BABY FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  When I see her leave the hospital at half two in the morning, I want to go to her, hold her, but I’m not here for that. I need to confirm with Dean so that I can…but it’s difficult to think of plans and scheming with Daisy passing within yards of the car. She walks into the glare of a streetlamp and I see that her eyes are red, her cheeks reflective with tears. I swallow down a pain I barely understand. When she’s out of sight, I climb from the car and enter the hospital. Denton told me Dean’s room number, so I go straight up. The hospital is dead to the world, silent, eerie, the only sounds coughing and rolling over and the occasional scree-scree of bed-wheels. I enter Dean’s room silently, close the door behind me, and then sit close by his Call Nurse button to make sure he doesn’t alert anyone that I’m here.

  He wakes with a jolt.

  “Ah, Hound—it’s Hound, right?”

  “Sir,” I mutter. “I hope I didn’t frighten you too much.”

  “I thought you were a bear.” He whispers, since his face is such a mess. “I was dreaming and I thought…It doesn’t matter. Are you here to kill me?”

  “No, sir. I’m here to talk to you.”

  “Talk?” He laughs, or makes as close to a laughing sound as he can when laid up like that. “You’re not what I expected you to be at all. Do you remember the first few times we met, lad? I guess met is the wrong word, but you know what I’m saying.”

  He’s talking about the couple of times I warned him to pay Mac, before that meeting in the alleyway: the meeting that changed my life.

  “I remember,” I say. “Don’t like to, though.”

  “No? I thought you were pretty fair, as far as collectors go. Don’t look surprised. Do you think you’re the only collector I’ve ever had to deal with? You walked up to me and placed your hand on my shoulder—I could tell you were being gentle, lad, a big man like you, I could tell you were being careful not to hurt me—and told me, as respectful as you please, ‘Sir, you need to pay Mac, or I’m afraid something very bad is going to happen.’ And did I listen! Coward! Coward!” His voice cracks, which confuses me since I don’t think I scared him too much. “No, I just carried on doing what I was doing. Do you remember the second time? You talked to me about books, some book about a married couple in the fifties, if I remember correctly, and then you politely asked me to pay Mac again. It’s only the third time that you threatened violence.”

  “I’m not a good man, sir. I may not have hurt you, but I would have.”

  “I’m not a good man, either. I’m not going to judge you.”

  “Who did this to you, sir? Can you remember? I know you’ve talked to the police, but a man with your background, I’m guessing you haven’t said much to them.”

  He smiles tightly. “No, but then, I don’t remember much. The only thing the doctor can tell me is that it looks like I was beaten with knuckle-dusters. Well, they said it might be knuckle-dusters.”

  “Makes sense.” I nod. So it was Ripper and Hitter who went in on him, which means it was Mac who gave the order. My blood turns cold at the thought of Mac playing with me like a chess piece, not only because he’s treating me like a kid now, but also because I guess he must’ve done it in the past without me noticing. Big dumb fucking Hound. Big over-excited fucking Hound. “I want you to know I’m doing everything I can to keep you and your daughter safe, sir.”

  “My daughter?” Dean grinds his teeth. At first I think it’s in anger, but it’s more like he’s thinking deeply. After a long pause, he says, “You and Daisy…Is that possible? That would explain why you’re not killing me.”

  “If she hasn’t told you anything, I don’t think it’s my place.”

  His smile is small and almost shy from his over-inflated face. “But I think you already have, lad.”

  My shoulders slump. “I guess so. I want to tell you something else, too, but I can’t without revealing something that isn’t mine to—”

  “I know that Daisy’s pregnant.”

  I sigh. “I’m the father,” I say. I don’t know what prompts me to come out with this. Maybe I just want to see how he’ll react. All my life I’ve been seeking the approval of men like Dean: father-aged men, men who’ll offer me some kind of encouragement to do something good for a change. “I hope you don’t find that too scary. I only learnt about it earlier today. I guess it’d be yesterday now. I just want you to know that I’ll be the best goddamn father I can be. I swear to that, sir.” If Daisy lets me, I add silently. If Daisy keeps it.

  “Like I said, I’ve met many debt collectors, too damn many, is the truth. And you’re the only one I’ve ever met who I’d consider son-in-law material. But you have to get out of the life, somehow. I might be able to help with that, but—Things are in motion. I think. I hope.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, but the way he’s swaddled, it’s more like he wiggles his eyes. “I really can’t say. Don’t want to risk it.”

  “Alright,” I murmur, wondering if the pain meds are making him speak funny. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  I don’t get a chance to ask, either, because he closes his eyes and starts to snore lightly, drawing in breaths which sound hollow and raspy. The twins really fucked him over, by the sounds of it, but he’ll heal. Which is what Mac wanted: hurt but at no risk of dying, so when he does die, it’s good old obedient Hound who does the job.

  I stand up, looking down at this man and wondering if I ever could’ve busted in his face and collected his teeth like I threatened. Could I have just turned off my brain, like I always do, and went to work on him? I’m not sure. I like to think I wouldn’t have. I like to think I wouldn’t have been able to, since he’s old and broken-looking. But I can’t say for definite, and that scares the shit out of me. Sometimes, it’s like I don’t even know who I am.

