Avon Calling! Season One

by Hayley Camille

  Keenan’s smile wavered.

  “Interestingly,” Betty continued, “one of those men was a dear old vagrant from the docks. His name was Charlie. I’m friends with all the tramps you know, they make wonderful informants. Always willing to share information if you offer them a kind ear and a ham sandwich. But he got in your way, didn’t he? Charlie was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Keenan took a step back.

  “I suppose that’s what happens sometimes, isn’t it? People end up in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Like you, here today.”

  Keenan nodded emphatically. He stumbled backward over splinters of wood and tiny white pills spilt across the floor.

  “Well, I for one am glad you came today, Keenan,” Betty smiled. “It means I can thank you for all of your hard work.” Betty hitched up the tattered remains of her polka dot dress and snapped her leg out. With a fiercely high kick, she knocked the Irishman from his feet, grabbed his gun and fed him his own bullet. Donny’s final man was dead.

  “Betty, you have to get out of here,” Jacob warned, squeezing his arm as he limped up beside her. An almighty smash came from the chained door. They were almost through. “I’ve got the full cavalcade outside. I told them not to come through the front because of the children upstairs, but that garage door won’t hold them for much longer. As soon as they see this mess, they’ll start asking questions. I can’t cover for you if you’re caught in here.”

  “I know,” Betty said. “But Jake –” she looked around. If she was indeed caught in here, no amount of womanly wiles would explain it away. The basement was a catastrophe of gore and stolen drugs. Betty’s eyes were wide in earnest as she looked at her best friend, the only man who had always known who she truly was. “Thank you. I was nearly at the end of my tether. I couldn’t have gone much longer.”

  “You did a better job of them than anyone else could ever have done,” Jacob panted. “What happened to Donny?”

  “Dead.” Betty reached out her fingers to touch Jacob’s arm. “Finally.”

  “Well done, then,” Jacob smiled, grimly. “I know what that means to you.”

  “You’re the only one who does,” Betty said, quietly.

  “Maybe not, anymore.” Jacob nodded to the mess beyond, where George was still lying hidden.

  “I suppose not,” Betty sighed. Her heart sank at the conversation that was coming. She’d lied to George, for years. Her past and present had finally collided and placed him directly in the danger she’d so long tried to keep him safe from.

  Jacob stepped forward, intensely close. Behind them, another shuddering crash almost tore down the doors. His fingers found her cheek. He leaned in. So close. Jacob’s eyes spilled hope and understanding from their depths. Because he knew.

  What she had been through.

  What she had suffered.

  How hard she had fought to be rid of them all.

  Suddenly, the noise seemed to drop away. The bodies and bloodshed were nothing and there was only the two of them again, a boy, striving to follow his father’s footsteps and make his parents proud, and a girl, desperate to wipe her life clean of her family’s crimes and cruelty.

  “Betty – Susie – you don’t have to keep living a lie, you know,” Jacob breathed. “It’s all a charade. You’re living half a life. He doesn’t really know you. He never can. It kills me to see you pretend.” Gently, he wiped some blood from her chin with his thumb. “You’ll never have to pretend with me, you know that, don’t you? Because I know you, the real you. In a way that no one else ever can. I love you, Susie. I always have – you know that.”

  Betty looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Of course I do, Jake. And you know that I love you too. I always will. But,” she bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “They make me happy, Jake. And ordinary. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be happy – to have a family of my own, a real family, you know that. You know what that means to me. They’re my everything now.”

  “But they don’t understand you –”

  “They don’t need to,” Betty said, her eyes shining. “I understand them. And that’s enough for me.”

  Jacob swallowed, his face miserable. “Then you better go, or you won’t be able to keep them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please - just once. Susie-Pocket.” He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips.

  Betty pulled away sadly. “I’m so sorry, Jake.”

  “Go then,” he muttered.

  Betty ran her hand gently down his unhurt arm, her eyes brimming with tears. Then she turned and raced through the mess to find George standing now, leaning against an upturned crate, looking pale, with Sam by his side.

