The Broken Window (19 page)

He liked moments like these. They reminded him of his life in the Before.

Which in turn brought to mind the pictures downstairs in the laboratory. Beside the one of Lincoln in his tracksuit was another, in black and white. It showed two men wearing suits on their lanky frames, in their twenties, standing side by side. Their arms hung straight, as if they were wondering whether to embrace.

Rhyme’s father and uncle.

He thought often of Uncle Henry. His father not so much. This had been true throughout his life. Oh, there was nothing objectionable about Teddy Rhyme. The younger of the two siblings was simply retiring, often shy. He loved his nine-to-five job crunching numbers in various labs, loved to read, which he did every evening while lounging in a thick, well-worn armchair, while his wife, Anne, sewed or watched TV.

Teddy favored history, especially the American Civil War, an interest that, Rhyme supposed, was the source of his own given name.

The boy and his father coexisted pleasantly, though Rhyme recalled many awkward silences present when father and son were alone. What troubles also engages. What challenges you makes you feel alive.

And Teddy never troubled or challenged.

Uncle Henry did, though. In spades.

You couldn’t be in the same room with him for more than a few minutes without his attention turning to you like a searchlight. Then came the jokes, the trivia, recent family news. And always the questions—some asked because he was genuinely curious to learn. Most, though, asked as a call to debate with you. Oh, how Henry Rhyme loved intellectual jousting. You might cringe, you might blush, you might grow furious. But you’d also burn with pride at one of the rare compliments he offered because you knew you’d earned it. No false praise or unwarranted encouragement ever slipped from Uncle Henry’s lips.

“You’re close. Think harder! You’ve got it in you. Einstein had done all his important work when he was just a little older than you.”

If you got it right, you were blessed with a raised eyebrow of approval, tantamount to winning the Westinghouse Science Fair prize. But all too often your arguments were fallacious, your premises straw, your criticisms emotional, your facts skewed… At issue, though, wasn’t his victory over you; his only goal was arriving at the truth and making sure you understood the route. Once he’d diced your argument to fine chop, and made sure you saw why, the matter was over.

So you understand where you went wrong? You calculated the temperature with an incorrect set
of assumptions. Exactly! Now, let’s make some calls—get some people together and go see the
White Sox on Saturday. I need a ballpark hot dog and we sure as hell won’t be able to buy one at
Comiskey Park in October.

Lincoln had enjoyed the intellectual sparring, often driving all the way to Hyde Park to sit in on his
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uncle’s seminars or informal discussion groups at the university; in fact, he had gone more frequently than Arthur, who was usually busy with other activities.

If his uncle were still alive, he’d undoubtedly stroll into Rhyme’s room now without a glance at his motionless body, point at the gas chromatograph and blurt, “Why are you still running that piece of crap?” Then settling down across from the evidence whiteboards, he’d start questioning Rhyme about his handling of the 522 case.

Yes, but is it
logical
for this individual to behave in this manner? State your givens once more for
me.

He thought back to the night he’d recalled earlier: the Christmas Eve of his senior year in high school, at his uncle’s house in Evanston. Present were Henry and Paula and their children, Robert, Arthur and Marie; Teddy and Anne with Lincoln; some aunts and uncles, other cousins. A neighbor or two.

Lincoln and Arthur had spent much of the evening playing pool downstairs and talking about plans for the next fall and college. Lincoln’s heart was set on M.I.T. Arthur, too, planned to go there. They were both confident of admission and that night were debating rooming together in a dorm or finding an off-campus apartment (male camaraderie versus a babe lair).

The family then assembled at the massive table in his uncle’s dining room, Lake Michigan churning nearby, the wind hissing through bare, gray branches in the backyard. Henry presided over the table the way he presided over his class, in charge and aware, a faint smile below quick eyes taking in all the conversations around him. He’d tell jokes and anecdotes and ask about his guests’ lives. He was interested, curious—and sometimes manipulative. “So, Marie, now that we’re all here, tell us about that fellowship at Georgetown. I think we agreed it’d be excellent for you. And Jerry can come visit on weekends in that fancy new car of his. By the way, when’s the deadline for the application? Coming up, I seem to recall.”

