The Missing Piece (23 page)

“I am,” she said. “My husband is on trial in Texas, and with the time difference I was waiting to call him.”

“I'd keep the door locked if I were you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Those protestors outside. They have a few more than this morning.”

“I don't think of them.”

“No?” said Foxx. “What do you think about?”

Linda straightened herself in her chair.

“Are those today's motions? I'll take them here.” She patted her desk blotter.

Foxx came through the doorway and set the folders down.

“Anything else you need?” he said.

Linda stared at his eyes, trying to see what she thought she had seen this morning. Nothing was there.

“No thanks,” she said, “but you can lock the door on your way out.”

Foxx left chambers, and Linda worked through the pile of motions. They all were relatively thin and relatively straightforward, the kinds of motions with such clearly indicated results that she wondered why the lawyers needed to file them. But that was big-city litigation; no one ever gave in.

She dashed off several notes to Mark, telling him how each motion should be decided, and lugged the pile out to his desk. She looked at her watch. Still half an hour to go. She checked the door—Foxx indeed had locked it—then opened the Redweld that lay on her desk since Mark had dropped it there a few days ago.

Linda began putting this file together before there was a first trial, before there ever was a case pitting Croatia and Hungary against Lord Leinster. It began with a magazine article that combined her two great academic loves, fine art and classical civilization. Had she come from money, she might have pursued an advanced degree in art history, traveled to Rome or Florence, and found a job in one of the great museums. Practical and working-class, she got her law degree instead, but occasionally delved back into what might have been. The article focused on a Roman silver treasure with a murky provenance that was sitting in a New York City auction house.

Metal work, even precious metal work, did not usually interest Linda. She preferred sculpture (especially Greek marble), painting (the Third Style was her favorite), and architecture (as much as she loved 60 Centre, seeing Corinthian capitals atop fluted columns irked her). But the full-color catalogue showing the fourteen treasure pieces, stunningly bright and amazingly detailed, was quite something.

She read an article about the owner, Lord Leinster, and wondered why he was so hot to sell the treasure. She heard, vaguely, about a lawsuit, an injunction, countries claiming rights of patrimony. For a brief spell, the Salvus Treasure, as the collection was called, was all over the media. Articles appeared in such disparate magazines as
Playboy
,
Harper's
, and
Natural History
. Each brought their own particular slant to the ancient treasure, with
Playboy
running a gauzily sexy photo spread of Croatia's minister of culture and
Natural History
describing the top ten archeological excavations of Roman settlements in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.

But the article that made the most sense appeared in an obscure Hungarian magazine called
Az Igazsag
, The Truth. The article carefully considered the claims of all three plaintiff countries: Syria, which issued the export licences, Croatia, which claimed that the treasure was unearthed by soldiers at one of Marshal Tito's vacation compounds, and Hungary, which claimed a young quarry worker found the treasure in a forest near what had been the border with Yugoslavia.
Az Igazsag
clearly believed Hungary's story was the truth.

Linda had visited the county clerk's office and pulled the case file. Despite the intriguing backstory, the file was boring as hell, full of motions and legal briefs but devoid of any sense of what truly was at stake. The lawsuit faded from her consciousness. The collection of articles, now in a Redweld folder, fell farther back in a chambers file cabinet. And then, one day, a group of lawyers walked into Judge Johnstone's courtroom. The Roman silver case was assigned to him for trial.

Linda thumbed past the
Playboy
spread, the
Harper's
article, the
Natural History
list. Behind them was what she really wanted to see, the translation of the
Az Igazsag
article and behind that the tear sheets from the magazine itself.

There always was a gap between absolute truth and what passed for truth in a court of law. Judge Johnstone's rulings had jammed a crowbar into that gap and jimmied it wider. The Appellate Division closed that gap, but it was not enough for her. She wanted to fill it in, smooth it out, and paper it over into a seamless surface of absolute truth. This file, this totally improper collection of inadmissible evidence, was the urtext of her intentions.

She read the translation, then glanced at the photos in the original article, all except the police photo of the Hungarian quarry worker dangling from a noose. The photo had given her nightmares back then; she didn't want any now.

*   *   *

For Mark, an unsettled day deteriorated even further the moment he left the courthouse. Darius had skillfully pitted Mark's frighteningly real prospects of unemployment against his wobbly loyalty to Judge Conover. Self-preservation won out. Mark had read thousands of affidavits related to hundreds of motions in his checkered court career, but never had given his own. The power of the words that Darius extracted and the stenographer typed, coupled with the act of signing his name, had been intoxicating. Judge Conover
had
prejudged the case; Judge Conover
did
maintain that file of inadmissible evidence.

But now, walking in the cool, bracing air of an autumn evening, the hangover set in. The story he spun in his affidavit seemed as shaky as his future and as wobbly as his loyalty. Man, had he fucked up.

His wife sounded totally bonkers when she answered the phone. Mark could visualize Baby Phyllis clamped onto her shoulder like a leech, hear the rhythmic shrieks that bored straight to the part of the brain that caused his stomach to turn.

“I'm going to be late tonight,” he said.

“Again? What is it now?”

“A meeting at the club.”

“The club?” his wife said. “I thought you were done with the club.”

“Technically not.”

“I don't understand why you need to go there, with the way those people treated you.”

“I need to be bigger than those people,” said Mark.

“You need to be home,” she said.

By then he was outside a Tribeca local frequented by the after-hours courthouse crowd. The bar was packed—familiar faces out of uniform, in wrinkled shirts, with loosened ties. He shouldered in close enough to catch the bartender's eye, ordered two pints, then retreated into a corner. He slugged down one pint, then stared at the other. The beer looked bright gold, the bubbles endlessly ascended to join the perfectly white head. He was having one of those moments when the world stopped zipping by in a blur but froze into a hi-def image of some pedestrian object.

