OUR SECRET BABY

by Paula Cox

  “I’d like to know what I’ll be doing, Mr. Butler. Especially if you’re paying me two-and-a-half thousand dollars a day to do it.”

  “At the end of the day, Mr. Tolliver, you’ll be keeping my daughter safe. The Family has its reputation pretty well taken care of in this part of Maine. We’re respected, and feared when we need to be. No one’s been hit in years. Old enemies have become friends. Do you know the Ceallaighs? They spend their time near the docks—old Irish, those types. We were the worst of enemies, and now we’re practically brothers. These are peaceful times.”

  “If you believed any of that then you wouldn’t be giving me a job.”

  “It’s because I do believe it and you don’t that you have the job, Mr. Tolliver. If I want to keep my daughter safe, then I’m going to choose the man who always expects danger rather than the man who assumes there is none.”

  I can’t argue with that, and Theo knows it. One of the parakeets gives a squawk that we both ignore.

  “It’s not a hard job. Not by any stretch. My daughter’s fond of shopping, friends, and parties—the same as any young person I suppose. All expenses paid of course, and a room in the local Astoria. Keys for the limo and your hotel card are in the folder.”

  He slid out a clipboard with a few pieces of paper attached. I breeze through them and sign.

  “You may consider yourself a glorified taxi driver, Mr. Tolliver. Or a bodyguard, if you find that more romantic.”

  “I don’t care if it’s romantic. If you’re offering two-and-a-half grand a day to make sure your daughter comes home safe, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  The old man gives me this tight little smile and then wheels over to shake me by the hand, which is when I notice his blanket and just how big those hands are. He might be old now, but at one point there was some power in him.

  “There’s just one question I’d like to ask before I begin.”

  “Anything at all, Mr. Tolliver.”

  “Who was the man who was in here before me?”

  Something crosses the old man’s eyes like a tiny searchlight. I try to focus in on it, but it disappears a second later. His wrinkly cheeks make a smile.

  “I’ll assume you’re referring to young Kit Holcomb. Some of my men have taken to calling him ‘Kitty.’ Others have taken up Michelangelo’s term, I’m afraid.”

  “Does he work for you?”

  “Are you asking me that because he’s a Ceallaigh?”

  “I didn’t know he was a Ceallaigh.”

  “But you guessed accurately enough.”

  He goes back behind the desk. “The answer you’re looking for is a simple ‘no,’ but I’m afraid that’s not the whole story. You might have heard that the Ceallaighs and the Family have opened up for business lately. Brothers, as I’ve said. I’ve taken it upon myself to see that young Kit is properly integrated.”

  “He looks half crazy if you were to ask me.”

  Theo smiles. I don’t like one false curve about it. I know those kinds of smiles, dished out like counterfeit fifties to people who don’t know the difference.

  “Kirill’t get carried away, Mr. Tolliver. You’ve been hired to look after Maya. Let me take care of myself.”

  Chapter 4

  Flash forward. Here we are again making our way like devils out from the mall. Anthony Gerard—the guy whose arm I probably would’ve broken if I hadn’t seen his glittery birthday card—turns out to be one of these guys who’s neck-deep in Maya’s pack. He’s all smiles and ‘no harm done’ and waits with his hands in his peacoat rotating from his heels to the flats of his feet up until security arrives. The sales clerk appears again from the back room and tries to smile. I get the idea that Maya doesn’t want me standing side-by-side, so I sit on the bench facing the store and try to wipe my smile away.

  Security doesn’t need much talking to. Theo’s got his understandings with every policeman or woman from Portsmouth to New York City. Maya throws them a couple laughs and drops her last name casually like a used napkin and the next thing you know it these guys are practically scraping the ground bowing to Her Majesty. She slips them both what look like hundred-dollar bills and then we’re out of there.

  We walk back to the car in silence. I dump the five bags into the trunk and open Maya’s door, and she slides in coolly.

  She waits until I’ve pulled out of the parking lot before laying into me.

  “You gonna tell me what the hell you were doing back there?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Kirill’t you damn well ask me that, not after I saw you twist Anthony’s arm like that. You ought to be thanking your lucky stars that it didn’t break.”

  “Lucky stars don’t have a thing to do with it. If you’re that excited your friend’s okay, thank a solid radius and coordinated distribution of strength.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  Maya hasn’t told me where I’m supposed to be going. We’re drifting on the service road right now, and I’m switching over to the highway when Maya’s hand makes a grab for the steering wheel, tugging us sharply back. I can hear the sound of squealing tires as the eighteen-wheeler behind us pumps its breaks. The horn sends off a groan, and I see in the rearview mirror the guy flipping me the bird.

  “Jesus. You trying to kill us or something?”

  “I asked you, are you trying to be fucking funny? Is this some fucking joke to you?”

