Cry Baby

by David Jackson

  ‘Dark here,’ says the man.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And cold too.’

  ‘I don’t feel the cold no more. Got used to it. One night it’s gonna take me in my sleep, and I won’t even feel it.’

  ‘Is that your hope, or your fear?’

  ‘It’s my expectation. People like me don’t live long in a situation like this.’

  ‘You want an end to it?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  She can feel her tears starting to build. He’s giving her all the right answers. All the wrong answers. Unwittingly, he’s taking down the barriers. Almost giving her an invitation.

  ‘Then why do you carry on? What makes you keep going?’

  He thinks on this for a while. ‘Cowardice,’ he says. ‘I keep going because I’m too scared to stop. Too scared to deal with things. I move on. I’ve always moved on. It’s what I do. What I am.’

  ‘Do you want it to stop?’

  She sees the whites of his eyes. Sees a glimmer of understanding in those tired eyes.

  ‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What is it you want?’

  She steps toward him. Even this close she can’t make him out too well. She can hear his heavy, animal-like breathing.

  ‘I want my baby. Will you help me get my baby back?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. Can I do that? Do I have that power?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You do.’

  And now her tears are flowing. The end is in touching distance.

  She says, ‘Can I… Can I hold you?’

  The man works his jaw. She hears him swallow, and then a small murmur deep in his throat. She suspects she has touched him. A deeper touch than he’s had in a long, long time. She thinks he might be crying too. But she doesn’t want to know.

  She moves into him. Presses herself against this big bear of a man. Lays her head against his chest and hears a pulsing of pure emotion. A song of sorrow and of regret and of ungrasped opportunities.

  And in her own head she hears the voice. Screaming at her to do this. Almost apoplectic in its demands for her to make the final move.

  She ignores the words. This is not for him. Not to satisfy the thirst of his deranged mind. This is for Georgia. Solely for Georgia.

  May God forgive me.

  The motion is swift and simple and brutal. She almost doesn’t realize she’s doing it. It’s as if something mechanical takes over, completing without feeling what she began. A single forceful thrust.

  She hears a grunt, and she takes a small step back, her fingers still wrapped around the handle of the knife. The man stares into her eyes, then down at the knife buried deep in his gut, then back up again. He does not show rage or fear or surprise, and when he speaks his voice is low and calm.

  ‘You killing me, girl? Is that what this is? You killing me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s for my baby. You’re saving my baby.’

  ‘I am?’ His mouth twists into a semblance of a smile. Perhaps the first time he has felt cause to smile in a decade. ‘Then that’s good. That’s a good thing.’

  He lifts his arms from his sides. Wraps his big bear-paw hands around hers. They tighten, and for a moment she is afraid he will crush all her fingers. He pushes her hand away, and he grunts again as the knife slides out of his belly. He holds her like that for a while, and now she’s not sure what to do. Try to run? Try to stab him again? And while her mind races, the voice keeps yelling at her, issuing its commands, its threats, its promises. For that brief time, nothing seems real. She is in a fantasy world, where she fights a bear while unseen demons shriek and wail.

  ‘Tell me the name,’ says the man.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The baby. The baby’s name.’

  ‘Georgia. Her name’s Georgia.’

  And now his face cracks into a real smile, an unmistakable smile reflecting fond memories.

  ‘I knew a Georgia. Long time ago. She needed me too. I let her down. I won’t let your baby down.’

  And with that, he forces her hand upward. Brings it to him again, the tip of the knife pressing into his chest, just to the left of the sternum.

  ‘Here, girl. Here.’

  She is crying. She cannot see. She can only feel. She is deaf to the voice, blind to what she is doing. She wants it to stop now.

  When it happens, she is not sure how much of it comes from her, and how much from the man. She knows only that the blade seeks its target, takes its prize.

