Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar 1)

His voice sort of faded away then. Myron said nothing. Christian was working up to something. Myron only hoped it wasn’t a breakdown.

“I guess I should get to the point,” Christian finally said.

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I saw something today. I—” Christian stopped and swung his eyes toward Myron’s. They looked at him, pleading. “Kathy may still be alive.”

His words hit Myron like a wet slap. Whatever Myron had been preparing himself for, whatever he imagined Christian was leading up to, hearing Kathy Culver might still be alive was not a part of the equation.

“What?”

Christian reached behind him and opened his desk drawer. The desk too was something out of Leave It to Beaver. Completely uncluttered. Two cans, one with Bic pens, the other with sharpened number-two pencils. Gooseneck lamp. Desk blotter with calendar. Dictionary, thesaurus, and The Elements of Style all in a row between two globe bookends.

“This came in the mail today.”

He handed Myron a magazine. On the cover was a naked woman. Calling her well-endowed would be tantamount to calling World War II a skirmish. Most men are somewhat mammary obsessed, and Myron was not above having similar sentiments, but this was positively freakish. The woman’s face was far from pretty, kind of harsh looking. She was giving the camera a look that was supposed to be come-hither but looked more like constipation. Her tongue was licking her lips, her legs spread, her finger beckoning the reader to come closer.

Very subtle effect, Myron thought.

The magazine was called Nips. The lead story, according to the words emblazoned across her right breast: “How to Get Her to Shave Dat Thang.”

Myron looked up sharply. “What’s this all about?”

“The paper clip.”

“What?”

But Christian seemed too weak to repeat it. He just pointed. On the top of the magazine Myron spotted a glint of silver. A paper clip was being used as a bookmark.

“It came with that on there,” Christian said by way of explanation.

Myron fingered through the pages, catching quick glimpses of flesh, until he arrived at the page marked off by the paper clip. His eyes squinted in confusion. It was an ad page, though it had as many erotic photos as any other. The top of the page read:

Live Fantasy Phone—Pick Your Girl!

There were three rows, four girls in each row, all the way down the page. Myron’s eyes scanned down. He could not believe what he was seeing. “Oriental Girls Are Waiting!” “Wet and Juicy Lesbos!” “Spank Me, Please!” “Bitches in Heat!” “Tiny Titties!” (for those who didn’t like the cover shot, no doubt) “I Want You to Ride Me!” “Pick My Cherry!” “Make Me Beg for More!” “Wanted: Robocock.” “Mistress Savannah Demands You Call Now!” “Horny Housewife!” “Overweight Men Wanted.” Each with matching photo—provocative poses involving telephones.

There were some that were far more raunchy. Cross-dressers. Women with men’s equipment. There were some Myron could not even understand. Like unfathomable science experiments. The telephone numbers were what you’d expect. 1-800-888-SLUT. 1-900-46-TRAMP. 1-800-REAM-MEE. 1-900-BAD-GIRL.

Myron made a face. He wanted to wash his hands.

Then he saw it.

It was in the bottom row, second from the right. It read, “I’ll Do Anything!” The phone number was 1-900-344-LUST. $3.99 per minute. Discreetly billed to your telephone or charge card. Visa/MC accepted.

The woman in the picture was Kathy Culver.

Myron felt a coldness seep into him. He turned back to the cover and checked the date. It was the current issue.

“When did you get this?”

“It came in today’s mail,” Christian said, picking up an envelope. “In this.”

Myron’s head began to swim. He tried to fight the dizziness and get some kind of footing, but the picture of Kathy kept tipping him back over. The envelope was plain manila. There was no return address—that would have been too easy. It was not postmarked and had no stamps, merely reading:

CHRISTIAN STEELE

BOX 488

No city, no state. That meant it’d been mailed on campus. The address had been handwritten.

“You get lots of fan mail, right?” Myron asked.

Christian nodded. “But they go somewhere else. This was in my private box. The number is unlisted.”

Myron handled the envelope carefully, trying not to smudge any potential fingerprints. “It could be trick photography,” Myron added. “Someone might have superimposed her head on—”

Christian stopped him with a shake of his head. His eyes were back on the floor. “It’s not just her face, Mr. Bolitar,” he said, embarrassed.

“Oh,” Myron said, ever swift on the uptake. “I see.”

“Do you think we should give this to the police?” Christian asked.

“Perhaps.”

“I want to do the right thing,” Christian said, his hands balling into fists. “But I won’t let them drag Kathy through the mud again. You saw what they did when she was the victim. What will they do when they see this?”

“They’ll go animal,” he agreed.

Christian nodded.

“But it’s probably just a prank,” Myron continued. “I’ll check it out before we do anything else.”

“How?”

“Let me worry about that.”

“There’s one other thing,” Christian said. “The handwriting on the envelope.”

Myron glanced at it again. “What about it?”

“I can’t say for sure, but it looks a lot like Kathy’s.”

Chapter 3

Myron stopped short when he saw her.

He had just stumbled into the bar in something of a daydream, his mind like a movie camera that couldn’t stay in focus. He tried to sift through what he had just seen and learned from Christian, tried to compute the facts and form a solid, well-conceived conclusion.

He came up with nothing.

The magazine was jammed into the right pocket of his trench coat. Porn mag and trench coat, Myron thought. Jesus. The same questions echoed ad nauseam in his head: Could Kathy Culver still be alive? And if she was, what had happened to her? What could have led Kathy from the innocence of her dorm room to the back pages of Nips magazine?

That was when he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She was sitting on a stool, her long legs crossed, sipping gently at her drink. She wore a white blouse opened at the throat, a short gray skirt, and black stockings. Everything clung just right. For a fleeting moment Myron thought she was just a by-product of his daydream, a dazzling vision to tantalize the senses. But the knot in his stomach made him quickly dismiss that notion. His throat went dry. Deep, dormant emotions crashed down upon him like a surprise wave at the beach.