“I need to ask you something a little weird,” Myron said.
“Go ahead.”
“Don’t get offended.”
“Then don’t ask me anything offensive,” Wheat said.
“Did Aimee Biel get in because of me?”
Wheat groaned. “Oh no, you did not just ask me that.”
“I need to know.”
“Oh no, you did not just ask me that.”
“Look, forget that for a second. I need you to fax me two transcripts. One for Aimee Biel. And one for Roger Chang.”
“Who?”
“He’s another student from Livingston High.”
“Let me guess. Roger didn’t get accepted.”
“He had a better ranking, better SAT scores—”
“Myron?”
“What?”
“We are not going there. Do you understand me? It’s confidential. I will not send you transcripts. I will not discuss candidates. I will remind you that acceptance is not a matter of scores or tests, that there are intangibles. As two guys who got in based much more on our ability to put a sphere through a metallic ring than rankings and test scores, we should understand that better than anyone. And now, only slightly offended, I will say good-bye.”
“Wait, hold up a second.”
“I’m not faxing you transcripts.”
“You don’t have to. I’m going to tell you something about both candidates. I just want you to look it up on the computer and make sure what I’m saying is true.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just trust me here, Wheat. I’m not asking for information. I’m asking you to confirm something.”
Wheat sighed. “I’m not in the office right now.”
“Do it when you can.”
“Tell me what you want me to confirm.”
Myron told him. And as he did, he realized that the same car had been with him since he left Riker Hill. “Will you do it?”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“Always was,” Myron said.
“Yeah, but you used to have a sweet jumper from the top of the key. Now what do you got?”
“Raw animal magnetism and supernatural charisma?”
“I’m going to hang up now.”
He did. Myron pulled the hands-free from his ear. The car was still behind him, maybe two hundred feet back.
What was up with all the car tails today? In the old days, a suitor would send flowers or candy. Myron pined for a brief moment, but now was hardly the time. The car had been on him since he left Riker Hill. That meant it was probably one of Dominick Rochester’s goons again. He thought about that. If Rochester had sent a man to follow Myron, he’d probably at the very least known or seen that Myron was with his wife. Myron debated calling Joan Rochester, letting her know, but decided against it. As Joan had pointed out, she’d been with him a long time. She’d know how to handle it.
He was on Northfield Avenue heading to New York City. He didn’t have time for this, but he needed to get rid of this tail as quickly as possible. In the movies, this would call for a car chase or a swift U-turn of some sort. That didn’t really play in real life, especially when you need to get to a place in a hurry and don’t want to attract the cops.
Still, there were ways.
The music store teacher, Drew Van Dyne, lived in West Orange, not far from here. Zorra should be in place now. Myron picked up his cell phone and called. Zorra picked up on the first ring.
“Hello, dreamboat,” Zorra said.
“I assume there’s been no activity at the Van Dyne house.”
“You assume correctly, dreamboat. Zorra just sits and sits. So boring this, for Zorra.”
Zorra always referred to herself in the third person. She had a deep voice, a thick accent, and lots of mouth phlegm. It was not a pleasant sound.
“I have a car following me,” Myron said.
“And Zorra can help?”
“Oh yes,” Myron said. “Zorra can definitely help.”
Myron explained his plan—his frighteningly simple plan. Zorra laughed and started coughing.
“So Zorra like?” Myron asked, falling, as he often did when speaking to her, into Zorra-talk.
“Zorra like. Zorra like very much.”
Since it would take a few minutes to set up, Myron took some unnecessary turns. Two minutes later, Myron took the right on Pleasant Valley Way. Up ahead, he saw Zorra standing by the pizzeria. She wore her ’30s blond wig and smoked a cigarette in a holder and looked just like Veronica Lake after a real bad bender, if Veronica Lake was six feet tall and had a Homer Simpson five o’clock shadow and was really, really ugly.
Zorra winked as Myron passed and raised her foot just a little bit. Myron knew what was in that heel. The first time they met, she had sliced his chest with the hidden “stiletto” blade. In the end, Win had spared Zorra’s life—something that surprised the heck out of Myron. Now they were all buddies. Esperanza compared it to her days in the ring when a famed bad-guy wrestler would all of a sudden turn good.
Myron used the left-turn signal and pulled to the side of the road, two blocks ahead of Zorra. He rolled down his window so he could hear. Zorra stood near an open parking spot. It was natural. The car following Myron’s pulled into the spot to see where Myron was headed. Of course, he could have stopped anywhere on the street. Zorra had been ready for that.
The rest was, as already noted, frighteningly simple. Zorra strolled over to the back of the car. She had been wearing high heels for the past fifteen years, but she still walked like a newborn colt on bad acid.
Myron watched the scene in his rearview mirror.
Zorra unsheathed the dagger in her stiletto heel. She raised her leg and stomped on the tire. Myron heard the whoosh of air. She quickly circled to the other back tire and did the same thing. Then Zorra did something that was not part of the plan.
She waited to see if the driver would get out and accost her.
“No,” Myron whispered to himself. “Just go.”
He had been clear. Stomp the tires and run. Don’t get into a fight. Zorra was deadly. If the guy got out of his car—probably some macho goon who was used to breaking heads—Zorra would slice him into pizza topping. Forget the morals for a moment. They didn’t need that kind of police attention.
The goon driving the car yelled, “Hey! What the—?” and started getting out of the car.
Myron turned around and stuck his head out the window. Zorra had the smile. She bent her knees a little. Myron called out. Zorra looked up and met Myron’s eye. Myron could see the anticipation, the itch to strike. He shook his head as firmly as he knew how.