The Baby Merchant Read online

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I go over? Call the cops? Ironic, my best friends were grieving over the baby they lost and here was a couple with a baby they didn’t want. Do you know what that’s like? Terrible. When nobody wants you they think you don’t know it, but no matter how little you are, you know. Night after night after night it cried, while Jim and Marie …

  I had to do something.

  In college we did everything together, Jim and Marie Jansen and me, I’ve changed their names for their protection. They got married while I was in business school and instead of breaking up the threesome it bonded us, I was Godfather to the baby they lost. Where I was floating between temp work and crap job offers, Jim designed a genius piece of software and made half a million overnight. The Jansens had everything they wanted and then the baby died. She went in one morning and it was lying there stiff and cold in the crib. Raw agony is painful to see. I would have done anything for them. Nights I hung in and talked and let them cry and talked some more until I couldn’t bear another minute of the pain, and when I went home no matter how late it was, the baby across the way was screaming. I don’t know how the conversation started or what Marie and Jim said to me, I only know what I said.

  For everybody’s protection, I will withhold the details. Let’s just say I performed a rescue. I solved two problems at once and when I walked away the Jansens had their baby and I was holding enough money to float me until I could swim on my own. Of course I refused, I refused it twice, in spite of which Jim made a wire transfer into my account. The amount staggered me.

  Sure it gives you a rush, making people happy. They loved the baby and the money was amazing, but I thought it was a one shot deal. I didn’t expect to do it ever again. Funny, I think that every single time. If you want to know the truth, the first job nearly destroyed me. Their raw grief and the sobs, the sound that came out of them when I put that baby into their arms. Then there was the responsibility. A benevolent God is expected to look after His creations. How could I? I was only twenty-four.

  When you play God the pressure is tremendous.

  Jim and Marie said, “How can we thank you?”

  I hugged them both. I touched the soft spot in the baby’s skull. A scar, but no implant. I asked the Jansens for a single favor. “Get him microchipped. Forget about me and, please.” The big favor. “Please don’t look for me.”

  I left town. I still wonder if the couple in my building ever thought to look for the baby I took. I think not. They’d had the chip removed, so it’s pretty clear that I was doing them a favor too. I never saw anything about it in the news.

  I moved to Chicago, great place to stay lost. Open all night, perfect for a young guy. The money floated me for almost six months, which I spent reading. I was considering my options. What did I really want to do? Not certain.

  As for the business, I never thought of it as a business. I thought I was done.

  The Jansens sent another couple. My best friends, and after I made them promise. First lesson: don’t do business with friends.

  Nice people. I had to get rid of them.

  “I’m sorry. You’ve made a mistake.”

  The new people were terrible in their pain, with tears standing in their eyes and those moist, urgent grins. That wasn’t the only thing troubling me. I couldn’t figure out which of us the Jansens thought they were doing the favor.

  The wife said, “They said you could help us. They promised.” She wasn’t much older than me.

  It was awful. I backed away.

  Her mouth was so dry that her lips stuck together; he kept licking his, they were that hungry. “You know, like you helped Marie and Jim?”

  I knew him from the picture: one of the Fortune Five Hundred. He grabbed my hand: steady grip. “Don’t say no.”

  “I just did.”

  He named a figure.

  “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  The money was even better than the first time. I spent the last of the Jansens’ money on a midrange scanner because I had to be sure. I found a deserving baby for my new clients. I put the cash in a Viennese bank. I left town because the connection was too intimate. I couldn’t get sucked into their gratitude.

  As I said, the pressure was tremendous. Then there’s the pain. I took the lesson: depersonalize.

  To keep from breaking your heart every time, you have to detach.

  I developed tactics.

  I maintain a professional distance, like a doctor. In the operating room a surgeon can’t afford to think, my poor friend; he has to think: this liver, this kidney or this heart. This distance is essential to precision. Get emotionally involved and you start making mistakes. Terminology keeps it cool.

  Objectify and you can protect yourself. There is a logic to rhetoric. Use the right words for things. From here on out, think of me as the provider. I am an expert technician in a volatile medium, which means close attention to every detail. No I don’t want to hear your life story. All I need to know is whether I want to take your case. You are here because I am the best.

  In professional terms, the baby I will put into your arms is the subject, until the pickup is made and I know I can guarantee the product. There is, of course, a supplier, but we don’t need to get into that.

  When we finally come face to face you seem surprised; you paid so much for this appointment and waited so long. Now you are nonplussed. I look like a kid to you. What did you expect, the ancient and powerful Oz? You’re all alike— put off by the disparity in our ages but impressed by my bearing and the firm’s reputation and, I think, the Saville Row threads. Do not be deceived. I have the power. “Starbird? The Tom Starbird?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have a problem.” The shuffling and throat-clearing begin. You’re getting ready to sob out your story, which I already know. I’ve met too many of you in your big, silent houses where no children come; I’ve seen too many perfect, empty nurseries— why must you always buy the crib and the Teddy bear before you’re sure? I don’t need to know what stops you had to make before you played out your string and came here. It’s all too sad. “We …”

  I cut you off. “I understand.”

