Be My Baby Tonight (40 page)

Nah. Couldn’t be. He was hallucinating.

Jack closed his eyes, opened them again.
Looked again. The thing in the seat looked back at him. Grinned at
him, showing pink gums and one small tooth. Kicked at the blanket
over its feet.

Oh God. Oh God, oh God,
oh God.

His first instinct was to run back into the
house and slam the door. Lock it. But that wouldn’t work.

He gave a moment’s thought to the neighbors,
but since his house was located on three acres and his nearest
neighbor was at least two blocks away, there wasn’t much fear that
anybody would see him standing outside, looking down at a baby in a
basket.

A baby in a basket?

Whose baby?

His
baby?

Jack repeatedly slapped his arms against his
sides and looked around, trying to appear nonchalant.

His
baby? Could that be possible? He’d
never been a playboy, never really slept around with all the women
who just about threw themselves at major league baseball
players.

But he hadn’t been exactly celibate,
either.

His
baby?

Possible. Anything was possible, right? Oh
God.

He tossed the newspaper and phone behind him,
into the foyer, flapped his arms some more, swallowed hard, did a
small, nervous dance on the top step.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

“Knock it off, knock it off,” he told
himself. “Get a grip here, Trehan. This could be anybody’s baby.
Doesn’t have to be
your
baby. But, just to be safe, go down
the steps, pick it up, get it inside before anybody sees you.”

That all sounded good, except that Jack’s
feet hadn’t been listening, so that he was still standing on the
top step, and the baby was still sitting right there, out in the
open,
grinning
up at him.

“Sadie,” Jack breathed at last. That was it;
he’d call Sadie. His aunt would know what to do.

“No, no, not Sadie,” he corrected himself
quickly, picturing his aunt and what she’d say. “Not until you know
what the hell’s going on.”

That much decided, Jack finally went down the
steps, bent over the basket. The baby reached up both arms, tried
to grab at his nose as he lifted the heavy basket, carried it
inside the house.

Kicking the door closed with one foot, he
stood in the empty foyer, looking toward the empty living room.
Where to put the basket? Like it mattered where he put it. What
mattered was that it was
there.

Jack carried the basket through the house,
into the kitchen, finally depositing it on the tile floor, his head
bent low over the basket because the baby had somehow gotten one
hand into his mouth and was digging tiny fingernails into his gums
behind his front teeth. He had to pry the little fingers away, one
by one. The kid could probably bend iron, with a grip like
that.

Running his tongue around his mouth,
wondering if he now needed a tetanus shot—or if the kid did—Jack
finally noticed a business-size white envelope tucked into the
basket.

Ah, the obligatory note left with the baby in
the basket. The note that would explain everything—just like in the
movies. “Man, I hate when that happens,” Jack grumbled, only
slightly hysterical as he gingerly picked up the envelope.

Written on the envelope were the first three
nails in his coffin:
To Darling Jack.
He recognized the
handwriting at once. Nobody but his cousin Cecily dotted her
i
’s with little hearts, crossed her
t
’s with small
bows.

The note inside was short and not very
informative, as Cecily wrote just as she spoke, in circles and as
the spirit hit her:

Darling Jack,

Thank you so much for agreeing to take
little Magenta Moon for me. You always were such a darling, as
opposed to Joey, who’s such a jerk. She’s about six months old, I
think, but hasn’t had her shots because I didn’t get around to
it—Blue Rainbow tells me you should know this. He also said this
letter must tell you that I give you all rights to take care of
her. So you have all rights, okay? There’s also some
official-looking papers stuffed in her diaper bag, in case you need
them. Blue Rainbow once thought he wanted to be a lawyer, but that
didn’t work. Something about his rap sheet, whatever that is? Oh,
she’s probably going to be hungry soon. There’s some bottles for
her in one of the bags. Well, gotta run. Just think,
Jack—Katmandu!

Love,

Cecily (Moon Flower) Morretti

“Jesus H. Christ.” Jack sat down on the
floor, still holding the note, and looked at Magenta Moon.
The
inner child, the child inside.
It all made sense now. Too late,
it all made sense. Well, Cecily kind of sense, anyway.

