The Best American Noir of the Century

by Otto Penzler (ed)

“Do you go with Marvin when he picks them up?”

  “Sometimes. When it’s far.”

  “And where does he take them? To Idaho and Nevada, or just around here?”

  She shrugged again. “He doesn’t tell me where they go. He says he doesn’t want me to try and get them back.” She smiled peacefully. “He knows how I am about my babies.”

  “How long have you and Marvin been doing this?”

  “I been with Marvin about three years.”

  “And you’ve been trading in babies all that time?”

  “Just about.”

  She poured some more tea into a ceramic cup and sipped it. She gave no sign of guile or guilt, no sign that what he suspected could possibly be true.

  “Do you have any children of your own, Iris?”

  Her hand shook enough to spill her tea. “I almost had one once.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She made a face. “I got pregnant, but nobody wanted me to keep it so I didn’t.”

  “Did you put it up for adoption?”

  She shook her head.

  “Abortion?”

  Iris nodded, apparently in pain, and mumbled something. He asked her what she’d said. “I did it myself,” she repeated. “That’s what I can’t live with. I scraped it out of there myself. I passed out. I...”

  She fell silent. He looked back at the row of boxes that held her penance. When she saw him look she began to sing a song. “Aren’t they just perfect?” she said when she was through. “Aren’t they all just perfect?”

  “How do you know where the baby you gave me belongs?” he asked quietly.

  “Marvin’s got a book that keeps track. I sneaked a look at it one time when he was stoned.”

  “Where’s he keep it?”

  “In the van. At least that’s where I found it.” Iris put her hands on his chest and pushed. “You better go before Marvin gets back. You’ll take the baby, won’t you? It just don’t belong here with the others. It fusses all the time and I can’t love it like I should.”

  He looked at Iris’s face, at the firelight washing across it, making it alive. “Where are you from, Iris?”

  “Me? Minnesota.”

  “Did you come to California with Marvin?”

  She shook her head. “I come with another guy. I was tricking for him when I got knocked up. After the abortion I told him I wouldn’t trick no more so he ditched me. Then I did a lot of drugs for a while, till I met Marvin at a commune down by Mendocino.”

  “What’s Marvin’s last name?”

  “Hessel. Now you got to go. Really. Marvin’s liable to do something crazy if he finds you here.” She walked toward him and he retreated.

  “OK, Iris. Just one thing. Could you give me something for the baby to eat? She’s real hungry.”

  Iris frowned. “She only likes goat’s milk, is the problem, and I haven’t milked today.” She walked to the Frigidaire and returned with a bottle. “This is all I got. Now, git.”

  He nodded, took the bottle from her, then retreated to his car.

  He opened the door on the stinging smell of ammonia. The baby greeted him with screams. He picked it up, rocked it, talked to it, hummed a tune, finally gave it the second bottle, which was the only thing it wanted.

  As it sucked its sustenance he started the car and let the engine warm, and a minute later flipped the heater switch. When it seemed prudent, he unwrapped the child and unpinned her soggy diaper and patted her dumplinged bottom dry with a tissue from the glove compartment. After covering her with her blanket he got out of the car, pulled his suitcase from the trunk, and took out his last clean T-shirt, then returned to the car and fashioned a bulky diaper out of the cotton shirt and affixed it to the child, pricking his finger in the process, spotting both the garment and the baby with his blood. Then he sat for a time, considering his obligations to the children that had suddenly littered his life.

  He should go to the police, but Marvin might return before they responded and might learn of Iris’s deed and harm the children or flee with them. He could call the police and wait in place for them to come, but he doubted his ability to convey his precise suspicions over the phone. As he searched for other options, headlights ricocheted off his mirror and into his eyes, then veered off. When his vision was reestablished he reached into the glove compartment for his revolver. Shoving it into his pocket, he got out of the car and walked back to the driveway and disobeyed the sign again.

  A new shape had joined the scene, rectangular and dark. Marvin’s van, creaking as it cooled. He waited, listened, and when he sensed no other presence he approached it. A converted bread truck, painted navy blue, with sliding doors into the driver’s cabin and hinged doors at the back. The right fender was dented, the rear bumper wired in place. A knobby-tired motorcycle was strapped to a rack on the top. The door on the driver’s side was open, so he climbed in.

  The high seat was rotted through, its stuffing erupting like white weeds through the dirty vinyl. The floorboards were littered with food wrappers and beer cans and cigarette butts. He activated his pencil flash and pawed through the refuse, pausing at the only pristine object in the van — a business card, white with black engraving, taped to a corner of the dash: “J. Arnold Rasker, Attorney at Law. Practice in all Courts. Initial Consultation Free. Phone day or night.”

  He looked through the cab for another minute, found nothing resembling Marvin’s notebook and nothing else of interest. After listening for Marvin’s return and hearing nothing he went through the narrow doorway behind the driver’s seat into the cargo area in the rear, the yellow ball that dangled from his flash bouncing playfully before him.

