Whirlwind

by Rick Mofina

  He stood about three inches over six feet and wore dirty overalls and a welder’s cap. His stubbly beard was flecked with gray; his longish hair was tucked behind his ears, revealing a face that had been carved out of cold stone. He looked at Mason for a long silent moment, his jaw tensing, twirling the hammer in his hand as the dog growled.

  As sudden as a cobra’s strike, the man flung the hammer at the kennel fence, making the dog yelp and Mason flinch.

  “Shut the hell up!” The man’s black jagged teeth flashed when he turned to Mason. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I need help, Lamont. I’m jammed bad.”

  “Why should I give a crap about you?”

  Mason indicated the tip of a roll of bills in his hand. Lamont’s eyes rested there for a moment. He was listening.

  “When we were inside, you said that if a brother ever needed a place to disappear, a place to lay low if they were hot, that you had one. I need that place, Lamont. I need it now.”

  Lamont scratched his chin.

  “I don’t know what kinda shit you’re in and I don’t want to get any on me.”

  “You won’t, I swear. Me and my old lady need a place.”

  “I keep to myself these days.”

  “I need this place. This is survival, Lamont. I can’t go back to Hightower. I can’t go back inside.”

  Lamont glanced at the roll of bills Mason was showing him and took several long moments to estimate his own vulnerabilities and situation before making the kind of decision that could irrevocably change lives.

  “How long you need?”

  “Four or five days, a week tops.”

  “I want a thousand now.”

  “Done.”

  “And a thousand when you get there.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ll need an untraceable number. I’ll call you within twenty-four hours with the location.”

  Mason shook Lamont’s hand, leaving ten fifties and five one-hundred-dollar bills in it.

  * * *

  When Mason returned to the hotel, his heart was going fast.

  He circled the block a few times for any sign of police sitting on the place. Satisfied there were none, he parked in front of their unit.

  He was fortified because he’d found a way for him and Remy to escape, regroup and make a play for the money. But he was still shaky from the aftershock of the news report and it took him two attempts to slide his key into the lock for their room.

  He opened the door.

  What the hell is this?

  Mason stood in the empty room. Remy and the baby were gone. Their luggage was still there. He went to the night table by the phone to see if she’d left a note. Nothing. Nothing on the desk, either.

  I told her not to do anything. I told her to wait. Where the hell is she?

  Scenarios played in his head as his pulse accelerated.

  Maybe police came for her? No, they would’ve been waiting for him. Maybe she called the agency and is closing the deal? No, she wouldn’t do that without him. Or would she? Maybe it was something else? The kid had been wailing. Maybe he was sick and she took a cab to a clinic or hospital? Would she take that risk?

  He tried calling her cell but it rang through to her voice mail.

  “Where are you? Call me now!”

  He hung up and cursed.

  He had to find her.

  34

  Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, Texas

  What have I done?

  Tears rolled down Remy’s face.

  She gazed at Caleb, finally asleep on the blanket she’d spread on the soft grass under a tree.

  The sun was setting.

  He’s so beautiful, she thought, her head throbbing. He’s like an angel. Maybe that’s what he is, a real heaven-sent angel.

  Remy lifted her face to the sky.

  What should I do?

  Images of Mason flashed in her brain: Mason with drugs, then pointing the gun. Yes, he’s got problems but I can help him. We’re building our dream together. But how could he just abandon them at the motel the way he did? Remy was so mad at him she had to leave, had to get away. She took the baby and walked for a few blocks to a park. Not many people were around—a woman with her toddler, a couple of kids tossing a football. It was peaceful and she could—

  Oh, my head—my head’s going to explode.

  Everything was going too fast, going backward, pulling her back.

  Daddy keeps moving us from town to town, trailer to trailer. “Please, Daddy, can’t we just stay put? I never fit in. I’m ugly.” Remy tells him that boys only like her for sex. Then she tells him she’s pregnant. “I’m sorry, Daddy.” He smashes his beer bottle against the wall, beer dripping like venom.

  “You’re fifteen! Get rid of it! Tell the father to pay to get rid of it because you ain’t raising it!” Remy is at the clinic; it’s cold and smells bad, like rubbing alcohol. She’s scared and she wants to die. Then it’s over and they move again. At seventeen she’s pregnant.

  Again.

  Her father’s standing at the doorway hurling her clothes into the street. “Get out of my house! You’re a tramp just like your mother!” The nurse at the Social Services office tells Remy she has options. The agency helps her get an apartment and a part-time job at a burger place. Then she gives birth to a baby girl and gives her up. “You’ve given the new parents such joy,” the nurse tells her. The baby is in a good, loving home.

  Now, sitting at the park, Remy wiped the tears away, remembering how she’d drifted from job to job, man to man. She was working as a supermarket cashier in Lufkin and feeling lonely when one of the other girls told her about a prison pen-pal website. That’s how she found Mason Varno. It was fate that brought her to him. His eyes in the picture on the website were the saddest she’d ever seen. They broke her heart, but they told her that she and Mason were meant for each other.

