Sweetgirl (3 page)

Jenna said
pthththth.
I said
pthththth
back, and then a smile broke across her lips and I saw the tiny, jagged edges of two teeth. Jenna said,
Ghuuuu
.

“Well
ghuuuu
yourself,” said Portis, and leaned over the two of us.

“She's beautiful,” I said.

“Generally,” he said. “I find most babies tip toward the ugly side. Most of them look like Winston Churchill, if you want to know the truth. But this one here is cute as a button.”

“As a button,” I said.

“She damn sure ain't Shelton's,” he said. “I can tell you that much right now.”

Jenna wanted another bottle after she cashed the first one, but I imagined it could be dangerous to overfeed a baby. Especially one so hungry. For all I knew, Jenna was starved half to death. Her face and cheeks were fleshy and rounded, but otherwise she was paper thin—with the same bony, jutted elbows and knees as the mother.

I held her and burped her and before long she fell asleep and Portis was putting on his snowmobile suit and snowshoes. He poured off some whiskey into a flask, then drank from the flask and refilled it. He was going to get my truck.

He pumped the lever of his rifle and told me to play the radio loud if anybody came by.

“Leave the door locked and let the radio drown the baby out. Whoever it is will think I'm passed out drunk like always.” He pointed to another rifle, hung from the far wall on nails. “They come in, it's within your rights to shoot them on sight.”

“I'm not shooting anybody with this baby here in my arms,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But I've always thought it better than being shot.”

“Hurry,” I said, and turned to look down at Jenna.

Shelton Potter woke in the middle of the night, bothered by the smell of dead dog. Old Bo had passed a few days earlier and when Shelton sat up on the couch he quickly lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, hoping the smoke would dilute the stink some.

Old Bo had died of natural causes, at least that was what Shelton assumed after he keeled over and died without providing much in the way of an explanation. Initially Shelton was too grief stricken to move the body, but now he wished he would have. Now the smell had found its way downstairs and he was frightened by the idea of what he might find in the room. Shelton did not like the thought of decaying dog flesh and wriggling maggots any more than he liked the idea of Old Bo being dead and gone forever.

The farmhouse was cold and drafty, but Shelton did not hurry to find a shirt. He preferred to flex his arm and give his triceps a
little bounce. He'd been slacking on his workouts since prison, but generally Shelton was pleased with the progression of his triceps. His first love was the biceps, they would always hold the key to his heart, but that was no excuse to ignore the triceps entirely.

He dropped down to the floor, stretched his legs out, and planted his hands behind him on the edge of the couch. He knocked off twenty quick extensions, just to get the blood pumping.

Meanwhile, there was a Talking Heads song on the stereo. Shelton didn't care for the Talking Heads, they just happened to be on his uncle Rick's
Hits of the 80s
CD and that was what Kayla liked to listen to while they got wasted. The song was doubly irritating to Shelton now, but he didn't know where the remote was and the stereo was all the way across the room.

We've got a wild, wild life,
sang the man.

Shelton finished his exercises and sat back down on the couch. He knocked some ash into his palm and readied himself to problem-solve, to figure out this whole Old Bo situation.

What he wanted to do was talk Kayla into dealing with the corpse. Kayla was a bleeding heart, and if he emphasized his grief, if he focused on the trauma he would suffer having to see Old Bo in his current state, then maybe he could elicit enough sympathy to get her to undertake the grisly task. In exchange he would offer to change the baby's diapers for an entire day, which would appeal to her shrewder, more rational side.

Speaking of the baby, Shelton remembered how they'd put her to sleep upstairs before they got high. Kayla had been worried about secondhand smoke. She asked if it was the same for meth as
it was for cigarettes, could it harm you just by being near it? Shelton said it stood to reason that it could, and they did the responsible thing and took the baby to the second floor.

Shelton knew he should check on the baby right away, even if it meant walking by Old Bo. It was the right thing to do. Babies needed checking and the truth was Shelton sort of liked the little bugger. Jenna was cute as anything, and not too much trouble.

Of course, what Shelton really wanted was for Kayla to wake up and go get the baby herself. He could start a fire and Kayla could bring the baby downstairs for Shelton to hold. Then he and Jenna could sit nice and cozy on the couch while Kayla disposed of Old Bo's corpse. Afterward she could brew coffee and cook them up some pancakes. Then they could eat and share some of their fondest memories of Bo. It was a lot to ask, but it was Shelton's dream, and for a moment there on the couch he dared to dream it.

He nudged Kayla with a toe, but she was crashed. He got down on his hands and knees and checked her air and was comforted by the shallow, tender breaths she drew through her nose. Shelton kissed her on the forehead and whispered that he loved her. It was the truth.

