DARKEST FEAR (14 page)

“That would be the one,” Myron said.

“I am aware of it. I am also aware of Mr. Lockwood’s”—he paused, searching for the word— “talents.”

“Then you know that if that bozo gets itchy”— Myron head-gestured toward the blazer with the gun—“you die.”

Granite Man wrestled with his facial muscles and this time he achieved a smile, though not without effort. Heart’s song “Barracuda” played in Myron’s head. “I am not without my own, uh, talents, Mr. Bolitar.”

“If you really believe that,” Myron said, “then you don’t know enough about Win’s, uh, talents.”

“I won’t debate the point. But I will point out that he doesn’t have an army like this at his disposal. Now,
are you going to tell me why you’re asking about Dennis Lex?”

“I told you,” Myron said.

“You’re really going to stick with the dying-child story?”

“It’s the truth.”

“And how did you get Dennis Lex’s name?”

“From the bone marrow center.”

“They just gave it to you?”

Myron’s turn. “I too am not without my own, uh, talents.” It somehow didn’t sound right when he said it about himself.

“So you’re saying that the bone marrow center told you that Dennis Lex was a donor—that about right?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Myron said. “Look, this is a two-way street here. I want some information.”

“Wrong,” Granite Man said. “It’s a one-way street. I’m a Mack truck. You’re like an egg in the road.”

Myron nodded. “Cutting,” he said. “But if you’re not going to give me anything, I’m not giving you anything.”

The guy with the gun stepped closer.

Myron felt a quiver in his legs, but he didn’t blink. Maybe he did overplay the wisecracks, but you don’t show fear. Ever. “And let’s not pretend you’re going to shoot me over this. We both know you won’t. You’re not that stupid.”

Granite Man smiled. “I might beat on you a bit.”

“You don’t want trouble, I don’t want trouble. I don’t care about this family or its fortune or any of that. I’m just trying to save a kid’s life.”

Granite Man played air violin for a moment. Then he said, “Dennis Lex is not your salvation.”

“And I’m just supposed to believe you?”

“He’s not your donor. That much I personally guarantee.”

“Is he dead?”

Granite Man folded his arms across his paddleball-court chest. “If you’re telling the truth, the bone marrow people either lied to you or made a mistake.”

“Or you’re lying to me,” Myron said. Then added, “Or you’re making a mistake.”

“The guards will show you out.”

“I can still go to the press.”

Granite Man walked away then. “We both know you won’t,” he said. “You’re not that stupid either.”

B
ruce Taylor was in print-journalist garb—like he’d gone to his laundry hamper and dug out whatever was on the bottom. He sat at the bar, scooped up the free pretzels, and pushed them into his mouth as though he were trying to swallow his palm.

“Hate these things,” he said to Myron.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“I’m at a bar, for crying out loud. I gotta eat something. But nobody serves peanuts anymore. Too fattening or some such crap. Pretzels instead. And not real pretzels. Little tiny buggers.” He held one up for Myron to see. “I mean, what’s up with that?”

“And the politicians,” Myron said. “They spend all that time on gun control.”

“So what do you want to drink? And don’t ask for that Yoo-Hoo crap here. It’s embarrassing.”

“What are you having?”

“The same thing I always have when you pay. Twelve-year-old Scotch.”

“I’ll just have a club soda with lime.”

“Wuss.” He ordered it. “What do you want?”

“You know Stan Gibbs?”

Bruce said, “Whoa.”

“What whoa?”

“I mean, whoa, you get involved in some hairy-ass shit, Myron. But Stan Gibbs? What the hell could you possibly have to do with him?”

“Probably nothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just tell me about him, okay?”

Bruce shrugged, took a sip of Scotch. “Ambitious s.o.b. who went too far. What else do you need to know?”

“The whole story.”

“Starting with?”

“What exactly did he do?”

“He plagiarized a story, the dumbass. That’s not unusual. But to be so stupid about it.”

“Too stupid?” Myron asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we both agree that stealing from a published novel is not only unethical but idiotic.”

“So?”

“So I’m asking if it’s
too
idiotic.”

“You think he’s innocent, Myron?”

“Do you?”

