The Baby Merchant Read online

  He’s deep into waiting. He has been holed up for so long that he’s started nicking the bed like a prisoner marking off the days. Never mind, over time he’s turned this room into a second home. He’s fixed it up— Kmart chair pillow thing, Georgia Bulldogs Styrofoam cup holders and Bulldogs tray so he can eat in bed. Scarves to cover the lampshades when a new girl comes up with him from the bar, peach-shaped ashtray in case she’s a smoker, books he doesn’t read; she’ll be impressed. He is content to hang in here and eat Domino’s and watch TV until it’s time.

  The brat at the DelMar promised to phone when his baby’s mother finally goes out to the movies or the hairdresser or some damn thing. Then Gary will drop in at the DelMar cool as anything and pick it up, and for the price of the XMen action figures Gary scored on eBay plus a fifty, the fat manager’s fat kid will slip him the passkey so he won’t have to break in. Another fifty and the brat will tell an excellent lie for him. Once he scores he is totally out of here and Sasha can go fuck herself. He doesn’t much care if he ever sees her again, although he supposes old lady Donovan’s detective will want to keep tabs on her. For God’s sake didn’t the same detective track him down and bring him in?

  “I assume she wouldn’t be having a baby,” the old lady said, “if you two weren’t in love.”

  “Who, me and Sasha?” He barely remembered her.

  “Sarah.”

  “Pregnant.” He was still absorbing it. “What makes you think it’s me?”

  “She’s not the first tramp in our family,” the old lady said. Steel glasses. Narrow nose. Judgmental look. “We keep close track.”

  “You been tracking her?” He was processing the news. Never mind why she was having it instead of running to a clinic to get it taken out; how did this tough old lady know so much? Girl was pretty, he remembered, but that was about all he remembered. “You’ve been tracking Sasha. Sasha Egan,” he said. “Nice girl.”

  “Donovan! It’s Sarah.” Why was she so pissed off?

  He flashed the smile he perfected in junior high. “Sarah. Right.” Big house. A lot of money here. “What do you want me to do?”

  They sat for a long time while Mrs. Donovan looked into her knobby hands and considered and Gary looked at the big, dirty diamonds on her rings. He could see her lips pleating under pink lipstick that she’d put on thicker than varnish. He could see the light changing through gauzy white curtains embroidered with flowers. He saw her skinny knees trembling under the navy blue dress and he was feeling explosive and uneasy because she was so old. What would he do if she just died while they were sitting there?

  “Ma’am?”

  Her head came up. “We have to plan.”

  A lot of money. “What do you want me to do?”

  Simple enough. At least to her. At the time it seemed simple to him too. Her best case scenario was him and Sasha— no, Sarah—married before the baby came. She wanted them married and living here and she wanted the baby baptized Catholic when it was two weeks old because she knew, even if he didn’t, that every soul is a treasure and you can’t let a new soul slip into limbo because death pounced before it could be baptized into the church. All he had to do was go down there to Florida and propose.

  “Married,” Gary said, but he was thinking, What’s in it for me? Then she sweetened it. V.P. at Donovan Development, she needed a man in place when Father got too old. That’s what old Mr. and Mrs. Donovan called each other, Mother and Father instead of names, and from the glimpse Gary caught of Father heading out, he was already too old. He had that pale blue stare, like his brains had blown out of his ears. They’ll die and it will all be his.

  When Sasha scraped him off her that first day at Newlife he saw the money going up the tubes. He backed off and thought about it. What to do.

  By the time he figured out a plan and went back out to the whelping box, the bitch was gone. He was scared the old lady would cut his left arm off for failing but he phoned her anyway, the way you call your mom when you can’t get your shoelaces untied. If she couldn’t help at least she could tell him what to do.

  He didn’t want to blow this deal! She already knew. Like that! she hit him with Plan B. “Wait there. My detective will find her.”

  “Detective!”

  “How do you think we found you? He’ll find her. Then you …”

  Relief made him truthful. “She’ll just scrape me off her shoe.”