  “It’s over,” Betty said, taking a hand of each. “But we need to leave, straight away. The police are here.”

  “Am I in trouble?” Sam asked, his voice wavering.

  “Of course not, sweetheart. But you’ll have to come with me for now. This was far too traumatic for you to deal with on your own. You need to be kept safe while I sort this whole thing out. In case there are repercussions for you –”

  “Really?” Sam looked up, hopeful. “I can leave?” Jacob had followed her, and Betty looked to him as she spoke, searching for confirmation.

  “You’ll have to. For now, at least. I know a lady, a dear friend of mine, who will care for you with the utmost kindness, Sam. She’ll be thrilled to help. Sergeant Lawrence will see to the paperwork.” Jacob gave a nod.

  Betty pulled them toward the door, but stopped, when she realized George had stopped moving. She turned around. He was standing perfectly still, a dazed look on his face.

  “George, darling. We must go. I know you’re upset, but I can’t explain it all here. Let’s get home to the children –”

  “The children?” he said, wincing and touching his forehead, which was blooming an enormous bruise. “The children? Where are they? I can’t remember – jitterbug, why are we here?” He looked around, with a mixture of abstract curiosity and repulsion at the carnage, then jolted at the smash of the doors being rammed once again. “Are these men dead?”

  “Oh no,” Betty cried, stepping over and gingerly touching the stretched skin. “It knocked you senseless, didn’t it? My poor George – what do you remember?”

  “I don’t – remember – you left, and I followed – the children were –” He stopped, apparently unable to find any more words.

  “Your children aren’t at home,” Jacob interjected, his eyes frantically flicking between Betty and the pounding, splintering doors. “I went there first to see you about, something else - your house is a mess. No lights on, food all over the kitchen, the front door was wide open – that’s why I came here – I assumed Donny had taken you all by force.” Jacob rummaged in his pocket and pulled out the small glass jar of heroin with the bejeweled lid. “I found this on the bench. Nancy and George Junior definitely weren’t there –”

  Betty’s face drained. She heard blood rush from her eardrums. Her knees buckled. After all she’d dealt with in the last few hours, it was this, that faltered her. The ground swam beneath her feet.

  “What do you mean they weren’t there?” She whispered to George, desperately. “What did you do? Surely you asked Mrs. Porter to watch them when you left?”

  But George only looked more confused. His eyes were raking the bloody havoc of the basement, his hand over his mouth as if he was going to be sick. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t remember –”

  “Just go!” Jacob urged. Light was breaking through the doors where the cracks were growing wider. It was only a matter of one more hit, two at most. “Leave!” he hissed. “I can’t explain you being here, you can’t risk being caught involved in this. You’re already being watched!” Betty looked up at him, questions in her eyes, but Jacob was already dragging her with his uninjured arm toward the internal staircase.

  From somewhere behind them, came a dark, deep laugh. Betty froze. She wrenche
d away from Jacob.

  “You!” she cried, spinning around.

  Donald Pinzolo was leaning back against rubble where Betty had left him. His face was a bloody mess, but he was most decidedly, not dead. A strange glint of satisfaction flashed in his eyes at the sight of her fury.

  “What have you done with my children?” Betty cried, advancing on him with Jacob dragging behind her, as another thundering crash threatened to tear the garage doors off their hinges.

  Donny smirked, his mouth lopsided under bruises and split skin. “I’m no fool, Susie Polletti. You think I’d pluck such valuable fruit before it’s ripe? I don’t have them. But someone does –”

  “Liar!” Betty dug into Donny’s fractured mind, throwing herself toward him to finish him off, as Jacob yelled and heaved her back toward the staircase with all his might.

  But it was the truth. Donny had no memory of where her children were tonight. He hadn’t taken them. Instead, his thoughts swirled with dark ways to use them and find out which latent powers might lay inside their young bodies.

