"She had dirty hands," Laura said to her mother. "Did you notice that?"
"No, but that was the biggest woman I ever laid eyes on." She watched Laura position herself against her pillows, and Laura winced at a sudden pain. "How're you doin'?"
"Okay, I guess. Hurting a little bit." She felt as if she'd delivered a sack of hardened concrete. Her body was full of aches and pains, the muscles of her back and thighs still prone to cramps. Her stomach had lost its bloat, but she was still sluggish and heavy with fluids. The thirty-two stitches between her thighs, where Dr. Bonnart had clipped the flesh of her vagina open to allow extra room for David's head to slide through, was a constant irritation. "I thought the nurses had to keep their hands clean," she said when she'd gotten herself comfortable again.
"I sent your father downstairs," Laura's mother said. "I think we need to talk, don't you?"
"Talk about what?"
"You know." She leaned forward in her chair, her gaze sharp. "About what the problem is between you and Doug."
Of course she'd sensed it, Laura thought. Her mother's radar was rarely wrong. "The problem." Laura nodded. "Yes, there's sure a problem, all right."
"I'd like to hear it."
Laura knew there was no way to deflect this conversation. Sooner or later, it would have to be spoken. "Doug's been having an affair since October," she began, and she saw her mother's mouth open in a small gasp. Laura began to tell her the whole story, and the older woman listened intently as Laura's son was being carried through a corridor where steam pipes hissed like awakened snakes.
Mary Terror, her index finger clasped in the baby's mouth, strode through the corridor toward the loading dock's door. Before she reached the laundry area, she stopped where the hampers were parked. One of them had towels at the bottom, and she put the baby down amid them and covered him up. The infant gurgled and mewled, but Mary grasped the hamper and started pushing it ahead of her. As she passed through the laundry where the black women were working, Mary saw the laundress who'd allowed her in.
"You still lost?" the woman called over the noise of washers and steam presses.
"No, I know where I'm going now," Mary answered. She flashed a quick smile and went on. The baby began to cry just before Mary reached the exit, but it was a soft crying and the noise of the laundry masked it. She opened the door. The wind had picked up, and silver needles of rain were falling. She pushed the hamper out onto the loading dock and scooped the infant out, still wrapped in a towel. Then she hurried down the concrete steps to her van, which she'd traded for her truck and three hundred and eighty dollars at Friendly Ernie's Used Cars in Smyrna about two hours before. She put the crying baby onto the floorboard on the passenger side, next to her sawed-off shotgun. She started the engine, which ran rough as a cob, and made the entire van shudder. The windshield wipers shrieked as they swept back and forth across the glass.
Then Mary Terror backed away from the loading dock, turned the van around, and drove away from the hospital named after God. "Hush, now!" she told the baby. "Mary's got you!" The infant kept crying.
He'd just have to learn who was in control.
Mary left the hospital behind, and swung up onto a freeway, where she merged into a sea of metal in the falling silver rain.
7
A Hollow Vessel
"Hi." THE NURSE HAD RED HAIR AND FRECKLED CHEEKS, AND SHE beamed a smile. Her name tag identified her as Erin Kingman. She glanced quickly at the empty perambulator beside the bed. "Where's David?"
"Someone took him to be weighed," Laura said. "I guess that was about fifteen minutes ago. I asked her for orange juice, but maybe she got busy."
"Who took him?"
"A big woman. Janette was her first name. I hadn't seen her before."
"Uh-huh." Erin nodded, her smile still there but the first butterfly flutters beginning in her stomach. "All right, I'll go find her. Excuse me." She hurried out of the room, leaving Laura and Miriam to their conversation.
"Divorce." It had a funeral-bell sound, coming from the older woman's mouth. "Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes."
"Laura, it doesn't have to be divorce. You could go to a counselor and talk things out. Divorce is a messy, sticky thing. And David's going to need a father. Don't think just of yourself and not of David."
Laura heard what was coming. She waited for it without speaking, her hands clenched under the sheet.
