Pressure Drop (16 page)

“Hey,” came a whisper from the shadows. A woman's voice. Or a girl's.

The sound had come from the west side of Lumumba's Pizzeria. Nina, still standing under the streetlight, peered into the darkness, seeing no one.

“You,” the voice whispered again.

Nina walked along the boarded-up front of the building. At the side was a narrow alley. A pale-faced girl, fifteen or sixteen, stood at the head of the alley. She retreated as Nina came closer, but in the blinking light of the Pizzeria sign, Nina could see the girl's threadbare jacket, flabby figure, uncut greasy hair; she could also see that the girl held something in her arms.

“It's you, right?” said the girl. “The one from the TV?”

“Yes. What have you got there?”

“I—”

“Shut up,” barked a man standing somewhere behind the girl. It was too dark to see him, but Nina could tell from his voice that he was much older than the girl and much rougher. “The money first,” he said.

“I wasn't gonna say nuthin', Ray,” the girl said.

“You just said my name, you stupid cunt. Let's have the money first.” A hand, brown and hairy, came grasping out of the shadows. At the same time, the bundle in the girl's arms began to cry.

“Give me my baby,” Nina said. A look of fear crossed the girl's face. She shrank back.

“The money first,” the man said. “And no questions. That's the deal.”

Nina put her hand on the girl's wrist and gripped it hard, so she couldn't run away. Then she dropped the envelope in the grasping hand. A match flickered. Bills riffled.

“Okay,” the man said. “Sheeit.”

The girl handed the baby over to Nina. Then she and the man ran off down the alley, disappearing in the darkness. Nina walked into the street, toward the light, holding the baby tight.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” she said.

The baby cried.

The first thing Nina noticed under the streetlight was the soiled and bloody sheet wrapped around the baby. And then she looked inside and saw that the baby wasn't hers.

The baby in her arms was a newborn, like hers, but it was half black. Nina's mind raced right to the edge of craziness. Was it her imagination? She tore open the dirty sheet and discovered that the baby was also a girl.

A wild sound like the howl of an animal tore up out of Nina's throat. The baby jerked in her arms and began crying wretchedly. There was nothing for Nina to do but hold it tight. She even rocked it a few times.

15

“I dislike NBC,” said Fritz, glancing at the TV. “If that's the one with the peacock.”

Did they still have the peacock? Happy wondered. He couldn't remember.

“A very stupid bird, the peacock—and quite ugly,” Fritz added. On the screen a happy black family gorged on Big Macs. Fritz frowned.

They were in Fritz's cottage late on a cool November afternoon, Happy on his roller bed in front of the fire, Fritz at the rough-hewn kitchen table. Fritz had spent the past few hours harvesting the last of the pumpkins, while Happy had lain on his bed beside the pumpkin patch and watched a strong west wind blowing clouds across the sky. The wind had grown colder and colder. Happy had begun to shiver, but Fritz hadn't noticed. He had kept bringing him pumpkins to see. “Isn't this a beauty? Have you ever seen a finer pumpkin? The garden has been good to us this year, very good. Of course, we worked hard, didn't we, and hard work brings fruit.” Happy kept shivering. As the sky grew darker, Fritz finally wheeled him into the cottage.

Now Fritz was cutting the top off a pumpkin and removing the seeds. He salted them lightly, then roasted them over his fire. “Delicious,” he said, tasting one. Then he looked at Happy and sighed, perhaps because he noticed the IV bag that provided all of Happy's nourishment, dangling above Happy's bed. He moved out of sight, chewing pumpkin seeds. Happy loved pumpkin seeds, lightly salted, just the way Fritz had always prepared them on Halloween years ago.

Fritz had placed Happy so he could see the fire. After a while, the flames tired his eyes and he tried to watch the TV instead. It stood in the corner of the room, at the edge of his vision. He needed to be turned a few feet to the right. Fritz returned, opened a bottle of Schloss Groenesteyn, poured himself a glass and sipped the wine. He didn't seem to realize that Happy wanted to be turned a little.

“Hi,” said a woman on the screen. “I'm Bonnie Bascom.”

“I'm Jed Turaine,” said a man. “And this is ‘Live At Five.'”

