Think Twice

Three officers lifted a stunned Greg to a standing position. As they hustled him out the kitchen door, Myron shouted out reminders for Greg not to say anything. Shocked, Greg didn’t so much as nod. Grace started to follow, but an officer blocked her path.

Grace glared over her shoulder at Myron. “You brought them to our door.”

Myron opened his mouth to defend himself, but Grace pushed past the officer and rushed out the back.

Beluga slapped Myron on the back. “Tough break, pal.”

“Were you following me?” Myron asked.

“We don’t discuss our methods,” Beluga said, the smug smirk firmly locked on his smooth, pale face, “so I can neither confirm nor deny that we tracked your movements to Nevada and Montana and eventually here.”

Myron bit back a rejoinder and asked, “Who authorized the tail?”

“I think his name was...” Beluga looked up in the sky as though in deep thought, tapped his chin with his index finger for emphasis... “Special Agent Lick My Balls. Who cares anyway? You were about to call us, right? A law-’n’-order guy like you, Bolitar, would never harbor a wanted fugitive. That’s a crime, you know.”

The next few hours and indeed days passed in something of a blur.

Greg was denied bail. The prosecutor started in with the “if he were poor or marginalized, he would never get bail” optics argument, and while that may be true, the judge seemed far more persuaded by the fact that Greg Downing had been off the grid for five years and even faked his own death to stay that way. There was no way to make a convincing argument that Greg wasn’t a huge flight risk. Perhaps someone as skilled as Hester Crimstein, the famed trial attorney and host of television’s Crimstein on Crime, could have gotten him off, but Hester, who had gone to law school with Myron’s mother, wouldn’t take the case.

Hester had been Myron’s first call:

“He needs a good lawyer,” Myron had told her. “The best.”

“Oh my, you called me the best. I’m now a malleable puppet who will bend to your will from all your charming flattery, bubbe.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“No, sorry, this case isn’t for me.”

“It’s going to be a huge story. Worldwide press.”

“And, what, you think I’m some attention-seeking media whore?”

Crickets. Crickets.

“Well, yeah, sure, okay, I am. But not this time.”

“Why not?”

“I’m down in Miami on vacation. Did your mother tell you we’re having lunch on Thursday?”

“You can fly up for the arraignment and right back down. Win can send his plane.”

“Not going to happen. I’m too old for that.” Then Hester hesitated, something she almost never did, and added, “And I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like him, okay? There. I said it.”

“You never even met him.”

“But I know what he did to you.”

“That was a million years ago,” Myron said. “I did worse.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I forgave him.”

“I didn’t,” Hester said. “You’re my guy, not him. And may I give you a piece of advice?”

“I think I know what it is.”

“I’ll say it anyway. Your relationship with this guy is what the kids today call toxic. Now let’s forget all that because I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell me the truth,” Hester said. “How’s Mom doing anyway?”

Myron swallowed. He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. “I don’t know.”

Hester heard the thickness in his voice. “It’s okay,” she said softly.

“They don’t tell me everything.”

“They don’t want you to worry.”

“I’d prefer to.”

“But they don’t want that. Your mother and father. That’s a parent’s prerogative. You have to respect that. You know I love your mother like a sister.”

“I know.”

“And you like a nephew. But this Greg Downing business? It just isn’t our fight. I’ll call you after I see them.”

In the end it didn’t matter that Hester wouldn’t take the case. When Myron tried to reach him, Greg wouldn’t talk to him. He wouldn’t see him. The media attention surrounding the case, as expected, was overwhelming. Not only had a former basketball star faked his own death — but now he was accused of murdering a supermodel who had once graced the covers of Vogue and Cosmo. It made for juicy headlines and snarky social media posts. The story trended everywhere. No one knew any of the details, but that never stopped anyone online from voicing fully formed opinions of guilt or innocence.

Myron was staying at Win’s place on Central Park West. By the time he arrived it was close to midnight. Win was waiting for him in the parlor. Parlor, Myron had learned, was what rich people called a den or living room.

“Cognac?” Win asked.

“Why not?”

“Because for one thing you never drink cognac.”

“It’s a new me,” Myron said. Then, thinking about his parents’ last phone call: “Got an edible?”

“Is that a joke?”

“My parents swear by them.”

“Your parents are rarely wrong,” Win said. “I can get us some.”

“Nah, a cognac will be fine.”

“Good man.”