The Baby Merchant Page 11

  I’m here to find out whether he is bluffing. Two counts. First, the obvious. I need to do this fast and get out without letting him get near the other thing.

  The obvious: if I don’t do this job, Boston’s TV gadfly claims he can bring down the Feds on me. Kidnapping charges, several counts, with capital punishment not implied, but inevitable. If they can find me.

  Question: can Zorn? What does he have on me?

  It isn’t really the threat that stings, it’s the implication that tears into me like a fishhook and snags in a place that hurts. Fuck Morgan Sterling, I’m no thief and I’m not a kidnapper. I hate Zorn for proceeding on the assumption. It’s like I’m some cold-blooded mercenary out to grab a kid to make a buck, or one of those filthy, deranged freakazoid pervs who drag little girls out of their beds at night and carry them away screaming. I despise Zorn for his ignorance, so this encounter is already doomed.

  I never place babies with people I don’t like and I’m not about to start.

  That’s what I’m here to tell him.

  But first I have to find out what he has on me. And on the other thing, which I won’t touch unless I have to. Find out what he has. Fob him off. OK, before I leave the country I need to know he can’t hurt her.

  Which is why I am cooling my heels in Jake Zorn’s office in downtown Boston. On TV you always see Zorn lounging behind the gleaming mahogany desk plunked down in the middle of plush carpet, flanked by sleek sofas where the parade of witnesses sob out their stories for an audience, but it’s just a set. Zorn’s real office is cluttered and borderline shabby. This is where he researches the stories that earned him his stripes as the unofficial Conscience of Boston. Felons run at the sound of his name; petty politicians cower when they see him coming. A wooden wedge sits on the dented table with a legend where his name should be. Somebody has punched it out on a label maker: Knowledge is power.

  Making people wait is power too, and Zorn knows it. The coffee urn and china mugs, the candy dish and his stack of distressed magazines make clear that I am not the first fool to sit here waiting. How long do the doctors and cops and federal prosecutors this guy interviews spend waiting for him anyway? How long do U.S. senators wait on the average? Road company stars promoting their shows? Longer than I intend to be here. Listen, I have plans: limo downstairs with the motor running, a plane to catch, but Boston’s expose king is famous for making you wait. He wants to make sure you think he’s busy with somebody far more important than you.

  Well, I’ve got news. Where Zorn is concerned right now there is nobody more important than me.

  But he won’t know that at least not right away. When he finally does come in I’ll lay back, right up to the either/or moment when he orders me to get him a baby or he’ll rat me out. I can’t wait to see his face when I blow him off.

  As far as he knows, the celebrated expose artist with the sandpaper voice and that fuck-me grin has me in his power.

  I’ll never get a kid for him. So let him air whatever tape he has on me. That is, if he has tape, which is an open question.

  Frankly, I hope it comes to that. It would solve a lot of problems. I’m leaving for a while anyway, and believe me, I’ve made preparations. The question is whether or not to come back.

  See, every psychiatrist knows that deciding to do a thing and doing it are two different things. Morgan Sterling lit the fuse but I need one last kick. If you’re on the edge and you haven’t jumped because you can’t quite jump, you need to make somebody mad enough to push you. See, if I let things go along the way they are, then they’ll just keep going along the way they are and I’ll end up doing this job forever. Trying to make people happy. When push comes to the ultimate shove, I don’t want to be that person. I’m not a generous God, I’m just a guy!

  I need to clear some space in my head. I need time to figure out who I really am, or what I could be, given the freedom.

  The trouble is, it takes guts to walk out on those legions of miserable, unwanted babies on the road to un-citizenship and, OK, it’s hard to turn my back on the endless ranks of hopeful, aching childless couples lined up for my services, but I’m only one guy and there are thousands times thousands of them. If I can’t help them all, who am I hurting if I don’t help any?

  I am half-hoping Zorn will call the shot.

