OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  But everybody’s got a tick like that. Maybe not smiling, but some weird shit their body does when they go into fighting mode. One of my boys in the Stitches—guy we call Glass ‘cause of what his fist can do to another guy’s face—starts up with this hyena laugh any time shit’s about to go down, but only when it’s a physical fight. Give the guy an Item, and he’s cool as a cucumber. Another one of our guys slaps his cheeks like he’s stuck in a dream and trying to wake himself up.

  So here I am smiling while Maya is being thronged, doted on, brushed, and coddled like a new kitten into a dressing room, and peacoat guy hasn’t moved a muscle since he stepped into the store. The girl at the counter asks him if she can do anything to help him and you can tell by the way she says it that even she’s wary. She’s thinking: this guy clearly isn’t here to shop.

  I set the mag down and turn.

  His eyes are glued to the dressing room, and he doesn’t see me at first. That means I’ve got a second to size this bastard up properly before deciding what’s gonna be done. Six feet, three inches. Arms like thighs. And this motherfucker’s clearly got something beneath his coat otherwise he would’ve stopped fishing around in his pocket.

  I stand up.

  Cashier girl twists to look at me—this hulking, smiling giant— and presses something on her desk before flying into the back dressing room, her heel’s clattering like skittles.

  The guy notices me finally, and he starts coming forward. We’re both sizing each other up, doing this wordless, eye-to-eye dance with each other, like I was Wyatt Earp and he was the guy who tried to shoot Wyatt Earp.

  It’s a bit of a stretch, but I figure if I’m fast enough I can take this guy from the left side and drive him into one of those big closets. If he trips on the woodwork like I’m planning for him to do, then I can maybe get in a couple of solid body kicks before he gets up again. Everything after that will depend on the Item and how long it takes Security. No use planning in advance what you can’t guess.

  “Hey,” he says. The hand beneath his coat stops moving. “You got a problem, friend?”

  I don’t say anything. Most of the guys who know their business don’t say anything to shit-talk. Plus with this stupid smile, it’s hard to get in a word.

  The first thing you want to do with a guy with an Item is to get him by the arm. That’s just plain common sense although I’ve seen plenty of guys try to go for the neck first and get knifed in the belly. Two steps and I close the distance between us. I get his left wrist and start to bend, and this guy drops to his knees. He tries to cry but can’t, and I’m still bending when I hear Maya’s voice from the dressing room.

  I let go of the guy’s wrist. He flops out on the floor, wincing and shaking his hand out though I’ve put in enough finger pressure that he’ll be feeling it at least until the end of the week. And then, in swoops Maya with her cavalcade, one of which has already gotten the guy water and another of which has got his hand on the guy’s back and is whispering that it’s going to be fine, just fine.

  All this is going on while I’m still wearing this dumb smile, which really isn’t helping my image. Maya’s got eyes that could freeze fire. I shrug.

  “Maya Butler,” the guy says weakly. You’d think he’d been shot, not had his elbow twisted around a little.

  “Anthony, I’m so sorry.”

  He puts his right hand into his coat and takes out an envelope. There’s a card inside, with glitter on it. “Happy birthday.”

  Chapter 2

  Flashback two days. Here’s the situation. I’m standing in the middle of Butler’s quarter-billion dollar mansion, and the first thing I notice is the heat. Just thinking about it now puts me back in his living room, feeling each drop of sweat come down my ears. My legs. My back. My forehead.

  “You guys cooking omelets in here or what?” I ask the two bodyguards—these big Slavic types with fingers wrapped in gold and necks like bulls. They don’t look at me. One of them pokes the other in the side and points to me and says a whole string of words that sounds like there’s not a vowel in the mix.

  I roll up both sleeves to hide the sweat stains, take my seat on the ivory staircase, palm two Tic Tacs, and crunch slowly. They’re orange-colored and taste like nothing, not even mint, but I chew them all the same just to have something to do. I’ve been wandering around this room for an hour, at least, and Theo Butler still hasn’t called me in.

  Usually, I don’t stand for shit like this, and I’ve been thinking plenty about just walking out and telling the old guy to screw himself, but it’s more wishful thinking than anything. No one tells Theo Butler to go screw himself. Maybe his guards—these asshole Slavs with their flat faces and gorilla-like upper bodies. But as far as I know, Theo Butler’s never told anything less than ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir,’ even from his enemies.

  My shirt’s a dishrag that I’ve left tucked in for some reason and consider untucking, but then do nothing with it. My tie’s also hanging on the balustrade like a noose. Some blue and black-checkered thing I bought for a wedding I didn’t end up going to. It’s the first time I’ve brought it anywhere that wasn’t home from the store.

  One of the Slavs—I get the name Andrei from his nametag and ignore just how fucking hilarious it is these guys gotta wear nametags—takes out a tiny black pouch you’d think he’s got heroin stored in and proceeds to pack, roll, and light a cigarette all with two fingers. It’s like watching a magic trick.

