Salvation (31 page)

“How do you know Bobby Grenzell?”

“I don’t, but he has a personalized
license plate on his BMW and my employer told me who he was.”

“Your employer, the one who called the police?
That would be Dmitri Teplov, right? As in Russian mafia kingpin Dmitri Teplov?”

“
Former
kingpin. Now bar and
grill co-owner,” I said. “And kingpin? Really? I don’t think you have all your
facts straight. From what I heard, his uncle Gregor Sokolov was running the
show, and—”

“Stop talking.”

“Where’s Vincent? What’s going to happen
to him?”

“Didn’t I just tell you to stop
talking?”

 “I don’t care. I have questions.
Dmitri’s getting me a lawyer as we speak, by the way, and this might constitute
some sort of unlawful detainment. Just saying.”

“Dombruso failed to mention that you’re
a total smartass.”

“I’m not. But I’m also not going to just
sit here and let you railroad me.”

He frowned and said, “No one’s
railroading anyone. I came to get your statement. A member of the S.F.P.D. will
be joining us in a moment.”

“Does Vincent know you’re D.E.A.? Was he
working with you, or were you setting him up?”

A police officer came in just then, sat
beside Prashad, and pushed a button on a tape recorder that was built into the
table. He consulted a white notepad in his hand, then looked up at me and said,
“State your full name for the record.”

“Trevor Cody Dean.”

For the next hour and a half I answered
all of their questions to the best of my ability. I was pretty sure they
realized I was totally clueless about halfway through, but kept going anyway
for good measure. Finally the police officer stood up and said, “Thank you for
your cooperation, Mr. Dean.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“We’re releasing you to Agent Prashad’s
custody.”

The officer unlocked my cuffs and I
shook out my arms and rolled my stiff shoulders to loosen them up. Prashad came
around the table, grabbed me by my upper arm, and led me out of the room and
into the main part of the station.

“What happens now?”

Prashad glared at me as he released my
arm. “I’d love to charge you with obstruction after interfering like that, but
I know it wouldn’t stick. Get out of here before I change my mind.”

He really didn’t have to tell me twice.
I turned and headed for the front of the station, where I found Jamie and
Dmitri waiting for me. They were talking to an officer in uniform that I
recognized, and I said, “Hey. Shea Nolan, right? You were at Kieran and
Christopher’s wedding.”

“Right. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Trevor. You helped with the cake
catastrophe, that was nice of you.” Shea grinned at me.

I turned to Dmitri and asked, “Have you
seen Vincent?” He shook his head.

“Tall guy with dark hair and glasses?”
Shea asked.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“He’s still answering questions.”

“I’m going to wait for him,” I told my
companions.

“I wouldn’t suggest that,” Shea said. “I
really doubt he’s going anywhere tonight.”

Jamie took my arm. “Let us drive you
home, Trevor. My cousin Shea will call me if there’s any news about Vincent.” I
argued for a while before finally relenting and letting them lead me from the
station.

I didn’t say much on the drive across
town. I was worried about Vincent. When we’d almost reached my apartment, I
remembered that my phone was off and pulled it from my pocket. I held down the
on-button, and when the screen lit up, I saw that the message icon was
blinking. When I dialed voice mail, I was surprised to hear I had seventeen
messages. The first message began playing.

“Trevor, where the hell are you?” Melody
sounded frantic. “I think the baby’s coming!”

Chapter
Seventeen

I drew in my breath and speed-dialed the
cellphone I’d given my cousin shortly after she’d returned to the city. She
answered on the first ring by screaming into the phone, “Where the fuck are
you, Trevor?”

“Melody, are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay! I’m in fucking
labor
!
It hurts so fucking bad!”

“Where are you?”

“In our apartment.”

“What? Why aren’t you in a hospital?”

“Because the baby started coming, you
weren’t answering your damn phone, and I really didn’t want to give birth on a
fucking city bus!”

“Mel, I’m so sorry. I was in a police
station and my phone was off. It’s a long story. I’m really close, just hang
on.”

She let out a high-pitched shriek and
yelled into the phone, “Hang on? How the fuck am I supposed to hang on? What do
you want me to do, cross my fucking legs?”

Jamie had gotten the gist of the
conversation and stomped on the gas, his old VW van groaning in protest as he
shifted gears. In another minute I was wrenching open the rusty panel door in
front of my building, before the van even stopped moving. Dmitri leapt out with
me and Jamie yelled, “I’ll be up as soon as I find parking!”

Dmitri and I raced into the building and
sprinted up the five flights of stairs. I dropped my keys twice trying to get
the door unlocked, yelling in frustration. Finally I flung it open and raced to
Melody’s side.

She was on her little bed, drenched in
sweat and swearing like a sailor. As soon as I reached her, she grabbed my hand
and almost crushed it in a death grip. “This isn’t how this was supposed to
go,” she ground out. “I was supposed to be in a hospital with drugs!
Lots
of drugs! I never signed on for this natural childbirth shit! Nobody but a
crazy person would do this without drugs.
Nobody!
” She screamed again
and fell back against her sweat-soaked pillows.

