Stealing Time

CHAPTER 7

A

nton Popescu left Roosevelt Hospital after his evening visit, burning with humiliation. A nurse built like a Hummer had kicked him out of his wife's room. When he tried to talk her out of it, she cut him off mid-sentence.

"Hey, don't raise your voice at me. Sick people are trying to sleep here," she said softly.

"I didn't raise my voice," he insisted.

"You're yelling at me now."

"Oh yeah? You're crazy."

The cop, who'd been away from his chair outside Heather Rose's room when Anton arrived, suddenly came swaggering back. He hiked up his heavy belt with the gun and the club on it. "What's going on?"

"Mr. Popescu was just leaving," the nurse said coolly.

"I don't think so." Anton bunched his fist at her. He couldn't believe this was happening.

The cop didn't like the body language. "You heard the lady. Nobody goes in." He was a young, powerful Hispanic, heavily muscled, mean-looking, and not small enough for Anton to take on. He repeated himself a few times, then took a macho pose with the billy club.

"Jesus!"

This was another in a brutal collection of confrontations Anton hadn't been able to win that day. After six hours of incitements, he'd become a dazed bull, helpless and exhausted. A bunch of little people in uniforms had been pushing him around. In the ambulance, they'd kept him from Roe. In the hospital, they'd taken her away and wouldn't let him see what they were doing to her. When he'd complained, more cops restrained him.

Worst of all, the group of detectives, including a lieutenant and the Chinese sergeant, questioned him as if they thought he might somehow be involved. How could they think that? He, steal his own baby! Hit his own wife! What kind of person would do that? The fact that the police suspected him hurt him deeply. It enraged him further that the Chinese sergeant had been allowed into Roe's room and he had been barred. It was then that the sergeant told him about the Crime Scene Unit working at his apartment. He'd never given permission for criminologists to enter his apartment, they'd just taken over.

They'd tapped his phone.

Even now two detectives were sitting in his living room waiting for the phone to ring. And he couldn't find a way to protest. Not only that, two grubby-looking guys who looked like bums off the street had trashed his place. Crime scene!

They

were the crime, touching his things without his consent, moving them around, taking photographs of everything, vacuuming the carpets with their own portable vacuum cleaner. They cut a hole in his rug and took away the garbage cans. He actually saw them shine weird lights on the walls and floors—looking for what? They'd made sketches of the blood splotches on the kitchen floor and left gritty fingerprint powder everywhere. He didn't think the place would ever be clean again.

And all the while different detectives kept asking him questions, a thousand and one questions about his life, his wife, people she might have given the baby to or who might have come and taken him. He had no idea how to answer. The detectives were asking about private stuff that was none of their business. About the beating, they didn't ask very much. That really scared him. They'd taken his fingerprints and asked about his in-laws. But he didn't know what they were thinking. He had a right to know what angle they were following. That part was his business, his wife, his missing

baby.

He had a right to know what they were looking for. After most of the detectives left, two had stayed behind in the apartment to man the phones, and this made Anton feel doubly victimized. He and Roe were in danger now, and he no longer remembered why he'd gone to the police in the first place. Later, when he went back to the hospital, he was certain a plainclothes cop had followed him there.

Now, after visiting his wife again late in the evening and getting nothing out of her because she was still unconscious, he was tormented by another policeman taking an I-can-beat-you-up-if-I-want-to pose. He flushed purple. He wasn't leaving his wife there alone to be tortured by them as soon as she opened her eyes. He was going to wait until she awoke so he could talk to her himself.

But he couldn't get to her. Standing in the doorway of her room, the officer had blocked his way, staring at him in a threatening manner. The moment stretched into several long minutes as the cop silently challenged Anton to let go of all his restraint and pop him one. Anton debated his options. On the other side of the room in the hospital bed was his unconscious wife, with tubes in her arm and nose and a swollen eye and lip. He looked over at her, praying for her to wake up and help him. She hadn't stirred since he came in. But the Chinese could be a solid wall of noncompli-ance when they wanted to. They were supposed to be so weak and submissive, but that was a crock. He felt like shaking her. How could he talk to her when she was hiding out inside her head—the way she did sometimes just to spite him—but this time hiding in her head in the hospital, where he couldn't reach out and pull her back into reality. What if she lost her mind altogether and flipped out with the baby still missing? How could he save either of them then?

Come on, Roe, don't do this to me. He willed her to speak.

No answer.

"You want me to walk you to the elevator, sir?" Suddenly the cop dropped the aggressive stance and became helpful.

No, he did not want a police escort to the elevator. He wanted his wife to wake up so he could get her out of there and take her back home where she belonged. He was hungry. He was upset. He wanted his wife back, his baby, his happy life. His face contorted with pain as the cop escorted him to the elevator.

