Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 805 & 806, September/October 2008

After Babygirl by Jean Femling

© 2008 by Jean Femling

Californian Jean Femling is the author of three mystery novels: Getting Mine and Hush Money (St. Martin’s), and Backyard (Harper & Row). Her short stories have appeared in Without a Clue, Descant, and elsewhere. She joins us this month with a high-speed, high-tension adventure on the road that has its origin in a situation many of us have witnessed.

She started it.

She made it happen.

Dillon was just sitting there in the double left-turn pocket onto Fair waiting for the signal to change when he happened to glance over at the car beside him. And there she was, staring at him. Her mouth was even open a little — when his eyes met hers she kind of flinched like she was waking up and snapped her eyes forward. Probably she couldn’t believe her luck.

She gave him a good long look at her profile, which was perfect. A little prize, she was, silky skin bare to the shoulder and then everything covered; light blond hair pulled up on top in a bunch. Her left forearm was lying on the doorframe, her window actually open. Little hands with natural pink fingernails white-tipped, none of this black garbage, and he really liked that, too. She was sort of stroking her side mirror, like it was somebody’s face.

His new music system going, the gigantic bass speakers booming almost too low to hear, you more felt them; so low they shook the ground and the car like bombs tramping. She had to feel them, too, slamming into her, invading, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t get away, she had to sit right there and take it. He stared at her but she kept turned away, she wouldn’t look back. That was calculated, too; everything to lure him.

Dillon was so turned on he only now thought to lean over and talk to her. But then the signal changed, the cars in front started to move, and she jumped forward like a scared little rabbit. The car in front of Dillon was slow and he wanted him to stomp it so he could pull even with her and get something going. She had bitchin’ wheels; a tan Mercedes 360SL — probably a high-school graduation present from her daddy. Maybe even her sixteenth birthday. Probably she was her daddy’s Babygirl, he would get her anything. She had only to ask. Not like Dillon’s beat-up Camaro; it still needed a lot of work and he was still paying on it.

How old would she be? Twenty, max, he’d bet. Dillon was old enough to get his guts shot out, if he was stupid enough to volunteer, but not to buy a beer. An hour till he had to be at work; his two junk classes for the day done. He had time.

Babygirl’s lane was moving faster than his: Dillon shoved his snout right in behind her, making the next car back hit his brakes with a screech and an angry honk. And Babygirl noticed Dillon: In her rearview mirror he saw the sudden panic flare in her eyes. Now, how to get her to stop? Too much traffic to pull alongside and try the old low rear tire bit on her. Follow her when she pulled off? She might be pretty close to home, though. He could see the top half of her face perfectly, and she wasn’t looking at him now. Worried, more. Like guilty, daydreaming about a strange guy in another car.

What was all that crap along the bottom of her rear window? Oh; little stuffed toys. A monkey, a tiger — alligator, bluebird, polar bear. Even a buffalo with horns. The car in front of Babygirl now was a dusty old chug, and that suited Dillon just fine for the moment. Heyyy... she was moving one lane left, maybe for the freeway entry lane. This was beginning to look promising.

Onto the freeway and starting to move. Now Dillon could let it out a little, let her see his style. Some way he had to get her to pull off at one of these exits. He couldn’t do anything till he got to talk to her. Through the 405 bottleneck; time enough here to give him a sign. But she got into the middle lane and built up to 75, and then just held steady. Seven or eight cars ahead of her there was a big square truck, plain white: She’d have to go around that. In the meantime Dillon tried pulling up close behind her right on her bumper and then backing off a little, rocking it up and back, up and back, as close as he dared. She’d have to get that signal. But she drove straight ahead, hunched forward over the wheel.

Harass her enough so she’d be screaming to get off the freeway. Dillon tried pulling alongside her and then swerving like he was going to jam himself in front of her; and again, again. But she held her speed, her eyes terrified. The truck ahead was opening up, they were all beginning to move. Ah; now her cell phone comes out, glued to her head. Dillon was too close for her to pick up his license number, he was positive. Only four cars ahead of her, and now three. Two.