  Another grunt. Movement. The man sliding slowly down the brick column behind him as his legs give way. His grip on her is still strong, and he pulls her down with him, causing her to sink to her knees. She moves her head closer to his, hears his breathing become ragged.

  ‘Sing to me, girl,’ he says. ‘Sing that song you always used to sing.’

  And she does. How can she not? She sings to him about the Camptown ladies and about the race track that is five miles long and about how she bet her money on a bob-tailed nag and about…

  He’s gone.

  She feels him go, and he lets her go too. Sets her free as he releases his grip. Sets her free as he once sought to break free himself.

  She hopes that, in his last moments, he found some kind of peace.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers to him. ‘Thank you for giving Georgia back to me.’

  And then she cries some more. Sits there amidst the smell of piss and blood and death, and cries.

  Sounds start to break through. The slamming of a door, and then footsteps running into the distance. Far-away sirens. Night-time city noises. Her world becomes painfully real and frightening again.

  ‘Erin! Get up! We need to get you out of there.’

  He’s right. She knows he’s right. To go through all this and then still end up without Georgia would be a travesty. She has to listen to that voice now, even though it is the focal point of her hatred. Her fury at what she has just done is all turned on that voice.

  She gets to her feet. Stares down at the big bundle of rags that used to be a human being. You saved us, she thinks. You gave up your life for us.

  ‘Erin, are you listening to me?’

  She forces herself to listen, even though she has an almost irresistible impulse to take out the earpiece and stomp on it.

  ‘What?’ she says. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘We have to go, but there’s something else you need to do first.’

  She’s confused. Hasn’t she done enough? What more can she possibly do here?

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asks.

  So the voice tells her. It whispers its words of horror to her. Gives her a task to do that is beyond her comprehension.

  Truly, these must be the words of the devil himself.

  1.18 AM

  Doyle slams the receiver down.

  ‘How is it,’ he says, ‘that we’re the only people willing to do any work at nights? What are we, idiots?’

  LeBlanc replaces his own telephone receiver. ‘We’re the boys in blue. Without us, they wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully in their beds. But yes, we’re idiots too.’

  ‘You know what gets to me most? When people say they’ll call back, and then they don’t call back. What’s that all about? Why promise something if you have no intention of doing it? Why not just be honest about it? Why not just say, I’m real busy for the next two weeks, try somebody else?’

  ‘You’d prefer that?’

  ‘Sure I’d prefer it. At least then I’d know where I stood. This way, I have no idea if these people are ever gonna call.’

  Doyle is frustrated, but what frustrates him most is that much of this is his own doing. He should have followed procedure. He should have handed Albert over to the unis downstairs and then just walked away. Let them deal with it. Let them lock him up and keep watch over him. He wants to scream and rant, let him scream and rant. I should be on my way home now, like all the sensible detectives on the squad, instead of wasting my time making stupid phone calls
that nobody wants to return.

  ‘So now what?’ LeBlanc asks.

  Doyle blows air out of the side of his mouth. He has tried every number he can think of for help on this, including social services, hospitals and mental health charities. Most of the calls weren’t answered, it being an ungodly hour of the day to be telephoning for anything. When he could, Doyle left a message. Of the ones who answered, some said they couldn’t do anything right now, but they could try to get someone to him in the morning. The word Doyle didn’t like there was ‘try’; it suggested to him there were no guarantees. And then there were the respondents who put the ball firmly back in Doyle’s court by suggesting he should put the guy into a cell for the night. Which annoyed Doyle even more because he was already fully aware that that’s exactly what he should have done.

  ‘I’m out of ideas,’ he says.

  He looks around the squadroom for inspiration. He doesn’t get much of that from Albert, who is sitting at the water cooler again, trying to figure out the mechanics of the plastic tumbler dispenser. The only other person here is LeBlanc, who has stayed to help out Doyle with the phone calls. Everyone else has gone home to their warm apartments to sleep in their warm beds next to their warm partners. At eight o’clock in the morning the new shift will arrive and they will pick up the 60 sheet and decide what merits being turned into a case requiring their investigative talents. Until that time – barring a major incident such as a homicide – the members of the Eighth Precinct Detective Squad are not required here. They certainly shouldn’t be spending their precious slumber time acting as nursemaids.

