Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar 2)

Duane Richwood, the Wilt Chamberlain of professional tennis.

Myron didn’t like it.

Duane had always been a bit of a mystery. In reality Myron knew nothing about his past. He’d been a runaway, or so Duane said, but who knew for sure? Why had he run in the first place? Where was his family now? Myron had created a spin on the facts—portraying Duane as the poor street kid struggling to escape the shackles of poverty. But was that the truth? Duane seemed like a good kid—intelligent, well-spoken, well-mannered—but could that all be an act? The young man Myron had known would not be spending such an important night screwing in a strange hotel room—which, of course, circled Myron back to the question:

So what?

Myron was his agent. Period. The kid had talent to burn and a terrific court sense. He was good-looking and could make a lot of money in endorsements. In the end, that was all that mattered to an agent. Not a player’s love life. The kid was a dream on the court. Who cared what he was like off it? Myron was getting too close to this. He had no perspective anymore. He had a business to run, and spying on one of his biggest clients, invading that client’s privacy, was not good business sense.

He should leave. He should go to Jessica and talk to her about it, see what she thought.

Ten more minutes.

He needed only two. He switched eyes just as the door to room 322 opened. Duane appeared, or at least the back of him. Myron saw a woman’s arms go around his neck, pulling him down. They embraced. He couldn’t see the woman’s face, just the arms. Myron thought about Wanda’s intuition. She had been so sure of herself, so blind to this possibility. Myron understood. He’d been there. Love has a way of putting on the blinders.

“Putting on the blinders,” Myron muttered to himself. “Unbelievable.”

After the hug broke, Duane straightened up. The woman’s arms dropped out of sight. Duane looked ready to leave. Myron pushed his eye closer to the peephole. Duane spun and looked directly at Myron’s door. Myron almost jumped back. For a second it was like Duane was looking right at Myron, like he knew Myron was there.

Once again Myron wondered how he had ended up here. If his job included checking on the promiscuity of every athlete he represented, he would spend his life peering through peepholes. Duane was a kid. Twenty-one years old. He wasn’t even married or officially engaged. Nothing Myron was seeing was connected in any way with Valerie Simpson’s murder.

Until Duane finally stepped away.

Duane had given the woman one more brief hug. There had been muffled voices, but Myron couldn’t make out any specific words. Duane looked left, then right, then moved away. The woman was already starting to close the door, but she glanced out one last time. And that was when Myron saw her.

The woman was Deanna Yeller.

26

The morning.

Myron had not confronted Duane. He’d stumbled to Jessica’s in something of a daze. He’d opened the door with his key and said, “I’m sorry. I had to—”

Jessica shushed him with a kiss. Then a bigger kiss. Hungrier kiss. Myron tried to fight off her advances, though some might call his struggle less than valiant.

He rolled over in the bed. Jessica was gently padding across the room. Naked. She slipped into a silk robe. He watched, as he always did, with utter fascination. “You’re so hot,” he said, “you make my teeth sweat.”

She smiled. There is something that happens to men when Jessica looks at them. Shallow breathing. Fluttering stomach. A cruel longing. But her smile raised all those symptoms to the tenth power.

“Good morning,” she said. She bent down and kissed him gently. “How are you feeling?”

“My ears are still popping from last night.”

“Nice to know I still have the touch,” she said.

The understatement of the millennium. “Tell me about your trip.”

“Tell me about your murder first.”

He did. Jess was a great listener. She never interrupted, except to ask the right question. She looked at him steadily without a lot of that phony head nodding or out-of-context smiling. Her eyes focused in on him as if he were the only person in the world. He felt light-headed and happy and scared.

“This Valerie got to you,” Jessica said when he finished.

“She had no one. Her life was in danger and she had no one.”

“She had you.”

“I only met her once. She wasn’t even signed yet.”

“Doesn’t matter. She knew what you were. If I were in trouble, you’d be the person I’d run to.” She tilted her head. “How did you know my room number and hotel?”

“Aaron. He was trying to be intimidating. He succeeded.”

“Aaron threatened to hurt me?”

“You, me, my mom, Esperanza.”

She hesitated, thinking. “Esperanza would be my choice. I mean, if it has to be one of us.”

“I’ll tell him.” He took her hand. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“No third degree?”

Myron shook his head.

“But I owe you an explanation.”

“I don’t want one,” he said. “I just want to be with you. I love you. I’ve always loved you. We are soul mates.”

“Soul mates?”

He nodded.

“When did you decide this?” she asked.

“A long time ago.”

“So why not tell me before now?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want to scare you off.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s more important to tell you how I feel.”

The room was still. “What am I supposed to say to that?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“I do love you, Myron. You know that.”

“I know.”

Silence. A long silence.

Jessica crossed the room. Naked. She was not self-conscious about her body. Then again, she had no reason to be. “It seems to me,” she began, “there are a lot of weird connections with this murder. But there is one overriding constant.”

Change of subjects. That was okay. Enough had been said for one day. “What?” Myron asked.

“Tennis,” she said. “Alexander Cross is killed at a tennis club. Valerie Simpson is murdered at the national tennis center. Valerie and Duane have an affair—both are professional tennis players. Those two kids who supposedly killed Alexander Cross—what’s their names?”

“Errol Swade and Curtis Yeller.”