The Missing Piece (6 page)

McQueen sat at an empty table, transposing names and numbers from the silent auction cards onto a master list of donated merchandise. Meanwhile, Foxx paced the dance floor and tapped his finger on the wireless microphone. Each tap thudded in the speakers.

“Give them another few minutes to settle down,” said McQueen.

“I thought you wanted me to start right away.”

“Who told you that?”

“Ursula.”

“Typical woman,” said McQueen. “She blames me that he spends too much time on the computer. Then he actually leaves his apartment, and she worries he'll tire himself out. I ask her which is her main concern, the computer or the fatigue, and she walks away.”

“The computer was your idea,” said Foxx.

“Well, you know the old saying. Teach a man to fish and he'll never starve. Teach a man to surf the web and he'll never stay sane.”

*   *   *

Gary Martin nudged the joystick, and his wheelchair lurched forward. The footrests hit the door, the door swung open, and he was away from the noise, away from the crowd, away from all the people who wished him well but would wake up tomorrow and not give him another thought till next year.

The men's room stank of pungent antiseptic and the floor was dotted with wads of paper towels. Gary rolled into the handicapped stall, where a log of shit turned slowly in the toilet. He pulled the white plastic bottle out of the side pocket of the wheelchair, then unzipped his fly to hang himself out. Well, not exactly hang, because
hang
implied being upright, and being upright was no longer possible. He worked the head of his dick into the mouth of the bottle and let go. The piss hissed as the plastic warmed in his hand.

The door opened twice in quick succession, letting in two distinct blasts of noise from outside.

“Mr. Gavigan,” said a man's voice.

“Cut the ‘mister' crap. I'm Hugh.”

“Of course, Hugh. I sent my résumé to your office last month. I wonder if you've had the chance to look at it.”

“I haven't, quite honestly. I'm leaving for a trial in Texas, so if I've seen anything else lately it's only because my secretary stuck it in my face.”

“Oh.”

Gary emptied his bottle into the toilet and zipped up.

“More than likely,” Hugh continued, “she would have passed it on to one of the partners on the hiring committee. They normally respond in a couple of weeks.”

“It's been three.”

Gary backed out of the stall. One of the men stood at the sink, while the other leaned into a urinal. The man at the sink was short and stocky with a head shaved like a bullet. He wore an olive suit and no tie with the top two buttons of his shirt open. He patted his neck with a paper towel. The other man wore gray pinstriped pants held up by maroon suspenders and a white shirt that had no business looking so starched at the end of a workday. He shook out, zipped up, and turned toward the other man.

“I will talk to the committee tomorrow and see where things stand with your résumé,” he said.

“Well, while I have you,” said the other, “I just want to reiterate that I've written decisions on virtually every type of civil case. I also have intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the court system. I believe I would be a valuable addition to your firm because…”

Gary had a nodding acquaintance with the man named Hugh, and though he never had seen the stocky bullethead before, he gathered he was a law clerk looking for a job. He'd never get it that way, thought Gary, as he kicked through the door and let the sounds of the party drown out the plaintive quaver in Bullethead's voice.

*   *   *

Linda was standing at the bar and waiting for Hugh to return when Gary Martin rolled up into the space beside her.

“Buy you a drink, Judge Conover?” he said.

“I'm afraid I just got a refill.” Linda turned and lifted her spritzer. “And it's Linda.”

“No, Judge. You earned the title. Using it's the least I can do.”

“That's silly. I'm still just Linda. To you, anyway.”

“It's a nice sentiment,” said Gary. “Not very widespread, but nice.”

Linda relaxed against the bar, taking him in. Even in the wheelchair, he still looked like the old Gary. His face huge, his beard full, his hair long and slicked back until it ended in gray-blond curls. His forearms were muscular. His stomach was round, but not as big as she might have expected three years after he took that bullet in the spine.

“You're right. I suppose judges are different.” She sighed, but it was not just a physical sigh. She felt as if she exhaled a bit of her soul, reconnecting with her old friend and coworker. “I find it much harder being a judge than a law clerk. I didn't realize what a good thing I had working for Judge Johnstone. Well, I did and then I didn't.”