  “Can you help us?”

  “Probably.” By this time I’ve researched suppliers as thoroughly as I’ve researched you. I may even have a subject ready for pickup, but before we sit down to the paperwork, I have to observe you. I need to see how you play your hand. If I see anything I don’t like, we’re done.

  You’re here because you know I can put a baby into your arms. Your lips are turning white the way they do when you’ve been in the waiting room too long and finally get in to see the latest renowned doctor. You’ve spent so much time with doctors that I feel sorry for you. You have put your faith in science, and look how far it’s gotten you. One of you says, “So, you have a new technology.”

  “Not exactly.” I know what you are thinking. I see visions of cloned babies dancing in your eyes. You want to hand on your genetic material any way you can. You want to do this in spite of the bungled experiments that put the first commercial labs out of business. We still see them on the nightly news, with their botched bodies and vacant, smeared faces, all of them tumbling like kittens waiting to be drowned. God knows you’ve been warned, but in spite of everything, you want to see your own DNA rolling into the future. “It’s hard to explain.” In fact, I won’t. The less you know, the better I can do my job.

  But you have put your faith in science for too long. “We don’t mind being guinea pigs.”

  I hack off the rest of your sentence with the blade of my hand. “No need.”

  “Any protocol’s fine with us.” You’ve read about uterine transplants in South Africa, in Switzerland; none of them take, but every fresh try makes the news. You give a nervous little laugh. “As long as it works.”

  “I’m not a doctor.”

  “Experimental medicine’s fine with us.”

  It is my job to break this to you gent
ly. I begin. “Science can only go so far.”

  I don’t have to finish. In your hearts, you know. After all, you have gone the rounds. I see this in your drawn faces and your sad eyes, the slight acquisitive curl of fingers that tighten in spite of you. Between you, you’ve spent too many hours crying, the sorrow has sent you pacing through your quiet house on too many nights, stalking as though the thing you most want will be in the next room if you can only get there fast enough.

  You know I work on the wrong side of the law and you come even though you have reservations. As soon as I lay it out for you, your reservations evaporate. You like my looks, and when push comes to shove you are more than grateful for my service. I see the hunger in your eyes. I see the pain and believe me, I’m sorry. You think I couldn’t possibly know what it’s like: the cold hearth, the gathering silence, but I do. I saw into the void well before you felt it opening, but we don’t need to get into that. If I like you I’ll help you, so you can rest your heart.

  But we are still feeling each other out.

  The men in these encounters arrive with varying agendas but you, you mothers in want, you are all the same with your lovely, drawn faces. You are trying not to cry and my heart goes out to you. “Can you help us?”

  Nice as you seem, I remain cautious. “I think so.”

  You brighten, even though I don’t exactly smile. “That’s wonderful.”

  “If you can meet my price.”

  One of you— he, with his bruised ego, you, with your breaking heart— one of you says, “Whatever it takes.” You, the mother-in-waiting, will do anything to keep from feeling this way. His motives are more complex and harder to pigeonhole. Maybe he just wants an end to your nights of silent weeping.

  “You understand this is a high risk profession, which means my service is not cheap.” There are expenses, even though I keep my establishment small: an office for these meetings, because I refuse to eat where I shit; the database, which is essential to my searches and encrypted so nobody can hack in. Now, as for staff: aside from the doctor, who works on retainer, there’s only Martha, the receptionist, who is also a licensed practical nurse. Sitting down with you, I have to consider the cost of the operation, beginning with the search for a close match, equipment for the pickup and a contingency fund, in the event of unforeseen trouble with the law. The real expense is the post-transfer coverup. It’s not cheap, locating a subject and removing that subject to a safe venue without leaving a trace.

  Even though they treated these unwanted babies badly when they had them, didn’t like them, neglected them, were no good, some of my suppliers will go to great lengths to get their property back. To protect us both, I spare you the details. I simply name the raw figure. “And that’s just the expenses.”

  You say, “Satisfaction guaranteed?”

  “If we agree on the terms.” My eyes drill deep into you. “And you have to make me a guarantee.”

  “Wait a minute, this wasn’t in the …”

  For emphasis, I wait. Then I say, “You guarantee the product a good home.”

  “Oh, that. No problem. We can afford the best of the best.”

  “Fine, but there’s more to it than that.” While you hold your breath I pretend to calculate. You know how these things work, you secure your order with a cash advance. I produce the child you want and I do it to order. If anything goes wrong I am bonded, so you are indemnified. I hold it another beat and give you the figure.

  You don’t even wait to hear. You are reckless in your anxiety to seal the transaction. “Fine!”

  “That is, pending the home visit.” I give you a long look in which I satisfy myself that you are on the level. I can see you holding your breath but I have to make sure I want to find a child for you. At last I say, “Assuming the home is right, then … OK.”

