HIS BABY’S KEEPER

by Evelyn Glass

  “It’s show time, girl!” Elle smiles.

  “Okay,” I mutter.

  Heart thumping, palms soaked with sweat, legs threatening to tremble so badly I don’t know if they’ll do as I command them during the cheer, I make my way to the exit of the changing room, following the line of the other girls.

  All too soon, we are walking out into the bright lights of the arena, into the gaze of thousands of cheering, clapping NBA fans, and into the glare of the hidden killers within the crowd.

  I plaster a smile on my face. Elle is right.

  It really is show time.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Samson

  I settle down into the crowd, scanning my eyes over the hundreds of faces which sit or stand all around me, filling up the arena right up to the back walls. So many people, most of them roaring as the announcer calls out the cheerleaders, many of whom hold plastic cups swilling with beer. A man beside me thrusts his cup into the air and lets out an almighty roar, as though he is a member of a cult and his leader is about to emerge. I’m a fan of basketball, too, but I’ve never understood the cult-like behavior that comes from people at the games. It’s as though they forget who and where they are and just let themselves go in ways they would never dream of under any other circumstances. Businessmen, students, people of every sort, come to the games and roar and cheer and cry out in rage.

  I push this observation from my mind and continue scanning the crowd. After a few moments, my eyes come to rest on him. Why the hell is he here? I think. But of course I should’ve anticipated that he would show up. It would be out of character for him not to show up. I sit on the third row; he sits in the first row. I can tell who he is just from the way he sits—straight-backed, hand gripping his suspenders—and the way he takes a drink from a hipflask every now and then. I begin making my way through the crowd, ignoring people’s grunts of protest, giving a few men the stand-down eye, the wolf gaze which causes them to second guess their attempt to shove me away. Soon, I am standing directly behind him. I breathe in, and even over the scent of the sweaty crowd, whisky impregnates the air.

  I tap him on the shoulder. He turns abruptly, mustache trembling, and when he sees that it’s me, he sighs.

  “Following me, are you?”

  The cheerleaders begin dancing out, waving their pom-poms. I spot Anna and see that she has a huge smile on her face, a smile bigger than she has even after we’ve just made love. Which is how I know it’s fake. Looking at her, I find it difficult to believe that any of these men are truly fooled by her smile—or any of the smiles of any of the cheerleaders. It looks carved on, molded, contrived. It’s the kind of smile I imagine a concubine giving her king back in the Middle Ages.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” I say.

  I turn to the man next to him, a squat, red-haired man with bright red eyes who watches the cheerleaders intently.

  “Excuse me,” I say, and I take out a rolled wad of bills from my pocket.

  “Eh?” He pulls his eyes away from the dancers reluctantly. They’re taking formation, on the cusp of breaking into dance.

  I hand him the notes. “My seat is three rows back,” I tell him. “Let’s swap. There you go.” When he doesn’t take the bills, I force them into his hand.

  He looks down at his hand clutching the bills for a long moment, and then nods shortly. “Third is as good as first,” he mumbles. And then he clambers over the back of the chair and walks down the aisle. I climb over the empty chair and drop into it.

  Ian Hill scowls and turns away from me. “Is this necessary?” he asks.

  “What are you doing here?” I say. I continue to scan the crowd. If River is here, I’ll see her soon, I know that. But that immensity of the crowd annoys me. For the first time in years, I question my plan. In all this hugeness, what if she—or one of her operatives—gets past me, makes it to Anna before I have a chance to stop her? I push the thought from my mind. If I think like that, I’ve already lost.

  “Watching my daughter,” he answers gruffly. “What are you doing here?”

  “The same,” I say.

  The cheerleaders are in formation now. Music starts, ear-pounding, thumping music. The majority of the crowd stamp along to the tune.

  “But I’m surprised to see you, Ian,” I go on, as pom-poms are waved in the air. “You must know that whoever’s after Anna is most likely here. Aren’t you scared you’ll somehow get caught up in the fray? Or have your contacts told you it’s safe?”

  Ian’s jaw clenches, and I think, he knows something.

  The cheerleaders prance around the court, flipping and writhing and thrusting, the crowd erupts in zoo-like madness all around us, and soon it is like Ian and I exist in our own isolated bubble, cut off from the rest of the court.

  Ian turns to me. His lips tremble. His eyes are red.

  “You’re drunk,” I comment, when his whisky-soaked breath washes over me in a wave. “You’re drunk out of your head.”

  “I’m drunk,” he nods, somewhat shakily. “Yes, yes, yes, I’m drunk. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Is there something you want to tell me, Ian?” I ask, keeping one eye on the court and the other on the drunken man before me. Here is a man not uncommon in the world of killers and mafia. A legitimate businessman who somehow discovered along the way that it is easier to fix your problems if you know the right man to pay. Not in the life and yet not entirely out of it: straddling the gap of crime and peace. The kind of man who looks down upon men like me and yet never once hesitates to use them.

  “N—no,” he stutters.

  “You’re lying.” I say it softly, without judgment. I say it as though his lies are of no great concern to me. I say it as though whatever he has done does not bother me in the least. I say it as though I am asking only out of idle interest. “Tell me, Ian. Tell me what’s eating you up inside.”

