The Missing Piece (35 page)

She had drawn even with the coat tree when Gary caught up. Something—the wheelchair's footrest, she instantly realized—clipped her heel and tripped her. She tried to get her feet under her, but her tumbling momentum drove her to the floor.

Gary stopped beside her. With one huge hand, he grabbed her ankles together and lifted her feet. She tried to kick herself free, but his hand held fast. She heard the clank of metal as he locked the handcuffs around one ankle and then the other.

*   *   *

The husband of the couple who lived in 4D returned home from his late shift just after midnight. With his wife already asleep inside, he carefully separated the keys on his key chain. He quietly turned back the dead bolt, then slipped the second key into the other lock. From down the hall came the rattle and click of a door unlocking. He glanced quickly down the hall and saw it was the door to the apartment where the man in the wheelchair lived. The man was quiet and rarely left his apartment. His girlfriend was a nurse, coming and going at all hours. They were both big people.

He opened his own door, intending to avoid any chatter that would disturb his wife. But he thought it would be polite to wave, so he turned and instead of his neighbor saw a naked man crumpled against the doorjamb. The man stumbled forward and fell to his knees. Then he pushed himself up and began to crawl. His skin was pale and splotchy. Yellow saliva dripped from his mouth. He rose up on his knees and stretched his arms in supplication.

The husband from 4D closed himself in his apartment. He threw the lock and the dead bolt, then he called 911.

*   *   *

They were in the living room. Linda sat in the corner of the sectional, her legs drawn up, her feet cuffed at the ankles, her arms hugging her belly. Gary buzzed around the room in his battle chair. He already had taken her cell phone and the two cordless landline handsets, and now he was pushing a chair and the coffee table to block the doorway that led into the hall. Despite her fear and confusion, Linda couldn't help but notice how easily and deftly Gary worked the chair. It was fast and it was precise, more appendage than machine.

Gary's last move was to push away parts of the sectional to create a space next to the corner piece where Linda sat. He backed into that space, then reached a hand toward Linda's knee.

“Don't touch me,” she said.

“Okay. No problem.” Gary withdrew his hand. “We'll get there.”

“Get where? We're not getting anywhere.”

“Back where we were. Before.”

“We weren't anywhere before.”

“Yes, we were.” Gary reached into the pocket of his parka and dropped a fistful of objects onto the sofa. “We did a lot together. Museums, restaurants, the park, the zoo. We were building something hour by hour, souvenir by souvenir, memory by memory. Look. This is evidence. You can't deny evidence.”

“Gary, I don't deny that we had a good time. I don't deny that I liked you and appreciated you, because I did. Truly. But things were different then. We were both in a different place.”

“No, you need to see things the way I see things. We weren't in a different place then. We've been in different places since, but lives are like big gears, always turning. Moving away and then coming back together. I know. I spent lots of time thinking about these things. And now we are all back together: you, me, the missing piece, and
The Missing Piece
.”

“Gary, I never even heard about that book until tonight.”

“That's because the gears already were turning that day,” said Gary. “I suspected it, but I really didn't understand it. I was going to give you the book that day. Ursula moved out over that weekend, so the decks were clear. But then Kearney switched me and Foxx and then you had that fight with the judge. So even when Kearney put me back in on that security detail, there was no time for it. The closest I got was when you and I were standing there and looking at the piece. But the time wasn't right, and I thought, Hey, there's always later. I didn't know later would be so long.”

He opened the book.

“Gary.”

“No. We are here, and it is now. I am going to show you the book, and you will understand.” He turned the page. “Here is the main character. He looks like a cheese wheel with a large hunk cut out. He's on a quest to find a piece the exact size and shape to fill what he's missing. Some pieces are too big, others too small, a few come with missing parts of their own, or extra parts that he can't accommodate. All he wants is to roll along smoothly through life, but none of the pieces he tries fit perfectly and he thumps along like a flat tire. And then he finds the perfect piece, and the two roll along merrily into the future.”

“I don't know where you're going with this,” said Linda.