“You never could get anything right, could
you, Cecily?” he asked as Magenta Moon began to cry; then he
lowered his head into his hands. Given his druthers, he’d rather be
in Tokyo... gargling.

When you come to a fork

in the road, take it.

— Yogi Berra

Not quite eight thirty. Damn.

Keely tried to take her time as she drove
along the narrow macadam road leading uphill in an area of
Whitehall formerly known as Egypt. Actually, it was still known as
Egypt to the natives, just as other parts of the township were
referred to as Stiles, Cementon, West Catasauqua, Mickleys, and
Fullerton. That was a lot of names for one township, and the
changeover, mostly done to suit the U.S. Post Office, had ended
with six “Main Streets,” all in different areas of Whitehall.

Keely was driving along Egypt’s version of
Main Street now, or she had been, until the signposts inexplicably
changed to Main Boulevard, then to Old Main Road, and then to no
signs at all. A person could get very lost trying to find Sadie
Trehan’s almost-a-mansion.

That was why Keely had made a dry run the day
before, and it was why she was early now, because she had actually
remembered the route. She was partly proud of herself, partly
wondering if it was worse to be thirty minutes early or thirty
minutes late.

She had two choices: Stop at the doughnut
shop at the next corner and show up with either powdered sugar or
strawberry jelly on her blouse, or turn right at that same corner
and head up the hill to Sadie Trehan’s house, arriving before the
appointed hour of nine A.M.

The doughnut lost and Keely turned right,
carefully navigating in Aunt Mary’s classy black Mercedes with the
teardrop headlights. Since all that Keely had ever navigated was
her now departed Mustang and, lately, the New York subway system,
she had to keep fighting down the feeling that she was piloting a
very large boat.

“But a boat that makes one hell of an
impression on the customers,” Keely reminded herself aloud as she
took a left into the sweep of driveway that wended uphill, through
about an acre of trees, then circled in front of Sadie Trehan’s
house. “Of course, not as much of an impression as one’s own
interior decorator
talking
to herself. So shut up, Keely,
and watch the road.”

The car definitely did look good, sitting in
the driveway of the huge tan brick house after she’d wriggled the
key out of the ignition. Keely got out, stood glancing at the
house, trying to decide if it had been meant to be modern while
trying to look old, or meant to look old while trying to appear
modern.

The windows were huge, including one enormous
oriel window in front of what had to be a two-story foyer, a
crystal teardrop chandelier roughly the size of the Mercedes
visible through the glass. There were at least five separate roof
lines, jutting here, jutting there, indicating cathedral ceilings,
probably a lot of skylights. The front door was dark brown; the
gutters were real copper.

According to Sadie Trehan, the house
consisted of approximately twelve thousand square feet on two main
living levels, and the fifteen rooms were all completely empty,
ready to be decorated.

Megabucks here. Megabucks. And 50 percent of
10 percent of megabucks was... megabucks.

Not that the house didn’t appeal to Keely
artistically. Not that she wasn’t itching to get inside, talk to
Sadie Trehan, get some idea of what the owner might be looking for
in the way of colors, of furniture, carpets, drapes. The interior
decorator in Keely was excited, hoped to be creatively
challenged.

Yeah. Sure. All that good stuff.

Megabucks, megabucks, megabucks. Good-bye
MasterCard bill,
hasta la vista
Visa, bury that old Discover
Card balance. Megabucks, megabucks, megabucks.

“Stop it,” Keely scolded herself as she
climbed the three shallow steps to a pleasantly wide front entry.
“Concentrate on the job, for crying out loud. Topiary in pots. That
would look good, flanking either side of the double doors. And
maybe some geraniums, for color. And a doormat. God, the woman
doesn’t even have a
doormat?
What’s fifty percent of ten
percent of a doormat running these days?”

She pushed the doorbell, then stepped back a
pace, straightened her shoulders, ran both hands down the front of
her very stylish, if three-year-old navy suit. She looked good, she
looked professional, and if she had to agree to hang miniature,
glow-in-the-dark plastic pickles from the foyer chandelier to make
Sadie Trehan a happy camper, she’d do it, because there was no way
in hell she was going to blow this job.

