Chapter Thirty-Four

The only way to get to Win's secret space was via the private elevator. There was no button to call the elevator. You could only access it with a key. Once inside the elevator, there was no button that would take you down below street level—you had to put the right code into the keypad. Myron always typed in the code very slowly for fear that if he got a number wrong, the elevator might self-destruct or the walls would slowly start closing in like the garbage disposal scene in Star Wars.

Win liked his gadgets.

Myron hit the lower floor. The elevator doors opened. Myron never knew what to call the room. Win's gym? Workout room? Training space? Exercise area? All felt inadequate. There were the expected items you'd find in a classic workout gym—weights, barbells, pull-down-type machines, leg presses, a heavy bag, a Wing Chun fighting dummy, that kind of thing. The lights were kept low, giving the place a cave-like atmosphere. Right now, Win was barefoot and shirtless, sweating, running through a series of traditional katas. Win trains every day. His origin story is nothing as dramatic as Batman's (murder of his parents) or Spider-Man's (insect bite mixed with murder of his uncle), but when he was young, Win had felt unsafe and scared—the details are best saved for another time—and so he decided that he never wanted to feel that way again. That meant constant learning and training. He has studied with master fighters and top-level weapons experts from around the world. He is almost supernaturally knowledgeable about pretty much every hand-to-hand fighting discipline, knows his way around various blades better than anyone Myron knew, was a marksman with handguns and more than adequate with riflery. Win is always armed, though perhaps not right now where he was only wearing some kind of bathing-suit-like shorts. The room temperature was set at ninety degrees.

"A moment," Win said, continuing through the kata, a flowing dance of kicks, blocks, blows, somehow both violent and meditative, "unless you want to join in."

Over the years, Myron had trained with Win, most notably in tae kwon do and street fighting. It wasn't a competition between them, but it would be hard to say who would come out victorious in a real fight. Win was smarter, more knowledgeable, better trained, more ruthless. Myron was bigger, stronger, and had the reflexes of an elite athlete.

"Pass," Myron said.

"A sparring session. A quick workout. A hot shower. You'll feel better."

No doubt. "You said you needed to see me."

Win finished the kata with a flourish, moving both hands and feet at blurring speeds. When he finished, he bowed to a mirror (not surprisingly, Win's workout space had lots of mirrors), grabbed a towel and a bottle of room-temperature water. Win didn't believe in drinking cold water when he worked out.

"Kabir is still tracking down Greg's basketball game in Wallkill," Win said, "but so far, no one remembers playing with him."

Win filled Myron in on what Kabir had told him at the Frick. Myron listened. He didn't like it. Myron had played in basketball pickup games his whole life. Pickup games were celestial, magic, nirvana, a place where everyone starts anew, where your wealth or status are meaningless, where your game matters and only your game, where you can suddenly form a bond and even a friendship with people you've never met before. You didn't know what your fellow players did for a living. You didn't know if they were married or had kids or anything about them, except that maybe they couldn't dribble with their weak hand or they played too lax on defense or man, could they jump high for a rebound. They were Ronnie or Ace or TJ or if there were two guys with the same name, they'd be Big Jim and Little Jim, and most of the time, even if you played with the guys for years, you might not know their last name. Because it didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the game. It was childish and warm and competitive and a bubble. There was the stale smell of a small gym, the dribbling of the ball, the squeaks of sneakers on the wood floor. You called out screens and high-fived and argued whether the contact constituted calling a foul and most of the time, nah, forget it and get payback on the next play.

But even when Myron dialed his game back, even when he saw the competition was not good enough for him to go more than 20 or 30 percent, the other players still knew—this guy had game. This guy was great. Myron could never hide that.

And neither could someone like Greg.

It was bothersome, no doubt, but when Win finished, Myron said, "You didn't text me about Greg's basketball game."

"No, I did not."

"So?"

"Jeremy Downing is not in the military."

It took a few seconds for Myron to register what Win said. "Wait, what?"

"After you told me that Jeremy had not flown in from overseas, I began an extensive background check on him."

"On him," Myron repeated.

"Yes."

"On my son. You ran an extensive background check on my son."

Win put a black long-sleeved shirt over his head. "Is this how we are going to do this?"

Myron said nothing.

"You say he's your son, I remind you that it's only biological, that you barely know him, you say that doesn't matter, that I should have asked you before I did anything like this, I say there is no harm in doing a background check, that if I found nothing you would be none the wiser, you say yes but you should have, I interrupt you and remind you that there is no one on this planet I care about more than you, that I would never do anything to harm you, that whatever I do, I do to protect you because I love you. Is that how we are going to have to play this?"

Myron shook his head. "You're something."

"I am. Can we skip past all that now?"

