OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  But as I sit down and the blue fluorescent light seems brighter in the winter dark, I cannot help but feel I am lying to myself, that this is not a fairytale and in reality something unspeakably bad is going to happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dante

  When I get back to the clubhouse, I ditch the car in the parking lot and charge through the front door.

  “Ogre!” I roar. “Dogma! Ogre! Dogma!”

  I pace into the dormitory section, kicking open the doors, but there’s nobody in there but a bunch of club girls.

  “Where is Dogma?” I ask. “Where is Ogre?”

  Angelica, or Spider-Girl as some of the men call her ’cause of her tattoos, starts her long-winded shit. She always does this, drags out everything when she’s talking to me so it takes twice as long. I’m not in the mood for it today. She has this way of cocking her head and putting her hands on her hips and thrusting her chest out like I’m just goin’ to decide I don’t want the woman I love and want her instead.

  She starts on, but I interrupt her, “Tell it quick.”

  She pouts, and then says, “I don’t know. There was a problem with one of the girls, Carina, something to do with one of the men—but we were out at the time and we don’t know much more. One of the pledges said Dogma and Carina left, looking for the man, but we don’t know more.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  “We don’t know,” Angelica says.

  “Well, where have they gone?”

  “We don’t know that, either.”

  “Goddamn, who is this man? Which one?”

  “We’re not sure.”

  I shake my head, and then go into the bar section. Two pledges are shooting pool, but otherwise the place is empty. Jobs, maybe, or just at home with their families, them which have got families.

  “Where is Dogma?” I ask the pledges.

  The mood I’m in, eager to get the hell out of here, they both look exactly the same. Tall, freckled, young, even if I know they must look different; all I see right now is Sandra and Kayla and my mission.

  “Don’t know, Boss,” one of them says.

  “What happened with the girl—Carina?”

  “Don’t know, Boss.”

  “Jesus Christ. Then who is this other man?”

  “Don’t know, Boss. We was out at the time, and when we got back Angelica said Carina had told her about some guy trying to hurt her, but quick because Dogma was leading her out of the club, and slurred because she was really drugged up, on coke and something else, something the man gave her, I guess, so she couldn’t say who exactly. She was the only one in here, the way she told it to Angelica, and then Dogma got back, and they went looking for the man. Maybe Carina sobered up a little and told him who the man is. Don’t know.”

  “Fuck’s sake.”

  I take out my cell and dial Dogma, but it goes to voicemail right away. Dead.

  “Fuck’s sake!” I snap, snatching the kid’s pool cue and pounding the table with it, over and over, until the cue is naught more than a jagged piece of shrapnel. My toothpicks fly from my pocket and scatter across the floor. Absurdly, I think about collecting them for a second, but then I decide that calming down ain’t what I need right now. This anger is good.

  I dial some of the other guys, those that might be with Dogma, but all of them tell me the same thing: they don’t know anything about this and they don’t know where Dogma or Ogre is.

  “Alright, you two,” I say to the pledges. They’ve moved around to the other side of the pool table, maybe afraid I’m going to start in on them next. “I want you out ridin’ and lookin’ for Dogma and Ogre. Make Ogre your priority, but I’ve got a fuckin’ feeling this guy who bothered Carina is Ogre.” Has to be. Otherwise, there’s more than one weirdo in my club. “Call me when you see either of them.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  They leave at once. I go into the dormitory section.

  Angelica puts her hands on her hips, tilts her head, even now inviting me to do something. It makes me sick, really sick, right down in my stomach. I’ve never thought like this before, but now I have a kid, a family, and the idea of getting down and dirty with one of these girls suddenly seems disgusting, even more than off-putting, which it has already seemed for over a year now. Maybe it’s always been that way and now I’m just seeing it.

  “If Dogma or Ogre comes by here, call me straightaway. In fact, I want one of you looking out the front window at all times, ready to call me. Whoever calls me with solid news of Dogma or Ogre gets five grand.” I raise my voice so the whole dormitory can hear me, and repeat the statement.

  The hallway fills with women.

  Then I go into the bar, find the lockbox where we keep the keys to the spare bikes, and take a key out into the parking lot.

  I mount up and ride into town, squeezing the throttle too hard, kicking the gear shifter too hard, riding too fast on these icy roads. I cruise around the town, my headlamps on full blast, going down alleyways, past nightclubs, in the deep corners and dark places, but there’s no one but a few poor homeless bastards and the occasional person out walking their dog. It’s a cold winter evening, far too cold to be out here like this, unless you got the devil of a mission to complete and no other choice. I stop every so often and check my cellphone.

  For about three hours, I roam, until ice settles inside of me and my teeth begin to chatter. But chattering teeth isn’t the sort of thing that’s going to stop me from looking for my daughter. I swear to God, I wouldn’t stop all night if my cellphone didn’t start ringing.

  I pull up by the side of a suburban road where a few of the men live with their families and pick up.

  “Dogma,” I say, though it’s more of a growl. I want to reach through the phone and smack the man across the fucking jaw.

