'Supertramp, Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers—'
'Not to mention Wham.'
'They break up and then they never make anything decent on their own. They flounder around and end up a segment of VH-1's
'We're getting off the subject.'
Esperanza handed him a slip of paper. 'Here's the office number for Susan Lex, Dennis's older sister.'
Myron read the number like it was in code and might mean something. 'I had another thought.'
'What's that?'
'If Dennis Lex exists, then he had to have gone to school, right?'
'Maybe.'
'So let's see if we can find out where the Children Lex schooled — public, private, whatever.'
Esperanza frowned. 'You mean like college?'
'Start there, yes. Not that siblings go to the same school, but maybe they did. Or maybe they all went to Ivy League schools. Something like that. You might want to start with high school. It's more likely that they all went to the same one.'
'And if I don't find any record of him in high school?'
'Go back even further.'
She crossed her legs, folded her arms. 'How far?'
'As far as you can.'
'And what good will this exercise in futility do us?'
'I want to know when Dennis Lex fell off the radar screen. Did people know him in high school? In college? In grad school?'
She did not look impressed. 'And assuming I somehow manage to find, say, his elementary school, what exactly is that going to do for us?'
'Damn if I know. I'm grasping at straws here.'
'No, you're asking
'Then don't do it, Esperanza, okay? It was just a thought.'
'Nah,' she said with a wave of her hand. 'You may be right.'
Myron put his palms on his desk, arched his back, looked left, looked right, looked up, looked down.
'What?' she said.
'You said I may be right. I'm waiting for the world as we know it to end.'
'Good one,' Esperanza said, standing. 'I'll see what I can dig up.'
She left the room. Myron picked up the telephone and dialed Susan Lex's number. The receptionist transferred the call, and a woman identifying herself as Ms. Lex's secretary picked it up. She had a voice like a steel-wool tire over gravel.
'Ms. Lex does not see people she doesn't know.'
'It's a matter of grave importance,' Myron said.
'Perhaps you did not hear me the first time.' Classic Battle-ax. 'Ms. Lex does not see people she doesn't know.'
'Tell her it's about Dennis.'
'Excuse me?'
'Just tell her that.'
Battle-ax put Myron on hold without another word. Myron listened to a Muzak version of Al Stewart's 'Time Passages.' Myron had thought the original was Muzak-y enough, thank you very much.
The battle-ax came back with a snap. 'Ms. Lex does not see people she doesn't know.'
'I've been thinking about that, but it doesn't really make sense.'
'Excuse me?'
'I mean, at some time she must see people she doesn't know — otherwise she'd never meet anybody new. And if we follow my logic, how did you ever get to see her for the first time? She was willing to see you before she knew you, right?'
'I'm hanging up now, Mr. Bolitar.'
'Tell her I know about Dennis.'
'I just—'
'Tell her if she doesn't agree to see me, I'll go to the press.'
Silence. 'Hold.' A click and then the Muzak came back on. Time passed. So, mercifully, did 'Time Passages,' replaced by the Alan Parsons Project's 'Time.' Myron nearly slipped into a coma.
Battle-ax returned. 'Mr. Bolitar?'
'Yes?'
'Ms. Lex will give you five minutes of her time. I have an opening on the fifteenth of next month.'
'No good,' Myron said. 'It has to be today.'
'Ms. Lex is a very busy woman.'
'Today,' Myron said.
'That simply will not be possible.'
'At eleven. If I'm not let in, I go immediately to the press.'
'You're being terribly rude, Mr. Bolitar.'
'To the press,' Myron repeated. 'Do you understand?'
'Yes.'
'Will you be there?'
'What possible difference could that make?'
'All this sexual tension is driving me batty. Maybe afterward we could get together for a nice cool latte.'
He heard the phone go click and smiled. The charm, he thought. It's baaaaack.
Esperanza buzzed in. 'Topless tennis, anyone?'
'What?'
'I got Suzze T on line one.'
He hit a button. 'Hey, Suzze.'
'Hey, Myron, what's shaking?'
'I got an offer for you to refuse.'
'You mean you're going to hit on me?'
The charm suffers a setback. 'Where are you going to be this afternoon?'
'Same place as now,' she said. 'The Morning Mosh. You know it?'
'No.'
She gave him the address, and Myron agreed to meet her there in a few hours. He hung up the phone and leaned back.
' 'Sow the seeds,'' he said out loud.
He stared at the wall. An hour to kill before he headed over to the Lex Building on Fifth Avenue. He could sit here and think about life and maybe contemplate his navel. No, too much of that already. He swiveled his seat to the computer, double-clicked the proper icon, connected to the Net. He tried Yahoo first and typed sow the seeds into the search field. Only one hit: a Web site for the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners. They went by the acronym SLUG. Tough guys probably. A gang. Probably wore green bandannas and engaged in drive-by waterings.
He tried Alta Vista's search engine next, but they listed 2,501 Web pages. It was kinda like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Yahoo's search was toooo small. Alta Vista's was toooo big. They didn't have LEXIS-NEXIS at the office, but Myron tried a less powerful media engine. He typed in the same three words and pressed the return key, and bammo.
http://vwvw.nyherald.com/archives/9800322
Myron hit the link and the article came up:
New York Herald
THE MIND OF TERROR — YOUR DARKEST FEAR