  If the bastard has something on me and he goes public, let him. Let him get an Emmy for the story of the year. Cool. Then let the FedGov or Interpol try and find me. By the time it airs, I’ll be so gone that there’s no coming back. Department of burned bridges.

  I have put myself on the table here in Jake Zorn’s office, your living Gordian knot.

  So come and get me, Mr. Television Conscience of Boston. You stupid son of a bitch.

  Not that he’s come. His dish of M&Ms is gathering dust.

  Too much time passes.

  To make him come running, I pretend to leave. I start by wigwagging for the security guy watching the half-dozen screens in his cubicle. Let him get the great man’s attention. I shrug and flash my watch. I make a big show of putting on my coat. Then I make faces at the surveillance camera winking above the door. It crosses my mind to give it the finger on my way out.

  Take that, asshole.

  Zorn smashes into me. “The fuck are you going?”

  “Leaving.”

  “In hell, Starbird. We have a meeting.”

  I look at my watch and disarm him with the kid question that only pretends to be asking. “Like, an hour ago?”

  “Whenever.” The clock is crunching toward four. I need to get out to Logan soon. I try to shoulder him out of my way. Zorn leans into me like a brace of fullbacks lunging at a tackle dummy. That lanky body in the cashmere jacket is denser than I thought. “Sit.”

  Interesting, letting somebody else make your decisions. I sit. Zorn sits on the other side of the dented metal table that passes for a desk. I’m surprised by what I see in his face now that we are sitting close. The scowl is intentionally forbidding, but his hands are shaking. Does finding a baby mean that much to him? It’s odd. Underneath the investigative reporter mask, this is probably a decent guy. Nice, if you catch him right. Funny, even. Or prepared to be. In any other circumstance on any other day I might even like him. I can’t let him know. In negotiations like this one, it’s important. “So OK, Zorn. I’m here. What do you want?”

  “You know what I want.”

  “And you’re used to getting everything you want, right?”

  Zorn looks easy in his body, strong but studiously rumpled. Older, he looks almost old enough to be my … Starbird, stop. Don’t go there. Don’t go getting sorry for him.

  Focus on the framed certificates, the award statuettes spreading their wings on his cluttered shelves, the lovely woman looking back at me from a silver frame— that must be the wife. Usually I research these things, but I’m not doing this job, so why bother? Zorn may be in charge most days but right now he’s squinting the way you do when you don’t want the dentist to know that the root he’s scraping out of your tooth hurts in spite of all the stuff he gave you. It’s a silly, brave look that makes me think: Oh, shit. The Conscience of Boston is as vulnerable as the rest of us. He clears his throat and the sound that comes out is so sad that it makes me sad. “Except for the one thing. My wife Maury and I …”

  I cut him off before he can begin his pitch. It’s time to lead him where we have to go. “Why do you want a baby at your age?”

  “What do you mean, at my age?”

  “How old are you, really? You’re forty-what.” I start on the low side. “Six?”

  “Wrong answer.” The flattered grin tells me I estimated way low. Next time this guy jumps his head will hit fifty. He lies. “Forty-four.”

  “And your wife?” I do not say, your wife who tried to off herself and ended up in the hatch.

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “I tried to tell you on the phone. There’s a cutoff age for placements. So. What. D
id you start too late or did you keep trying and coming up empty until she got too old?”

  “That’s fucking rude.”

  “I’m sorry, these are standard questions. Age is a factor. You’re forty— . Um. Four. And your wife is …”

  He knows it is. “None of your business!”

  “I’m afraid it is my business.” I pretend to be sorting through the M&Ms in his candy dish, looking for the purple ones. I set a row of them on the table and then I try to lay it out for him as I pick them off. “Or it was.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That I won’t do it.” I give him a grave, regretful look. “There are the rages.”

  I hate what happens to him next. What happens to all of you. That flinch. You see the future rolling in on you: the point when your body stops doing what your mind tells it. The long slide into death and the hope that if throwing a child onto the skids in front of you doesn’t stop it, at least taking care of one will slow you down. Zorn needs this so bad that his eyes get wet and he tries the word he is least used to saying. “Please.”