And his wispy-haired daughter avoided his eyes and said what with Christmas and final exams, she hadn’t quite finished the paperwork. But she would. Definitely.

Henry’s mission, of course, was to get his daughter to commit in front of witnesses, no matter that she’d be separated from her fiancé for another six months.

Rhyme had always believed that his uncle would have made an excellent trial lawyer or politician.

After the remnants of the turkey and mincemeat pie were cleared away and the Grand Marnier, coffee and tea had appeared, Henry ushered everyone into the living room, dominated by a massive tree, busy fireplace flames and a stern painting of Lincoln’s grandfather—a triple doctorate and a professor at Harvard.

It was time for the competition.

Henry would throw out a science question and the first to answer it would win a point. The top three players would receive prizes picked by Henry and meticulously wrapped by Paula.

Tensions were palpable—they always were when Henry was in charge—and people competed seriously. Lincoln’s father could be counted on to nail more than a few chemistry questions. If the topic involved numbers his mother, a part-time math teacher, answered some before Henry had even finished asking. The front runners throughout the contest, though, were the cousins—Robert, Marie, Lincoln and
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Arthur—and Marie’s fiancé.

Toward the end, nearly 8 P.M., the contestants were literally on the edge of their chairs. The rankings changed with every question. Palms were sweaty. With only minutes remaining on timekeeper Paula’s clock, Lincoln answered three questions in a row and nosed ahead for the first-place win. Marie was second, Arthur third.

Amid the clapping, Lincoln took a theatrical bow and accepted the top prize from his uncle. He still remembered his surprise as he unwrapped the dark green paper: a clear plastic box containing a one-inch cube of concrete. It wasn’t a joke prize, though. What Lincoln held was a piece of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, where the first atomic chain reaction had occurred, under the direction of his cousin’s namesake, Arthur Compton, and Enrico Fermi. Henry had apparently acquired one of the pieces when the stadium was torn down in the 1950s. Lincoln had been very touched by the historic prize and suddenly glad he’d played seriously. He still had the rock somewhere, tucked away in a cardboard box in the basement.

But Lincoln had no time to admire his award.

Because that night he had a late date with Adrianna.

Like his family, unexpectedly thrust into his thoughts today, the beautiful, red-haired gymnast had figured in his memories too.

Adrianna Waleska—pronounced with a soft
V,
echoing her second-generation Gdansk roots—worked in the college counselor’s office in Lincoln’s high school. Early in his senior year, delivering some applications to her, he’d spotted
Stranger in a Strange Land
on her desk, the Heinlein novel well-thumbed. They’d spent the next hour discussing the book, agreeing often, arguing some, with the result that Lincoln realized he’d missed his chemistry class. No matter. Priorities were priorities.

She was tall, lean, had invisible braces and an appealing figure under her fuzzy sweaters and flared jeans.

Her smile ranged from ebullient to seductive. They were soon dating, the first foray into serious romance for both of them. They’d attend each other’s sports meets, go to the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute, the jazz clubs in Old Town and, occasionally, visit the backseat of her Chevy Monza, which was hardly any backseat at all and therefore just the ticket. Adrianna lived a short run from his house, by Lincoln’s track-and-field standards, but that would never do—can’t show up sweaty—so he’d borrow the family car when he could and head over to see her.

They’d spend hours talking. As with Uncle Henry, he and Adie
engaged
.

Obstacles existed, yes. He was leaving next year for college in Boston; she, for San Diego to study biology and work in the zoo. But those were mere complications and Lincoln Rhyme, then as now, would not accept complications as excuses.

Afterward—after the accident, and after he and Blaine divorced—Rhyme often wondered what would have happened if he and Adrianna had stayed together and pursued what they’d started. That Christmas Eve night, in fact, he’d come very close to proposing. He’d considered offering her not a ring but, as he’d cleverly rehearsed, “a different kind of rock”—his uncle’s prize from the science trivia contest.