"Doug's given you a good life," her mother went on in that earnest tone of voice used by women who knew they'd traded love for comfort long ago. "He's been a good provider, hasn't he?"
"We bought a lot of things together, if that's what you mean."
"You have a history. A life together, and now a son. You have a fine house, you drive a fine car, and you're not wanting for anything. So divorce is a drastic option, Laura. Maybe you could get a good settlement, but a thirty-six-year-old woman with a baby on her own might have a hard time —" She stopped. "You know what I'm saying, don't you?"
"Not exactly."
Her mother sighed, as if Laura had the brains of a wooden block. "A woman your age, with a baby, might have a hard time finding another man. That's important to think about before you make any rash decisions."
Laura closed her eyes. She felt dizzy and sick, and she clamped her teeth down on her tongue because she couldn't trust what she might say to her mother.
"Now I know you think I'm wrong. You've thought I was wrong before. I'm looking out for your interests because I love you, Laura. What you've got to figure out is why Doug decided to play around, and what you can do to make up for it."
Her eyes opened. "Make up for it?"
"That's right. I told you a long time ago, a headstrong man like Doug needs a lot of attention. And he needs a loose rope, too. Take your father. I've always held him on a loose rope, and our marriage is the better for it. These are things a woman learns by experience, and no one can teach her. The looser the rope, the stronger the marriage."
"I can't…" Words failed her. She tried again, knocked breathless. "I can't believe you're saying these things! Do you mean… you want me to stay with Doug? To look the other way if he ever decides to" — she used her mother's term — "play around again?"
"He'll outgrow it," the older woman said. "You have to be there for him, and he'll know that what he has at home is priceless. Doug is a good provider and he's going to be a good father. Those are very important things in this day and time. You need to be thinking about healing the wound between you and Doug instead of talking about divorce."
Laura didn't know what she was about to say. Her mouth was opening, the blood was pounding in her face, and she could feel the shout beginning to draw power from her lungs. She longed to see her mother cringe before her voice, longed to see her get up from that chair and march out of the room in a practiced sulk. Doug was a stranger to her, and so was her mother; she didn't know either of those pretenders to her love. She was about to shout in her mother's face, though she didn't yet know what she was going to say.
She would never know.
Two nurses — one of them Erin Kingman and the other an older, stockier woman — entered the room. Following behind them was a man in a dark blue blazer and gray slacks, his face round and fleshy and his brown hair receding from a high globe of a forehead. He wore black horn-rimmed glasses, and his shoes squeaked as he approached Laura's bed.
"Excuse me," the older nurse said to Laura's mother. Her name tag read: Kathryn Langner. "Would you go with Miss Kingman for just a few minutes, please?"
"What is it?" Laura's mother stood up, her radar on full alert. "What's wrong?"
"Would you come with me, please?" Erin Kingman stood at the woman's side. "We'll just step out into the hall, all right?"
"What's going on? Laura, what's this all about?"
Laura couldn't answer. The older nurse and the man moved in to take positions on either side of the bed. A foreboding of horror swept like a cold tide through Laura's bo
dy. Oh Jesus! she thought. It's David! Something's happened to David!
"My baby," she heard herself say frantically. "Where's my baby?"
"Would you wait in the hall, please?" The man spoke to Miriam in a flat tone that said she would, whether she liked it or not. "Miss Kingman, close the door on your way out."
"Where's my baby?" Laura felt her heart pounding, and there was a fresh twinge of pain between her legs. "I want to see David!"
"Out," the man told Laura's mother. Miss Kingman closed the door. Kathryn Langner grasped one of Laura's hands, and the man said in a quieter, steady voice, "Mrs. Clayborne, my name is Bill Ramsey. I'm on the security staff here. Do you remember the name of the nurse who took your child from this room?"
"Janette something. It started with an L." She couldn't recall the last name, and her brain was sluggish with shock. "What's wrong? She said she was going to bring my baby right back. I'd like him back now."
"Mrs. Clayborne," Ramsey said, "no nurse with that first name works on the maternity ward." Behind his glasses, his eyes were as black as the frames. A pulse beat at his balding left temple. "We think the woman may have taken your child from the premises."
