Midnight Baby

CHAPTER 2

The boy was a foul-mouthed, evil-smelling little wretch. Pisces said he was nine, she called him Sly. He looked old, not like a wizened old man, more like a small animal. Something feral.

Pisces handed him the bags of leftover sandwiches. He ate quickly, standing hunched over the food protectively while he tucked it in. I was trying to visualize a few frames of his dirty freckled face edited among some spick-and-span Little Leaguers I had in my film files when he looked up and caught me staring.

“What the fuck you watching?” he demanded through a mouthful, spewing crumbs. “Get outta my face.”

Pisces snapped, “Shut your mouth when you chew.”

“Fuck that. Fuck them,” he sneered. “What they hangin’ here for?”

“They’re all right,” Pisces assured him. “They have a place for us to sleep tonight.”

“We already have a place,” Sly snapped.

“I want a shower,” she said. “And you need one.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

Guido put a hand between them before they came to blows. “You two related?”

“Related to this whore?” Sly sneered. “Fuck that.”

“Wipe your face,” Pisces admonished the boy. “You eat like a pig.”

Sly obeyed her by wiping his face. I was having some difficulty sorting out this relationship. In the restaurant Pisces had said there was someone she looked after. After meeting the boy, I had to wonder who actually looked after whom. She seemed to be trying to mother him, but on matters of street survival, I suspected that he was the pro. He had doubtless scripted her hooker routine. All by herself, the little girl I’d had dinner with would not have been able to come up with the line of garbage she had fed me.

“So?” Guido said, gathering up the boy’s sandwich litter from the sidewalk. “Are you coming, or what?”

Sly eyed him. “You cops?”

“Nope.”

“If we go to this place, what do we hafts do there?”

“Take a shower if you want,” I said. “Eat. Go to sleep. That’s all.”

“Eat?”

“If you’re still hungry,” I said.

“Sly’s always hungry,” Pisces said. “Must have worms.”

“What’ll it be?” I asked.

“Clean sheets,” she said.

Sly reached for Pisces’ arm. “Okay. Just for tonight. But we gotta get our stuff first.”

Pisces let out a long breath. I thought she seemed relieved. “Where’s your stuff?” Guido asked.

“On the other side of the park,” she said. “We’ll show you.”

“Fuck that.” Sly pushed her away from Guido. “Don’t show them nothin’. I’ll go get the stuff by myself. Meet me at the liquor store.”

Sly gave us no time to argue. He ran off toward the park like a rabbit let out of a bag. As soon as he was across the street he somehow merged with the night and disappeared. A good trick, considering how much light there was.

“Sweet child,” Guido said.

“He used to be worse.” Pisces shrugged. “Where’s your car? It’s better to drive around the park than walk across it. Too many bizarros hang out in there. The liquor store is on the other side. I’ll show you.”

Sly surprised me. I have been single long enough to have recognized the I’ll-call-you-tomorrow tone in his voice before he took off. Apparently, however, I had misread him. We found him waiting for us exactly where he’d said he would be. That meant that, A, he was fast, and B, the place where he kept his stuff was close by.

When Sly climbed into the backseat of Guido’s Jeep beside Pisces, he was clutching a brown grocery bag against him that contained something about the same size and shape as a leg of lamb. Since it didn’t smell or leak, I didn’t ask.

Sly and Pisces sat quietly in the back. She seemed apprehensive, while he appeared to be somewhat awed. He tried out the windows and fiddled with the seat belts and dome lights.

“You got a CD player?” Sly asked.

“No. Sorry,” Guido said.

“Yeah.” Sly nodded sagely. “It just gets ripped off, don’t it?”

I began to have second thoughts about what I might be delivering to Sister Agnes Peter. Troubled kids, certainly. A nightmare, possibly. From his fidgety silence, I suspected that Guido was having similar misgivings, though he didn’t say anything. Despite the potential for disaster, I could not come up with another alternative.

What I’d told Pisces was true. Taking people in was part of Agnes Peter’s job description. She had doubtless dealt with tougher cases than these scrawny kids. I just hated being the bearer of grief. But in the end, I knew that if Agnes Peter couldn’t handle them, she would know who could.

Sister Agnes Peter lived with about a dozen other nuns in a large bungalow on Griffin Avenue in Lincoln Heights. The house belonged to the church. It wasn’t a convent and none of its residents could be bothered wearing a traditional habit. Most of them taught at Sacred Heart High School in the next block. The rest of them were doers of the good work, like Agnes Peter, whose vows of poverty made them wards of the church.