Cell phone down. Dillon sees Babygirl looking to move over into the right lane, certainly to get off. But no, they fly right on past the off ramp, she’s not going to get off. Baby bitch. And he the dog in heat. Dillon grins: a good song title. Now she’s the last one and she pulls in snug behind the truck. Like a sheep and it’s some kind of shelter. Nutso — the truck driver has no idea she’s back there, he can’t possibly see her. And suddenly the truck isn’t moving ahead: It’s shuddering, tires screaming, that huge block of white getting bigger — Babygirl is going straight into it, everything in slo-mo, it takes forever and here goes Dillon, there’s nowhere else, he braces his arms on the wheel, her rear window a sheet of red like a shade coming down onto the toys... Too-loud glass crumbling... escalating beyond hearing—

In orbit, screaming in a long flat trajectory too fast to hear. Out of sight — Blinding — Everything black...

Cool Empty

One part screams — crushing him. Caught. Held. Sudden cold. Too many sensations.

Darker again. A little warmer. Snuffling sounds. Dillon can’t see things, only a lighter blob with red along the top — his mother, her red bangs. He recognizes her smell, flowery-sweet and Margarita.

The next time, Dillon knew something had happened but he didn’t know what. Not in his car now, the beat was sort of there but the music was gone. When he tried to turn over, he couldn’t, the fissure opened, lava spurting, and he had to stop while the fire burned out. When he could try again, he couldn’t move, he was fastened. Tied down. The one leg up in the air he couldn’t feel, but his arms were both nailed, the right arm against the bed railing. His left side was weirder, his elbow held bent over his chest. When he yelled, only a rattle came out. He could still hear, if he couldn’t see much. The parts of the room, the TV and the door, stayed put now, so he began to figure this was real.

“What happened?” he asked once and this person started talking about a serious accident, but he couldn’t get it. This green ghost, but very solid, was there again poking at him, in his ear, sticking Dillon’s wrist. He started to lay out the ghost but it was too hard, too hard, he faded.

A big fuss somewhere close. They rolled in a bed, an old man unconscious, just out of surgery, on it, but the family didn’t want him in this room. Arguing and then yelling. Then everybody was gone, no old man, the room was empty.

Somebody on each side of Dillon pushing him over, moving wires and tubes — it hurt him, he screamed, but they went on lifting him and handing stuff back and forth around him. “In that case,” one of them said, “is he under arrest, or what?”

“Don’t see any armed guard. Not that he could move if he wanted to.”

“Dillon? Come on, Bungee-Bunge, you can do it. Do it for Mommy.” Bungy, the kid nickname from that time he tried to jump off the garage holding on to some bungee cords. She was rubbing on him, his arm, he wanted her to quit but he couldn’t make the words come out, only a sound.

“Oh, thank God!” his mother said. “I came straight from the airport, can you believe it took four hours to get out of Vegas? When they finally got around to locating me. And I’ve been back up here three times already. Bungy? You’re not going to slip away again on me, are you?”

She went over to the TV, which was hung way high, and turned it on. “You will not believe the crap...” When she came back she pulled a chair close to him. “I know you’re awake, I can see it in your eyes. Well, after what you’ve been through.” She kept trying to find a patch of him to pat, but it was mostly tubes and wrappings. The announcer said something about a freeway accident and his mother sat up straight, talking louder than the announcer.

“There she goes again, raving about it all. Yes, it was a terrible accident — you hear that? Exactly what they just said: an accident. And yes, she’s lost her daughter; but she’s not the only one suffering here. Look what we almost lost. A very near thing.” She watched, glued to the TV, sucking air through her teeth. Dillon closed his eyes. He’d just figured out that the catheter was the worst, most fiendish form of the torture; and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He pretended to be asleep, hoping she would go away.

“You forget how many people there are that get off on this personal fame thing,” his mother said. “You won’t believe the kind of stories they’re out there telling about this. Must’ve been about three thousand witnesses, by the sound. Absolutely disgusting. Feeding on other people’s pain and misery.”

The announcer went on talking and his mother did, too. “Oh: And now she’s complaining because the police didn’t check you for drugs and your blood-alcohol level, for God’s sake. The woman is mad.” Dillon ignored her, looking sideways and squinting hard to focus on the picture of a pretty girl filling up the screen. For a second he got it: Babygirl. It was the first time Dillon remembered Babygirl, sitting in her car beside him at the signal, looking over. But he didn’t remember any accident. Anyway, she must be dead. Everybody said so.

