WIN, Coben, Harlan [ebook and pdf reader .txt] 📗

they are); asymmetrical facial hair; flimsy scarfs draped loosely around their necks; suspenders on strategically ripped jeans; retro concert tees that struggled to be ironic; man buns or a potpourri of awful hats, such as the cable-knit slouchy beanie, the Newsie flat cap, and of course, the carefully tilted fedora (unwritten hipster rule: Only one guy per table can wear the fedora at a time); and of course, boots that could be high or low or any hue but somehow you’d still label them hipster boots. The female of the species offered up a wider range—secondhand vintage pickups, flannels, cardigans, unmatching layers, acid wash, fishnets—the rule being nothing mainstream, which again makes them just mainstream with a desperation stench.

I’m being too harsh.

The many, many beers on tap—IPAs, stout, lager, pilsner, porter, autumnal, winter, summer (beers now have seasons), orange, pumpkin, watermelon, chocolate (I almost looked for a Cap’n Crunch artisanal)—are being served in mason jars rather than glasses or mugs. One entrance has a sign saying BREWERY TOUR. The other reads TASTING ROOM, the crowd of which had spilled outside to the sticky picnic tables. As I pass through them, I hear a swirl of the following terminology: bro, bae, edible, gluten, FOMO, kale, sesh, self-care, fleek, screenplay, kombucha, I can’t even, the struggle is real.

Clarification: I do not literally hear all those terms, but I think I do.

In the old days, gangsters hung out in bars or restaurants or strip joints. Times, they do a-change. As I duck inside, a pretty young barmaid with pigtails in cutoff shorts approaches me.

“Oh man, you have to be Win,” she says. “Follow me.”

The floors are concrete, the lighting low. In the right-hand corner, someone spins vinyl records. Eco-friendly yoga mats that appear to be as comfortable as tweed undergarments are laid out to the left; a flexible man with a beard the approximate dimensions of a lobster bib leads the mildly inebriated through a sun salutation. The barmaid takes me down a corridor lined with beer kegs and for-sale merchandise until we reach a big metal door. The barmaid knocks and says to me, “Stay here.”

She saunters away before I can offer a tip. The door opens. It is, I think, the big man who accompanied Leo Staunch to my hospital room, but it is hard to say. I can only tell you that he is north of six six with wide shoulders and a hairline so thick and low that it seems to start at his eyebrows. He, too, sports the prerequisite facial hair and a fedora that looks too small on his head, like one of those baseball-shape-headed mascots with a tiny cap.

“Come in,” he says.

I do. He closes the door behind me. There are four other hipsters in the room, all offering up tough hipster glares behind hipster glasses.

“I’ll need your weapons,” says the big hipster who opened the door.

“I left them in the car.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

“How about that razor you got tucked up your sleeve?”

Big Hipster grins at me. I grin back.

“All of them,” I repeat.

The big hipster asks for my phone. I make sure the passcode is locked and hand it over. He then nods toward another hipster. This second hipster produces a handheld metal detector and starts to run it over my body until a voice says, “Let it go. If he does something stupid, all of you shoot him, okay?”

I recognize Leo Staunch from his hospital visit. He waves for me to join him, and I enter an office that if I read up more about the subjects, I would probably describe as “Zen” or “feng shui.” It’s white with orbs and a huge window with a view of a fountain in a courtyard. There are also, I note, handicap railings and a wheelchair ramp.

When the door closes, I can no longer hear the sounds from the brewery. It is as though we’ve entered another realm. He asks me to sit. I do. He goes around a see-through Plexiglas desk and takes the chair across from me. His chair is a few inches higher than mine, and I want to roll my eyes at the weak attempt at intimidation, except for one thing:

Leo Staunch was right about one thing when he visited me. I am not bulletproof. I am also not suicidal, and while I have taken way too many chances with my personal safety, I like to think that I do so with a modicum of discretion.

In short, I need to be careful here.

“So,” Leo Staunch begins, “you know where Arlo Sugarman is?”

“Not yet.”

Leo Staunch frowns. “But on the phone—”

“Yes, I lied. Alas, I’m not the only one.”

He takes his time with that. “Tread carefully, Mr. Lockwood.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Come now, you don’t hit me as the type who wants things sugarcoated, so let me state this plainly. When you visited me at the hospital, you assured me that you had nothing to do with Ry Strauss’s death.”

I don’t know what reaction I’m expecting from Leo Staunch. Denial perhaps. Faux surprise possibly. But instead he waits me out.

I add, “That wasn’t true, was it?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve come across some new information.”

“I see,” Staunch says, spreading his hands. “Let’s hear it.”

“Did you kill Ry Strauss?”

“That’s a question,” he says, “not new information.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Did you know Ry Strauss lived in the Beresford before his death?”

“Again no.” He runs his hand through his hair to slick it back down. Leo Staunch has that kind of waxy skin that suggests something in the cosmetic/Botox family. “What is your new information, Mr. Lockwood?”

“Not long before the murder,” I say, “you were told that Ry Strauss lived in the Beresford.”

He crosses his legs and starts tapping his chin with his index finger. “Is that a fact?”

I wait.

“Tell me how you know this.”

“The how is irrelevant.”

“Not to me.” Leo Staunch tries to give me the hard eyes now, but the spark won’t flame. “You come into my place of work under false pretenses. You call me a liar. I think