The Broken Window Read online

  Myra 9834 sleeps in a Victoria's Secret T, a fact I deduce because she owns five of them in a size too big to wear out in public. She wakes early to the thought of an Entenmann's danish pastry (never low-fat, I'm proud of her for that) and home-brewed Starbucks; she rarely goes to the coffee shops. Which is a shame, since I do like to observe in person the antelope I've had my eye on, and Starbucks is among the best places on the veldt to do so. Around eight-twenty she leaves her apartment and heads for work in Midtown--Maple, Reed & Summers advertising, where she's a junior account executive.

  Onward and upward. I continue on my way this Sunday, wearing a nondescript baseball cap (they account for 87.3 percent of all men's headgear in the metro area). And, as always, eyes down. If you think a satellite can't record your smiling face from thirty miles up in space, think again; somewhere in a dozen servers around the world there are hundreds of pictures of you taken from on high, and let's hope all you were doing when they snapped the shutter was squinting away the sun while you glanced up at the Goodyear blimp or a cloud shaped like a lamb.

  My passion for collecting includes not only these daily facts but the minds of the sixteens I'm interested in, and Myra 9834 is no exception. She goes for drinks with friends after work with some frequency and I've noticed that she picks up the tab often, too often, in my opinion. Clearly she's buying their love--right, Dr. Phil? Possibly had acne during the adolescence terrible; she still sees a dermatologist once in a while, though the bills are low, as if she's just debating dermabrasion (completely unnecessary from what I've seen) or checking to make sure the zits aren't returning like ninjas in the night.

  Then, after the three rounds of Cosmopolitans with the gals, or a visit to a fit-and-start health club, it's home to phone calls, the ubiquitous computer and basic, not premium, cable. (I enjoy tracking her viewing habits; her show selections suggest extreme loyalty; she changed networks when Seinfeld did, and she blew off two dates to spend the night with Jack Bauer.)

  Bedtime follows, and she sometimes enjoys a bit of distraction (buying double-A batteries in bulk tells the tale, her digital camera and iPod being rechargeable).

  Of course, those are the data on her weekday life. But today's a glorious Sunday, and Sundays are different. This is when Myra 9834 climbs aboard her beloved, and very expensive, bicycle, and heads out to cruise the streets of her city.

  The routes vary. Central Park might figure, as does Riverside Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. But whatever the path, Myra 9834 makes one particular stop without fail toward the end of her journey: Hudson's Gourmet Deli on Broadway. And then, food and shower beckoning, she takes the fastest bike route home--which, owing to the madness of downtown traffic, is right past the very spot where I'm standing at the moment.

  I'm in front of a courtyard leading to a ground-floor loft, owned by Maury and Stella Griszinski (imagine--buying ten years ago for $278,000). The Griszinskis aren't home, though, because they're enjoying a springtime cruise in Scandinavia. They've stopped the mail and have hired no plant waterers or pet sitters. And there's no alarm system.

  No sign of her yet. Hm. Has something intervened? I might be wrong.

  But I rarely am.

  Five agonizing minutes pass. I pull images of the Harvey Prescott painting out of my mental collection. I enjoy them for a time and tuck them back. I glance around and I resist a salivating urge to go through the fat trash bin here to see what treasures it might hold.

  Stay in the shadows. . . . Stay off the grid. Especially at times like this. And avoid the windows at all costs. You'd be amazed at the lure of voyeurism and how many people are watching you from the other side of the glass, which, to you, is only a reflection or glare.

  Where is she? Where?

  If I don't get my transaction soon--

  And then, ah, I feel the slam within me as I see her: Myra 9834.

  Moving slowly, low gear, beautiful legs pumping away. A $1,020 bike. More than my first car cost.

  Ah, the bicycle outfit is tight. My breath is fast. I need her so badly.

  A glance up and down the street. Empty, except for the approaching woman, who's now getting close, thirty feet away. Cell phone off but flipped open and up to my ear, Food Emporium bag dangling. I glance at her once. Stepping to the curb, as I carry on an animated and entirely fictitious conversation. I pause to let her pass. Frowning, looking up. Then smiling. "Myra?"

