Authors: Harlan Coben
They found a high-rise Hilton in Mahwah.
Myron checked them in to the best available suite. Jessica stood next to him. The hotel concierge swung his line of vision from Myron to Jessica, eyeing her lustily and Myron jealously. A formal affair was in full swing in the lobby. Men in tuxes, women in long gowns. But
every man stared agog at Jessica, who was dressed in jeans and a button-down red blouse.
Myron was used to it. When they were first together, he had taken an almost perverse pleasure in seeing men stare, the familiar you-look-but-I-touch-ha-ha school of macho sneering. But then he started seeing things in the looks that weren’t there, and the even more familiar male insecurity burrowed through his rationality.
Jessica was practiced at this. She knew how to ignore the looks without looking cold, bothered, or interested.
Their room was on the sixth floor. They had barely closed the door when they kissed. Jessica’s tongue circled and gently darted, making his whole body spasm helplessly. He began to unbutton her blouse. His mouth went dry. He actually gasped when he saw her again. Breathlessness made him heady. He cupped a warm breast, feeling the delicious weight in his hand. She moaned into his mouth.
They moved to the bed.
Their lovemaking had always been intense, all-consuming, but this was somehow more animalistic, needier, and yet more tender.
Later, much later, Jessica sat up, kissed him gently on the cheek. “That,” she said, “was awesome.”
Myron shrugged. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?”
“For me. For you it was awesome.”
She swung her legs out of bed and slipped into a hotel robe. “I did enjoy myself,” she said.
“Sounded like it.”
“I was a tad noisy, huh?”
“The Who in concert is a tad noisy. You were loud.”
She stood above the bed, smiling. The robe was tied loosely, showing plenty of cleavage and legs that were so
long, they were almost intimidating. “I didn’t hear you complain.”
“How could you,” Myron said, “over all your screaming?”
“What time is it?”
“Midnight.” He reached for the phone. “Hungry?”
She gave him a look he felt in his toes. Well, not exactly his toes. “Famished,” she said.
“For food, Jess. Food.”
“Oh.”
“Ever learn about the male’s ‘time for recovery’ in health class?”
“Must have been absent that day.”
“The three R’s. Replenishment, restoration, recuperation.” He looked at the menu. “Damn.”
“What?”
“No oysters.”
“Myron?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a hot tub in the bathroom.”
“Jess …”
She looked at him with who-me innocence. “We can soak until the food comes. Recuperate. One of the three R’s.”
“Just soak?”
“Just soak.”
She had said soak. He was sure of it. Soak. Not soap. But that was how it started. She soaped him back to life. Myron tried to fight it, almost afraid of how good it felt. But he couldn’t. Jess toyed with him, pushed him to the edge, let him teeter, then pulled him back. Myron was helpless. Words like
heaven, ecstasy, paradise, ambrosia
floated through his mind.
Total surrender.
With a whispered “Now,” she let him go. His nerve
endings surged and sang. The white-hot explosion was so powerful, his ears popped. The bright light hurt his eyes.
“Awesome,” he managed.
She lay back, smiling. “Not bad.”
There was a knock on the door. Probably room service. Neither one of them moved.
“Why don’t you get it,” she said.
“My legs,” he said. “They can’t move. I may never walk again.”
Another knock.
“I’m not dressed,” she said.
“And what am I, ready for a press conference?”
“Bet you’d get good coverage.”
Myron moaned at the joke.
Another knock.
“Come on, Myron. Just throw a towel around your shapely ass and get moving.”
The second woman to mention his ass in the same day. Yowzer. He grabbed the bath towel and headed for the door. Another knock.
“One second.”
He opened the door. It wasn’t their food.
“Maid service,” Win said. “May I turn down your bed?”
“Didn’t you see the Do Not Disturb sign?”
Win glanced at the doorknob. “Sorry. No speaka da English.”
“How the hell did you find us?”
“I traced down your charge card,” he said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “You checked in here at eight twenty-two
P.M.
” Win leaned his head in the doorway. “Hello, Jessica.”
From the bathroom. “Hi, Win.” Myron heard her
stepping out of the Jacuzzi. The image of water cascading down her naked body came to him like a deep punch.
“Come on in,” he grumbled.
“Thank you.” Win handed him a manila folder. “Thought you might want to take a look at this.”
Jessica came in from the bathroom. The robe was tied tighter. She was drying her hair with a towel. “What’s up?” she asked.
“The police rap sheet of one Fred Nickler, aka Nick Fredericks,” Win said.
“Imaginative alias,” Myron said.
“For an imaginative fellow.”