“Now, let's see about this baby,” he said, and stood up.

Shelton walked to the base of the stairs, where he paused to gather his courage. He picked a dirty T-shirt off the banister and slid it on. He pulled the collar up over his nose, and while the shirt stunk like sweat and hot piss it was no defense against the presence of rotting death. His eyes watered as he ascended the stairs and he gagged when he passed Old Bo and hurried to the end of the hall where they'd left Jenna.

Sometimes he called it the baby's room, just to see how it sounded, and he was grateful for the fresh air through the window when he finally pushed the door open.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, but when he turned to the bassinet Jenna was gone.

It was a startling sight. Shelton had seen some things in his time, but he couldn't remember anything as awful as that little empty mattress and smooth bedsheet, right there where a baby should have been. But where could Jenna have gone? He knew they'd put her down in the bassinet because he specifically remembered opening the window. They'd done it so the smell from the dog didn't make her sick. He was sure of it, because he remembered that he and Kayla had debated the decision at length. She thought the cold would be bad for the baby, but Shelton insisted.

“This is science,” he had said. “There's bacteria floating around in this air and the cold will kill it.”

He had no idea if this was true or not, but it sort of seemed like it might be. Kayla eventually ceded to this logic and they put Jenna in the bassinet beside the open window. He remembered saying they'd be back in a minute and then heading downstairs to smoke some shit.

Shelton sat down on the floor and crossed his legs Indian style. It was the way he sat when he needed to think. He hunched forward and picked at the carpet. He was stupefied.

How long had he been passed out? And had the baby somehow gotten out of the bassinet and crawled away? As far as Shelton knew the baby couldn't crawl, but suppose it had learned while they were downstairs sleeping? Suppose the baby flung itself out
of the bassinet and then all of a sudden figured out how to move? Suppose it went off on a little stroll? It didn't seem likely but Shelton couldn't be sure; he didn't know that much about babies.

Then he had a terrible thought. He had the worst possible kind of thought and hurried to the window and looked down. If the baby had flung itself out of the bassinet, then the odds were fifty-fifty that it had gone out the window side and plunged straight to the ground. And if it had plunged straight to the ground it would have long been buried by the falling snow. He looked out at the blizzard, felt the cold bite his knuckles on the windowsill.

“Jesus, no,” he said.

He ran outside in his stocking feet, took a shovel from the porch, and started working through the drift beneath the window. He dug and with each plunge came closer to fathoming the horror he would suffer if he plucked the baby out of that drift with his shovel blade.

Shelton burrowed clear to the ground but there was no baby frozen in the snow. He dropped to his knees and looked up at the open window. He was flooded with relief and might have wept with joy, except the baby was still gone and he had no idea where. He left the shovel in the snow and went inside.

For a moment he considered calling Uncle Rick. Rick was on a Florida vacation and had asked not be bothered, but this might be a situation he'd want to weigh in on. Missing babies could be a problem for all involved, but on the other hand Rick had left Shelton in charge. His only instructions had been not to fuck anything up, and now that he had it didn't seem in his best interest to report it directly.

Shelton needed something to puff on, but there was no meth left in the house because he'd cooked the last and smoked it with Kayla. Kayla didn't weigh but ninety pounds, but the girl could smoke shit.

It always seemed Shelton ran out of meth at the worst possible time. He needed desperately to focus and began to panic at the prospect of attempting to do so while sober, but then remembered the tank of nitrous oxide he'd stashed in the closet, in case of emergency.

Well, if this wasn't an emergency then Shelton didn't know what was. And maybe a little nip of nitrous would be the perfect change of pace. There was more to life than methamphetamines and in truth it would probably do him some good to lay off the pipe for a bit, lest he begin to exhibit signs of addictive behavior.

He brought out the tank and stood it on the living room floor. He had a pack of party balloons to go with it and fished out a red one first. He turned the nozzle on the tank and savored the satisfying hiss as the gas discharged.

The beauty of nitrous was that it wouldn't show up on a standard piss test. At least Shelton didn't think it would. Obviously the methamphetamines would be there in full parade, along with the pot and the alcohol and the cocaine, but what good did it do anybody to dwell on such things? His PO could call him up at any moment and have him drive over to the courthouse to piss. That's just the way the legal system was, unorganized and flat impossible to predict. It wasn't something you could let get in the way of living your life.

He sucked down the first balloon and held the gas in for a bit
before he breathed out. Then he filled another balloon. He swallowed the second and leaned back on the couch and felt his head go
wha-wha-wha
.