  Maya still hasn’t let go of the wheel. We’re doing sixty with a pissed-off trucker trailing behind us by a hundred feet or so, and I’m beginning to wonder whether or not I should fear for my life. Theo didn’t mention any suicidal tendencies, but now that I’m thinking about it I get to wondering if what I’ve seen so far of Maya Butler is just the good side of potential bipolar.

  “Keep the gas on,” she hisses. “We’re not pulling over. I want you to get something straight.”

  “We can get it straight in a parking lot. If you want me to pay attention, I’m more likely going to do that if I’m not fearing for my life.”

  “I’m not going to kill us.”

  “You ever heard the old motto ‘never trust a pretty face?’ ”

  “Kirill’t you dare try to be cute right now.”

  A flash of orange on the road ahead, followed by a couple SERVICE ROAD CLOSED signs asking me to reduce speed and cut along a side road. Thank God for road crews.

  “No choice now. Let go of the wheel, and I’ll pull into the first lot I see.”

  Maya shoots me another one of her hellfire glances, but lets go. It relieves me more than I imagined. It would’ve been easy enough just to force her hand off, but I’ve got a feeling Theo’s got something like medieval-era laws for laying unwelcome hands on his daughter. Plus, a mob boss seems like the kind of guy who’d keep rusty machetes in his office desk for the purpose of cutting off bad hands.

  I swing the Mercedes around and slot us through a lane at the very end of a Lowe’s Home Improvement. Maya doesn’t waste a second.

  “I’m gonna make it simple for you so you can understand. If you ever put a hand on one of my friends again, I’ll make sure that within the hour you’ll be out of a job. And a word to the wise, if my father puts you out on your ass, good luck trying to find work again in this state. If you think that’s a threat, then you’re absolutely right.”

  She wraps this speech up handily and sinks back into her car seat. I’ve got to admit it’s one of the better-worded threats that has been thrown at me, compared to the usual stuff. It gets me to thinking that I’m probably not the first guy she’s laid into.

  “Are you even going to say anything?” Maya says, although everything I read in her face is saying ‘don’t even try.’ One thing I picked up on from the first moment I saw her in her daddy’s mansion was that this isn’t a girl who’s ever been told ‘no’ before in her life. Lucky for me, this isn’t the first time I’ve had these problems: problems like Maya. They’re really not all that bad to d
eal with if you get everything set up straight in the beginning so that you understand each other nice and clear. It’s like when somebody asks you to paint his garage black but then sends you blue paint and thinks you ought to be the one to fix it. No choice but to tell the guy you won’t.

  “There is,” I say, turning to face her and looking into those doe-like, fresh-chocolate-on-an-Easter-morning eyes so that there won’t be any confusing what comes next. “Just a couple of things. I work for your father. Not you. Tell me what to do all you like, and it won’t make you my boss. You expect me to turn over on my belly and lick your fingers and say ‘yes ma’am’ like one of your toys in the shopping mall. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to keep you alive. And as for your friend, if he wants to give you a birthday card, he’d damn well better make sure it doesn’t look like an Item when he takes it outta his coat. You see him again, you tell him he’s lucky he didn’t get his wrist snapped. I don’t trust a damn one of the people I saw today, but it’s that mistrust your father’s paying me for so you’d better get used to it.”

  I try to for something else to say and realize there isn’t anything more. Then I notice the whole time we’ve been exchanging our spiels we’ve had the radio on. Bobby King and the crew have been crooning on about chain gangs, and I hadn’t heard a note of it. Maybe not usually the kind of stuff most people go in for, and probably not the kind of music the Stitches eat up, but I love it.

  Maya’s gone quiet on me. Can’t tell yet if it’s the consideration kind of quiet or the time bomb quiet. Either way, the best option is silence, and that’s exactly what I do as I reverse out of the lot. Chances are Your Highness will be taking us further downtown to continue the high-end shopping crusade, so it’s not a total shot in the dark when I pull us back onto the service road, then the highway. No pissed-off truck drivers or maniacal shifts in the road. We’re making progress.

  Maya waits until we’ve gone about five miles before breaking the silence. “I see your point,” she says, which was pretty much the absolutely last thing I was expecting. More than that, she even sounds sincere about it. I decide not to say anything to this, sensing the ‘but.’ It comes about five seconds later. “But don’t you ever talk like that again to me.”

  “I hope I won’t have to, Miss Butler.” She doesn’t say ‘call me Maya,’ which I’m glad of. The less buddy-buddy we can keep this, the better.

  I weave the Mercedes over to the right lane to exit at the enormous Nordstrom’s that’s just pulled into view. Maya puts a couple fingers on the wheel and my hands lock—no way she’s wrestling us away again. Just a tap this time.

  “Kirill’t exit here.”

  “Okay.” We twist back into the passing lane and blast by a black BMW, then a police cruiser. Maya twists around in her seat and waves. The cops wave back, recognizing either her face or the plates.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “No. Not right now. Just go until I say to stop.”

  “No problem.”