Jessica sat on the bed. “He’s the porno publisher, right?”
Myron nodded. The rap sheet was not very long. He started with the most recent dates. Traffic violations, two DWIs, one arrest for mail fraud.
“Nineteen seventy-eight,” Win said.
Myron skipped down. June 30, 1978. Fred Nickler had been arrested for endangering the welfare of a child. Charges dropped.
“So?”
“Mr. Nickler was involved in kiddie porn,” Win explained. “He was only a small-time photographer back then. But he was nabbed with his hand, so to speak, in the cookie jar. More precisely, taking photographs of an eight-year-old boy.”
Jessica said, “Jesus.”
Myron remembered their meeting. “‘Just an honest guy trying to make an honest buck.’”
“Indeed.”
Jessica asked, “Why were the charges dropped?”
“Ah,” Win said, pointing a finger in the air, “that’s where things get interesting. In many ways it’s not an uncommon story. Fred Nickler was only the photographer.
A little fish. The authorities wanted the bigger fish. The little fish ratted out the big fish in exchange for leniency.”
“And they dropped the charges completely?” Myron said “Not even a misdemeanor?”
“Not even. It seems that Mr. Nickler also agreed to help out the police from time to time.”
“So what’s the significance?”
“This entire arrangement was negotiated between Nickler and the officer in charge of the investigation,” Win said. He shot a quick glance at Jessica.
“The officer in charge of the investigation was your friend Paul Duncan.”
“That’s our man,” Win said. “Mr. Junior Horton.”
Horty looked like an ex–football player. Big and wide, all veins and bulges. His arms looked like corded wood. He was dressed for a rap video. His button-down St. Louis Cardinals baseball shirt was untucked. His baggy shorts reached down past his knees. No socks. Black Reebok high-tops. A Chicago White Sox baseball cap. Dark sunglasses and lots of jewelry.
It was nine in the morning. One Hundred Thirty-second Street in Manhattan. The street was quiet. Horty was making a drug deal. He had been in and out of jail plenty of times, his one long stint of freedom during his time at
Reston U. Drugs, mostly. Armed robbery, once. Two sexual assault charges. Twenty-four years old and a complete punk. Like most inmates he had spent his prison time lifting weights. Pumping iron. Our penal institutions develop violent men’s physical strength, so when they get out, they’ll be able to intimidate and maim with far greater skill. Nice system.
Jessica was not with them. She was packing her father’s office—that is, the morgue—and checking for any additional bombshells. Myron had managed to talk her out of confronting Paul Duncan until they knew a little more. She listened grudgingly, but that was how Jessica usually listened anyway.
Horty finished the transaction with a kid who looked no older than twelve, slapped him five, headed west. He wasn’t wearing a Walkman, but he walked as though he were. Very jittery. His eyes were red. Every few steps he would snort the air and wipe his nose with the back of his hand.
“Boys and girls, can you say ‘Cokehead’?”
“Probably has the flu,” Win said.
“The Colombian strain.”
They ducked out of sight as he approached. When Horty reached the lip of the alley, Myron stepped in front of him.
“Junior Horton?”
Horty gave him a scornful street glare. “Who the fuck wants to know?”
“Snappy comeback,” Myron said.
“Get the fuck out of my way or I kick your ass.” He spotted Win. “Both your ass.”
“Asses,” Win corrected. “One ass. Two asses. Plural.”
“What the fuck—”
“We want to talk to you,” Myron said.
“Hey, fuck you, man.”
Myron turned to Win. “He’s a real badass.”
“Indeed,” Win said. “I may wet myself.”
Horty stepped toward Win. He had at least six inches and sixty pounds on him. Horty probably thought he was being clever, going after and intimidating the little guy. Myron tried not to smile when Horty spat, “Gonna fuck you up big-time.”
“If you curse again,” Win said in the tone of preschool teacher, “I will be forced to silence you.”
“You?” Horty laughed heartily. He flexed for a moment and then lowered his nose until it almost touched Win’s. Win did not move. “Little piece of upper-crust whitebread gonna shut me up? Fuck—”
Win barely moved. His arm shot up, delivered a palm strike to the solar plexus, and was back at his side in what seemed like a tenth of a second. Horty stumbled back, gasping, unable to get any oxygen into his lungs.
“I asked you not to curse,” Win said.
It took Horty nearly half a minute to recover. When he did, the lips started flapping again. “Fucking cheap-shot motherfucker,” he said rising. “I gonna tear you a brand-new asshole.”