  I pop my last Tic Tac and crunch again. Must’ve been louder than I thought because Andrei stares at me. His partner Ikov—the same in every way minus the mop of black he’s got on his head—clears his thick Russian throat.

  I stare back, and we continue on like this for a minute or two like total idiots. Then Theo’s door opens; a sickly, hunched-over kid totters out like he’s just gotten out of the hospital, and a green and blue streak of feathers goes flying overhead, squawking ‘pussy, pussy.’

  I get a snapshot of the interior. Black and white tiled floors, big oaken desk, a couple of what look like Corinthian pillars behind it, some strains from an opera, a squeal—

  The door slams shut. It’s just us again, plus the kid and this parrot. He’s easily the biggest and the most beautiful parrot I’ve ever seen - red like blood, green like spring, grass, blue like water, and yellow like the sun. I sound like a goddam poet just describing the thing. Part of me wants to know how much the old boss paid for the creature, while the other part says don’t bother: even if you worked for the Brothers full-time there ain’t a chance you’d see anywhere near that money in your lifetime.

  The Brothers. Sometimes it’s the Family. If you wanna get fancy, it’s the Fratelli, but if you’re like the rest of us you just call it the mob. That’s Theo’s crew. Old Sicilian mob types. They came here about two hundred years ago right around the time of the Irish, and the two fought like devils in New York. Then they came a little bit more north and became friends, though by “friends” I mean in the sense when the other person isn’t constantly trying to put a jagged hunk of steel in your belly, or strap a bomb to the underside of your Mercedes.

  All things considered, it’s still pretty crazy to think of the changes these guys have made recently. Take that guy who just walked out of Theo’s office - wormy, thin, and pale with so many freckles on his cheeks they look like a swarm of fire ants. Irish through and through.

  Fifty years ago, if he’d been spotted a mile from this place, you could bet these Russians would have been there in seconds pounding his ass into the daisies. Now here he is trying to bum a cigarette.

  “J—just one, man,” the kid stutters. Jesus. He looks like he’s about to cry. What the hell did Theo do to him?

  The guy belches and turns towards me with the Russian’s tobacco pouch, and I see the bags under his eyes and start to think that it’s probably not a coke addiction—he hasn’t touched his nose once—so he’s probably just drunk.

  Sure enough, he stumbles across the tiles and plants h
is elbow right in the nick of time on the balustrade, knocking off my tie. “Sorry, b—brother.”

  He extracts a sheet of rolling paper, dumps on a pinch of tobacco, rolls most of it off the paper and onto the tiles, licks the end of the paper and sticks the shabbiest excuse for a cigarette I’ve ever seen in the tiny crevice in the corner of his mouth. “You g-got,” he stumbles over the word, once, twice like he’s playing jump rope with it. “G-g-otta light?”

  “Pussy!”

  The kid glares up at the bird as he tries to light the end of his paper with my Zippo. The parrot responds by dropping a long, wet shit on the tiles. The Russians both give identical dry chuckles. One says something into the gadget coming out of his ear, and a second later, an old Mexican woman with a mop and bucket appears from somewhere in the back of the mansion and scrubs the tiles back to glittering. The kid was still trying to light his cigarette.

  It’s been awhile since I’ve been in a situation as strange as this. But it’s been awhile since anyone has made me an offer as good as what Theo Butler offered on the phone.

  Tailgating—his word. Just to make sure his daughter doesn’t run into trouble.

  Trouble. Now that’s a difficult word. There’s my definition of trouble, which is when you got rival Crewmembers with two-by-fours out for your blood. Then there’s a mob boss’s trouble, which if I’ve understood the Godfather right, could mean fifty shots from a submachine gun while waiting for your car to fill. Which one did you have in mind? I had asked him.

  I swear I could hear the old man’s cheekbones pulling up into a smile at the question. We’re not expecting anything quite that exciting, he said. She’s a respectable young woman. Come on down to the mansion, and we’ll discuss all the fine points to your heart’s content.

  I wipe more sweat from my hairline and take my Zippo back from the kid. I still like keeping it in my pocket even if I gave up cigs a long time ago. He tries to say thank you but the words come out as something much different, and I ignore it. Then he stumbles over to the big wooden door on the far side of the room, which the butler opens, and he disappears into the light of the day, trailed by another cry from the parrot. The Russians laugh again.

  I’ve got a feeling it’s about my time, so I straighten up and make my fingers into a comb and loop my already-tied tie around my neck. My buddy who was gonna get married is the one who tied it for me—four of five years ago, I’ve forgotten now. Never learned how to do the thing myself.

  “Scoose me.” It’s a girl’s voice—a Barbie’s voice, and she actually says it like that, so it sounds like the word ‘loose.’ I get up and push myself back against the banister.

  Five feet of fluff and fur and a crown of Shirley-temple curls come bounding down the stairs, past the Russians, and into Theo’s office. Then, a second later, someone calls, “Quinn Tolliver,” and I take the last few seconds to re-comb my hair before entering the lair.

