Stealing Time

CHAPTER 37

T

ick, tick, tick: 10:06

A.M

. at the law offices of Pfumf, Anderson and Schmidt. Anton sat at his desk, staring at the screen of his computer and trying to ignore the subtle pulse of the expensive mahogany mantel clock whose heavy brass pendulum swung back and forth all day long to remind him that every second of his time was supposed to be paid for by clients. In the richest of tones it also chimed the same message on the hour and the half hour. The symbolic clock had been given to him by his father the evening of his first day at the firm. The whole family had been assembled for dinner and the ceremony: his grandfather, still alive then; his father, uncle, brother, and cousins; their spouses and children; his aunt, his mother, everybody, all dressed up for the event and the mountains of food the women had prepared. It had been a kind of unspoken celebration of his survival. The family had triumphed and he was now formally proclaimed master of the system, ready at last to give back in services all that he had received in support and loving care. Then, he had been proud. Now, he looked back on the occasion in the light of bitter remembrance; what a contrast it made to their less joyful response when he married Heather Rose. As so often happened in families, the price for their support had been high. Anton thought about that as he waited for word from his brother. Marc had phoned early that morning sounding upset—"Big trouble." Then he said he couldn't talk, he'd have to call back.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Anton had replied. "I'll take care of it." He said the words easily, even though he didn't want to take care of anything for his relatives ever again.

For quite a while he'd been making no secret of the fact that dealing with every single problem of his highly litigious family was getting out of hand. Not only were his partners furious that he never billed relatives for all the time he spent on them, but also the cases brought by Marc and Ivan, and even the older generation, were often problematic.

"There's an argument for everything" had been his grandfather's motto. Anton had followed it and become adept at riding out untenable positions. The message of the elegant clock made him feel guilty with every tick. He'd paid his family back over and over and couldn't get out from under.

Gloomily, Anton thought of his wife's black eye. Oh yes, he had more than the looks of his partners to contend with now. They passed him in the hall; no one said a word. That was the way it was done uptown. No weeping and complaining and carrying on would do here. The surface had to be smooth: they had to do their work no matter what. Nevertheless, Anton knew his partners were talking about him behind closed doors. They'd never liked him, and now they had their chance to dust him.

He listened to the ticking clock and couldn't concentrate. Marc's voice made the knot of anxiety in his throat grow and grow until it was a lump so big he couldn't swallow. He wanted to know what had happened. Heather was crazy and uncooperative. Why had she done this? He just didn't get it.

The worst part was that he'd been such a jerk all along, so happy to accept the gift of fatherhood, so secure in the reality of having a family himself, that he hadn't bothered with the detail of his baby's birth certificate. If he'd bothered to line up a doctor and the forms and taken the baby down to the Health Department immediately, he could have done it legally. Or at least semi-legally. In any case, the birth records would now be where they should be. But he hadn't dealt with the legalities. Not doing it was against everything he'd learned about covering his tracks, covering his ass, and going by the book. Why hadn't he done it?

Okay, never mind, it was done now. He'd have papers by tonight. So what if the papers hadn't been on record until now? He could blame the clerks. He could blame the doctor, say he hadn't filed them promptly. He could say anything, negotiate anything. His brother had a lead on the baby. They'd get him back quietly in a day or so. He and Roe would get over it. He told himself this even as the clock ticked and he waited for his brother to call. He jumped when the phone rang.

It was one of the doormen at his apartment building. "There's a policeman here. You asked me to let you know."

"I'll be right there," Anton said. He grabbed his suit jacket and left the office without stopping to give instructions or tell anyone where he was going. Out of shape and angry at being called at his office, he stomped down the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and talking to himself as he ran the four blocks home. He'd told those cops to stay out of it. Rage at the pile of misfortunes that had been heaped on him all his life, culminating in this final public hounding and humiliation, pumped him into a frenzy. By the time he got to his lobby he was gasping for air at the pain and unfairness of it all. But after all that rush, no policeman, male or female, was in sight as he whirled through the revolving doors and charged across the lobby. He put a hand to his head and leaned against the cold marble that framed the elevator.

