BABY FOR A PRICE: Marino Crime Family Read online

  But that’s not Hound, not something tough guy, brutal Hound would do. So instead I start the car and drive toward my apartment, where a shower is waiting, where dreams of Daisy are waiting.

  Chapter Seven

  Daisy

  After four hours at the café, it’s time for more fun at The Lady Shack. I’m a little anxious about Dad, too, seeing as I tried to call him this morning and there was no answer. But knowing him he’s probably huddled over some green-felt table somewhere gambling away money he doesn’t have and causing us more problems. Working at the café was easy because nobody really talks to me there. It’s one of those industrial places where thousands of people work and making friends is made impossible by the ever-shifting schedule. But when I get into the Shack’s changing room and see Sarah and Jessica, somehow always able to find the time to huddle together and laugh meanly about everybody else, I know it won’t be as easy. Their eyes, all four of them, move to the rings on my finger like flies hovering over…well, hovering over the words that are about to start pouring out of Sarah’s mouth.

  “What is this?” Sarah abandons her ignored sandwich and leaps over to me, staring goggle-eyed at the rings. “What’s happened? Did you treat yourself to a little imaginary wedding last night?”

  “I’m twenty-seven years old,” I say as I begin getting changed, “and you must be around the same, right? So why don’t we drop the whole high school routine and just get on with our lives?”

  Sarah lets these words wash over her like so much air. When she next speaks, I realize I might as well have said nothing. “So, who is the unlucky gremlin, then?” Behind her, Jessica giggles harshly.

  “I think you ought to buy one of those papooses parents carry babies in,” I say. “That way, Jessica can sit on your back and the two of you can walk around laughing at every little thing you see.”

  “I know what happened!” Sarah cries, clapping her hands together. I’m in my underwear now, about to put on my Shack uniform. I think it’s the only time I’ve ever been desperate to get out there and wait tables. “You found some poor icky hobo and dragged him back to your place and bounced on his pogo and then the two of you broke into a supermarket and stole some cheap flimsy trash. Am I close?”

  Close to having your teeth smashed in, I think, but I don’t say it. What Sarah’s doing would be considered “light-hearted banter” by management. If I said that, it’d be considered a threat. Plus, I’m fairly certain Sarah gave Steve a blowjob at the last Christmas party, and I’m one-hundred percent certain I didn’t, which doesn’t exactly go in my favor where leeway and threats are concerned. Finally, I’m dressed. I close my locker, turn the key, and shoulder past Sarah, who’s tittering at something I didn’t hear. Her final stab comes just as I leave the changing room: “I hope he didn’t taste too homelessey!”

  If I thought safety could be found out here, however, I’m proved wrong straightaway. Marsha’s face is a picture of panic, her eyes wide, her hands scratching at her tights. As soon as I emerge she darts at me, throwing one hand to my shoulder and the other across the tables. “Look at this! Mayhem! I’m going to need you in groups F, D, and E, okay?”

  I see what she means: lunchtime, the place jam-packed full of businessmen types, with the added stress of two separate group of frat boys and what appears to be a stag party, twenty loutish men chanting at the corner table.

  “Okay,” I mutter. “Let’s get to it.”

  It’s just as horrible as it looks, six hours of being grabbed at, cheered at, talked up, leered at, and dribbled over. The men turn into animals after a few lunchtime beers and start looking at me like I’m not a woman at all—albeit a woman in breast-crushing clothes—but a piece of meat on a conveyer hook going past them every few minutes. When I approach them, they’ll nudge each other, egging each other on, and once or twice one of them manages to wrap his hand around my thigh. Unfortunately, this is pretty normal in places like this; all throughout the day, I see the same thing happening to some of the other girls. I almost snap at one man, who wears big horn-rimmed glasses and is old enough to be my father. He thinks it’s funny to pretend to unzip his pants every time I approach, and I begin to think it would be funny to let him finish only jam his cock in the zipper when he’s done. After about an hour, I stop being present in the room. I drift off and let my mind wander, let it romp in places where these perv men and their perv hands don’t exist. Finally, feet aching, head aching, chest aching with the effort of restraining my anger, it’s time to go.

  “You did great today,” Marsha says, her eyes all puffy from where one customer made her cry.

  I spot Steve in the back, near the kitchen, laughing loudly at something Sarah said.

  “Thanks.”

  I’ve never been so glad to ride the bus, sitting on the plastic seat and staring out the window at the sweltering city. I don’t even care that it’s boiling and sweat slides down my forehead constantly. Anything to be out of that hellhole. And tomorrow is Saturday, which I have off; I work Sundays, but Saturday! Saturday! Maybe I won’t even get up at all, just stay in bed, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the freedom of not having to look sexy. Looking sexy can get damn tiring.