All things considered, the bungalow was a good place to seek sanctuary. The resident virgins wouldn’t take shit off anybody. Even the local gangs paid their respect: the walls of the house were the only flat surfaces for miles that weren’t tagged and scarred with gang graffiti.

Agnes Peter was watching for us from the broad front porch, huddled in a wicker rocker under a crocheted afghan. She rose as we got out of the Jeep and came down the front steps to greet us, striding with the athletic assertiveness of a drill sergeant. I could not judge her age, fifty-something judging from the context of various conversations we’d had. There seemed to be a little more gray in her short brown hair than the last time I had seen her, though it could have been a trick of the silver moonlight.

“Maggie MacGowen!” Agnes Peter beamed, crushing me in a bear hug. She always smelled of Zest soap. “Good to see you.”

“How have you been, Pete?”

“Flourishing. Just flourishing.” She stepped back and surveyed the others. “So, you’ve brought me some company?”

“You remember Guido Patrini?” I asked.

She offered her hand. “Nice to see you again, Guido.”

“How are you, Sister?” he said, lowering his eyes, nervous as if she had caught him chewing gum in church.

“Pete,” I said, “I want you to meet Sly and Pisces.”

“Pisces, hmm?” Agnes Peter smiled, focusing on the girl. “Astrological sign of the fish. Your birthday’s in the spring, then?”

Pisces shrugged.

“It’s freezing out here. Come inside.” Agnes Peter took both kids in hand and moved with them toward the house. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” said Pisces.

“No,” said Sly.

“You have too,” Pisces scolded.

“Have not.”

“Perhaps not enough,” Agnes Peters said. “I think we can find something to tide you over until breakfast, Sly.”

Guido and I, ignored by the others, trailed up the steps and into the house.

I was greeted by warm house smells, of dinner, furniture polish, and fresh flowers. The furnishings were old and the rugs were a bit threadbare. Just the same, there was a gracious air about the old place, a sort of well-tended, if impoverished, gentility. A house full of women.

The old floorboards complained as we walked across the large foyer. But no one seemed to notice us. This house was filled with activity, and newcomers in the night weren’t cause for special notice. The chorus of conversation rose and fell as we passed each open doorway: women in the living room talking back to Arsenio on TV, others around the polished dining-room table grading papers, sharing a liter of diet Coke and a bag of Oreos.

Gripping his bag of “stuff,” Sly clung close to Agnes Peter as we made our way toward the back of the house. Pisces seemed more at ease, openly curious about the place. Without seeming forward, she stopped as she passed a nearly antique baby grand piano and picked out the first few bars of “Fur Elise” with her right hand. Casey had been struggling mightily with the same piece for weeks.

Pisces caught up to Agnes Peter. “The G is flat.”

“I thought so, too,” Agnes Peter chuckled. “So, Pisces, Sly, how did you two meet?”

“He was in trouble,” the girl said with a smug grin on her face.

“Was not.” He gave her a token shove. “She was the one in trouble. Any asshole knows you get busted panhandling inside the market.”

“Shoplifting is any better?” She returned the shove. “And who got busted?”

“Both of us.” Sly finally smiled, an economic little crook at the corner of his mouth. “And we both got away, didn’t we?”

“I’m glad you’re here. Both of you,” Pete said. She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Maggie, will you be staying the night?”

“No. I’m at Guido’s for a couple of days.”

Guido gave me a sharp jab in the back and a mortified glare. Like me, he had been raised a good Catholic.

“Calm down,” I said. “Pete knows we’re just friends. Friends can stay under the same roof and not go to hell for it.”

Agnes Peter laughed. “I saw Mike Flint last week, Maggie. He looks fine. Does he know you’re in town?”

“I haven’t had a chance to call him,” I said.

“Uh huh,” she said. “There’s a phone in the kitchen. Mike’s number is in the directory under F. You know, F as in ‘friend.’ “

In the kitchen we interrupted two women who were seated at the enormous kitchen table poring over a ledger and a stack of bills. They looked up and smiled as we came in.

“Mary Grace, Mary Catherine, we have some hungry guests,” Agnes Peter said. “Would you please see if we have anything in the refrigerator that might interest Miss Pisces and Master Sly? I want to see Maggie and Guido out.”

Sly snapped his face up at me. “You leavin’ us?”

“It’s late, kiddo,” I said. Sly had big, moist brown eyes that reminded me of a sickly puppy I had found dodging traffic on the Embarcadero a few years back. He had been a panic-stricken mess. Like any good citizen, I had taken him to the animal shelter. When I left him, his pathetic cries had followed me all the way out to the parking lot. He now weighs about fifty pounds and sleeps on the antique brocade sofa my grandmother bequeathed me. He still has big, moist brown eyes, and he still cries every time I leave the house.

