Pressure Drop

by Peter Abrahams

  “You’re sure?”

  Nina nodded. “You’ve been great.”

  Jason waved her remark away. He came to the bed, bent down, kissed her on the cheek and just managed to keep his voice from breaking when he said: “Don’t worry, Nina. We’ll get him back.”

  Jason left. Nina rose and went to the dressing table. In the mirror she saw the face of a twin who had lived a different life from hers, a much harder one. She repaired it as well as she could, then put on a dark skirt and a blue sweater, the sort of blue that video people like.

  “Live At Five” arrived. They filled the apartment: producer-director, reporter, camerawoman, soundman, lightingman, researcher, driver. They homed in on the nursery.

  “It’s terrible, terrible,” the producer-director said.

  For an instant, Nina thought he was speaking to her, but then the lightingman said, “Not to worry. I’ll throw a reflector up in the corner and use the four hundred. We’ll be all right.”

  “Live At Five” set up equipment. The reporter spent twenty minutes in the bathroom doing her face and her hair. “I look like absolute shit,” she said. In a low voice, the researcher tried to fill her in on the details of the story. “Just absolute shit,” the reporter said, running a brush through her hair one more time.

  “Ready everybody?” said the producer-director.

  First they shot the stand-up. Off camera, the researcher held up big cue cards. The reporter began. “I’m standing here in the brand new nursery in the Manhattan apartment of—hold it, hold it. Is that Neena or Nine-a?”

  “Neena,” replied the researcher, adding quietly, “I told you before.”

  “You did not,” snapped the reporter.

  “Let’s try it again,” said the producer-director.

  “I’m standing here in the brand new nursery in the Manhattan apartment of Nina Kitchener. There should have been a brand new baby in this nursery right now, but as you can see”—the reporter swung around toward the crib—“the crib is empty. A first-time mother’s worst nightmare has come true. Barely a day after the birth of …”

  After the stand-up came the interview. The lightingman held his meter up to Nina’s face. The soundman checked his levels. “Just talk,” he said. “Say anything.”

  “I’m talking,” Nina said into the mike. “I’m saying anything.”

  “You’re being so brave,” the researcher said. She was a plain-looking girl with thick glasses and a soft voice.

  “Where did you get that sweater?” the reporter asked Nina. Then she did the interview, her tone husky, her eyes sympathetic, her questions full of long pauses: doing her best to get Nina to cry on camera.

  Nina didn’t cry. She answered the questions in a quiet but clear voice and concentrated on getting her message across: there was a reward, no questions would be asked, here was her phone number. She gave the number twice.

  The cameraman shot the reporter’s reaction shots. She nodded, looked deeply concerned, nodded, looked deeply concerned. Then the producer-director’s beeper went off. The researcher’s beeper went off. The driver’s beeper went off. “Live At Five” packed up.

  “Thanks,” said the producer-director as they hurried out the door. “And good luck. Nine-hundred-and-thirty-thousand people are going to see this.”

  At twenty minutes after five, Nina became one of them. She saw the face of Nina Kitchener’s twin who had lived a harder life; it refused to crumple. She heard her voice giving out the phone number, but only once—the editor cut the rest of it. The reporter said, “Back to you, Jed.” Jed and the other anchorperson made worried faces at each other. Jed said, “Let’s hope this comes to a happy and speedy resolution.” The other anchorperson ad-libbed, “Let’s hope.” A man crashed through the wall of a muffler shop.

  Nina switched off the TV, but continued to sit in front of it until Jules called up. “I’m very, very sorry to bother you,” he said. “But there’s a messenger with a package for you.”

  “What’s written on it?”

  “Your name. And it’s from Kitchener and Best.”

  “Send him up.”

  The messenger arrived and delivered the package. Inside was an envelope. It contained a note from Jason saying, “I drew this from the current account,” and one hundred one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Nina sat back down in front of the blank TV screen, the unwrapped package in her lap. Her breasts felt strange. She touched one of her nipples. It was damp. She had heard about expressing milk to keep it flowing during separations of mother and baby. She squeezed her breasts. Nothing came. She called the West Side Women’s Reproductive Counseling Center and got no answer. She tried squeezing her breasts again, harder and harder. No milk came. Her face finally crumpled, much too late for the people at “Live At Five.”