“You don't? Linda, you're my missing piece.”

“But I'm married, remember? And you're with Ursula.”

“Not anymore. She's with Mike now.”

“McQueen?” said Linda. “I know he's your friend, so don't take this wrong. But I don't see him with anyone.”

“He's with her. Right now. Trust me. And your marriage is a temporary problem with a simple solution. You don't love Hugh. You never loved Hugh. He was your hook for becoming a judge. Okay, so you became one. But you're still Linda, and we fit together. You can't deny that.”

“But not perfectly,” said Linda. “And you want perfect. You deserve perfect. I have my own missing pieces. I have my own baggage.”

“No!” Gary shouted. “You're perfect!”

“I'm not,” Linda said softly. “There are no perfectly shaped pieces out there. Everyone has a dent or a bump or an odd angle. People choose the ones who best fill what they lack. But nothing's perfect.”

“No. It happens. I know it happens. And I have proof. Finding that piece was proof. See, when I got out of rehab, Mike and some of the guys chipped in and bought me a computer. They figured if I was stuck in my apartment, the computer would be my connection to the outside world. I was hurting, Linda. I was hurting pretty bad. The computer wasn't the answer. And then I began to use it to learn about the treasure, you know, demystify the thing that put me in a wheelchair and took me away from you. I trolled the Internet, looking for word that the piece had been found, or sold, or turned up in some Middle Eastern bazaar. I never found anything, and so I got to thinking that the piece never left the courthouse. Those bastards got away, but they left it behind, hidden somewhere. And then an idea popped into my head. It was like a revelation. I knew that if I found the piece I could have you back.”

“But there is no connection between me and the piece,” said Linda.

“Of course there is,” said Gary. “When you spend time alone like I did, all those weeks and months in rehab, you start to think in supernatural ways. This piece is what binds us. Not just then, not just now, but forever. It brought us together, it got me shot.”

“You got shot because someone wanted to steal it,” said Linda.

“No, no, no, that's the wrong way to look at it. Events tried to pull us apart, but it brought us back together. Think about it. Standing in the courtroom just before the trial began. You and me. Together. It was my last happy moment, the moment I held on to all these years. Now I have everything. The piece that was missing and the missing piece.”

“Gary, we had something special,” said Linda. “We truly did. And I remember standing there with you. I've thought about it over the years, too. Fondly. Sadly. Ruefully. But as much as I want to go back to that day and have it end differently, things are just too complicated now.”

“You and Hugh, right? I told you. Simple solution to that. You get a divorce. Hugh won't give a damn. He's not your destiny. He never was. I'm your destiny. And Ursula's not a problem anymore, either. Last time she moved out. This time … well, the decks are clear once again.”

“What happened to her, Gary? What did you do?”

“It doesn't matter, not anymore.”

He pushed the joystick forward and shot away from the sectional. She watched as he worked the wheelchair like a bulldozer, quickly shoving aside the chair and the coffee table that had blocked the doorway. She felt sick to her stomach, not the morning sickness of these last few days, but something deeper and more primal. Something that wouldn't go away with a sleeve of saltines or a glass of seltzer. Ursula was dead; she knew that. And Mike? Well, if he wanted to sell the piece that was right now on her kitchen counter, he probably was dead, too.

Gary rolled back beside the sectional. He snaked an arm across her belly and yanked her onto his lap. She flailed and she punched, but it was like pummeling a walrus. He twisted her until she was sitting on his lap, then squeezed her till she stopped fighting.

“That's better,” he whispered into her ear.

He rolled to the elevator, opened the outer door, and backed into the car.

“Where are you taking me?” she said.

He punched number two.

“Where do you think?” he said.

 

CHAPTER 40

Foxx tracked the cell phone to the pocket of the shirt he'd tossed into the laundry basket only an hour ago. He considered letting it ring through, then decided after a day like today that wasn't such a wise idea. At least he could thank her for saving the phone from a watery grave.

“Get down to Gary Martin's apartment,” said Bev.