Pisces clutched the back of a chair, her eyes wide and steely. “Are you coming back?”

“You’re in good hands here,” I said, wishing I didn’t feel so rotten about going away. “Just behave yourselves. If you need anything, tell Agnes Peter.”

I watched Pisces swallow back panic. My impulse was to be a hero some more, promise her something. I just had no clue what that something might be. We had already done the Prince Charming thing and rescued her from the woods. Now what? I had no castle to offer her. Nor any happily ever after. Whether we left sooner or later, the pain for all of us would be the same. So I did what I hoped was the sensible thing. I followed Agnes Peter’s lead and walked out.

When we were again out of earshot of the kitchen, Agnes Peter turned to me. “What do you know about them?”

“Very little,” I said. “They seem to have been working the streets around MacArthur Park. She’s a nice kid. But Sly? You should lock up the silver tonight.”

Pete smiled. “He’ll be fine. Did they say anything about family?”

“Nothing specific,” I said. “Certainly nothing I could repeat without going to confession after. They both were very clear that they did not want to answer questions. I only got them here by promising that there would be none.”

“You know I can only keep them here for so long, Maggie. I prefer to begin by making some contact with their families, determining whether that situation is redeemable before we call Child Protective Services. The kids will have to give me some background.”

“Good luck,” Guido said. “They won’t talk.”

“Don’ worry, mein Herr.” Agnes Peter narrowed her eyes. “Ve haf our vat’s.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Pete.” Fighting back tears, I handed her all of my cash, maybe eighty dollars. “Anything you need…”

“We’ll be fine, Maggie.” She wrapped a reassuring arm around me. “You’ve done all that you reasonably can. Sly and Pisces have troublesome problems. Their own problems. Remember that, Maggie, and don’t feel guilty about leaving. Your hands are full taking care of Casey. And Guido here. Don’t beat yourself up about what you can’t do.”

“I’ll call,” I said.

She shrugged. “That’s up to you.”

“I’ll call.”

I felt miserable all the way to Guido’s house. I think he did, too. He was very quiet, for which I was grateful. He took the long way home, driving through the hills of Elysian Park instead of going straight to the Hollywood Freeway.

The park road offers one of the best views of the city. As the night was exceptionally clear, the city below shimmered like a movie version of fairyland. It was spectacular. I wondered what had happened to Cinderella after she moved out of her stepmother’s small house and into Prince Charming’s big one.

When we were blasting north on the freeway, I turned to Guido. “Who said they lived happily ever after?”

“Who?”

“Cinderella and Prince Charming.”

“The word probably came down from his public relations people. Why? What’s on your mind?”

“I’m not sure.”

He rolled his eyes. “Please, God. Give me strength.” “For what?”

“I know the signals. You’re cooking something, Maggie. I’m afraid to find out what it will be this time.”

“Right,” I said. I was in the strangest mood, very antsy, and I couldn’t figure out exactly why. I slumped back against the seat to watch the lights go by, trying to clear the clutter from my mind.

Guido lives in an inherited cottage that overlooks one of the canyons behind the Hollywood Bowl. The house is small but comfortable, an unpretentious ornament set on a million-dollar lot. When we turned up his street, we were less than two miles from the peak insanity of Hollywood Boulevard. Cradled deep among the canyons, we couldn’t see or hear anything except the sounds of wilderness around us.

Guido pulled into his drive and parked in front of the garage. We have worked together many times, and have fallen into a comfortable routine for sharing the load. He’s a modern man, I know he respects me professionally. Still, his name is Patrini, of the Sicilian Patrinis, and I am a woman. The pain he goes through when he sees me carry anything remotely heavy is pitiful to behold. So when he hauled out the big aluminum camera cases and the insulated bag of videotapes from the back of the Jeep, to spare him grief, I reached for no more than a tripod and a half-full bottle of Evian. He wrestled his load up the incline toward the front door, while I strolled behind. Don’t tell Gloria, but we were both perfectly happy.

The evening air was perfumed with dry eucalyptus and night-blooming jasmine. Somewhere in the woods above me, an owl hooted and set off a rustle of small creatures through the undergrowth.

Guido stopped to listen to the owl before he went inside and turned on lights. Through the open door I could hear him rattling around.

I lingered outside, enjoying the cold breeze on my face, the soft rustle of leaves. Below me, the rugged canyon was too deep for the moonlight to reach the bottom. I felt very small looking over the edge. Not small in the sense of feeling vulnerable. Rather, I felt invisible. Safely insignificant. The sensation helped put the events of the day into perspective.

