Live Wire (Myron Bolitar 10)

“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 cliché that white people can’t dance, but the cliché 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.

“He was at the gate? You must have set off a sensor when you drove in. He’s normally inside.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s not exactly chummy.”

“You’ve seen him before?”

“I don’t know,” Lex said a little too quickly. “Look, Gabriel doesn’t like me talking about his security. Like I said, he’s paranoid. Forget it; it’s not important.”

Fine with Myron. He wasn’t here to learn about the lifestyle of a rock star. “You want a drink?”

“Nah, we’re working late tonight.”

“So why are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding. We’re working. This is how we always do it. Gabriel and I holed up alone in his studio. Making music.” He glanced back at the two big bodyguards. “So what are you doing here, Myron? I already told you: I’m fine. This doesn’t concern you.”

“This isn’t about just you and Suzze anymore.”

Lex sighed, sat back. He, like lots of aging rockers, had the emaciated thing going on, with skin like weathered tree bark. “What, it’s about you all of a sudden?”

“I want to know about Kitty.”

“Dude, I’m not her keeper either.”

“Just tell me where she is, Lex.”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“You don’t have an address or a phone number?”

Lex shook his head.

“So how did she end up with you at Three Downing?”

“Not just her,” Lex said. “There were, what, a dozen of us.”

“I don’t care about the others. I’m asking how Kitty ended up with you guys.”

“Kitty is an old friend,” Lex said with an exaggerated shrug. “She called out of the blue and said she could use a night out. I told her where we were.”

Myron looked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”