"You okay, Mr. Popescu?"

Anton didn't look at the doorman. He knew the man's name was Fred; he thought Fred was an asshole. No, he was not okay. He was in agony, anybody with a brain could see that. "Yeah," he muttered, catching his breath.

"The cop's upstairs." He held out his hand for a tip. It hung there.

"Oh shit!" Anton propelled himself off the wall, punched the elevator button, and exploded. "Shit! I told you not to let him go up. You're fired. Get out of here."

The doorman was shocked.

"I said you're fired."

The man's eyes popped.

"You're fired, asshole!

Don't be here when I get back." The elevator doors slid open. Anton got in. The doors slid closed. Mad for a fight, he counted the seconds it took to rise to his floor. Then he marched down the hall and let himself into the apartment. All was quiet. He poked his head into the living room. The first thing he saw was the detective with the expensive navy sports jacket comfortably ensconced on one of his sofas going through a box of photos, the only thing that had escaped scrutiny during the last police search of the place. For a second Anton thought he was losing his mind.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he screamed.

Anton saw the detective holding his special box, the contents of which not even his own wife had ever seen. The antique leather hatbox filled with photos and mementos had been padlocked and put high up behind a bunch of other stuff on a shelf. How had the box wound up in the living room? The fucking detective had gone through absolutely everything in his closets, that's how.

"Give me that." He plunged across the room and grabbed the worn leather.

The cop had the box on his lap and wouldn't let go. They jerked it back and forth a few times, finally tipping it so that photos from camp that awful year spilled across the floor. Anton saw the pictures of himself desperate, mortified, reaching for the cap that had been snapped off his egg-bald head by his archenemy, Brad. In the photo Brad held the hat high over his head so the much smaller Anton couldn't reach it. He could still hear the boys taunting him. The fury caught him in its tide, and he snapped. He punched the cop, catching him by surprise and knocking him off the couch.

But the cop didn't fall awkwardly and recover his balance slowly, as he should have. He rolled as he hit the ground. Before Anton had a chance to bend down and collect the painful images he'd kept hidden all those years, the cop was on his feet with a small pistol aimed at Anton's head.

"Put up your hands."

Anton turned his head and screamed again, this time at the sight of the gun.

"Put your fucking hands up," the cop demanded.

Anton grunted. The action of raising his hands was unfamiliar to him. He moved—but to argue, not to put them up. The gun jerked, eliciting another cry of alarm.

"Stand back and raise your hands." The cop bit off each word, really angry now.

"Are you crazy? Put that thing away!" Anton cried.

"You just assaulted a police officer, sir. You can be prosecuted and sent to prison for that. Put up your hands."

"What are you talking about? This is my

home,"

Anton cried.

"I'm telling you to do something. You don't argue with me. You do it."

Anton lived to argue. No way was he going to stop arguing just because some asshole told him to. "Don't give me that shit. I find a stranger in my home, going through my possessions. I had no idea you were a cop. Put that fucking thing down."

Now he was ashamed that he'd been afraid of the gun. The cop was not going to shoot him. He didn't know why he'd screamed. He glanced down at the scatter of photos on the floor. Let the cop hit him. That would be good. They'd have a hearing. He'd sue the city. He'd get millions of dollars and an apology for everything he'd suffered. It would be in all the newspapers. Roe would be by his side in court. They'd get rich in a hurry. He turned his back on the cop to pick up his pictures. It was then that he saw his wife staring at him. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater. The swelling around her bad eye had gone down. Her bruises were mottling now, but both eyes were open and staring at him as if she'd never seen him before.

"Hi, honey—" Then he choked on what else he saw. "What happened to your hair?"

The cop made a startled noise and looked surprised as well.