  The entire area had been carpeted, ceiling included, in a matted pink plush that was stained in unlikely places and coming unglued in others. A roundish window had been cut into one wall by hand, then covered with plastic sheeting kept in place with tape. Two upholstered chairs were bolted to the floor on one side of the van, and an Army cot stretched out along the other. Two orange crates similar to those in the cabin, though empty, lay between the chairs. Above the cot a picture of John Lennon was tacked to the carpeted wall with a rusty nail. A small propane bottle was strapped into one corner, an Igloo cooler in another. Next to the Lennon poster a lever-action rifle rested in two leather slings. The smells were of gasoline and marijuana and unwashed flesh. Again he found no notebook.

  He switched off his light and backed out of the van and walked to the cabin, pausing on the porch. Music pulsed from the interior, heavy metal, obliterating all noises including his own. He walked to the window and peered inside.

  Iris, carrying and feeding a baby, paced the room, eyes closed, mumbling, seemingly deranged. Alone momentarily, she was soon joined by a wide and woolly man, wearing cowboy boots and Levi’s, a plaid shirt, full beard, hair to his shoulders. A light film of grease coated flesh and clothes alike, as though he had just been dipped. Marvin strode through the room without speaking, his black eyes angry, his shoulders tipping to the frenetic music as he sucked the final puffs of a joint held in an oddly dainty clip.

  Both Marvin and Iris were lost in their tasks. When their paths crossed they backed away as though they feared each other. He watched them for five long minutes. When they disappeared behind the curtain in the back he hurried to the door and went inside the cabin.

  The music paused, then began again, the new piece indistinguishable from the old. The heavy fog of dope washed into his lungs and lightened his head and braked his brain. Murmurs from behind the curtain erupted into a swift male curse. A pan clattered on the stove; wood scraped against wood. He drew his gun and moved to the edge of the room and sidled toward the curtain and peered around its edge.

  Marvin sat in a chair at a small table, gripping a bottle of beer. Iris was at the stove, her back to Marvin, opening a can of soup. Marvin guzzled half the bottle, banged it on the table, and swore again. “How could you be so fucking stupid?”

  “Don’t, Marvin. Pleas
e?”

  “Just tell me who you gave it to. That’s all I want to know. It was your buddy Gretel, wasn’t it? Had to be, she’s the only one around here as loony as you.”

  “It wasn’t anyone you know. Really. It was just a guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “Just a guy. I went out to a rest area way up by Oregon, and I talked to him and he said he was going to Frisco so I gave it to him and told him where to take it. You know it didn’t belong here, Marvin. You know how puny it was.”

  Marvin stood up, knocking his chair to the floor. “You stupid bitch.” His hand raised high, Marvin advanced on Iris with beer dribbling from his chin. “I’ll break your jaw, woman. I swear I will.”

  “Don’t hit me, Marvin. Please don’t hit me again.”

  “Who was it? I want a name.”

  “I don’t know, I told you. Just some guy going to Frisco. His name was Mark, I think.”

  “And he took the kid?”

  Iris nodded. “He was real nice.”

  “You bring him here? Huh? Did you bring the son of a bitch to the cabin? Did you tell him about the others?”

  “No, Marvin. No. I swear. You know I’d never do that.”

  “Lying bitch.”

  Marvin grabbed Iris by the hair and dragged her away from the stove and slapped her across the face. She screamed and cowered. Marvin raised his hand to strike again.

  Sucking a breath, he raised his gun and stepped from behind the curtain. “Hold it,” he told Marvin. “Don’t move.”

  Marvin froze, twisted his head, took in the gun, and released his grip on Iris and backed away from her, his black eyes glistening. A slow smile exposed dark and crooked teeth. “Well, now,” Marvin drawled. “Just who might you be besides a fucking trespasser? Don’t tell me; let me guess. You’re the nice man Iris gave a baby to. The one she swore she didn’t bring out here. Right?”

  “She didn’t bring me. I followed her.”

  Both men glanced at Iris. Her hand was at her mouth and she was nibbling a knuckle. “I thought you went to Frisco” was all she said.

  “Not yet.”

  “What do you want?” Her question assumed a fearsome answer.

  Marvin laughed. “You stupid bitch. He wants the rest of them. Then he wants to throw us in jail. He wants to be a hero, Iris. And to be a hero he has to put you and me behind bars for the rest of our fucking lives.” Marvin took a step forward.

  “Don’t be dumb.” He raised the gun to Marvin’s eyes.

  Marvin stopped, frowned, then grinned again. “You look like you used that piece before.”

  “Once or twice.”

  “What’s your gig?”

  “Detective. Private.”

  Marvin’s lips parted around his crusted teeth. “You must be kidding. Iris flags down some bastard on the freeway and he turns out to be a private cop?”

  “That’s about it.”

  Marvin shook his head. “Judas H. Priest. And here you are. A professional hero, just like I said.”

  He captured Marvin’s eyes. “I want the book.”

  “What book?” Marvin burlesqued ignorance.

