Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (28 page)

“Come on, lady,” the cabby said, leaning over the passenger seat and looking up at her through the window.  “I have not all day.”

Alicia made no sign she’d heard him as she slowly pulled five singles from her wallet, one… at… a… time.  Finally, when she had exactly six-seventy-five in her hand, she handed it through the window.

And waited.

It didn’t take long – three seconds, tops – before the driver popped out his door and glared at her over the roof. 

“Ay!  Where is tip?”  He pronounced it
teep
.

“Pardon me?” Alicia said sweetly.  “I can’t hear you.”

“My tip, lady!  Where is it?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, holding a hand to her ear.  “Your lips appear to be moving, but I can’t hear a word you’re saying.  Something about my slip?”

“My tip, goddammit! 
My tip!  My tip!  My fucking tip!
”

“Did I enjoy my trip?” she said, then let her voice go icy.  “On a scale of one to ten, I enjoyed it zero… exactly the amount of your tip.”

He made a move to come around the cab, probably figuring he could intimidate this slight, pale woman with the fine features and the glossy black hair, but Alicia held her ground.  He gave her a venomous look and slipped back into his seat.

As she turned away, she heard the cabby shout an inarticulate curse, slam his door, and burn rubber as he tore off.

We’re even, she thought, her anger fading.  But what an awful way to start a beautiful fall day.

She put it behind her.  She’d been looking forward to this meeting with Leo Weinstein and wasn’t going to let some crazy cabby upset her.

At last she’d found an attorney who wasn’t afraid to tackle a big law firm.  All of the others she’d tried – those in her limited price range – had reacted with a little too much awe when they’d heard the name Hinchberger, Rainey & Guran.  Not Weinstein.  Hadn’t fazed him in the least.  He’d read through the will and within a day came up with half a dozen suggestions he seemed to believe would put the big boys on the defensive.

“Your father left you that house,” he’d said.  “No way they can keep it from you.  Just leave it to me.”

And so she’d done just that.  Now she was going to see what he’d accomplished with the blizzard of paper he’d fired at HR&G.

She heard a honk behind her and stiffened.  If it was that cab…

She turned and relaxed as she saw Leo Weinstein waving through the open window of a silver Lexus.  He was saying something she couldn’t catch.  She stepped closer.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.  “The LIE was jammed.  Just let me pull into the garage down there and I’ll be right with you.”

“No problem.”

She was almost to the front door of the building where Cutter and Weinstein had their offices when she was staggered by a thunderous noise.  The shock wave slammed against her back like a giant hand and almost knocked her off her feet.

Turning she saw a ball of flame racing skyward from the middle of the block, and flaming pieces of metal crashing to the ground all about her.  Cars were screeching to a halt as pedestrians dove for the pavement amid glittering shards of glass tumbling from windows up and down the block.  Alicia jumped back as a blackened, smoking chunk of a car trunk lid landed in front of her and rolled to her feet.

An icy coil of horror tightened around her throat as she recognized the Lexus insignia.

She craned her neck to look for Leo’s car, but it was… gone.

“Oh, no!  Oh, my God,
no!
”

She hurried forward a few steps on wobbly knees to see if there was anything she could do, but… the car… nothing was left where it had been… just burning asphalt.

“Oh, God, Leo!  Oh, I’m so sorry!”

She couldn’t breathe.  What had happened to all the air?  She had to get away from here.

She forced her stricken body to turn and blunder back up the sidewalk, away from the smoke, the flames, the wreckage.  She stopped when she reached Madison Avenue.  She leaned against a traffic light post and gulped air.  When she’d caught her breath, she looked back. 

Already the human vultures were gathering, streaming toward the flames, wondering what happened.  And not too far away, sirens.

She couldn’t stay here.  She couldn’t help Weinstein and she didn’t want to be listed as a witness.  The police might get it into their heads that she was hiding something, and they might start looking into her background, her family.  She couldn’t allow that.  Couldn’t stand it. 

Alicia didn’t look for a taxi – the thought of being confined was unbearable.  She needed space, light, air.  She turned downtown. 

Poor Leo!

She sobbed as she started walking, moving as fast as her low-heeled shoes would allow.  But even if she’d worn her sneakers she would not have been able to outrun the guilt, the terrible suspicion that she was somehow responsible for Leo Weinstein’s death.

2

“Thank God you’re here!” Raymond said as Alicia walked though the Center’s employee entrance.  “I’ve been beeping you since eight o’clock.  Why didn’t…?”  His voice trailed off as he looked at her.  “Christ, Alicia, you look like absolute, total shit.”

That was a somewhat generous assessment of how she felt, but she didn’t want to talk about it.

“Thank you, Raymond.  You don’t know the half of it.”

She didn’t head for her office, but toward the front reception area instead.  Raymond paced her.

“Where are you going?”

“Just give me a minute, will you, Raymond?” she snapped.  “I’ll be right back.”

She regretted being so short with him, but she felt stretched to the breaking point.  One more tug in the wrong direction…

She was vaguely aware of Tiffany saying hello as she hurried past the reception desk on her way to the front door.  Stepping aside to allow a middle-aged woman and her two grandchildren to enter, Alicia peered through the glass at the street outside, looking for the gray car.

She was sure it had followed her back from 48
th
Street.  At least she thought it had.  A gray car – what would you call it?  A sedan?  She didn’t know a damn thing about cars.  Couldn’t tell a Ford from a Chevy.  But whatever it was, she’d kept catching sight of this gray car passing her as she walked.  It would turn a block or two ahead of her, and disappear for a few minutes, then cruise by again.  Never too close.  Never too slow.  Never a definite sign of interest.  But always
there
.

