Baby Breath revised, John Andrew Durler Sr. [best short books to read txt] 📗

and came back. "Which one is Ariel?"

"Oh shit. Take his gun and hold it on him. I'll get her."

Harry took the gun out of his pocket and trained it on Graham. I released my hand slowly. "Graham, if you say anything before come back, killer here will blow your brains out." Grahams eyes were wide with fright. Alex went into the other room. There was a pale baby in one crib and Ariel in the other. Alex picked her up, removing her outfit and saw a small Band-Aid on her arm. He ripped it off. There was a puncture wound and a small purple bruise around it. He laid her back down and went back to the bed. "What did you give her?"

"Nothing, I took some blood and ran some tests, that's all."

Harry pressed the gun against her temple. "And a mild sedative, because she wouldn't stop crying," he said casually.

"Where's your mother, Graham?"

"She's not here. She's at her home."

"Who is the other baby inside?"

"My Grand daughter."

"Where's her mother."

"In Europe."

"Doing what? Looking for babies?"

He didn't answer.

"Graham. What were you going to do with my daughter? Tell me the truth. Whatever it was, it's not going to happen. It's finished. I want to know. That's all."

"Nothing. My grand daughter is dying. Ariel was going to be her replacement."

"Graham. You're a fucking liar?" Alex looked at Laura. "Wake Mildred."

Laura shook her. She just rolled over. Laura held up a prescription bottle.
"I think she took sleeping pills."

Alex pulled the covers off Graham. He was skinny, with pasty skin and bony knees.

"No wonder Mildred took sleeping pills," Alex said, "Get up Graham, you're going to show us around the house."

"Let me get my robe."

"Uh, uh, your shorts are enough Graham. Come on."

"Laura, Stay with Mildred, please, in case she's faking it."

She nodded she would. They searched the upstairs which had no operating room. Downstairs was a no also. In the basement Alex found a steel door and a wall halfway
across the span of the room. He opened it. Inside was a laboratory and an operating room. Two operating tables were set up, side by side.

"Well, well." Alex grabbed Graham and pushed him against the wall, clutched his throat and said through clenched teeth, "What is that you lying mother fucker!"

"I wasn't going to hurt her!" He bleated. I was going to remove a kidney, that's all!"

"That's all?"

Alex dragged him to the operating table, and handed him a sponge. He took it with his right hand. Alex took the thumb of that hand, pressed it between his arm and body by his armpit and snapped it. Graham screamed, "AArrgggh!" Alex reached for a scalpel in a clear jar of alcohol held it tight, put it between the joint and held it there, tight.
Graham screamed and puked. His face was strained white, beads of sweat popping out all over it. He screamed again, "Aarrgghh!"

"Harry yelled, "Oh, shit! Oh Shit!"

Alex released Graham, tore the filter of a Winston, lit it and blew smoke into the air, looked at Harry and said, "Time to go."

He looked green.

"Harry, all I did was dislocate his thumb."

"Oh, I couldn't see."

"Neither could Graham."

"C'mon, Graham," I said. I wiped most of the puke off him. I went over to a sink and washed the puke off my hands, took a towel from a stack on a shelf, and cleaned Grahams puke as best as I could off of my clothes, went back to Graham and helped him off the table.

****************

Back in the bedroom, Laura looked at Graham and asked. "What happened to him?"
Graham was sitting on the bed holding his hand, rocking back and forth,

"He's OK. It's minor." Alex said calmly as he turned to him and asked, "Graham, where are the papers I gave you?"

He managed to say, "In Mildred's night table drawer. The one on the top."

Alex searched both. There was a shiny silver derringer in the bottom one, and an envelope with the papers. There was also a blank death certificate. Alex walked back to Graham and handed it to him, face toward him.

He looked at it and his eyes flickered in a flash of hate.

Alex dropped it on the bed and said to Laura, "take Ariel, the baby on the right in the yellow outfit. You two go. I'll meet you at the car in five minutes."

Alex watched her pick up the right baby. Harry took her arm, and they carefully walked downstairs.

"What's the story Graham. The real story?"

He didn't say anything for a full minute, then tears rolled down his face. He sniffled, blew his nose on the bed sheet and said, wearily "My daughter is in a mental institution in
Switzerland. She punctured her daughter's kidney with a knitting needle. We were trying to save my grand daughter with an infant's kidney, and by doing that, perhaps my daughter could regain her sanity."