The green ghosts in the squared-off caps were aides; they appeared in the dead of night or even broad daylight, handling parts of him. In the night he looked over and saw the shadow of one of them in the doorway, tilting in sideways but just still. She looked familiar. Not very big. He couldn’t quite see her face, but he didn’t need to; he knew it was Babygirl. Perfectly normal. Because if she was dead she wasn’t tied down to one place anymore, she could go anywhere.

Click: The doctor standing there again, it must be morning. He was the bastard told them to put that damn catheter in Dillon. Showing off for these other people around him — when he asked Dillon questions, Dillon just snarled and shook his bed till it jingled. The doctor got mad and planted his hand on Dillon’s shoulder. “Listen to me, young man. You’re very seriously injured, we’ve been able to perform some extremely delicate repair work, but you’re on the way to doing yourself serious harm. Now, you can either cooperate and start to mend, or we’ll have to keep you knocked out, which could greatly delay your recovery. To put it mildly.” He started to leave, and turned back. “I mean it. One wrong move, and Rip! That’s all she wrote.”

* * * *

Dillon’s buddies Jake and Chuy came to see him, Chuy hanging by the door — Dillon could see people more clearly now. They were pretty embarrassed, they didn’t know what to say. So then, Dillon was a really big deal; they couldn’t stay away. “You saw they got something going alongside the freeway?” Jake said. “Right where it happened? Flowers. Teddy bears. ’Course nobody can stop and stand there.”

“Kind of thrown over,” Chuy said. “Probably put it out at night. Real early morning.”

“Yeah?” Dillon answered, even though his face hurt to talk. “See it on TV, or in person?”

“Oh, we went on over there,” Jake said.

Dillon saw a Game Boy in Jake’s pocket, but Jake didn’t mention it, obviously because Dillon couldn’t move. Jake asked him how the food was.

“What food?” Dillon raised his arm with the IV in it.

The one thing they wanted him to talk about was the girl: They thought that aspect of it was really hot. They kept mentioning details about it to each other. A nurse stuck her head in, checked Dillon’s chart. “No unauthorized visitors. Out, out!”

As they were leaving Chuy said, “Hey, you heard about the anti-vigil they got going now? Right outside here.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Three girls all Gothed up — you know, black clothes and the black lipstick, and the eyes. Big signs: ‘Free Dillon.’ ”

“One had a skull and crossbones on it,” Chuy said.

“Send them on up,” Dillon said.

Dillon’s mother made her evening run. “Yes, I’ve been up here night and day,” she said into her cell phone; he heard her.

“I understand the mother really got cranked up today,” she said to Dillon, flipping channels to try all the different ten P.M. L.A. news. “Just can’t let it die down normally.”

They’d changed his position, and now Dillon couldn’t quite see the TV screen. But he heard it, all right. “In fact, the victim’s mother is convinced that Dillon Karchner’s actions were deliberate, and she’s lined up several motorists she claims will give sworn statements to that effect.”

“This man is guilty of the murders of my daughter and my grandchild,” a woman’s voice said. “I demand he be arrested and tried for committing a double homicide.”

When the news changed, Dillon saw his mother standing in the center of the floor as if waiting.

“There was a kid in the car?” he said.

“She was eight months pregnant,” his mother said. She rushed over to the bed and clutched Dillon’s free wrist. “Don’t you worry about it; don’t even think about it. Just a real unlucky day all around. Certainly it was a tragedy, and yes, the woman lost her daughter. And I very nearly lost you. But if she doesn’t quit spouting off, I’m going to sue her ass for libel.”

Dillon felt his anger rise. It didn’t have to be like this. “What really happened,” he said, moving his bruised and swollen mouth carefully, “she — came on to me.”

“What?” His mother was electrified, but trying to look calm.

“She did it all. Licking her lips. She’d like, laugh, and hang herself out the window. Showing off the goodies. Asking for it. She was hot.”

“You’re kidding!” His mother’s smile is pinched in a little now.