  “Boss,” he says. “One of the club girls said you were looking for me. It was Angelica; she seemed pretty eager for you to know it was her especially—”

  “Yeah, I was lookin’ for you. Are you at the club?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Alright. I’ll see you soon, ten minutes, tops. Answer me this, though. Was Ogre the one that bothered that girl?”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “Fuckin’ thought so. Right, give Angelica five K from petty cash. I’ll be back soon.”

  I hang up, rev the engine, and make my way back toward the club.

  So Dogma has Ogre then, I think, which means either that Sandra is at the club, or that I can beat Ogre to a pulp until he tells me where she is. I feel excitement begin to swell in my chest. I try and trample it, try and tell myself that I am jumping the gun, but if Ogre’s location is secure, then I am in a massively better position than I was even a few minutes ago.

  Anger still grips me, but even so, the world does not seem so bleak as it has since this afternoon—

  This afternoon, goddamn. This afternoon, and I have discovered I have a daughter, that Ogre was the one who killed Silvertongue and his men, that Ogre has kidnapped my daughter.

  I just want this mad day to end, to hold my daughter for the first time, to be able to call up Kayla and tell her that everything is okay.

  With a fresh shock, I realize that all I really want now is to give this family thing a try. Even if stuff like that ain’t built for men like me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dante

  As soon as I get into the clubhouse and see Dogma’s face, the look of panic and bemusement on it when he sees how quickly I pace into the bar, I realize I’ve let my hopes get way too fuckin’ high. Dogma sits at one of the tables in the bar, the girl next to him, lolling in her chair, jaw slack, eyes opening and closing. I recognize her only vaguely, having not kept up much with the club girls this past year. She’s blonde, and young, with a red flushed face wearing an overcoat which covers her from neck to shin.

  “Where is he?” I bark, looking around the bar for Ogre, but he isn’t here. It’s just the three of us, and a few of the clu
b girls lingering near the doorway, Angelica at the front of them. “Where the fuck is he?” I repeat, when Dogma doesn’t respond.

  “Where’s who, Boss?” he asks, voice pitched high, looking more confused than ever.

  “Ogre. Where is Ogre?”

  I am standing over him now, staring down.

  Dogma shakes his head slowly. “I never said Ogre was here.”

  “Yes you fuckin’—”

  I stop, taking a step back, thinking back to our phone call.

  Goddamn it, he’s right. He really didn’t say Ogre was here. All he said was that Ogre was the one who’d bothered Carina. And I assumed, like a jackass, that that meant he was here. But if Ogre’s done something wrong, it’s up to me as the President to oversee it. So where the fuck is he?

  “Where is he, Dogma?” I ask, voice deep and gravelly. Even I can hear the note of potential violence in it. Several of the club girls back away. I hear them, their scampering feet, and even Dogma takes a step back.

  “Let me explain, Boss,” he says. “I’ll tell you all of it.”

  I think about cracking him across the jaw, just giving into my rage and hooking him to the floor, but I can’t. I have Sandra to think about.

  “Tell it quick,” I say.

  Dogma speaks fast, words tripping over each other.

  When he’s done, I know that Ogre has truly lost it now, has finally come completely unhinged. So Ogre rode down to Lawrence, kidnapped Sandra, rode back here, and then when he got back he saw that he and Carina were the only two in the club, so the sick bastard decided to ply her with drugs. He loaded her up on cocaine and weed and whisky, and then finally chloroformed her and tried to assault her. That was when Dogma came in, and Ogre jumped out of the window. Carina was out of it, but she managed to tell Dogma that the man was big, so Dogma took her out on the street to look for Ogre, and when they saw him going into a motel, Dogma sneaked up behind him and placed his pistol against the man’s head. Then they went to one of our safe houses, where Dogma debated killing him. In the end, he just banished him from the club.

  “You did . . . wait, what? You kicked him out of the club? You, the fuckin’ VP, kicked somebody out of my club?”

  “He tried to rape her, Boss,” Dogma says, without any apology in his voice.

  “Fuck, whatever.” That will have to slide for now. “Did you see a baby, Dogma?”

  “A baby?” Dogma tilts his head at me.

  I leap across the room and grab the front of his jacket, lifting him off his feet, and bring my face close to his. His eyes go wide and he begins to struggle, but I just hold him there. “A baby! A fuckin’ baby! Did you see one with Ogre?”

  “Put me down, Boss,” Dogma says.

  I drop him, and he answers my question.

  “No, I didn’t see a baby. I guess there could’ve been one in the motel room, though.”

  “And he’s long gone from that by now. Fuckin’ hell. I wished you’d just killed the sack of shit.”

  “What’s going on, Boss?” Dogma asks, rubbing his chest where I grabbed him.

  Dogma has never seen me like this. It must be freaking him the hell out.

  In as few words as possible, I explain to Dogma about Kayla and my baby, Sandra.

  “Did Ogre say where he was going to go?” I say, once I’ve explained it all.

