“None. No stun guns either.”

Kyle looked around, making sure that the proverbial coast was clear. “And that cop is gone?”

“Long gone.”

“So it’s just you and me?”

“Just you and me,” Win repeated. “In fact, my nipples are getting hard at the thought.”

Kyle moved closer. “I don’t care who you know, pretty boy,” Kyle said. “I’ll bust your ass up but good.”

Win smiled and gestured for him to lead the way. “Oh, I can’t wait.”

Sleep used to be an escape for Myron.

No more. He would lie in bed for hours, stare at the ceiling, afraid to close his eyes. It brought him back often to a place he was supposed to forget. He knew that he should deal with this—visit a shrink or something—but he also knew that he probably wouldn’t. Trite to say, but Terese was something of a cure. When he slept with her, the night terrors kept their distance.

His first thought when the alarm clock jarred him back to the present was the same as when he’d tried to close his eyes: Brad. It was odd. Days, sometimes weeks, maybe even months passed without thinking about his brother. Their estrangement worked a bit like grief. We are often told during times of bereavement that time heals all wounds. That’s crap. In truth, you are devastated, you mourn, you cry to the point where you think you’ll never stop—and then you reach a stage where the survival instinct takes over. You stop. You simply won’t or can’t let yourself “go there” anymore because the pain was too great. You block. You deny. But you don’t really heal.

Seeing Kitty last night had knocked away the denial and sent Myron reeling. So now what? Simple: Talk to the two people who could tell him something about Kitty and Brad. He reached for his phone and called his house in Livingston, New Jersey. His parents were visiting from Boca Raton for the week.

His mom answered. “Hello?”

“Hey, Mom,” Myron said, “how are you?”

“I’m great, honey. How are you?”

Her voice was almost too tender, as if the wrong answer could shatter her heart.

“I’m great too.” He’d thought about asking her about Brad, but no, this would take some tact. “I thought maybe I’d take you and Dad out to dinner tonight.”

“Not Nero’s,” she said. “I don’t want to go to Nero’s.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m not in the mood for Italian. Nero’s is Italian.”

“Right. No Nero’s.”

“You ever have that?”

“Have what?”

“Where you’re just not in the mood for a kind of food? Take me right now, for example. I simply don’t want Italian.”

“Yep, I got that. So what kind of food would you like?”

“Can we do Chinese? I don’t like the Chinese in Florida. It’s too greasy.”

“Sure. How about Baumgart’s?”

“Oh, I love their kung pao chicken. But, Myron, what kind of name is Baumgart’s for a Chinese restaurant? It sounds like a Jewish deli.”