The Missing Piece (29 page)

“What about you?”

“My plan all along.”

The cottage had two bedrooms, and the wall between them was paper thin. Bernadette made a grilled cheese sandwich—about all Linda said she could stomach—while Foxx found a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for Linda to sleep in.

Linda ate the sandwich and drank another ginger ale, then retired to the spare bedroom. Foxx imagined she might look cute in the sweatpants and T-shirt, but never saw her. Bernadette went in to visit, and the two started talking. Foxx returned to the daybed. He drank one beer, then fetched another, and then a third. He smoked a cigarette and thought about how shitty people could be to each other. Then Bernadette finally came out and supplied more evidence to substantiate his theory.

“I never liked him,” she said. “But I always thought Linda was a smart lady and knew what she was doing. He was there almost a week, saying he was on trial when he actually was shacking up.”

“I hate people,” said Foxx. He slouched low, his head resting on the bolster pillow that lined the wall, a beer on his stomach.

“Not everyone, I hope,” said Bernadette.

She lifted the beer from his hand and straddled his legs to sit on his knees.

“Persuade me,” said Foxx.

She grabbed the hem of her top and reversed it over her head. Somehow, the bra that had bedeviled him earlier went along with it.

Later, naked, they shut off all the lights and got into bed. Sounds bled through the wall, though neither could tell if they heard Linda tossing on a cheap mattress or sobbing at the demise of her marriage.

“We'll need to be quiet if we have a second act,” whispered Bernadette.

“Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American life,” said Foxx.

“That was a hundred years ago.” Bernadette massaged his thigh with her knee. “There are nothing but second acts in American life now. Thirds and fourths, too.”

*   *   *

“It's like I woke up blind and now I need to relearn the world around me,” said Linda.

She and Bernadette sat at the flimsy kitchen table and drank coffee.

“Sure, I still have my other senses, but without my sight I don't really believe what I smell, taste, touch, and hear.”

“Did you have any inkling at all?” said Bernadette.

“Consciously, no. He's a lawyer with a national practice. He has a trial in Texas. He prepares for it, or gives a damn good show of preparing for it. So no, I had no conscious inkling. But subconscious? Maybe I've known it all along, but it surfaced as my personal dissatisfaction.”

“With being a judge?” said Bernadette.

“Among other things.” Linda sipped coffee, then pushed the mug away. “I was thinking last night, before Hugh got home, that there were three aspects of my life I needed to prioritize. Now it's only two.”

“Have you thought about who you'll retain?” said Bernadette.

“I don't know any lawyers in the matrimonial bar. What I want to do is put this all off until after the trial.”

“You can't sweep this under the rug. A trial is a trial. Your divorce will have long-range implications for your life.”

“If it comes to that,” said Linda. “Until I get served with papers, there is nothing to do. I'll have twenty days to hire an attorney and serve an answer. The trial could be finished before that.”

“This is not the time to start cutting things too fine,” said Bernadette. “You need to establish interim living arrangements. You ran out in a panic last night, but maybe he should be the one to move out and leave you in possession of the house. Maybe he wants that.”

“I'm sorry I imposed on your night with Foxx.”

“You didn't impose.”

“I had no idea. Well, maybe a little. When did this start?”

“It didn't start,” said Bernadette. “It's an old story that restarted. And this is not what I want to be talking about.”

“Then what is?” said Linda.

The jalousie door creaked, and Foxx stood in the kitchen doorway, dark against the bright morning sun. He dropped a bag of bagels on the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee, and took it onto the porch. Perfect silence settled in the kitchen. Foxx looked out over the water. It took a moment, as always, for the shell of the old prison to spin into focus. But once it did, that was all his eyes could see.

A chair scraped in the kitchen, and a moment later an arm slid around him. Bernadette. Foxx blinked, and the prison receded into the background.

 

CHAPTER 33

Across the street
was code for the firm apartment, which actually was two blocks away in a high-rise condominium. Occupancy was short-term, a courtesy and convenience for out-of-town clients or trial witnesses. This time it was both.