"And?"

"You were our last hope. If we revealed what we were doing, you never would have allowed us to take Ariel. Alex, I don't really think I would have gone through with it. I don't think my morality would have allowed it. I am not a terrible man. I'm kind of glad you did what you did down there in the basement. dislocating my thumb. Being a surgeon has been a curse for me. I never wanted that. My father wanted it. I wanted to be a
mathematician."

"Well, Graham, now you can invent a better bomb." His eyes flared again.

"I don't believe you Graham. I believe you would have took her kidney, or both of them, cut her up and put her pieces in the garbage disposal, as casually as you would carve a holiday roast. There is no remorse in your eyes. You are one of those people who have no conscience--a mutant. You have been bested by a dead man walking, Mr. Vanbuskirk. Think of that as you sit, waiting for another infant."

Alex walked away, went back to the street, got in the van and held Ariel.

"What did you do back there?" Harry asked.

Alex told them what Graham said and that he didn't believe him. On the way back he asked, "Which one of you can take Ariel?"

"I have no one I can trust but you two. The Vanbuskirks's are not going to say anything to the authorities about what happened, and I doubt if he'll even tell Mildred the truth.
Please answer me. I have enough money so she won't be a burden."

"Jeez Alex, I don't care about the money and she's a beautiful baby, but I don't know anything about caring for a baby."

"I don't either, Laura," I said, but we can learn."

"We?" Harry said.

"Sure. I can't do it alone. You know Harry, I think you're kind of cute, and I also think you need a level headed woman to straighten you out and settle you down."

"Are you proposing to me? You don't even know me. And I don't know much about you."

"You know what you read in the magazines, and I'm not saying we should rush into anything, but we could take care of Ariel together, in shifts at first, or hell, you could move in to my place. It has three bedrooms. And I think we could work this out. And if we get to like each other and the sex is good that, clinches it. Don't you think?"

Alex felt felt Harry blush. Silver Dollar Harry getting proposed to by a black belt karate champion.

"Hell, I must think about this. I need a little time."

"Well, we got a whole hour and a half before we get back."

"Well, being over the Post Office Cafe in a shitty apartment isn't so great. And since you have three bedrooms, I guess we can start with that. But I'm not making any promises."

"Good enough for me, Harry. Alex, you have a deal."

"Now, where are we spending the night," Laura asked. "I mean, all of us, and I want to know what happened when you two left me alone with Mildred, and I also don't think Alex should go back to his apartment. You cannot know what those Vanburskirks are still capable of."

Harry said, "Alex and I can go back to the Post Office, upstairs to my place, but it's really for one person or fewer."

Laura laughed, "Fewer? Your apartment is big enough for one or fewer persons?"
They all laughed at that, and Harry asked, "Did I really say that?"

"Yes," Laura said, so it must be really small."

Alex said , "Take me to my place and I'll pick up a change of clothes and some other things, just a bag full. Oh and my car."

"OK," Harry said, "first we'll go back to Post Office and I'll get some things, and then we can go to your place, you get yours, and then we'll all go to Laura's for the night. That's what you intended, right Laura."

"Yes I did. I told you I have three bedrooms."

"Alex said, "well that's settled. I really didn't know what I was going to do , but I certainly wasn't going back to my place to spend any more time than to pick up a change of clothes. The Vanbuskirks took all of Ariel's things. Beat that. He even made four trips up and down the stairs to take everything of hers, and then they were going to at the very
least, steal a kidney from her."

"The guy has brass knockers." Harry said.

"Now, Harry, you don't really know if he has any at all, but he does have a diabolical way of getting what he wants."

After the Post Office, at Alex's apartment the superintendent walked in through the open door, "Mr. Sinclair. A letter was delivered by messenger an hour ago." Alex came out of the bedroom and took it. There was a return address on it. It was from France. He opened it, read it, sat down, read it again, and rushed downstairs. "Sorry, a change of plans. Drive
me to the Airport."

"What?" Harry Asked.

"I My father must have met someone in France. The letter is to me, because they think I am my father with a changed name. They went by my picture, have a Kind of daughter in France. I want to see her before I die. A letter was delivered an hour ago, and in it a man named Pierre wrote me, my girl grew up and wished to see me. They saw my picture in the newspaper when Jenny Died. They have been searching for me ever since. I still want you to take care of Ariel. If the family checks out, then I think