  As I get closer to my apartment building, I know that tonight isn’t going to be a time to stumble into my apartment and relax. First I know this because there is a vague, massive shape leaning against the wall, and then because the vague, massive shape grows features: locks of jet-black hair and ice-blue eyes and a crimson faded shirt and grey sweatpants, sturdy brown workman’s boots. Something happens to my legs when I see him, something I think says a lot about how I feel about this arrangement. They stop, wanting to both run toward him and run away from him. Both urges hit me, with equal strength. I could turn and run back down the street, or I could run into his arms. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have to think about Dad’s debts, but as it is, the choice is made for me. I walk toward him.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” he says, smiling.

  “Hi.” I offer him a small wave, even though we’re only feet apart now.

  “You sound glum.”

  “Glum,” I echo. “I guess that’s one word for it.”

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “I work at a place called The Lady Shack,” I respond. “What do you think happened? Assholes did what they do best. They behaved like assholes.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I?”

  I shake my head, but a smile touches my lips. “Can I help you?”

  Hound reaches across—I feel like I’m a toy-sized miniature and a giant is reaching down to me—and touches my ring finger with surprisingly lightness. “Is that any way to talk to your husband, Daisy?”

  “I don’t know, Hound. I’ve never had a husband before, Hound.”

  My voice is tired and snarky but I can’t really help it. When you spend all day most every day being fake nice, when you get a chance to be real snarky, it’s hard to resist.

  “Anyway,” I go on, “I’m pretty sure you told me not be fake around you. You said you could pay for that. So surely that means I can talk to you any way I damn well please?”

  He holds his hands up, chuckling. “You’ve got me there. But please, please, calm down, you’re starting to make me afraid.” He pretends to shiver, rubbing his arms. “So afraid. Please stop. You’re so scary when you get angry. You make me want to cry.”

  Without thinking, I reach across and jab him in the arm. “Quit it,” I snap.

  “You’re stronger than you look,” Hound says, backing away.

  “Did you come here just to piss me off, or is there a specific reason?”

  “There’s a reason. A house tour. A nice place outside of town. I hope you haven’t got plans tomorrow. Aren’t you going to invite me upstairs for a drink?”

  As he speaks, he edges close to the doorway. I tell myself I have no choice but to let him upstairs with me, even though part of me is glad he’s here and I’m goin
g to have company for the evening, even though part of me likes the way his chest muscles brush against my shoulder. In my apartment, Hound walks around for a while, inspecting everything, not that there’s much to inspect: a one-bedroom place with a glass coffee table, an old TV, a few books dotted here and there, and some DVDs of reality shows I bought a few years back, clothes strewn over the floor from where I come in after work and just shed everything, as though shedding the clothes means I can shed the day.

  “I only have wine,” I tell him, “or whisky. I don’t have soda or anything to go with the whisky.”

  “Just a whisky, then,” Hound says, dropping onto the couch. When he sits, the seat makes a squeaking noise and the cushions visibly sag.

  I fix the drinks and join him on the couch.

  “I live in a place like this,” he says, sipping his drink. Most men make some kind of face when they sip whisky, even if they don’t mean to; the harshness of the drink is too much for them. I watch Hound for this, but he just sips it likes its water. Maybe that shouldn’t excite me, maybe it’s just a small thing, but it does, and I don’t know how to feel about that. “Most places are like this in the city. But I want something else: something big where you can walk from one side to the other in less than a couple of seconds.”

  “I imagine apartments can be stifling to a man like you,” I say. “I mean—a man as big as you.”

  As big as you, as big as you inside of me, in the alleyway, driving into me…crushing me. I repress a shudder of pleasure.

  “Yeah,” Hound says. “Damn crushing, but it’s not just the size. It’s other things, too.”

  “Like what?” I say. I take too-big gulps of my wine, but the day has been long and the feeling of wine in my belly makes it seem very far in the past.

  “Just—stuff.” Hound pauses, and then says, “What about you? Have you ever dreamed about getting out, or getting away?”

  I think about that for a second, think about how laughably on-point it is. Have I ever dreamed about getting away? It seems half my laugh has been spent dreaming about getting away. Even now, here, with him, I am wondering whether or not it would be better to get away from this man. I shouldn’t be sitting talking with a man who might one day be smashing my dad’s face in. “When I was a girl all I wanted to do was get away,” I say. Maybe I’m tipsy already. My words spill out without needing much encouragement from me. “After my mom died, I dreamed about it all the time, but then I had responsibilities, you know, and then—” I cut myself off, realizing that pouring my heart out is something I might regret in the morning. “Anyway, is that why you came here, to depress me?”

  “The house outside of town looks like a place a husband and wife could settle down. That’s why I’m here.” I know he’s not serious by the ironic way he speaks, his lips twisted in a sardonic smile, his eyes moving over my body. Usually I would be in pajamas by now, but I haven’t had a chance to change. I’m still in my Shack clothes. I’m aware of my legs, shiny with sweat, and my breasts pushing against the fabric, stretching the Shack out so it’s unreadable. “A nice old place where a man could commute into the city and work a nine-to-five and the little lady at home could clean the bathroom and make herself some tea and practice yoga.”