The firm driver had picked up the present occupants late the previous afternoon at JFK, where they arrived on a flight from Zagreb. According to the driver, neither the flinty old man nor the elegantly beautiful woman had said a word on the long slow drive from the airport. Not to him, not to each other. Nor did the old man want to see anyone, particularly his lawyer. He was too tired from the flight.

Billy Cokeley left his office with a file, a legal pad, and the transcript of Anton Fleiss's deposition from almost four years ago. He also carried a bag of hot chestnuts, which Natalija Radic, the minister of culture, had whispered over the phone last night would be a nice gesture.

Natalija opened the apartment door. She kissed Cokeley on each cheek, then led him into the living room. Orkan Stjepanovic sat at the table in the dining area and stared out the window. He wore a bathrobe, pajamas, slippers. He said nothing when Natalija introduced Cokeley as “our lawyer,” just slowly turned his head to meet Cokeley's eyes and then just as slowly turned away again. He had a thin face, a hooked nose, wiry white hair tight to his skull, and tiny blue eyes.
Flinty
was an accurate description. He never knew his driver had such a way with words.

Natalija opened the brown paper bag and placed the chestnuts in front of Stjepanovic. Stjepanovic took one in his mouth, chewed, and then swallowed. His stern expression did not change. Cokeley caught Natalija's eye, and she lifted her brow as if to say
go ahead
.

Cokeley cleared his throat.

“Mr. Stjepanovic,” he said.

Stjepanovic did not react. It was as if he had not heard, so Cokeley repeated himself louder. Still, no reaction.

“He prefers to be called
Pukovnik
,” said Natalija. “Colonel.”

“I'm sorry,” said Cokeley. He leaned toward Stjepanovic, his hands folded on the thick deposition transcript. “
Pukovnik
Stjepanovic, I appreciate you traveling such a distance to give your testimony. Let me explain what will happen.”

Natalija translated. Stjepanovic waved his hand, annoyed.

“Stop,” Natalija told Cokeley.

She traded words with Stjepanovic, and then Stjepanovic rose unsteadily and shuffled around the corner and down the hallway.

“He gets cranky when his bladder fills,” said the Natalija. “I told him to pee. And now I'm going to tell you what you need to know. Colonel Stjepanovic is not Anton Fleiss. He was stationed along the Hungarian border. He and his men often crossed into Hungary. They socialized in Hungary, they had friends in Hungary, and they had financial interests in Hungary that they sometimes needed to protect. You will go into none of that.”

“I won't be the only lawyer to question him,” said Cokeley.

“The colonel can handle himself quite well,” said Natalija. “His bladder is the problem, not his brain or his tongue or his forbidding personality.”

Stjepanovic shuffled back into the dining area and sat down. He seemed to Cokeley to be in a marginally better mood, at least until his bladder filled again.

Cokeley patted the transcript.

“This is what Anton Fleiss said,” he explained. “Right now, we need to go over your testimony. I will ask you the questions asked of Anton Fleiss. I expect your answers will be the same.”

They covered all the same ground: Marshal Tito's summer retreat at Pula, the excavation for a swimming pool, the spades hitting the lid of a large bronze cauldron, the fourteen pieces of silver inside. Cokeley did not probe, did not try to shake any of the colonel's unswerving answers. That was a job for Pinter and Braman. And from the harsh glare in the colonel's eyes and the haughty turn to the colonel's mouth, good luck with that.

*   *   *

The call started while Linda was in the bedroom, and now she was pacing the kitchen. Bernadette had gone to a family function that started in the afternoon and would last long into the night and did not include Foxx. Foxx himself sat on the porch.

“I don't want to fight,” said Hugh. “We're sensible people. We're lawyers. We should be able to work things out and get all this behind us so we can move on.”

All this? thought Linda. What was all this? What part of all this was her fault?

“What are your plans?” he said.

“My plans? You think I went to bed last night and woke up with a plan?”

“You could start by telling me where you are.”

“None of your business,” she said. “A friend's house.”

“Bernadette's, right?”

“Wrong.”

“We need to talk. You rushed out last night before I could explain.”

“You explained everything clearly enough.”

