“A male someone?”
“Myron…”
“Sorry. Old reflex.” He looked at her left hand. His heart back-flipped when he saw no rings. “You never married what’s-his-name?” he asked.
“Doug.”
“That’s right. Doug. Or was it Dougie?”
“You’re making fun of someone’s name?”
Myron shrugged. She had a point. “So what happened to him?”
Her eyes studied a beer ring on the bar. “It wasn’t about him,” she said. “You know that.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. Rehashing the bitter past was not going to do any good. “So what brings you back to the city?”
“I’m going to be teaching a semester at NYU.”
His heart sped up again. “You moved back to Manhattan?”
“Last month.”
“I’m really sorry about your father’s-”
“We got your flowers,” she interrupted.
“I wanted to do more.”
“Better you didn’t.” She finished her drink. “I have to go. It was nice seeing you.”
“I thought you were meeting someone.”
“My mistake, then.”
“I still love you, you know.”
She stood, nodded.
“Let’s try again,” he said.
“No.”
She walked away.
“Jess?”
“What?”
He considered telling her about her sister’s picture in the magazine. “Can we have lunch sometime?” he asked. “Just talk, okay?”
“No.”
Jessica turned and left him. Again.
Windsor Horne Lockwood III listened to Myron’s story with his fingers steepled. Steepling looked good on Win, a lot better than on Myron. When Myron finished, Win said nothing for a few moments, doing more of that steepled-hands-concentration thing. Finally he rested his hands on the desk.
“My, my, haven’t we had a special day?”
Myron rented his space from his old college roommate, Windsor Horne Lockwood III. People often said that Myron looked nothing like his name-an observation Myron took as high praise; Windsor Horne Lockwood III, however, looked exactly like his name. Blond hair, perfect length, parted on the right side. His features were classical patrician, almost too handsome, like something crafted in porcelain.
His attire was always thoroughbred prep-pink shirts, polo shirts, monogrammed shirts, khaki pants, golf (read, ugly) pants, white bucks (Memorial Day to Labor Day) or wing tips (Labor Day to Memorial Day) on his feet. Win even had that creepy accent, the one that did not originate from any particular geographical location as much as from certain prep schools like Andover and Exeter. (Win had gone to Exeter.) He played a mean game of golf. He had a three handicap and was the fifth-generation member of stuffy Merion Golf Club in Philadelphia and third- generation at equally stuffy Pine Valley in southern New Jersey. He had a perennial golf tan, one of those where the color could be found only on the arms (short-sleeve shirts) and a V-shape in the neck (open alligator shirt), though Win’s lily-white skin never tanned. It burned.
Win was full-fledged whitebread. He made star quarterback Christian Steele look like a Mediterranean houseboy.
Myron had hated Windsor on sight. Most people did. Win was used to it. People liked to form and keep an immediate impression. In Win’s case that impression was old money, elitist, arrogant-in a phrase, a flaming asshole. There was nothing Win could do about it. People who relied solely on first impressions meant little to him.
Win gestured to the magazine on his desk. “You chose not to tell Jessica about this?”
Myron stood, paced, and then sat back down. “What was I going to say? ‘Hi, I love you, come back to me, here’s a photo of your supposedly dead sister advertising a sex phone in a porno mag?’ ”
Win thought a moment. “I’d refine the wording a bit,” he said.
He flipped through the porno rag, his eyebrow arched as if to say Hmmm. Myron watched. He had decided not to tell Win about Chaz Landreaux or the incident in the garage. Not yet anyway. Win had a funny way of reacting when someone tried to hurt Myron. It wasn’t always pretty. Better to save it for later, when Myron would know exactly how he wanted to handle Roy O’Connor. And Aaron.
Win dropped the magazine on his desk. “Shall we begin?”
“Begin what?”
“Investigating. That is what you planned for us, correct?”
“You want to help?”
Win smiled. “But of course.” He turned his phone around so that it faced Myron. “Dial.”
“The number in the magazine?”
“Well, golly, Myron, I thought we’d call the White House,” Win said dryly. “See if we can get Hillary to talk dirty.”
Myron took hold of the phone. “You ever call one of these lines?”
“I?” Win feigned shock. “The Debutantes’ Darling? The Society Stud? Surely you jest.”
“Neither have I.”
“Perhaps you’d like to be alone, then,” Win said. “Loosen your belt, pull down your trousers, that kind of thing.”
“Very funny.”
Myron dialed the 900 number under Kathy’s photograph. He had made thousands of investigative calls, both during his years in the FBI and in his private work for team owners and commissioners. But this was the first time he’d felt self-conscious.
An awful beeping noise blasted his ear, followed by an operator: “We’re sorry. Your call is being blocked.”
Myron looked up. “The call won’t go through.”
Win nodded. “I forgot. We have a block on all 900 calls. Employees were calling them all the time and ringing up quite a bill-not just the sex phones but astrologers, sports lines, psychics, recipes, even dial-a-prayers.” He reached behind him and pulled out another phone. “Use this one. It’s my private line. No blocks.”
Myron redialed. The phone rang twice before being picked up. A woman’s voice on tape husked, “Hello, there. You’ve reached the fantasy phone line. If you’re under eighteen or do not wish to pay for this call, please hang up now.” Less than a second passed before she continued. “Welcome to the fantasy phone line, where you can talk to the sexiest, most willing, most beautiful, most desirous women in the world.”
Myron noticed that the taped voice was speaking far more slowly now, as if she were reading to a kindergarten class. Each word was its own sentence.
“In a moment you will talk directly to one of our wondrous, gorgeous, voluptuous, hot girls who are here to heighten your pleasure to new boundaries of ecstasy. One-on-one private conversation. Discreetly billed to your phone. You will talk live with your personal fantasy girl.” The voice droned on with its own form of iambic pentameter. Finally the tape gave instructions: “If you have a touch-tone phone, press one if you’d like to talk about the secret confessions of a naughty schoolteacher. Press two if…”
Myron looked up at Win. “How long have I been on?”
“Six minutes.”
“Twenty-four dollars already,” Myron said. “Does the term ‘total scam’ mean anything to you?”
Win nodded. “Talk about jerking off.”