  “You’ll never get your hands on my babies,” Betty seethed, as a final crash reverberated through the basement. A flood of flashing headlights swept the dark room and Jacob hurled Betty away from Donny with every ounce of his strength, forcing her behind the crates near the internal stairs with George and Sam at their heels.

  “Get out of here, now!” Jacob hissed, furious.

  “I have to kill him –”

  “It’s too late! They’re in. If they find you here, you’ll never see your children again.” Shouts and exclamations of alarm were rising from all over the basement as officers raced through, guns at the ready. “Go!” Jacob hissed again. He pushed them all ahead of him, up the internal staircase. With a huge effort, Betty turned her back on the final murder she so desperately craved, grabbed George and Sam by the arms and raced with them up the stairs. As promised, Jacob had kept the cavalcade of law away from the front entrance of the orphanage. The halls and entrance were deserted, no doubt in lockdown from the terrifying racket below. Betty dropped Sam’s arm, confident the boy would follow and ushered George through the front doors and into the pitch-dark night beyond. They traced the spectral contours of the garden and passed back through the front gates of St. Augustine’s Home for Unwanted Boys.

  In the grimy shadows of the industrial area beyond, Betty collapsed on a gravel road. She was trembling. The gritty surface cut sharply into her knees. Her splayed palms grasped the filth, and within it, some distant, intangible force.

  “Lady!?” Sam’s voice seemed miles away.

  A pounding whoosh of blood filled Betty’s head and ears. Every other sense was draining away, disappearing to some other place.

  Someone was tugging on her arm. George.

  Betty squeezed her eyes shut. An unbearable pain tore through her heart.

  Where are you? She screamed inside.

  Every spark of her consciousness warped and stretched out into the darkness.

  Searching.

  For something to grasp. Someone to grasp.

  Who’s taken you?

  Betty pulled her body inward, in agony, drawing every strength she had left to reach out with her mind.

  Searching for someone too far away, further than she’d ever been able to reach.

  Someone whose own gift was too inchoate and unfledged to respond to her, barely an inception of what it one day could become.

  Desperately searching.

  Calling.

  For that twelve-year-old girl with Betty’s bloodline of gift and curse.

  For Nancy.

  Her daughter.

  Her children.

  Where are you?

  Like a crack of lightning, Betty’s back arched, and her head was thrown back to face the sky. Far away into the night, her gift found it’s mark. She connected.

  Mommy!

  A series of visions flooded the darkness behind her eyes.

  She saw the world through her daughter’s mind, far beyond the boundaries of distance she’d ever reached another mind before.

  Alone at home. Cookies.

  Her cosmetic case. Sugar, no – that’s not sugar!

  Heroin!

  Georgie!

  The little boy, Betty’s pride and joy, fallen, broken.

  Help me!

  But no one came.

  What do I do? He’s turning blue!

  Convulsing, barely breathing.

  Please help!

  His body limp on the linoleum.

  And then, a miracle.

  An explosion inside. Latent powers unleashed. A decision.

  I will save him.

  Through Nancy’s memories, Betty saw the street lights flash by.

  Speeding cars.

  A blur of apartments and shops and noise.

  Rumbling subways beneath the soles of her feet.

  The heavy softness of a little boy held tight in her arms.

  A great red cross in the distance that lit the sky like a beacon of hope.

  I’m coming, Betty cried desperately into the void between them.

  And she knew that Nancy heard.

  Betty opened her eyes to the dark night, her mind suddenly crystal clear with purpose.

  “They’re at the hospital! Come, George, Sam. We need to run!”

  Betty pulled George along behind her, guiding him through the dark streets with the orphan following behind. George’s pale face grew more robust as he ran.

  “My children,” he cried, as purpose took hold. “What have I done? I left them alone.”

  Betty grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop under the shadow of a peeling iron smelter.

  The realization was devastating. In her desperation to create a perfect life, she’d put them in more danger than they should ever have been.

  “You did nothing wrong, George,” she said urgently, finding his hands with her fingers under a sliver of moonlight. “I did this. I brought this danger into our home. This is all my fault.”

