Read Pieces of the Puzzle Online
Authors: Robert Stanek
Pieces of the Puzzle (7 page)
“What shit is this? That’s the best I can do.”
Scott waved the hundred-dollar bill like a tiny flag. “You could get a name for me, if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”
The cook picked up a nearby phone, dialed. “Yeah, I got a customer complaint. Claims someone signed a big tip to the room
service bill. I need the bellhop’s name… Friday night, Room 908…” The cook hung up the phone, turned back to Scott, screamed,
“Ernie, delivery!”
Scott handed the cook the money.
A pimple-faced teenager came running into the kitchen. Scott met the kid halfway, flashed a Ben Franklin at him and walked
into the hall. The kid followed.
“You a cop,” Ernie said, “I hate cops. I won’t talk if you’re a cop.”
Scott waved the bill in front of Ernie’s dazzled eyes. “No cop.
Do you remember a delivery you made to Room 908 on Friday?”
“I make a lot of deliveries.”
Scott showed him the picture of Helen and Jessica. Ernie’s face flushed red. “You remember something?”
“I saw her all right.” He reached for the money.
“There’s more, I know there’s more.”
Ernie whispered, “There’s two of them in there, right? They’re getting it on. I can hear it through the door. I knock anyway.
They ordered food, right?”
“And?”
“She tells me to set it outside the door and I do, then I left.
You going to give me the hundred or not?”
“And?”
“I was walking down the hall, right? I hear the door open, so I look back. She opens the door and reaches out to get the food.”
“And?”
“What are you, a priest? You want a confession?”
“If you’ve got something to confess.”
“She looks at me and smiles this big smile… She isn’t wearing anything at the time. That’s why I remember. All right?”
Scott pointed to the picture. “And this is the woman you saw?”
“I wasn’t exactly looking at her face, but yeah, that’s her.”
Scott gave Ernie the money and turned away.
Ernie said, “Who is she anyway?”
“My wife,” Scott shot back, “my wife.”
Ernie gulped and dashed into the kitchen.
Scott slowly made his way back to Room 908. He didn’t take the elevator this time. He took the stairs. The exercise was therapeutic
and he needed to think.
Helen was sound asleep when he entered the room. He knew there was nothing he could do until morning, so he lay down on the
bed. With his arms crossed behind his head, he stared into the darkness and at the ceiling he could see only vaguely. Sometime
after 2 a.m., he fell asleep, must have. But when he awoke, it didn’t seem like he had slept at all. And yet there was sunshine
poking through the curtains, so he must have.
The bed seemed cold. He reached out and found Helen was gone. He jumped out of bed, ran for the door, and was about to open
it when he noticed the bathroom light was on. He listened at the door. There was no water running, and it didn’t sound like
anyone was on the toilet.
He called out, “Helen, are you in there?”
“Yep… I’m here.”
He said through the closed door, “Who’s Pete? Jessica’s boyfriend?”
Helen laughed. “The bar where I got drunk on Sunday night.
Why?”
“The note in your purse. Was it from Jessica?”
“You went through my purse?”
“I was looking for the pictures of Jessica. Look, does she have a boyfriend?”
“Jessica, a boyfriend?” Helen laughed again. “She doesn’t date men.”
“Would she have met someone here on Friday night?”
Silence greeted him.
“Helen?”
He opened the door slowly. She was curled up in a corner next to the tub, crying and trembling. He coaxed her out of the corner
and into a chair. He opened the curtains so the warm sunshine bathed her face. Later he ordered room service for two—steak,
eggs, pancakes, hash browns, a pitcher of orange juice—and of course charged it to the room.
When the food came, Helen picked at it. Scott ended up eating more than he should have, and there were still lots of leftovers.
The only thing he finished was the pitcher of O.J.,
which he couldn’t seem to get enough of.
He waited until Helen looked relaxed, then asked about Jessica’s girlfriends. Jessica had only one, and no, Pattie didn’t
live in Miami. She didn’t live in Florida, either. She flew in sometimes on weekends and that was about all Helen knew about
Pattie.
Scott excused himself to make a phone call. He told her not to go anywhere. She promised she wouldn’t.
