“She didn’t bring me. I followed her.”
Both men glanced at Iris. Her hand was at her mouth and she was nibbling a knuckle. “I thought you went to Frisco” was all she said.
“Not yet.”
“What do you want?” Her question assumed a fearsome answer.
Marvin laughed. “You stupid bitch. He wants the rest of them. Then he wants to throw us in jail. He wants to be a hero, Iris. And to be a hero he has to put you and me behind bars for the rest of our fucking lives.” Marvin took a step forward.
“Don’t be dumb.” He raised the gun to Marvin’s eyes.
Marvin stopped, frowned, then grinned again. “You look like you used that piece before.”
“Once or twice.”
“What’s your gig?”
“Detective. Private.”
Marvin’s lips parted around his crusted teeth. “You must be kidding. Iris flags down some bastard on the freeway and he turns out to be a private cop?”
“That’s about it.”
Marvin shook his head. “Judas H. Priest. And here you are. A professional hero, just like I said.”
He captured Marvin’s eyes. “I want the book.”
“What book?” Marvin burlesqued ignorance.
“The book with the list of babies and where you got them and where you took them.”
Marvin looked at Iris, stuck her with his stare. “You’re dead meat, you know that? You bring the bastard here and tell him all about it and expect him to just take off and not try to stop us? You’re too fucking dumb to breathe, Iris. I got to put you out of your misery.”
“I’m sorry, Marvin.”
“He’s going to take them back, Iris. Get it? He’s going to take those sweet babies away from you and give them back to the assholes that don’t want them. And then he’s going to the cops and they’re going to say you kidnapped those babies, Iris, and that you were bad to them and should go to jail because of what you did. Don’t you see that, you brain-fried bitch? Don’t you see what he’s going to do?”
“I…” Iris stopped, overwhelmed by Marvin’s incantation. “Are you?” she asked, finally looking away from Marvin.
“I’m going to do what’s best for the babies, Iris. That’s all.”
“What’s best for them is with me and Marvin.”
“Not anymore,” he told her. “Marvin’s been shucking you, Iris. He steals those babies. Takes them from their parents, parents who love them. He roams up and down the coast stealing children and then he sells them, Iris. Either back to the people he took them from or to people desperate to adopt. I think he’s hooked up with a lawyer named Rasker, who arranges private adoptions for big money and splits the take with Marvin. He’s not interested in who loves those kids, Iris. He’s only interested in how much he can sell them for.”
Something had finally activated Iris’s eyes. “Marvin? Is that true?”
“No, baby. The guy’s blowing smoke. He’s trying to take the babies away from you and then get people to believe you did something bad, just like that time with the abortion. He’s trying to say you did bad things to babies again, Iris. We can’t let him do that.”
He spoke quickly, to erase Marvin’s words. “People don’t give away babies, Iris. Not to guys like Marvin. There are agencies that arrange that kind of thing, that check to make sure the new home is in the best interests of the child. Marvin just swipes them and sells them to the highest bidder, Iris. That’s all he’s in it for.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just give me Marvin’s notebook and we can check it out, contact the parents and see what they say about their kids. Ask if they wanted to be rid of them. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Iris?”
“What, Marvin?”
“I want you to pick up that pan and knock this guy on the head. Hard. Go on, Iris. He won’t shoot you, you know that. Hit him on the head so he can’t put us in jail.”
He glanced at Iris, then as quickly to Marvin and to Iris once again. “Don’t do it, Iris. Marvin’s trouble. I think you know that now.” He looked away from Iris and gestured at her partner. “Where’s the book?”
“Iris?”
Iris began to cry. “I can’t, Marvin. I can’t do that.”
“The book,” he said to Marvin again. “Where is it?”
Marvin laughed. “You’ll never know, Detective.”
“OK. We’ll do it your way. On the floor. Hands behind your head. Legs spread. Now.”
Marvin didn’t move. When he spoke the words were languid. “You don’t look much like a killer, Detective, and I’ve known a few, believe me. So I figure if you’re not gonna shoot me I don’t got to do what you say. I figure I’ll just take that piece away from you and feed it to you inch by inch. Huh? Why don’t I do just that?”
He took two quick steps to Marvin’s side and sliced open Marvin’s cheek with a quick swipe of the gun barrel. “Want some more?”
Marvin pawed at his cheek with a grimy hand, then examined his bloody fingers. “You bastard. OK. I’ll get the book. It’s under here.”
Marvin bent toward the floor, twisting away from him, sliding his hands toward the darkness below the stove. He couldn’t tell what Marvin was doing, so he squinted, then moved closer. When Marvin began to stand he jumped back, but Marvin wasn’t attacking, Marvin was holding a baby, not a book, holding a baby by the throat.
“OK, pal,” Marvin said through his grin. “Now, you want to see this kid die before your eyes, you just keep hold of that gun. You want to see it breathe some more, you drop it.”
He froze, his eyes on Marvin’s fingers, which inched further around the baby’s neck and began to squeeze.
The baby gurgled, gasped, twitched, was silent. Its face reddened; its eyes bulged. The tendons in Marvin’s hand stretched taut. Between grimy gritted teeth, Marvin wheezed in rapid streams of glee.
He dropped his gun. Marvin told Iris to pick it up. She did, and exchanged the gun for the child. Her eyes lapped Marvin’s face, as though to renew its acquaintance. Abruptly, she turned and ran around the curtain and disappeared.
“Well, now.” Marvin’s words slid easily. “Looks like the worm has turned, Detective. What’s your name, anyhow?”
“Tanner.”
“Well, Tanner, your ass is mine. No more John Wayne stunts for you. You can kiss this world goodbye.”
Marvin fished in the pocket of his jeans, then drew out a small spiral notebook and flashed it. “It’s all in here, Tanner. Where they came from; where they went. Now watch.”
Gun in one hand, notebook in the other, Marvin went to the wood stove and flipped open the heavy door. The fire made shadows dance.
“Don’t.”
“Watch, bastard.”
Marvin tossed the notebook into the glowing coals, fished in the box beside the stove for a stick of kindling, then tossed it in after the notebook and closed the iron door. “Bye-bye babies.” Marvin’s laugh was quick and cruel. “Now turn around. We’re going out back.”
He did as he was told, walking toward the door, hearing only a silent shuffle at his back. As he passed her he glanced at Iris. She hugged the baby Marvin had threatened, crying, not looking at him. “Remember the one in my car,” he said to her. She nodded silently, then turned away.
Marvin prodded him in the back and he moved to the door. Hand on the knob, he paused, hoping for a magical deliverance, but none came. Marvin prodded him again and he moved outside, onto the porch, then into the yard. “Around back,” Marvin ordered. “Get in the bus.”
He staggered, tripping over weeds, stumbling over rocks, until he reached the rusting bus. The moon and stars had disappeared; the night was black and still but for the whistling wind, clearly Marvin’s ally. The nanny goat laughed at them, then trotted out of reach. He glanced back at Marvin. In one hand was a pistol, in the other a blanket. “Go on in. Just pry the door open.”