The film I had been working on had been a problem for me from the beginning. There was a guideline of sorts written into the contract I had with WGBH in Boston and some health consortium. I had spent a lot of effort accumulating footage as if I knew where I was headed. But, truth told, I hadn’t a clue what the thing was really about. From the beginning, I hadn’t been able to find its essential core. Child-raising – what about it?

As I peered into Guido’s canyon, I finally heard the mental click. Behind my eyes I could see the finished film, frame by frame. And the face of Pisces in the moonlight. It was a sad film I saw, but I still felt the exhilaration of discovery at last.

Guido came out of the house and put a glass in my hand with about an inch of Glenlivet scotch in it. I knocked it back and held out my glass for a refill.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Message on the machine from Lyle. He says Casey has a slight fever, but don’t worry.”

“Too late to call her tonight,” I said. “I’d just wake her up.”

“Are you planning to stay out here much longer?” Guido had an evil little expression on his face. “It’s cold.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I have something to show you.”

“What?”

“Just come. You may be a genius.”

Who could resist a line like that? I went inside with him, sipping the second drink on the way. By the time we reached the living room, I was ready for thirds. Guido handed me the bottle and I carried it to the sofa. I pried off my boots, stretched out on the cushions, and waited for him to show me what he was talking about.

Guido squatted in front of his big-screen TV and slipped one of the day’s new tapes into the VCR.

“This is Encino,” he said. He fast-forwarded cherubic little preschoolers at play in the sunshine of their day-care center’s garden until he came to a pudgy little girl. She pranced across the lawn in mommy-dress-up gear: high heels, long dress, pearls, feather boa, big hat. She stopped by the paint easel to daub her cheeks with red tempera paint, then strutted on, feeling elegant. I followed her with the camera until she turned and noticed me. She stopped and dropped her head shyly.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Mrs. Unicorn.”

“Where do you live, Mrs. Unicorn?”

“Here.” With a languid hand she indicated the beautiful playground behind her. A band of little boys on tricycles had stopped in the background to eavesdrop. She turned her back on them and gestured me closer. She whispered into the lens, “I don’t like having my picture taken. You have to call my nanny and make an appointment.”

“Cute, huh?” Guido ejected the tape and slipped in another. “Now MacArthur Park,” he said.

I had hoped that the silvery tones of Pisces by moonlight would be caught on the tape. Instead, she was a deathly blue-gray. The flat screen made her seem even younger, as if she too were a little girl playing dress-up with makeup and sexy clothes. She tottered on heels that were both too big and too high for her.

I heard my voice: “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Pisces.”

“Where do you live, Pisces?”

“Here.” She gestured toward MacArthur Park, averting her face from me. “I don’t like having my picture taken. Not for free.”

All the time I was recording Pisces, my eyes had been focused only on her face and her body. I had not noticed much of the background then. On Guido’s big screen, what I now saw happening around Pisces as we talked I can only describe as a nightmare version of the scene on the Encino playground.

In the frame to the right, a few yards behind Pisces, a derelict sat vomiting in the gutter. Frame left, an old woman with an aluminum walker began a slow and painful progress across the screen. In a flash of lights and sirens, a black-and-white police car blasted out of the station in the middle of the park and sped toward us, its speed and noise a wild contrast to the stillness of the derelict and the old woman. It was great choreography. I wished I could take credit.

On some level, I had noticed all of it as it happened. The city is always noisy. The destitute are everywhere. Who hears sirens anymore?

The one image that really stood out against the blue-tinged scene was the red Corvette that had followed us along the curb. An eerie counterpart to the little Encino boys on tricycles.

“Want to see it again?” Guido asked.

“No,” I said. I tapped my forehead. “I’ve got it here.”

“Infuckingcredible, isn’t it?” Guido took a slug of scotch straight from the bottle. “‘What’s your name and where do you live? Next time I complain when you want to stop and film something, just slap me across the face, will you? It’s brilliant, Maggie. The parallels, each scene a visual metaphor for the other. Fucking brilliant.”

“Uh huh,” I said, getting to my feet. “‘What’s your name and where do you live?’ How else do you start a conversation with a kid? The really big question is, ‘Does your mommy know you’re here, or has she lost you?’ “

Guido was watching me as I began gathering up the tapes and stuffing them into the insulated duffel.

“Need something?” he asked.

“If you’re still sober.”

“I am. More or less.”

“Will you drive me to the airport?”

He yawned. “Now?”

“As soon as I can get a flight,” I said. “Unless you want to drive me all the way to San Francisco.”

“Whatever. But why?”

“You were right. I’m doing nothing here that I can’t do in San Francisco. I want to be home before my daughter wakes up.