The pay phone in the lobby wasn’t his first stop. He bought a newspaper first, scanned the headlines, the obits. No murders,
no suicides, no Jane Doe’s. He wasn’t surprised to find that
it
had happened again. In his mind’s eye, he saw the billions the several-minute-long outage had wiped out. He saw the controlling
hands tighten their grip and he was more terrified than when he’d been crawling on his belly with car bombs exploding all
around him.
Surviving Munich had been skill and luck, but things were different now. Now the lines were blurred and he wasn’t sure who
was playing who. The only thing he knew for sure was that Glen had brought him back in for a reason and that Glen had given
him this assignment for a reason. If he wanted to stay alive—if he wanted those he cared about to stay alive—he’d play the
game but knew he was playing for all the wrong reasons.
He was about to use the phone when he saw a man heading toward the elevators. He recognized the face from somewhere. He took
a second look. The man had the skin tone and hair color of a Pacific Islander, was built like a Samoan, but didn’t carry himself
like a Samoan. He walked with purpose, not like a man on island time.
Scott decided to follow. The guy saw him, continued past the elevators and stopped in front of the door to the stairs. Scott
came up alongside him. “You deliver pizzas to Miami Beach too?”
The guy looked at Scott like he was strange. “You thinking of someone else.”
The guy started to walk off. Scott grabbed him by the shirt, picked him up off the floor and tossed him at the door to the
stairs. The door opened. Scott’s momentum carried him through it to the wall of the stairwell. “Who are you and why are you
following me?”
“Keneke Kawena.”
“Just what is that?”
“My name, Keneke Kawena.”
Scott’s nostrils flared.
“I work for HPD.”
“HPD?”
“Honolulu Police Department.” Keneke took out his badge and showed it to Scott.
Scott felt relief. He let go of the guy’s shirt and took a step back. “Why are you following me, detective? Aren’t you a little
out of your jurisdiction?”
“You call me Ken, and I’m not a detective, yet. I’m a computer technician assigned to the fraud division.”
“Fraud? Look, Ken, I’m in a hurry. Are you following me?”
“The cuckoo’s egg.”
“Come again?”
“The cuckoo’s egg.”
“Look, I’m on vacation. If you’re some kind of nut case, that’s fine by me, but go bother someone else.”
“I’m gone. You’ll never see me again.”
Scott said dryly, “That would be wonderful.”
Ken walked off. Scott sulked for a moment. Wondered if he was getting paranoid. Wondered if Glen had sent Ken to check up
on him, then went into the hall.
Two pay phones were off the lobby. Someone was using one.
He could have used the other, but didn’t want to talk while anyone was within earshot. He remembered seeing a phone booth
on the street near the hotel. He went outside and walked about half a block. Thankfully no one was using the phone.
He called Glen at the office. Glen’s secretary told him, “Mr. Hastings is still at home.” He dialed Glen’s home number, but
the line was busy. As he waited to try again, it started to rain.
The second time he tried, he got through. He yelled into the receiver, “Did you send some idiot down here to check up on me?”
Glen didn’t say anything.
“Well, did you?”
“Scott,” Glen said, clear tension in his voice, “I think you should come back to Baltimore.”
“Why?”
“I think I should tell you this in person.”
“Tell me now, Glen. I’m close to something. I can feel it. A few more days, that’s all.”
“Scott, where are you? Are you sitting?”
“Don’t play melodrama with me. It’s not you. Spit it out, I’m listening.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Glen said, “There’s been an accident. Cynthia’s in the hospital.
I think you should fly back to Baltimore on the next flight.”
For an instant, Scott saw his father’s face. Heard the snap of the trigger and the explosion of the gun firing.
“Scott, are you there?”
“Which hospital?”
Glen told him.
Scott hung up and raced to the hotel. Helen seemed to recognize the alarm on his face right away. He didn’t have to tell her
he was leaving. She knew. She wanted to go with him. She didn’t want to be alone. She told him that she had proof that Jessica
had the gizmo with her and that it was worth a lot more than anyone knew.
He asked her if she had a safe place to stay, a place that wasn’t in Miami or Boca Raton. She said she knew a place no one
would think to look for her. He gave her enough cab fare to take her to the Georgia state line, even though she was only going
to Tampa. She wrote down the phone number. He put her in a cab and told her to stay out of sight until he came for her.