“Now? What happened?”

“That's what I want to know.”

It took Foxx almost an hour to get from City Island to the Upper West Side, but he didn't miss much of anything. Bev and one of her investigators waited in the hallway outside Gary's apartment. The apartment door was open, and a police officer stood guard at the threshold. Beyond, in the once ornate foyer, a man wearing a medical examiner windbreaker talked with a detective. They moved sideways, and a tech entered stage right, guiding a gurney with a body bag. Something clenched in Foxx's gut.

“Gary?” he muttered.

“No,” said Bev. “Someone named Ursula.”

“Gary's girlfriend,” said Foxx. “Shit. Where's Gary?”

“Nowhere,” said Bev. “Neighbor saw Mike McQueen stumble out of the apartment. Naked, disoriented, drunk or drugged. EMTs took him away.”

“Any ideas?”

“None,” said Bev. “I don't know if McQueen's a suspect or a victim. No one's telling us anything.”

*   *   *

Except for a small sitting room at the front of the brownstone, the master bedroom suite took up the entire second floor. There was the bedroom itself, his and her walk-in closets, and, in the rear, a large bathroom.

Linda's eyes were open, but she took in little as Gary rolled them off the elevator. If she felt sick to her stomach before, she felt like she was having a total physical breakdown now. Her legs felt like jelly while her chest heaved and her arms shook uncontrollably.

Gary spun them into the bedroom.

“Are you cold?” he said.

She didn't answer.

Gary pulled up beside the bed, which had a flouncy comforter and a frilly bed skirt, cubbies built into a teak headboard, spindles for a footboard. It was a high bed, so he raised the seat of the wheelchair and pushed Linda off his lap and onto the mattress. She immediately rolled away, but he grabbed her by the waistband of her sweats and pulled her back. She bucked wildly and pounded his forearm with her fists.

“Stop!” he yelled.

She only bucked harder.

He pinched her face in one hand and forced her to look at him.

“Stop, goddammit!” he yelled. “We're here for the night. Get used to it.”

She settled down. He let go of her face, patted one cheek gently, then trailed his hand along her shoulder and down her arm before locking onto her wrist. He backed away enough to turn the chair and inspect the bed.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Okay.”

He let go of her wrist, scooted the wheelchair to the foot of the bed, and hooked his fingers on the metal links between the two rings of the handcuffs. He pulled, and she slid down the mattress until her feet touched the spindles. Quickly, he opened one ring, looped it around a spindle, and locked it around her ankle again.

“There,” he said, shaking the cuffs. “Comfortable?”

“No.”

“You will be.”

He scooted back to the top of the bed, lifted her head and shoulders, and shoved two pillows underneath.

“Better?”

Linda only grunted.

She watched as he cleared everything off the night stand on “her” side of the bed, anything she could reach in the cubbies over her head—a crystal bud vase, a decorative ceramic tile, a china teacup embossed with a gilt
Herself.
He took the cordless landline handset from its cradle, dropped it onto the floor, and rolled over it with his wheelchair. She could hear the plastic breaking. Then he dropped the phone cradle and rolled over that, too.

Linda closed her eyes until the sound of cracking plastic stopped. She didn't expect that Gary would leave the bedroom phone intact, not after he took care of the phones downstairs, not after he dropped her cell phone somewhere deep into the cavernous pockets of his parka. She saw him now spinning slowly in the wheelchair as if making one last inspection.

“Where are the light switches?” he said. “Oh, never mind.”

There were two banks, one just inside the door and the other beside the headboard. They were complicated, controlling the ceiling fixtures, spotlights, accent lights, the reading lamps. With one swipe of his hand, he killed them all.

The bedroom had no windows. Ambient light came in through the sitting room, but dimmed to a fuzzy gray as it reflected down the hallway and into the bedroom. Linda stared up at the dark ceiling. She heard the wheelchair roll around the foot of the bed and along the other side. Hugh's side. For a moment, that simple thought gave her some comfort; then it didn't.