  And then he tells me, tells me quickly, his words rushing into each other. He tells me about his involvement and as he tells me his hands shake and he has to reach inside his jacket pocket and retrieve his little hipflask. He tells it all in a great torrent of words, coming so quickly that the cheer isn’t even over when he’s finished talking. I’m angry, of course, but my anger is second to my focus.

  “Who has she hired?” I ask. “Tell me that. You must know. Did she ever mention it?”

  “I’ve heard some names,” he mutters, a defeated man. “Yes, I’ve heard some.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “I don’t know their real names,” he says. “Just—”

  “Just tell me what names you’ve heard.”

  He takes a deep breath, and I think for the first time in his life he understands that he’s not the good, honorable man he’s always seen himself as. It’s a strange sight, watching a man transform before you and yet with no definite sign of the transformation. The trembling in his lips, his hands, the way he glances skittishly over the crowd, the way he constantly reaches for his hipflask. He suddenly seems weighed down. What will Anna make of it? I think. And I’ll have to tell her, of course.

  “Four men,” he says. “The Gent, The Pistol, The Butcher and The Bear.”

  My blood runs cold in my veins for a moment. One of these men would’ve been bad enough, but all four of them is the equivalent of an angry rhino showing up to the game, ready to unleash its hell at a moment’s notice.

  “Thank you, Ian,” I say.

  The cheer is only halfway done. I glance briefly at Anna, and see that she watches her father and me every chance she gets; whenever the dance swings her gaze toward us, she lets it rest on us. But not once does her artificial smile slip. Nor does she miss a step or lose her place in the dance. For any of these men in the crowd, she is just a sexy cheerleader, an attractive young woman. Nobody would guess that she’s under the constant threat of murder.

  I look around the crowd once more, looking not just for River but for her men, too. Finally, my gaze comes to rest upon River. S
he sits in the first row on the opposite side of the court. I didn’t notice her at first because she wears a bright pink dress, cut short on the thigh, legs folded, and a blonde wig which flows down to her shoulders. Only the cold murder in her eyes and her killer’s posture tells me that, beneath this apparent glamor, there is a person willing and eager to do immense harm.

  I make a mental note of where she is, and as I scan the rest of the crowd, I glance back to her routinely. My job would’ve been hard enough with only River to contend with. But with the others . . .

  I swallow.

  This will be the hardest job I’ve ever done, I think. Damn, for Anna’s sake, please let me be strong enough.

  ###

  It’s one of the skills you learn early in the trade: watching one thing while scouting the area. Obviously, I can’t physically watch two places at once. What I do is scan the crowd, but in intervals of ten to fifteen seconds I look back to where River is sitting, playing the attractive young woman who has simply come to the game. I wonder how many weapons are concealed within the folds of that pink dress, if any. Perhaps she’s only brought her men as her weapons. Once, I glance back at her to find that she’s looking back at me. She lifts her hand and waves like a debutante waving at a would-be lover, all fingers. I lift my hand and give her the finger. She throws her head back and laughs, a voice barely audible over the music and the cheering.

  I ignore it and continue my scan of the crowd. After half a minute, I see The Gent.

  The Gent, otherwise known as Andy McCray, was raised in Boston and came to New York in the early nineties. I’ve worked with him before, a few years ago on a mafia job where we had to kick in the doors of a rival family and kill everybody inside. It was a simple job and one I had no problem with. These guys were murderers and some of them rapists, and I had it on good authority that at least two of them beat their children. This Irish-American Bostonian got his name for the way he goes about his business. No matter the job, he always wears a tuxedo, and he always tries to kill his marks with a single silenced shot in the back of the head, so that they never see it coming. Apparently, this is a very gentlemanly thing to do, because the marks don’t suffer, don’t fear or panic. He is a tall, thin man, and tonight he wears a tuxedo, as always. His nose is hawk-like and he watches the crowd with small flitting eyes. But on that job . . . he wasn’t The Gent then. We had to bust in, and despite his reputation, he had no problem with it. He smashed into that bar and his pistol was a whirr of movement. Bang, bang, bang. All of them head-shots. I remember being impressed with him. We had a drink afterwards. Now he is my enemy. I note his place, five rows back from where River sits.

  Then I spot The Butcher, and without thinking, my fists clench tightly. The Butcher, who is never called by any other name and whose origin is a mystery, is a huge vending machine of a man. Six-foot-five, wide as a football player with limbs like trunks, The Butcher got his name for the way, just like Uncle Richard, he likes to get in close and personal. He often uses a machete, and the scenes he leaves behind are often like someone had a fit in the back of a butcher’s shop and started hacking madly at the meat. His face is all squashed features except for the eyes which are blue, like mine, and watch with a predator’s hunger. The people standing either side of him have left a half-foot of space. As I watch, they take another step back. He probably hasn’t even tried to intimidate them, it’s just the aura he gives off.

  This would be challenging enough with River, The Gent, and The Butcher. But where are the other two?

