A Circle of Celebrations: The Complete Edition (16 page)

“You’re thieves. You’re mean to steal a doll away from a nice girl. She never hurt you.”

Riff grabbed the side of his head. The desperation was making his head spin. “I don’t know if I can take it! Shut her up!”

Paulie picked up the doll and shoved her into the cardboard box. Her hair and skirt got messed up. He tried to shove his hand down into the box to straighten them. It didn’t fit.

“You shouldn’t use drugs,” Cathy observed. “They make your hands shake. You forgot the plastic ties. I’ll slide right to the bottom.”

Paulie slid Cathy out and tried again. That time he got the skirt hem to keep from riding up, but the hair got flattened on one side and fluffed on the other.

“I bet your mothers are very ashamed that their sons are thieves,” Cathy said, her voice not interrupted at all by the cellophane window of her box. “How would you feel if someone took things away from your mother?”

“My mama been robbed a hundred times,” Riff snarled, leaning low over the steering wheel. Cathy was pleased. She was making him think. She could tell he didn’t like to think. She pressed a little harder.

“Why don’t you protect her instead of picking on other people’s mothers? Where were you the last time she was robbed?”

“Where the hell were
you
?” Riff countered angrily.

“In Snider’s Discount Store on North Broadway,” Cathy said at once. There was no reason not to tell them the truth. “Waiting for my mama to come and get me. But I bet you could have helped your mother. Why didn’t you?”

Riff couldn’t take that much introspection.

“Bro, tear her head off! I don’t want to hear her voice one more second!”

Paulie cradled the big pink box protectively in his arms. “Riff, if we damage her, we won’t get no money!”

“Yeah, money. Gotta have money. Right now.” Riff stared out of the windshield. The streetlights were blurring into big stars of light, obscuring everything but the red tail lights ahead of him. Drugs. He craved the smooth relaxation of a high. “We’ll take it to Mumzir’s pawn shop. Yeah. He’s pretty close.”

“You shouldn’t take drugs,” Cathy said, as the man in the hoodie steered the car unsteadily. “You can’t see well, and your reactions are getting very bad. You almost hit that man walking on the street. He was in a crosswalk, so you were in the wrong. I bet you don’t even have a valid driver’s license. Does yours say you need glasses? Because you do.”

“Shut UP!”

“Look out! You almost hit that man!”

The car swerved as Riff’s hands jerked nervously.

“Hey,” Paulie said, shrewdly, “I bet we get top dollar for her ’cos she can say all these extra things. On the box it says she can only say eighteen phrases. I know she’s said at least twenty.”

“Twenty-eight so far,” Cathy corrected him.

“That’s gotta mean she’s really special. And all the cool stuff about your mama.”

Riff yanked the gun out of his pocket and leveled it at his partner’s nose. “You shut up about my mama. You don’t say another word about my mama, or I blow you and the doll all over the city.”

Paulie held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, man, okay. Cool. Be cool.”

O O O

The small, neat, dark-skinned shop owner held the box in his hands. “Yes, Chatty Cathy. We do not see very many of these in this condition. Very good. He looked up at the two men leaning over his counter. “Thirty dollars. That is what I will give you for her. Because she is such excellent condition.”

“Thirty?” Riff sputtered. “Bro, she’s gotta be worth three thousand!”

Mumzir clicked his tongue. “I cannot pay three thousand. She is a 1970s vintage doll, all accessories accounted for, original box. On a generous percentage of a value of perhaps one hundred dollars, I will give you … forty.”

“But she says all these cool things,” Paulie said. “Come on, Chatty Cathy, talk to the man.”

The three men looked at the doll. Her big blue eyes regarded them with blank friendliness.

“You must pull her string to make her talk,” Mr. Mumzir said, shaking his head scornfully at the stupidity. “It says so right on the carton.”

“Hell, no,” Riff said. “She was talkin’ up a storm in the car. Talk now,” he ordered the doll. Mumzir regarded him curiously. “I mean it! What you lookin’ at me for? She said things about my mama!”

“I can see that you are high,” Mumzir said. “Drugs rot your mind, you know.” He pulled the ring on the doll’s body.

“Night, night, Mommy,” Chatty Cathy said.

“You see, nothing out of the ordinary,” Mumzir said, shaking his head. “Forty dollars.”

“I want more!” Riff said. He pulled his gun out of his pocket and aimed it at the shop owner. Calmly, Mumzir shook his head.