  They shared dreams.

  Remy would do anything for him. Mason told her of his goal to start a carpentry business, how she could help him, how they could start a family, a real family together. Remy saw the ad to be a surrogate. She’d been pregnant before and hadn’t kept the baby. She could do it. She could handle it. She called the number and took the chance to earn sixty thousand dollars. It would give her and Mason a new life.

  Remy would be doing a good thing.

  The people at the agency were nice, so professional. They checked her health, explained how they were a global agency, and after she signed the agreement, they flew her to Moscow for the procedure because they had special arrangements with doctors there.

  The agency assured her that it was all perfectly legal.

  Remy became pregnant and throughout her early months she wondered about who the Russian father was—was he kind, smart, handsome? She wondered about her baby’s future parents.

  At night Remy was plagued by nightmares of the baby she’d aborted, memories of the horrible sound of the doctor working inside her, the awful hollow feeling. She also had strange dreams about the daughter she gave up, and her surrogacy.

  Am I doing the right thing?

  When Mason was released from Hightower he was still pleased about the sixty thousand dollars, but something beneath the surface was wrong. Sex for them was not good because of Mason’s ambivalence about “doing it when you got a baby in there.” Being locked up all this time, he was frustrated. Remy had promised him sex would be better after the baby, but Mason was stressed about his new job, his parole and his old enemies.

  He started taking drugs again.

  She pleaded with him to stop and tried to help him.

  Then something inside her went wrong, something with the baby. It was stillborn. Dead inside her. A boy.

 
Oh, God.

  She roiled with intense shock and pain. At the small hospital they’d gone to, the doctors, the nurses, even Mason, all tried to console her.

  She wanted to hold her baby. He was so tiny. He looked like he was asleep. She bathed him, dressed him and took a lock of his hair. The nurses made hand and footprints for Remy to keep.

  Then the hospital arranged for a chaplain to help Remy and Mason with a funeral and burial in a small corner of a local cemetery. The funeral home provided a tiny coffin at no cost.

  Standing over her baby’s grave at the cemetery, Remy was overcome. Why did this happen? Why am I being punished?

  Later, a counselor and doctor at the hospital talked to Remy about the changes her body would go through, how her breasts would fill with milk, about the soreness, about her anguish. They cautioned her about the likelihood of facing acute postpartum depression, even psychosis. They provided her with medication, which she never took.

  Remy and Mason went back to their apartment in Lufkin, gathered their things and left. Mason told his boss there were complications and they needed to go away for a while. Mason didn’t breathe a word of the truth to anyone because he and Remy didn’t want the agency to know that she’d lost the baby.

  But in the aftermath, Remy became confused and conflicted.

  As they moved from one cheap motel to another they struggled with the loss and its consequences. There was little they could do as Remy dealt with her growing sense of isolation. No one could understand what she was going through as feelings of futility and emptiness consumed her.

  There were moments, rapturous fleeting moments, when Remy saw her dream come true, moments when she’d be living it with Mason in their little house with their children, their family while he ran his carpentry shop.

  Then reality smashed it all to pieces.

  Now that she’d lost the baby, she was at risk of losing everything.

  Why?

  Why was she being punished when there were so many bad mothers out there?

  Remy saw them in parks, at public plazas, at malls, neglecting their children, not taking care of them properly.

  It’s so unfair. It’s not right. She should make it right. That’s the answer.

  That’s the solution—the creed she and Mason followed.

  Whatever life takes from you, you take back.

  To see her dream come true Remy had to rescue a neglected child to replace the one she’d lost, to give it to the agency so she could start her life, her real life with Mason. They’d searched malls and parks, until she found the right baby at the flea market and bravely set out to rescue him.

  The tornado was biblical—a whirlwind—a sign.

  Now, looking down at Caleb, she smiled.

  You didn’t die. I didn’t steal you. I saved you from a terrible mother who does not deserve you. I deserve you. You’re so beautiful, like an angel. Just having you, holding you these days has filled my emptiness You’re like my son, the son I carried, my sweet, beautiful, lost angel.

  She reached into her bag for a special tiny jewelry box, opened it and took out a small folded corner of cloth cut from the blanket her stillborn son was buried in. She touched it to her face.

  You need me. I need you. I’m not sure I can give you up.

  A shadow fell over Remy and the baby.

  Mason was standing over them.

  “I was looking everywhere for you. Why did you run off?”

  Remy said nothing.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, glancing around, impatient.

  She shook her head.

  “Have you seen the news? The latest news about the FBI?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Did you have one of your spells?”

  “I think so,” Remy said. “Look at him, Mason. He’s so sweet, a sweet little angel. He needs me, doesn’t he?”

