The Missing Piece (28 page)

*   *   *

McQueen dragged himself up the stairs and out through the door into the basement corridor. His hands were grimy from rooting through dozens and dozens of transfiles crammed with strips of stenographic notes. His feet were cold from splashing through puddles of water that welled up from the ancient pond under the courthouse. His tongue tasted like he had licked the chalk off a blackboard. Yet he felt good. In the schematic floor plan that he kept folded in his pocket, he'd been able to cross off several more rooms where the treasure piece definitely was not hidden. He would come back on Monday, recharged, and start all over again.

Day was done, and all but a few people were gone from the courthouse. He climbed the ramp up to the locker room, washed the grime from his hands, exchanged his uniform shirt for a pullover sweater, then took advantage of his solitude by lighting up a cigarette. He still had a long way to go. Many rooms still remained in the subbasement, and he still didn't know where Gary's whimsical notions would send him next. The roof, maybe, or the ductwork, or crawl spaces in the masonry. But for reasons he could not articulate, he felt confident. Unbelievable as it seemed, he had taken on Gary's faith as his own.

He smoked one more cigarette to replace the chalk on his tongue with the more pleasing taste of tobacco. Then he took the elevator to the main floor and allowed the night guard to unlock the front door. Across Centre Street, garlands of tiny white lights glowed festively in the tent city. He angled down the courthouse steps, aiming toward the subway entrance. On the way, he called Gary's apartment. Ursula answered.

“Hey, Urse,” he said.

“Oh. Mike.”

“Don't sound so happy to hear from me. Gary around?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“He's around,” said Ursula. “He's just kinda, I don't know, low.”

“Sick?”

“Not physically.”

McQueen heard a voice in the background.

“It's Mike,” Ursula told Gary. Then she told McQueen to hold on.

“Hey,” said Gary.

That one syllable sounded exactly the way Ursula described Gary. Low.

“You okay, Gary?”

“Been better. Just one of those days, you know? They happen.”

I know
, McQueen almost said. He needed to tread lightly when Gary was low. He couldn't even hint that he understood any of what Gary felt because in Gary's mind no one could.

“Just wanted to tell you,” he said. “I went through four rooms in the catacombs today. Didn't find anything.”

“That's supposed to be good?” said Gary.

“Not really,” said McQueen. “But for some reason I came out of there feeling good. I don't know why.”

“Maybe because it's Friday?”

“I don't think so. It's more of a feeling that I'm getting warmer. Like I could find this thing.”

“The conservation of stupid beliefs,” said Gary.

“What?”

“Einstein's theory. Matter converts to energy, energy converts back to matter. Nothing is lost, everything balances. Same with you and me. I believe the piece is there, you disbelieve it. You start to believe, I begin to doubt.”

McQueen tried to summon a wise remark to bring Gary back, then thought better. He had convinced himself of some fanciful things in the past—college, a professional baseball career, the interest any number of unreachable women had in him. But there always was a saner, more rational voice in his head, and eventually that voice would break through the delusions and ask,
Am I crazy?
So it might have been with Gary.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Yeah. Me, too,” said Gary. “Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.”

*   *   *

Out of the bath, Linda dressed in denim jeans, a square-necked top, and thin slippers. She would have liked to welcome Hugh in a negligee, but since Dr. Lander told her to stay away from sex for a few days she did not want to start something she could not finish. Her physical changes seemed obvious now, as if the mugging and doctor's exam had given her body permission to let go. Her breasts felt bigger and her hips looked wider.

The second guest room, the one Foxx refused to use the night before, doubled as a computer room. After some trial and error, she created a greeting card with “Something Nice Is Happening” on the outside and the image of a bassinet and the word “Surprise!” on the inside. She slipped the card into an envelope and wrapped it with a purple ribbon, a deliberate mix of pink and powder blue.

Down in the kitchen, she set the cheese on a crystal serving plate and plunged the fake Champagne and the Sauvignon blanc into a silver bucket of ice.