Laura blinked. Her mind rejected the last three words. "What? Taken him where?"
"From the hospital," Ramsey repeated. "Our people are checking all the exits right now. I want you to think carefully and tell me what this woman looked like."
"She was a nurse. She said she worked on weekends." The blood was roaring in Laura's head. She heard her voice as if at the far end of a long tunnel. I'm about to faint, she thought. Dear God, I'm really about to faint. She squeezed the nurse's hand and was met by forceful pressure.
"She wore a nurse's uniform, is that correct?"
"Yes. A uniform. She was a nurse."
"Her first name was Janette. Did she tell you that?"
"It was… it was… on her name tag. Next to the Smiley Face."
"Pardon me?"
"The… Smiley Face," Laura said. "It was yellow. A Smiley Face button."
"What color was the woman's hair and eyes?"
"I don't —" Her thinking was freezing solid, but there seemed to be pulsing heat trapped in her face. "Brown hair. Shoulder-length. Her eyes were… blue, I think. No, gray. I can't remember."
"Anything else about her? Crooked nose? Heavy eyebrows? Freckles?"
"Tall," Laura said. "A big woman. Tall." Her throat was closing up, dark motes spun before her eyes, and only the pressure of the nurse's hand kept her from passing out.
"How tall? Five nine? Five ten? Taller?"
"Taller. Six feet. Maybe more."
Bill Ramsey reached under his coat and pulled out a walkie-talkie. He clicked it on. "Eugene, this is Ramsey. We're looking for a woman in a nurse's uniform, description as follows: brown shoulder-length hair, blue or gray eyes, approximately six feet tall. Hold on." He looked at Laura again, whose face had gone chalky except for red circles around her eyes. "Heavyset, slim, or medium build?"
"Big. Heavyset."
"Eugene? Heavyset. Got a name tag that identifies her as Janette, last name begins with an L. Copy?"
"Copy," the voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.
"The button," Laura reminded him. She was about to throw up, the nausea hot in her stomach. "The Smiley Face button."
Ramsey clicked the walkie-talkie on again and gave Eugene the extra information.
"I'm going to be sick," Laura told Kathryn Langner, tears burning trails down her cheeks. "Would you help me to the bathroom, please?"
The nurse helped her, but Laura didn't make it to the bathroom before she expelled her lunch. Laura, cold as death, slipped from the woman's grasp and fell to her knees onto the floor, and when she splayed there she felt the raw pain of the stitches tearing between her thighs. Someone was called to clean up the mess, Laura was returned to bed shivering and dazed with shock, and Ramsey allowed her mother back into the room with Miss Kingman. The young nurse had already told Laura's mother what was happening, and Ramsey sat beside the bed and directed more questions at both of them. Neither could recall the woman's last name. "Lewis? Logan?" Ramsey prompted. "Larson? Lester?"
"Lester," Laura's mother said. "That was it!"
"No, it wasn't that," Laura disagreed. "It was something close to Lester."
"Think hard. Try to see the name tag in your mind. Can you see it?"
"It was Lester!" the older woman insisted. "I know what it was!" Her face flamed with anger. "Jesus Christ, is this your way of running a hospital? Letting crazy people come in and steal babies?"
Ramsey paid her no attention. "See the name tag," he told Laura while the nurse pressed a cold washrag against her forehead. "Look at the last name. Something like Lester. What is it?"
"Lester, for God's sake!" Miriam insisted.
Laura saw the name tag in her mind, white letters on a blue background. She saw the first name, and then the last name came clear of its fog. "Leister, I think it was." She spelled it out. "L-e-i-s-t-e-r."
At once Ramsey was on his walkie-talkie again. "Eugene, Ramsey. Call down to records and have them check a name: Leister." He spelled it, too. "Get me a printout when it's done. Metro on the way?"
"Double quick," the disembodied voice answered.