  She slows. Biking outfit so tight. Control it, control it. Act casual.

  Nobody in the empty windows facing the street. No traffic.

  "Myra Weinburg?"

  The squeal of bike brakes. "Hi." The greeting and attempted flash of recognition are due solely to the fact that people would rather do almost anything than be embarrassed.

  I'm totally in the role of the mature businessman as I walk toward her, telling my invisible friend I'll call back and close the phone.

  She replies, "I'm sorry." A smiling frown. "You're . . . ?"

  "Mike. I'm the AE from Ogilvy? I think we met at . . . yeah, that's it. The National Foods shoot at David's. We were in the second studio. I came by and met you and--what's his name? Richie. You guys had a better caterer than we did."

  Now a hearty smile. "Oh, sure." She remembers David and National Foods and Richie and the photo studio's caterer. But she can't remember me because I was never there. And nobody named Mike was there either but she won't focus on that because it happens to be the name of her dead father.

  "Good seeing you," I say, giving her my best how's-this-for-a-coincidence grin. "You live around here?"

  "Village. You?"

  A nod to the Griszinskis. "There."

  "Wow, a loft. Sweet."

  I ask about her job, she asks about mine. Then I wince. "Better get inside. I just ran out for lemons." Holding up the citrus prop. "Got some people over." My voice fades as a brilliant idea comes to mind. "Hey, I don't know if you have plans but we're having a late brunch. You want to join us?"

  "Oh, thanks, but I'm a mess."

  "Please . . . we were out all day on a Walk for the Cure, my partner and me." Nice touch, I think. And wholly improvised. "We're sweatier than you, believe me. This is way casual. It'll be fun. There's a senior AE from Thompson there. And a couple guys from Burston. Cute but straight." I shrug mournfully. "And we've got a surprise actor too. I won't tell you who."

  "Well . . ."

  "Oh, come on. You look like you need a Cosmo. . . . At the photo shoot, didn't we both decide that was our favorite drink?"

  Chapter Six The Tombs.

  Okay, it wasn't the Tombs any longer, the original one from the 1800s. That building was long gone, but everybody still used the name when describing this place: the Manhattan Detention Center, downtown, in which Arthur Rhyme was now sitting, his heart doing the same despairing thud, thud, thud it had regularly since he was arrested.

  But whether the place was called the Tombs, the MDC or the Bernard Kerik Center (as it had been temporarily until the former police chief and corrections head went down in flames) to Arthur the place was simply hell.

  Absolute hell.

  He was in an orange jumpsuit like everyone else but there the similarity with his fellow cons ended. The five-foot-eleven man, 190 pounds, with corporate-clipped brown hair was as different as could be from the other souls awaiting trial here. No, he wasn't big and inked (he'd learned that meant tattooed) or shaved or stupid or black or Latino. The sort of criminal Arthur would resemble--businessmen charged with white-collar crimes--didn't reside in the Tombs until trial; they were out on bond. Whatever sins they'd committed, the infractions didn't warrant the two-million-dollar bail set for Arthur.

  So the Tombs had been his home since May 13--the longest and most wrenchingly difficult period of his life.

  And bewildering.

  Arthur might have met the woman he was supposed to have killed, but he couldn't even recall her. Yes, he'd been to that gallery in SoHo, where apparently she'd browsed too, though he couldn't remember talki
ng to her. And, yes, he loved the work of Harvey Prescott and had been sick at heart when he'd had to sell his canvas after losing his job. But stealing one? Killing someone? Were they fucking mad? Do I look like a killer?

  It was a hopeless mystery to him, like Fermat's theorem, the mathematical proof that, even after learning the explanation, he still didn't get. Her blood in his car? He was being framed, of course. Even thinking the police might have done it themselves.

  After ten days in the Tombs, O.J.'s defense seems a bit less Twilight Zone.

  Why, why, why? Who was behind this? He thought of the angry letters he'd written when Princeton passed him over. Some were stupid and petty and threatening. Well, there were plenty of unstable people in the academic field. Maybe they wanted revenge for the stink he'd made. And then that student in his class who'd come on to him. He'd told her, no, he didn't want to have an affair. She'd gone ballistic.

  Fatal Attraction . . .