Baltimore, Maryland
Tuesday,
4 January
Glen sank into the folds of the black leather chair, then purposefully plopped his feet onto the top of the massive mahogany
desk that dominated his office. He didn’t care that his shoes were caked with mud or that one of the little people would have
to clean up the mess. He glanced at the umbrella and the puddle forming beneath it. Damned rain just wouldn’t end.
The phone rang. Glen snatched it up, then waited for the Christmas tree of indicators on a box attached to the phone to light
all the way to the top. Once he was sure he was on a clear, untapped line, he grinned into the video phone and said, “Did
you do it?”
“Is it safe?”
Glen beaded his eyes.
“All right, stupid question—”“You’re right, it was. Did you do it?”
“The money. You said we’d talk money now.”
“You give me what I want, and by close of business, there’ll be a hundred thousand in your account. Does that make you happy?”
“I think two is a better number.”
Glen slammed the phone on the desk a few times. The video screen cracked and blanked out. He whispered into the phone, “Now
you listen to me and listen close. That’s the only offer. Try a double cross and they’ll find you wrapped in your intestines.
Do we understand each other?”
“You’re right, absolutely right. One is a fair number. I did it, I have everything you requested.”
“And the dosages?”
“All written down, just like you requested.”
“Is it traceable?”
“We’re talking pharmaceuticals, not bullets. Traceable to the manufacturer, hell yes. Traceable to you, never.”
“You haven’t told anyone else about this?”
“I’m not stupid. I know better than to shoot off my mouth.
I—”“Make the delivery when and where we discussed. The money will be transferred to your account. You have my word.”
Glen smiled as he hung up the phone. He took the pistol out of the top desk drawer and sighted it on the door. The gun wasn’t
loaded, but he wished it were. He squeezed the trigger. The pull seemed a little heavy. He squeezed the trigger again. Yes,
definitely heavy.
He dismantled the gun, set about adjusting the trigger pull. He liked to think of the act of squeezing the trigger as effortless
and that he need only breathe on the gun to make it fire. There was no point making something work that wasn’t.
Satisfied, he put the gun away and started dialing the phone.
“On the way,” he said once the Christmas tree lights were full on.
“What does he know?”
Glen leaned back in the chair. “I don’t think he knows anything.”
“You’re sure?”
“After all we’ve been through, you have to ask?”
“It’s what I do. I’ll see you this afternoon then?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Glen hung up the phone and dialed another number. He didn’t wait for the lights; the line wasn’t verifiable. “Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be. Why do bad things have to happen to good people?”
“I’ll pick you up in an hour, at four. He’ll be there before us.
I need you to be strong when you see him. Can you do that for me, Janet?”
“I’m your girl, aren’t I?”
“That’s my girl. You going to wear the yellow dress?”
“Glen.”
“For me.”
“I will if you want me to, but it’s hardly appropriate.”
“It’s a long drive.”
“Okay, you win. Can I ever resist?”
“See you at four.” Glen hung up the phone and turned to the window.
***
Scott sucked at the air in short, rapid puffs, his hand on the door handle. He promised himself he wanted to go in, promised
himself he was ready to go in, but felt like he was suffocating. His chest was tight. His head was about to explode. Old and
painful memories haunted his thoughts. The cab ride from the airport to the hospital in bumper-to-bumper traffic hadn’t helped
anything.
The cab’s meter, a testament to how long he had been trapped in the back seat, read one hundred ninety-six dollars. In the
last half hour, it seemed the cab moved only inches, and all he could think about the entire time was Cynthia and the baby.
He was angry, and mashing his fist into the armrest didn’t help. He didn’t understand why anyone’d go after Cynthia and the
baby. He was playing the game. He’d come back in. He’d done the right thing. There could be no doubt about loyalty.
He called the hospital more than a dozen times from the Miami airport, from the Sky Phone, and upon arrival in Baltimore.
Cynthia’s attending physician was Dr. Maureen Fitzpatrick. He still hadn’t been able to speak with her personally, but he
knew both the family physician, Dr. Emery Haskins, and Cynthia’s gynecologist, Dr. William Brown, had been consulted.