“I wish I could remember the rest of it,” Dillon said. “Any of the accident.”

“No, you don’t,” his mother said. “Everybody here knows not to talk about it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because we want you to get well, as fast as possible. Put it all behind you. Forget about it.”

Dillon breathed till he calmed down some. “Now, you tell me what happened,” he said.

She did the thirty-second job he expected. One of those nasty rear-enders, she said: truck driver’s doing. No way Dillon could’ve foreseen it. She kissed the side of his head goodnight and went away.

When he was alone and it got quiet, Dillon pulled up his mental pictures of Babygirl again. He tried to bring back all the pieces, every moment just as it had happened. The row of stuffed toys along the rear window for Daddy’s Babygirl. Peeking at him in her mirror, begging and teasing. It was a terrible night, Dillon’s breathing was labored and wheezy — he decided he’d ask his favorite spook to help him if she showed up. But she never appeared.

In the almost-dark a thing hit Dillon’s harness softly and fell on his naked chest, where it lay, itchy, the rest of the night. It had hard points that scratched his chest, especially when he started to sweat, but he couldn’t manage to joggle it off, or reach it to move it away. And it smelled bad, too, sort of rotten.

He was having trouble breathing now, too, his face swollen and his chest, it was puffed out against his belly. He dragged the air in and out through his mouth and heard himself, noisy as an old dog. He was going to suffocate.

“Babygirl?” he called softly. “Hey! How about some help here?” But nothing happened. And then after a while, when he looked up again, she was there, a little too far toward the head of the bed for him to see her well. She just stood there looking down on him for a minute. Babygirl, sure enough, but older, tired-faced, with hollows and dark around the eyes, and he knew she was not going to do him any good.

Next morning when the nurse came in she picked up the scratchy thing and then showed it to him. It was a little stuffed polar bear, its plushy feet and lower half blackened and stiff, and Dillon knew exactly where it came from: He remembered it perfectly, sitting in Babygirl’s rear window between the bluebird and the buffalo.

“Pretty sick joke your buddies played on you, huh,” the nurse said. “Now you see why we have to have these restrictions.”

And something more. When she looked at Dillon’s IV, her face turned grim. “What’s with this?” she muttered. She felt his face and his feet and legs, and did something to the IV rig. He heard her arguing with someone in the hall, and she came back several times to check him. Already Dillon felt his breathing eased. Now he was sure of his green ghost’s intention toward him. He would have to be on guard.

Next night, Dillon accepted sleep early, to be ready for Babygirl’s visit. In the quiet dark he woke and tried to keep watching for the familiar shadow in the doorway. A square of light appeared in the wall directly opposite and Dillon shifted, confused. It was about two feet across, looking out on a grassy hillside where Babygirl was playing, barefoot. She’s little, maybe kindergarten size, but he knows her instantly. She’s smiling at him, coming toward him step... step... step, pretending to creep up on him, with both hands out in front as if she’s offering him something, only her hands are empty. And she’s smiling.

Now she’s older, maybe middle-school size, bigger and always closer. And the smile. Blond hair totally straight and hanging. She holds it up on one side like a curtain to show him her gold hoop earring.

Now the square is spreading, Babygirl’s so close and coming straight at him, but barely smiling — she’s got something in mind. Dillon tries to back away, he doesn’t want her to touch him, It’s poison, It’ll burn, and she’s whispering, “Dillon? Dillon?” The damn harness holds him locked tight. He strains against it — And she’s gone; no Babygirl. Only the car window with all the grubby little animals stuck in red-black tar. And the whisper: “Dillon? Dillon?” Moving rightward along the window, a big face, Babygirl’s face smeared with blood. Her eyes are closed and she’s smiling, she keeps whispering, “Dillon? Dillon?” even though her mouth is closed. Dillon jerks away, lunging backward, and splits it open, rips it all out, lets loose the torrent of lava—

The alarm sounds in the nurse’s station, she’s there in two minutes: It’s Code Blue. What a bloody mess. The tired old baby-face in the borrowed green scrubs doesn’t see any of it. Bone-tired, carrying the black plastic projector, already around the corner of the corridor and into the elevator, descending with her eyes closed. Praying for the dead and the living.