  “I don’t remember what happened, Betty –” George began anxiously. He seemed on the verge of tears.

  “But you will,” Betty said, “and when you do, I’ll explain it all to you. And there’s every chance you won’t forgive me. Which, perhaps, is what I deserve.”

  “But Jitterbug –”

  “Please, not now, darling, we can’t. We must get to the children.”

  It was only minutes later, as they left the industrial park and found themselves on the city fringe, that Betty saw a cab and hailed it down.

  As they sailed toward the bright lights of the hospital, she willed the cab to fly above the traffic and deliver them faster than she knew it could. If she’d been alone, Betty’s feet would have brought her there quicker.

  As they drove, Betty tried to wipe the blood from her face and hands with the inside of her dress. She tucked her hair back into place and re-pinned it as best she could. She looked a mess, blood and bruises all over, her petticoat torn and nails broken, with George sporting a bruise on his forehead that seemed to be swelling more obscenely by the moment. There would be questions, undoubtedly, but right now they were far from her cares.

  As the cab pulled into the emergency bay, Betty burst through the hospital doors and ran at the nurse in the reception station.

  “A little boy, and his sister, please - he was terribly ill! Where can I find them?”

  “Good gracious, ma’am,” said the nurse, in her spotless starched apron and stiff white mob cap, “what’s happened to you? I’ll fetch the doctor -”

  “No, please,” Betty urged, “we are perfectly alright, we just had a small – automobile – accident on our way in, rushing to find the children. Really, I know we look a fright, but we really are quite fine. Please, our neighbor told us our children were here – a little boy of five and a girl of twelve, they arrived on their own –”

  The nurse’s eyes opened wide in recognition. “Oh, goodness, I’m so glad we’ve found yo
u!” She bustled out from behind her desk and lead Betty and George up a corridor, Sam trailing behind. “No one knew where they came from, the girl wouldn’t say.” She looked down at the fob watch pinned to her top pocket. “They’ve been here nearly three hours. The boy went straight to emergency. You’ll find your daughter waiting outside his recovery room with a police officer. This way, please, Mr. and Mrs. –?”

  “George and Betty Jones,” said George, finally finding his voice. He’d been disconcertingly quiet during the taxi ride, staring at his own hands in his lap, miserably. Betty’s heart wrenched at the sight of it, knowing she was unforgivably at fault, but her heart and mind so desperately pulled her toward her lost children that she couldn’t allow herself to deal with it, yet. Besides, Sam had been sitting between them, wide-eyed and shaken, and Betty still needed to organize a suitable arrangement for him. For now, that too, would have to wait.

  The astringent scent of chloramine burnt their nostrils as Betty, George and Sam followed the nurse into a brightly lit waiting room. Nancy was curled in a metal chair in the corner, a young police officer sitting beside her. He had a notebook flipped open and was flicking the pencil against its cover with a frown on his face, apparently having given up on trying to cajole the facts of the situation from the silent girl. Nancy’s face was white and pinched. Her arms were wrapped around her knees. At the sight of her parents, Nancy jumped up and ran across the room, into their waiting arms.

  From her daughter’s thoughts, Betty knew she hadn’t said a word to the officer of how they’d come to be there. It was time for some very fast thinking.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nancy cried, bursting into sobs. “I didn’t look after him properly, like you asked. He fell over and stopped breathing and I didn’t know what to do!” As if she had been holding her emotions in check for days, Nancy’s body suddenly wracked with sobs and she fell limp into George’s arms. Gently, her father picked her up and carried her to an empty chair, hugging her on his lap, offering soft words of placation under his breath. Betty had never seen such grief on his face.

  Betty walked toward the young officer, who had risen to his feet, but was instead intercepted by a doctor who appeared from a nearby doorway at the summons of the nurse who’d accompanied them. As the door swung shut behind him, Betty saw a small room beyond, sparse and clean, with the white metal rails of a bed.