Sweet Hush

  “Her. Her.” Edwina made a crooning sound. “A girl. I have to tell Al we have a daughter.”

  I carefully balanced the baby on Edwina’s chest, forgetting all awkwardness, cupping the baby’s butt in one hand to hold her steady and smoothing the blood and goo off her face. She opened sleepy-looking eyes and seemed to look right up at me. I was her first sight in the world. “Hello,” I whispered.

  “Hello,” a big, burly cop said behind me. He peered into the backseat. I tried to shield Edwina’s nudity with the baby and my hands. The cop grinned. “Hi, Mrs. Jacobs. Charley Grimoldi. I testified in the Lakenhower case a few years ago.”

  “Hello, Officer Grimoldi. Will you get me a paramedic, please?” Edwina sounded totally calm, again. Good ol’ Edwina. I was still trembling like a leaf. My baby cousin and I continued to look at each other. Yeah, I know babies can’t see very well when they’re born, but she could sense my intentions, I’m sure. In her heart, she was the first human being who looked at me with nothing but trust and curiosity.

  “Relax, pal,” the cop told me. “Help’s on the way. Be here in a second.”

  But I continued to hold the baby. Edwina reached for her, stroking her head fervently. “Oh, oh, oh. Move her up a little, Nicholas.” I helped Edwina sit up. She curled her hands around her daughter. “How perfect she is, Nicholas. How perfect. Thank you for helping her into the world.”

  She cried happily. The baby mewled.

  I smiled.

  I STOOD ALONE outside a hospital entrance that night, smoking a cigar Al had given me, watching in satisfaction as silver curlicues of my own breath rose in the cold night air. The sounds of the city seemed full and rich around me. Life. “Hey, Doc Jakobek,” Al said, as he joined me. He was giddy with excitement, grinning and slapping me on the back.

  I shrugged. “I just played catch.”

  He put an arm around my shoulders. He had to reach up to do it, now. “Shut up, Sergeant. Accept some praise.” He looked at me with somber affection. “I thank you, Edwina thanks you, and your new baby cousin thanks you.”

  “Don’t tell Edwina, but I hope I never see her crotch, again.”

  Al laughed until he cried. “Come on inside. We have something to tell you.”

  I cast wary glances at him as I followed him indoors and rode an elevator to the maternity ward. Edwina smiled at me wearily from her bed in a private room. She snuggled the baby, swaddled in a blanket. Al sat on the edge of the bed beside them. I stayed back, almost standing at attention. They were a threesome. They needed their privacy.

  “We’ve named her,” Edwina said.

  I grunted. “Good. I won’t have to call her, ‘Hey, you.’”

  Al and Edwina traded a tender look. “You tell him,” Edwina said.

  Al nodded and looked at me. “Her first name’s Edwina. For guess who?”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Her middle name is . . . Margisia. For her aunt. Your mother.”

  I took a few seconds, glancing away, exhaling, then looking back. “That’s good, too.”

  “But of course, she’s special. She needs three given names. So she’ll be Nicola, too. In your honor.”

  I had to look away, again, this time for longer. A few deep breaths, and then I stepped over a little closer to them, and gazed down at the baby. “Edwina Margisia Nicola Jacobs.” I spoke her full name aloud—christened her, in my own way. “Eddie,” I decided.

  “Eddie!” Al agreed.

  Edwina rolled her eyes. “Edwina, Junior, is not going to be called Eddie!” And off she went on a long yatter about Eddie’s future and how undignified to be nicknamed something that sounded like a shortstop or a bookie, while Al just sat there, nodding patiently, and I reached down, very carefully, and touched the tip of my forefinger to the tip of Eddie’s soft nose. I made her a promise.

  I’ll keep the world safe for you, little girl.

  1984. I WAS NOW First Lieutenant Nick Jakobek, fresh out of officer’s training, with a newly minted bachelor’s degree, too. An officer and a college graduate. I credit Eddie for that phase of my life. Her birth and the three peaceful years that followed it made me feel new, inside. Although it was only temporary.