  I giggle, and he laughs along with me. Then he inches closer to me on the couch and the laughter dies. Memories of the alleyway return to me, deep, penetrating memories, memories that exist just as much in my pussy and my belly as in my mind. I remember the feeling of the concrete against my fingertips and the smell of the alleyway, all of it overshadowed by Hound’s manly smell and the hardness of him thrusting inside of me. I realize I’m biting my lip as I look up at him, realize that he’s leaning over me, and getting closer.

  When he presses his lips against mine, the first sensation is shock: shock that this man, who so savagely threw me up against the wall, is kissing me. Hard, too, his teeth clicking against mine, our tongues intertwining immediately. For the first few moments of it, I don’t question anything. I just ride the pleasure, and then I think: I’m alone in my apartment with a debt collector. Something about that gives me pause, and Hound can tell. We stop kissing for a moment. His hand was on my thigh, near my pussy, sending tendrils of pleasure into my body. Now he slides it back down, closer to me knee. His lips still inches from my face, he says, “Something wrong?”

  “I’m tired,” I admit. And scared, I don’t say. Scared because we’re all alone and we’re kissing and somehow that makes it more intimate. Scared because I’m not sure I understand myself anymore.

  Hound leans back, nodding. “Okay, then, wife. But don’t expect me to leave. We’ve got plans tomorrow. I’ll take the couch.”

  We finish our drinks almost in silence, and then I get up and go into the bedroom, collecting some sheets and blankets and pillows for Hound.

  When I’m in my bedroom, door closed, and he’s out there, I press my ear against the door and wonder why I didn’t just go with it. Sexually frustrated and a little drunk, I collapse into bed and let myself sink into oblivion.

  Chapter Eight

  Daisy

  Sitting in the passenger seat of Hound’s jeep, watching as city turns to highway and highway to the middle of nowhere, I wonder if this drive is ever going to end. I was watching the rear-view mirror for a while, as the city I’ve lived in my whole life became smaller and smaller until it was a pinprick and then nothing at all. Then I leaned back and closed my eyes and slept for a while. Now, staring down at my fidgeting feet, I wonder if I’ve gotten myself into an incredibly stupid situation.

  “You know,” I say, as we turn yet another corner onto yet another nowhere road, “this is the sort of thing you watch in crime documentaries, isn’t it? You always hear about this sort of thing. A woman meets a man and she agrees to go on a date, or a trip, or whatever with him, and then…Kayleigh never knew what was waiting for her at the end of the road!” I speak in the over-the-top announcer’s voice many of those documentaries have. “So I just want to warn you, if you are planning anything like that, I’m ready for it. I’ve taken secret ninja training and I know how to handle myself.” I’m talking quickly, hoping for him to respond with something lighthearted, hoping that this is really a joke and he isn’t just some psychopath.

  He doesn’t reply with something lighthearted, but it calms me down anyway: “I would die before I hurt you, Daisy. And that’s the truth.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  “Anyway,” Hound says. “It’s only been two and half hours.”

  “Only!” I exclaim. “This is more like the boondocks than the suburbs.”

  “Well—maybe.” He nods. “Yeah, maybe it is. But sometimes you just want to get the hell out of the city, don’t you?”

  “Do you? I’ve never really considered it.”

  “I do, all the time. The city is close and claustrophobic and there’re people everywhere, and sometimes all I can think about is walking out into the woods and being on my own, away from everything, away from…”

  He stops, laughing away his words, but I get the unmistakable sense he was about to say myself. He wants to leave the life, I guess, the collecting, violent life. He doesn’t want to be the thug anymore.

  Hound takes another turn and I’m met with a large, what must be a three- or four-bedroom detached house sitting on a street of similar houses: mown lawns and big cars and a few kids’ toys in the gardens spilling into the sidewalk. Outside one of the houses, a man is hosing down his car. Outside the one Hound parks in front of, a woman with bright red hair wearing a tight-fitting blue blouse and six-inch heels paces up and down. When she sees us climb from the car, her face goes from impatient to carefully composed. She waves and cries out, “Halloo! Halloo!”

  “Halloo?” I whisper to Hound. “Since when did people say halloo?”

  Hound laughs. It feels good to make him laugh.

  The realtor’s name is Michaela Smithson. When I try and guess her age, I realize she could be anywhere between t
wenty and mid-forties. She has a face not unlike Sarah’s at the Shack, all fake and makeup and Botox, wearing fake eyelashes like I have to at work, which I absolutely hate. She’s a complete contrast to me, in my jeans and hoodie—when I’m not at work I can’t wait to throw on casual clothes, especially flat sneakers—and she looks me up and down as though wondering why I’m not squeezed into a chest-crushing outfit like she is. But when Hound introduces me as his wife, she claps her hands together and cries, “That’s about the best thing I’ve ever heard in all my life! Yippee!”

  I look at Hound and Hound looks back at me, as Michaela turns on her heels and clicks up the pathway to the front door, and we have one of those rare moments I’ve only ever read about. We have an entire conversation in less than a second, without having to use any words. In that brief look, we both know that this woman is silly, and we both know that this is going to be fun, and we both agree not to say anything mean to her; she’s harmless enough, just doing her job. I’m kind of shocked by how much we say just with our eyes and smiles.