their music production level steady, and while there was some lost revenue because they couldn’t tour anymore, the record sales more than offset that.
“I’m not here to see Gabriel Wire,” Myron said.
“Good,” the guard said, “because I never heard of him.”
“I need to see Lex Ryder.”
“Don’t know him either.”
“Mind if I make a call?”
“After you turn around and leave,” the guard said, “you can have sex with Rhesus monkeys for all I care.”
Myron looked at him. There was something familiar about the man, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “You’re not your average rent-a-cop.”
“Hmm.” The guard arched an eyebrow. “Dazzling now with flattery on top of the smile?”
“Double dazzle.”
“If I were a hot chick, I’d probably be disrobing by now.”
Yep, definitely not your average rent-a-cop. He had the eyes, the mannerisms, the relaxed coil of a pro. Something here was not adding up.
“What’s your name?” Myron asked.
“Guess my answer. Go ahead. Take a wild guess.”
“Turn around and leave?”
“Bingo.”
Myron decided not to argue. He backed up, surreptitiously taking out his modified Win-spy BlackBerry. There was a zoom camera on it. He headed to the end of the drive, got the camera up, snapped a quick pic of the guard. He sent it off to Esperanza by e-mail. She’d know what to do. Then he called Buzz, who must have seen on his caller ID that it was Myron: “I’m not going to tell you where Lex is.”
“First of all, I’m fine,” Myron said. “Thanks for having my back at the club last night.”
“My job is to take care of Lex, not you.”
“Second, you don’t have to tell me where Lex is. You’re both at Wire’s place on Adiona Island.”
“How did you figure that out?”
“GPS on your phone. In fact, I’m right outside the gate now.”
“Wait, you’re already on the island?”
“Yep.”
“Doesn’t matter. You can’t get in here.”
“Really? I could call Win. If we put our minds to it, we’ll figure a way.”
“Man, you’re a pest. Look, Lex doesn’t want to go home. That’s his right.”
“Good point.”
“And you’re his agent, for crying out loud. You’re supposed to be looking out for his interests too.”
“Another good point.”
“Exactly. You’re not a marriage counselor.”
Maybe, maybe not. “I need to talk to him for five minutes.”
“Gabriel won’t let anyone in. Hell, I’m not allowed out of the guest cottage.”
“There’s a guest cottage?”
“Two. I think he keeps girls in the other one and shuffles them in one at a time.”
“Girls?”
“What, you want the more politically correct ‘women’? Hey, it’s still Wire. I don’t know their ages. Anyway, no one is allowed in the recording studio or main house except through some tunnel. It’s spooky here, Myron.”
“Do you know my sister-in-law?”
“Who’s your sister-in-law?”
“Kitty Bolitar. You might know her better as Kitty Hammer. She was at Three Downing with you guys last night.”
“Kitty’s your sister-in-law?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Buzz?”
“Hold on a second.” After a full minute had passed, Buzz came back on the phone. “You know the Teapot?”
“The town pub?”
“Lex will meet you there in half an hour.”
Myron expected the only pub on an island of the stuffy old-moneys to be like Win’s office-dark woods, burgundy leather, antique wooden globe, decanters, heavy crystal, oriental carpets, maybe paintings of a fox hunt. That wasn’t the case. The Teapot Lodge looked like a neighborhood drinking hole in a seedier section of Irvington, New Jersey. Everything looked worn. The windows were loaded up with neon beer signs. There was sawdust on the floor and a popcorn stand in the corner. There was also a small dance floor with a mirrored disco ball. “Mack the Knife” by Bobby Darin played over the sound system. The dance floor was packed. Age range: wide-from “barely legal” to “foot in grave.” The men wore either blue oxfords with sweaters tied around their shoulders or green blazers Myron had only seen on Masters golf champions. The well-kept, though not surgically or Botox enhanced, women wore pink Lilly Pulitzer tunics and blazing white trousers. The faces were ruddy from inbreeding, exertion, and drink.
Man, this island was weird.
Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” neatly segued into an Eminem and Rihanna duet about watching a lover burn and loving the way said lover lies. It is a cliche that white people can’t dance, but the cliche here was concrete and unshakable. The song may have changed, but the limited dance steps did not alter in any discernible way. Not even the rhythm or lack thereof. Too many of the men snapped when they danced, as if they were Dino and Frank performing at the Sands.
The bartender sported a receding-hairline pompadour and a suspicious smile. “Help you?” he said.
“Beer,” Myron said.
Pompadour just stared at him, waited.
“Beer,” Myron said again.
“Yes, I heard you. I just never heard someone order that before.”
“A beer?”
“Just the word ‘beer.’ It is customary to say a kind. Like Bud or Michelob or something.”
“Oh, what have you got?”
The bartender started ripping off about a million titles. Myron stopped him on the Flying Fish Pale Ale, mostly because he liked the name. The beer ended up being awesome, but Myron wasn’t much of a connoisseur. He grabbed a wooden booth near a group of lovely young, uh, girls-cum-women. It was indeed hard to tell ages anymore. The women were speaking something Scandinavian-Myron wasn’t good enough with foreign languages to know more than that. Several of the ruddy-faced men dragged them out on the dance floor. Nannies, Myron realized, or more specifically, au pairs.
A few minutes later, the pub door flew open. Two large men stomped in as though putting out small brush fires. Both wore aviator sunglasses, jeans, and a leather jacket, even though it was maybe a hundred degrees out. Aviator sunglasses inside a dark pub-talk about trying too hard. One of the men took a step left, the other a step right. The one on the right nodded.
Lex entered, looking understandably embarrassed by the bodyguard spectacle. Myron raised his hand and gave a little wave. The two bodyguards started toward him, but Lex stopped them. They didn’t look happy about it, but they stayed by the door. Lex bounced over and slid into the booth.
“Gabriel’s guys,” Lex said by way of explanation. “He insisted they come too.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a schizo who grows more paranoid by the day, that’s why.”
“By the way, who was the guy at the gate?”
“Which guy?”
Myron described him. The color ebbed from Lex’s face.