  But Nina hadn’t been the only viewer. Not long after ten that night, while she was staring out the window and thinking about the bottle of Scotch in the liquor cabinet, her telephone rang. She picked it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Hello,” said a woman who sounded very young, more like a girl. “Are you the woman who was on TV about the baby?”

  “I am,” Nina said, holding on to the phone with both hands.

  “Is it true about the reward?”

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “Ten thousand dollars?”

  “Yes, yes, do you have something to tell me?”

  All at once the woman’s voice was muffled, as though she had placed her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “Hello, hello?” Nina said. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m still here,” the woman said. “Is it in cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no questions?”

  “No questions. What do you know about my baby?”

  The voice was muffled again.

  “Hello? Hello?” Nina said.

  “I’m still here, okay?” said the woman, sounding harried. “Meet me at Lumumba’s Pizzeria on East Fourteenth at eleven-fifteen tonight. Bring the money. And come alone. With nobody. Or there’s no deal.”

  “But what is it you—”

  Click.

  Nina’s whole body began to tremble. She checked her watch: 10:23. She looked up Lumumba’s Pizzeria in the phone book. From the address she guessed it would be somewhere between First and Second Avenue. There were more dangerous sections of town. “Compose yourself.” Nina spoke the words aloud. She called a cab, picked up the envelope that Jason had sent and went downstairs.

  A silent taxi driver drove Nina downtown. At 11:13, he let her off two doors from the corner of First Avenue in front of a building with a blinking orange sign: LUMUMBA’S PIZZERIA. Only after the taxi left did Nina notice that although the Lumumba’s Pizzeria sign seemed to be working perfectly, the restaurant itself was boarded up.

  Nina looked around. She became aware for the first time how cold the night was. A strong wind, baffled by the tall buildings of the city, came in biting gusts from every direction. There was no one in sight and half the streetlights were broken. Nina walked under a functioning one and checked her watch: 11:17.

  “Hey,” came a whisper from the shadows. A woman’s voice. Or a girl’s.

  The sound had come from the west side of Lumumba’s Pizzeria. Nina, still standing under the streetlight, peered into the darkness, seeing no one.

  “You,” the voice whispered again.

  Nina walked along the boarded-up front of the building. At the side was a narrow alley. A pale-faced girl, fifteen or sixteen, stood at the head of the alley. She retreated as Nina came closer, but in the blinking light of the Pizzeria sign, Nina could see the girl’s threadbare jacket, flabby figure, uncut greasy hair; she could also see that the girl held something in her arms.

  “It’s you, right?” said the girl. “The one from the TV?”

  “Yes. What have you got there?”

  “I—”

  “Shut up,” barked a man standing somewhere behind the girl. It was too d
ark to see him, but Nina could tell from his voice that he was much older than the girl and much rougher. “The money first,” he said.

  “I wasn’t gonna say nuthin’, Ray,” the girl said.

  “You just said my name, you stupid cunt. Let’s have the money first.” A hand, brown and hairy, came grasping out of the shadows. At the same time, the bundle in the girl’s arms began to cry.

  “Give me my baby,” Nina said. A look of fear crossed the girl’s face. She shrank back.

  “The money first,” the man said. “And no questions. That’s the deal.”

  Nina put her hand on the girl’s wrist and gripped it hard, so she couldn’t run away. Then she dropped the envelope in the grasping hand. A match flickered. Bills riffled.

  “Okay,” the man said. “Sheeit.”

  The girl handed the baby over to Nina. Then she and the man ran off down the alley, disappearing in the darkness. Nina walked into the street, toward the light, holding the baby tight.

  “Are you all right, sweetheart?” she said.

  The baby cried.

  The first thing Nina noticed under the streetlight was the soiled and bloody sheet wrapped around the baby. And then she looked inside and saw that the baby wasn’t hers.

  The baby in her arms was a newborn, like hers, but it was half black. Nina’s mind raced right to the edge of craziness. Was it her imagination? She tore open the dirty sheet and discovered that the baby was also a girl.