  “I don’t care what she does,” Mrs. Donovan said angrily. “As long as you bring the baby here.”

  “Wuow.” He went on in a hollow, careful tone. “You don’t care what happens to her?”

  “Not really,” she said. “As long as the baby stays here. And you. We’re prepared to take good care of you. The garage apartment, a nanny for our child. My great grandchild,” she said in a tone that he could not begin to interpret. “Now bring him home.”

  “And you need me because …”

  “We’re not going to live forever,” she said flatly. Like that.

  Damn straight. “Yes,” he said. All that money. “Yes Ma’am.”

  And what if she stiffs him? Then what? Gary is still a young dude with a life to live! What’s he going to do with a kid? Let Mom take care of it. She won’t ask questions, she’ll be fucking thrilled to have a piece of Gary’s very own genetic set to play with. When Gary went out the door to college he heard her begging Dad, “Oh honey, let’s have another baby,” fat chance now, couple years ago something inside her went wrong and she had her works cut out. It’s crazy, old women like Mrs. Donovan and his mom getting weird about babies, but they do. What’s so special about them anyway? Since the operation it’s all Mom thinks about, what’s gone. So if the Donovans don’t want the baby, no prob. They’re good for it, Mom will be psyched so one way or another, everybody’s satisfied.

  Long after the pipes have run with morning showers and the doors on either side of his have slammed on businessmen going out into the city, Gary sits musing in his rumpled, cluttered room. God the days are getting long.

  Room Service jumpstarts this long day in Savannah. The guy brought a FedEx. It’s his Gimli, you know, the Lord of the Rings dwarf guy? He was afraid he’d have to leave town before it came so he sprang for FedEx, he is that anxious to complete the set. When you point the ring in the middle at one of the Lord of the Rings action figures, it either says something or it lights up, it is a genuine antique. Now he has something to do. Unwrap the Gimli and slide him into the circle, only one empty slot left. Go down and check on the Strider, auction closes tonight, play it cool, Gary, don’t get all bent about it and preempt. Long brunch in the coffee shop, cruise the DelMar, he can hear the baby— fuck, his baby— bawling from all the way out here on the access road; martial arts movie in the P.M., pizza supper in bed, go down to the bar for drinks badda bing, badda bingo, he scores again, goooo Happy Hour!

  “Oh,” the babe of the evening says, scoping the Lord of the Rings set, “my little boy would love those!”

  This brings him up short. Like, this woman looks good but she’s used or broken. “You have a kid?”

  Another flight attendant, nice eyes, body to die for, which he is about to do. She freezes. “He’s ten. Is that a problem for you?”

  “Oh no,” he says quickly. “I’m kind of a father myself.”

  “Kind of a father? You either are or you aren’t.”

  “Are. I mean, am! His name is Donnie and he’s two weeks old.”

  “You have a two-week-old baby and you’re here?”

  “The mom and I are divorced.” Look at her, dark hair, really sweet face. They were about to get down to it but she has turned to the mirror and is tucking in her shirt. She’s going to be out of here before he can get his hands on her unless he thinks fast. “She never loved me,” he says in a tone designed to make her go, oh, you poor thing. “She pretty much kicked me out.”

  “That’s terrible.” Sympathetic but not. “What did you do?”

  “I wouldn’t let her give
the baby away.”

  She softens. “She wanted to give him away? That’s so rude!”

  “I know.” Opportunity beckons. “I’m here to get him back.”

  “You mean you’re going to court?”

  “Oh no,” he says. “If I go to court she’ll kill herself.” He looks at her shrewdly. “Or him.”

  The girl is all his now. Everything about her flows his way. “Oh my God. You poor guy.”

