Terese’s voice was soft. “It’s not important.”
“What makes you say that?”
She was silent, her breathing a little more hitched again.
“Terese?”
“Sometimes,” she said, “a parent is to blame. But that doesn’t change anything. Because either way—your fault or not—your child is gone and that’s all that matters.”
More silence.
Myron broke it. “You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Sophie Mayor told me that the worst part was the not knowing.”
“She’s wrong,” Terese said.
Myron wanted to ask her more, but she got out of bed then. When she came back, they made love again—languid and bittersweet, as the song says—both feeling loss, both searching for something in the moment or at least settling for the numb.
They were still snarled in the sheets when the phone woke Myron early in the morning. He reached over her head and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“What’s so important?”
It was FJ. Myron quickly sat up.
“We need to chat,” Myron said.
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Starbucks,” FJ said. “And Myron?”
“What?”
“Tell Win to stay outside.”
Chapter 31
FJ sat alone at the same table. He had his legs crossed at the knee and sipped as if maybe there were something in the bottom of the cup he wanted no part of. A bit of foam clung to his upper lip. His face was clean and wax-treatment smooth. Myron checked for Hans and Franz or some new goons, but nobody was there. FJ smiled and as always, something cold scrambled down Myron’s back.
“Where’s Win?” FJ asked.
“Outside,” Myron said.
“Good. Have a seat.”
“I know why Clu signed with you, FJ.”
“Care for an iced latte? You take it skim, correct?”
“It was bugging the hell out of me,” Myron said. “Why would Clu sign with you? Don’t get me wrong. He had every reason to leave MB. But he knew about TruPro’s reputation. Why would he go there?”
“Because we offer a valuable service.”
“At first I figured it was a gambling or drug debt. It’s how your dad always worked. He gets his hooks into someone, and then he gnaws on the carcass. But Clu was clean. And he had plenty of cash. So that wasn’t it.”
FJ put his elbow on the table and leaned his chin against his palm. “This is so fascinating, Myron.”
“It gets better. When I ran off to the Caribbean, you were keeping tabs on me. Because of the whole Brenda Slaughter situation. You even admitted it when I first got back, remember? You knew I’d been visiting the cemetery.”
“A very poignant moment for us all,” FJ agreed.
“When I vanished, you still wanted to keep tabs on me. If anything, my disappearance probably piqued your curiosity. You also saw an opening for TruPro, but that’s not here or there. You wanted to know where I was. But I wasn’t around. So you did the next best thing: You followed Esperanza, my partner and closest friend.”
FJ made a clucking noise. “And here I thought Win was your closest friend.”
“They both are. But that’s not the point. Following Win would be too difficult. He’d spot the tail before you even had him in place. So you followed Esperanza instead.”
“I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Clu’s decision to improve his representation.”
“I was missing. You knew that. You took advantage. You called my clients, telling them that I’d abandoned them.”
“Was I wrong?”
“I don’t care about that now. You saw a weakness and you exploited it. You couldn’t help yourself. It’s how you were raised.”
“Ouch.”
“But the important thing here is that you were following Esperanza, hoping she’d lead you to me or at least give you a clue to how long I’d be gone. You followed her out to New Jersey. And you stumbled upon something you were never supposed to learn.”
His smile was positively wet. “And what would that be?”
“Wipe that smile off your face, FJ. You’re no better than a peeping Tom. Even your father wouldn’t stoop that low.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised how low my father would stoop.”
“You’re a pervert, and worse, you used what you learned as leverage against a client. Clu went nuts when Bonnie threw him out. He had no idea why. But now you knew. So you made a deal with him. He signs with TruPro, he learns the truth about his wife.”
FJ leaned back, recrossed the legs, folded his hands, and placed them on his lap. “Quite a spin, Myron.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
FJ tilted his head in a maybe-yes, maybe-no fashion. “Let me tell you how I see it,” he began. “Clu Haid’s old agency, MB SportsReps, was clearly screwing him. In every way. His agent—that would be you, Myron—abandoned him when he needed him most. Your partner—that would be the lovely and rather lithe Esperanza—was engaging in a lick fest with his wife. True?”
Myron said nothing.
FJ unfolded the hands, took a sip of foam, refolded the hands. “What I did,” he continued, “was take Clu Haid out of this awful situation. I brought him to an agency that would not abuse his trust. An agency that would look out for his interests. One of the ways we do that is through information. Valuable information. So the client understands what is happening to him. That’s part of an agent’s job, Myron. One of our agencies engaged in questionable ethics here. And it wasn’t TruPro.”
It was a reverse spin, but it was also true. One day, when Myron had the time to dwell upon them, the words would undoubtedly wound. But not now.
“So you admit it?”
FJ shrugged.
“But if you were following Esperanza, you know she didn’t do it.”
Again the head tilt. “Do I?”
“Stop playing games with me, FJ.”
“Please hold a moment.” FJ took out his cell phone and dialed a number. He stood, walked toward the corner, chatted. He put the phone between his shoulder and ear, took out a pen and paper, jotted something down. He hung up and returned to the table.
“You were saying?”
“Did Esperanza do it?”
He smiled. “You want the truth?”