in all their years, have even her eyes walked away from him. And he won’t do to her like those guys outside Denver.
“Aw, Pen,” he says, but it’s too late, and the baby’s still screaming.
Like a flash, her hand winds up and comes down open and flat, smack! across the baby’s cheek, leaving red. It stops, stunned, and Jason’s stomach turns. The baby throws back its head and lets out an anguished scream, and Penny winds up again, smack! same red cheek, and the baby stops, silenced mid-wail. It looks big-eyed and shocked at Penny, cheek flaming, a tear spilling out of its eye. Jason knows this feeling, cell memory, salty hot water on burning slapped skin. The baby hiccups. Jesus. He runs a hand over his own stubbled face.
“That’s enough of that,” Penny says, and she turns her eyes to Jason like a little girl who brought home straight As. But she reads him—Penny may be dumb, but she’s not stupid—and she juts that ugly stubborn pocked-up Popeye chin out.
“I wouldn’t ever do that to Buddy,” she says. “Never.”
Like he said, his girl’s dumb but she’s not stupid. He tries to keep his face plain, but she mugs at him, pushing past to the living room. He follows, and she’s trying to set it up on the sofa, but it keeps folding in on itself like a half-empty bag of laundry.
“I know this isn’t Buddy. A mother knows.” Penny reaches over and tries to straighten the baby, then gives up, lets him sag like a rotted fence post. “Besides, Buddy’s not this homely. Whoever this baby is”—she hefts herself up off the sofa—“snatching him was either the dumbest thing you did, or the smartest.”
“What?” He doesn’t know what to say.
“You tell me, mister.”
The baby whimpers. Penny gives it one wild horse-eyed warning glare before going into the bedroom and slamming the hollow door.
Jason knows what he has to do. He looks at the baby; can’t leave it here with Penny and her quick slaps—kid’s face is still glowing, outlines of three fingers in white like a tribal tattoo. But he can’t be seen with it either. He leaves it bobble-headed on the couch and goes into the bathroom, finds the largest, most threadbare of the towels. His aunt Selma-Wade, back in Sappho, used to wear her retard boy like a bandolier. Jason tosses the towel over one shoulder, ties the two ends together in a thick knot, guessing at the length.
Back in the living room, he struggles to stuff the baby into the swath across his chest. He misjudged; the thing nearly drops out the bottom. The second time, he holds the towel in his teeth, presses the baby against his chest with one arm, and reknots the towel, lashing the baby to him. He can slide on his leather jacket, shrugging into it like a friend, first thing he ever bought with his first trucking paycheck, five hundred eighteen dollars, this jacket and the Frye boots. The leather of them stank like money, the weight like nothing he’d ever worn. Usually he leaves it open, but this time he does up every buckle and zipper, nobody the wiser.
Jason takes a few practice steps around the living room. His back twinges, always paining him. The brass flashing screams as he opens the door, but the baby doesn’t startle. A thought occurs to him: if they’re waiting for him, pistols pointed, all he has to do is open up the jacket—human shield.
OUTSIDE, THE NIGHT IS wet, but not raining. Leaves blow through the parking lot, nothing else. Hugging the side of the building, Jason plows through the dripping, scratchy bushes at the border of the parking lot, taking a shortcut to Foster. He walks along the inside of the sidewalk, farther from the curb, toward the strip mall where there is a drugstore, about a mile.
It seems to have fallen asleep. If Jason lifts the neck of his jacket, the dome of the blue-white head glows like the rounder end of a soft-boiled egg. He thunks it with a thick finger, as if testing for a good watermelon. It stirs a little, moves its head away from his tapping, still breathing in there.
He wonders what’s happening with the real Buddy. Is someone holding him, walking him, chest to chest? Is Francie or John looking down on Buddy’s vulnerable skull with tenderness? Or would John be like his own father, sap-stained hands, cracked leather belt, coming down on him and Lisle