When he stepped off the elevator, it got worse. He'd forgotten about the reporters. Downstairs, by the hospital front door, a reporter took his picture. Anton was surprised and recoiled at the flash of light.

"Any word on your baby, Mr. Popescu?"

Anton was so stunned he couldn't even shake his head. Blindly, he pushed past the man and hurried east toward Central Park. The reporter followed him. Then a woman and another man ran to catch up.

"Is that him, Grady?"

"The police are saying there was no kidnap—" The first reporter dogged Anton's steps.

"Did she see her attacker?"

Why didn't the cop who'd been on his tail help him with

this?

Anton began to run.

"Can you tell us—"

He was like an animal looking for a bolt-hole. His wild eyes searched the sidewalks for a way out as first three, then four reporters came after him. There was no escape but the street and the oncoming cars. He ran into the street against the light. Cabbies leaned heavily on their horns as two drivers trying to avoid him crunched to a stop, barely missing each other. Anton spun around, swearing. "You stupid assholes!"

When he reached the other side of the street, he raised his hand. Another taxi stopped beside him. He got in, giving instructions as the driver took off. Then he saw two cops drive up in a squad car. He gave them the finger, but they stayed with him. When Anton arrived home, two more squad cars were parked across the street from his building, and Perry, the night doorman, was on duty. Perry was not one of Anton's favorites. More than once, he'd considered getting him fired. The man was a classic working drunk, never totally out of it, but always on the other side of vague. He had a big, puffy body and an enviable head of springy pale hair, and he kept several layers of smell over a solid base of whiskey and beer.

At the moment Perry had a forbidden cigarette cupped in one fist as he watched Anton get out of the cab. Slowly he doused the cigarette in the dregs of a take-out coffee, put down the container, then moved to open the door. He reeked of cough medicine and cigarette smoke.

"How's the missus?" he asked when Anton shuffled in. "She as bad as they say?"

Anton glared at him. "Get rid of that fucking cigarette."

"I don't smoke on duty. Must be all the cops. Could be anybody's smoke." The man's eyes were shrewd through his alcohol haze. He sucked his teeth and gave his head a shake. A shock of hair fell over his forehead. "Police up and down the street all night," he added with some satisfaction. "Talking to everybody and checking the garbage before pickup tomorrow morning."

Now Perry didn't look at all drunk, and Anton's pulse went crazy. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.

The doorman, in his red uniform that didn't fit, shrugged importantly. "The garbage gets picked up tomorrow morning, so they have to do their looking tonight. They're out in the park, too." He gestured with his chin across the street toward Central Park.

Anton's eyes narrowed at the lights clearly moving through the shrubs, illuminating the spring blooms on the taller bushes and trees. He made a noise in his throat as if he were choking. He couldn't seem to take in the full impact of the horrors being visited upon him.

"They're looking for the baby's body," Perry told him.

Anton saw a van cruise toward the circular drive in front of the building. It had a dish on top and a TV station's call letters painted on the side. Anton grabbed some cash from his pocket and thrust it at the loathsome doorman without looking at it.

"If you ring me upstairs for any reason or let any of those reporters in, you'll be out on the street picking through garbage cans yourself tomorrow." Then he ran across the lobby to the elevator and pushed the button. When the door slid open, he disappeared inside.

An hour and a half later his phone rang for about the fiftieth time, and for the fiftieth time, the two detectives in the living room tensed. Both were chubby and bald. Both wore headphones and drank a lot of coffee.

"You ready?" asked the one who had a mustache. That was how Anton told them apart. One had a mustache and one didn't. He hadn't bothered to learn their names.

Anton rolled his eyes and picked up. This one wasn't a crank call or a reporter. The soft voice of his brother, Marc, came on the line. "What the hell is going on? Some detective wants to talk to me about Roe and Paul. What happened? Is everything all right?"

"Go ahead and talk to the detective, Marc. It's for sure you can't talk to me. I'm under surveillance. And this phone is tapped for the ransom call."

There was a stunned silence.

"What ransom call?" Marc asked finally.

"Well, the police think there's going to be one."

"Huh?"

Anton hung up before Marc could say anything more. The two detectives turned their recording equipment off and looked at him. He gave them a grim little nod and reported the caller's name. They turned the machine back on and asked him to repeat it. While they were listening to the conversation, the doorbell rang. The detective working the phone paid no attention. Anton crossed the living room to see who it was. Through the peephole in the door he saw the Chinese detective and her sidekick.

"Jesus," he muttered. He was sweating and badly needed a drink. He felt like a squirrel caught in the middle of the road with cars coming in both directions. The doorbell rang again. He opened it, his heart beating at his chest like a hammer.

"Mr. Popescu?" The male cop spoke.

"Did you find him?" For the first time Anton's voice came out no louder than a faint whisper.

The two detectives traded looks. This time the woman answered. "No, sir. Not yet."