  The police had checked her out and decided she wasn't behind the killing but how hard had they worked to verify her alibi?

  He looked around the large common area now, the dozens of nearby cons--the inside word for prisoners. At first he'd been regarded as a curiosity. His stock seemed to rise when they'd learned he'd been arrested for murder but then it fell at the news that the victim hadn't tried to steal his drugs or cheat on him--two acceptable reasons for killing a woman.

  Then when it was clear he was just one of those white guys who'd fucked up, life got ugly.

  Jostling, challenges, taking his milk carton--just like in middle school. The sex thing wasn't what people thought. Not here. These were all new arrestees and everybody could keep their dicks in their jumpsuits for a time. But he'd been assured by a number of his new "friends" that his virginity wouldn't last long once he got to one of the long hauls, like Attica, especially if he earned a quarter-pounder--twenty-five to life.

  He'd been punched in the face four times, tripped twice and pinned to the floor by psycho Aquilla Sanchez, who dripped sweat into his face as he screamed in Spanglish until some bored hacks (that is, guards) pulled him off.

  Arthur had peed his pants twice and puked a dozen times. He was a worm, scum, not worth fucking.

  Until later.

  And the way his heart kept thudding, he expected it to pop apart at any moment. As had happened to Henry Rhyme, his father, though the famed professor had died not in an ignoble place like the Tombs, of course, but on an appropriately stately collegiate sidewalk in Hyde Park, Illinois.

  How had this happened? A witness and evidence . . . It made no sense.

  "Take the plea, Mr. Rhyme," the assistant district attorney had said. "I'd recommend it."

  His attorney had too. "I know the ins and outs, Art. It's like I'm reading a fucking GPS map. I can tell you exactly where this is going--and it's not the needle. Albany can't write a death penalty law to save its life. Sorry, bad joke. But you're still looking at twenty-five years. I can get you fifteen. Go for it."

  "But I didn't do it."

  "Uh-huh. That doesn't really mean a whole lot to anybody, Arthur."

  "But I didn't!"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Well, I'm not taking a plea. The jury'll understand. They'll see me. They'll know I'm not a killer."

  Silence. Then: "Fine." Though it wasn't fine. Clearly he was pissed off, despite the six hundred plus an hour he was racking up--and where the hell was that kind of money going to come from? He--

  Then suddenly Arthur looked up to see two cons studying him, Latinos. They were regarding him now with no expression whatsoever on their faces. Not friendly, not challenging, not tough. They seemed curious.

  As they approached him, he debated whether to get up or to stay put.

  Stay.

  But look down.

  He looked down. One of the men stood in front of him, putting his scuffed running shoes right in Arthur's line of vision.

  The other went around to the back.

  He was going to die. Arthur Rhyme knew it. Just do it fast and get it fucking over with.

  "Yo," the man behind him said in a high voice.

  Arthur looked up at the second, in front. He had bloodshot eyes and a large earring, bad teeth. Arthur couldn't speak.

  "Yo," came the voice again.

  Arthur swallowed. Didn't want to but couldn't help himself.

  "We talking to you, me an' my friend. You no be civil. Why you a prick?"

  "Sorry. I just . . . Hello."

  "Yo. Whatchu do for work, man?" High Voice asked his back.

  "I'm . . ." His mind froze. What should I say? "I'm a scientist."

  Earring Man: "Fuck. Scientist? Whatchu do, like, make rockets?"

  They both laughed.

  "No, medical equipment."

  "Like that shit, you know, they say 'clear,' and electrocute you? Like, ER?"

  "No, it's complicated."

  Earring Man frowned.

  "I didn't mean that," Arthur said quickly. "It's not that you couldn't understand it. It's just hard to explain. Quality-control systems for dialysis. And--"

  High Voice: "Make good money, huh? Hear you had a nice suit when you got prossed."

  "I got . . . ?" Oh, processed. "I don't know. I got it at Nordstrom."

  "Nordstrom. The fuck is Nordstrom?"

  "A store."

  As Arthur looked back down at Earring Man's feet the con continued, "I saying, good money? How much you make?"

  "I--"

  "You going to say you don't know?"

  "I--" Yes, he was.