Car chase music played. Zooming, panning, trucking, upside-down shots of the city spun across the screen. Then the camera moved in on Bonnie. “Our top story tonight—new revelations in the lobster payoff scandal. But first, here's Geddy with a quick look at the weather.”

“Thanks, Bonnie,” Geddy said. “Folks—button up those overcoats.”

On the periphery of his vision, Happy took in the weather forecast. He absorbed the lobster payoff revelations, learning something about the effects of PCBs in the ocean; he watched a story about a homeless man who had won a lottery but given the winning ticket to a woman who said her dog ate it; he watched a fire in the Bronx, and was beginning to think he might as well watch the fire in Fritz's stone fireplace instead when a beautiful woman appeared on the screen. Her dark eyes dominated it; they were full of powerful, painful emotions, barely under control, emotions Happy didn't understand but found unsettling. Off camera, a woman said: “So you're saying that your day-old baby—barely a day old, is that right?”

“Yes,” said the dark-eyed woman.

“Your barely-one-day-old baby was just snatched right out of the hospital nursery?”

“That's right.”

“Well, Ms. Kitchener, how does that make you feel?”

The camera moved in on Ms. Kitchener. Happy thought he saw her lower lip tremble, very slightly, but he couldn't be sure, especially from where he lay: with a head he couldn't turn and eyes he couldn't move.

“I can't really describe my feelings,” the dark-eyed woman said. “I want my baby back very much, more than anything, and I want to use this opportunity to say there is a reward of ten thousand dollars for information leading to his return, a reward that will be paid with no questions asked.” The woman gave her phone number. While she was doing it, the camera cut away to a shot of the reporter nodding. The reporter then said: “Thank you, Ms. Kitchener, for sharing this with us. Back to you, Jed.”

Jed and Bonnie talked with concern about the kidnapping. A man crashed through the wall of a muffler shop. Fritz snapped off the TV.

“Garbage,” he said. “This is a culture of garbage.” Happy saw that Fritz's face, normally so pale and translucent, had turned pink. He poured himself another glass of the Rüdesheim. His hand shook a little, more than a little—the mouth of the bottle clinked several times against the rim of the glass. Fritz was a very old man.

16

“Up your ass with a crowbar,” croaked Chick when Sergeant Cuthbertson of the CID came in.

Sergeant Cuthbertson smiled. He had a beautiful smile, the smile of a model in a toothpaste ad, except that he wasn't trying to charm anybody with it. His smile seemed brighter because of his skin; Sergeant Cuthbertson was one of those islanders without a trace of slaver's blood in him. He was in uniform: spotless short-sleeved white shirt with red trim, black pants with a straight crease down the front and a red stripe down the side, hat with a patent leather brim. “Is that a St. Lucia parrot?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Matthias replied.

“Where did you get it?”

“Someone on a boat left him as a gift, years ago.”

“I believe it is a St. Lucia parrot,” Sergeant Cuthbertson said, studying Chick more closely. “Or possibly an Imperial, from Dominica.” Chick sidestepped on his perch. “Equally rare,” Sergeant Cuthbertson added.

“Yeah?” said Matthias.

“And equally endangered,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson. “Export, trade and sale of such species are illegal. A lot of animal smuggling goes on, Mr. Matthias.”

“And vegetable.”

If Sergeant Cuthbertson got the joke he showed no sign. “I've made more than one arrest myself in this area,” he continued. “We have a duty to protect our heritage and its threatened wildlife.”

“I agree, Sergeant,” Matthias said. “But Chick's more threatening than threatened.”

Sergeant Cuthbertson wasn't smiling anymore. The smile didn't mean much anyway—Sergeant Cuthbertson, who Matthias knew only by reputation, had made more drug, armed robbery and homicide arrests than any other policeman on the force; years ago he had shocked the nation by turning in someone for attempting to bribe an officer of the law. “Exactly when did you acquire this bird, Mr. Matthias?”

“I can't remember exactly. Six or seven years ago. Did you come all this way on a parrot investigation, Sergeant?” The sergeant's seaplane, tied to the dock, was bobbing gently in Zombie Bay.