  I see you exhale: whew. I know where this is coming from. No more back alley deals with unscrupulous lawyers for you, no more cold speculums, no more routine humiliations in examining rooms, no more desperately functional sex complete with charts and thermometers and no more paper cups and in vitro sessions; no more trying to fix the blame and better yet, no heartbreak at the adoption agencies, and this is the best: no risk of the birth mother going to court to take back her baby, never mind how much you paid. For the first time since this started you can relax. “Thank God.”

  “Don’t thank God, thank me.”

  I love that inadvertent, joyful murmur of relief.

  Money changes hands. Cash, never checks or money orders and certainly not plastic— wire transfers from the usual banks are too easily traced, which is definitely not good for either of us. I take the envelope.

  Your gratitude is embarrassing. “We can’t tell you how much we … Oh Mr. Starbird, we …”

  To shut you up I stick out my hand and let you shake. “You can call me Tom.”

  You, the mother-in-waiting are weeping with happiness but like me, your man is all business. He pulls out his PDA to enter the details. “When do we start?”

  “The meter’s already running.” What you see is what you get and you get what you pay for with Tom Starbird. Top value.

  We get down to the specifics. You are snobs, all of you. It is a given that your new child will come from the approved demographic. If you want to tie a bow on your particular genetic package, I guarantee a thorough search and a close match. And if you want to try for an upgrade, a baby you can count on to grow up smarter or better looking than you? Specify and I can deliver, but it will cost you.

  Next you must decide how old. Of course I can provide heirs of any age but you should know that for both provider and client, the older the subject, the more complicated the job. Remember, I am an altruist. I find great parents for great babies, in the end everybody’s better off. Still, even when they’re begging to be rescued the older ones do come fitted with memories, so be advised. You’re going to see trauma and crying plus residual from the first imprinting. To say nothing of the danger of its being recognized. I prefer a subject too young to know where it used to live or who its birth mother was but, by the time I make the pickup, old enough to sleep through the night.

  Naturally these meetings run long. By this time he is growing impatient, perhaps because this was her idea and he wants to get it over with. He is a businessman after all. “Where do we sign?”

  I pull him up short. “Not so fast.”

  I see her soft lips tremble. “Is there a problem?”

  Oh, ma’am, not you! I don’t mean you! I smile to reassure her and then I skewer him with a glare. “Not if you agree to the conditions.”

  “I told you, whatever it costs!”

  “You understand, this is going to take time.” If we’ve reached this point you have agreed to the downpayment, expenses and of course the per diem, as well as a large cash reserve put by for unforeseen exigencies. Now all you have to do is prepare the baby’s room and wait. In locating the product, I study potential subjects just as carefully as I do the clients, and I am looking for more than a close genetic match. I know which ones are loved and which are neglected or despised, but you don’t need to know. My database is filled with prospects whose parents didn’t care enough about them to have them chipped. All you need to know is that when I’m done everybody is better off.

  You’re angry. You want a baby today. “How much time?”

  “As long as it takes.” If you want instant gratification, take your business elsewhere. There are no overnight deliveries here. You can’t rush a quality operation, and given time, I will come up with exactly what you ordered. Only when the transfer is made and all parties are satisfied— when the circumstances are exactly right—then and, OK, only then, will we sign the final agreement, and be advised, I reserve the right to assess the situation and if it’s indicated, return your money and cancel the deal. “Unless you want to find somebody else.”

  “No!” We both know there is nobody else.

  You have to be willing to wait for as long as it
takes, and do not pester me.

  Delivery day is by no means the end point. You aren’t buying a child. You are taking on a lifetime responsibility to a singular, irreplaceable human being. Before we’re done you will agree to devote yourself to this child until it’s grown, which is why I set a cutoff age for clients. More. You will agree to onsite spot checks. You will guarantee funding for private schools, four years at a top college and if indicated, full support for graduate school. No waiting tables for my products, no crap night work. I couldn’t do these jobs if I didn’t know that my rescues are better off with you than they would be in their old lives.

  Now, the agreement. Before I deliver you will swear to this in writing, and this is the make-or-break clause:

  To love the product without qualification, put this baby’s wellbeing before your own, and in every moment of every day, to honor its integrity and its individuality.

  This is the bottom line.

  And if I am telling you all this now?

  That’s another story.

  4.

  The light is changing, casting long bars on the polished floor of the empty courtroom, and Maury still hasn’t heard from Jake. It’s their last hope. What will she do if he comes up empty? She doesn’t know.

  By this time she’s been through so many medical procedures that her confidence hangs in tatters around her ankles like exploded pantyhose. She used to be a competent professional, a control freak who refused to be ordered around. Now she’ll do anything. Worse. She used to blanch at the sight of a speculum. Now she’ll spread her knees for anyone. Anybody who claims that with help, she can conceive.

  The long, degrading effort has spilled her out deeply exhausted, not from the drugs or the shots or the invasive protocols, but from the pressure of Jake’s expectations and his unwavering sweetness when they fail, compounded by his fatal inability to quit.

  He can’t stop hoping.