“You are under video surveillance. Besides, my three brothers have had weapons trained on you since you came in here. Put it away, or I will tell the police when they come to collect your bodies that it was self-defense. We have licenses for our firearms. Do you?”

Riff and Paulie sprang into a back-to-back
Starsky and Hutch
pose, searching the mirrored cases for signs of the other three Mumzirs. Glaring hatred at the shop owner, Riff stuck the gun into his waistband and yanked the front of the hoodie down over it.

“All right,” he said, trying to regain his dignity. “Forty dollars, and make it fast.”

Mumzir went to a small keypad set in the wall and started to enter numbers.

“I am stolen merchandise,” Chatty Cathy said suddenly. “I am stolen merchandise. They stole me. I am stolen merchandise.”

Mumzir’s hand dropped from the keypad. “What? Is the doll saying the truth?”

“Naw, it’s just a recording, bro,” Riff said, casually.

“They stole the car they drove here in, too,” Cathy continued. “From a nice lady and her little girl. They threw them out of the car and took it.”

“Carjacking?” Mumzir’s swarthy cheeks paled. Something was strange. Could this be a police sting? “How dare you come in here? I do not receive stolen merchandise from thieves! Get out.” He pointed toward the door.

Riff and Paulie thought about arguing the point, but remembered the guns hidden in the walls.

“All right,” Riff said, leveling a finger at Mumzir as he backed toward the door. “But I’ll be back. Don’t you forget it.”

“You don’t forget what I say,” Mumzir said. “Leave before I call the police! Come back when you actually own what you want to sell me.”

Paulie snatched up Chatty Cathy and the carton. The two men made as dignified an exit as they could. The security door snapped shut behind them.

“Will you take me back to my mama now?” Chatty Cathy asked. “Please? I am sure she is very scared.”

Riff grabbed the box out of Paulie’s hands. “I can’t take no more of this damned
doll
!” He wrenched open the Buick’s bent trunk lid, threw Cathy inside, and slammed it shut. “Get in! We gonna go right to Buzzy’s, right now! I gotta have my fix.”

It wasn’t very dark inside the trunk. Cathy’s box had landed face upwards. She could see a few small holes that let in light, and sound. From the compartment of the car, she heard the two men arguing. Their voices sounded faint and hollow. They wouldn’t listen to her.

The car lurched away from the curb. Cathy went flying against the rear of the trunk. She had to get back to Perinda. She must take care of her newfound mother.

She could hear the noise of other cars and the sloshy footsteps of people on the sidewalks. Each time the car jerked to a halt, she listened for people approaching.

“Help me!” she shouted, straining her speaker to the maximum. “Please, get me out of this trunk! The men driving are very bad. Help me!”

O O O

Miranda Benitez hoisted her briefcase strap onto her shoulder. The gold car had stopped for the light right in the middle of the crosswalk. Grumbling, she stepped off the curb and angled around the vehicle’s rear end, trying to avoid the slush. Her shoes were already wet, and her toes were beginning to freeze.

“Help me!” a tiny voice said. Miranda looked around. “Please, get me out of this trunk! I have to get back to my mama!”

Miranda realized the voice was coming from the car beside her. There was a little girl in there. A kidnapping! She glanced at the driver, and knew she didn’t want to mess with him, but she had to help.

“Hang in there, baby,” Miranda whispered. “I’ll get help.”

She took her cell phone out of the pouch hanging from her purse strap and dialed 911. She dashed out of the crosswalk and stood on the opposite curb.

“Yes, I’m sure what I heard. An old Buick, gold color, license plate number 518 HRM. Hurry! She sounds scared.”

O O O

“Ah, shit!” Riff said, looking in the rear view mirror at the flashing blue lights. His heart raced. He hoped it wasn’t him the cops were following, but the loud hoot of the siren disabused him of the idea. They were only two blocks from Buzzy’s! He rolled down the window as the patrol cop approached, and put on a big fat smile. “Can I help you, officer?”

The police sergeant, a burly man with his winter coat buttoned up underneath a jowly double chin, raked Riff and Paulie with a blazing white flashlight beam. “License and registration, please?”

Riff felt his pockets. “Well, I’ve got ’em somewhere, officer. I’m drivin’ on a ticket, okay, bro?” He produced the much folded piece of paper, and held it out with two fingers.

“Registration?”

“Look, it’s my mama’s car. I don’t know where she keeps the registration.”

