One False Move: A Myron Bolitar Novel Read Free Page A

solemn oath to only use it for good.”
    “Lucky me.” Brenda brought a long finger up to her face and tapped it against her chin a few times.“So,” she said at last, “Norm thinks I need a baby-sitter.”
    Myron threw up his hands and did his best Norm impression. “Who said anything about a baby-sitter?” It was better than his Elephant Man, but nobody was speed-dialing Rich Little either.
    She smiled. “Okay,” she said with a nod. “I’ll go along with this.”
    “I’m pleasantly surprised.”
    “No reason to be. If you don’t do it, Norm might hire someone else who might not be so forthcoming. This way I know the score.”
    “Makes sense,” Myron said.
    “But there are conditions.”
    “I thought there might be.”
    “I do what I want when I want. This isn’t carte blanche to invade my privacy.”
    “Of course.”
    “If I tell you to get lost for a while, you ask how lost.”
    “Right.”
    “And no spying on me when I don’t know about it,” she continued.
    “Okay.”
    “You keep out of my business.”
    “Agreed.”
    “I stay out all night, you don’t say a thing.”
    “Not a thing.”
    “If I choose to participate in an orgy with pygmies, you don’t say a thing.”
    “Can I at least watch?” Myron asked.
    That got a smile. “I don’t mean to sound difficult,but I have enough father figures in my life, thank you. I want to make sure you know that we’re not going to be hanging out with each other twenty-four a day or anything like that. This isn’t a Whitney Houston–Kevin Costner movie.”
    “Some people say I look like Kevin Costner.” Myron gave her a quick flash of the cynical, rogue smile, à la Bull Durham.
    She looked straight through him. “Maybe in the hairline.”
    Ouch. At half-court the goateed Sandy Duncan started calling for Ted again. His coterie followed suit. The name Ted bounced about the arena like rolled-up balls of Silly Putty.
    “So do we understand each other?” she asked.
    “Perfectly,” Myron said. He shifted in his seat. “Now do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
    From the right, Ted—it simply had to be a guy named Ted—finally made his entrance. He wore only Zoom shorts, and his abdomen was rippled like a relief map in marble. He was probably in his early twenties, model handsome, and he squinted like a prison guard. As he sashayed toward the shoot, Ted kept running both hands through his Superman blue-black hair, the movement expanding his chest and shrinking his waist and demonstrating shaved underarms.
    Brenda muttered, “Strutting peacock.”
    “That’s totally unfair,” Myron said. “Maybe he’s a Fulbright scholar.”
    “I’ve worked with him before. If God gave him a second brain, it would die of loneliness.” Her eyes veered toward Myron. “I don’t get something.”
    “What?”
    “Why you? You’re a sports agent. Why would Norm ask you to be my bodyguard?”
    “I used to work”—he stopped, waved a vague hand—“for the government.”
    “I never heard about that.”
    “It’s another secret. Shh.”
    “Secrets don’t stay secret much around you, Myron.”
    “You can trust me.”
    She thought about it. “Well, you were a white man who could jump,” she said. “Guess if you can be that, you could be a trustworthy sports agent.”
    Myron laughed, and they fell into an uneasy silence. He broke it by trying again. “So do you want to tell me about the threats?”
    “Nothing much to tell.”
    “This is all in Norm’s head?”
    Brenda did not reply. One of the assistants applied oil to Ted’s hairless chest. Ted was still giving the crowd his tough guy squint. Too many Clint Eastwood movies. Ted made two fists and continuously flexed his pecs. Myron decided that he might as well beat the rush and start hating Ted right now.
    Brenda remained silent. Myron decided to try another approach. “Where are you living now?” he asked.
    “In a dorm at Reston University.”
    “You’re still in