He charged Win, his arms outstretched as though tackling a fullback. Win sidestepped him and delivered a quick roundhouse kick, again hitting the solar plexus. Horty folded and went down. His face was a mixture of fury, pain, surprise, and of course, embarrassment. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching He was, after all, getting his butt whipped by Mr. Wonderbread.
“There are two hundred and six bones in the body,” Win said evenly. “Next time I break one.”
But Horty wasn’t listening. His eyes bulged. Rage twisted his face—not to mention his limited ability to
reason. Horty stood, stumbling, pretending he was more hurt than he was. The element of surprise. When Horty was close enough, he made his move.
He must have been really coked up, Myron mused. Or really stupid. Probably both.
Win leaned away and snapped a sidekick toward Horty’s lower leg. There was a cracking sound, like stepping on a dry twig. Horty screamed and went down. Win raised his leg for an ax kick, but Myron stopped him with a shake of his head.
“Two hundred five,” Win said, lowering his foot gently, “and counting.”
“You broke my f—” He stopped, holding his leg and rolling back and forth. “You broke my leg!”
“Your right tibia,” Win corrected.
“Who the—who are you?”
Myron said, “We’re going to ask you a few questions. You’re going to answer them.”
“My leg, man. I need a doctor.”
“When we’re finished.”
“Look, I just work for Terrell. He gave me this territory. You gotta a problem with that, you speak to him, okay?”
“We don’t want to talk to you about that.”
“Please, man, I’m begging you. My leg.”
“You used to attend Reston University.”
A surprised look replaced the pained one. “Yeah, so? You want my résumé?”
“You knew Kathy Culver.”
Panic now. “You guys cops?”
“No.”
Silence.
“You knew Kathy Culver.”
“Kathy who?”
Win said, “Number two-oh-five. The left femur. The femur is the largest bone in the body—”
“Okay, I knew her. So what?”
“How did you meet?” Myron asked.
“At a party. Her first week of school.”
“Did you ever date?”
“Date?” Horty laughed at that one. “No. She wasn’t the kind you date.”
“What kind was she?”
“The kind who sucked off my Johnson first night. Willie’s too.”
“Who is Willie?”
“My roomie.”
“He play football?”
“Yeah.” Then he added, “But only special teams,” as if that made him a lower species of being.
“Go on.”
“Man, why you want to hear this?”
“Go on.”
Horty shrugged. The leg was swelling badly, but the coke was numbing the pain enough to keep him going. “You see, we had this party. At Moore House. Where all the brothers lived. Kathy, she was like the only white chick there. So she comes in dressed like a prime-time ho. I mean, she was all that, you know? We start rapping and shit, you know. Did a little nose-candy like a Hoover vac. She liked the stuff. Then we start slow-dancing.” The grin returned with the memory. “Grinding, you know. She put her hand on the Black Blade right there on the dance floor. Starts rubbing it and shit. So I take her upstairs, and she sucks me off. But that ain’t all. She takes a camera—a fucking camera!—out of her bag and asks me to take pictures. No shit! Close-ups, she wants, of her and the Black Blade.”
Myron’s stomach began to churn again. Win looked on with his usual noninterest.
Horty continued. “Next night, she come back. Takes on me and Willie at the same time. We take more pictures, have a good old time. ’Cept this time I had my camera too.”
“So you took some pictures of your own.”
“Shit, yeah.”
“Did you and Kathy have any more, uh, encounters?”
“Nope. She moved on to other dudes, though. Primelooking babe for such a ho. All blond and built and shit.”
“You talk to her after that?”
He shrugged. “Little. Not much. But once she started up with Christian, man, it was a whole other story.”
“What do you mean?”
“She be all nose up in the air, like her shit don’t stink no more. Two of them all lovey-dovey and shit, like they was going steady on a TV show. All of a sudden the slut thinks she’s some fucking pure-ass cherry. I mean, the ho been riding the Blade like a fucking bronco, and now she don’t even say how-do. That ain’t right. That just ain’t right.”
Mr. Etiquette.
“So you decided to blackmail her,” Myron said.
“No way. Unh-unh.”
“We know about it, Horty. We know she paid you for the pictures.”
Horty made a snorting sound. “Aw, shit, that ain’t blackmail. That’s a business transaction. I just called her one day and told her I might have to knock her down a few pegs. And then I said a picture was worth a thousand words. She kinda agreed with all that and said she’d be willing to pay for such wonderful pictures. I told her
they was real valuable to me. Had a lot of sentimental value and shit. But we finally reached an agreement. A mutually beneficial agreement,” he stressed, “not blackmail.” He took hold of his leg and winced. “End of story, man.”
“You left something out.”
