you. You didn’t ask for that. But you played a part in her leaving.”
“Why are you bringing this all up?”
She shook her head. “You’re the one who’s bringing it all up. Your entire past. Jessica and now basketball. You want us to watch you go through all this again, but we won’t.”
“Go through what?”
But she didn’t answer. Instead she asked, “Do you want to know why I didn’t go see you play last night?”
He nodded, still not facing her. His cheeks felt flush and hot.
“Because with Jessica, at least there’s a
“I can handle it,” he said, hearing those words yet again.
She said nothing.
Myron stared off. He barely heard the phone ring. Neither one of them moved to answer it. “You think I should drop this?” he asked.
“Yes. I agree with Emily. She’s the one who betrayed him. You were just a handy tool. If what happened somehow poisoned their relationship, it was her doing. It was her decision. You don’t owe Greg Downing a thing.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true,” he said, “that bond is still there.”
“Bullshit,” Esperanza said. “That’s just a load of pedantic, macho bullshit. You’re just proving my point. There’s no bond anymore, if there ever was one. Basketball hasn’t been a part of your life for a decade. The only reason you think the bond is still there is because you’re playing again.”
There was a loud pounding on the door. The frame shook and almost gave way. Myron startled upright. “Who’s manning the phones?” he asked.
Esperanza smiled.
“Oh no.”
“Come in,” Esperanza said.
The door opened. Myron’s feet fell to the floor. Though he had seen her many times before, his jaw still dropped open. Big Cyndi ducked in. She was mammoth. Six-five and over three hundred pounds. Cyndi wore a white T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off at the biceps. Her arms were the envy of Hulk Hogan. Her makeup was more garish than it had been in the ring. Her hair was purple spikes; her mascara was also purple though a darker shade than her hair. Her lipstick was a red smear. Cyndi looked like something out of
“Hi, Cyndi,” Myron tried.
Cyndi growled. She held up her middle finger, turned, stepped back through the door, closed it.
“What the—”
“She’s telling you to pick up line one,” Esperanza said.
“Cyndi’s answering phones?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t talk!”
“In person. On the phone she’s very good.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Pick up the phone and stop whining.”
Myron did so. It was Lisa, their contact at New York Bell. Most people think that only the police can get phone records. Not true. Almost every private eye in the country has a contact at their local phone company. It’s just a matter of simply paying someone off. A month’s phone records can cost you anywhere from one thousand to five thousand dollars. Myron and Win had met Lisa during their days with the feds. She didn’t take money, but they always took care of her in some way or another. “I got what Win wanted,” Lisa said.
“Go ahead.”
“The call at nine eighteen P.M. came from a public phone located in a diner near Dyckman Street and Broadway,” she said.
“Isn’t that up near Two Hundredth Street?”
“I think so. You want the phone number?”
Carla had called Greg from a diner on 200th Street? Weirder and weirder. “If you have it.”
She gave it to him. “Hope that helps.”
“It does, Lisa. Thanks.” He held up the paper to Esperanza. “Lookie what I got,” he said. “A real live clue.”
Chapter 11
To be fair, the Parkview Diner lived up to its name. You did indeed have a view of Lieutenant William Tighe Park across the street; it was smaller than the average backyard with shrubs so high you really couldn’t see the landscaped garden within. A wire-mesh fence enclosed the grounds. Hung on the fence in several places were signs that read in big, bold letters: DO NOT FEED THE RATS. No joke. In smaller print the warning was repeated in Spanish:
He crossed the street. Two levels above the Parkview Diner, a dog squeezed his head through the grates of a fire escape and barked at passing pedestrians. The Parkview’s green overhang was ripped in several spots. The letters were faded to the point of unintelligibility, and the support pole was bent so far that Myron had to duck to get to the door. There was a poster of a gyro sandwich in the window. Today’s specials, according to a blackboard in the same window, included eggplant parmigiana and chicken a la king. The soup was beef consomme. There were permits from the City of New York Department of Buildings stuck on the door like car-inspection decals.
Myron entered and was immediately greeted by the familiar yet nonspecific smell of a Manhattan diner. Fat was in the air. Taking a deep breath felt as if it would clog an artery. A waitress with hair bleached to the point of straw offered him a table. Myron asked her for the manager. Using her pencil she pointed over her shoulder at a man behind the counter.
“That’s Hector,” she said. “He owns the place.”
Myron thanked her and grabbed a soda-fountain stool at the counter. He debated spinning himself in the seat and decided the act might be viewed as immature. Two stools to his right, an unshaven, perhaps homeless man with black Thom McAn sneakers and a tattered overcoat smiled and nodded. Myron nodded and smiled back. The man went back to his coffee. He raised his shoulders and huddled into the drink as though he suspected someone might try to swipe it in mid-sip.
Myron picked up a vinyl menu with cracked binding. He opened it but didn’t really read it. There were a lot of worn index cards jammed into protective plastic cases announcing various specials. Worn was an apt description of the Parkview Diner, but it didn’t fairly convey the overall impression. There was something welcoming and even clean about this place. The counter gleamed. So did the utensils and the silver milk shake maker and the soda fountain. Most patrons read a newspaper or gabbed with one another as if they were eating at home. They knew their waitress’s name, and you could bet your last dollar she didn’t introduce herself and tell them she was going to be their server when they first sat down.
Hector the owner was busy at the grill. Almost two P.M. It wasn’t the height of the lunch hour, but business was still pretty brisk. He barked out some orders in Spanish, his eyes never leaving the food. Then he turned around with a polite smile, wiped his hands on a rag, and asked Myron if he could help him. Myron asked if he had a pay phone.
“No, sir, I’m sorry,” Hector answered. The Hispanic accent was there, but Hector had worked on it. “There’s one on the street corner. On the left.”
Myron looked at the number Lisa had given him. He read it out loud. Hector did several things at the same