  Mason paused a moment, assessing Remy. “Yes, he does. He needs you to take care of him, to give to the mom the agency has waiting for him. She’s probably very worried after waiting for such a long time. What do you think, Remy?”

  She stared at Caleb, saying nothing.

  “Darlin’...” Mason lowered himself to her and softened his voice. It had been a long time since he called her that. She loved it when he did. “Darlin’, the FBI is looking for us. They just put out sketches that look like us on the news.”

  Remy blinked at Mason. She was working to understand.

  “We have to go now,” he said. “We have to haul it back to the motel, get our stuff and go, now! I’ve got us a place with an old friend from Hightower where we can be safe and make our call to the agency. We can close the baby deal and then start living our dream like you always wanted. Okay?”

  Remy looked into his eyes. “No, Mason.”

  “No?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay with one of your ex-convict pals. I don’t trust them.”

  “Are you hearing me right?”

  “You listen to me, Mason Varno. I’m tired of running. I want to go back to the motel and think some more while I tend to my baby.”

  “Your baby?”

  “Yes, my baby. And we’re not going anywhere. Is that clear?”

  He stared at her for several icy seconds before he smiled.

  “It sure is, darlin’.”

  35

  Bel Air, California

  Chelsea Drew-Flynn needed a shoulder.

  She called Tara Powell, her trusted pal and confidante, and without hesitation Tara invited her out to California. As busy as she was with her new baby girl and her job, Tara always had time for Chelsea.

  They’d met aeons ago at a charity gala in San Francisco, and though Tara was ten years younger than Chelsea, they got along as though they’d been lifelong friends.

  Chelsea didn’t take her company’s corporate jet out of Denver. She flew commercial, executive-class and hired a car service at LAX.

  Tara and her husband, Worthington, headed their own production company. Their last three films had each grossed over a hundred million dollars, and they also had a hit crime drama on HBO.

  Chelsea loved their house, how it was tucked deep into a gated community on a winding lush road concealed by foliage.

  Their estate offered breathtaking views of Los Angeles. The mansion had eight bedrooms and every room had a sweeping vista. The foyer was made of Italian limestone and they had an infinity pool in the back with a stunning panorama of the city. The property was private, thick with greenery, surrounded by palms, avocado and citrus trees.

  The driveway was overflowing with luxury cars. Chelsea’s driver put her bags at the door where Chelsea was met by Tara. They hugged and exchanged kisses over music and the vibrant hum of a party in full swing.

  “So great to see you,” Tara said.

  “I’ve arrived at a bad time.”

  “You’ve arrived at a perfect time. How was your flight?”

  “Good.”

  Tara was dressed in an elegant yet semiformal turquoise ensemble.

  “I love those shoes,” Chelsea said.

  “I got these in Venice when we went for the film festival. They’re so comfortable.”

  Above the conversations and laughter spilling from the large living room where the glass wall had been retracted to lead to the pool, Chelsea glimpsed a number of world-famous faces.

  “Worth’s hosting an investors’ party for our next project. I’ll get Miguel to take your bags up to your room so you can freshen up if you like. Then you can meet some people, get something to eat, and we’ll steal away and talk, okay?”

  “Sounds terrific. How’s Cheyenne? Can I see her?”

  “Absolutely, she should be waking up soon, and I’m s
ure she’d love to see Aunt Chelsea.”

  “Hey, there she is—my favorite gold digger!” Tanned and smiling, Worthington gave Chelsea a crushing hug.

  “Hi, Worth.”

  “If you want a break from running your mining empire, I can get you in a picture.”

  “You can’t afford me.”

  “Everybody’s got a price, Chelsea.” He winked. “Can we get you something, a drink?”

  “Maybe later, I’m just going to freshen up a bit.”

  Chelsea took a quick shower, fixed her face, changed into a floral print dress then joined the party. Tara escorted her through knots of people scattered about the living room and pool, introducing her to actors, directors, screenwriters and agents as servers moved from circle to circle with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

  After some twenty minutes of mingling, Tara received a text on her phone then leaned to Chelsea’s ear.

  “Cheyenne is up. Let’s go.”

  Tara led Chelsea upstairs to her daughter’s bedroom, where eleven-month-old Cheyenne was standing in her crib with her nanny close by.

  “I already changed her, ma’am,” the nanny said.

  “Thank you, Aisah.” Tara took the baby into her arms. “We’re going to stay here with her for a while. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”

  The nanny left, and Tara passed Cheyenne to Chelsea, who kissed her cheek and inhaled her sweet baby scent.

  “Ohhh,” Chelsea said, “can I take her back to Denver with me?”

  Tara smiled as her friend coddled and cooed away. Ever since Tara had become pregnant with Cheyenne, her only child so far, Chelsea confided her desperation to have a baby. She couldn’t have children. Her one marriage had ended badly, and now at forty-nine, Chelsea yearned to be a mother. After much consideration she had decided to use a surrogate through an agency.