The Missing Piece by Kevin Egan

the courthouse because that’s the one place nobody expects it to be. But it’s not going to stay here forever. Once the trial is done, it’ll be gone. We need to find it now, before the trial comes back.”
    â€œHow do we do that?” said McQueen.
    â€œMy brains, your legs.”
    â€œAre you crazy, Gary? We’re friggin’ court officers. We put our time in, we moonlight for extra cash, then we retire. We don’t recover stolen art.”
    â€œDoesn’t mean we can’t.”
    â€œThis isn’t something out of a paperback novel, Gary. This is real life.”
    Gary lifted himself off the battle chair until his face began to twitch.
    â€œDon’t tell me about real life.”
    â€œSorry, Gary. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    Gary dropped himself back onto the seat, panting and red-faced.
    â€œNo sweat,” he said. “All you do for me, you’re entitled to your say. But now I want you to listen to me, not because you’re my friend, not because I trust you, but because you and I were the only ones hurt that day. That treasure owes us, Mike.”
    â€œI got slugged in the head,” said McQueen. “I bled like a pig and I had a headache for a few days. But the bleeding stopped and my headache went away.”
    â€œNo, it was you and me on the front lines,” said Gary. “And if you got permanent brain damage, you’d be getting jerked around the same as me. Look, Mike, we do this and you won’t need to run any more fund-raisers. I won’t need to guilt-trip guys to come here on Saturdays to run wires and sweat pipes. You can sock something away. Stop worrying about me. Get married.”
    â€œYeah, like who am I marrying?” said McQueen.
    â€œYou’ll be much more attractive with a wad in your pocket.”
    McQueen laughed.
    â€œSo forget women. You’ll have the money to fix up that piece of shit cabin you bought upstate.”
    â€œHey, it ain’t a piece of shit. I got big plans for it.”
    â€œBig plans you haven’t executed,” said Gary. “My point is, we can do this, Mike. I’ve been studying this for three goddam years. We know the courthouse. I know more about the treasure than the so-called experts. We can do this.”
    â€œWouldn’t it be better if we had someone else with us?” said McQueen. “Like Foxx.”
    â€œNo Foxx,” said Gary. “I don’t want Foxx anywhere near this.”
    *   *   *
    After a workday, the two beers at Gary’s should have been just enough to propel McQueen ten blocks uptown to his own apartment and into a deep, comforting sleep. But seeing the security feeds on Gary’s computer scared the living shit out of him. And when that threat faded, Gary ran his insane plan right in behind it. So with sleep a near impossibility, he turned off Broadway and into a pub.
    It was a shot-and-a-beer kind of place, empty except for the barmaid and a couple of guys at the far end of the bar. McQueen downed the first pint and pushed the glass forward. The barmaid came back to set up a second, and he slugged that one down, too.
    â€œYou want another, or should I hang an IV bag instead?” said the barmaid.
    McQueen wanted to respond with one of his patented wisecracks, but the words never made it from his brain to his tongue. The pizza was long gone from his stomach, and the two quick pints hit him hard.
    The barmaid took his silence for a yes, drew another pint, and headed back to the two guys. She leaned in close, and each took turns glancing over in a way that McQueen knew they were talking about him. It was stupid to come in here, stupid to down those two pints, stupid not to leave rather than let the barmaid draw him a third. They didn’t know how clever he was, how he could summon a wisecrack for any occasion. But the truth was, he never had Gary’s knack for small talk or Foxx’s ability to