Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

north, Westbeth filling the entire block from Washington to West, from Bank to Bethune, a Godzilla
    among buildings. Perhaps after Harry’s accident the bike was dropped off on the Bethune Street side, where the courtyard was dark and gray around the clock, no place for a nap in any season.
    You wake up. Your bike is gone. You panic. Then what? You figure one of the kids took it to ride around the courtyard. You hope that’s what happened, so you look around. And there it is.
    But the basket is bent.
    Or there’s a flat.
    Who would the delivery man tell?
    Surely not his employer.
    I was taking a nap, and someone borrowed my bike. See—the front wheel is bent now, the reflector broken. Kindly get it fixed.
    Yeah, right.
    The two bikes leaning on the wall were old, with clunky balloon tires, one painted blue, the other a rusty gray. The paint was chipped on both of them. One had a broken reflector. On the other one, only the frame of the front reflector remained, none of the plastic.
    Who would even notice another dent or a set of handlebars out of line?
    I’d heard years ago that most of the bikes used for delivery by the Chinese restaurants had been stolen, bikes the restaurants bought dirt cheap for cash and quickly repainted— some kid left without transportation, some old guy having to hoof it to the gym instead of pedaling there.
    I wondered if the cops had gone around to all the restaurants and checked the bikes for blood stains.
    But Harry had died from hitting his head on the sidewalk. The back of his head, like Venus’s wound. There wouldn’t have been blood on the bike.
    What about fibers? Would there have been fibers from Harry’s jacket? Wouldn’t those come off on the street if the bike had been stolen and returned? Wouldn’t that be one of several excellent reasons to return it?
    But the detectives would have checked the delivery bikes anyway. Bike rental places, too, leaving no stone unturned, keeping it close to the vest for now.
    No news, the fax had said.
    Right.
    Homicide with a bicycle, I thought, leaving the courtyard. Pretty hokey. Must have been unplanned, something that happened at the last minute, something improvised, born out of incredible rage, something hot, not something cold, plotted, mulled over, rolled around, and examined. Not something played out over and over again before the. fact, enjoyed not once but many times. No, this was a compulsive act, a last-minute thing.
    So what had happened at Harbor View that afternoon?
    Would Venus know? And would she wake up and remember?
    There was a side entrance to Serge’s gym on Bank Street. I walked past two chunky guys spotting for each other, an old guy with a headband to catch his perspiration reading the Times on an ex bike, and a pumped-up Hispanic man with thick, dark hair moving his torso from side to side, counting as he did.
    I settled Dash and took the treadmill in the comer, the one I’d always used when I talked to Venus here. Turning on the power, punching the start button, I warmed up slowly, watching the river and letting my mind drift. When I got up to speed, I pulled the folded papers out of my waistband and began to read.
    I’d printed the batch of e-mail correspondence without paying any attention to the dates. The stuff I had was written early on, not exactly in the beginning, but soon after Harry had told Venus he was married and that his wife was ill and dying.
    “Lady,” Harry had written,

I stayed at the hospital all afternoon again, but she woke up only twice, for too brief a spell each time. The first time, she seemed confused and I thought, oh God, she no longer knows me. But the second time, she smiled and took my hand, holding it as long as she could manage to stay awake. I read to her all afternoon, Robert Frost this time, hoping that the sound of my voice would comfort her as the reading and the time I spend with her comfort me.
And all the while, I was thinking about her so long ago, when I first saw her. She had a part-time job in a bookstore near where I lived. She was standing on one of those rolling ladders wearing stockings with seams, and oh, how those seams caught my fancy. When she turned around, her light brown hair loose around her face except for a barrette on one side, I saw her eyes. And lost my heart. “See anything you like?” she asked, not strident or offended, merely amused. Perhaps she knew from the start that she could have her way with me.
Now, to see my dear girl like