  Al and Edwina doted on Eddie, and so did I, in my own way. She was a doll. She had big blue eyes and golden brown hair, a compromise between Edwina’s blonde and Al’s dark brown. As soon as she began to talk, she named me Nicky. I often didn’t see her for months at a time, but all I had to do was walk in the door again and she’d come running to me with her arms out. “Nicky!” And I couldn’t resist picking her up and hugging her.

  “Not a bad kid you’ve got there,” I told Al and Edwina.

  They weren’t fooled. “Get out of the damned army,” Al lectured. “Find a wife. Settle down. You love kids. Start planning to have some.”

  None of that was in my cards. I slept with the kind of women who moved fast and left damage behind. I could deal with them. I understood them. They were dependably undependable. Plus I couldn’t imagine having children of my own to protect. A kid deserved total love and devotion. I was afraid to love anyone that much. Eddie came close enough.

  As often as Al and Edwina still tried to talk me into marriage and out of the military, they now talked about changing their own lives, too. Al’s work had taken a dark turn. That spring, a prominent Chicago judge was convicted of accepting bribes. Al had helped gather the evidence against him. Al had been working undercover with the Justice Department since not long after Eddie was born. Edwina would have been right in there with him, except for the baby.

  “One of us has to stay alive for Eddie’s sake,” she said.

  The level of corruption was a wide, stinking pile of shit. Judges, court clerks, police officers, lawyers—all exposed as thieves. “They’re an embarrassment to the system and a threat to the basic integrity of the law,” Al said. “There’s a lot more work to do before the mess is cleaned up. Twenty or thirty powerful people could be indicted before this is over.”

  “You could get yourself killed,” I countered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody out there doesn’t suspect you of being the snitch.”

  “Who me? I’m just a do-gooding state court judge. Not worth the trouble.”

  That summer, someone pinned a note to the windshield of the small sedan Al had bought after years of smog-conscious dedication to buses and trains.

  You’re going to die, you sneaking rat bastard.

  I quietly requested extra leave and came home for a month. Every morning I walked Al and Edwina to a cab outside the apartment building, and every evening, from the courthouse to a cab to go home. In between, I sat on a bench across the street from Eddie’s day nursery. “This is ridiculous, Nick,” Al said gently. “You don’t have to worry. We have police protection. Besides, it was an idle threat.”

  “No threat is idle.”

  “Look, I can take care of myself. You just keep an eye on Edwina and Eddie for me. I have to work this Saturday. Take them to the park.”

  “I think they should stay indoors.”

  “I think,” Al countered, “that you won’t want to be locked indoors all day with a busy three-year-old and Edwina, who’s gnashing her teeth because she’s worried about me.”

  So we went to the park.

  THAT DAY WAS BRIGHT and hot, the park’s trees simmering in the breeze, making my skin crawl with every rustle of their leaves. Eddie tossed sand in a play pit and chortled at Edwina and me. We sat a few feet away, on a bench. I kept one hand near the small automatic pistol hidden inside my pants’ pocket. “I want more power over the lunacy of life,” Edwina said. “Al and I aren’t making enough of a difference. We swore we’d made a difference.”

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “My mother and sisters have no agenda beyond their next m
anicures. My family owns business interests that pretty much fuck their employees up the ass. I promised myself I’d never settle for that kind of status quo. But over the past few years I feel that I’ve been doing just that, in a way. I’ve been settling. Marking time.”

  “You have a kid to worry about, now. Maybe you’re just scared that this sting operation will get Al hurt.”

  “No, it’s not just that. I’m tired of seeing drug addicts go to prison instead of into rehab. I’m tired of watching Al sentence battered women to jail after they shoot the men who beat them up. He hates it, but the law’s the law. I’m tired of all the stupidity that exists in the system. I can’t fix it at this level.” She rubbed a line of tension between her eyes. “Some influential people have been talking to Al about making the leap next year. Running for Congress.”

  Al. A congressman. I took a moment away from scanning the soft green landscape around us to look at her askance. “I think you should run for congress. You’re a winner, Ed-winna.”