Cynthia had been moved from intensive care to a private monitored room. Her condition, serious and marginally stable as of
a few hours ago, was critical before he departed Miami. But he knew from experience that the difference between marginally
stable and worse was a few heartbeats and that the difference between life and death was but a single heartbeat.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture Cynthia as he had seen her last. He could recall every detail vividly. Her long brown
hair cast over her left shoulder. Her brown eyes, sad. Her lipstick, a shade less than rose. Her perfume, flowery, sweet and
exotic. But the face before his eyes was his father’s and not Cynthia’s. The doctors had been full of hope then, too. “The
bullet went through clean, Scott. There’s no hemorrhaging. It’s a miracle.” If it was a miracle, then why was he at a funeral
forty-eight hours later?
He exhaled, was about to open the door, when he heard a woman’s voice calling his name. At first he thought he imagined the
voice, but then he heard it again.
“Mr. Evers, Dr. Maureen Fitzpatrick. I came as soon as Mr. Simons told me you had arrived. Can we talk a moment before you
go in? Has anyone told you about your wife’s condition?”
He released his grip on the door handle, felt the blood rush back into his hand. “Dr. Fitzpatrick?”
He turned. There was an awkward moment as Scott wondered if he should shake her extended hand or not, then he shook her hand.
Dr. Fitzpatrick said, “You look exhausted. Come with me.
We’ll sit and talk for a moment.”
“Why is it that everyone knows about my wife’s condition but me?”
“I think it best if we go sit.”
“Why did they move her to a private room if her condition is still serious?”
“Mr. Simons requested it.”
“Is Mr. Simons her husband?”
She glanced at her watch. “I believe we’re getting off to a bad start. Your wife was in a terrible accident. Her air bag didn’t
open. She’s lucky to be alive. I think we should go down to the lounge.”
Despite his training, his knees started to buckle under his weight. “I think that would be good.”
Dr. Fitzpatrick led Scott to a private lounge. She started to pull out charts, he stopped her.
He said, “Just give it to me straight.”
She suggested he sit. He didn’t but he did prepare to hear something he didn’t want to hear. For a moment it was as if he
were reliving high school. His freshman year had been full of ups and downs. His father had retired from the military that
June, blew his brains out with a shotgun that August.
Everything changed after that. The extrovert, the jock and the guy everyone liked went away. An introvert, a rebel, a guy
no one wanted to know took his place. Truancy records and police reports replaced honor roll lists and martial arts trophies.
A one-way ticket to Pendleton Military School followed. But Pendleton wasn’t his saving grace. It only taught him that weapons
and tactics could resolve things he couldn’t hope to resolve otherwise.
As Dr. Fitzpatrick spoke, he heard but didn’t truly hear. “We tried to save them both, but couldn’t. The trauma of the impact
was too much.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “We lost the baby.”
He tried to sit but found his legs were rooted to the floor.
“And Cynthia?”
“She doesn’t know. She hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“Will she live?”
“She’s a fighter. Once we made the decision to perform surgery, things shifted in her favor.”
He asked to be alone and Dr. Fitzpatrick left saying how sorry she was, but how lucky he was. Cynthia should recover and in
time they could try to have another child. He didn’t say anything but wished for her optimism. Afterward he stood motionless
for a long time. He didn’t sit, couldn’t sit. He just stood there, staring blankly at the wall.
And then for a second time he found himself standing outside Cynthia’s hospital room, afraid to go in, afraid not to. He took
a deep breath, opened the door. A dim lamp was turned on beside her bed.
For a fleeting moment, he saw the wires, the machines, the IV feeding her intravenously and afterward, all he could see was
the image of her face in his mind’s eye the last time he saw her. Her beautiful brown eyes, sad. The lipstick on her lips
a shade less than rose. Her long brown hair draped over her left shoulder. He even imagined he could smell her perfume, exotic,
sweet, flowery.
He crossed to the bed, kissed her cheek. Her skin was clammy. Her eyes, bruised and swollen. Her lips, dry and cracked.
Her head, wrapped in bandages. He kissed her cheek again, closed his eyes, and did a thing he’d never done before. He prayed,
a real prayer, not a momentary fleeting prayer, but a real prayer.