“We still need to meet,” said Hugh. “While we have the time.”

“Right. We'll meet and talk. Because we're sensible lawyers. Because we can work things out and get it all behind us and move on. I hear you, Hugh. I hear the code behind your words. You want to talk so you can get what you want and how you want it.”

“That's not true.”

“Isn't it? I don't see the rush, and you're not going to stampede me.”

“The rush is that I'm not going to be here,” said Hugh. “I took a leave of absence from the firm. I have a flight back to Texas at noon tomorrow.”

“Oh,” said Linda. The swiftness of this change in the landscape dumbfounded her.

“And in the meantime, you can stay in the house while I'm gone, of course without prejudice to a later determination of possession and ownership.”

“You know what, Hugh? You're an asshole.” She cut the connection and tossed the phone onto the kitchen table and stormed out to the porch. Foxx shoved over to one side of the daybed and patted the bolster pillow. Linda sat down, but did not sit back.

“You can tell me to shut up,” said Foxx, “but I'll say it anyway. He
is
an asshole.”

“You expect an argument from me?” Linda sat back now and tried to pick out whatever Foxx found so engrossing on the water. “What's out there?”

“See that island with the brick building?”

Linda squinted. “I do now.”

“That's Hart Island and the brick building was the Reformatory Prison. My father ran the mess hall there. A launch would come to that dock to pick him up in the morning, then bring him back at night. Every day, all weather.”

“That was a different sort of commute,” said Linda.

“Yeah, it was.” Foxx looked at her. “So?”

“He said he's leaving tomorrow. Going back to Texas. I don't know for how long, but I know I don't want to see him. Can I stay the night? I understand without Bernadette here you might feel uncomfortable.”

“Why would I?”

“Right,” said Linda. “Why would you.”

*   *   *

McQueen found Larkin in a bar on Columbus Avenue a few blocks south of a renovation project Larkin managed as a general contractor. Larkin had big shoulders and a big gut that expanded into a surface where he could rest his big arms when he sat on a barstool. His red hair, pulled back into a ponytail, was white with dust. It was late afternoon. The sunlight was on the wane, and so was Larkin's sobriety. McQueen tapped his shoulder, reminded him of the appointment they had arranged to eyeball Gary Martin's kitchen.

“Right, lad,” Larkin said, addressing McQueen's reflection in the mirror behind the bar before pushing his pint glass toward the bartender.

The bartender refilled the glass, and Larkin knocked it off in two pulls. The scene repeated itself three more times before Larkin pushed himself off the stool.

Outside, McQueen turned in the direction of Gary's apartment.

“For fook's sake,” said Larkin. “Where's the fire?”

“We're an hour late,” said McQueen.

“You are, I'm not,” said Larkin. “Your friend's misfortune is not my occasion for charity.”

McQueen walked on, keeping two paces ahead of Larkin as if to drag him along by gravitational pull. Larkin grunted and complained, then grunted some more. Twice he veered off into alleys, once to pee, the other to take a snort from a little brown bottle in his pocket. He came out jangled after that stop, but complained less. They arrived in front of Gary's building. Larkin looked it up and down, then wandered off while McQueen rang up. Ursula answered.

“I'm here with Larkin to look at the kitchen,” said McQueen.

“This isn't a good time,” said Ursula.

“It's never a good time to renovate. But it's worth it.”

“I'm talking about right now. This minute. It's not a good time.”

“Let me talk to Gary,” said McQueen.

“Mike…”

“Jesus, Urse, I got this guy here. Let me talk to him.”

“Fine,” said Ursula. “Gary, Mike's outside with a contractor. They want to look at the kitchen.”

“Not now,” Gary said in the background.

“Hear that?” said Ursula. “Now is not a good time, just like I said.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot.” McQueen turned to explain to Larkin, but Larkin was gone.

*   *   *

Foxx gave Linda a fresh pair of sweatpants and a fresh T-shirt, then ran a load of wash that included the clothes Linda wore when she fled her house. With the clothes in the dryer, Foxx walked to the boulevard and then down to Artie's. He smoked a cigarette on the way. Somehow he'd gotten in four so far.