  She smiled. “In a different world, I’d be a politician. But the truth is, Nicholas, women are still at too much of a disadvantage, and I don’t come across as demure enough to win votes. Besides, I never do anything unless I’m aiming for the top. If I went into politics, it would be with one goal in mind for the future, but that goal would be impossible.” She paused. “I’d want to be President.”

  “Go for it. If you win, you could make me a general. I’d be happy to salute you.”

  “I think I’d order you to leave the country. You’ve seen my vagina.”

  I coughed and changed the subject. “So, if you don’t run, you think Al could? Be President, that is. Some day?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “He will be.”

  The way she said it gave me goosebumps. I didn’t doubt her. I stood, feeling odd, sensing some electric fate in the air, as if Edwina had set destiny in motion and it was up to me to make certain nothing interfered. “I’m going to walk the perimeter of the park, again. I’ll be back in two minutes.” I pointed to the baby bag she held on her lap. I had hidden a pistol in it and instructed her to keep one hand on it every time I left her sitting there.

  She groaned. “Not again. I’m not meant to play Rambo.” She stood, too. “You’re giving me the creeps, or I’m giving them to myself. Let’s go home.” She hung the bag on her shoulder as I scooped Eddie up. “Nicky,” Eddie squealed, and kissed me on the cheek.

  We headed along a shady sidewalk that bordered the park beside a quiet back street. Edwina reached up and smoothed her daughter’s sunny brown hair back. “Nicholas, I’ll tell you a secret. And you can take this one to the bank, just like my prediction about Al.” She paused. “Someday, my daughter is going to be the first woman President.”

  I looked from her to Eddie, who patted me on the nose. “If that’s what Eddie wants.”

  “She will.”

  In terms of family ambitions, Edwina might be getting in over her head. I made a mental note to speak up on Eddie’s behalf when her mother insisted she start campaigning for election.

  Probably in kindergarten.

  I saw the rusty van from the corner of my eye when it was still fifty yards behind us, moving slowly. Maybe it was the way the driver curled in a little too close to the curb. Maybe it was his suspiciously slow speed. I didn’t wait to find out if I was wrong. “Take Eddie and run for those trees over there. Don’t ask questions. Go. Now.” I thrust Eddie into Edwina’s arms. Edwina took one glance back at the van, clutched her daughter, and sprinted for a stand of firs. The van roared and sped up.

  I saw only one person up front—the driver—but for all I knew, others were hidden in the back. The driver wasn’t making any subtle moves. He steered the van over the curb and onto the sidewalk, heading straight for Edwina and Eddie, who wouldn’t make it to the trees in time. I sprinted toward the van, pulling the automatic pistol from my pocket as I ran.

  The driver swerved as I slid to a stop twenty feet in front of him, with the pistol pointed at his windshield. I had time for one shot. I pulled the trigger, and the van’s windshield exploded. The van careened sideways and plowed into a lamp post.

  “Get down! Stay down!” I yelled to Edwina, who’d made it to the grove of firs by then. She ducked under their branches then dropped to her knees and huddled behind a tree trunk with Eddie wrapped in her arms.

  The van’s driver moved sluggishly inside the cab. He wasn’t shot, just stunned. Pebbles of windshield glass covered him. I launched myself at the van’s back door, jerked it open with my pistol raised, but found no one inside. Next I ran to the front passenger door and tried to open it, too. It was locked. The driver blinked hard and dragged his left hand over his forehead, where the windshield glass had left small, bloody divots. I pounded my left hand on the rolled-up passenger window while I stepped on the running board. “Don’t fucking move,” I ordered, and thrust my right arm, holding the pistol, inside the blown-out windshield frame. I leveled the pistol at his head and continued pounding on the passenger window with my hand. He inhaled sharply and came to life. He lifted something from a jumble of old towels in his lap. He pointed a gun at me, and fired.

  The concussion from the close-range blast hit me like a slap. The window glass exploded, just as the windshield had, with a force that flung my left hand and arm backward. I stumbled off the running board, dazed, covered in glass, my head ringing with the gunshot. The driver shoved his door open and jumped out, still holding his pistol. He ran for the street.

  I followed.