“I see,” the cop said, evenly. Riff started to relax. He was buying it. “Would you mind opening your trunk, please?”

Warily, Riff pushed open the door. The cop stood out a little, not turning his back on the two men. He kept them ahead of him as Riff pulled the key out of the ignition and went around to the back. He felt around for the latch, hoping it wasn’t in some weird place. He’d kill that bitch if she had some kind of illegal goods in the trunk! Getting him pulled over, when he had priors in his record!

But, no, there was nothing in there except for that damned doll. The cop rocked back on his heels.

“Can we go now?” Riff asked hastily. “I’ve got an appointment.”

“I guess …” the policeman began.

“Help me,” the doll said, unexpectedly. “These men stole me from my mama. I want to go back. Please take me to 2534 South Lawndale. It’s dark. I bet she’s really scared. And cold.”

The cop glared at Riff and Paulie, who was trying to edge away onto the curb. “Is this some kind of joke? We got a report from some woman who heard a little girl’s voice in the trunk.”

“Come on, officer,” Riff said, ingratiatingly. He leaned a little closer, but the policeman backed away half a pace. “It’s just a doll. It goes off all by itself sometime. It’s defective.” He slammed his palm down on the box, bursting the cellophane. Paulie let out a gasp and gave Riff a reproachful look.
“What?”

“That was me, officer,” Chatty Cathy said, promptly. “Thank you for stopping. These mean men took my mama’s mama’s car. They pushed her out into the snow. It was a carjacking. They have a gun. They want to buy drugs. They were about to pawn this car with someone named Buzzy. Have you ever heard of him?”

The officer’s eyes widened, but his eyebrows lowered until they met at the bridge of his broad nose. “You bet I’ve heard of him. Buzzy, huh?”

“It’s just a doll!” Riff protested.

By then the police officer had his gun in his hand. “All right, you two. Assume the position. I don’t care if the doll’s defective or not. I’m going to check into this. Where’s that gun?”

“Who says I got one?” Riff asked, turning to face the car. He spread his hands on the trunk lid.

“Right now,” the cop said, “I’m gonna believe the doll. Where is it?”

“Waistband,” Riff choked out. The cop held him down with an elbow and yanked the pistol out of his jeans front. He did a quick pat-down of both men, then reached for his radio.

“Dispatcher 26, this is 26-32. I need a rundown on, er, an ’86 Buick, license number …”

“My head is killing me,” moaned Paulie.

O O O

By the time the police sergeant rolled onto the 2500 block of South Lawndale, two other patrol cars were already parked on the grass. A short, broad-faced black woman stood rocking a little girl in her arms. The child’s long legs hung limply around her hip, and she had her face hidden in the woman’s shoulder. A quartet of officers, one of them a uniformed lieutenant, surrounded them. Cameras with bright white lights were trained on them, and reporters had microphones aimed at their mouths.

“This baby was too scared to talk,” the woman was saying, “but I knew she was in trouble. That’s when I called you.”

The sergeant managed to look dignified as he carried Chatty Cathy over the trampled snow.

“Perinda? Is this your doll?” he asked.

The child raised her head. Her expression of fear and woe changed suddenly as she spotted the doll in his hand. She nodded. The sergeant held it out. The girl reached for it and wrapped it in her arms.

“I love you,” Chatty Cathy said at once. Perinda was still too upset to speak, but she squeezed harder and buried her face in the chocolate-colored hair.

The lieutenant gave the sergeant an odd glance. “How’d you know the child’s name? We haven’t been able to get a word out of her.”

The sergeant thought about it for a moment, and realized he didn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of the news teams. He’d gotten an earful all the way there, but how could he say his information had come from a 24-inch plastic doll with freckles? “Information received, sir. I located the mother. She was down at the 6th Precinct, making a report.” The reporters, hearing another source of hot information for their breaking news story, stuck the microphones in his face. The lieutenant looked peeved, but he gave the sergeant a nod to go on. “She’s frantic but she’s okay. She’ll be here any moment. We’ve arrested two men for an armed carjacking. Down behind the food store on 35th Street. Couple of junkies looking for a fix. We’ve also got them for kidnapping and felony theft. They can’t hurt this little girl or her mother ever again. We’ve recovered the car. It’s up at the 10th precinct lot.”

The reporters burst into a cacophony of questions. The sergeant and lieutenant did their best to answer them over the head of the woman who had taken in the little girl abandoned on the street.