One False Move: A Myron Bolitar Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t mean anything. He made his way into the bedroom, closed the door, and checked the answering machine. When Jessica was writing, she never answered the phone.
    Myron hit the play button. “Hello, Myron? This is your mother.” Like he wouldn’t recognize the voice. “God, I hate this machine. Why doesn’t she pick up? I know she’s there. Is it so hard for a human being to pick up a phone and say hello and take a message? I’m in my office, my phone rings, I pick it up. Even if I’m working. Or I have my secretary take a message. Not a machine. I don’t like machines, Myron, you know that.” She continued on in a similar vein for some time. Myron longed for the old days when there was a time limit on answering machines. Progress was not always a good thing.
    Finally Mom began to wind down. “Just calling to say hello, doll face. We’ll talk later.”
    For the first thirty-plus years of his life, Myron had lived with his parents in the New Jersey suburb of Livingston. As an infant he’d started life in the small nursery upstairs on the left. From the age of three to sixteen, he lived in the bedroom upstairs on the right; from sixteen to just a few months ago, he’d lived in the basement. Not all the time, of course. He went to Duke down in North Carolina for four years, spent summers working basketball camps, stayed on occasion with Jessica or Win in Manhattan. But his true home had always been, well, with Mommy and Daddy—by choice, strangely enough, though some might suggest that serious therapy would unearth deeper motives.
    That changed several months ago, when Jessica asked him to move in with her. This was a rarity in their relationship, Jessica making the first move, and Myron had been deliriously happy and heady and scared out of his mind. His trepidation had nothing to do with fearof commitment—that particular phobia plagued Jessica, not him—but there had been rough times in the past, and to put it simply, Myron never wanted to be hurt like that again.
    He still saw his folks once a week or so, going out to the house for dinner or having them make the trip into the Big Apple. He also spoke to either his mom or his dad nearly every day. Funny thing is, while they were undoubtedly pests, Myron liked them. Crazy as it might sound, he actually enjoyed spending time with his parents. Uncool? Sure. Hip as a polka accordionist? Totally. But there you go.
    He grabbed a Yoo-Hoo from the refrigerator, shook it, popped the top, took a big swig. Sweet nectar. Jessica yelled in, “What are you in the mood for?”
    “I don’t care.”
    “You want to go out?”
    “Do you mind if we just order in?” he asked.
    “Nope.” She appeared in the doorway. She wore his oversize Duke sweatshirt and black knit pants. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Several hairs had escaped and fell in front of her face. When she smiled at him, he still felt his pulse quicken.
    “Hi,” he said. Myron prided himself on his clever opening gambits.
    “You want Chinese?” she asked.
    “Whatever, sure. Hunan, Szechwan, Cantonese?”
    “Szechwan,” she said.
    “Okay. Szechwan Garden, Szechwan Dragon, or Empire Szechwan?”
    She thought a moment. “Dragon was greasy last time. Let’s go with Empire.”
    Jessica crossed the kitchen and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Her hair smelled like wildflowers after a summer storm. Myron gave her a quick hug and grabbed the delivery menu from the cabinet. They figured out what they’d get—the hot and sour soup, one shrimp entree, one vegetable entree—and Myron called it in. The usual language barriers applied—why don’t they ever hire a person who speaks English at least to take the phone order?—and after repeating his telephone number six times, he hung up.
    “Get much done?” he asked.
    Jessica nodded. “The first draft will be finished by Christmas.”
    “I thought the deadline was August.”
    “Your point being?”
    They sat at the kitchen table. The kitchen,