Myron nodded. "We can. But one thing first."

"Go on."

"You gave up Bo without telling me. Then you did a background check on Jeremy without telling me. This keeping things from me—it needs to stop."

Win considered that. "You are correct. I will stop."

Nothing more bizarre than a reasonable Win. "So tell me what you found," Myron said.

"Jeremy did indeed serve in the military in various elite and clandestine divisions. Just as he told us. But he was discharged three years ago."

"Voluntarily?"

"I don't know yet. This is the top echelon of our military apparatus. There is intentional misdirection and confusion in any kind of records."

"So maybe he's still there," Myron said. "Maybe saying he was discharged is a cover."

"It could be," Win said.

"But you don't think so."

"His discharge wasn't announced. I had to dig deep to find it."

Win picked up a barbell and started to do Zottman curls. The up move is a standard bicep curl, but then you flip your wrist so that the downward move, slow and under control, works the forearms.

"Jeremy also lives in New Orleans under the pseudonym Paul Simpson. ‘Paul' works in IT at a Dillard's department store in nearby Gretna."

"Again: Could be a cover," Myron said.

"Again: Could be indeed. I draw no conclusions. We report, you decide."

Myron frowned. "You did not just say that."

"I wish I hadn't now that I think about it. Either way, Kabir will continue to dig unless you tell me to call him off."

Myron thought about it. "There's probably nothing to this."

"Then there's no reason not to continue," Win said. His watch vibrated. He checked it. "Sadie just landed."

"You loaned her your plane?"

"Not loaned. Chartered. I will bill her for it, and she in turn will bill Greg Downing."

"Makes sense. How did she hook up with Bo Storm?"

"This will interest you," Win said. "She got a call from our hefty friend Spark Konners."

"Bo's brother."

"You felt bad about that, didn't you?"

"Conning Spark into coming under the pretense of a job offer and then holding him against his will?" Myron asked. "Yeah, a little."

"So you recommended his services to Chaz."

"I asked Chaz to interview him. That a problem?"

"Not for me, no. Apparently, when Bo was released by Joey the Toe's men, Spark flew into Vegas to help."

"Help how?"

"I don't know. Be a supportive brother. You might be able to ask him yourself. He and Bo just landed with Sadie. Oh, one other thing. The Vegas DA's office says it will look very closely at Joey's conviction, but they denied pressuring Bo into lying."

"Not surprising," Myron said. "It's not like they would just admit it."

"True, but they claim to have audiotapes, proving that Bo Storm is lying. In fact—and this is where it gets interesting—they claim the only reason they homed in on Joseph Turant in the first place was because Bo claimed he saw Joey that night."

Myron thought about that. "A lot of moving parts."

"Yes."

Myron's phone rang. He checked the caller ID and looked up at Win.

Win spread his hands. "Well?"

"It's Jeremy."

Myron clicked the answer button. "Jeremy?"

"I assume you saw Sadie's press conference."

There was a lilt in Jeremy's voice.

"I did, yeah."

"I just talked to her on the phone. They're going to release Dad in a few hours."

Dad.

"Yeah, that's great."

"I'm coming back."

"To New York?"

"Yes."

Myron switched hands. Win had moved to a corner to give Myron space. He was doing push-ups on closed fists, his body a perfect plank.

"Didn't you just get home?"

"Yeah, but I didn't expect this to happen this fast. I want to be there for him."

"I understand," Myron said.

"I want to thank you. For helping him and all."

"You're welcome," Myron said.

There was a brief silence.

"Something wrong, Myron?"

Win was still doing push-ups. His torso moved up and down with piston-machine-like precision. He did three sets of one hundred, twice a week. "If you do more than that," Win had explained, "you will injure your rotator cuff."

"Where are you coming in from?" Myron asked.

"I told you before—"

"Classified, I remember." Then: "Are you still in the military?"

Silence. Long silence.

"Or were you discharged three years ago?"

More silence.

"Are you still in the military," Myron continued, "or do you work IT at Dillard's department store?"

Still more silence. Myron's grip on the phone tightened.

Finally, Jeremy said, "You've been busy."

"Do you want to explain?"

"Over a phone? No, I don't think so."

"When you arrive?"

"Sure," Jeremy said. Then: "Myron?"

"Yes?"

"You're probably expecting me to get all indignant and snap, ‘How dare you dig into my past' or ‘I can't believe you don't trust your own son' or something like that."

Myron nodded. Of course, Jeremy couldn't see it, so it was more to himself. But that was exactly what he'd been thinking.

"I'm not upset. I get why you did it. We'll talk about it when I see you, okay?"

"Okay."

"So don't worry," Jeremy said. "It's all good."