  For a moment I am gripped with the desire to sucker punch Ian, smash him right in the jaw. If he had told me this earlier, I could’ve prepared better. Perhaps cruelly, I look forward to telling Anna and hearing the way she rants about him, the way she pushes him away. He’ll deserve it, too, I think. If it wasn’t for him, none of this would’ve happened.

  I look to the left, and see The Pistol on the back row. He’s a New Yorker, like me, and around the same age. We came up together, though we aren’t friends, neither are we enemies. He’s just one of those colleagues I’ve seen around the business for many years now. Lewis Stevenson, a squat wide-shouldered man with a spectacularly ugly face. It’s a wonder his nickname isn’t Ugly Lewis or something similar. It’s a testament to his skill with his namesake pistol that he’s managed to avoid such nicknames. If The Gent is a good shot, this man is a world-class shot. It’s said he’s as accurate with his pistol as other men are with long-ranged rifles. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ve seen him fire, and he always hits his target.

  Okay, I think. Okay, okay.

  Then I twist my neck and scan the crowd behind me. There, ten rows back, is The Bear. His real name, like The Butcher’s, is unknown to me. He’s not a huge man, but he is hairy. He has a huge brown beard which reaches halfway down his chest, overgrown shaggy brown hair, and arms so hairy you’d be forgiven for thinking he was wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt. He’s not tall, or wide, but he’s strong. It’s commonly believed amongst the mafia and the killers of New York that he’s bear-hugged many of his victims to death.

  Dammit, I think. Anna, what have I dragged you into?

  Not for the first time, I wish I’d had it in me to kill River on the balcony. I could’ve pulled the trigger and ended it all right there, just pulled the trigger and swallowed my distaste and pushed down my shame and ended it all. When it comes down to it, Anna is more important than my ability to live with myself; Anna is more important than my ability to look at myself in the mirror.

  And yet I know, even now, that if I tried to kill her, I would freeze just like I did last time. There’s something inside of me which prevents me from hurting women. I don’t completely understand it, except that the thought of crunching my fist into a woman’s face makes my belly turn over, causes the breath to rush out of me in an almost never-ending sigh.

  I have to admit, too, that she’s good. I don’t know if I could have coordinated this as expertly as she has. It’s a brave show, a loud declaration that I know is meant to frustrate me. She isn’t waiting in the shadows outside the arena, like I would, but sitting there in her wig and her dress and grinning over at me like a jackal. But then that was the plan, wasn’t it? You counted on that. True, and yet now I’m here and I’ve taken in the situation, it’s hard to fill myself with the same confidence I was gripped with when I first formulated it. I’m aware of how much danger I’ve put Anna in, and even more aware that if she gets hurt—or worse, killed—I’ll never be able to forgive myself. I wonder if I’ll take my own life if that happens, and I’m unsure. If there’s any evidence that Anna is different to all the other women, it’s that; I’ve never before considered bowing out of life. I swallow, forcing the uncertainty deep down inside of me. ‘Focus,’ Richard says, his voice stern in my mind. ‘Focus, focus.’

  The cheer is about halfway done when Ian Hill grips my sleeve and starts muttering like a madman.

  “I have to tell her,” he says, his words running into each other. Each time I’ve met with the man, he’s been drunk, but never like this. He sways in his seat and his grip on my sleeve is tenuous, as though he can’t properly control his body. He coughs violently and snorts, and then he turns to me, red-eyed and trembling. “I have to talk to her. When the dance is over, I have to. I can’t let it go like this. Oh, Samson, what have I done? What sort of father have I been? I’ve always loved her, that’s the truth. Nobody can claim otherwise, and yet how have I shown that love? I never once hit her!” He roars the last words and grips my arm with more force.

  I take his hand and pull it away from my sleeve. “Tell it all to her,” I say. “But not now. Not here. It isn’t the time or the place, Ian.”

  Absurdly, I feel sorry for the man. It isn’t his fault that his wife died? But it is his fault how he dealt with her death. It should’ve made him care about his daughter more, not less. It should’ve made him a better father, a better man, but instead it brought out the worst in him, the desire to control and wou
nd, the desire to cripple his daughter’s self-esteem and keep her in a prison built with his words.

  “Not here,” I say.

  “Yes,” he breathes. “I’ve left it too long. Yes, yes, yes.”

  The cheer continues and Ian mutters under his breath, quick drunken words I cannot understand. I can’t keep my focus on him, either, I have to watch River and her cronies, continually glance behind me at The Bear.

  “Too long,” he sighs, and with his eyes upon Anna, a single tear slides down his cheek.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Anna

  My mind strays again and again to the danger of my situation. I don’t know all the details. I purposefully told Samson that I didn’t want them all. If I know exactly what he is going to do, I reason, I might get distracted, mess up the dance, and messing up the dance is not what good bait does. But now, as I go by routine through the moves, I wonder if I made the right decision. I have no clue what’s going on, in truth, only that I have to behave as though nothing is wrong, as though my life is not in danger, as though everything is all butterflies and rainbows, where in reality my heartbeat thumps in my skull and my hands tremble so badly I’m surprised I don’t drop my pom-poms.