The Trade

“Yeah, sure. Well, if you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Matt put a finger on the disconnect, started to replace the phone, then found himself punching out the number he hadn’t used for almost a year. After she’d left, he’d ring just to listen to her voice on the machine, always hanging up if she answered in person. But one night, she’d said, “Matt, I know it’s you. Please don’t keep doing this. Don’t force me to get an unlisted number.”

It had been like breaking an addiction. Just for today, he’d tell himself, I won’t call her. Just for today. Ten months of one day at a time not calling Genevieve Chang.

After four rings, the familiar voice said, “This is Ginn Chang. If you leave your number I’ll call you back. If you don’t, I won’t.”

Matt hesitated. He wanted to tell her about the baby, about the cops asking questions about him. He wanted…What? Marriage? A family? He dropped the phone into the cradle, went into the bedroom, Barney at his heels.

The eight-by-ten was back on the table by his bed. Every line was etched in his mind, but he picked it up and studied it. Ginn in hipriding white shorts and a bikini top leaned her narrow back against his chest. He had both arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on top of her head, the half-grown Barney stretched at their feet, grinning as only a happy young Lab could. He remembered the day clearly. Ned and Julie and their boys had come over for the day, Ned with a new digital camera posing everyone until they finally rebelled.

Matt thought about his brother. Ned didn’t complicate life. He’d found the right girl when he was twenty-eight, he’d gotten married, settled down, had a couple of kids. No sweat.

Matt replaced the picture on the table. From the moment they met, he’d never doubted that Ginn was the right girl. It was the rest of the story that wouldn’t fall into place. The old family album was still on the dresser where he’d put it after the fire. Slowly he turned to a page—any page—as he did sometimes. They were all photographs taken by his dad of their mother and Ned and himself, with their horses at the ranch on Zumirez Drive on Point Dume; the three of them running on the beach outside this house, throwing sticks for their two Shepherd-type mutts, playing in the surf. His mother always seemed to be smiling. Something he could still remember about her, sometimes the only thing was that wide, sweet smile. He closed the album.

“Come on, Barney. Let’s get out of here.”

He changed into old jeans and running shoes, and opened the door to the deck. Barney pushed ahead of him, but instead of heading for the gate and the narrow stairs down to the beach, the dog dashed along the walkway toward the street, tail wagging furiously. The automatic patio lights, hanging by a wire from the garage but still working, flashed on as Bobby Eckhart stepped across the beam. He was wearing black jeans, leather jacket, heavy boots.

“Hey, Matthew, you coming or going?”

“Going. I was taking Barney for a run on the beach, but it can wait. Did you come on your bike?” He hadn’t heard the sound of the love of Bobby’s life, his Harley.

“What else?”

“What brings you here?”

“You called, master?”

Matt laughed. “Come on in. You want a beer?”

“Is the pope Catholic?” Bobby tussled with Barney until they both banged their way through the door into the kitchen. He looked down at his pants. “Look at this. I’m covered in yellow hair. Don’t you ever brush this mutt?”

“You know where the brush is kept, buddy. Be our guest.”

“Too late. Damage is done.” Bobby crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator, opened the door, looked in, stared at the empty interior. “You got something against food?”

“I picked up some stuff on the way home.” He didn’t explain that no way could he ever open that door without seeing the shirt-wrapped bundle resting on a steel rack. He’d already ordered a new refrigerator, different make, different configuration. “Sit down. I’ve got water, warm beer, or scotch. If you want cold, there’s a bottle of Stoli in the freezer.”

“A glass of your best red will do me fine. Gotta get my sweetie home in one piece.”

Matt grinned. “Would that be Sylvie or the Harley?” Bobby’s wife was also a deputy sheriff.

“Sylvie’s got late duty tonight, that’s why I’m here. So I don’t have to cook.” Bobby peered into the containers of braised beef, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes.

“I don’t know how she puts up with playing second fiddle to that bike.”

“She knows she’s on to a good thing. She’s got us both.”

Matt opened a bottle of Merlot while Bobby decanted the food, put it into the microwave.

Matt leaned back in his chair, reached for a couple of glasses, poured the wine.

“So, what’s up?” Bobby asked.

“The sheriff’s department is asking questions about me,” Matt said. “Jimmy McPhee called tonight.” He repeated the conversation.

“Routine stuff, nothing to worry about.” The microwave beeped. Bobby placed the containers on the table.

“What will happen to her, Bob?”

“The baby? Well, if they can’t find the mother, she’ll either get a civil burial or transfer her body to a teaching hospital where pediatric surgeons get their training.”

The food in Matt’s mouth was suddenly a lump impossible to swallow. “You mean—” He wanted to gag. He thought of the delicate body he’d seen, the fragile limbs. “She shouldn’t be cut up.”

Bobby helped himself to more braised beef. “Yeah, turns your stomach, doesn’t it? You know, in one month last year…August, I think, three babies were found on the beach in Santa Monica, about a week apart. Remember that?”

“No.”

“Yeah, well. No one notices. Just the flotsam of a big city. Another little Jane Doe, no one to claim her.”

“Then I’ll claim this one. She should have someone, not end up on a surgical slab, alone.”

“You can’t just walk in and claim a body. It’s not that easy. Why would you want to do that?”

Because she died in his arms. Because maybe he could have saved her if he hadn’t been so hellbent on getting home to his house and his dog. Although he still didn’t know how.

“Because I found her, I guess. Why not?”

Bobby shook his head. “Matt, just think for a minute how this plays. Single guy finds a baby. She’s still alive. No one’s around as a witness. Baby dies. Then the guy claims the body, spends a fair amount of change to give this Baby Doe a funeral. What do you think that says?”

“That someone wants to do the right thing? What? You think like a cop, Bobby, you know that?”

“Twelve years on the job, Matt. It’ll do it to you every time.” After college, Bobby had bummed the world following the waves for a couple of years before he came home, met Sylvie and joined the sheriff’s department.

Matt pushed his chair back, got to his feet. He dumped the remains of the food into the trash. “So what’s the next step? Do I call the coroner’s office?”

“No. You sleep on it for a week, then you call.”

“That might be too late.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “You’re right.”

CHAPTER 4

“See what I mean? It’s a prime piece of property.” Mike Greffen of Downtown Realty Associates, was resplendent in a well tailored gray suit, white shirt, Hermes tie. He gestured toward the vast empty interior of the almost derelict building. In spite of the brilliant fall day outside, the late afternoon sunlight barely penetrated the second floor windows, multi-paned and washed with a thin film of brown paint. The place reeked of excrement, human and animal, rats, stray cats, the unwholesome stink of the transients who used the place to drink and vomit and crash. “Know what they say about location. Still can’t beat it, gentlemen.”

Ned stamped a foot tentatively on the splintered wooden planks of the uneven factory floor. A small cloud of dust coated his Nikes. He and Matt wore their usual working clothes, blue jeans, polo shirts, sneakers.