Dmitri meanwhile was on the phone with
someone, who apparently was giving him childbirth advice. He hurriedly unfastened
his wristwatch and held it in front of his face, and counted the seconds
between screams. Melody let out another shriek, and Dmitri relayed the
information to whoever he was talking to.

Jamie burst through the door just then.
He was holding an armload of beach towels, a backpack, and a big first aid kit,
his expression fairly panicked. His phone was sandwiched between his shoulder
and ear.

“You found us,” Dmitri said.

“Yeah, it wasn’t too hard. I just
followed the screaming.” He dropped all his stuff and asked, “How far apart are
the contractions?”

Melody screamed again, and Dmitri looked
at his watch. “Ninety-five seconds.”

Jamie relayed that information into the
phone, and listened to what the person on the line had to say. Dmitri asked
him, “Did you call an ambulance?”

“Better, I called my mom. She was a
nurse before she had kids and still volunteers in the pediatric unit at the
hospital. My dad’s driving her here. Who’d you call?”

“My sister Lena and her wife. They’re on
the way, too. I figured they’ve had babies, they know how all of this works.”

Within minutes, the apartment started
filling up with Nolans and Teplovs. Apparently calling one of them was the same
as calling the whole family. A woman with cascading dark hair was first to
arrive. She was holding hands with a tall, elegant African American woman.
“Hi,” she said to Melody, “we’re Lena and Marley. We heard Jamie and Dmitri
were acting as midwives so we rushed right over, because that should
not
happen. Don’t you worry, sweetheart, you’re going to get through this just
fine.”

Jamie’s parents were the next to arrive.
Mrs. Nolan took charge of the situation while her husband hung back by the
door. He looked a bit panic-stricken. “Did anybody think to call a doctor?” Mr.
Nolan asked. “For the love of God, we need a
professional
up in here!”

A pretty young woman I remembered from
the wedding swept into the apartment and exclaimed, “Oh, we do not need a
doctor, Dad! Childbirth is the most natural thing in the world!” Melody let out
a horror movie scream just then, and Maureen went pale and added, “Although a
pharmacist may have been an idea.” She had a big bag slung over her shoulder,
and Tippy the terrier stuck his head out, took one look at the woman in labor,
and retreated back into the bag.

Another half a dozen women arrived over
the next twenty minutes. It was more than the little apartment could hold, and
people were spilling out into the hallway. A contingent left and came back a
little while later, loaded down with shopping bags. A Teplov sister whose name
I’d forgotten announced, “We got diapers, wipes, baby blankets, bottles,
formula, and a few other things for the baby. If we forgot anything, we can run
back out to the twenty-four hour drug store.” Given how much stuff they were carrying,
it looked like the baby would be set until college.

“We also bought every camping lantern
they had, it’s so dark in here. Help me set these up,” her twin sister said,
giving some of the shopping bags to the crowd, who immediately got busy
lighting up the place. She added, “On a more practical note, we also bought
a
lot
of wine.” They handed out plastic cups and passed around bottles of
merlot to the crowd, even giving glasses to my neighbors, a few of which had
assembled out in the hallway when they’d heard the commotion. Jamie’s dad
didn’t wait for a glass. He tipped back the bottle of wine that had been passed
to him and slammed down most of its contents.

At 1:16 a.m., the baby was born. A cheer
went up from the crowd as Melody, pale, exhausted and sweaty, caught her breath
and blinked back tears. I grabbed her in a hug and told her, “You did it, Mel.
You did it!”

“It’s a boy!” Mrs. Nolan announced. She
cut the cord efficiently with someone’s pocket knife that had been sterilized
in rubbing alcohol, then dried the baby off and wrapped him in a little blue
blanket. She started to hand the baby to Melody, who pointed to me before
curling up on her side and pulling the last dry beach towel over herself like a
blanket.

The tiny, beautiful, perfect little baby
was put in my arms as my heart swelled in my chest. He was pink and wrinkly
with lots of black hair, his eyes squinched shut, his tiny hands balled up in
fists beside his cheeks. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my
life, and I knew right then that I’d do absolutely anything in the world for
this boy. I was overcome with the most powerful surge of love I could have ever
imagined, and I made a silent promise to him right then and there to always
cherish him and keep him safe forever.

“What are you going to name your son,
Trevor?” Jamie asked, putting his arm around my shoulders.

My son.
I thought I might actually burst with joy at the sound of that. I took a long
look at the baby and said softly, “I’d been thinking about that. I considered a
bunch of different names, but now that I see him, I kind of think...I think he
looks like a Sam. What do you think?”

Jamie beamed at me. “I think that’s a
great name.”

“Melody, what do you think? Do you like
the name Sam?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she
muttered, her back to me. “You’re adopting him. It’s your baby, not mine.”

Gradually, the crowd cleared out until
just Dmitri and Jamie remained with Melody, the baby and me. I sat against the
wall between Jamie and Dmitri and cradled Sam carefully in my arms, giving him
a warm bottle of formula that one of the sisters had prepared for me. She’d
also shown me how to diaper him, then helped as I dressed him in a little
one-piece pajama and wrapped him securely in a blanket.