One of the front doors opened a crack and a
male head was exposed. The head had dark blond hair with a curious,
lighter blond streak a little above the left temple. The hair was
thick, and sort of shaggy. The eyes were a quite wonderful cobalt
blue. The nose was straight. The cheeks were tan. And the mouth was
open.

“Whaddya want?”

It was a question. It was an accusation. And
the man, although drop-dead gorgeous, didn’t look exactly sane.

Keely couldn’t help herself; she stepped back
yet another pace, pressing her hands to her chest. “Me? What do I
want? Um... nothing, I guess. I thought Sadie Trehan lived here. My
mistake.” She waved her hands at him. “Just... just go back to
whatever it was you were doing. Well, gotta go. Sorry.”

She turned to retrace her steps to the
Mercedes, wondering if she’d narrowly escaped a serial killer or
just a guy who really, really didn’t like mornings.

“Wait!”

Keely stopped, made a face. She’d always been
too damn obedient. Probably a side effect of those three years in
the Girl Scouts. Aunt Mary had always said that was a mistake, and
had cost her a small fortune paying for cookies into the
bargain.

Keely turned around, slowly, to see that the
man had stepped out onto the porch. He wasn’t just an angry head
anymore. Now he was an angry head with a long, lean body attached
to it. And he was wet, or at least his left shoulder and the front
of his shirt were wet. There were small white
lumps
in the
wet. And he smelled bad. He really smelled bad.

“I... I really have to go,” Keely said,
backing toward the car. “I have an appointment, and I’m going to be
late.”

The man was at the bottom of the steps now,
walking toward her, one finger pointed at her face. “I know who you
are. You’re the interior decorator, right? Sadie hired you.”

“You...” Keely cleared her throat. She’d been
so hoping she’d gotten the wrong address. “You
know
Ms.
Trehan?”

Nodding his head, the man said, “Yeah.
Sadie’s my aunt, and she hired you to get me some furniture. But I
thought you were a man.”

“Really,” Keely said, reminding herself that
she was a woman who had walked down Forty-second Street to take the
bus to Allentown from the bowels of the New York Port Authority.
She didn’t scare easy. If this guy wanted to talk, she’d talk. “Why
a man? Do you think only a man can decorate a man’s house? Do you
always make assumptions?”

The man’s tanned and handsome face split in a
grin that sent slashing creases into his cheeks. “Me? Make
assumptions? A minute ago, lady, and I’ll bet I’m not wrong, you
were thinking I was about to pull you inside the house and practice
my Anatomy One-oh-one course on you.”

This conversation—could anyone call this a
conversation?—was getting more bizarre by the minute. “You’re a
doctor?”

“Ah, another assumption. No, I’m not a
doctor. And, although I like guessing games as much as the next
guy, I don’t have time to stand around, watching you try to figure
me out, remember where you might have seen my face before today. My
ego’s riding low enough as it is.”

Keely tipped her head to one side, trying to
digest all he’d said. “Your ego? Why? Am I supposed to recognize
you or something?”

“Or something.” He pushed a hand through his
hair, pulled it away, and cursed at the clump of something white
and squishy he’d come away with. “Never mind. Just to set you
straight, Sadie Trehan is my aunt, and she lives over the garages
out back. I’m the owner of the house, Jack Trehan. Jack Trehan?
Still doesn’t ring any bells for you, does it? Mort’s right—how
soon they forget. Man, I’m sure having one hell of a morning. Look,
maybe we can do this another time, okay? I’m... I’m sort of busy
right now.”

“Plastering the ceiling?” Keely asked. “What
is
that all over you?”

Jack Trehan wiped his hand on his khaki
slacks. “Trust me, you don’t want to know. But like I said, we’ll
do this another time. Maybe in a month or two, something like
that.”

“A month or—no!” Keely took a quick breath,
tried to calm herself. If this guy owned the house, then
he
was her client. Her only client. Furnishing a place of this size
would give her enough money to get out of Dodge and she was bound
and determined to get out of Dodge and back to Manhattan. “Surely,
Mr. Trehan, you don’t want to live here another month without any
furniture? Your aunt told me the house was empty. I mean, are you
really living in an
empty
house?”