"Why can't you get too close?"

"He'll see us."

"But he already knows you're there?"

"Yes."

Myron looked up at Win. "Wasn't there an Abbott and Costello skit that went like this?"

"Marx Brothers," Win said.

"If we were out in the open about tailing him," Green said, "the fact that he's a target could become public knowledge."

"And you're trying to contain that?"

"Yes."

"How long has he been under surveillance?"

"Well, it's not that simple. He's been out of range a lot--"

"How long?"

Again Green looked at Ford. Again Ford nodded. She balled her hands into fists. "Since the first article on the kidnappings appeared."

Myron sat back, feeling something akin to a head rush. He shouldn't have been surprised, but damned if he wasn't. The article came flooding back to him-- the sudden disappearances, the awful phone calls, the constant, eternal anguish, the picket-fenced lives suddenly bulldozed over by inexplicable evil.

"My God," Myron said. "Stan Gibbs was telling the truth."

"We never said that," Kimberly Green said.

"I see. So you've been tailing him because you don't like his syntax?"

Silence.

"The articles were true," Myron said. "And you've known it all along."

"What we did or did not know is not your concern."

Myron shook his head. "Unbelievable," he said. "So let me see if I got this straight. You have a serial psycho out there who snatches people out of the blue and torments their families. You want to keep a lid on it because if word got out to the public, you'd have a panic situation. Then the psycho goes directly to Stan Gibbs and suddenly the story is in the public domain..." Myron's voice died off, seeing that his logic trail had hit a major pothole. He frowned and forged ahead. "I don't know how that old novel or the plagiarism charges tie in. But either way, you decided to ride it. You let Gibbs get fired and disgraced, probably in part because you were pissed off that he upset your investigation. But mostly"--he spotted what he thought was a clearing--"but mostly you did it so you could watch him. If the psycho contacted him once, you figured, he'd probably do it again--especially if the articles had been discredited."

Kimberly Green said, "Wrong."

"But close."

"No."

"The kidnappings Gibbs wrote about took place, right?"

She hesitated, gave Ford an eye check. "We can't verify all of his facts."

"Jesus, I'm not taking a deposition here," Myron said. "Was his column true, yes or no?"

"We've told you enough," she said. "It's your turn."

"You haven't told me squat."

"And you've told us less."

Negotiating. Life is being a sports agent--constant negotiating. He had learned the importance of leverage, of doling out, of being fair. People forget that last one, and it always costs you in the end. The best negotiator isn't the one who gets the whole pie while leaving scant crumbs behind. The best negotiator is the one who gets what he wants while keeping the other side happy. So normally, Myron would dole out a little something here. Classic give-and-take. But not this time. He knew better. Once he told them the reason for his visit to Stan Gibbs, his leverage would be zippo.