  Respectable young woman, my ass. That’s not a woman. That’s a stick of bubblegum, a rugrat.

  A problem.

  That’s when the door slams shut behind me.

  Chapter 3

  “Mr. Tolliver. A pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

  “Same.”

  The old guy offers me a chair facing his desk, and I take it. The seat is an old wooden thing that has this rickrack, jerry-rigged feel to it—like someone scrapped a few pieces of cheap lumber together and called it a day. The thing sits a few inches lower than the desk, but I’m tall enough that Theo and I sit more or less at eye level.

  It’s just as hot if not hotter in his study, the difference between inside and outdoors being that now I’m stuck wearing this goddam tie. Theo Butler, on the other hand, has got on this pinstriped double-breasted coat, buttoned all the way up like he was afraid something would slip out. His white hair looks like a ski slope, and as I would see later, when he wheeled himself to the door to see me out, he’s got a blanket on his lap.

  The rugrat is nowhere in sight. She must’ve slipped through the back door. I look through the room’s only window and see a tangle of green garden.

  “I must apologize if the heat has inconvenienced you. A necessary evil. Even the summers are enough to freeze me now.”

  “Maine isn’t exactly known for its aggressive summers.”

  Theo lights what’s probably a thousand-dollar cigar, exchanging it for his beaker of scotch. The bottle’s on the table, and the label reads Lagavulin, which I know is mid to high tier. With a guy like Theo, I half-expected the bottle to be made out of diamonds.

  Theo drinks slowly but with care, smacks his old lips and sticks in the wedge of his cigar. He blows two pillars of smoke before saying anything to me.

  “Do you smoke, Mr. Tolliver?”

  “I quit,” I say.

  “A shame. But perhaps I could convince you to share in a small celebration with me over your recent contract? Call it tradition.”

  “You could try.”

  Then the old man starts sizing me up with those tiny, brown eyes of his and part of me thinks I’m in trouble for talking short with a mob boss, but only a small part. Truth be told, most of me is wondering why the hell he’s got so many exotic birds in his office. I hadn’t noticed them at first because all my attention was trained on the big fellow and also because the cages are sort of nestled here and there amongst all the bric-a-brac, but honest to God they’re everywhere. Cockatoos, parakeets, other, smaller parrots, pigeons, and some others I can’t name. All of them silent as the grave.

  Theo catches me looking around at the cages. “My little friends,” he says proudly, “spent six months with trainers before I took them into my office. If you were wondering why they were so quiet.”

  “I was. Why do you keep them here?”

  “Colors, Mr. Tolliver. Everything else is so dark—I’m a man who spends his time in suites, offices, and cars and all of them are dark.”

  “Buy a painting.”

  “Never cared for art. Too much of it in the old country. Birds are better. More exciting. And I don’t mind the smell—don’t even notice it anymore. Cheaper, too.”

  “For a man like you is that really a concern?”

  “No man likes knowing that he’s been cheated.”

  “What about your parrot?”

  “Michelangelo?” Theo’s eyes flash like coals. “My pride and joy. We fought the Peruvian government three years before we were allowed to purchase him. They thought they’d be putting one of their endangered Amazonians in jeopardy if they sold him to a mob boss. Now the Amazon’s cut down and the country’s gone to hell and Michelangelo has got six square meals a day and his own aviary. Governments don’t know a thing about their countries, Mr. Tolliver.”

  “I’d expect as much,” I say, “from a mob boss.”

  There’s a second of quiet and Theo gazes for a long time at his scotch. I’m wondering if maybe the joke was in bad taste, but it’s too late now to correct anything, so I just stand there waiting for him to finish. He brought me here to talk about his daughter, after all. Not some goddamned birds.

  “Absolutely right,” he says when he puts his drink down again. “And absolutely true. Governments don’t know a thing about protecting our property. Let’s hope that you do better.”

  So now we’re getting down to it. The old man takes out one of these big manila envelopes from his desk and gives it a quick flip-through before tossing it on his desk for me to flip through.

  “Some light reading material for those nights when you can’t sleep.”

  “What is it?”

  “Addresses. Friends. Numbers. Places of interest. Preferred shopping malls.”

  I take a quick look and find a big picture of a bald guy staring back at me, his name: DAVID GILLESPIE marked in caps underneath his photo. I also find his date of birth, job history, speeding ticket record and a blank list of ‘Interesting Persons in Relation to…’

  “If you’ve already got a private investigator tailing your
daughter then why do you need me?” I shut the manila envelope.

  “Insurance.”

  “That’s what you’ve got lawyers for.”

  “Did you know, Mr. Tolliver-” Theo blows a smoke ring over the bronze statuette on his desk. “You’re the only man I’ve ever known to ask what exactly the money he’s getting paid is for? Everyone else just says okay and signs the form.”