  “The book with the list of babies and where you got them and where you took them.”

  Marvin looked at Iris, stuck her with his stare. “You’re dead meat, you know that? You bring the bastard here and tell him all about it and expect him to just take off and not try to stop us? You’re too fucking dumb to breathe, Iris. I got to put you out of your misery.”

  “I’m sorry, Marvin.”

  “He’s going to take them back, Iris. Get it? He’s going to take those sweet babies away from you and give them back to the assholes that don’t want them. And then he’s going to the cops and they’re going to say you kidnapped those babies, Iris, and that you were bad to them and should go to jail because of what you did. Don’t you see that, you brain-fried bitch? Don’t you see what he’s going to do?”

  “I...” Iris stopped, overwhelmed by Marvin’s incantation. “Are you?” she asked, finally looking away from Marvin.

  “I’m going to do what’s best for the babies, Iris. That’s all.”

  “What’s best for them is with me and Marvin.”

  “Not anymore,” he told her. “Marvin’s been shucking you, Iris. He steals those babies. Takes them from their parents, parents who love them. He roams up and down the coast stealing children and then he sells them, Iris. Either back to the people he took them from or to people desperate to adopt. I think he’s hooked up with a lawyer named Rasker, who arranges private adoptions for big money and splits the take with Marvin. He’s not interested in who loves those kids, Iris. He’s only interested in how much he can sell them for.”

  Something had finally activated Iris’s eyes. “Marvin? Is that true?”

  “No, baby. The guy’s blowing smoke. He’s trying to take the babies away from you and then get people to believe you did something bad, just like that time with the abortion. He’s trying to say you did bad things to babies again, Iris. We can’t let him do that.”

  He spoke quickly, to erase Marvin’s words. “People don’t give away babies, Iris. Not to guys like Marvin. There are agencies that arrange that kind of thing, that check to make sure the new home is in the best interests of the child. Marvin just swipes them and sells them to the highest bidder, Iris. That’s all he’s in it for.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just give me Marvin’s notebook and we can check it out, contact the parents and see what they say about their kids. Ask if they wanted to be rid of them. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Iris?”

  “What, Marvin?”

  “I want you to pick up that pan and knock this guy on the head. Hard. Go on, Iris. He won’t shoot you, you know that. Hit him on the head so he can’t put us in jail.”

  He glanced at Iris, then as quickly to Marvin and to Iris once again. “Don’t do it, Iris. Marvin’s trouble. I think you know that now.” He looked away from Iris and gestured at her partner. “Where’s the book?”

  “Iris?”

  Iris began to cry. “I can’t, Marvin. I can’t do that.”

  “The book,” he said to Marvin again. “Where is it?”

  Marvin laughed. “You’ll never know, Detective.”

  “OK. We’ll do it your way. On the floor. Hands behind your head. Legs spread. Now.”

  Marvin didn’t move. When he spoke the words were languid. “You don’t look much like a killer, Detective, and I’ve known a few, believe me. So I figure if you’re not gonna shoot me I don’t got to do what you say. I figure I’ll just take that piece away from you and feed it to you inch by inch. Huh? Why don’t I do just that?”

  He took two quick steps to Marvin’s side and sliced open Marvin’s cheek with a quick swipe of the gun barrel. “Want some more?”

  Marvin pawed at his cheek with a grimy hand, then examined his bloody fingers. “You bastard. OK. I’ll get the book. It’s under here.”

  Marvin bent toward the floor, twisting away from him, sliding his hands toward the darkness below the stove. He couldn’t tell what Marvin was doing, so he squinted, then moved closer. When Marvin began to stand he jumped back, but Marvin wasn’t attacking, Marvin was holding a baby, not a book, holding a baby by the throat.

  “OK, pal,” Marvin said through his grin. “Now, you want to see this kid die before your eyes, you just keep hold of that gun. You want to see it breathe some more, you drop it.”

  He froze, his eyes on Marvin’s fingers, which inched further around the baby’s neck and began to squeeze.

  The baby gurgled, gasped, twitched, was silent. Its face reddened; its eyes bulged. The tendons in Marvin’s hand stretched taut. Between grimy gritted teeth, Marvin wheezed in rapid streams of glee.

  He dropped his gun. Marvin told Iris to pick it up. She did, and exchanged the gun for the child. Her eyes lapped Marvin’s face, as though to
renew its acquaintance. Abruptly, she turned and ran around the curtain and disappeared.

  “Well, now.” Marvin’s words slid easily. “Looks like the worm has turned, Detective. What’s your name, anyhow?”

  “Tanner.”

  “Well, Tanner, your ass is mine. No more John Wayne stunts for you. You can kiss this world goodbye.”

  Marvin fished in the pocket of his jeans, then drew out a small spiral notebook and flashed it. “It’s all in here, Tanner. Where they came from; where they went. Now watch.”

  Gun in one hand, notebook in the other, Marvin went to the wood stove and flipped open the heavy door. The fire made shadows dance.