  He looks so miserable that for a second, I waver. I think, would it be such a bad thing if I did one last job before I go? Would it hurt if I scored a baby for him? But it’s only for a second. Short answer? Yes. It isn’t only that I feel sorry for him even though I don’t like him. If I help one more couple there will be another and another. And another. I’ll never get out of town.

  I am at now or never. Fake passport in my jacket pocket, along with tickets in that name. Nonstop flight to Paris already booked, open return. First Class check-in begins in an hour. I’m either going to end this now or miss my flight and spend the rest of my life mired in your pain, fixed in this time in this place in this part of my life while whatever is meant to come next flows on without me. “No deal.”

  “Triple what you usually get.”

  “It’s still no deal.” Shit, here comes the familiar half-grin with all his teeth showing, that rictus of naked grief I’ve seen in so many faces. Maybe he would be a good parent. Anybody who wants it that bad … Don’t, Starbird. You came here to piss him off so you can walk away. To do this, I have to get mad at him. Bring push to shove so I can cut loose and leave.

  He pushes: do this job.

  I shove: no. Go ahead, Zorn. Threaten me.

  One last push here and I’m over the ledge whether or not my chute’s in place so, excellent. I start building my bill of particulars. He thinks I’m a fucking kidnapper. That’s one.

  “You’ll rethink when I name the figure.”

  Money. He thinks I’m in this for the money. That’s two. “You can’t change my mind.”

  “Please.” Hot as he is right now, Boston’s TV news king is getting old and he knows it. The eyes have begun that descent into the skull, fresh markers on the inevitable road into the chasm. He wants me to feel sorry for him. That’s the hell of it. I always do. There’s a tremor in the voice. “Maury and I are so …”

  Poor bastard. “I can’t keep you from dying.”

  His look surprises me. So this is what piercing means. “Hope can.”

  Don’t do that, Zorn. Don’t make me sorry for you. I do what I have to, fall silent and wait him out. I’m waiting for Three.

  Zorn does what people do when you stop answering. He can’t handle the silence. He has to fill it somehow. Words roll out one after another in spite of him. “We just want somebody around to miss us when we die.”

  “Not everybody gets what they want.”

  His head comes up. “Do you have any idea what it’s like?”

  I don’t want to hurt him, I just want to get this part over with. “I’m sorry. Even if …” No way to explain. “You’re really too old to start with a baby now.” Listen, I should know. Daria Starbird was too old to have me and we both paid for it.

  “Fuck that. We’re both in perfect health.”

  I want to add vanity to the bill of particulars, but it won’t wash. Instead I say, “Then there’s your wife’s hospitalization.”

  “There wasn’t any …” He still thinks it’s their secret.

  I read about it in the Daily News. It was that day’s “Daily Dish,” gossip before breakfast, regular as Page Six. “If she cracked again, what would happen to the kid?”

  “Stop.” The sandpaper voice crumbles. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “Wait!” I’m at the edge, but when I look down all I see at the bottom is his need. Don’t look, Starbird. It’s too sad. I lift one hand like a crossing guard stopping traffic or a priest giving absolution, take your pick. We are in an extremely odd place.

  There is a little pause in which Zorn’s face changes. He leans back. “I thought you’d come around.”

  Splat!

  I hit the wall. Maxed out on the pressure of your expectations. The tension and anxiety. The grief! You’re all just too sad for me. The Everetts were sad and the clients before them were sad and Zorn is sad in spite of his success and the beautiful wife who wrote on the photo: We are everything together. There’s a sad Mrs. Zorn at home smoothing the sheets on a sad, sad, empty crib, that I know. Otherwise he wouldn’t be ready to slay for a deal with me. The rescues are sad, even when they make you happy. Maybe old age— twenty-nine and counting— is making me sentimental but it’s getting harder to say goodbye to the babies. How can I be sure you’ll take good care of them? How can I know whether they will be happy with you?

  “Name your price.”