  The rest of the night goes very well. In between, the stew tells him about her abusive ex-husband and how she loves her kid so much that she moved down here from Albany to keep him safe. She knows Gary’s going to love his little baby the same way, once you get them in your arms you never want to let go, he’s a saint to be doing this; there’s champagne in the room by that time, there are breakfast rolls and Mimosas and fresh grapes and they are snuggling in front of the muted TV while world news flows by, patterned like a flying carpet heading somewhere else. At the end they exchange kisses and home addresses and phone numbers, all fake, and somehow Gary ends up telling her his plan and the whole time he is thinking, why am I telling her all this? But she is very sympathetic.

  “Anything you have to do to get your baby, you just have to do it. You go, guy.”

  Sweet girl, she gives it to him one more time.

  At the door Bonnie-whatever, says, “I wouldn’t let it wait too long or you’ll have a hell of a time getting custody.” She wipes off his farewell kiss like so much excess lipstick, preparing to go out into the world. Gary looks so Duh that she stops to explain patiently, “Everybody knows that after the mother’s been carrying it around for a while they bond.”

  Doh!

  Turns out he can’t hang around here much longer, waiting on the fat child’s phone call and biding his time. Whatever time he had is boiling down to now.

  Soon he has go out to the DelMar and collect the kid. He’ll be going for it as soon as he buys a basket or something for it to sleep in and figures out the moves. Weird, now that he’s up against it, he’s kind of dragging his feet. Without his making a conscious choice, now morphs into soon.

  He’s excited to get going but in a way he’s sorry. Living in a hotel sounds boring, but he’s had fun here. He was flunking everything and it was time to get away. It’s been a good time. Working carefully, he takes the Lord of the Rings figures off their bases in the magic circle and wraps each one in Kleenex so they won’t get hurt bumping around in his pack, and the Strider? Should he hang in here until he knows he has the Strider or should he get on with this and get out of here? He can feel the empty spot, like the gap in a row of your front teeth.

  Get over it, he tells himself. You need to get in there and do this. If it works out you get the garage apartment, the job in the company, salary in six figures. And if something goes wrong and you get stuck with the baby? When the old people die, your little heir apparent is going to inherit and you will get everything.

  21.

  It’s interesting, the way you go along as though your life is a long dream that you actually control. Needy and ignorant, you think ahead. You hope. You plan. As you lay out a pattern of next things, what to do and how it will come down, you imagine that what comes next will in fact unfold according to the template you have made for it, never mind that blueprints for human endeavors are drawn in ash on something far less substantial than paper.

  Before the day is out, Tom Starbird will make two mistakes.

  He will show himself.

  The second is bigger.

  He will interface with the mark.

  It’s one thing for superheroes to put on shiny masks and zoom in on fluorescent lightning bolts to perform rescues, revealing flashy superpowers. Starbird is something else. His identity is secret, his best work covert. His rescues unfold in shadow and silence. To do his job, he must blend into his surroundings and disappear, the sixteenth degree of invisible.

  All this is about to be compromised.

  Pretty girl in trouble. Turns to him, what can he do? Anybody would do the same.

  If life ran like an operating system, there would be a display on Tom Starbird’s monitor, flashing:

  Fatal error.

  To do what Starbird does demands distance. Defend your position, which must be remote. Emotion makes you vulnerable. Get personally involved and you make mistakes. Never think of yourself as a person, you are a job function. Who you are when you are off duty is not important. For the duration of the job, you are this. All his working life Starbird has managed to objectify: the subject. The supplier— a mother who doesn’t deserve a kid. He is the provider. The subject is just that until he makes the pickup. An object he needs. He picks the time and place, moves in and scores. He separates the product from the supplier and makes delivery. The method: go in fast, do the job cleanly and get out without leaving tracks. In this context he is not Tom Starbird, he is an instrument. His life depends on it.

  But he will interface with the mark.

  It will become personal.

  Oh, this is wrong. From the beginning, the parameters were skewed. Zorn smacked him in the face with his own pathetic backstory and threatened his mother, which makes Starbird something less than a provider and Zorn something more than a client. This isn’t just contract work. He is on a forced march.

  God knows he’s tried to take his time.