“I always did,” said Gary. “Do you ever see him?”

“Not since he … you know.”

“He visited me a few times when I was in rehab, but he stopped around that same time. Were you surprised?”

“If I was surprised, I don't remember,” said Linda. “Things were difficult in chambers. We barely spoke to each other, and I'd already decided, well, I'd already decided a lot of things, but I just hadn't told him yet. Then he dropped the bomb, and I didn't need to tell him.”

The bartender reached over the bar and handed Gary a pint of beer.

“Compliments of the lady down at the end of the bar,” he said.

Gary and Linda both turned to see Ursula raise a glass.

“You're back with Ursula,” said Linda.

Gary sipped, then began to cough as if the beer went down the wrong way.

“Yeah,” he finally said, then his voice came fully clear. “And you're married. And a judge. How do those things feel?”

“Individually, fine. Together, not what I expected. This belief that you can have it all, I'm beginning to think it doesn't mean all at once.” She shook her head. “Sorry. That sounds self-centered, doesn't it?”

“Not to me,” said Gary.

“You don't need to be nice, or even polite.”

“I promise I'm not.” Gary took a long pull on his beer, then licked the foam from his mustache. “You know, I get flashbacks from that day. Odd things, like random images. It's like every second of that day has come back to me over the last three years.”

“Tell me one,” said Linda.

“Well, I just today had a flashback of you and me standing in the courtroom and looking at the treasure piece.”

“I remember that,” said Linda. “Was I ever in a mood.”

“Your argument with the judge. It bothered him, too.”

“Never said anything to me.”

“He told me during one of his visits with me in rehab.”

“Really? What exactly did he say?”

Before Gary could answer, Hugh shouldered between them and asked the bartender for a glass of red wine. Then he turned to Gary.

“You made a quick exit,” he said.

“Didn't envy you that conversation,” said Gary. He backed up. “I'd better circulate. Foxx and Mike keep telling me to work the crowd. Nice seeing you, Judge. You too, Mr. Gavigan.”

“It's Hugh,” said Hugh, and they both laughed.

“What was that all about?” Linda said after Gary rolled away.

“Your law clerk cornered me,” said Hugh. “Did you suggest he send me a résumé?”

“No,” said Linda. “I gave him a list of firms I thought were good possibilities, but your firm was not one of them.”

“Well, he sent one. And he took the opportunity to ask me about it in the men's room.”

“I'm sorry,” said Linda. “I'll talk to him.”

“No need. I handled it,” said Hugh. “Made like I hadn't seen his résumé, though I have. If he thinks he's getting as far as even a courtesy interview, he's sadly mistaken.”

“How about this?” Linda snaked her arm around Hugh's and entwined her fingers in his. “I've had him for two years. You take him for two, turn him into a decent lawyer, and I'll take him back for the duration.”

“Why don't we just adopt him?” said Hugh.

He unwound his arm and drained his wine in one long gulp.

“Aren't you going back to the office?” said Linda.

“I am,” said Hugh. “That's why I needed that.”

 

CHAPTER 6

Linda sat on the toilet and resumed counting in the old schoolyard way of inserting
one thousand
between each number. But the numbers faded again and her mind drifted back to her conversation with Gary Martin. Memory was a strange thing. Everyone could answer the “Where were you when?” questions about the seminal events that happened during their lifetimes. But the tiny events that stuck in people's minds from their own lives were fascinating. Why did we remember what we remembered? She had no answer, but she realized that the shooting in Judge Johnstone's courtroom—“the heist,” as it was called in the courthouse—was a dividing line for several lives. Gary's was the most obvious, and it made sense, she supposed, that he would remember standing at the treasure piece with her because it was the last day in his life that he would be able to stand at all. She had no independent memory herself, at least not until he refreshed her recollection.

