Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

“Where’d you get the hot clothes?” I asked.

“That faggot cop. He and his kid took me to get some stuff on Sunday.”

“Detective Flint?” Mike hadn’t bothered to mention a thing.

“I guess that’s his name. The one that you…” He made an appropriately obscene gesture.

“Well, you look great. Need anything else?”

He shook his head. “I’m set. They got me going to school in here.”

“How is it?”

“Not too bad. Hilly used to teach me stuff, and I liked that better. But it’s okay here. They don’t let you watch TV in the daytime, so it’s something to do.”

“Stay with it, Sly. School is your rocket, you know.”

“Somethin’ to do.” He set the kit on the bed behind him and gave me one of his wise appraisals.

“So?” he asked.

“So, what?”

“Everyone who comes to see me wants to talk about what went down, or they want me to identify some guy. So, what is it?”

“I just came by to see how you’re hangin’. I tried to get by yesterday, but, well, things happened. Sorry I didn’t make it. I heard you had a good time last night, though, when Detective Flint came and woke you up.”

He grinned. “Yeah. I couldn’t ID that weird picture he had. I mean, for sure I never saw that dude before. But the cop, he took me out for pancakes, anyway. It was like two o’clock in the morning. Hot, I mean really hot. Like, I ain’t been out after dark since they put me in here.”

“I think you’re a night owl by nature.”

“Not no more. I mean, anymore. They get real strict about how we say shit. Like Hilly, always correcting me.”

“She corrected you because she cared for you.”

He swallowed hard. “She was hot.”

I touched his shoulder. “I told your teacher I would walk you to class. It was nice they let you sleep in this morning, Mr. Night Owl.”

Sly put his kit back into the bag with the paints and stowed it all under his bed. When he stood up, he smoothed the spread with pride.

“I’ll show you the way,” he said, still serious.

We walked out of his bungalow and across the campus, this very serious and wounded little boy and I. He was, for all of his toughness, very dear. I was sure that Hillary had been drawn by the vulnerable quality he had, as I was.

In all of our conversations, Sly had refused steadfastly to say anything to me about his family. Mike had told me the family had a rap sheet with Child Protective Services that read like Tales from the Dark Side. I didn’t need to see it. All that mattered was that Sly was retrievable, and for that, in large measure, we had Hillary to thank.

The only children playing in the hazy sunshine were preschoolers on the far side of the grounds, bouncing around in a small fenced-in play yard equipped with swings and a slide. Sly watched them with a cloudy face.

Mike had told me how disappointed Sly was when he could not recognize George Metrano as the man who had slit Hillary’s throat. That’s why the treat of pancakes in the middle of the night. Mike wanted the truth. Sly wanted the man.

The windows in the stucco classroom block were open. Voices from inside floated out across the empty asphalt yard like a haunting of children; too much energy to be peacefully interred on a warm day.

I touched Sly’s shoulder again. “We’ll get him.”

“Damn straight.”

“That man in the picture? He was Hilly’s real father. For what it’s worth, I’m glad he isn’t the one.”

“Mike said the same thing.”

I smiled. “So, you do know the faggot cop’s name.”

He turned his head away so I couldn’t see the wry grin.

I stopped with him at the entrance to the classroom block.

“Got your homework finished?”

“Under control,” he said.

“Then I’ll see you later, Sly Ronald.”

He tossed his head back in cocky acknowledgment. “Later.”

With his hands in the pockets of his new shorts, he started inside. After a few steps, he hesitated, then he came back to me.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Hillary is still in the morgue.”

“Shouldn’t there be a funeral?”

“There will be, as soon as we get this all straightened out. Will you sit with me?”

“Yeah. Don’t forget.”

“I promise.”

He squared his skinny shoulders inside his bright shirt and walked on to his class, alone.

I didn’t mind leaving him at MacLaren. But I had a sick feeling whenever I thought about Sly after MacLaren – they could keep him only so long. What would it be? A foster home? Another institution? Back on the streets?

In the ear of my memory, all the way out to the parking lot I heard Sly howl the way Bowser had the day I brought him home from the pound to sleep on my heirloom brocade sofa. There’s a whole lot more to taking in a damaged child than an abandoned puppy. Even though I understood that, every time I saw Sly it was tougher to leave him behind.

I drove the clunker rental Toyota downtown and parked in a twelve-dollar all-day lot in the Civic Center. I didn’t have all day, and I didn’t have twelve dollars in my pocket, either. As it was, I walked down to a little deli in the Civic Center Mall under City Hall and spent my last five on a chicken salad sandwich and a diet soda. The sandwich man threw in an extra kosher dill and a couple of cookies because I smiled at him. That’s what he told me, anyway.

I carried the food in a brown bag across the street to the police administration building, Parker Center, and asked the desk officer, Rayetta Washington, to please page Detective Michael Flint, Sr., Robbery-Homicide Division, Major Crimes Section, third floor, last office on the right, second desk inside the door. And to tell him that his snitch was downstairs with new information. I gave Officer Washington a smile, too, because she looked as if she needed one. She was at least nine months pregnant under her midnight-blue maternity uniform.

Officer Washington and I were discussing hee-breathing when Mike came down to the desk. He hadn’t had much sleep, and it showed in the chiseling under his cheekbones, the shadows under his eyes.

“Maggie?” he said, surprised, pleased, and cranky all at once. “What are you doing here?”

I held up the sandwich bag. “You forgot your lunch this morning, honey, and I was afraid you’d go hungry.” I turned to Officer Washington. “You know how men get when they miss a meal. Too hard to live with.”

“That’s it?” he said. “You brought me lunch?”

I kissed his face. “And you forgot to pay me last night, buster. One deluxe blow job, that’s twenty you owe me. I need it now, because I don’t have enough money for the parking lot.”

Expression dark, he took the bag and cautiously looked inside. “It’s a sandwich.”

“What did I tell you?”

“I’m waiting to hear the rest of it.”

“What? You think I have ulterior motives?”

“Or you’re drunk.”

“Okay. I want to hear the tape of your conversation with Elizabeth.”

He sighed.

“Please.”

Officer Washington had been leaning on the counter with her chin in her hand, listening to all this. “I think you better let her, detective. You say no, I don’t want to be held responsible for what she might do.”

“Thank you, Officer,” I said. “I hope you have a lovely baby.”

Mike sighed again. “What kind of sandwich?”

“Chicken salad.”

“Washington,” he said, “do you like chicken salad?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

He put the bag on the counter in front of her and took me by the elbow. “Upstairs. I’ll set you up in an interrogation room.”

“Bon appetit,” I said to Officer Washington.

“Later, honey,” she said, grinning. As Mike and I approached the elevator, I heard her laugh out loud.