Sergeant Cuthbertson hitched up his pants and sat on a bar stool, back straight. “Given the length of time, which may place the act of acquiring the bird prior to the passage of the relevant laws, you may rest easy on this matter, Mr. Matthias.”

“That's good,” Matthias said, sitting himself two bar stools away. “I don't think Chick would be happy in the wilds of St. Lucia. That's not his kind of thing at all.”

Sergeant Cuthbertson regarded the parrot for a moment. “Is there something unusual about his eyes?”

“Meanest eyes I've ever seen,” Matthias said.

“What holds him to that perch?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why doesn't he just fly away?”

“No one knows.”

“Does he ever fly around the room or anything?”

“Never,” Matthias said. “How about a beer?”

“Not just now, thank you.”

“I'll accept payment.”

That brought the smile again. There may have been some humor in it after all. “Right now,” Sergeant Cuthbertson said, “I would like to speak with your divemaster.” He consulted a notebook. “Would that be Mr. Wickham or Mr. McGillivray?”

“Mr. McGillivray. You'll have to wait a few minutes.”

“Why?”

Matthias pointed out to sea.
Two Drink Minimum
was chugging around Gun Point with Brock at the helm. The air was so clear that Matthias could see the green bottles of beer Moxie was passing out to the divers in the bow. Moxie had painted the barge in rainbow colors the year before. Matthias and Sergeant Cuthbertson watched it come in: rainbow boat, baby-blue bay, green bottles.

“The underwater part,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson. “The most beautiful aspect of our little nation, apparently.”

Matthias felt the sergeant's eyes on him. “So they say,” he replied. In the silence that followed, the line that was almost never crossed, the one between black and white, remained uncrossed.

Brock walked in. “G'day, mates,” he said. “Looking for me?”

He stopped just inside the pool side entrance, his head almost touching the palm fronds: yellow hair, still wet, slicked back on his golden brown shoulders. He wore nothing but his Speedo and a piece of eight around his neck.

“I don't suppose you've got your work permit on you,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson.

“I could make a funny joke,” said Brock. He took a closer look at the sergeant and added, “But I won't. You want to see my work permit?”

“Please.”

Brock left. A female guest off the barge, wearing little more than Brock, gave him a glance stripped of ambiguity. He gave her a smile that might have meant anything. Matthias reflected, not for the first time, that immersion in forty or fifty feet of warm water while sucking on a regulator was a potent aphrodisiac.

“What's up, Sergeant?” Matthias said. “There's nothing wrong with Brock's work permit.”

“I'm sure you're right,” said Sergeant Cuthbertson. “But I always like to begin with work permits.”

“And then?”

Sergeant Cuthbertson watched a woman by the pool roll over on her back without bothering to refasten her bikini top. His eyes revealed nothing. The fan turned.

“Have you ever been to France?” Sergeant Cuthbertson asked.

“No,” Matthias replied, wondering if the sergeant had been reminded of St. Tropez or some town like that.

“Nor I. I don't think I'd care for it.”

“Why not?”

“Just from dealing with these Sûreté people.”

“What Sûreté people?” asked Matthias.

“Their police. M'sieu Perrault, specifically. French citizens seem to be a higher form of life to him. Even when they're dead.”

Hope, faint and inchoate, fluttered in Matthias's chest. “Are you saying he knows the identity of the man who went down?”

Sergeant Cuthbertson shook his head. “That's what he wants to know. He keeps sending cables. Patronizing ones.” Sergeant Cuthbertson removed his hat and placed it on the bar. “I don't suppose anything's floated up?”

“After all this time?”

“Is it impossible?”

“Almost. It's five-thousand-feet deep out there.”

“As deep as that?”

“In places.”

Sergeant Cuthbertson wrote something in his notebook. He was still writing when Brock returned wearing faded shorts and a T-shirt advertising Broken Hill Lager. “Here you go,” he said, handing the sergeant his work permit.

Sergeant Cuthbertson examined it. “Perfectly in order,” he said, handing it back. “If a little unusual.”

“How's that?” asked Brock, sticking it in his pocket.

“One doesn't come across many permits for divers these days. The government wants to encourage the development of our own diving corps.”

“I got the original permit a while back,” Brock said. “The summer before last, to be exact.”