Conspiracy in Kiev

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

A smile crossed his face. Concern with affection. “I was looking for you,” he answered. “But I never thought I’d see you.”

FIFTY

They stood together on the freezing sidewalk. “I was worried about you,” Ben said. He pulled his gym bag off his shoulder and let it rest on the pavement. The bag was thick. He always carried his own basketball.

“Hey, we all know what happened. I can’t tell you how sorry we are. You got notes from us, right?”

“I have a lot of mail I haven’t opened,” she said.

“We’re all worried for you, Alex.”

“Thanks. I’ll be okay,” she lied.

“Uh, huh,” he said. “Well, I came over to make sure.”

“Make sure of what?”

“That you’re going to be okay.”

“What are you, my guardian angel?” she asked, barely able to control the sarcasm.

“If I have to be, I will,” Ben said steadily and without missing a beat. “I have a hunch you might need one right now,” he said. “So here I am right here in front of you, minus the wings and the halo because those things aren’t so fashionable these days.”

She stood uncomfortably but felt herself give a slight smile.

“I promise you I’ll be okay,” Alex said.

“It’s not that easy,” he said. “The guys at the gym. We heard you were on leave from work, but this isn’t right. We would all feel better if we saw you at the gym again. We’re not going to all stop talking when you show up.”

“I’m not feeling very social these days,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. I know. Hey. You think I don’t know maybe at least a little bit about being in a really stinking mental place? Heck!”

He reached down and rapped his knuckles on the prosthesis that connected his right knee with his sneaker. Then, “You had dinner yet?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry, I asked if you’d had dinner yet.”

“What if I haven’t?” she asked.

“Then, I haven’t either, so why don’t we have some together? Please don’t say no.”

A long pause again. Then, “Okay,” she said. “ Maybe I haven’t had dinner.”

“Want some? Plus a sympathetic ear. And how ’bout a drink?”

She thought of the Glock upstairs. It was waiting for her. All she had to do was pick up that magazine, slap it into the butt, pull back the slide and chamber a round, flick the safety off, and that little number would be a hundred percent ready for business, just like it had been minutes ago.

“No, look…” she answered. “I-”

Ben motioned to the hotel across the street. “Come on. It’s on me and my guess is you need it right now. Just don’t walk too fast. I’m running out of legs, you know.”

FIFTY-ONE

She ordered some soup. He ordered a burger. They both ordered pints of draft beer, he a Sam Adams, she a Boddingtons, an English beer that had been fizzed up for the American market.

“I was going to leave a note with your doorman to ask you to call,” Ben finally said. “No one’s heard from you in weeks.”

A long pause from Alex.

“I was away,” she said.

“That’s no excuse. Your friends want to know you’re okay. And if you’re not okay, you got to let them know that, too.”

Something in her throat caught. She couldn’t answer. His gaze settled into her.

“I got to say, Alex, you look terrible right now.”

“I feel terrible.”

“Let me show you something,” he said.

She waited. He reached down toward his bad leg, or more accurately, his missing leg, or, more accurately still, the fake leg. She heard him fiddle with a couple of straps and buckles. He brought the prosthesis, detached from his knee, up to lap level so she could see it.

He put it on the table. There was no surprise, but she realized she must have made a short gasp, because he reacted to it.

“There,” he said. “How do you like that?”

“Would you put that back on!” she insisted. “People are staring.”

The waiter passed by the table, did a double take, then fled.

“Let the folks stare,” Ben said with a laugh. “It’ll do ’ em good. They want to stare some more, they can go over to Walter Reed and look at a lot of ex-soldiers, men and women a heck of a lot worse off than me. Some of them got three or four limbs gone, burns all over their bodies, eyes blown out of their heads, and brain injuries. Now, my basketball buddy Alex LaDuca,” he asked with a smile, “how do you like my leg?”

“I like it. It’s a nice fake leg.”

“Want to try it on? It’ll make you taller, on one side at least.”

“Ben!” She already had her hand to her mouth, almost laughing.

“Please!”

“Please what?”

“I like it better when it’s strapped where it should be,” she said.

“Thank you. That’s the answer I wanted. So as a favor, just for you, I’ll get dressed again. I’m going to need the leg to walk home.”

She came out from hiding behind her hands.

“This is my ‘Transformer moment,’ ” he continued. “A couple of straps and buckles and I’m half a robot.”

She watched how quickly he buckled it back into place, dropping the trouser leg.

“I know what’s going on with you,” Ben said. “You never thought it would happen, but part of you is gone, just like part of what used to be me is gone. You woke up one day and looked around and something, someone, was missing that you never thought you could replace. And you still don’t see how you will.”

She felt something catch in her throat.

“You’re where I was two years ago, Alex. You’re hating life. It’s a bad place to be.”

“It’s not like that,” she said, her hand settling on the table.

“No? Look me in the eye and tell me that it’s not like that.”

She looked at him, opened her mouth to speak, then looked away.

Two beers arrived. The pints looked bigger than expected.

“When I lost my leg, I thought my life was over,” Ben said. “I wanted to kill myself. Tell me that hasn’t gone through your head.”

She looked back to him after several seconds. She still couldn’t speak. One of his strong hands settled on hers.

“It’s gone through my head,” she finally admitted.

“Has it gone through your head?” Ben asked. “Or is it still there?”