“Dayton has a steel mill?”
“Oh yeah. Two of them. Both on the south side of town.”
“I didn’t know that. Hmmm…”
“Yep. He tried to get off, but a couple of the other guys were already out sick. So he told me to come without him and he’d meet you the next time.”
Shelly studied her sister closely.
She wasn’t buying any of it.
Marilyn, are you sure you’re okay?
“Yeah. Why?”
“Your eyes are sunken in. You look like you’re losing weight again. You’re thinner than a toothpick.
“And you don’t look at all like a woman who gave birth just a few days ago.”
“What can I say? I guess I’m one of those women with a body that bounces back quickly. I’ll bet a lot of other mothers would kill to have this body.”
There was a pained silence before Shelly asked pointedly, “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you… kill to get this baby?”
“Shelly, what in hell are you talking about?”
“Marilyn, you’ve been conning people for a very long time. You’re better at it than anyone else I’ve ever met.
“But the one person in the world you can’t con is me. Your sister. I don’t know what in the world is going on, but things aren’t adding up.”
“What are you saying? And what’s with the interrogation? Shelly I swear to God, this is why I don’t come to visit you very often. Because every time I come you give me the third degree and start questioning everything I do.
“If you want me to leave, just say so. But don’t interrogate me or question me.”
“Don’t you get all indignant on me, little sister. I know you better than anyone else in the world. And I notice things others wouldn’t notice.
“I saw you four months ago and you looked the same as you do now. You never said anything about being pregnant. And I would have noticed. A woman with your frame who’s five months along cannot hide the fact she’s pregnant.”
“When I came to see you four months ago it was still cold. I wore bulky sweaters and coats all the time.
“I intentionally tried to hide it from you. Because at that time I wasn’t sure whether I was going to keep it. I know how you feel about abortion and I knew you’d try to preach to me about it.
“So I guess you’re wrong, aren’t you big sis? People with my frame can hide the fact they’re five months pregnant.”
“Where’d you get the baby, Marilyn? That woman who was in the papers a couple of weeks ago… the pregnant woman they found dead in an alley, her baby cut out of her. Were you involved in that?”
“That was in Florida. We’re a thousand miles from Florida.”
Chapter 35
Marilyn feigned indignancy.
Both women knew, though, that Shelly’s insinuation wasn’t so far fetched an idea it couldn’t have happened.
“And is that what you think of me? You think I’d murder a pregnant woman and steal her baby?”
Shelly tried to diffuse the situation.
She took a deep breath and lowered her voice a bit.
She tried to slow down, which wasn’t an easy thing to do in the condition she was in.
She spoke slowly and chose her words carefully.
“No, Marilyn. I honestly don’t believe you’d murder a pregnant woman and steal her baby.
“And I don’t think you’d buy a baby on the black market if you knew that’s where the baby came from.
“But I can very easily see you saving your money and buying a black market baby. I can easily see you doing that.”
“What? What kind of person do you think I am?”
“I don’t know anymore, Marilyn. I do know that since Jacob died you’ve been wandering around aimlessly, as though you’d given up on life.
“Honey, nothing you can do will ever bring Jacob back. I know it hurts more than any other pain imaginable. But getting somebody else’s baby and claiming it as your own won’t bring Jacob back.
“This baby is a sweetheart. But he’s not Jacob. He has his own mama. And she’s probably crying for him, just like you used to cry for Jacob.”
“I still cry for Jacob. That’s why I gave my new baby the same name. In memory of him.”
“And what are you going to do when he starts school, Marilyn?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you going to do when you enroll him in school, and they need a copy of his birth certificate? What are you going to do then? Try to con the school system into believing the dog ate it?”
Marilyn was caught short.
But not for long.
“I’ll home school him. People do it all the time. It’s better for the kids anyway. Who’s a better teacher than a child’s mama?”
“But you’re not his mama, Marilyn. No matter how much you want to be, you’ll never be his mama. You need to do the right thing and take this baby back where you found him.”
That was enough for Marilyn. She started throwing her things into a duffle bag while ignoring her sister and speaking directly to the baby.
“I guess we’ve worn out our welcome here, Jacob. I guess we’re not wanted. But that’s okay. Because it’ll be a cold day in hell before we ever come back here again.”
She rushed out into the cold night air, the duffle over her shoulder and the baby carrier in her arms.
The boy she called Jacob had almost settled. He was exhausted from crying, and was just a couple of minutes away from falling asleep.
The night air, though, chilled his tender cheeks and caused him to cry once again.
“Shhhhh,” she said. “I know you’re not feeling well. Mommy’s gonna take good care of you though, you just wait and see.”
She’d seen the place a couple of days before when she went to the local supermarket for diapers.
