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.
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.
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!
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
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
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.