  I caught him from behind in the middle of that quiet, civilized lane. He was a few inches shorter than me, but thickset, a bodybuilder. Even so, he didn’t stand a chance. I dropped my gun. Out of my throat came a guttural sound I still hear in my dreams some nights. I caught him around the head from behind. I put one hand under his chin, and the other at the back of his skull. If my damaged left arm hurt, I didn’t notice. I channeled all my strength into the job I had been trained to do. I twisted his head.

  And broke his neck.

  He collapsed at my feet without a sound, twitching, dying. I stood over him victoriously, breathing hard, my feet braced apart, my hands held out slightly from my sides, open and flexed. I could kill him again, if I had to. I wanted to.

  The scent of blood began to clear my mind. I stared at him. He’d stopped convulsing, yet blood dripped on his face. I frowned. The blood dripped from me. I raised my left hand slowly, and stared at it.

  My little finger was gone. He’d shot it off.

  “Dear god,” Edwina said hoarsely, behind me.

  I turned slowly—bloody, maimed, peppered with glass. She stood on the far side of the van with Eddie burrowed in her arms, crying. Edwina kept one hand over Eddie’s face, to shield her from the sight of the dead man. And the sight of me.

  For the first time since I’d known her, I saw disgust in Edwina’s eyes. And I saw fear. She’d never feel the same about hers and Eddie’s safety in public, again, but she’d never feel the same about me, again, either.

  I was a killer. It had come easily.

  And she was afraid of me.

  “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?” Al asked quietly. He’d come back to my hospital bed late that night while I tried to sleep.

  “Fine,” I lied. I rubbed my eyes with my good hand. The other one was bandaged like a mitten, and the whole arm had been bound in a sling. My face was speckled with small cuts from the glass. I brooded less about my hand than about what I’d become, what I’d done. I didn’t feel guilty, and that scared me a little, but then it made me angry, too. I had killed a man who intended to harm the people I loved. Why should I feel anything but satisfied?

  “Do you want me to sit here with you?” Al asked. “I’ll get a cot. I’ll stay all night.”

  “You need to be home with your family. And you need to spend your time field
ing more phone calls from the reporters.” Newspaper and TV people were crawling all over the story of the attack and Al’s undercover work that had provoked it. He and Edwina were big news, now. So was I, but not in a good way. The bastard son of a troubled mother the Jacobs family didn’t like to discuss. The Green Beret who had killed a civilian in cold blood.

  “You’re my family, too,” Al countered. That old battle. “You saved your aunt and your cousin’s lives, today. My wife’s life. My daughter’s life.” Al laid a hand on my good arm. “And you had no choice about the rest of what happened. It was self-defense.”

  I didn’t tell him what I’d seen in Edwina’s eyes. I doubt she’d have admitted it, herself. And I didn’t tell Al something else, either. I could have let the van’s driver go. Let him run. Called the police—they’d have caught the dumb fuck, easily. I could have knocked him out, held him down, waited. But I didn’t. I killed him. Al and Edwina were telling everyone my actions were self-defense. Maybe true, in the technical sense of the term. No one was going to prosecute me. No charges would be filed. “Yeah, it was self-defense,” I said slowly.

  Al nodded, his face a little strained at my tone. “You don’t have to justify it. He had a gun. You couldn’t tell whether he intended to turn around and shoot you, again. For all you knew, he intended to go after Edwina and Eddie, again. You wrestled with him. You didn’t mean to kill him.”

  I said nothing. Goddammit, Al, you’re the one with the conscience, not me. Al didn’t want to admit that killing could be a good thing, purely and simply, that the man who had tried to hurt his wife and baby deserved to be executed, along with whatever goddamned corrupt judge or lawyer or high-ranking cop had hired the hit. “I intend to find the person who sent that man,” Al said, now. “And I’ll put him away for the rest of his life.”

  Put him away. All neat and clean, a prison sentence, by the books. No, he didn’t want me to confirm that I’d killed for him and Edwina and Eddie, not in self-defense, but in revenge, and that deep down, he was glad.

  “Go home,” I said. “I think I can sleep, again. I’ll see you in the morning.”