Free Quid Pro Quo by Vicki Grant Page A

being a social worker or somethin’. That’s how I run into him again too. By that time my wife had took off on me, and I was turning up at the Army shelter every so often. Them days, I had a bad habit of drinking my paycheck away. Anyways, he was working with them “wayward girls” there—you know, the ones that went and got themselves pregnant—and he met Squishy or whatever damn thing he used to call her. I think he liked her. I mean just “liked” her. Nothin’ more. He was a lot older than her, and you know she had that baby too. What man in his right mind would want to take on somebody else’s kid, specially one that squalled away like that one did?
    â€œAnyways, she was a smart girl once you got past the dirty mouth, and I thinks he thought she could get into the university too. Thing is, she misinterpreted his intentions is my guess. Thought she caught herself a college boy to look after her and that scrawny baby. That was some sorry-looking youngster …”
    â€œSo what about the church?”
    Stan quit shaking his head over what a pathetic baby I was and got back on track.
    â€œLike I says, you can’t quote me on this. It was a long time ago, and anyways, what do I knows about women? I only managed to hang on to one myself for seven and a half months before she turned tail and ran, and to tell you the truth, we’re probably both the happier for it, but my guess is this: Like I says, Squinty misinterpreted Byron’s intentions. She thought it was love. He thought it was charity. When she realized that’s what he was thinking, she done what every self-respecting woman does. She got mad—and then she got crazy. She dumped the baby outside Byron’s door and took off. Maybe it was for dope or maybe it was just to spite him for not loving her back, I don’t know, but she set out to rob that church … What’s it called? … The one all them rich south-enders go to? … Down Oxford Street … Big stone thing … First
    Methodist, that’s it! My grandmother on my father’s side was a Methodist, though she weren’t rich, of course.
    â€œAnyways, Byron had helped the church raise all this money for some Mexicans who got shook up by some earthquake, and that Squawker went after it. She made a terrible mess of them fancy stained glass windows church people like so much. I don’t know how, but Byron figured out what she was up to and came after her. He cut his hand something awful on the glass, strugglin’ with her. I guess he couldn’t get her to give back that strongbox no matter what he did. Church people, eh? What were they thinking? Just leaving the money there until Monday when the bank opened. Don’t they know there’s sinners out there?
    â€œAnyways, the alarm went off, or someone out walking their dog saw all them broke windows, I don’t know, but the police got called and the two of them ran. Three of them, that is. Byron had the baby with him too, if you can believe that.
    â€œIt took about a week for the cops to catch ’em, and by that time Byron’s hand was so swolled up and pussie they had to cut her off. I bet they wanted to cut off more than that too. Them church people were madder than hell. They figured Byron had raised all that money just so he could go and steal it and then run off with some teenager and her baby. As far as the good people of Halifax was concerned, he was the lowest of the low, and he never told them no different. And you can bet that little Squishy didn’t neither. She may not a got him to marry her, but she got the next best thing. She got to make him pay...
    â€œNear everybody thought the judge was right to throw the book at Byron, but me and the boys down to the shelter had other ideas. We figured he kept his mouth shut ’cause he knew how much Squishy loved that baby of hers. He knew they couldn’t charge her with much because