Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar 1)

“He’s too small,” Logan said.

“What are you talking about? Is Barry Sanders too small? Is Emmitt Smith too small? Ricky’s bigger than both of them. And he’s been lifting. I’m telling you, he’s going to be a great one.”

“Uh-huh. Look, Myron, he’s a nice kid. He works hard. But I can’t go any higher than …”

The number was still too low. But it was better.

The calls continued without a break. Sometime during the day Esperanza brought him a sandwich, which he inhaled.

At eight o’clock Myron placed his final office call of the day.

Jessica answered. “Hello?”

“I’ll be at your house in an hour,” Myron said. “We need to talk.”

Myron watched Jessica’s face for a reaction. She kept looking at the magazine as if it were just another issue of Newsweek, her expression frighteningly passive. Every once in a while she nodded, looked over the rest of the page, and glanced at the front and back covers of the magazine, always returning to the picture of Kathy. She was so nonchalant, Myron almost expected her to whistle.

Only her knuckles gave her away. They were bloodless white, the pages crinkling in her death grip.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice calm, almost soothing. “You said Christian got this in the mail?”

“Yes.”

“And you and Win spoke to the man who publishes this”—she hesitated, her face finally showing some signs of disgust—“this thing?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “Did he give you the address of whoever put this ad in?”

“Just a p.o. box. I’m going to scout it out tomorrow, see who picks up the mail.”

She looked up for the first time. “I’ll go with you.”

He almost protested but stopped himself. He didn’t stand a chance. “Okay.”

“When did Christian give this to you?”

“Yesterday.”

That got her attention. “You knew about this yesterday?”

He nodded.

“And you didn’t tell me?” she snapped. “I was pouring my heart out to you, feeling like some paranoid schizophrenic, and you knew about this the whole time?”

“I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“Anything else you haven’t told me?”

“Christian got a phone call last night. He thinks it was from Kathy.”

“What?”

He quickly told her about it. When he reached the part about Christian hearing Kathy’s voice, her face drained of all color.

“Has your friend at the phone company learned anything?” she asked.

“No. But we know Return Call only works for specific towns within the 201 area codes.”

“How many towns?”

“About three-quarters of them.”

“So you’re talking about three-quarters of the northern part of New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the U.S.? That limits it down to what, two, three million people?”

“It’s not a big help,” he admitted, “but it’s something.”

Her eyes settled back on the magazine. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you. It’s just—”

“Forget it.”

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known,” she said. “I mean that.”

“And you’re the biggest pain in the ass.”

“Tough to argue that one,” she said, but there was a hint of a smile.

“Do you want to tell the police about this?” he asked. “Or Paul Duncan?”

She thought a moment. “I’m not sure.”

“The press will eat it up,” he said. “They’ll drag Kathy through the mud.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what the press does.”

“I’m just telling you,” Myron said.

“They can call her a slut a million different ways. I don’t care.”

“What about your mom?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what she wants either. I just want Kathy found.”

“So you want to tell them,” Myron said.

“No.”

He looked at her, confused. “Care to elaborate?”

Her words came slow, measured, the ideas coming to her even as she spoke. “Kathy has been gone for more than a year now,” she began. “In all that time the cops and the press have come up with zip. Not one thing. She’s just vanished without a trace.”

“So?”

“But now we get this magazine. Someone sent it to Christian, which means someone—maybe Kathy, maybe not—is trying to make contact. Think about it. For the first time in over a year there is some form of communication. I don’t want that taken away. I don’t want a lot of attention scaring away whoever is out there. Kathy might disappear again. This”—she held up the magazine—“this thing is disgusting, but it’s also encouraging. It’s something. Don’t get me wrong. I’m shocked by this. But it’s a solid thread—a thread as confusing as all hell, but nonetheless a thread of hope. If the cops and the press are called in, whoever did this might get scared and vanish again. Permanently this time. I can’t risk that. We have to keep this to ourselves.”

Myron nodded. “Makes sense.”

“So what’s next?” she asked.

“We go to the post office in Hoboken. I’ll pick you up early. Say six.”

Chapter 8

Jessica smelled great.

They were at Uptown Station in Hoboken. She stood very close to him. Her hair had that freshly washed smell he had tried for four years to forget. Inhaling made him feel light-headed.

“So this is playing detective,” she said.

“Exciting, isn’t it?”

They had been trying to look inconspicuous—no easy task when a man is six-four and a woman is a total knee-knocker—for the better part of an hour, having arrived at the post office at six-thirty in the morning. No one had touched Box 785 yet.

Boredom set in quickly. Jessica looked over the prices of different mailing containers. Not very interesting. She read the wanted ads, all of them, found them a bit more interesting. Wanted posters in a post office. Like they wanted you to write the guy a letter.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said.

“That’s why they call me Captain Fun.”

She laughed. The melodic sound twisted his stomach.