Allan Leverone: Mr. Midnight

“That’s a shame,” Kevin answered, “because you’d be really good at it. Anyway, I’ll admit it, I was beyond hungry. But I’m still not backing off my testimony. Everything was delicious. I’m stuffed.” He patted his belly and grinned.

“If you unbuckle your belt and unsnap the top button of your jeans, you’re out of here. And you better have saved a little room for dessert and coffee.”

“Note to self,” Kevin replied. “No belt unbuckling. At least not until later.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and Cait laughed. “And as far as dessert is concerned, I’ve never passed it up yet, and I’m not about to start now. What’s on the menu?”

“Nothing. At least, for now.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I’m withholding dessert—it’s your favorite, by the way, homemade strawberry shortcake—until I get what I want.”

“Ooh, kinky,” Kevin said, nodding in appreciation. “If it involves a seductive striptease and grapes being hand-fed to me by a certain sexy young woman, count me in.”

“You wish. It involves you letting me in on this big surprise you claimed to have in store for me. No dessert, of the food or sexual kind, until you spill the beans.”

“Wow, that’s cold. Lawyering’s changing you, sweetheart.” Kevin’s eyes narrowed and Cait smacked him on the arm with a laugh.

“Come on,” she said. “Give it up.”

“All right, all right, I can’t take any more. You’ve worn me down.”

“Was there ever any doubt I would?”

“Good point. Okay, you know how you always say you’d like to learn more about your past—the identity of your birth parents, where they live, why they gave you up for adoption, all of that?”

“Sure. I just don’t know where to begin. I have no idea where I was born, no idea what my parents’ names might be, no clue what agency may have handled the adoption. There’s nothing to go on.”

“Exactly,” Kevin said. “There’s nothing for you to go on. But a professional could probably handle the job.”

“Maybe,” Cait answered. “But I don’t have the money to hire a professional, you know that.”

“You don’t have to hire a professional.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I already did.”

“Uh, Kevin, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“You don’t have the money for that, either.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. It just so happens I’ve been saving up for a while, waiting to surprise you. I have enough cash put aside to at least get started, so I went out yesterday and hired an investigator.”

Cait paused at the kitchen sink where she had been rinsing dishes. She stared at Kevin, saying nothing.

“Well?” he prompted.

“Well, what?”

“Are you surprised?”

“Surprised would be an understatement.”

Kevin frowned. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be excited.”

Cait rinsed her hands under the warm water and dried them on a towel. “It’s not that I’m not happy, I am. I guess I just never really thought I would have the opportunity to discover my heritage. It’s going to take a little while to get used to the idea that I might be able to learn something after all these years.”

“Well,” Kevin said, “the guy has a great reputation and all of his references check out. But he told me not to get my hopes up, that it’s a long shot at best. He may not be able to find out anything.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cait said, hanging the dishtowel on a rack. She walked across the kitchen and sat in Kevin’s lap.

“It doesn’t?”

“No. What matters is that you cared enough to do such a thoughtful thing for me. That was really, really sweet. It’s just one more reason why I love you.” She put her arms around his neck and nibbled his ear. “Now, about that dessert. Still hungry?”

“I’m suddenly ravenous.”

The strawberry shortcake went uneaten.

Thirty years ago

Everett, Massachusetts

Virginia moaned and thrashed as another contraction struck and Robert’s panic bubbled closer to the surface. He decided he could no longer stand the agony of inaction. He had to do something. He just had to. He mopped his wife’s forehead with the cool cloth—Christ, she was sweating so much!—and caressed her cheek. Her eyes remained closed.

“That’s it,” he announced. “I’ve had it. This insanity has to end.”

“Dr. Jones” gave no response. It was as if he hadn’t even heard Robert speak. He seemed preoccupied and Robert wondered if perhaps he was high on some medication. “She’s going to the hospital,” Robert continued. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

He strode across the room.

Made it to the open door.

And Virginia screamed, her voice jagged and high-pitched, intense now with anger, not pain. “NO! You will not call an ambulance! I’m having this baby right here. You agreed to this and you will NOT BACK OUT NOW!”

Robert stopped in his tracks, confused, the certainty of a moment ago gone. At the foot of the bed, he thought he saw a smile flit across “Dr. Jones’s” face and disappear.

Then Virginia screamed again as another contraction struck. She sounded like she was being beaten with a baseball bat. The contractions were coming more rapidly now and increasing in intensity.

Robert rushed back to her bedside. He realized it was probably too late for an ambulance now, anyway. Something was going to happen soon, he could feel it. The baby was going to be born in the next few minutes or…well…Robert refused to consider the alternative.

Again Virginia screamed, her voice like a buzz saw ripping through a stubborn plank. She was panting and sweating, screaming constantly now, thrashing on her blood- and sweat-soaked bed. The unlicensed doctor bent down over Virginia, somehow deciding now was the time to act. “You need to push,” he announced softly.

“I can’t,” she screamed.

“PUSH,” Dr. Jones said again, more forcefully this time, grabbing her by the shoulders, and she pushed. She screamed and cried and sweated and swore, but she pushed, and then pushed again, continued pushing when she swore she could not, and then it was over and Virginia Ayers had given birth to a baby girl.

And then to a baby boy.

Milo Cain wandered down Washington Street toward Roxbury, moving slowly, randomly. The night was still young, so he was forced to share the sidewalk with plenty of other people. Few took direct notice of him, but, as always, the majority of pedestrians gave him a wide berth, somehow unconsciously sensing menace. Mothers tightened their grips on their children, adults averted their eyes at his approach.

His face was nearly invisible, sunken deep inside the shadows of a hooded grey New England Patriots sweatshirt. Baggy jeans, desperately in need of a washing they would not receive, threatened to slip down his narrow hips, somehow defying the laws of gravity and staying up. Tattered Chuck Taylors flopped on his feet.

A group of three young black males approached, flat-brimmed baseball caps askew, sauntering shoulder-to-shoulder, forcing Milo off the sidewalk and into the gutter. One of them shot him a glance, silent and resentful. They passed and Milo waited for a sign and received nothing, so he continued on.

A small hole-in-the-wall tavern appeared on the right, flickering neon Coors sign illuminating a plate-glass window that probably hadn’t been cleaned since the Bush administration. The first one. Inside the bar, a tired-looking middle-aged waitress schlepped glasses of beer clustered atop a small round tray. As Milo watched, a heavyset drunk lost his footing and stumbled into the waitress, sloshing beer over the sides of the glasses and off the edge of the tray in a golden mini-tsunami. No one paid any attention and the waitress soldiered on.