride on this very road just . . . wow, it'd been yesterday. I thought about that. I pulled over and took out my iPhone. I turned it on. There were e-mails and phone calls. I noticed three from Shanta. I ignored them. I brought up the web and did a quick Google search for Danny Zuker. There was a famous one working in Hollywood who dominated the hits. I tried putting in the name and the word mobster. Nothing. I brought up the forum for gangster enthusiasts. There was nothing on Danny Zuker.

  Now what?

  I could be spelling the name wrong. I tried Zucker and Zooker and Zoocker. Nothing significant. The exit toward Flushing was nearby. It would be a detour but not a horrible one. I decided to take a chance. I pulled off and found Francis Lewis Boulevard. The Global Garden mega-nursery and garden shop, the place where I had smacked Edward around, was open. I thought about those punches. I had always prided myself on being a rule follower, and I had self-justified my violence of yesterday by claiming that I was rescuing that kid, but the truth was, I didn't have to punch Edward in the nose. I needed information. I broke laws to get it. One could easily rationalize what I had done. The case for obtaining that information while giving Edward a touch of comeuppance was certainly compelling.

  But more to the point--and this was something I would need to explore when I had the time--I wondered whether part of me enjoyed it. Did I really need to punch Edward to get the information? Not really. There were other ways. And awful as it was to even let the thought enter my head, hadn't a small part of me taken some pleasure in Otto's death? In my classes, I often talk about the importance of primitive instincts in philosophy and political theory. Did I think I was immune? Maybe the rules that I cherish aren't there to protect others so much as they're there to protect us from ourselves.

  In his class on Early Political Thought, Malcolm Hume loved to explore the fine lines. I had balked at such talk. There is right. There is wrong.

  So which side of the line was I on now?

  I parked near the front, passed a big sale on "Perennials and Pottery," and headed inside. The store was huge. The pungent odor of mulc
h filled the air. I started toward the left, circled through fresh flowers, shrubbery, home accessories, patio furniture, soil, peat moss--whatever that was. My eyes checked out everyone with the bright green worker's apron. It took about five minutes, but I found the kid, interestingly enough, working in the fertilizer section.

  There was a bandage on his nose. His eyes were black. He still wore the Brooklyn Nets baseball cap with the brim facing back. He was helping a customer, loading bags of fertilizer into a cart. The customer was telling him something. The kid nodded with enthusiasm. He had an earring. The hair that peeked out from under the cap looked streaky blond, probably something out of a bottle. The kid worked hard, smiling the entire time, making sure all the customer's needs were being met. I was impressed.

  I moved so that I was standing behind him and waited. I tried to figure out an angle of approach so that the kid couldn't make a run for it. When he finished with this current customer, he immediately started looking for someone else to help. I moved up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

  He turned, the smile at the ready. "Can I . . . ?"

  He stopped when he saw my face. I was ready for him to break into a sprint. I wasn't sure what I'd do about it. I was close enough to grab him if he tried, but that would draw the wrong kind of attention. I braced myself and waited for his reaction.

  "Dude!" He threw his arms around me, pulling me in tight for a hug. I had not expected that, but I went with it. "Thank you, man. Thank you so much."

  "Um, you're welcome."

  "Oh man, you're my hero, you know that? Edward is such a dickweed. Picks on me because he knows I ain't that tough. Thanks, man. Thanks a lot."

  I said he was welcome again.

  "So what's your deal?" he asked. "You ain't a cop. I know that. So are you, like, I don't know, a superhero or something?"

  "Superhero?"

  "I mean, you hang out and rescue people and stuff. And then you ask about his MM contact?" His face suddenly darkened. "Man, I hope you got a whole Avengers group behind you or something if you're gonna take him on."

  "That's what I wanted to ask you," I said.

  "Oh?"

  "Edward works for a guy named Danny Zuker, right?"

  "You know it."

  "Who is Danny Zuker?"

  "Sickest dude ever. He'd kill a puppy because it got in his way. You can't believe the psycho-crazy in that guy. He makes Edward pee in his pants. For real."

  Terrific. "Who does Danny work for?"

  The kid took half a step back. "You don't know?"

  "No. That's why I'm here."

  "For real?"

  "Yes?"

  "I was joking, dude--about you being a superhero. I figured, hey, you saw me getting the crap beaten out of me and, I don't know, you're a big dude and you hate bullies and stuff. That wasn't it?"

  "No. I need some information."

  "I hope one of your superpowers is that you're bulletproof. If you mess with those guys . . ."

  "I'll be careful," I said.

  "I don't want you to get hurt or nothing, just because you did me a solid, you know?"

  "I know," I said, trying my best competent professorial tone. "Just tell me what you know."

  The kid shrugged. "Eddie is my bookie. That's all. I'm behind, and he enjoys hurting people. But he's small-time. Like I said, he works for Danny Z. Danny's way high up in MM."

  "What's MM?"

  "I'd bend my nose with my finger to show you what I mean, but my nose is friggin' killing me."

  I nodded. "So Danny Z is with the Mafia? Is that what you're trying to say?"

  "I don't know if they call it that. I mean, I only heard that word in really old movies and whatever. I can only tell you Danny Z works directly for the head of MM. That guy is a legend."

  "What's his name?"

  "You for real? You don't know? How do you live here and not know?"

  "I don't live here."

  "Oh."

  "Are you going to tell me?"

  "I owe you. So sure. Like I said, Danny Z is like the right-hand man for MM."