  Dogma shakes his head. “Not to me, but Carina told me he talked for a while as he was—as he was getting ready to do what he wanted with her, I guess.”

  “Talked. Right. About what?”

  Dogma shrugs. “No idea.”

  I curse, and then pull a seat up opposite Carina. She sways from side to side in her chair as though her body is not strong enough to support her. Her eyes are big and blue, her pupils dilated to the extreme, two round saucers.

  “What’s her name, Dogma?” I ask quietly. She doesn’t hear a thing.

  “Carina—”

  “No, her real fuckin’ name.”

  “Oh, uh . . .” He stops, thinking, and then says, “It’s Violet.”

  “Right. Go and make some coffee. Strong stuff.”

  “Alright.”

  Dogma leaves us.

  I reach forward and lift the girl’s chin with my hand. Even touching a woman like this, completely non-sexually, feels strange. That’s goddamn weird for a man like me who has spent his life touching women, but I guess that’s what happens when you start down with this love stuff.

  “Violet,” I say. “I need you to listen to me. My name is Dante DeCowl. I’m the President of the War Riders. You’re in our clubhouse. You recently became one of our girls. Do you remember that?”

  “War Riders’a club a motorbike club,” she mumbles, eyes flitting open and closed.

  “That’s right,” I say, holding her face so that she’s looking at me. “Violet, I want you to open your eyes for me. Can you do that?”

  I force myself to stay calm. I wish I could just shake the answers out of her, but she’s too drugged up to respond to that, and plus she’s just had a horrible experience which tough questioning would only make worse, probably making her close up. I take a long breath as she struggles to open her eyes. Finally, she does, and I see the moment of focus as her eyes come to rest on me. Not the most appealing sight, a bearded, panicked, full-of-rage man, but she doesn’t seem too scared.

  “What is my name, Violet?” I ask, seeing if she can remember.

  “Demon,” she mutters. “Demon the Demon Man.”

  Close enough.

  “Okay. Good. That’s really good. Now, can you tell me what Ogre said to you before he climbed out of the window?”

  “Gave me lots of coke.” Her words come as one long stream. Gavemelotsofcoke. So I have to listen closely. Dogma lays the coffee down on the table. Her nose wrinkles. “Stinks,” she says.

  “Drink it,” I say, and now there’s command in my voice.

  That seems to get through to her, as it does to most of the club girls. Even in her state, she hears my tone of voice, sits up a little straighter, and allows Dogma—at a gesture from me—to help her with the coffee. I wait impatiently as she drinks it down, as life seems to return to her, if only a little. I need to know where Ogre is. That is all. Ogre and Sandra. Nothing else matters. Waiting even a minute passively drives me crazy. I look down at the floor, at the ruined pool cue and the toothpicks, thinking I’ll pick up a toothpick and start chewing it, I’m so desperate to actually be doing something other than just sitting here.

  “Okay,” Violet says, and she speaks more like a person now. Dogma places the coffee mug down and steps back, watching. Violet’s eyelids no longer flicker as though she’s on the verge of falling asleep. “Okay, okay.”

  I lean forward. “Tell me what he said.”

  She looks scared, glancing around the room, and I’m reminded for a second of the way Kayla used to glance around the room like that, as though always looking for an exit. But I blot that out of my mind. I can’t afford sympathy right now.

  “He said lots of things.” Violet shivers, despite the big overcoat. “He said lots of strange things. He said . . . oh . . . he said I was the daughter of a priest, and that I’d . . . I don’t understand . . . and that I’d profaned . . . I think that was the word, and . . . and . . .” She shivers again.

  “Not the Bible shit,” I say. “That don’t matter. Did he mention a baby, or where he was going after he was—done with you?” That last part is blunt, but I don’t have time for softness.

  “No,” she says, and I feel like I deflate in the chair. But then she squints, as though in deep thought. I wait for what feels like an eternity for her drugged-up mind to work, and then she says, “He mentioned a baby, yes. He did. I’m sure of it. Yes, he did. He did!” She looks around like a kid proud at solving a difficult math problem.

  “Good,” I coax. “That’s good. What did he say?”

  She squints again. I struggle not to let out a growling sigh. It’s like I can see her thoughts behind her eye
s, slowly forming. She grips the edge of the seat of the chair, staring off into the middle distance as though reliving the events of earlier this evening. I have to give her that, at least; she’s damn brave for facing it so soon. Or maybe she’s just too drugged up to care as much as she otherwise would.

  “Yes!” she exclaims, looking around with that kidlike hunger for approval again. “He said that he had a little package at his motel room. I asked what it was—I think I was—yes—yes—I was trying to distract him from . . . you know . . . and he said he had a little baby in his room, and that he was going to use it to get a whore who took his coat. I didn’t understand. He said he came back here to Missouri to tempt the Big Bad Wolf back, and then he giggled. It freaked me out. He said he was back here to tempt the Big Bad Wolf, and then he was going to turn around and go straight back to Lawrence to get the coat-stealing whore. Woah—hey!” She leans back as I leap to my feet.