  "How much you make?"

  "I don't . . . I'd guess about six figures."

  "Fuck."

  Arthur didn't know if this meant the amount was a lot or a little to them.

  Then High Voice laughed. "You got a family?"

  "I'm not telling you anything about them." This was defiant.

  "You got a family?"

  Arthur Rhyme was looking away, at the wall nearby, where a nail protruded from mortar between cinder blocks, meant to hold a sign, he assumed, that had been taken down or stolen years ago. "Leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you." He tried to make his voice forceful. But he sounded like a girl approached by a nerd at a dance.

  "We trying to make civil conversation, man."

  He actually said that? Civil conversation?

  Then he thought, Hell, maybe they are just trying to be pleasant. Maybe they could've been friends, watched his back for him. Christ knew he needed all the friends he could get. Could he salvage this? "I'm sorry. It's just, this's a really weird thing for me. I've never been in any trouble before. I'm just--"

  "What you wife do? She a scientist too? She a smart girl?"

  "I . . ." The intended words evaporated.

  "She got big titties?"

  "You fuck her in the ass?"

  "Listen up, Science Fuck, here's how it gonna work. You smart wife, she goin' to get some money from the bank. Ten thousand. And she gonna take a drive up to my cousin in the Bronx. An'--"

  The tenor voice faded.

  A black prisoner, six-two, massive with muscle and fat, his jumpsuit sleeves rolled up, approached the trio. He was gazing at the two Latinos and squinting mean.

  "Yo, Chihuahuas. Get the fuck outa here."

  Arthur Rhyme was frozen. He couldn't have moved if someone had started shooting at him, which wouldn't have surprised him, even here in the realm of the magnetometers.

  "Fuck you, nigger," Earring Man said.

  "Piece of shit." From High Voice, drawing a laugh from the black guy, who put an arm around Earring Man and led him away, whispering something to him. The Latino's eyes glazed and he nodded to his buddy, who joined him. The two walked to the far corner of the area, feigning indignity. If Arthur weren't so frightened he would have thought this was amusing--faced-down bullies from his children's school.

  The black man stretched and Arthur heard a joint pop. His heart was thudding even harder. A half-formed prayer crossed his mind:
for the coronary to take him away now, right now.

  "Thanks."

  The black guy said, "Fuck you. Them two, they pricks. They gotta know the way it is. You unnerstand what I'm saying?"

  No, no clue. But Arthur Rhyme said, "Still. My name's Art."

  "I know the fuck yo' name. Ever'body know ever'thing round here. 'Cept you. You don' know shit."

  But one thing Arthur Rhyme knew, and knew it with certainty: He was dead. And so he said, "Okay, then tell me who the fuck you are, asshole."

  The huge face turned toward him. Smelling sweat and smoky breath, Arthur thought of his family, his children first and then Judy. His parents, mother first, then father. Then, surprisingly, he thought of his cousin, Lincoln. Recalling a footrace through a hot Illinois field one summer when they were teenagers.

  Race you to that oak tree. See it, that one over there. On three. You ready? One . . . two . . . three . . . go!

  But the man just turned away and stalked across the hall to another black prisoner. They tapped fists together and Arthur Rhyme was forgotten.

  He sat watching their camaraderie, feeling more and more forlorn. Then he closed his eyes and lowered his head. Arthur Rhyme was a scientist. He believed that life advanced via the process of natural selection; divine justice played no role.

  But now, sunk in a depression as relentless as winter tides, he couldn't help wondering if some system of retribution, as real and invisible as gravity, existed and was now at work, punishing him for the bad he'd done in his life. Oh, he'd done much good. Raised children, taught them open-minded values and tolerance, been a good companion to his wife, helped her through a cancer incident, contributed to the great body of science that enriched the world.

  Yet there was bad too. There always is.

  Sitting here in his stinking orange jumpsuit, he struggled to believe that by the right thoughts and vows--and faith in the system he dutifully supported every election day--he could work his way back to the other side of the scale of justice and be reunited with his family and life.

  That with the right spirit and intention he could outrun fate through the same breathless effort with which he'd beaten Lincoln in that hot, dusty field, charging all out toward the oak tree.