Through the night, he stayed at her bedside. Daddy Simons came and went. The doctors came and went. Glen and Janet stopped
in for a few minutes. Janet told him it was a good thing Glen had been there to call the paramedics. But he didn’t see any
of them. He only saw her lying supine on the hospital bed. The color gone from her face. The bruises deepening under her eyes.
Every hour that passed made him more angry, more sure that her accident wasn’t an accident.
***
Outside the broad windows of the den, the rain had finally stopped. Janet put three ice cubes in a glass, poured the scotch
and added a splash of water. Glen watched. He liked to watch her move amidst the red-orange glow cast by the fire. The light
danced off her thighs and back, revealing the subtleties of her curves.
She grinned as she swished across the room and slid in beside him on the floor. She handed him the glass and nibbled his ear
while he sipped his drink and the logs in the hearth slowly melted to fiery ashes.
Later, Glen watched Janet stew over a question he knew she wanted to ask. And then when he thought she wouldn’t say anything,
she whispered, “Do you think he got the message?”
“One thing for certain, when it clicks, he’ll come running.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“You do have an early day tomorrow.”
“This is hard on you, isn’t it?” She massaged his neck muscles.
“Not like the old days. They were on one side. We were on the other.”
“Times changed. The whole world changed.”
“The dinosaurs are still the same. The game changed. We didn’t.”
She stood, started dressing. “I’ll call you Friday when I get back.”
“Call me before then.”
“Don’t worry. You taught me everything I know, remember?”
Glen grinned. “How could I forget?”
She slipped on her black leather pumps. He walked her to the door. They were in the middle of a kiss when someone pounded
on the door. Glen told her, “Go out the back door,” then clicked on the front porch light when she reached it. He shouted,
“Just a minute,” as he started to dress.
Glen chuckled when he heard Scott shouting, “Open the door or I’ll bust it in!”
He turned on the den lights and put his drink away while he waited to see if Scott
could
break down the door. There were two deadbolts on it, so he seriously doubted if anyone could break it down, but if Scott wanted
to try, why not let him.
A moment later he heard a crack, and the wooden door frame came splintering inward. He nodded approval as he ambled to the
foyer, grinning toothily and waiting for Scott’s fist to wipe the grin away.
The blow knocked Glen to the floor. Scott continued screaming and towered over him. “You son of a bitch! You did it, didn’t
you? You threatened to do it and you did it. I ought to kill you, right now, right here, just to see how many people would
thank me!”
Glen shook his head and struggled from the floor.
Scott knocked him down again. “Don’t move. I’m not done yet.”
Glen moaned. “I think you broke my jaw.” He tried to stand.
Scott tried to hit him. He blocked. Two blows to the face were enough for any martyr. They struggled. Scott’s hands were around
Glen’s throat.
“If she dies, I’ll make you feel everything she felt!”
Glen broke free, rolled, came up on his feet. He proclaimed his innocence while he held Scott’s fist at bay. “I made a mistake
before. You’ve got to believe me when I say I’d never cross the line. I’d never hurt Cynthia. I was the one who introduced
you to her, for chrissakes. I made an empty and stupid threat that I’ve regretted ever since. I did it because I needed you
on the team. Do you think I’m an idiot? I need you in Miami, not here in Baltimore sitting beside a hospital bed. You know
what’s going on.”
Scott looked confused for a moment, but that didn’t stop him from landing a kick to the head that knocked Glen off his feet.
He towered over Glen, looking down. “I suppose you just happened to be there when it happened?”
“I need you in Miami, not here in Baltimore sitting beside a hospital bed,” Glen repeated as he shook his head and held his
jaw. “I really think you broke it. Quite a kick.”
“Why were you there?”
“Let’s sit. Can we sit?” Glen staggered to the couch. Scott sat across from him. “Cynthia was worried about you, that’s why.”
Scott’s expression revealed his disbelief.
Glen continued, “I get this message on my answering machine to call the Chairman at once. So I called, and that’s how it all
started. Cynthia was worried about you. I met her and we talked. I left. She left. We both happened to be going the same direction:
Back to 695. That tanker truck driver never slowed down. The police report says it all. If I hadn’t been able to pull her
out just before the explosion, I wouldn’t be here either. We’d both be dead.”