It was on a street corner not far from Shelly’s house.
The flashing neon sign in front would have looked more at home at one of the casinos Marilyn used to frequent. But here it was instead on a twenty-four hour urgent care clinic.
FIRST STOP FAMILY CARE CENTER
ALWAYS OPEN
Marilyn had very little practical experience at being a mom.
Her Jacob… the first one, was only a few months old when he died of SIDS. Prior to that she was a vibrant and dynamic woman. She wasn’t a saint, but she wasn’t the emotional and physical wreck she now was.
Her friends and family watched helplessly as she went in to a very deep and very dark depression after Jacob’s passing.
His death, it seemed, was the beginning of her end.
She did, however, visit after-hours care centers occasionally with one of her friends when they had sick children to care for.
Kids don’t get sick during regular doctor’s office hours. They get sick at the most inopportune times.
Like on weekends or in the middle of the night.
Never once did Marilyn remember an all night medical clinic questioning the mother’s relationship to their children. Nor did they ask for a birth certificate to see whether the names matched.
She figured she could get help for her new baby here without much hassle and without raising any suspicion.
“Yes, ma’am. How can we help you?”
“Jacob… my baby… he’s been crying for almost twenty four hours now. And his stomach is gurgling a lot.”
“Any sign of diarrhea?”
“Yes.”
“High fever? Vomiting?”
“No, neither.”
The truth was she didn’t know if his fever was high. She didn’t own a thermometer.
She made a mental note to get one next time she was at the grocery store.
She waited almost an hour to get a prescription for an infant anti-gas medication and was given some tips on how to soothe him.
She’d expected a magical pill to make him better.
They’d always given
her magical pills of one type or another.
She was a bit disappointed and thought she’d wasted an hour of her time.
And the two hundred dollars they charged her hit her pocketbook hard.
But she went straightaway to Walmart and got the pacifier and the anti-gas drops.
They seemed to help, and within an hour Jacob the Second was sound asleep in his carrier in the back seat.
And Marilyn was on her way to Toledo.
Chapter 36
Toledo was where Marilyn lived when her parole officer turned her on to the DHS contractor job.
Truth was he was more than a parole officer. The two shacked up for more than a year before she started doing crack again and he decided it wasn’t a good career move for him to continue the relationship.
But they were still friends and saw each other on occasion.
Their visits were typically conjugal. They considered themselves friends with benefits, even when one or the other happened to have a partner at the time.
Bob served in the Navy for many years as a shore patrolman before he got out and went into the parole officer game.
He was one of those sailors who had a girl in every port, and none of them knew about the others.
He applied the same lifestyle even now.
Marilyn was one of many occasional girlfriends who blew in with the wind now and then, stayed a few days or weeks and then disappeared again.
He worked very hard to keep them from bumping into each other.
She called him from the road.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Not much.”
“You got a girlfriend these days?”
“No, not really. You comin’ to town?”
“Yeah. Can I crash with you for a couple of days?”
“Sorry, one of my old Navy buddies is hanging out here until he can find a job. If you can spring for half a motel I’ll spring for the other half. We can meet up there.”
“Okay, that’s cool. Same place as last time?”
“Yeah, that’ll work. When do you expect to be here?”
“Probably about lunchtime tomorrow.”
“Might want to slow down a little. If you check in before three they’ll charge you an extra half day.”
“Okay. I’ll do some sightseeing before I check in. You wanna come by after work?”
“Sure. Just text me with the room number. We’ll go get somethin’ to eat or somethin’.”
“Okay, cool. See ya then.”
“Hey Marilyn?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re clean, right?”
“Yeah. Goin’ on a year now.”
“Good for you.”
They were people who didn’t talk much, for long drawn out conversations weren’t necessary for their purposes.
When they set up their occasional liaisons, it was as though they had to pay for each and every word.
She intentionally didn’t tell him about the baby.
He wouldn’t hit the roof about it.
But had he known she had a newborn in tow he might have decided he was unavailable.
He always said he wasn’t the daddy type, although she’d heard rumors he’d fathered children from Shanghai to Madrid.
Fathering children and being a daddy are two different things.
You have to care to be a daddy.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, exactly.
Bob wasn’t her only friend in Toledo.
But he was usually the easiest to get ahold of.
Most of the others were street people who spent more time crashing under bridges or in shelters than in an apartment or a house.
They were the type of people who sometimes had a disposable cell phone: one with credits one purchased by the card.
More often than not, though, the phones were out of minutes and weren’t working.
A few of her Toledo friends, like Bob, had jobs.
Most hustled.
Some dealt dope, or got paid to transport dope from the cooks to the dealers.
Others rented their bodies out by the hour.