  Temporizing, Starbird wasted a few days tracking the supplier from the Pilcher Home in central Florida to Savannah, Georgia, where the girl had gone to ground. After all, there was nothing he could do until the infant Zorn ordered landed alive and well. The days until then passed undisturbed. After he got what he needed out of that silly kid Luellen, he drifted through small towns in barren central Florida, stopping at roadside stands and gift shops, browsing through candied orange peel and dried alligators and religious objects made out of shells. He admired primitive alligators and palm trees painted on driftwood, but he didn’t buy. He is done collecting now. Instead he wandered sandy main drags and went barefoot in the dirt, picking up sand spurs like a man with nothing on his mind and nothing pressing to do. He might as well take his time. No merchant as clever as Tom Starbird would spook a supplier by moving in too soon. There was no need to pursue this before the due date.

  The trail of a woman in her ninth month does not evaporate. A woman on the run leaves wide tracks.

  When it was time, he worked his way up the coast through sandy shore towns to Savannah, where he checked into a genteel, sleepy, period hotel he’d pulled off the web. Triangulating from the supplier’s due date, he hacked his way through hospital databases, working methodically until he found the right one. Shmooze the night nurse in one of these places and you can find out pretty much anything you want. It never occurred to him that not every man has this power. There are still nights when Luellen Squiers pulls the phone case out of her pillowcase, replaying that wonderful smile. Even in big city hospitals like the one in Savannah, charm works. “Yes,” the nurse said, smiling back, “she had such a hard time that we all remember her.” Oh, he thought, my poor girl. “All alone, nobody to come for her. We had to send her home in a cab.” Slip a fifty under your fake badge and the cab company dispatcher will open his files for you; it works every time. Given the date, the time and the pickup point, it didn’t take long to locate the supplier at the DelMar— B minus motel on an access road, no security guy, no Policemen’s Benevolent Association scarfing lunches in exchange for the protective shield.

  He set a tentative pickup date. It had been a hard delivery, they told him. The charge nurse had confided that the poor girl was in for a long convalescence. Correction, lady. Supplier. Too much information for me. All he needed to know was that she wouldn’t be leaving Savannah any time soon. Counting down, he set the date.

  For Starbird, the four week waiting period was key. In ordinary circumstances he’d wait six. He didn’t get where he is by moving too fast. He preferred to delay pickup until the product was big enough to transport safely. Furth
er, the first month was crucial in developmental terms. It took that long for biology to determine whether the subject was going to make it in the world. No conscientious provider would deliver a product until he could guarantee its survival and assure the client that there were no organic defects and none pending, no glitches like colic or croup and no physical flaws. Starbird prided himself in delivering product in optimum condition. After all, the object of the operation was to put these babies into circumstances where they would thrive.

  Any reasonable client would wait.

  “Four weeks,” Zorn yapped when he heard. “What the fuck!”

  “It’s just now on the ground. Too young to travel. I don’t deliver until it’s ready, understand?”

  “You don’t get it. My wife goes to bed crying every night.”

  “Not before.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Needs time to develop.” Time for him to double back with the scanner, make sure the supplier hasn’t re-thought and had the subject chipped, in which case the next square on the board is marked GO and he has to start over. “Even a month is cutting it close.”

  “If you think I’ve left off interviewing witnesses on this other thing you’re wrong, Starbird. Bring me the damn kid.”

  “I told you, it’s too soon.”

  “My wife cries every fucking single night.”

  “Sorry, man, but you can’t rush biology. This isn’t a box of Cheerios that you snatch off a dump in the supermarket, Zorn.”

  Zorn’s voice froze over. “Watch your tone.”

  “Look. If you want somebody else to do this, I’m happy to walk away.”

  “Just try it. If you want your mother bare naked on TV.”

  “Don’t.”

  He added, offhand, “As a matter of fact, I have her coming in for an interview.”

  Keep it cool, Starbird. Don’t let him get to you. “OK.” He surprised himself. “Three weeks. Not a minute sooner.”

  “Three weeks.” Zorn’s voice was bright with relief. “Hell, take an extra day.”