  "And MM is?"

  An elderly woman stepped between us. "Hello, Harold."

  He gave her a big smile. "Hello, Mrs. H. How did those petunias work out for you?"

  "You were so right about the placement in the window box. You're a genius with arrangements."

  "Thank you."

  "If you have time . . ."

  "Let me just finish with this gentleman and I'll be right with you."

  Mrs. H shuffled away. Harold watched her, smiling all the way.

  "Harold," I said, trying to get him back on topic, "who is MM?"

  "Come on, man, don't you read the papers? MM. Danny Z reports directly to the biggest, baddest boy of them all--Maxwell Minor."

  Something clicked. My face must have shown it because Harold said, "Whoa, dude, you okay?"

  My pulse raced. My blood started humming in my ears. I could have looked it up on my iPhone, but I really needed a full screen. "I need to use a computer."

  "Owner doesn't let anyone use the Internet here. It's all blocked off."

  I thanked him and hurried out. Minor. I had heard that name before in connection to all this. I drove like a madman to Northern Boulevard. I found the same Cybercraft Internet Cafe. The same yah-dude was behind the desk. If he recognized me, he didn't show it. There were four terminals open. I grabbed one and quickly typed in the address for the New York local newspapers. Clicking on archives, I asked for May 25 again--the day after the surveillance photograph of Natalie had been taken. The computer seemed to be taking forever to grant my search request.

  Come on, come on . . .

  And then the headline popped up:

  PHILANTHROPIST GUNNED DOWN

  Archer Minor Executed in His Office

  I wanted to shout "Eureka!" out loud, but I controlled myself. Minor. Oh, that couldn't be a coincidence. I clicked the article and read:

  Archer Minor, son of reputed mob leader Maxwell Minor and victim's rights advocate, was executed in his high-rise law office on Park Avenue last night, apparently the victim of a hit authorized by his own father. Known as the Minor son who's gone straight, Archer Minor worked with crime victims, even going so far as to publicly denounce his father in recent weeks and promising the DA's office to provide proof of his familial wrongdoings.

  The article didn't have too many other details. I went back to the search engine and looked up Archer Minor. There was at least an article a day for the next week. I started sifting through them, looking for some kind of clue, some kind of connection between Archer Minor and Natalie. An article that came out two days after the shooting snagged my attention:

  NYPD SEARCHING FOR WITNESS

  IN MINOR SLAY

  A source inside the NYPD claims that the department is currently looking for a woman who may have witnessed the murder of local gangster's-kid-turned-hero Archer Minor. The NYPD would not comment directly. "We are actively seeking out many leads," Anda Olsen, department spokesperson, said. "We expect to have a suspect in custody soon."

  It fit. Or it sort of fit.

  I conjured up that surveillance photo of Natalie in what looked like the lobby of an office building. Okay, so now what? Put it together. Somehow, Natalie had been there that night, in Minor's law office. She saw the murder. That would explain the fear on her face. She ran off, hoping it would go away, but then the NYPD must have gone through the surveillance video and found her walking through the lobby.

  There was still something big here, something I was missing. I kept reading:

  When asked for a motive for the crime, Olsen said, "We believe that Archer Minor was killed because he wanted to do the right thing." Today, Mayor Bloomberg called Archer Minor a hero. "He overcame his family name and history to be one of the great New Yorkers. His tireless work on behalf of victims and in bringing those who commit violent crimes to justice will never be forgotten."

  Many are wondering why Archer Mi
nor, who had recently denounced his father, Maxwell Minor, and his reputed organized-crime syndicate known as MM, was not placed in protective custody. "It was at his request," Olsen said. A source close to Minor's widow said that her husband had worked his whole life to make up for his father's crimes. "Archer started out just wanting to get a good education and go straight," the source said, "but no matter how fast he ran, Archer could never do enough to escape that horrible shadow."

  It was not for a lack of trying. Archer Minor was a vocal advocate for crime-victims' rights. After attending Columbia Law School, he worked closely with law enforcement officials. He represented victims of violent crimes, trying to get lengthier sentences for those convicted and restitution for his clients' suffering.

  The NYPD would not speculate, but one popular albeit shocking theory of the crime is that Maxwell Minor put out a hit on his own son. Maxwell Minor has not directly denied the charge, but he did release the following brief statement: "My family and I are devastated by the death of my son Archer. I ask the media to allow my family to mourn in private."

  I licked my lips and hit the "next page" link. When I saw the photograph of Maxwell Minor, I wasn't the least bit surprised. It was the man with the thin mustache from Otto Devereaux's funeral.

  It was coming together now.

  I realized that I'd been holding my breath. I sat back and tried to relax for a moment. I put my hands behind my head and closed my eyes. My mental timeline/connection sheet had all kinds of new little lines on it. Natalie had been there the night of Archer Minor's high-profile murder. She had, I theorized, witnessed the crime. At some point, the NYPD realized it was Natalie in that surveillance video. Natalie, fearing for her life, decided to hide.

  I would continue to check, but it was a pretty safe bet that no one had ever been convicted of Archer Minor's murder. That was why the NYPD, all these years later, was still looking for Natalie.

  So what happened next?

  Natalie hooked up with Fresh Start. How did that happen? I had no idea. But, really, how did anyone hook up with Fresh Start? The organization kept an eye out, I supposed. Like with Benedict ne Jamal. They approached those they felt needed and deserved their help.