  Says Doyle, ‘You should go home, Tommy.’

  LeBlanc shrugs. ‘What, and miss all the action? How could I sleep knowing you’re having so much fun here?’

  It occurs to Doyle that he knows very little about LeBlanc’s home life.

  ‘You got nobody waiting for you? Someone pining for your presence in her boudoir?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘Seriously? I pegged you as having a little blonde piece squirreled away somewhere. A farmhand from Iowa or wherever it is you came here from. Thigh-high boots and a Stetson.’

  ‘Hold up, Cal. Is that really what you think of my personal life, or is this some kind of wild fantasy of your own?’

  ‘I’m a married man, Tommy. I don’t think of any women other than my darling wife, you know that.’

  LeBlanc smiles. ‘Then if anyone should be going home, it’s you. You need to make a decision about Albert here.’

  Doyle looks at Albert again. He’s now yanking the tumblers out, one by one, and stacking them on the windowsill.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ says Doyle.

  ‘There’s always that offer from the hospital.’

  Doyle shakes his head. He has already considered and rejected that option. The offer was to put Albert in a secure unit for the mentally ill for the night. Doyle has seen those places, and knows that Albert wouldn’t last five minutes. He’s not insane. He just has… issues.

  See, there you go again, Doyle. Feeling sorry for the guy. If walking into a station house covered in your own mother’s blood after you’ve just sliced and diced her doesn’t count as insane, then I don’t know what the hell does.

  ‘I’ll find something,’ he says. ‘Hey, if your place is so empty, maybe you could—’

  LeBlanc jumps off his chair like a spring has just come up through the seat. ‘Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Cal. Time I hit the sack, I think.’

  LeBlanc grabs his coat and comes around his desk, grinning at Doyle. He starts to walk out, but pauses when he gets level with Albert. He points at the stack of tumblers.

  ‘Prime number?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ says Albert. ‘Prime.’

  LeBlanc turns back to Doyle. ‘See, Cal. It’s all a question of knowing how to communicate. Now if you—’

  The phone on Doyle’s desk rings.

  Says LeBlanc, ‘Maybe sometimes they do call back.’

  Doyle snatches up the receiver. He listens. Grabs a notepad and pen and scribbles down some notes. Ends the call.

  He looks up at LeBlanc.

  ‘You still going home?’

  He watches as LeBlanc tries to read his face.

  ‘Yeah. I think. Shouldn’t I be? Why are you asking?’

  ‘I just caught a homicide. Interested?’

  Doyle doesn’t have to wait long for an answer. They’re both tired, but they’ve both had one of the most boring days they can remember. Things just got a lot more appealing.

  ‘Count me in,’ says LeBlanc. ‘Only…’

  ‘What?’

  LeBlanc jerks his head toward Albert.

  ‘What about him?’

  They turn their gazes on Albert. He doesn’t look up, but seems to sense he’s being watched.

  ‘Where we going, fellas? Can we put the flashing lights on? Not the sirens, though. Too noisy. Too noisy. And not too fast. I get nosebleeds.’

  1.22 AM

  At the apartment she breaks down.

  As soon as she closes the door against the world, she leans back against a wall and lets her emotion pour forth. She slides down that wall, sobbing her heart out.

  It’s all over, in so many ways. Over for her, over for Georgia, over for that poor homeless guy, whose name she doesn’t even know.