"She's dead," Heather Rose said, so softly Anton wasn't sure he'd heard her right. Then her mother and father appeared behind her. For once the bossy woman was silent. Soo Ling Kwan stared at her son-in-law accusingly. No words were needed to express her feelings. His father-in-law coughed and patted his tweed sports jacket, searching for cigarettes and a light. The dry cleaner from San Francisco looked everywhere but at Anton as he prepared to smoke. This was a pointed insult, because Anton didn't allow cigarettes in his house.

The shocking thing, though, was Heather Rose without her hair. He knew now that she knew about the pictures in the box. His in-laws were making faces at him, so they had to know, too. The cop had uncovered his secret. They all knew. Anton's injured pride demanded that he reassert his authority.

"Go to your room, honey," he told his wife.

Her head was round. Her cheeks were flat. Her hair was almost as short as his, but jagged, as if she'd hacked it off in a hurry. She looked different in other ways, too. Nothing like his worried little rabbit from before. Most annoying of all, she didn't move when he told her to.

"Honey, we'll talk about this privately."

She didn't move. To get away from all the prying eyes, Anton bent to pick up the photos. He saw that the cop had lined up on the table some of the very recent ones: Heather Rose with her gorgeous hair, bulging in a maternity dress at the family Easter party. He'd taken it for posterity to prove she had been pregnant, to show Paul when he was older that Heather Rose was his real mother. Another was a Heather Rose in bed in her long pink nightgown, holding the baby. That one had been taken a few days after Paul's birth, the day his family had come to see him for the first time. It all seemed a million years ago.

Another photo from the same batch of negatives showed Heather, slim, wearing a red cashmere sweater and reading a magazine. Where did that come from? Anton closed his eyes. When he opened them, the tableau was unchanged.

"What's going on?" he asked in as level a voice as he could manage.

"We need a photo of your wife."

"What for?" he asked.

"For identification. Your baby stroller has been located."

"What does that mean?"

Heather's father found his cigarettes. The pack crackled as he extracted one and lit it.

"The woman who has it said she saw a woman with a long ponytail give the baby to another woman."

"As you can see, my wife has short hair," Anton replied.

"She had long hair when I arrived here this morning."

"Are you so sure she had long hair that you would swear it in court?"

"What are you arguing about?" Heather cried. "That poor girl is dead."

"I'm not arguing."

"Yes, Anton. You don't even know what's going on. The baby is gone; no one knows what she did with him. A woman is dead. You can stop arguing now."

"Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about."

Furious, Heather shook her head. "You won't even wait to hear what's going on."

"This is unauthorized entry, unauthorized search and seizure. This so-called policeman came in here without anyone's permission and almost killed me when I caught him. You're a witness. You're all witnesses. You saw him hit me," he said stolidly.

Tears filled Heather's eyes. "I'm not anyone? I'm someone, Anton. I live here, too, and I authorized him to come inside."

"You're crazy. I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's true; you never know what I'm talking

about. But I'm someone anyway," she said softly. "I let him in."

"Shut up," Anton said coldly. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Are you ready?" the cop asked Heather.

"I didn't mean it like that. Don't be a crazy bitch—" He stopped, gaped at the cop, gaped at his wife, his in-laws. The cop pocketed the photos. Anton was stunned. He was tied in knots. He was wearing a suit, one of his best suits, which signified that he was an important person. But the cop had a gun. His low-class in-laws were gabbling in Chinese. His wife was gathering her things.

"Oh, no, you don't!" he cried to no one in particular, and to all of them. "You're not going anywhere."

His wife buttoned the light jacket he'd bought her, slung the expensive purse he'd bought her over her shoulder. He knew how much both those things had cost. He hadn't begrudged her anything. She walked out of the door first, followed by her mother and her father. The cop was the last in line. Anton, in all his wisdom, decided the best course of action was not to follow them at this time. Whatever she said later, he would counter with firm evidence as to her state of mind and her actions. He was certain it would be clear to anyone who saw her now that Heather Rose was insane.