The door to the apartment was still wide
open, and I heard steps running down the hall a moment before Vincent appeared
in the doorway and froze in place, staring at me. “Oh my God, Trevor,” he said.
He came into the apartment and dropped to his knees in front of me. “Jamie’s
cousin Shea told me what was happening. I’m so sorry I missed it.”

I smiled at him and whispered, trying
not to disturb the baby, “I’m so happy you’re here. I want you to meet Sam.”

Vincent smiled at me, then looked at the
baby. “He’s perfect,” he said softly.

“He really is.”

He cupped my cheek with one hand and
said, “Trevor, I don’t want you to raise this baby alone. When I said I wanted
to be with you every step of the way, I meant it. I love you more than
anything, and I want to marry you and raise this child with you.”

I smiled at him and turned my head to
kiss his palm. Then said gently, “I love you too, Vincent. We’re not ready for
marriage, though. It’s just too soon.”

He caressed my cheek. “But I want to
help you.”

“And you can.”

“I know my timing’s off, you must be so
tired and overwhelmed after the night you’ve had. Will you think about it and
talk about it with me in the morning?”

I smiled at him and nodded, and he sat
cross-legged in front of me and watched the baby nurse, his face full of
wonder. Sam finished the bottle, let out a tiny burp, and fell right asleep.
“He’s the best baby ever,” Vincent whispered.

“You’re right, he is.” I put the bottle
down and took Vincent’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. I didn’t know if they’d
let you out tonight.”

“I was never under arrest, I just had to
answer a lot of questions for the S.F.P.D. They weren’t supposed to be part of
the mix tonight. I’ve been working with the D.E.A.,” he said, “as an inside
man. They came to me twenty-seven months ago with a whole stack of
incriminating evidence linking my family to a range of illegal activities, and
made a deal with me. If I helped them bring down the key players in the heroin
trade in San Francisco, they wouldn’t press charges against Dante, who they’d identified
as the head of our family. I had to swear I wouldn’t tell anyone, or the deal
was off. I’m so damn relieved that it’s over now and I can finally talk about
it.”

“I knew it!” I exclaimed, then lowered
my voice when the baby flinched a bit. “I knew you weren’t a criminal.”

“I
have
broken the law, on more
than one occasion. But I never did anything to hurt others, and I sure as hell
never sold or distributed drugs.”

“I totally misjudged you,” Dmitri told
him. “And I really should have known better, because everyone used to misjudge
me, too.”

“Based on what you knew of me,” Vincent
said, “I really don’t blame you.” He held his hand out and said, “No hard
feelings?”

Dmitri shook his hand and agreed, “No
hard feelings.”

“Well, I think we should head home,”
Jamie said. “Everyone could use some rest.”

“Thank you so much, both of you,” I said
as Dmitri kissed my cheek, then pushed himself to his feet. “You’re amazing
friends, and I’m so grateful for all you did tonight.”

“It was our pleasure,” Jamie said with a
smile. “I can’t wait until it’s our turn to be parents. Hopefully we won’t be
too far behind you.”

After they left, Vincent and I curled up
on my little bedroll with the baby between us and watched him sleep. We looked
up at the same time, staring into each other’s eyes. It was such a perfect
moment, so full of love and so blissful. I didn’t think anything could ruin my
happiness.

Someone knocked on the door a minute
later, and Vincent got up and answered it. I didn’t recognize the
worried-looking young African American guy that stood there crushing a baseball
cap in his hands. “Um, hi. I’m looking for Melody Matthews. I’m not sure if I
heard the apartment number right when she called me, she was kind of screaming
at the time.”

I sat up and asked, “Who are you?”

“Slater Heath. Everyone calls me Slayer,
though. It’s a dumb nickname that kinda stuck in high school.”

“Slayer?” Melody sat up in bed and
blinked at him.

“Mellie, baby!” Slayer ran up to her and
grabbed her in his arms, and she started crying as she hugged him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I came to get you and the baby, Mellie!
I love you so much.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do!”

“How did you get here so fast?”

“Right after you got off the phone, I
called the airport and booked the next flight to San Francisco. I used my
credit card, the one you told me never to use because you said it was really
irresponsible to get into a ton of debt.”

She grinned a little. “It was okay to
use it, just this one time.”

He hugged her again and said, “I’m so sorry
we fought, but you shouldn’t have left like that, Mellie. You should have
stayed so we could talk things out.”

“I’m sorry, too. I was just so freaking
emotional with those damn pregnancy hormones.”

“I gave you reasons to be mad though,
and I want to explain what was happening. I was gone every night because I took
that security guard job at the cement factory, the one you didn’t want me to
take because you thought it was too dangerous. And I didn’t tell you because I
was trying to save up money to surprise you with this.” He pulled a little
black velvet box from the pocket of his hoodie and got down on one knee beside
her bed. “I love you, Mellie. You’re the only girl for me. Will you marry me?”
He opened the little box to reveal a modest but pretty diamond ring.