  I’m ready to go but anger rolls right over me and comes out before I can stop it: “Kids aren’t commodities, you stupid bastard.”

  His head comes up. “The fuck!”

  “Like they’re the last item on your laundry list and if it doesn’t work out like you thought, just add money and stir.” What’s driving me here? Zorn or something I don’t know about? Wherever it came from, I am shaking with rage. “You think you can order up a baby just like a Beemer or a Lexus and the firm will deliver, well, I’m over it! I’m over your kind.”

  He swivels, trying hard to follow.

  That noise you hear is the sound of my fist slamming down on the table. “I’m sick of you all!”

  “What are you, crazy?”

  The words won’t stop coming. “You buy the house and you get the cars and whatever the hell else you want and then you try for the kid to complete the picture, and when it doesn’t work you figure hell, medical miracles, and when that fizzles and you’ve been to all the agencies and you still can’t score that one last thing so you come to me.”

  So push really has come to shove. God he is grim. “Sit down, Starbird.”

  “Or you have the baby and when it doesn’t solve your problems you blame the child. Well, forget it. I’m done.”

  Before I left the city I took certain precautions. I go from this meeting straight to the airport, papers ready, along with a second passport with another set of tickets booked in a backup name, limo waiting outside to take me to International Departures at Logan.

  All that remains are the phone calls I make from the boarding lounge once I’ve cleared Security. The house belongs to the Star Foundation as soon as I say the word, and my accountant will follow through; as for future placements, the nuns at San Remo will be in charge and all you needy people with aching hearts can apply to them. My broker will liquidate the portfolio as soon as I call and the money will get to Europe before I do. One wire transfer and it joins my other money in Vienna, where it’s sitting in a numbered account. Listen, it’s time. I suppose I should thank Zorn for putting me on this road, him and his fucking assumptions.

  I turn to go. “It’s done.”

  Zorn’s fist slams into my shoulder so hard that it spins me around. His fingers clamp down. “You only think it’s done.”

  “Let go.”

  “Don’t make me take off the gloves.”

  “I mean it, let go!” But he doesn’t. We are locked in the dance. So we are down to the moment where Zorn threate
ns to expose me and I find out whether he can make good.

  “Fairly warned, right?” Grinning, he lets go. The barracuda in him breaks the surface with its blunt snout. “You know what I can do to you.”

  “You want to drop a dime on me? Do it.” That’s three. What else do you have?

  “I can drop the dime in a very public way and I can promise, you won’t like it.” The man has just threatened to ruin me. Now he looks almost sorry he is going to have to do it.

  “That which doesn’t kill me only bores me. It’s just TV” Time is getting away from me and so is this conversation. I want to go but I can’t seem to get out of the room. There’s something else between us, the thing I’ve been suppressing.

  “It isn’t only TV,” he says. “I know where you’ve been and I know where you’re going. I can lead the Feds to your doorstep in any country, so don’t think you can go flying off to Paris and disappear.”

  “How did you …” know about Paris? I ought to walk but the question nags. What else do you know?

  “There isn’t a mountain high enough to hide you, Starbird, or a cave deep enough, and when they find you, you will come to trial and I will testify …”

  “Go ahead.” I hang in place, waiting for Four.

  “ … and you will fry.”

  Oh, that. “If that’s all you’ve got, I’ll just …”

  “You have no idea what I’ve got.” Like me, he prepared for this meeting. More carefully than I thought. “I have files on this other business,” Zorn says disconcertingly. “Your backstory. I have witnesses. I have stills and I have vid.” Without taking his eyes off me, he eases a rectangle out of his pocket and slaps it on the table. It is an old fashioned VHS cassette.

  “I don’t care what you’ve got on me. I can’t help you.”

  Thud: that big hand on my arm. Final. Restrictive. “Won’t.”

  “OK,” I say. “Won’t.”

  His hands change venue. Those gorilla fingers grip my wrists. It’s odd: Zorn looks even older now, bigger. His glare is terrible.