That reason was exactly why we were currently parked right outside the city, waiting under the bridge for my package.
“Are you nervous?” my father asked, handing me his cigar. I waved him off; it wasn’t worth the hassle Mel would give me if I came home smelling of smoke. She was more than sensitive to it now.
“Nervous about what?”
“About your son. I understood why you and Mel didn’t want to talk about it while there was still a chance she could lose him. Your mother and I have tried to give you both some time to let it sink in, but, we’re both kind of shocked you haven’t had more worries. Neither of you have even mentioned a nursery, nor did Mel want a baby shower…”
“She didn’t want a baby shower because we both knew she would have snapped and killed every last one us.” I could just see her now, a baby rattle in her hand, hammering away at some poor schmuck’s skull. And that poor schmuck would have probably been me.
Mel and I had spoken about the baby; we spent most of our evenings talking about him. What we would name him, how we would handle our work and parenting. Mel didn’t open up well to people. It had taken two years of marriage for her to even truly be open with me. Going to my parents was not something I figured she could do just yet.
“I know you and Mom want to be included more,” I said, “but Mel’s just not good with being personal, you know this. She’s working on it and I can’t push her. We’re thinking of naming him Ethan Antonio Callahan.”
“Ethan?” He grinned, turning to face me.
“Yeah.” I grinned in return. “I wanted something Irish, and she told me to fuck off, that his last name was Irish enough. She kept reading off Italian names, I kept asking if it was a name of an appetizer or entrée. We went down a line of ‘E’ names and Ethan just popped out at us. Feel free to pass it on to Mother so she can start embroidering sweaters and monogramming silverware. Hopefully that will keep her off the baby shower thing.”
“About that…” he trailed off.
“Please tell me you didn’t. Please, for the love of God, don’t tell me Mother is going forward with it.” Pushing off the car, I turned to him.
He continued to smoke, trying his best to not meet my gaze.
“Are you kidding me? I’m doing all I motherfucking can to just make it through the next couple of weeks. She’s going to think this was me.”
“Aww, the poor Boss is afraid of his big, pregnant wife?” He laughed, throwing his cigar on the ground.
“Says the man who probably tried to talk his wife out of this and failed. And I’ll let her know you called her big.” As if he could stand up to his wife either. We were both fucked, and the moment I got the chance, I was throwing him under the bus.
“Your package is here.” He nodded towards the van driving through the small creek towards us.
Peering up at the bridge, I spotted the guns waiting as the older van pulled up right in front of us. I hated dealing with human traffickers; they sickened me. The shit we did was of each person’s own free will. We didn’t hold the needle to their veins or the powder to their noses. It was all on their own accord. Traffickers were sick and they deserved everything that was coming to them, but they still knew how to get a body. And I needed this kid.
The four men pulled the small boy out of the truck. Both his hands were bound, a blindfold over his eyes. The poor kid must have stood at my hip. He fought and struggled against the men, with tears rolling down his face. They held onto the collar of his torn, filth covered shirt.
“I told you he was not to be harmed and that he was to be informed of where you were taking him,” I said.
“He alive, ain’t he? Lucky too ‘cause we got another offer for him. It’s gonna cost you another ten. Or we’ll take him and walk.”
Why people chose to test my patience was beyond me. It was like they wanted me to repeatedly prove I was willing to beat the shit out of them. My father glanced at me with a sickening grin on his face that could have only been matched by mine. I nodded and he knew what this meant.
“Let the boy go and you get the money we settled on, along with your arms,” I said.
They smiled at each other before grabbing the boy again.
“No! No! Déjame ir. Let go!” The boy cried, trying to fight.
Sighing, I pulled at the stacks in my jacket and threw it at one of their chests.
“That’s the half I owe you,” I told them before throwing another ten towards him. “And that’s the ten. Now hand over my package.”
They were all enjoying the fact that they had just stiff-armed a Callahan. They dropped the boy like a sack of potatoes onto the ground. Walking over to him, I took off the blindfold and ropes.