She scanned
Seventh Avenue outside, half expecting to see it roll by.  Across the street and slightly downtown, she checked the curb in front of her least favorite part of the St. Vincent’s complex.  The O’Toole Building squatted at the corner of Twelfth.  Its white-tiled, windowless, monolithic facade did not fit here in the Village.  It looked as if a clumsy giant had accidentally dropped the modernistic monstrosity on his way to someplace like Minneapolis. 

No gray car, though.  But with all the gray cars in
Manhattan, how could she be sure? 

Her nerves were getting to her.  She was becoming paranoid.

But who could blame her after this morning?

She headed back to her office.  Raymond picked her up in the hall.

“
Now
can we talk?”

“Sorry I snapped at you.”

“Don’t be silly, honey.  Nobody snaps at me.  Nobody
dares
.”

Alicia managed a smile.

Raymond – never “Ray,” always “Raymond” – Denson, NP had been one of the original caregivers at the Center for Children with AIDS.  The Center had MD’s who were called “director” and “assistant director,” but it was this particular nurse practitioner who ran the place.  Alicia doubted the Center would survive if he left.  Raymond knew all the ins and outs of the day-to-day functions, all the soft touches for requisitions, knew where all the bodies were buried, so to speak.  He clocked in at around fifty, she was sure – God help you if you asked his age – but he kept himself young looking: close cropped hair, neat mustache, trim, athletic body.

“And about my beeper,” she said, “I turned it off.  Doctor Collings was covering for me.  You knew that.”

He paced her down the narrow hallway to her office.  All the walls in the Center had been hurriedly erected, and the haste showed.  Slapdash taping and spackling, and a quick coat of bright yellow paint that was already wearing though in places.  Well, the decor was the least important thing here.

“I know, but this wasn’t medical.  This wasn’t even administrative.  This was fucking criminal.”

Something in Raymond’s voice… his eyes.  He was furious.  But not at her.  But then what?

A premonition chilled her.  Were her personal troubles going to spill over into the Center now?

As she continued walking she noted knots of staff – nurses, secretaries, volunteers – all with their heads together, all talking animatedly. 

All furious.

An icy gale blew through her.

“All right, Raymond.  Lay it on me.”

“The toys.  Some rat bastard motherfucker stole the toys.”

Astonished, disbelieving, Alicia stopped and stared at him.  No way.  This had to be some cruel, nasty joke.  But Raymond was anything but cruel.

And were those tears in the corners of his eyes?

“The donations?  Don’t tell me–”

But he was nodding and biting his upper lip.

“Aw, no.”

“Every last one.”

Alicia felt her throat tighten.  Strangely enough – and she damned herself for it – this was hitting her harder than Leo Weinstein’s death.

A man she knew, a man with a wife and family was dead, and yet… and yet… this felt so much worse. 

She’d met Weinstein only a couple of times.  But these toys… she and Raymond – especially Raymond – had been collecting them for months, sending staff and volunteers to forage all through the city for donors – companies, stores, individuals, anybody.  The response had been slow at first – who was thinking about Christmas gifts in October?  But once Thanksgiving was past, the giving had picked up.  Last night they’d had a storeroom full of dolls, trucks, rockets, coloring books, action figures… the works.

This morning…

“How?”

“Pried open the outer door and took them away through the alley.  Must have had some sort of truck to hold everything.”

The ground floor of this building had been a business supply store before being converted to the Center for Children with AIDS.  The former owners probably had loaded their delivery trucks the same way the thieves had stolen the gifts. 

“Isn’t that door alarmed?  Aren’t
all
the doors alarmed?”

Raymond nodded.  “Supposed to be.  But the alarm didn’t go off.”

Poor Raymond.  He’d put his whole heart into this effort.

Alicia reached her office, tossed her bag onto her desk, and dropped into her chair.  She was still shaken.  And her feet were killing her.  She closed her eyes.  Only halfway through the morning and she felt exhausted.  She looked up at Raymond.

“Did anything like this ever happen to Doctor Landis?”

He shook his head.  “Never.”

“Great.  They wait until she’s gone,
then
they strike.”

“I think that’s all for the best, don’t you think?  I mean, considering her condition.”

Alicia had to agree.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Dr. Rebecca Landis was the director of the Center – at least she had the title.  But she was in her third trimester and developing pre-eclamptic symptoms.  Her
OB had ordered her to stay home in bed. 

This only a week after the assistant director had left to take a position at Beth Israel, leaving the place to be “directed” by Alicia and the other pediatric infectious disease specialist, Ted Collings.  Ted had begged off any directing duties, claiming a wife and a new baby.  And so the burden of administrative duties had fallen on the Center’s newbie: Alicia Clayton, MD.

“Any chance it was an inside job?”

“The police are looking into it.”

“The police?”

“Yes.  Been here and gone.  I made out the report.”

“Thank you, Raymond.”  Good old Raymond.  She couldn’t imagine how he could be more efficient.  “What do they think about our chances of getting those toys back?”

“They’re going to ‘work on it.’  But just to make sure they do, I want to call the papers.  You okay with that?”

“Yeah, good idea.  Make this a high-profile crime.  Maybe that’ll put extra pressure on the cops.”

“Great.  I’ve already spoken to the
Post
.  The
News
and the
Times
will have people here later this morning.”

“Oh.  Well…good.  You’ll see them, okay?”

“If you wish.”