  “Chain Gang” fades out, replaced by sixties cigarettes-and-tar-voice Bob Dylan singing about rolling stones. “You mind?” I ask although my hand’s already twisting the volume.

  How does it feel?

  How does it feel?

  To be without a home?

  “Be my guest,” Maya sits back and drapes her right leg over her left. She’s wearing this short black dress, and she’s got miles of suntanned leg to show. I’ve always liked nice legs, though I know better than to spend too much time staring at Maya Butler and turn away.

  “Just so you know,” she says, closing her eyes, “‘Jokerman’ is better.”

  Chapter 5

  We drive for an hour and pass enough exits that’ll take us just about anywhere in the continental United States. Twenty, thirty, thirty-five miles since we left the city I count off the odometer. What the hell or who the hell does Maya know all the way out in the boondocks?

  I can’t ask her because she’s been asleep for the last thirty minutes. She’s taking these deep, wet breaths and snoring slightly through her nose and through the whistle between her lips, sort of like a kitten. It’s cute but also weird when I think that, for jobs like this, I’m getting paid two-and-a-half grand a day. Even running around with the Stitches making hits doesn’t pay the kind of dough I’m getting to watch this kitten purr.

  The road begins to twist and soon enough we’re up on the Gulf of Maine. It’s mid-afternoon, and the sky is a mash of clouds. The water’s gray as concrete and whipping up a spray from the wind, while the beach is a gnarly twist of sand with so much driftwood sticking up through the surface that it looks like the ocean rose up and accidentally drowned a forest.

  I turn on the windshield wipers when the air gets dewy. I take a look out over the water - haven’t seen the beach in ages. Maybe not even since I first arrived in this state. There are a few guys with waders and large salt-crusted peacoats tossing in their lines and lures from the pier, and it looks like the most boring, most miserable thing you could be doing on a day like today. I never understood the whole fishing craze or the whole seaside craze in general. But then again, I’m not much of a seaside guy, or a vacation guy come to think of it.

  The road curves on alongside the water for another five miles. I open the window a crack to get a smell of the rain and the brine and to catch a bit of the fresh air. Maya stirs and opens an eye.

  “We’re by the water?” she says sleepily.

  “Take a look out the window.”

  She takes a look but seems unimpressed.

  “How long have you been driving along the beach for?”

  “Six or seven miles. You want me to pull over?”

  “Not yet. We’ll go for another ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  I roll the window back up. Maya looks thoughtful.

  “In three miles you’ll take Hammond’s. You’ll get in the right-hand lane and just follow that road for a little while. We’ll be there in ten minutes or so.”

  “It might help if you told me where we’re going.”

  “The complex is called Sunrise Apartments. I’ll point it out to you when we get nearer, though I doubt you can miss it.”

  “Okay.”

  Hammond’s exit is three miles to the dot. Something pretty obvious tells me that this girl’s been to these parts before and Christ only knows what for. She doesn’t much seem the sea-scrounging fisherwoman type or the kind who’d drive an hour out of town for a drug deal. She might be a mobster’s daughter, but she looks pretty clean to me.

  And then all of a sudden it’s like we’re back in colonial America, and all the houses are three-storied mansions with yards big enough to hold circuses. Least that’s my impression when I see the houses. There are dozens of them, stately wooden things with huge archways, porches, and honest-to-God towers: the kinds that look like you’d keep birds in them. Aviaries those are called.

  “These are fancy,” I say.

  “It’s called Queen Anne.”

  “You mean the house?”

  “The architecture. Kind of old-fashioned, right? And with those big circular windows and those winding steps and the towers. I love this kind of building.”

  “You come here often?” I cringe because it sounds too much like a bad pickup line.

  “Whenever I’ve got a spare minute.”

  “Just to come look at the buildings?”

  “Sort of.” She points to the right. There’s a big wooden sign with the words Sunrise Apartments painted in green before a wrought iron gate and guardhouse. I stop next to the tiny pavilion while an old man in a creased white shirt and gray mustache waddles out with a clipboard to take my name.

  “Afternoon, folks,” he says, looking inside the car and dipping his hat to Maya. “Pleasure to see you again, Stella.”

  “And you, Jerry dear. Just here for a visit—we won’t be in your hair any more than an hour.”

  “Take as long as you want. You k
now the place is always open to you.”

  The old guy goes inside and presses the button for the gate and walks back out all smiles. Maya gives the guy a wave and then we’re driving on through, passing row after row of luxury apartments that all look like they’ve been dragged out of turn-of-the-century Netherlands. Gives me a weird feeling like we’re traveling back in time or something like that.

  “Kirill’t ask.”

  “About what?”

  “You know what,” Maya says and directs me down to the left. “Far as you’re concerned, you’ve never known anyone named Stella Smith in your life. Got it?”

  “Far as I’m concerned, unless you’re coming out here to shoot up without your daddy knowing, it’s none of my concern.”