Anton clutched his chest. "Is my wife—?" "No change. Do you mind if we come in for a few minutes?"

Anton took a deep breath and shook his head. "It's eleven o'clock; isn't it a little late for a visit?"

The Chinese gave him a strange look, as if that might be an inappropriate response. He didn't like her, and realized he had to watch himself.

"I'm Sergeant Woo. This is Detective Baum."

"I spent the afternoon with you. I remember who you are." He took a step back onto the white rug, which had a gaping hole cut out of it where one of Heather's bloodstains had been. The other stains were still there and already turning brown. Anton didn't look down. To see it would make him lose control.

The two detectives came right in. Anton hadn't had anything to eat or drink since lunch. He swallowed, surprised that he was hungry at a time like this. He really needed a drink. He didn't dare take one.

"I've already talked to about a hundred people. What do you want?" He looked wearily from one to the other.

The two cops looked at each other, then through the arch into the living room where the other detectives were still playing with the phones.

"There's a detail we need to take care of right away," the Chinese sergeant said.

Anton's expression became wary. "What's that?"

"It's about your baby."

Anton's jaw tightened. He didn't say anything. He stood in the small vestibule and waited for the bomb to drop.

"We need a birth certificate."

"What?" He genuinely looked surprised. "Why?"

"For identification."

"I thought you said you haven't found him."

"We'll need it when we do find him, and we believe it might help us locate him."

Anton stopped breathing. "What do you mean?"

"Mr. Popescu. The doctor told us that your wife has not given birth to a baby, so we know she's not the birth mother. We need to establish—"

"Oh, my God," Anton blurted out in an anguished voice. "Oh, God. I told you I didn't want them all over her. Oh, this is outrageous."

Sergeant Woo did not seem moved. "We have to have the facts of the situation."

Anton looked at the men in the living room and lowered his voice. "I don't want this to get around."

Detective Baum shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but Anton didn't continue.

"If the baby's adopted, we'll need to see the papers," the sergeant said.

"Oh, God." Anton rolled his eyes.

"We have to see the adoption papers," she repeated.

"I don't see what this has to do with it. It's our child, period."

"Well, that can easily be established." She kept at it.

"You're out of your territory here. It has nothing to do with getting my son back."

The two detectives exchanged glances again. "That's what we need to establish. Maybe the birth parents have abducted their own baby." The woman again.

Anton clutched his chest. "Oh, Jesus, that can't be."

"Why not?" she asked.

"I'm the baby's father."

"Who's the mother?" Deadpan Chinese face.

"She lives in another state." Anton gulped for air.

"We'll need to talk to her."

"I don't know where she is now."

"We know how to find people. Where did she give birth?"

"She had a home birth." He gulped again. "Look, this is complicated. I had an affair, okay? The woman was married. Let's leave it at that." Sweat was pouring down his face. He wiped it with his starched white shirtsleeve.

"Maybe she changed her mind and wanted the baby, after all," Sergeant Woo wasn't letting up. She didn't seem to be buying the home-delivery bit.

"No." It was an agonized cry.

"Did you beat up your wife, Mr. Popescu?" This from Detective Baum.

"No!" Anton was reeling.

"Somebody beat her up," Baum said.

"I know, I know. It wasn't me."

"Mr. Popescu, you could save yourself a lot of trouble if you told us where the baby is," Sergeant Woo said.

"I told you I don't know. Do you think I would have called you assholes if I knew where he was?"

"Are you calling the sergeant here an asshole?" the detective demanded.

"That's okay," the sergeant said smoothly. "I'll let it go. Mr. Popescu, we're going to have to locate the baby's mother. This is not optional. We have to do it. We have to have the birth certificate. We can't investigate without it."

"It's not her. I know it isn't. She isn't even in the country. I couldn't do it to her. Her husband would kill her. He's a military man. And I just can't. My poor Roe. You don't know what this would do to her."

"And I need the phone number of your wife's parents," Sergeant Woo said suddenly.

That really stopped him short. "They don't know anything about this," he said, almost meekly now.

"They may know more about their daughter than you think."

"Oh Jesus. I don't want them in this. They're— emotional."

"It's procedure," the detective said flatly.

"I don't want them here, understand? I can't put up with wailing parents in my house. . . ."

"No one's bringing them here."

"They'll come here, believe me."

Anton couldn't help it. The weight of the situation broke him. He began to sputter and cry in front of them. Once he started crying, he couldn't stop. It was a whole big mess. There was no way he could contain it. He cried as if his fragile heart would break over the terrible things that were happening to him, and then he gave the two cops part of what they wanted. He gave them Heather's parents' telephone number in San Francisco. They stayed for a while longer, and then the detectives left. But the cops manning the phone stayed put. He could watch from the windows as the search in the park widened and went on. He couldn't leave the apartment. He couldn't communicate with anyone on the outside. And he had no idea what the police had found out.