  I’m walking through the hospital’s automatic doors, trying to figure out what exactly I’m going to do—persuade Mac that Dean has some money on the way and then try and raise that money myself is looking like the only real option—when Daisy walks toward me. We both stop, looking at each other over the harsh glare of the outside hospital lights, the concrete lit so that you can see every old stain and scuff mark. She’s holding a takeout bag in one hand and a drink in the other. She slowly removes the straw from her lips.

  “What have you done?” she whispers. “What have you done to him!”

  “Wait!” I approach her, wincing when she recoils from me. “I haven’t hurt him, Daisy. I swear on it.”

  “Then what’re you doing here?” She believes me. That has to count for something.

  Without discussing it, we move to one of the benches which sit along the hospital’s perimeter, away from the lights, where we can only make out each other’s faces by the light coming from the hospital windows and the hiding moon. I tell her about talking with him, about Ripper and Hitter, about Mac, all of it.

  “He wants you to kill Dad as some kind of a test? He’s a sadist, Hound. How did you ever look up to this man?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t anymore.” I want to reach across and place my hand on her knee. It’s only been a day of this, but it feels like far longer. Two months of being intimate every day, and then this…I’ve never had to deal with that before. When I notice she isn’t wearing her rings, it feels like a punch in the gut, fake marriage or no. “The only thing I can think of is to pay Mac four, five times what Dean owes. But that’s even more than I’ve got saved for the house. Way more, really.”

  “How much does he owe?” she asks quietly. She isn’t looking at me. I wish she would look at me.

  “Around two-hundred and fifty grand.”

  “What!” Daisy jumps up, bringing her hands to her mouth. “How is that even…what! Hound!”

  “Mac’s an evil bastard, Daisy. He lets the debts build up over years, let’s them borrow more, all whilst the other debts are gaining their interest. Massive amounts of interest, too. So that when he finally comes to
collect, people are forced to mortgage their houses, sell their cars, and he gets a big payout. It doesn’t even matter if a lot of people can’t pay all of it. Even some of it is a fortune. But your dad’s a different case. Mac wants me to kill him, but I reckon he’d take around a million. But I don’t have a million.”

  “And neither does Dad.”

  I risk moving my hand to her, laying it gently atop her hand. She hesitates, but then flips her hand so that our fingers can interlock.

  “I won’t let anything happen to him, Daisy. I’ll die first.”

  “It wasn’t you…” She turns to me, the skin under her eyes puffy from crying. She looks vulnerable. All I can think is I want to hold her, shield her from the world, for the rest of my life. But then she slides her hand away from me. “What are we going to do, Hound? I’m going to have to run with him, aren’t I? Me and Dad are going to have to run far, far away.”

  “Don’t do that. It’d kill me.” I reach for her again but she stands up.

  “What else are we supposed to do?” she snaps.

  “I don’t know. But I know one thing: if you left, I’d die. I love you, Daisy.” I’m on my feet, standing close to her, looking down into her face, a face I know as well as my own reflection now, a face I’ve spent hours exploring until I know every valley and peak. A face which would haunt me every day for the rest of my life if it were suddenly to disappear. “I used to think my dream life was just a house, Daisy. A house. Wood. Stone. Appliances. Shit. Whatever. I used to think my dream life was just being out of the life. But you know what these past couple of months have taught me? None of that means anything if I don’t have you, you and our kid. I want to make this work. I want to be somebody else. I don’t want to be—” I cut myself short, suddenly afraid I might cry.

  Daisy touches my face. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, not with me.”

  “I know.” I lean in for a kiss, but she backs off.

  “I don’t know, Hound. This is all such a mess. I haven’t slept. I’m—God, I’m tired.”

  “Just promise me you won’t go. Give me a week. Just a week.”

  “Will we be safe, though?”

  “I have men watching you and your father,” I tell her. “And I’ll talk to Mac and tell him that he’s going to be paid. I’ll lie my ass off.”

  “And then what?” Daisy asks, a note of desperation in her voice. “A week isn’t forever.”

  “And then we find a way. As a family.”

  I don’t know if she’s fully convinced, but she nods before turning back toward the hospital. “A week,” she calls over her shoulder. Then she stops, turns, and looks me dead in the face. “And I love you, too. I think you should know that.”

  She paces away before either of us can say anything else.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Daisy

  Over the next week, I meet with Hound once, while I continue to work at The Lady Shack and the café, and as Dad stops being a swollen balloon and starts to resemble a person again. “There’s no way I’m finding this money,” Hound says. “I thought I could, but, shit.” We’re sitting in the café after my shift, sipping coffee, the distance of the table seeming too long between us after months spent in each other’s arms. “I’ve put off Mac, but pretty soon he’s going to be expecting his cash, and—fuck, I feel like the only thing for me to do is walk in there and tell him I’m out, tell him I’m out of the life and that I’m taking my family with me. You, Dean, you’re my family now.”