He chucked down a few more pretzels. “Hell no. Stan Gibbs is guilty as sin. And as stupid as he was, I know plenty stupider. How about Mike Barnicle? The guy steals jokes from a George Carlin book. George Carlin, for chrissake.”

“Does seem pretty stupid,” Myron agreed.

“And he’s not the only one. Look, Myron, every profession’s got their dirty laundry, right? The stuff they want swept under the rug. Cops got their blue line when one of them pounds a suspect into the earth. Doctors cover each other’s asses when they take out the
wrong gallbladder or whatever. Lawyers … well, don’t even get me started on their dirty little secrets.”

“And plagiarism is yours?”

“Not just plagiarism,” Bruce said. “Wholesale fabrication. I know reporters who make up sources. I know guys who make up dialogue. I know guys who make up whole conversations. They run stories about crack mothers and inner-city gang leaders who never existed. Ever read those columns? Ever wonder why so many drug addicts, say, sound so friggin’ poignant when they can’t even watch
Teletubbies
without a tutor?”

“And you’re saying this happens a lot?”

“Truth?”

“Preferably.”

“It’s epidemic,” Bruce said. “Some guys are lazy. Some are too ambitious. Some are just pathological liars. You know the type. They’ll lie to you about what they had for breakfast just because it comes so naturally.”

The drinks came. Bruce pointed at the empty pretzel bowl. The bartender replaced it.

“So if it’s so epidemic,” Myron said, “how come so few get caught?”

“First off, it’s hard to catch. People hide behind anonymous sources and claim people moved, stuff like that. Second, it’s like I said before. It’s our dirty little secret. We keep it buried.”

“I’d think you’d want to clean house.”

“Oh, right. Like cops want to. Like doctors want to.”

“You’re not the same thing, Bruce.”

“Let me give you a scenario, Myron, okay?” Bruce finished up his drink, and now he pointed to his glass for a refill. “You’re an editor with, say,
The New York Times.
A story is written for you. You print it. Now it’s brought to your attention that the story was fabricated or plagiarized or maybe just totally inaccurate, whatever. What do you do?”

“Retract it,” Myron said.

“But you’re the editor. You’re the dumbass responsible for its publication. You’re probably the dumbass who hired the writer in the first place. Who do you think the higher-ups are going to blame? And do you think the higher-ups are going to be happy to hear that their paper printed something false? You think the
Times
wants to lose business to the
Herald
or the
Post
or whatever? And hell, the other papers don’t even want to hear about it. The public already doesn’t trust us as an institution, right? If the truth gets out, who gets hurt? Answer: everyone.”

“So you quietly fire the guy,” Myron said.

“Maybe. But, again, you’re this editor for
The New York Times.
You fire, say, a columnist. Don’t you think a higher-up is going to want to know why?”

“So you just let it go?”

“We’re like the church used to be with pedophiles. We try to control the problem without hurting ourselves. We transfer the guy to another department. We pass the problem to someone else. Maybe we team him up with another writer. Harder to make shit up with someone looking over your shoulder.”

Myron took a sip of his club soda. Flat. “Okay, let me ask the obvious question then. How did Stan Gibbs get caught?”

“He was dumb, dumber, and dumbest. It was too high profile a piece to plagiarize like that. Not only that, but Stan rubbed the feds’ face in a public crapper and flushed. You don’t do that if you don’t have the facts, especially to the feds. My guess is he thought he was safe because the novel had a negligible print run from some shitass vanity press in Oregon. I don’t think they published more than five hundred copies of the thing, and that was more than twenty years ago. And the author was long dead.”

“But someone dug it up.”

“Yup.”

Myron thought about it. “Strange, don’t you think?”

“Most of the time I’d say yes, but not when it’s this high-profile. And once the truth was uncovered, boom, Stan was done. Every media outlet got an anonymous press release about it. The feds held a press conference. I mean, there was almost a campaign against him. Someone—probably the feds—were out for their pound of flesh. And they got it.”

“So maybe the feds were so pissed they set him up.”

“How do you figure?” Bruce countered. “The novel exists. The passages Stan copied exist. There is no way around that.”

Myron mulled that one over, looking for a way around it. Nothing came to him. “Did Stan Gibbs ever defend himself?”

“He never commented.”

“Why not?”