  What she has just done is a crime. A crime in legal terms, but also a crime against everything she believes in. No, not just a crime. An abomination. What she has done is monstrous. She is not sure she will ever be able to forgive herself. She certainly will never forget what occurred on this god-forsaken night in January. Her only hope is that Georgia will make it all right for her. Georgia will lessen the enormity of her pain and guilt. Erin will look into her baby’s eyes and say, It was for you. I did it for you. You are alive only because I gave up everything I am for you. And there will come a time when she can stop repeating it. The memories will begin to fade like the scars they are. Always present, still causing the occasional twinge, but a part of the dim and distant past. Memories of events so incredible and grotesque she might one day be able to convince herself that they were contained in something she read or dreamed.

  That is her hope.

  ‘Oh my God, Erin. That was fucking awesome. You did it. I said you could do it, and you did. I picked you, Erin. I believed in you, and I was right all along.’

  ‘Good for you,’ she murmurs, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Give yourself a round of applause. Now tell me where I can find Georgia.’

  ‘Come on, Erin. Don’t be like that. You did good. You found the strength. You didn’t think you could kill someone, and you conquered those doubts. I helped you do it. You should be congratulating me.’

  ‘You’re a gem, you really are. A shining diamond. I’ll be eternally grateful. Now where is my baby?’

  ‘Of course, as victims go, he wasn’t exactly a prize catch. I mean an old nobody like that. You didn’t set your sights too high there, Erin.’

  ‘He was a man, goddamnit! A human being. He walked and he talked and he felt things. And most of all he had blood in his veins until I spilled it all over the ground.’

  As she hears her own words, something occurs to her. She raises her hands and stares at them. Sees the dark blood caked on them.

  ‘Oh God,’ she says.

  She gets to her feet. Races into the bathroom. She turns on the faucet over the sink, squirts huge gobbets of liquid soap onto her palms and then rubs them together frantically under the hot stream. She watches the pink-tinged water disappear, and keeps on rubbing and washing until every trace of the blood has gone from her hands and the water runs crystal clear.

  When she is done, she stands with her hands on the edge of the basin, staring at herself in the mirror. She is exhausted and ashamed and sick to her stomach, and she thinks her face reflects all that. She thinks she looks like a junkie or a whore or a pathetic drunk. Maybe even someone who would willingly resort to murder.

  She n
eeds her antidote.

  She looks directly at the reflection of the brooch. Turns her sternest gaze on the man who is looking back at her through that tiny lens.

  ‘Where. Is. Georgia?’

  ‘See, Erin, a wino is one thing. But would you have been able to handle a normal person? I mean, someone who had more to live for? What do you think? I mean, if the right guy had come along tonight. Or a woman, even. Doesn’t have to be male, right?’

  She slaps her hands on the basin. ‘Fuck you! Stop these games. I’ve had enough. It ends now. I gave you what you wanted, and now it’s your turn. Give me my baby!’

  ‘The main thing is, though, you survived your baptism of fire. You popped your cherry with that…’

  ‘Are you hearing me, asshole? I said…’

  ‘… homeless dude. It should be a walk in the park next time.’

  ‘… give me my— What? What did you say?’

  ‘I said it should be a—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Erin? Surely it’s no big deal now? You can’t start playing the virgin queen after what you did. It’s just a question of—’

  ‘No. This is a joke, right? You’re playing with me.’

  He goes silent. She thinks, He’s going to burst out laughing in a moment. He’s going to say, Of course I’m fucking with you, Erin. Had you going, though, didn’t I?

  But the silence continues, and her fear intensifies. No, he cannot mean this. Surely he cannot expect any more of me?

  ‘We had a deal,’ she says. ‘A life in return for my baby. That’s what we agreed.’

  ‘Did we, Erin? One life? Is that what I said? Did I really ever say only one death would be enough?’

  She observes herself in the mirror. She looks so unsure of herself, so subservient. How can she hope to defeat this man acting as she does?

  She makes herself stand up straight. Shoulders back, jaw set, eyes glaring. She doesn’t feel strong, but she can at least try to appear strong.

  ‘Uh-uh. Forget it. You said I had to kill someone. Singular. That’s what you said.’