ground. Not a mouse. Too big for a mouse. He cocked his head again and waited. His pulse raced. His eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness, and he could make out a few shadowy, tall figures. Statues. Lowered heads. He imagined the serene expressions of religious art on their faces, looking down at him with the knowledge they were embarking on a journey to a better place than the one in which they dwelled.
He took another step, and cold fingers of flesh grabbed his ankle.
Myron screamed.
The hand pulled and Myron fell hard against the cement. He kicked his leg loose and scrambled backward. His back slammed into more marble. A man giggled madly. Myron felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up. Another man giggled. Then another. Like a group of hyenas were encircling him.
Myron tried to get to his feet, but midway up, the men suddenly pounced. He didn’t know how many. Hands dragged him back to the floor. He threw a blind fist and connected square into a face. Myron heard a crunching sound and a man fell. But others reached their target. He found himself sprawled on the wet cement, fighting blindly and frantically. He heard grunts. The stench of body odor and alcohol was suffocating, inescapable. The hands were everywhere now. One ripped off his watch. One grabbed his wallet. Myron threw another punch. It hit ribs. Another grunt and another man fell.
Somebody turned on a flashlight and shone it into his eyes. It looked like a train heading toward him.
“Okay,” a voice said, “back off him.”
The hands slid off like wet snakes. Myron tried to sit up.
“Before you get any cute ideas,” the voice behind the flashlight said, “take a look at this.”
The voice put a gun in front of the flashlight.
Another voice said, “Sixty bucks? That’s fuckin’ all? Shit.”
Myron felt the wallet hit him in the chest.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
He did as the voice asked. Someone grabbed the forearms, pulling them closer together, tearing at the shoulder tendons. A pair of handcuffs were snapped on his wrists.
“Leave us,” the voice said. Myron heard the rustling movements. The air cleared. Myron heard a door open, but the flashlight in his eyes prevented him from seeing anything. Silence followed. After some time passed, the voice said, “Sorry to do this to you, Myron. They’ll let you go in a few hours.”
“How long you going to keep running, Cole?”
Cole Whiteman chuckled. “Been running a long time,” he said. “I’m used to it.”
“I’m not here to stop you.”
“Imagine my relief,” he said. “So how did you figure out who I was?”
“It’s not important,” Myron said.
“It is to me.”
“I don’t have any interest in bringing you down,” Myron said. “I just want some information.”
There was a pause. Myron blinked into the light. “How did you get involved in all this?” Cole asked.
“Greg Downing vanished. I was hired to find him.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
Cole Whiteman laughed deep and hearty. The sound bounced around like balls of Silly Putty, the volume reaching a frightening crescendo before mercifully fading away.
“What’s so funny?” Myron asked.
“Inside joke.” Cole stood, the flashlight rising with him. “Look, I have to go. I’m sorry.”
More silence. Cole flicked off the flashlight, plunging Myron back into total blackness. He heard footsteps receding.
“Don’t you want to know who killed Liz Gorman?” Myron called out.
The footsteps continued unimpeded. Myron heard a switch and a dim lightbulb came on. Maybe forty watts. It didn’t come close to fully illuminating the place, but it was a hell of an improvement. Myron blinked away black spots left over from the flashlight assault and examined his surroundings. The room was jammed with marble statues, lined and piled up without reason or logic, some tilted over. It wasn’t a tomb, after all. It was some bizarre, church-art storage room.
Cole Whiteman came back over to him. He sat cross-legged directly in front of Myron. The white stubble was still there—thick in some spots, completely missing in others. His hair jutted up and out in every direction. He lowered the gun to his side.
“I want to know how Liz died,” he said softly.
“She was bludgeoned with a baseball bat,” Myron said.
Cole’s eyes closed. “Who did it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Right now, Greg Downing is the main suspect.”
Cole Whiteman shook his head. “He wasn’t there long enough.”
Myron felt a knot in his stomach. He tried to lick his lips but his mouth was too dry. “You were there?”
“Across the street behind a garbage can. Like Oscar the fucking Grouch.” His lips smiled, but there was nothing behind it. “You want no one to notice you? Pretend you’re homeless.” He stood up in one fluid motion, like some kind of yoga master. “A baseball bat,” he said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, turned away, and lowered his chin to his chest. Myron could hear small sobs.
“Help me find her killer, Cole.”
“Why the fuck should I trust you?”
“Me or the police,” Myron said. “It’s up to you.”
That slowed him. “The cops won’t do shit. They think she’s a murderer.”
“Then help me,” Myron said.
He sat back down on the floor and inched a bit closer to Myron. “We’re not murderers, you know. The government labeled us that and now everyone believes it. But it’s not true. You understand?”
Myron nodded. “I understand.”
Cole gave him a hard look. “You patronizing me?”
“No.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Cole said. “You want me to stay and talk, don’t you dare patronize me. You stay honest—I’ll stay honest.”
“Fine,” Myron said. “But then don’t hand me the ‘we’re not killers, we’re freedom fighters’ line. I’m not in the mood for a verse of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’”
“You think that’s what I’m talking about?”
“You’re not being prosecuted by a corrupt government,” Myron said. “You kidnapped and killed a man, Cole. You can dress it up in all the fancy language you want, but that’s what you did.”
Cole almost smiled. “You really believe that.”
“Wait, don’t tell me; let me guess,” Myron said. He feigned looking up in thought. “The government brainwashed me, right? This whole thing has been a CIA plot to crush a dozen college students who threatened to undermine our government.”
“No,” he said. “But we didn’t kill Hunt.”
“Who did?”
Cole hesitated. He looked up and blinked back what looked like tears. “Hunt shot himself.”
His reddening eyes looked to Myron for a reaction. Myron remained still.
“The kidnapping was a hoax,” Cole went on. “The whole thing was Hunt’s idea. He wanted to hurt his old man so he figured what better way than to take his money and then embarrass the shit out of him? But then those assholes surprised us and Hunt chose another revenge.” Cole’s breathing grew deep and erratic. “He ran outside with the gun. He screamed, ‘Fuck you, Dad.’ Then he blew his own head off.”
Myron said nothing.
“Look at our history,” Cole Whiteman said, his voice a semi-plea. “We were a harmless group of stragglers. We protested at antiwar rallies. We got stoned a lot. We never committed one act of violence. None of us even had a gun, except for Hunt. He was my roommate and best friend. I could never hurt him.”
Myron didn’t know what to believe; more to the point, he didn’t have time now to worry about a twenty- year-old homicide. He waited for Cole to continue, to let him talk out the past, but Cole remained still. Finally, Myron
