Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar 1)

But how to play this.

“Kathy is not happy with you,” he tried.

“I meant her no harm.”

Myron put his hand on his chest and lifted his head dramatically. “Be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou com’st in such a questionable shape.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Myron shrugged. “I like to work Shakespeare into conversations. Makes me sound smart, don’t you think?”

The dean made a face. “Can we return to the matter at hand?”

“Sure.”

“You say Kathy does not want money.”

“Yup.”

“What then does she want?”

Good question. “She wants the truth to come out.” Noncommittal, vague, open-ended.

“What truth?”

“Stop playing dumb,” Myron snapped, feigning annoyance. “You weren’t about to write a check to her favorite charity, were you?”

“But I didn’t do anything,” he half-whined. “Kathy took off that night. I haven’t seen her since. How was I supposed to know what to think or do?”

Myron gave him a skeptical look. He did that because he had no idea what else to do. He was now playing Jake’s game, the keep-silent-and-hope-he-ties-his-own-noose game. This worked especially well with political types. They’re born with a defective chromosome that will not allow for prolonged silence.

“She has to understand,” he continued. “I did my best. She disappeared. What was I supposed to do? Go to the police? Was that what she wanted? I didn’t know anymore. I was thinking of her. She might have changed her mind. I didn’t know. I was trying to consider her interests.”

The skeptical look came easier after that last sentence. Myron only wished he knew what the hell the dean was talking about. They sat there staring at one another. Then something happened to Dean Gordon’s face. Myron wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but his whole demeanor seemed to slump. His eyes grew twisted, pained. He shook his head.

“Enough,” he said in a quiet voice.

“What’s enough?”

He closed the checkbook. “I won’t pay,” he said. “Tell Kathy I’ll do whatever she wants. I’ll stand by her no matter what the cost. This has gone on long enough. I can’t live like this. I am not an evil man. She’s a sick girl. She needs help. I want to help.”

Myron had not expected this. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“You want to help your former lover?”

His head shot up. “What did you say?”

Myron had been skating blindly on thin ice. His last comment, it seemed, had been something of a blowtorch.

“Did you say ‘lover’?”

Uh-oh.

“Kathy didn’t send you,” he continued. “She has nothing to do with you, does she?”

Myron said nothing.

“Who are you? What is your real name?”

“Myron Bolitar.”

“Who?”

“Myron Bolitar.”

“Are you a police officer?”

“No.”

“Then what exactly are you?”

“A sports agent.”

“A what?”

“I represent athletes.”

“You—So what do you have to do with this?”

“I’m a friend,” Myron said. “I’m trying to find Kathy.”

“Is she alive?”

“I don’t know. But you seem to think so.”

Dean Gordon opened his bottom drawer, took out a cigarette, lit it.

“Bad for you,” Myron said.

“I quit smoking five years ago. Or so everyone thinks.”

“Another little secret?”

He smiled without humor. “So you were the one who sent me the magazine.”

Myron shook his head. “Nope.”

“Then who?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out. But I know about it. And now I also know you’re hiding something about Kathy’s disappearance.”

He inhaled deeply and let loose a long stream of smoke. “I could deny it. I could deny everything we said here today.”

“You could,” Myron countered. “But of course I have the magazine. I have no reason to lie. And I also have a friend in Sheriff Jake Courter. But you’re right. In the end it would be my word against yours.”

Dean Gordon took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “No,” he said slowly, “it won’t come down to that. I meant what I said before. I want to help her. I need to help her.”

Myron was not sure what to think. The man looked in genuine pain, but Myron had seen performances that would put Olivier to shame. Was his guilt real? Was his sudden catharsis the result of having a conscience, or was it self-preservation? Myron didn’t know. He didn’t much care either, as long as he got to the truth.

“When was the last time you saw Kathy?” Myron asked.

“The night she vanished,” he said.

“She came to your house?”

He nodded. “It was late. I guess around eleven, eleven-thirty. I was in my study. My wife was upstairs in bed. The doorbell rang. Not once. Repeatedly, urgently. Interspersed with heavy door-pounding. It was Kathy.”

His voice was on autopilot, as if he were reading a fairy tale to a child. “She was crying. Or rather she was sobbing uncontrollably. So much so that she couldn’t speak. I brought her into my study. I poured her some brandy and wrapped an afghan around her shoulders. She looked”—he stopped, considered—“very small. Helpless. I sat down across from her and took her hand. She jerked it back. That was when the tears stopped. Not slowly, but all at once, as though a switch had been thrown. She became very still. Her face was completely blank, no emotion whatsoever. Then she started talking.”

He reached into the drawer for another cigarette. He put it in his mouth. The match lit on the fourth try.

“She started from the beginning,” he continued. “Her voice was remarkably steady. It never cracked or wavered—uncanny, when you consider the fact that she was hysterical just moments earlier. But her words belied her placid tone. She told me stories—” He stopped again, shook his head. “They were surprising, to say the least. I had known Kathy for almost a year. I considered her a thoughtful, sweet, proper young woman. I am not making moral judgments here. But she had always been what I considered old-fashioned. And here she was telling me stories that would make a sailor blush.