Right to Life

He walked by an old woman with a shopping cart full of groceries and then past the picketers, barely noticing them this time and past the pair of cops, one male and one female, who were standing at the entrance. He walked through the revolving doors and past the bank's ATM machines to the elevators, got in and punched eleven. The door to the reception room swung open ahead of him and he stepped aside for a young blonde woman in jeans and a teeshirt who smiled at him. Or maybe she was just smiling at the world that day.

At least somebody was happy.

He walked in and the reception room was empty. He thought my god, had they taken her in already?

Was anything that had to do with medicine or New York City ever that fast?

The receptionist behind the sliding glass windows smiled at him too. A purely formal smile, meant to be reassuring. See? We're harmless here.

"Sara Foster." he said quietly.

She checked her clipboard.

"Yes. She's got a ten forty-five with Doctor Weller."

"He's seeing her already?"

The clock on the wall behind her read ten thirty.

"No, it's a ten forty-five appointment, sir."

"She's not here?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. But if you'd want to take a seat 1 imagine she'll be along shortly."

"I don't understand. I just dropped her off. Right here in front of the building. Just this minute."

The receptionist frowned, puzzled. "I'm sorry. She hasn't signed in." Sara wouldn't do this, he thought.

Something's not right here.

"There's a drugstore a few doors down and a smokeshop just next door to us. Maybe she needed something. Why don't you have a seat and wait a moment. I'm sure she'll be right along."

"Why would she…? Okay. I'll be back."

He took the elevator down.

After the cool of the overly air-conditioned office the summer sun hit him hard and he was sweating as he peered through the open door to ihe cigarette shop to see nothing but an old man buying a Lotto ticket and then into the drugstore next to that. He looked around him on either side and then scanned Broadway across the street toward the Sony complex and the shoppers in front of the Food Emporium but he didn't see her. He walked around the picketers again and directly to the cops at the door.

"Excuse me," he said. "Did a woman just go inside?"

The female cop was almost as tall as her partner, nearly six feet. Her hair was blonde pulled up under the cap and she stopped chewing her gum the moment he walked up to her.

"Just now? No, sir."

"Did you see a woman, five, maybe ten minutes ago, white short-sleeve blouse, blue skirt, early forties, long dark hair?" He pointed. "She'd have been coming this way toward the building. I dropped her off over there. She has an appointment at the clinic."

The officer glanced at her partner. So did Greg, actually noticing him for the first time. The cop looked shockingly young. He was big and trim but to Greg he looked barely out of his teens. He guessed the woman would have a good ten years on him. The cop shook his head. "Sorry, sir," the woman said and glanced behind him.

"Is there a problem?" Greg turned and saw a much smaller woman in a brown business suit and baggy trousers. Her tailored white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar so that the tie hung slightly off to one side. She wore no makeup as far as he could tell and the medium-length hair was a frizzy red.

"I'm Lieutenant Primiano, 20th precinct." She produced a wallet and shield. "You said something about a woman?"

"She's disappeared."

"How so?"

"I let her out on that corner. I went to park the car. I drove past her and around the block and parked on 67th. She had an appointment for ten forty-five and she was headed right here, walking right toward you when I left her but I went inside and the receptionist says she never showed. She suggested maybe the smokeshop or the pharmacy but I just looked in both places and she's not there. This isn't like her. Sara does what she says she'll do. She should be up there."

"You folks have any kind of fight? Quarrel over anything?"

"God, no. We're fine."

He felt himself flush at the use of the word. They were not fine. Not today.

But that was their own business.

The woman studied him a moment and then nodded. "Ella, keep an eye on things here a minute, will you? Dean, ask around and see if any of these people noticed her. Your name, sir?"

"Greg Glover."

"This is Officer Kaltsas and Officer Spader. Mr. Glover, let's go on back inside."

She questioned the receptionist and Weller's nurse and then the doctor himself. She was brisk and to the point. It took maybe ten minutes tops but to Greg it seemed forever. Weller volunteered the notion that it happened sometimes, that at the last minute people changed their minds. You really couldn't blame them.

"Not Sara," he said. "She wouldn't do that. Not possible."

When they were outside again she asked the young cop, Kaltsas, about the picketers.

"Nothing," he said. "Nobody saw her. I got a small problem with one of them, though."

"What kind of problem."