Foxx watched from the doorway.

“Is this corny?” she asked.

Foxx shook his head.

“Good. Hugh and I have much to discuss, none of which he knows yet, so I want the discussion to follow a particular sequence.”

“Good news first, I take it,” said Foxx.

“Is that a question or an observation?”

“You tell me.”

“We discussed children once a long time ago,” said Linda. “Unfortunately, our discussions don't resolve into conclusions. They just lie there, like old magazines on a coffee table. Sometimes we pick them up again, sometimes we don't.”

“And this?”

“We haven't. But it's not my first pregnancy, either. So I've had this discussion before. At least in my head.”

“What happened?”

“A miscarriage,” said Linda. “It was so early on, Hugh never knew. I never told him. Never told anyone else, not even Bernadette. That was part of the reason I haven't told him about this, even though I'm much further along already.”

“Part of the reason?” said Foxx.

“The rest is superstition. It didn't work last time, obviously, but this time I can't keep it from him without keeping the mugging from him, too. That's just not possible.”

Linda's cell phone rang. She held it to one ear and pressed her finger in the other.

“Yes … oh, you are … didn't expect you so early.… Okay … fine. See you in a few.”

She pocketed the phone and looked at Foxx.

“That was Hugh. He's landed. Already in a limo. Just entering the tunnel. So I think you can go now.”

“You don't want me to wait till he gets here?” said Foxx.

“Better not. You being here begs questions I don't want to deal with till later.”

Linda followed Foxx to the front door. There was a bittersweet feel to this departure, as if once Foxx was gone she would be separated from something forever. She had no idea what that something might be, but as she watched him go down the steps, she had the odd sense that it would not have been inappropriate to kiss him good-bye.

*   *   *

Linda waited in the den until she heard the limo trunk slam. She yanked open the front door just as Hugh reached the stoop. She hugged him before he dropped his bags and searched out his mouth for a long kiss.

“Geez,” he said, dropping his bag so he could peel her off his face, “you'd think I was away for a year.”

“Don't you like a warm welcome?” she said.

“Of course I do.” He hugged her lightly and kissed the top of her forehead through her hair.

“Come this way,” she said, pulling him toward the kitchen.

But he closed the door, made sure the latch caught, and moved his bag against the wall.

“Let's sit a sec,” he said.

They went into the front room and sat on the couch.

“Don't you want to take your coat off?” she said.

He was wearing a thin black raincoat. He stood up, slipped it off, and lay it carefully over the arm of the couch. Linda sensed something strange in him, a distance that she could not put off to fatigue, distraction, or his famously ridiculous jet lag. He sat back down, slightly farther away from her. He looked at the floor and rubbed his knees.

They both spoke at the same time.

“I…” they said, and then stopped as if startled.

“You start,” Linda said after a moment.

“No, you start,” said Hugh.

She was completely off her game. Like a rookie lawyer flustered by the first question from a hot bench, everything she planned to say went right out of her head.

“How is the trial?” she asked instead.

“Actually,” said Hugh, “there is no trial.”

“You mean it settled?”

“No,” said Hugh. “There is no trial. Was no trial. Never has been a trial.”

“Well, were you in Texas to drum up business? You were in Texas, right?”

“Oh, I was in Texas, but not to drum up business.”

“Hugh, you are scaring me a little.”

“Well, I'm afraid I'm going to scare you some more. I want a divorce.”

“Come again?” said Linda.

“I want a divorce.”

“I don't understand,” said Linda.

“Do I need to draw you a picture? I went to Texas to see someone I met when I actually was on trial there last year.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Carla Sue Cole. She was local counsel for the trial. She was—”

Linda got up. Hugh grabbed her arm, but she shook him off and rushed into the kitchen. She stood over the counter, looked at the cheese platter, the ice bucket, the wineglass and Champagne flute, the cocktail plates and the cocktail napkins, and with one swipe of her forearm, knocked it all onto the floor. The platter exploded, the plates shattered, the bucket bounced and rolled, spilling its melted ice.

