Long Lost (Myron Bolitar) Read Online Free PDF Page A

was gone.
    Two minutes later my cell vibrated. The caller ID told me it was Win.
    “We have a small situation,” he said.
    “What’s that?”
    “Assistant Coach Pat, he of the need for orthopedic surgery?”
    “What about him?”
    “He is a police officer in Kasselton. A captain, in fact, though I won’t ask to wear his varsity jacket to the prom.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Apparently they are thinking of making arrests.”
    “They started it,” I said.
    “Oh yes,” Win said, “and I’m certain that everyone in town will take our word over a local police captain’s and three lifelong residents.”
    He had a point.
    “But I was thinking,” he went on, “that we might enjoy a few weeks in Thailand whilst my attorney works this out.”
    “Not a bad idea.”
    “I know of a new gentlemen’s club in Bangkok off Patpong Street. We could begin our journey there.”
    “I don’t think so,” I said.
    “Such a prude. But either way, you should probably make yourself scarce too.”
    “That’s my plan.”
    We hung up. I called Air France. “Any room left on tonight’s flight to Paris?”
    “Your name, sir?”
    “Myron Bolitar.”
    “You’re already booked and ticketed. Would you like a window or an aisle seat?”

4

     
     
     
    I used my frequent flier miles to get an upgrade. I don’t need the free booze or better meal, but the legroom meant a great deal to me. When I’m in coach I always get the middle seat between two ginormous bruisers with space issues, and in front of me, without fail, is a tiny old lady whose feet don’t even touch the ground but she has to put her seat back as far as humanly possible, getting a nearly sexual thrill as she hears it crunch against my knees, tilting back far enough so that I can spend the entire flight looking for dandruff flakes in her scalp.
    I didn’t have Terese’s phone number, but I remembered the Hotel d’Aubusson. I called and left a message that I was on my way. I got onto the plane and jammed the iPod buds into my ear. I quickly slipped into that airplane half-sleep, thinking about Ali, the first time I had dated a woman with children, a widow no less, the way she turned away after she said, “We’re not forever, Myron. . . .”
    Was she right?
    I tried to imagine life without her.
    Did I love Ali Wilder? Yes.
    I had loved three women in my life. The first was Emily Downing, my college sweetheart from Duke. She had ended up dumping me for my college rival from North Carolina. My second love, the closest thing I’ve had to a soul mate, was Jessica Culver, a writer. Jessica had also crushed my heart like it was a Styrofoam cup—or maybe in the end I had crushed hers. It was hard to know anymore. I had loved her with everything I had, but it had not been enough. She was married now. To a guy named Stone. Stone. I kid you not.
    The third, well, Ali Wilder. I had been the first man she dated after her husband died in the North Tower on 9/11. Our love was strong, but it was also calmer and more mature and maybe love wasn’t supposed to be like that. I knew the ending would sting but it wouldn’t be devastating. I wondered if that too came with maturity, or if after years of getting the heart crushed, you naturally start being protective.
    Or maybe Ali was right. We weren’t forever. Simple as that.
    There is an old Yiddish phrase I find apropos—but not by choice: “Man plans, God laughs.” I am a prime example. My life was pretty much laid out for me. I was a basketball star my entire childhood, destined to be an NBA player for the Boston Celtics. But in my very first preseason game, Big Burt Wesson slammed into me and ruined my knee. I tried gamely to come back, but there is a big difference between gamely and effectively. My career was over before I hit the parquet floor.
    I was also destined to be a family man like the man I most admired in the world: Al Bolitar, my father. He had married his sweetheart, my mom, Ellen, and they moved to the