It was good to unwind every now and again, Shelton thought. A good snort of nitrous was like having somebody take a scrub brush to your brain, and he'd be damned if the world didn't sparkle for a moment there on the couch.

He did another balloon and then went into the kitchen and poured himself some vodka, but only to accent the gas. He wasn't going to get drunk, not at a time like this. All Shelton needed was a little warmer.

He picked up General Winthrop, the Maine coon cat, and promised himself that when the general died he would not leave his body in an upstairs bedroom to rot. He petted the cat and had his drink.

“You and me, Winthrop,” he said. “We will walk through this world together.”

The general let out a sigh and Shelton stroked his mane.

“Good boy,” he said.

Shelton had begun to think somebody had strolled right into the farmhouse and stolen Jenna from her bassinet while he and Kayla lay there sleeping. Such a trespass was brazen and bold, it was half crazy, but it might be the only logical explanation for the baby's disappearance. It was either that or it had sprouted wings and flown away.

What Shelton needed to do, and he was ashamed he hadn't thought of it right off, was put up a reward for Jenna's safe return. Never mind that he didn't have the money. He could square that later with some help from Uncle Rick.

His uncle had half a dozen scumbags at his disposal. Career petty criminals and general dolts who'd been selling his pot and blow since high school. Of those slack-assed losers, Krebs was the most reliable and the first one Shelton phoned.

“We got a situation,” he said.

“What's this we?” said Krebs. “You got a mouse in your pocket?”

“There's a baby gone missing,” he said. “And it needs to be found. Pronto, Tonto.”

“What baby?” said Krebs.

“It's a friend of the family.”

“Whose is it?”

“Well, that don't matter now, does it?” said Shelton. “There's a baby gone missing and I need you to search out these hills and find it. It's what Rick wants, too.”

“What happened to it?”

“It got took.”

“By who?”

“We don't know.”

“Where are we supposed to look?”

“Get on your sled,” he said. “Drive up and down Grain Road and then head west. If you don't find her, circle back and do it again. That's what I'm going to do.”

“I feel like there's not a lot of information to go on here,” said Krebs.

“Maybe not,” Shelton said. “But it's what we got.”

“I'd feel better if we called Rick.”

“I just talked to Uncle Rick. Uncle Rick don't want to be bothered any more on this. Uncle Rick said there's five thousand dollars for whoever finds this baby.”

“He put out a reward?”

“Five large. Cash.”

“Shit,” said Krebs.

“That's what I'm saying,” Shelton said.

“Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?”

“It's a girl.”

“What's she look like?”

“She's got pretty black curls,” Shelton said. “Greenish eyes. I'm not sure exactly. She mostly just looks like a baby.”

“All right then,” Krebs said. “I ain't been to bed yet anyway.”

“Good,” Shelton said. “Go ahead and get out there now. Don't wait for morning.”

“I'm on it,” Krebs said.

Shelton hung up and wondered if he'd gone a bit far with the reward money. Rick was rich, but that was because he didn't like parting with money. His uncle was going to be furious, but Shelton supposed he'd burn that bridge when he got there. The important thing now was finding Jenna.

Kayla stirred in the living room and it occurred to Shelton that the last thing he needed was for her to wake up and realize Jenna was gone. He could not handle her hysterics, could not risk her panicking and calling the cops.

He took a Valium from the vial she kept in her purse and crouched above her. He lifted her head gently from the floor and
whispered that everything was okay as he tucked the pill inside her delicate, dry mouth. She mumbled something over the V and he hugged her close and told her to go back to sleep.

“Everything is fine,” he said, and pried her mouth open to wash the pill down with a few gulps of vodka.

She coughed when she swallowed. She spat up some of the Gordon's but the pill stayed down. She leaned against him and he kissed her on the forehead and said he loved her. It was a tender exchange. A beautiful moment, he thought, if you looked at it in the right way.

He eased her back onto the floor and she drifted off without a peep. She never asked for a pillow, but Shelton took one from the couch and tucked it beneath her anyway. “Goodnight porridge,” he said. “Goodnight spoon.”

Shelton had another balloon and then one more. He didn't do it for the taste, but there was an edge of sweetness to the gas if you took a moment to savor it. Shelton smacked his lips and did another. And then some more. He didn't see the point in keeping count, but soon there was a pile of bright balloon husks at his feet. He did one more and then went to the closet for his snowmobile suit. It was black with a red racing stripe down the left side and it fit him nice and snug. He believed it accentuated his chest in a very subtle but powerful way and he had sprung for the matching helmet and boots. He did a balloon for each boot and then another one for the helmet.
Wha-wha-wha
.