  A wild sound like the howl of an animal tore up out of Nina’s throat. The baby jerked in her arms and began crying wretchedly. There was nothing for Nina to do but hold it tight. She even rocked it a few times.

  15

  “I dislike NBC,” said Fritz, glancing at the TV. “If that’s the one with the peacock.”

  Did they still have the peacock? Happy wondered. He couldn’t remember.

  “A very stupid bird, the peacock—and quite ugly,” Fritz added. On the screen a happy black family gorged on Big Macs. Fritz frowned.

  They were in Fritz’s cottage late on a cool November afternoon, Happy on his roller bed in front of the fire, Fritz at the rough-hewn kitchen table. Fritz had spent the past few hours harvesting the last of the pumpkins, while Happy had lain on his bed beside the pumpkin patch and watched a strong west wind blowing clouds across the sky. The wind had grown colder and colder. Happy had begun to shiver, but Fritz hadn’t noticed. He had kept bringing him pumpkins to see. “Isn’t this a beauty? Have you ever seen a finer pumpkin? The garden has been good to us this year, very good. Of course, we worked hard, didn’t we, and hard work brings fruit.” Happy kept shivering. As the sky grew darker, Fritz finally wheeled him into the cottage.

  Now Fritz was cutting the top off a pumpkin and removing the seeds. He salted them lightly, then roasted them over his fire. “Delicious,” he said, tasting one. Then he looked at Happy and sighed, perhaps because he noticed the IV bag that provided all of Happy’s nourishment, dangling above Happy’s bed. He moved out of sight, chewing pumpkin seeds. Happy loved pumpkin seeds, lightly salted, just the way Fritz had always prepared them on Halloween years ago.

  Fritz had placed Happy so he could see the fire. After a while, the flames tired his eyes and he tried to watch the TV instead. It stood in the corner of the room, at the edge of his vision. He needed to be turned a few feet to the right. Fritz returned, opened a bottle of Schloss Groenesteyn, poured himself a glass and sipped the wine. He didn’t seem to realize that Happy wanted to be turned a little.

  “Hi,” said a woman on the screen. “I’m Bonnie Bascom.”

  “I’m Jed Turaine,” said a man. “And this is ‘Live At Five.’”

  Car chase music played. Zooming, panning, trucking, upside-down shots of the city spun across the screen. Then the camera moved in on Bonnie. “Our top story tonight—new revelations in the lobster payoff scandal. But first, here’s Geddy with a quick look at the weather.”

  “Thanks, Bonnie,” Geddy said. “Folks—button up those overcoats.”

  On the periphery of his vision, Happy took in the weather forecast. He absorbed the lobster payoff revelations, learning something about the effects of PCBs in the ocean; he watched a story about a homeless man who had won a lottery but given the winning ticket to a woman who said her dog ate it; he watched a fire in the Bronx, and was beginning to think he might as well watch the fire in Fritz’s stone fireplace instead when a beautiful woman appeared on the screen. Her dark eyes dominated it; they were full of powerful, painful emotions, barely under control, emotions Happy didn’t understand but found unsettling. Off camera, a woman said: “So you’re saying that your day-old baby—barely a day old, is that right?”

  “Yes,” said the dark-eyed woman.

  “Your barely-one-day-old baby was just snatched right out of the hospital nursery?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, Ms. Kitchener, how does that make you feel?”

  The camera moved in on Ms. Kitchener. Happy thought he saw her lower lip tremble, very slightly, but he couldn’t be sure, especially from where he lay: with a head he couldn’t turn and eyes he couldn’t move.

  “I can’t really describe my feelings,” the dark-eyed woman said. “I want my baby back very much, more than anything, and I want to use this opportunity to say there is a reward of ten thousand dollars for information leading to his return, a reward that will be paid with no questions asked.” The woman gave her phone number. While she was doing it, the camera cut away to a shot of the reporter nodding. The reporter then said: “Thank you, Ms. Kitchener, for sharing this with us. Back to you, Jed.”

  Jed and Bonnie talked with concern about the kidnapping. A man crashed through the wall of a muffler shop. Fritz snapped off the TV.

