Pause. “Your name, sir?”

“Myron Bolitar.”

“Is Master Squires expecting you?”

“No.” Master Squires?

“Then you do not have an appointment?”

An appointment to see a sixteen-year-old? Who is this kid, Doogie Howser? “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“May I ask the purpose of your visit?”

“To speak to Matthew Squires.” Mr. Vague.

“I am afraid that will not be possible at this time,” the voice said.

“Will you tell him it involves Chad Coldren?”

Another pause. Cameras pirouetted. Myron looked around. All the lenses were aiming down from up high, glaring at him like hostile space aliens or lunchroom monitors.

“In what way does it involve Master Coldren?” the voice asked.

Myron squinted into a camera. “May I ask with whom I am speaking?”

No reply.

Myron waited a beat, then said, “You’re supposed to say, ‘I am the great and powerful Oz.’ ”

“I am sorry, sir. No one is admitted without an appointment. Please have a nice day.”

“Wait a second. Hello? Hello?” Myron pressed the button again. No reply. He leaned on it for several seconds. Still nothing. He looked up into the camera and gave his best caring-homespun-family-guy smile. Very Tom Brokaw. He tried a small wave. Nothing. He took a small step backward and gave a great big Jack Kemp fake-throwing-a-football wave. Nada.

He stood there for another minute. This was indeed odd. A sixteen-year-old with this kind of security? Something was not quite kosher. He pressed the button one more time. When no one responded he looked into the camera, put a thumb in either ear, wiggled his fingers and stuck out his tongue.

When in doubt, be mature.

Back at his car, Myron picked up the car phone and dialed his friend.

Sheriff Jake Courter.

“Sheriff’s office.”

“Hey, Jake. It’s Myron.”

“Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have come in on Saturday.”

“Ooo, I’m wounded. Seriously, Jake, do they still call you the Henny Youngman of law enforcement?”

Heavy sigh. “What the fuck do you want, Myron? I just came in to get a little paperwork done.”

“No rest for those vigilantly pursuing peace and justice for the common man.”

“Right,” Jake said.

“This week, I went out on a whole twelve calls. Guess how many of them were for false burglar alarms?”

“Thirteen.”

“Pretty close.”

For more than twenty years, Jake Courter had been a cop in several of the country’s meanest cities. He’d hated it and craved a quieter life. So Jake, a rather large black man, resigned from the force and moved to the picturesque (read: lily-white) town of Reston, New Jersey. Looking for a cushy job, he ran for sheriff. Reston was a college (read: liberal) town, and thus Jake played up his—as he put it—“blackness” and won easily. The white man’s guilt, Jake had told Myron. The best vote-getter this side of Willie Horton.

“Miss the excitement of the big city?” Myron asked.

“Like a case of herpes,” Jake countered. “Okay, Myron, you’ve done the charm thing on me. I’m like Play-Doh in your paws now. What do you want?”

“I’m in Philly for the U.S. Open.”

“That’s golf, right?”

“Yeah, golf. And I wanted to know if you’ve heard of a guy named Squires.”

Pause. Then: “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“What the fuck are you involved in now?”

“Nothing. It’s just that he’s got all this weird security around his house—”

“What the fuck are you doing by his house?”

“Nothing.”

“Right,” Jake said. “Guess you were just strolling by.”

“Something like that.”

“Nothing like that.” Jake sighed. Then: “Ah what the hell, it ain’t on my beat anymore. Squires. Reginald Squires aka Big Blue.”

Myron made a face. “Big Blue?”

“Hey, all gangsters need a nickname. Squires is known as Big Blue. Blue, as in blue blood.”

“Those gangsters,” Myron said. “Pity they don’t channel their creativity into honest marketing.”

“ ‘Honest marketing,’ ” Jake repeated. “Talk about your basic oxymoron. Anyway Squires got a kiloton of family dough and all this blue-blood breeding and schooling and shit.”

“So what’s he doing keeping such bad company?”

“You want the simple answer? The son of a bitch is a serious wacko. Gets his jollies hurting people. Kinda like Win.”

“Win doesn’t get his jollies hurting people.”

“If you say so.”

“If Win hurts someone, there’s a reason. To prevent them from doing it again or to punish or something.”

“Sure, whatever,” Jake said. “Kinda touchy though, aren’t we, Myron?”

“It’s been a long day.”

“It’s only nine in the morning.”

Myron said, “For what breeds time but two hands on a clock?”

“Who said that?”

“No one. I just made it up.”

“You should consider writing greeting cards.”

“So what is Squires into, Jake?”

“Want to hear something funny? I’m not sure. Nobody is. Drugs and prostitution. Shit like that. But very upscale. Nothing very well organized or anything. It’s more like he plays at it, you know? Like he gets involved in whatever he thinks will give him a thrill, then dumps it.”

“How about kidnapping?”

Brief pause. “Oh shit, you are involved in something again, aren’t you?”

“I just asked you if Squires was into kidnapping.”

“Oh. Right. Like it’s a hypothetical question. Kinda like, ‘If a bear shits in the forest and no one is around, does it still reek’?”

“Precisely. Does kidnapping reek like his kind of thing?”

“Hell if I know. The guy is a major league loon, no question. He blends right into all that snobbish bullshit—the boring parties, the shitty food, the laughing at jokes that aren’t remotely funny, the talking with the same boring people about the same boring worthless bullshit—”

“It sounds like you really admire them.”

“Just my point, my friend. They got it all, right? On the outside. Money, big homes, fancy clubs. But they’re all so fucking boring—shit, I’d kill myself. Makes me wonder if maybe Squires feels that way too, you know?”