Men as well as women, for this is the new millennium. Few things are taboo anymore.
Still others earned their money by selling shoplifted items for pennies on the dollar.
Or by burglarizing automobiles or homes.
Virtually all of her friends, except for Bob, were routinely in and out of jail.
Between cell phones which usually didn’t work, addresses which changed constantly, and a certain percentage of her friends who might be locked up at any given time, she never knew who’d be available when she blew into town.
She needed money, more than anything else.
The gig with the DHS paid very well, but she couldn’t go back.
She’d already seen Hannah’s face on the television. Whining on and on about her missing baby and wailing for his return.
Rebecca would be pissed, and would never give her any more work.
The DHS bridge was one she chose to burn in exchange for a baby.
She didn’t regret it. Actually, she thought she came out ahead in the deal.
She also needed a birth certificate for Jacob the Second.
That wouldn’t be a major problem. One thing the job at DHS did for her was hook her up with other contractors who were proficient at doing shady things.
One man she’d met a few months before was a man named Stan.
“No last name,” he’d said. “Just Stan.”
Stan was a master forger who produced bogus passports and identification cards for Rebecca and others like her.
She called him and asked him how much he’d want for an untraceable birth certificate.
He’d surprised her by quoting a price of five hundred bucks… she’d expected it to be higher.
But she knew his work was top quality and would never be questioned.
Now she only needed five hundred bucks, and to get to Baltimore to do the deal.
Chapter 37
The thing was Marilyn, like all street people or occasional street people knew, money was always out there and available.
Most of her Toledo friends wasted their money on coke or meth or booze. One had a major gambling problem.
The only “problem,” as he saw it, was that he never won.
Everyone on the street had their own cons, their own games, their own hustles. Everyone was able to earn money in one way or another.
But few knew how to make it and keep it. How to save it for something useful or worthwhile.
How to protect it from being stolen by others.
Because the one thing about street people is, no matter how much they claim to be your friend, they will stab you in the back in a heartbeat to steal your money.
Marilyn was one who knew not only how to hustle, but how to save her money.
All she needed was a place to stay for a week or two.
And in that time she’d make not only enough to pay for her half of the motel room, but enough extra for Stan and his birth certificate and enough extra for gas and food for a couple of weeks.
While she was in Toledo she’d live off the system.
She knew where all the soup kitchens were.
She shied away from the ones which forced her to sit through church services first.
Many of them had a prayer service before the food was served. No pray no stay.
Screw that.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in God, necessarily.
It was more that she thought He hated her.
In her view, He’d certainly never done anything to make her life any easier.
So she’d go to the kitchens which demanded nothing of her.
She’d go by the health department for baby formula and diapers and anything else Jacob needed.
And in a week, maybe two, she’d have enough to blow this town for good.
Or until she needed som
ething from it again.
Bob was good for part of the money, she knew.
She’d “borrowed” money from him several times in the past.
Both of them knew, despite the term they used for the transactions, that she’d never pay him back.
It was just that, “Can I borrow five hundred?” sounded much better than, “Can you give me five hundred?”
She didn’t mind using him in such a manner. After all, he used her too.
She’d soured on sex years before. It was no longer pleasurable or fun for her, and likely never would be again.
She went through the motions, pretended to enjoy herself, in exchange for him being more receptive to her request for a loan.
The thing was, she never saw the irony in it.
She was well known for chastising her friends for being prostitutes.
“I’d never walk the streets. I’d never sell my body. I have way too much dignity for that.”
No one ever called her on it, although they certainly could have.
They could have said, “No, honey. You won’t sell your body on the streets for money. But you’ll damn sure rent it out for a couple of hours for a loan from Bob, now won’t you?”
But they never did.
Street people, despite Marilyn’s rants about prostitution, are generally a pretty non-judgmental bunch.
As a rule, they know their porches aren’t swept, so they don’t complain about the dirt on anyone else’s.
Marilyn checked into the Slumber Inn a little after four.
She fed the baby and put him down for a nap, then showered and freshened up for Bob’s visit.
The baby would drag her down a bit, but not much. She knew she could drop him off at Catholic Women’s Services while she looked for gainful employment.
She was neither Catholic nor interested in a job.
But the nuns would take good care of Jacob while she was working the streets.
Not as a prostitute. No way.
But she had her scams. She had her cons.
She had her ways of “getting” people.
“I have two interviews an hour apart,” she told the kindly old nun who took Jacob off her hands.
“I won’t be back for about four hours.”
“Oh, take your time, dear. He looks like such a sweet little boy, it’ll be a joy to have him. And good luck to you, dear.”
The Yellowstone Event (Book 3): A Nation Gone Crazy Page 12