Her memories of the day took a different track—anger at the judge, fear as the gunmen stalked through the courtroom, desolate loneliness in her apartment that night. And then Hugh called. He had been at a lengthy deposition that day and heard news of the shooting only when he returned to the office in the evening. Quickly piecing the story together, he realized that she must have been in that courtroom. He phoned her immediately, a call that ended six full months of silence following their breakup. They knew that phone call offered them only two choices: stay apart or get married. There was no third way.

The count came back into her consciousness.

Forty-eight one thousand, forty-nine one thousand, Fifty …

On the corner of the vanity, the early pregnancy test stick lay on a tissue. The instructions said to pee on the absorbent tip for at least five seconds and then lay the stick flat with the window side up for at least two minutes. Linda, a by-the-book person by nature, followed the instructions to the letter. But unfortunately she had forgotten her watch, and with Hugh up, showered, and dressed, could not risk leaving the bathroom to get it. Her fallback was to count the two minutes in her head.

… eight one thousand, fifty-nine one thousand, sixty.

Eyelids tightly shut, chin resting on the V formed by her upturned palms, she could hear the rumble of the elevator rising to the third floor, the rattle of the door as it opened, the squeak of Hugh's shoes in the hardwood hallway before he hit the carpet in the master bedroom.

“Hey, Lindy, you need to come see this,” he said.

Good thing she had not tried to grab her watch.

“I'm kind of in the middle of something right now,” she said, still keeping count in her head. She had locked the bathroom door, something neither of them ever did, and hoped he did not jiggle the knob.

“Take your time, then. I'm DVRing it.”

“Okay.”

“Don't you want to know?”

“Surprise me,” she said. She could visualize him striding back to the elevator, slick, starched, tie perfectly knotted. He definitely was a morning person. She reached one hundred twenty in her count and, uncertain her timing was correct, decided to count thirty more. Finished, she stood up and, studiously avoiding the test stick, pulled her panties over her hips. She stepped directly in front of the vanity and gripped the edge of the sink basin tightly with both hands. Here goes, she thought.

A blue plus sign filled the round window.

Her hands immediately started to shake, her legs went wobbly. She lowered the toilet lid and sat, trying with little success to breathe deeply.

Keep it together, she told herself. She loosened her fists, unclenched her teeth, and took a deep settling breath until the strength returned to her legs. She splashed water on her face, poked some life into her hair, then dropped the test stick into the pocket of her bathrobe.

Hugh stood at the kitchen counter, staring at the tiny flat-screen TV over the rim of his mug. Linda drew up beside him and insinuated her shoulder under his arm.

“What is it?” she said.

Hugh pressed the remote, running the morning news broadcast back to an image of people, placards, and trees.

“Demonstration at Foley Square,” he said. “Started early this morning.”

Several people in tattered clothes held signs in front of the wide stone steps that led up to the massive columns of the courthouse facade. She squinted, but the signs were a blur.

“Who are they?” she said.

“Some of your happy customers.”

Hugh zapped the TV with the remote, freezing the picture and silencing the reporter's voice-over. Without the dizzying movement, Linda could focus on the signs. One read:
INCREASE OUR STIPENDS
. Another read:
DECENT HOUSING FOR DECENT PEOPLE
. A third read:
WHERE DO YOU LIVE, “JUSTICE” CONOVER
? The screen jumped to a bearded man speaking to a crowd from a park bench.

“Oh dear,” said Linda, lowering herself onto a stool.

“What stipends are they talking about?” said Hugh.

Once upon a time, when their marriage was young and Linda's judgeship was new, they talked constantly about the cases that came before her and the cases he took to trial. It was shop talk, Linda believed, but also the cord that bound them. Lately, though, the natural tension between bench and bar had seeped into their relationship. She suspected the motives of every lawyer who came into her courtroom, he doubted the intellectual abilities of the judges assigned to his cases. Shop talk became increasingly rare, but neither of them could ignore a televised protest. So Linda explained how homeless families received monthly rent stipends computed by a formula that was revised every few years. The latest revision went into effect in July, and an advocacy group immediately challenged the new formula in court, arguing that the new stipend was not enough to rent decent housing in a decent neighborhood.