“The guy’s a reporter. He knew better. Look, stories like these become the worst kind of brushfire. Only way to get the fire out is to stop feeding the flame. No matter how bad, if there’s nothing new to report—nothing new to feed the flame—it dies out. People always make the mistake of thinking they can douse the flame with their words, that they’re so smart, their explanations will work like water or something. It’s always a mistake to talk to the press. Everything—even wonderfully worded denials—feed the flames and keep it stoked.”

“But doesn’t silence make you look guilty?”

“He
is
guilty, Myron. Stan could only get himself in more trouble by talking. And if he hung around and tried to defend himself, someone would dig into his past too. Mainly his old columns. All of them. Every fact, every quote, everything. And if you’ve plagiarized one story, you’ve plagiarized others. You don’t do it for the first time when you’re Stan’s age.”

“So you think he was trying to minimize the damage?”

Bruce smiled, took a sip. “That Duke education,” he said. “It wasn’t wasted on you.” He grabbed more pretzels. “Mind if I order a sandwich?”

“Suit yourself.”

“It’ll be worth it,” Bruce said with a suddenly big smile. “Because I haven’t yet mentioned the last little tidbit that convinced him to keep quiet.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s big, Myron.” The smile slid off his face. “Very big.”

“Fine, order fries too.”

“I don’t want this to become public knowledge, you understand?”

“Come on, Bruce. What?”

Bruce turned back to the bar. He picked up a cocktail napkin and tore it in half. “You know the feds took Stan to court to find his sources.”

“Yes.”

“The court documents were kept sealed, but there was a bit of nastiness. See, they wanted Stan to provide some sort of corroboration. Something to show he didn’t totally make the story up. He wouldn’t offer any. For a while he claimed that only the families could back him and he wouldn’t give them up. But the judge pressed. He finally admitted that there was one other person who could back his story.”

“Back up his made-up story?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“His mistress,” Bruce said.

“Stan was married?”

“Guess the word ‘mistress’ gave it away,” Bruce said. “Anyway, he was. Still is, technically, but now they’re separated. Naturally Stan was hesitant about naming her—he loved his wife, had two kids, the backyard, whatever—but in the end he gave the judge her name under the condition that it stay sealed.”

“Did the mistress back him?”

“Yes. This mistress—one Melina Garston—claimed to have been with him when he met the Sow the Seeds psycho.”

Myron’s brow creased. “Why does that name ring a bell?”

“Because Melina Garston is dead now. Tied and tortured and you don’t want to know what.”

“When?”

“Three months ago. Right after the shit hit Stan’s fan. Worse, the police think Stan did it.”

“To keep her from telling the truth?”

“Again that Duke education.”

“But that makes no sense. She was killed after the plagiarism was discovered, right?”

“Right after, yeah.”

“So it was too late by then. Everyone thinks he’s guilty already. He’s lost his job. He’s disgraced. If his mistress now comes out and says ‘Yeah, I lied,’ it wouldn’t really change a thing. What would Stan have gained by killing her?”

Bruce shrugged. “Maybe her retraction would have removed any doubt.”

“But there’s not much doubt there anyway.”

The bartender came over. Bruce ordered a sandwich. Myron shook him off. “Can you find out where Stan Gibbs is hiding?”

Bruce waved down the bartender again. “I already know.”

“How?”

“He was my friend.”

“Was or is?”

“Is, I guess.”

“You like him?”

“Yeah,” Bruce said. “I like him.”

“Yet, you still think he did it.”

“Murder, probably not. Plagiarize …” He shrugged. “I’m a cynical guy. And just because a guy is a friend of mine doesn’t mean he can’t do dumb things.”

“Will you give me his address?”

“Will you tell me why?”

Myron sipped his flat club soda. “Okay, this is the
part where you say you want to know what I have. Then I say I have nothing and when I do, you’ll be the first to know. Then you get kinda huffy and say I owe you and that’s not good enough, but in the end you take the deal. So why don’t we skip all that and just give me the address?”

“Will I still get my sandwich?”

“Sure.”

“Fine, then,” Bruce said. “Doesn’t matter. Stan hasn’t talked to anyone since he resigned—not even his close friends. What makes you think he’ll talk to you?”