Timothy Hallinan - Everything but the Squeal

“Anything that gets the cash flow going,” I said, trying to keep my eyes away from the empty screen.

“It'll flow,” she said. “You have no idea how it will flow. However, there are technicalities. I already asked you if she could travel, so that's out of the way. But there is one other point, and it's an important one.”

“And what's that?” I was beginning to perspire.

“I need to know that you have the legal right to sign these papers.”

“I told you,” I said, working up a semblance of affronted indignation. “She's my ward.”

“And you told me that her parents are dead.” Her gaze was as steady as a dial tone.

I could hear my watch ticking and I fought down the impulse to check the time. Morris was probably keying in by now. “Dead as Marley,” I said.

“Aunts? Uncles? Cousins two or three times removed? Anybody who might suddenly take an interest in the child? Anyone who might get someone looking for her?”

It had to be 4:10. I leaned forward and put my hands on my knees so I could see my watch: 4:09. “Forget it,” I said. “I'm the whole story. It's just Jewel and me.”

“We both know what we're talking about,” she said. She was looking through me. This was a conversation she'd had many times.

“Honey,” I said, licking my lips. They were drier than dry cleaning. “Even Jewel's not completely in the dark.”

Now she focused on me and gave me the motherly smile. “Well,” she said, “that simplifies things.” She turned the contracts around so that they were right-side-up for me. “Everywhere there's a red X,” she said, “just sign your name.”

“Dwight Ward,” I said.

The motherly smile broadened and turned slightly gamy at the edges. “Anything you like,” she said. “Sign away.”

“Wait,” I said. “I've got a couple of questions of my own.”

She lifted an eyebrow. Four-ten had come and was in the process of going. “You're not going to hurt her?” I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

“Damaged goods,” she said with a shrug. “Who wants them? The prettier she is, the better you'll do.”

“That's the other question,” I improvised. “What's my cut?”

“Thirty percent,” she said.

“Only thirty !”

She gave a world-wise shrug. “Expenses,” she said. “Security. This is not an inexpensive operation.”

“Um,” I said. “Still, thirty?” It was 4:11. I knew without looking at my watch because I'd been counting.

“Thirty percent of quite a lot,” she said. “The average job, say two days, costs two thousand. She can do three jobs a week, sometimes four.”

I squinted at the ceiling like someone whose idea of a complicated math problem was buying a new belt. “That's, ah. .”

“Thirty percent of six thousand is eighteen hundred,” she said coldly. “And you don't have to do piss-all for it. Just get the checks, deposit them, and spend it.”

“I have to think,” I said.

“Think while you sign,” she said, shoving the contracts at me. “It's the standard deal. We don't make exceptions. Eighteen hundred a week is almost ninety-four thousand a year. That's a lot of money.”

“Not enough,” I said, stalling. By now Morris was slamming away at the keyboard, and anyone who happened to tune in was in for an interesting surprise.

“Thirty-five,” she said flatly. “But that's it. And that's only because she's so pretty.”

“Thirty-five,” I said, chewing on the end of my pen.

“That comes to a hundred and ten thousand a year,” she said, “and that's if we don't push her. This little girl, she's going to be flavor of the month. So figure it'll be more for the first year. That's enough to buy a new ward. Maybe we'll set up a long-term relationship.”

“More than one kid?”

“You can field a baseball team, if you can find them.” She leaned toward me. “Boys too,” she said, dropping her voice. “Some boys do better than girls.”

“Gee,” I said, straining my brain to find some reason not to sign the papers. After I signed them, I'd have to leave. Why hadn't I anticipated the possibility that her computer wouldn't be on? “How many on a baseball team?”

“Nine,” she said through tight lips. ‘That means rich, is what that means. Now, are you going to keep fucking around or are you going to sign your name?”

I gave up. “Fine.” I scrawled “Dwight Ward” next to the first red X. She watched with satisfaction.

A phone trilled, a bright little soprano gargle. A button, one of six on her desktop instrument, lit up. Holding my breath, I flipped through the contracts, counting the red X's.

“Brussels' Sprouts,” she said, watching me. “Yes, this is Mrs.- What?” she demanded. “What are you talking about? What're you, nuts? Hold it, hold it, slow down and tell me. .” The phone rang again and another button lit up. I went on signing Dwight Ward's name as she put the first person on hold and punched the new button.

“Yeah?” she asked. “Who is this? Bullshit, that can't be right. Listen, I've got someone-” The voice on the other end squawked and squalled. “Hold it,” she commanded. “Shut up and hang on.” She swiveled the computer toward her and looked up at me. “Keep writing,” she said grimly, flicking the On switch.

I invented names for each of the red X's as she punched her way across the keyboard and accessed the data base. I'd gotten to Alice B. Toklas and was halfway through Anna Q. Nilsson when she got through. Then I lifted my head as her computer whirred, and watched her, hoping she wouldn't look at me.

I needn't have worried. I could have sprouted wings and a full set of serpents' scales and turned into Quetzalcoatl right there in the chair, and she wouldn't have noticed. She'd worked her way through the menu and was staring at Morris’ surprise.

First her eyes widened and then her jaw dropped. The fine hairs on her forearms stood straight up as thousands of tiny muscles did the job assigned to them millions of years ago, when the danger in the world was old-fashioned and predictable. What she was looking at was nothing that could be avoided by a prickling at the back of the neck. As the lines on the phone blinked in paranoid semaphore and as a third line started to ring, she sat back. The console was turned away from me, but as I watched the blood drain from her face I had no difficulty seeing what was on the screen. She was looking at a picture of a happy, hopeful Japanese girl in a baseball cap, and under the picture were the words: MY NAME IS JUNKO FURUTA. THESE PEOPLE KILLED ME.

“Hnaaahhh,” she exhaled. She had turned to stone. I counted to twenty and signed “Darryl F. Zanuck,” and a jolt of electricity snapped her upright. Her eyebrows were disappearing into her hairline. In front of her, I knew, were the curiously indistinct features of a Mongoloid girl, delighted at being the center of all the attention involved in being photographed, and below her heartbreaking smile was a legend: MY NAME IS ANITA MORALES. THESE PEOPLE KILLED ME TOO.

She picked up the ringing phone without looking at it and hung it up again. Then she knocked it off the cradle with an abrupt gesture. She was staring at the screen as though it were a marksman's pistol aimed between her eyes. “Fucking hell ,” she said. She'd completely forgotten I was there.

“No,” she said to herself. The third picture had appeared on the screen. This, scanned from the Actors'Directory like all the others, was the image of the first little girl I'd seen in the morgue. I'M LIZABETH WORTHY, it said beneath her frail face. THEY BURNED ME BEFORE THEY KILLED ME.

“Lizabeth,” she whispered involuntarily. I folded the contracts lengthwise and then opened them again. I signed the last one “John Hancock” and put an elaborate scrabble beneath it as Mrs. Brussels sucked in her breath at the sight of Ella Moss’ face appearing on the screen. Another phone line began to shrill at her.