"I want my baby back," Laura said, her eyes deep with tears. Her mind wasn't truly registering what was happening; this had to be a gruesome, hideous joke. They were hiding David from her. Why were they being so cruel? She hung to sanity by the pressure of a nurse's hand. "Please bring my baby back. Right now. Okay? Okay?"
"You'd better find my grandson!" Laura's mother was right up in Ramsey's face. "You hear me? We'll sue your asses off if you don't find my grandson!"
"The police are on their way." His voice was brittle with tension. "Everything's under control."
"Like hell it is!" the older woman shouted. "Where's my grandson? You people had better have a damned good lawyer!"
"Be quiet," Laura rasped, but her voice was lost in her mother's anger. "Please be quiet."
"What kind of security do you have around here? You don't even know who's a nurse and who's not a nurse? You let just anybody off the street come in here and take babies?"
"Ma'am, we're doing the best we can. You're not helping things."
"And you are? My God, there's no telling who's got my grandson! It could be any kind of lunatic!"
Laura began to cry, hopelessly and in great pain. Her mother raged on as Ramsey took it with a tight-lipped stare and rain slashed at the window. His walkie-talkie beeped. "Ramsey," he said into it, and Miriam stopped shouting.
The voice said, "Need you down in the laundry, pronto."
"On my way." He clicked the walkie-talkie off. "Mrs. Clayborne, I'm going to have to leave you for a little while. Is your husband in the hospital?"
"I don't… I don't know…"
"Can you get in touch with him?" he asked her mother.
"We'll take care of that! You just do your job and find that baby!"
"Stay with them," Ramsey told the two nurses, and he hurried out of the room.
"Get away from my daughter!" Laura heard her mother command. The nurse's grip relaxed and fell away, leaving Laura with an empty hand. Her mother stood over her. "It's going to be all right. Do you hear me, Laura? Look at me."
Laura lifted her face and looked at her mother through blurred and burning eyes.
"It's going to be all right. They'll find David. We're going to sue this damned hospital for ten million dollars, that's what we're going to do. Doug knows some good lawyers. By God, we'll break this hospital, that's what we'll do." She turned away from Laura and picked up the telephone, dialing the house on Moore's Mill Road.
The answering machine came on. Doug wasn't home.
Laura lay on the bed and pulled herself into the fetal position, grasping a pillow against her. "I want my baby," she whispered. "I want my baby. I want my baby." Her voice broke, and she could speak no more. Her body, a hol
low vessel, ached for her child. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out all light. Darkness filled her. She lay at the mercy of God, or fate, or luck. The world spun with her curled up in a tight, hurting ball and her baby stolen from her, and Laura struggled to hold back a scream that she feared might shred her soul to bloody ribbons.
She lost.
Wilderness of Pain
1
Pigsticker
YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THE WOMAN before?
"Yes. Certain."
Did she speak your first or last name?
"No, I don't… no."
Did she speak the baby's name?
"No."
Did she have an accent?
"Southern," Laura said. "But different. Somehow. I don't know." She was answering these questions through a tranquilized haze, and the voice of the police lieutenant named Garrick seemed to be floating to her along an echoing tunnel. Two other men were in the room: Newsome, the craggy-faced chief of security for the hospital, and a younger policeman taking notes. Miriam was being questioned in another room, while Franklin and Doug — who'd returned from a drinking bout in a bar near his office — were down in the administration office.
Laura had to concentrate hard on what Garrick was asking her. The drugs had done a strange number on her, relaxing her body and tongue while her mind was racing, going up inclines and speeding down into troughs like a runaway roller-coaster.
A southern accent? Different how?
"Not deep south," she said. "Not a Georgia accent."
Could you describe the woman for a police artist?
"I think so. Yes. I can."
Newsome was called out of the room by a third policeman. He returned in a few minutes accompanied by a boyish-looking man in a dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a black tie with tiny white dots on it. There was a hushed conference, Garrick got up from his chair beside the bed, and the new arrival took his place. "Mrs. Clayborne? My name is Robert Kirkland." He showed her a laminated identification card. "Federal Bureau of Investigation."