Free Happy Family by Tracy Barone Page A

this position, as distasteful as it is to have to negotiate with Pembroke, Sol has to come up with four thousand dollars to buy his wife a baby.
    Jersey National Bank closes at five, and Sol floors his Olds to get there in time. He financed his house with that bank and has a relationship with the branch manager. He reviewed Mr. Carlton’s mother’s X-rays and had gotten her in with a top orthopedist, so he hopes that will help. Radiology was a prime choice of specialization for Sol; still, he’d had to moonlight weekends at Mount Sinai’s ER to pay for Carlotta’s canary-yellow two-carat diamond ring, even though he got it wholesale, and the down payment on the house has used up almost all of the money he’d made on his real estate investments. Crappy garages, vacant meatpacking warehouses in the far West Village he bought for almost nothing then sold to local hospitals to use as storage for their old medical records. Sol figures if he has to, he’ll run another line of credit with his percentage in the Bailey, Halpern, and Matzner practice for collateral. Which, it turns out, is what Mr. Carlton suggests in response to Sol’s fib that he needs the money to pay for Cici’s continuing home care.
    The very next morning, Pembroke calls to confirm a time and place for Sol to pick up the baby and hand over the money. Even though he chose Pembroke based on the man’s reputation for “efficiency,” Sol assumed the process would take a few weeks. Panicking, he thinks about all that needs to get done in the next few hours. Does he need to buy anything? Or are all of Cici’s careful preparations still there in the neatly organized baby’s room? He hasn’t been inside that room for weeks. He still thinks of it as his son’s room, and now another child—a girl, Pembroke told him—will grow up in it. She will have the life intended for their boy and never know the difference. Will Cici ever be able to forget their son? Will he? But he can’t allow doubt to creep in now; it’s far too late for that.
    Sol needs to get out of the house. He feels uncomfortable being around Cici and not disclosing his plan. Even though it’s hours before his meeting with Pembroke, he puts his four thousand dollars in the glove box and backs his Olds down the driveway. But the drive proves to be all the more unsettling; bomb talk dominates every radio station, and the news seems to be getting worse. With a click and a twist, he settles on something banal. “Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl, Earl, Earl.”
    Bird shit hits smack in the middle of the windshield. “Goddamned birds,” he says and flicks on his wipers, making a streaky mess. “The whole world is going to shit.” He can barely see and thinks, Great, all I need is an accident. The closest place to pull over is Dick Shelton’s Cadillac dealership. The lot is festooned with American flags and there’s a curvy brunette standing out front in a short, checkered jumper who offers to wash his window for free, and, by the way, would he like to take a look at the new Eldorado convertibles while he waits? Sol doesn’t think of himself as a Caddy man—they are too ostentatious—but what the hell, why not check out a convertible? This could be their last day of—what? Freedom? Safety?—before going up in a mushroom cloud, so why not spend it enjoying a little luxury. The least he can do is try to make things right for Cici while there are still things to make right. Sol pictures Cici smiling in a way he hasn’t seen for months sitting in the passenger seat of a new Eldorado, hair streaming out of control like in La Dolce Vita. If his love alone can’t make her happy, then a baby in a red 1963 Cadillac Eldorado has to do the trick. Anyway, he still has two hours before he has to be at the HoJo’s parking lot off the highway, plenty of time to take a look.
      
    Billy Beal arrives at the HoJo’s parking lot early. He thinks about the past few days, how so much happened so quickly.