Back Spin (Myron Bolitar 4)

They turned up Ardmore Avenue and drove in silence past the Merion Golf Club. They both looked out the window at the course’s gently sloping sea of green broken up only by the clean, white faces of sand. It was, Myron had to admit, a magnificent sight.

“Are you going to tell?” she asked.

She already knew the answer. “I’m your attorney,” Myron said. “I can’t tell.”

“And if you weren’t my attorney?”

“It wouldn’t matter. Victoria would still be able to offer up enough reasonable doubt to win the case.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Myron said. He left it at that. She waited, but no answer was coming.

“I know you don’t care,” Linda continued, “but I meant what I said before. My feelings for you were real.”

Neither of them spoke again. Myron pulled into the driveway. The police kept the media back. Chad was outside, waiting. He smiled at his mother and ran toward her. Linda opened the car door and got out. They might have embraced, but Myron did not see it. He was already backing out the drive.

42

Victoria opened the door.

“In the bedroom. Follow me.”

“How is she?” Myron asked.

“She’s been sleeping a lot. But I don’t think the pain is that bad yet. We have a nurse and a morphine drip ready if she needs it.”

The decor was far simpler and less opulent than Myron had expected. Solid-colored furniture and pillows. Uncluttered white walls. Pine bookcases with artifacts gathered from vacations to Asia and Africa. Victoria had told him that Cissy Lockwood loved to travel.

They stopped in front of a doorway. Myron looked inside. Win’s mother lay in bed. Exhaustion emanated from her. Her head was back on the pillow as though it were too heavy to lift. An IV bag was attached to her arm. She looked at Myron and mustered a gentle smile. Myron smiled back. With his peripheral vision, he saw Victoria signal to the nurse. The nurse stood and moved past him. Myron stepped inside. The door closed behind him.

Myron moved closer to the bed. Her breathing was labored and constricted, as though she was being slowly strangled from inside. Myron did not know what to say. He had seen people die before, but those had been quick, violent deaths, the life force snuffed out in one big, powerful gust. This was different. He was actually watching a human being die, her vitality dripping out of her like the liquid in her IV bag, the light in her eyes almost imperceptibly dimming, the grinding whir of tissues and sinews and organs eroding under the onslaught of whatever manic beast had lain claim to her.

She lifted a hand and put it on his. Her grip was surprisingly strong. She was not bony or pale. Her muscles were still toned, her summer tan only slightly faded.

“You know,” she said.

Myron nodded.

She smiled. “How?”

“A lot of little things,” he said. “Victoria not wanting me to dig into the past. Jack’s mischievous past. Your too-casual comment about how Win was supposed to be playing golf with Jack that day. But mostly it was Win. When I told him about our conversation, he said that I now knew why he wanted nothing to do with you and Jack. You, I could understand. But why Jack?”

Her chest heaved a bit. She closed her eyes for a moment. “Jack destroyed my life,” she said. “I realize that he was only a teenager pulling a prank. He apologized profusely. He told me that he had not realized that my husband was on the premises. He said that he was certain I would hear Win coming and hide. It was all a joke, he said. Nothing more. But none of that made him less liable. I lost my son forever because of what he did. He had to face the consequences.”

Myron nodded. “So you paid off Lloyd Rennart to sabotage Jack at the Open.”

“Yes. It was an inadequate punishment for what he had done to my family, but it was the best I could do.”

The bedroom door opened, and Win stepped into the room. Myron felt the hand release his. A sob came out of Cissy Lockwood. Myron did not hesitate or say good-bye. He turned away and walked out the door.

She died three days later. Win never left her side. When the last pitiful breath was drawn, when the chest mercifully stopped rising and falling and her face froze in a final, bloodless death mask, Win appeared in the corridor.

Myron stood and waited. Win looked at him. His face was serene, untroubled.

“I did not want her to die alone,” he said.

Myron nodded. He tried to stop shaking.

“I am going to take a walk.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Myron asked.

Win stopped. “Actually,” he said, “there is.”

“Name it.”

They played thirty-six holes at Merion that day. And thirty-six more the next. And by the third day, Myron was starting to get it.