“What?”
“The gang-rape in the locker room.”
He did not seem surprised. He half-smiled and said, “Rape? Man, you ain’t listening. This woman had Horty’s Three H’s: Hot, Horny, Ho. Shit, she’d jump naked into a rock pile if she thought there’d be a snake in it. She loved it. We all had a good time.”
Win looked at Myron. The look said Keep your cool.
“How many of you?” Myron asked.
“Six.”
“Why,” he said in a low voice, “didn’t you just take the money, Horty? Why did you have to rape her?”
“I just told you, man—”
“She didn’t come to that locker room for consensual sex with six people. You raped her.”
“Can’t be, man,” he said with a shake of his head. “She a ho through and through. And once a ho, always a ho. That just the way it is. Fucking cunt acting all high and prissy and shit. Quarterback’s girl. Miss fucking all-American cheerleader. Who the fuck did she think she was? So yeah, I showed her. I reminded her where she come from, what she really is. Not some fucking prom queen. A slut. A dick-loving ho.”
Win now stepped in front of Myron. Preventive measure.
“ ’Sides,” Horty continued, “I owed her boyfriend. Big-time.”
“Christian Steele?”
“Yeah. He did me wrong. I did him wrong. Passed
around his little ho. Just a little payback, my man. To the prick who got me thrown off the team.”
“No,” Myron said. “It wasn’t Christian.”
“What you talking about?”
“I spoke with Coach Clarke. Two guys showed up for a game high. That’s why you were thrown off. Christian had nothing to do with it.”
“Oh,” Horty said with a shrug. “Ain’t that something.”
“Your remorse,” Myron said, “is very touching.”
“I gotta get to a doctor, man. My leg is killing me.”
“Weren’t you worried about getting caught?”
“What?”
“Weren’t you afraid she’d report the rape?”
Horty made a face as if Myron had suddenly started speaking Japanese. “You crazy, man? Who she gonna tell? She just gave me major cash to keep it all quiet. She say anything, it all gets out. The whole ugly truth. Everyone would know—Christian, her mammy, her pappy, her teachers. Everyone would know what she just paid all that money to hide. And what if she was dumb enough to tell? There were pictures and witnesses of her doing Willie and me at the party. Who gonna believe she was raped after seeing that?”
Dean Gordon had made the same argument, Myron remembered. Great minds thinking alike.
“Hey, look, man, my leg’s killing me.”
“Did you ever see Kathy again?” Myron managed.
“Nope.”
“Were you the one who threw away the panties?”
“Nope. One of the other guys had them. Thought he’d keep them as a souvenir. When he heard she was missing, he got scared, threw them away.”
“Who?”
“I ain’t giving names.”
“Yes,” Win said. “You are.” He rested his foot against the broken tibia. That was enough.
“Okay, okay. Like I said, they was six of us. Three brothers, two white dudes, one chink.”
Equal opportunity rapists.
“One was the place kicker. Guy named Tommy Wu. Then there was Ed Woods, Bobby Taylor, Willie and me.”
“That’s five.”
Horty hesitated. “Give me a break, man. The other dude was the one who threw away the panties. But he’s a friend, man. Still gives me money when I’m down, you know. I can’t just give him up. He’s big-time.”
“What do you mean, big-time?”
“Plays pro ball and shit. I can’t give you his name.”
Win put the slightest pressure on the leg. Horty bucked.
“Ricky Lane.”
Myron froze. “The running back for the Jets?” Dumb question. How many Ricky Lanes who now play pro football went to Reston University?
“Yeah. Now look, man, that’s all I know.”
Win said to Myron, “Do you have any other questions for him?”
Myron shook his head.
“Then leave,” Win said.
Myron did not move.
“I said,” Win continued, “leave.”
“No.”
“You heard what he said. You’ll never convict him. He pushes drugs to kids, rapes innocent women, blackmails, steals, whatever, and laughs about it.”
Horty sat up. “What the fuck is this?”
“Leave,” Win repeated.
Myron hesitated.
“Yo, man, I told you everything I know.” There was a tremble in Horty’s voice.
Myron did not move.
Horty shouted, “Don’t leave me alone with this crazy motherfucker!”
“Leave,” Win said.
Myron shook his head. “No. I’ll stay.”
Win studied Myron. Then he nodded and approached Horty, who was trying to claw away but not getting far.
“Don’t kill him,” Myron said.
Win nodded. He went to work with the careful precision of a surgeon. His face never changed expression. If he heard Horty’s cries, he never showed it.
After a short time Myron told him to stop. Reluctantly Win stepped away.
They left.