  “And then what?” I ask. I’m aware that my voice sounds timid and I hate it. But I can’t stop it, either.

  “Then we’ll get out of here. I have the cash I was going to spend on the house. We’ll run, find somewhere safe, away from him. Maybe I’ll be able to intimidate some of the men out of following me. They all know how dangerous I can be.”

  “But your house—” I stop myself. Maybe it’d seem silly to most people, but I know how Hound has fantasized over this for years.

  He just shakes his head. “I told you. It’s just a house. You’re what matters to me, you and our baby.” His ice-blue eyes go cold and distant. “And any man who tries to harm you better be ready to face me.”

  That was two days ago. Today, despite all the craziness going on around me, life trundles on as normal. I’m at The Lady Shack, squeezing into my uniform, pushing my tits up to my chin and my ass into these tiny shorts, getting ready for another shift of goggled-eyed and mean-eyed men. Sarah seems to have gotten over her concern for my dad. As I’m leaving the changing room, she blocks my way and sneers at me. “So the whole marriage thing fell through, did it? I guess a woman like you can’t help herself, can she? Married one minute, slurping off every guy you see the next minute.” Behind me, her sidekick titters, and it’s all I can do to navigate around her without smashing her face into the wall.

  The day gets immediately worse when I see Marsha’s face, which is distraught and apologetic all at once. I know that face well from working here, the face that ushers in a day of dealing with asshole customers. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I tried to tell Steve, but he said that you have to deal with him. Keep the customers happy, he said.” I don’t have to turn around and look down the aisle to know who it is, but I do anyway. Charles Wheeler sits in his buttoned-up shirt and bow-tie, tapping his manicured fingernails against the table and smiling down the aisle at me, an expression that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing and wants to relish it.

  Swallowing my pride—how many times is that now? a thousand?—I walk on my absurd heels to where he’s sitting, notepad in hand, plastering a smile on my face which surprises me when it doesn’t falter.

  “Hey, doll!” I beam, despising my own voice. “How are you this afternoon?”

  Charles holds his hands up. “Is he going to choke me again?” He lets out a harsh laugh, dropping his hands. “But in all seriousness, if he’d tried that when I was ready, I don’t think he would have had such a grand time of it, no way. I do karate. They teach you to use your opponent’s size and strength against them. So you can tell that cowardly braindead hunk of meat that if he ever lays his hands on me again, it will be the last thing he does.”

  I accept all this with a smile, since there’s nothing else I can do. It’s ridiculous, Charles must know that, but I can’t say it.

  “Now lean forward like a good girl.”

  I’m about to say no when I notice Steve out of the corner of my eye, Sarah standing at his shoulder whispering in his ear. Oh, I know exactly what that bitch is saying: “Ooh, Steve, last time that customer was here Daisy caused a ruckus so we better keep an eye on her to make sure she isn’t going to risk making another scene. You know how much I care about this place, Steve.” All the while she’s leaning just a little too close and letting her lips brush over his ear.

  I swallow my pride—one-thousand and one—and lean forward, painfully aware of Charles sitting up so he can look down my cleavage. “I see that those garish rings are gone,” Charles comments. “I don’t think rings like those flatter a woman like you. Women like you should be wearing cheap supermarket jewelry, so that when men look at you they know exactly what they’re getting. Whores, basically.” He tips his head back and laughs at his own joke.

  I get the urge to stab my pen into the exposed skin of his neck, but I can still see Sarah and Steve staring at me, Steve with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops like some old-timey oil man.

  “Would you like something to drink?” I ask, in my sweetest, most polite voice. How am I speaking like that? How is my voice coming out so serene when inside there’s an earthquake tearing through my body, making me want to clench my fists and spit and swear? “We have cocktails, beers, I think we even have a—” A mulled cider, I was going to say, because I’m just making sounds to stop myself from snapping at him.

  “Where did you learn to speak so prettily?” Charles asks. He has one hand under the table, shifting slightly back and forth. I know what he’s doing
and it makes me sick. “Didn’t you ever want to be something more than—well, more than one step up from a stripper? Or is it one step down? I’m sure strippers make more than you.”

  “You know what, you little—” I bite down on my tongue so hard I taste blood.

  “That’s right,” Charles says, nodding. “Be quiet now and take my order and shake that ass for me. You’re all whores, every single one of you. You’re all good for one thing. And most of the time you can’t even do that right! So what good are you? You look the type, all bouncy and sexy, but when you get you home, you just lie there dead and boring and pointless.” He shrugs. “You might as well be dead, to be honest.”

  I see myself in five months with a bulging belly, see myself in five years with a son or a daughter, see myself in twenty years with a fully grown child, and wonder if I want to one day tell them about the time I let this man walk all over me, or the time I salvaged my self-respect and did something. I don’t think. I just tear off my apron and toss it on the floor, and then scream, “You’re a small little man! A tiny little man! A pathetic little man who’s never gotten laid in his whole damned life and so has to come here to feel big!”