He had made his choice. Despite all her promises, the judge could not help him and so he needed to help himself. Sure, giving that affidavit was stupid. As soon as the judge paged through Arthur Braman's order to show cause tomorrow, he was finished. Word would flash around the courthouse.
Garber sold out his judge
. But he couldn't think about that now. There was a much wider world beyond the courthouse. And if he made it with Arthur Braman's firm, that wider world would be his. He lifted his second pint, but his heightened perceptions were gone, and the beer just looked like a beer.

*   *   *

“What kept you?” said Hugh.

“Working,” said Linda.

“This late?” It was five forty-five by his watch, which meant it was six forty-five her time.

“Waded through three of Mark's decisions, then previewed today's pile of motions. Where are you? It sounds so quiet.”

“Local counsel's office,” said Hugh. “Everyone else is in the conference room. I can see them through the glass partition. What's going on with your trial?”

He carefully poured himself a bourbon from the minibar, neat, because he did not want Linda to hear the tinkling of ice. For ten straight minutes, she recounted every turn in this morning's conference. Hugh listened closely enough to get the gist and, when he felt it was expected of him, opined that Arthur Braman's offer was inventive.

“Of course,” he concluded, “a lawyer needs to be inventive when his client fears for his life.”

“You don't have that particular problem with your clientele,” said Linda.

“Proof that corporations are not people.”

“I wish you were here.”

“Me, too,” said Hugh. “But I'm not. What's going on with that protest?”

He heard a knock at the door. Soft, tentative, barely a brush of knuckle on wood. He set the glass down quietly, rushed to the door with his thumb muffling the mouthpiece, and peered through the peephole. Local counsel waited in the corridor. He opened the door and stepped back, a finger touching his lips as local counsel followed him inside. The door closed with a whisper.

“They set up several tents in the park today,” said Linda. “And my court officer told me the number of protestors has grown.”

“Give it a wide berth on your way home.” Hugh crouched at the minibar and snaked his hand past the bourbon to the vodka. “And get Bernadette to knock off that decision. Win or lose, they'll go away.”

“She's already helping me with the trial,” said Linda.

“That must sit well with Mark,” said Hugh.

“Actually, his work has improved lately. I got him involved in the trial today, and we even had a pleasant conversation tonight. I keep thinking he has a wife and a baby.”

“He's a big boy. He knows the deal. Everything ends at some point,” said Hugh.

“I know, but…”

“Then keep him. The West Chelsea people won't mind. He stays with you, that's one less problem on their plate.” Hugh carefully set the two bottles on the counter beside the olives and the martini glass, the bowl of ice and the silver shaker. “Look, it's late here and it's even later there. Get out of chambers, avoid the protestors, and have a good night. Tomorrow you'll find out that Hungary and Croatia will buy out Lord Leinster and that Mark's found a new job.”

“Thanks for your confidence,” said Linda. “Love you.”

“Ditto here,” said Hugh. He cut the connection with a jab of his thumb, placed the phone on the minibar, and turned around just as local counsel stepped out of her skirt.

 

CHAPTER 26

Linda needed to disengage for the evening and, as she stepped out of the Worth Street entrance, she felt this was the perfect evening to disengage. The weather was poised between warm and cool. The sun was setting earlier, but after a clear day the twilight held on beautifully with rose-colored clouds creating a faint haze that forgave the city its many faults. She crossed Worth and stood at the corner of Centre to look back at the courthouse. The huge columns, bathed in that same reflected light, took on a pink cast.

I still work here, she told herself, and felt something she hadn't felt in a long while: a swell of pride.

In the park across the street, six large tents stood among the sycamore trees. They looked festive, as if a carnival would begin once night fell. But Linda remembered Hugh's warning, and rather than continue past the park on Worth, she gave the tents a wide berth by heading up Centre.

She took three trains instead of one and got off at Columbus Circle. She had well more than ten blocks to home, but the night was beautiful and the sidewalks and cafés were filled with an upscale Lincoln Center crowd.

She noodled along, nosing in and out of random shops, browsing for the perfect take-out dinner. Her tender stomach made her decision for her—stuffed shrimp from one store, sweet pepper hummus and sesame flatbreads from another. Time passed, and she found herself standing outside a maternity shop.

In the display window, crib mobiles gently revolved: biplanes, winged unicorns, bears on balls. The door opened, and a couple carrying pink bags came out. Behind them, a nursery rhyme played to music. The air, for one breath, smelled of talcum powder. Just as her stomach had decided her dinner, her heart drove her inside.

At first, she felt like an intruder. Was she even pregnant? she thought. Of course she was. Those tests don't lie; neither had her roiling stomach and her morning retches. Still, the store was a totally alien world to her, the tiny clothes, the pastel colors, the soothing music. Was there, somewhere in the back room, a bunch of babies napping?

She noodled here as she had noodled on the street, sampling the feel of the different fabrics.

“How far along?”

Linda looked up. On the other side of the display table, a young woman folded stacks of onesies.

“Not very,” said Linda. She paused for a moment, then added, “My husband doesn't even know yet. You probably never get that.”

“It's New York. We get lots of things,” said the woman, who gradually did not seem so young to Linda. “Some women want to keep it to themselves for a while, almost like a jealousy thing. Some want to get used to the idea, especially if it's their first. Is this your first?”

“Not the first time,” said Linda. “The other ended quickly. My husband never knew. We lead very busy lives.”

“Don't we all.”

“So there's the jinx factor, too.”

“I get it,” said the woman. “How long have you known?”

“I took a home test last week.”

The woman finished refolding and slid to another display table.

“Not to tell you what to do, but you'd better see your doctor soon.”