But he’d balked, thanks to the weather. As they’d sat, clutching each other on a bench, the snow had begun to tumble suicidally from the silent Midwest sky and in minutes their hair and coats were covered with a damp white blanket. She’d just made it back to her house and Lincoln to his before the roads
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were blocked. He lay in bed that night, the plastic box containing the concrete beside him, and practiced a proposal speech.

Which was never delivered. Events intruded in their lives, sending them on different paths, seemingly minute events, though small in the way of invisible atoms tricked to fission in a chilly sports stadium, changing the world forever.

Everything would’ve been different…
.

Rhyme now caught a glimpse of Sachs brushing her long red hair. He watched her for some moments, glad she’d be staying tonight—more pleased than usual. Rhyme and Sachs weren’t inseparable. They were staunchly independent people, preferring often to spend time apart. But tonight he wanted her here.

Enjoying the presence of her body next to his, the sensation—in those few places he was able to feel—all the more intense for its rarity.

His love for her was one of the motivators for his exercise regimen, working on a computerized treadmill and Electrologic bike. If medical science crept past that finishing line—allowing him to walk again—his muscles were going to be ready. He was also considering a new operation that might improve his condition until that day arrived. Experimental, and controversial, it was known as peripheral nerve rerouting, a technique that had been talked about—and occasionally tried—for years without many positive results. But recently foreign doctors had been performing the operation with some success, despite the reservation of the American medical community. The procedure involved surgically connecting nerves above the site of the injury to nerves below it. A detour around a washed-out bridge, in effect.

The successes were mostly in bodies less severely damaged than Rhyme’s but the results were remarkable: return of bladder control, movement of limbs, even walking. The latter would not be the result in Rhyme’s case but discussions with a Japanese doctor who’d pioneered the procedure and with a colleague at an Ivy League university teaching hospital gave some hope of improvement. Possibly sensation and movement in his arms, hands and bladder.

Sex too.

Paralyzed men, even quads, are perfectly capable of having sex. If the stimulus is mental—seeing a man or woman who appeals to us—then, no, the message doesn’t make it past the site of the damaged spinal cord. But the body is a brilliant mechanism and there’s a magic loop of nerve that operates on its own, below the injury. A little local stimulus, and even the most severely disabled men can often make love.

The bathroom light clicked out and he watched her silhouette join him and climb into what she’d announced long ago was the most comfortable bed in the world.

“I—” he began, and his voice was immediately muffled by her mouth as she kissed him hard.

“What did you say?” she whispered, moving her lips along his chin, then to his neck.

He’d forgotten. “I forgot.”

He gripped her ear with his lips and was then aware of the blankets being pulled down. This took some effort on her part; Thom made up the bed like a soldier afraid of his drill sergeant. But soon he could see that the blankets were bunched up at the foot. Sachs’s T-shirt had joined them.

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She kissed him again. He kissed her back hard.

Which is when her phone rang.

“Uh-uh,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear that.” After four rings, blessed voice mail took over. But a moment later it rang again.

“Could be your mother,” Rhyme pointed out.

Rose Sachs had been undergoing some treatments for a cardiac problem. The prognosis was good but she’d had some recent setbacks.

Sachs grunted and flipped it open, bathing both of their bodies in a blue light. Looking at caller ID, she said, “Pam. I better take it.”

“Of course.”

“Hey, there. What’s up?”

As the one-sided conversation continued, Rhyme deduced that something was wrong.

“Okay… Sure… But I’m at Lincoln’s. You want to come over here?” She glanced at Rhyme, who was nodding agreement. “Okay, honey. We’ll be awake, sure.” She snapped the phone shut.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. She just said Dan and Enid had two emergency placements tonight.

So all the older kids had to room together. She had to get out. And she doesn’t want to be at my place alone.”

“It’s fine with me. You know that.”

Sachs lay back down and her mouth explored energetically. She whispered, “I did the math. She’s got to pack a bag, get her car out of the garage… it’ll take her a good forty-five minutes to be here. We’ve got a little time.”