  “Garbage,” he said. “This is a culture of garbage.” Happy saw that Fritz’s face, normally so pale and translucent, had turned pink. He poured himself another glass of the Rüdesheim. His hand shook a little, more than a little—the mouth of the bottle clinked several times against the rim of the glass. Fritz was a very old man.

  16

  “Up your ass with a crowbar,” croaked Chick when Sergeant Cuthbertson of the CID came in.

  Sergeant Cuthbertson smiled. He had a beautiful smile, the smile of a model in a toothpaste ad, except that he wasn’t trying to charm anybody with it. His smile seemed brighter because of his skin; Sergeant Cuthbertson was one of those islanders without a trace of slaver’s blood in him. He was in uniform: spotless short-sleeved white shirt with red trim, black pants with a straight crease down the front and a red stripe down the side, hat with a patent leather brim. “Is that a St. Lucia parrot?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Matthias replied.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Someone on a boat left him as a gift, years ago.”

  “I believe it is a St. Lucia parrot,” Sergeant Cuthbertson said, studying Chick more closely. “Or possibly an Imperial, from Dominica.” Chick sidestepped on his perch. “Equally rare,” Sergeant Cuthbertson added.

  “Yeah?” said Matthias.

  “And equally endangered,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson. “Export, trade and sale of such species are illegal. A lot of animal smuggling goes on, Mr. Matthias.”

  “And vegetable.”

  If Sergeant Cuthbertson got the joke he showed no sign. “I’ve made more than one arrest myself in this area,” he continued. “We have a duty to protect our heritage and its threatened wildlife.”

  “I agree, Sergeant,” Matthias said. “But Chick’s more threatening than threatened.”

  Sergeant Cuthbertson wasn’t smiling anymore. The smile didn’t mean much anyway—Sergeant Cuthbertson, who Matthias knew only by reputation, had made more drug, armed robbery and homicide arrests than any other policeman on the force; years ago he had shocked the nation by turning in someone for attempting to bribe an officer of the law. “Exactly when did you acquire this bird, Mr. Matthias?”

  “I can’t remember exactly. Six
or seven years ago. Did you come all this way on a parrot investigation, Sergeant?” The sergeant’s seaplane, tied to the dock, was bobbing gently in Zombie Bay.

  Sergeant Cuthbertson hitched up his pants and sat on a bar stool, back straight. “Given the length of time, which may place the act of acquiring the bird prior to the passage of the relevant laws, you may rest easy on this matter, Mr. Matthias.”

  “That’s good,” Matthias said, sitting himself two bar stools away. “I don’t think Chick would be happy in the wilds of St. Lucia. That’s not his kind of thing at all.”

  Sergeant Cuthbertson regarded the parrot for a moment. “Is there something unusual about his eyes?”

  “Meanest eyes I’ve ever seen,” Matthias said.

  “What holds him to that perch?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why doesn’t he just fly away?”

  “No one knows.”

  “Does he ever fly around the room or anything?”

  “Never,” Matthias said. “How about a beer?”

  “Not just now, thank you.”

  “I’ll accept payment.”

  That brought the smile again. There may have been some humor in it after all. “Right now,” Sergeant Cuthbertson said, “I would like to speak with your divemaster.” He consulted a notebook. “Would that be Mr. Wickham or Mr. McGillivray?”

  “Mr. McGillivray. You’ll have to wait a few minutes.”

  “Why?”

  Matthias pointed out to sea. Two Drink Minimum was chugging around Gun Point with Brock at the helm. The air was so clear that Matthias could see the green bottles of beer Moxie was passing out to the divers in the bow. Moxie had painted the barge in rainbow colors the year before. Matthias and Sergeant Cuthbertson watched it come in: rainbow boat, baby-blue bay, green bottles.

  “The underwater part,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson. “The most beautiful aspect of our little nation, apparently.”

  Matthias felt the sergeant’s eyes on him. “So they say,” he replied. In the silence that followed, the line that was almost never crossed, the one between black and white, remained uncrossed.

  Brock walked in. “G’day, mates,” he said. “Looking for me?”