Hugh ran in. He stared silently at the mess, then focused on the last remaining thing on the counter—the envelope with the purple ribbon.

“What's this?” he said.

“Nothing,” said Linda, grabbing it. “Never was.”

She ran down the hallway and out into the street.

 

CHAPTER 32

They were on a daybed on what had been a front porch of a cottage on the back end of City Island, but which was now enclosed with jalousie windows. The jalousie slats were open to let in the briny air off the Sound. Beyond the marina, lights danced on the dark water—buoys, boats, a half-waxen moon. In a month or so, Foxx would drag the daybed inside and tape plastic sheeting over the jalousies. But for now, the porch was warm. He had half-induced, half-worked Bernadette's top over her head, and at that point, Bernadette digressed. She wanted to talk about history, their history, as in their previous encounters, while Foxx tried deflection by saying that their history was removed enough in time to be irrelevant. Bernadette disagreed. She stopped him from toying with her bra strap, and there stood the state of play when a taxi screeched to a stop on the broken pavement that was Foxx's street. The taxi idled for a minute, then a door opened and slammed shut. A figure stepped gingerly through the potholes to the tilted concrete slabs that led to the front steps. The taxi accelerated backward, then swung into a turn, its headlights sweeping across its former passenger.

“Holy shit,” said Bernadette.

She snatched her top and ran inside as footsteps clopped on the wooden steps. Foxx sat up on the daybed. A hand cupped itself to the jalousie door. A pair of eyes peered through a glass panel.

“Hello?” called a woman's voice.

Foxx got up. The woman backed away, allowing room for the door to swing open. She wore jeans and a white top too thin even for the warmish late October air.

“Hi, Judge,” said Foxx.

“I didn't know where else to go.”

She stepped around the door, tripping on the threshold and falling forward. Foxx caught her under the arms. An envelope skittered across the porch floor.

Foxx lifted Linda onto the daybed. Bernadette came out onto the porch, her top tucked in, her hair smoothed back behind her ears.

“What's going on?” she said.

“Hugh.” Linda belched. She leaned forward over the floor, gripped the edge of the daybed mattress, and opened her mouth as if to vomit. But she only belched again, then gulped air before she leaned back and hugged her stomach.

“He wants a divorce,” she said.

She started to cry. Bernadette sat beside her, and Linda buried her face in her shoulder. Foxx backed away. He shifted his weight from leg to leg, listening to Linda sob, watching Bernadette patiently stroke her hair. He noticed the envelope near the doorway into cottage. He picked it up. The flap was unsealed, the front had “Hugh” surrounded by a heart drawn with a pink marker.

“Tell me,” said Bernadette.

Linda could not tell very much. She had run directly from her house to a diner on Broadway and only after withstanding a barrage of text messages and voicemails, none of which she read or listened to, did she sort through her narrow range of options and decide that returning home was not one of them. A call to Bernadette's cell phone went right into voicemail, so she searched the web and found an address for someone simply listed as “Foxx” on City Island.

She finished her skimpy account and looked at Bernadette and then at Foxx. Foxx handed her the envelope.

“Clever, huh?” She forced a laugh. “My way of telling Hugh that we, I mean that I am pregnant. I don't know why I took it. Or maybe I do. There is no other way he would know.”

“We think,” said Foxx.

“No,” said Linda. “I hate him now more than I've ever hated anyone. But he wouldn't do that.”

Foxx said nothing else. There was no point in arguing the pointless. He didn't think that Hugh had been involved in the mugging, but he raised the possibility just in case. He went into the kitchen, opened a can of ginger ale, and brought it out to Linda. By then, the two ladies were sitting face-to-face, heads bowed, conversing as if they were conferring on the bench. Foxx went back inside and sat at his old aluminum table.

Bernadette came in twenty minutes later.

“She wants to spend the night here,” she said.