Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (32 page)

“That’s all?”

“Yes, that’s all you get for now…isn’t he cute?”

Julie looked Chantain over with a queer eye, then studied the baby over-bundled in blankets in the same queer way. To her, the child looked as if he was cocooned in a suspicious manner.

As for the newfound baby in the crib sticking his head out, he had something to say without even saying it. The cute little guy looked up at Julie with such a smile that Julie’s ironclad look was immediately erased.

She stumbled back, losing her breath. “
Hooooph
, Al never said he was…he was
this
cute. Come to think, he didn’t see him, did he?
Hmmm
, what’s his name?”

Chantain sat down beside the crib and folded her fingers together over her knee, looking too pinned-up to tell. “Well—”

“Oh, come on, Chantain. Tell me, for Pete’s sake…what’s his name?”

Chantain quickly sat on her hands. “Why…it’s,
uh
… Ru-Rand—”

“Oh, come on, spit it out. What you say ‘Rand’? Rand what?”

“No! It’s not ‘Rand’…Rand, dol—”

“What? Oh my God. ‘Doll’?”

Just like that, Chantain smiled and fluttered her eyelashes as if she knew what his name was all along. With a new, wholesome expression painted across her face, she proudly said with complete confidence, “Yes, that’s right.”

“What’s right? What’d I do?”

“That’s his name. How’d you guess? His name’s ‘Doll.’”

Julie looked at her as if she were seeing double. “Doll?
Ubb-dubb uh
—
Doll?
What kind-a-name’s that? Wait a minute… how did you know his name’s Doll?”

Chantain scuttled in her chair. “Well, Eddie found a letter from his dead parents along with him. They said that’s what his name is…cute, isn’t it? I mean, look at him. He’s such a doll. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, he is…
hmmm
, so I mean, wow. You got a letter from the dead parents? That’s spooky…oh my God, wait a minute…they really dead?”

Chantain didn’t say. She just kept shifting in her chair, trying to tie her fingers into knots. Eventually, she got around to the fearful act of painfully nodding.

Julie seemed to smell that perhaps Chantain’s story might be phony, but just as she began to grill her some more, Arlis started crying. “Oh, now-now-now…oh, you been such a good boy, Arlis…
goochie-goo
. What’s wrong?” Unexpectedly, she changed. “Oh, I’m sorry about this…it’s my whine bag, Arlis here…give me a sec…there-there now, what’s wrong?”

Embarrassed like, she looked to Chantain: “You see? You see what you have to look forward to, Chantain? There-there now, Arlis, my boy…Mommy’s right here,
shhhhh
…oh God, I ran out th’ door without a bottle, oh no…you wouldn’t have a bottle-a-milk, would you? I really hate to say this, but he really lets go until I poke a bottle in his mouth.”

Chantain aberrantly offered. “Oh, I suppose. I mean, I guess so. You just stay
right
there and don’t touch anything. We don’t need both the babies crying. I’ll be right back.”

She skipped off in a hurry, making a bunch of noise in the kitchen before coming back to the living room with a fresh bottle of warm milk to hand to Julie.

Julie looked at the bottle, then looked up to Chantain suprised. While she tended to Arlis, she kindly said, “I never thought I’d see the day that Chantain would have a bottle in her hand…the bottle feels warm too…is the nipple sterilized? Where’d you get it?”

“Oh yes…sterilized it five minutes ago. Eddie had the stuff in a drawer from when he babysat Arlis a while back.”

Julie blushed. “Oh, that’s right, I remember…me and Al had to leave town. Why, thank you, Chantain, for being so thoughtful.”

“No problem.”

Julie went on, “Wow, can someone really change that fast? You used to tell me to leave when Arlis got this way. You even told me to get my milk at home once. Remember?”

Chantain seemed distracted. She quickly sat down and leaned over Doll’s crib with a smile and a hand tucked under her chin.

Julie asked again, “Hello? I’m still here…remember?”

“Who? What? Oh, yeah, I remember, Julie.”

“So his name’s Doll,
huh
? I can tell you like him.”

“Me? Like him?
Hmmm
, I don’t know. He’s not mine really, but he’s hard to ignore.”

Julie continued as she rocked Arlis in her arms, “He’s hard to ignore because that’s the mom side of you cryin’ out. Maybe you could be a real mom, who knows?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, I guess I could say now since you’re thinkin’ of bein’ a mom. Ever since you two moved next door, you were always this beauty queen with fangs,
ha!
I guess this’ll take care-a-that right away.”

Chantain sneered, “Thanks a lot…so the truth comes out just because I have one of these in my house?”

Julie suddenly looked around as if she were searching for a place to backpedal. Nervously, she glanced around for something to look at besides Chantain, but she seemed marooned right there in her chair. Finally, she looked back at Chantain with no resolve. Her splendid looks offered no resolve either. Across from her was Chantain, plastered into a silk dress with a figure to die for and her attire wasn’t even stained.

Julie muttered, “Hardly fair. You got a ready-made baby overnight.”

Chantain didn’t say or do anything except look at Julie from head to toe. What she saw was a woman, well-entrenched in the life of a seasoned mother who didn’t have a smidgen of makeup on.

The more Julie glanced around, the more enraged she became. She started to chew her jaw, stewing up another rash of feelings. Then she dared look down at herself and got a good look at the top of her breasts. Describing her as unfashionable was an understatement, based on what she was wearing—or not wearing. Besides the fact that her thin nighty had been worn too many times, she was blatantly geared more toward the serious work of feeding babies than amusing men with a fancy brassiere. Either she left it at home, or she couldn’t find one to fit. The truth of the matter was that she was still in the doldrums of not having fully recovered from the long, hard several months of carrying and birthing her own son.

Immediately, Julie shook off her shackles of self-pity and traded them for thorns, sticking her nose up in the air. “It’s a shame he’s not yours and Eddie’s. I mean, for real.”

Chantain dropped her smile. “What did you say?”

Julie carried on, steadying herself as she gripped onto one side of the little wooden chair. “I-I-I mean, if only you and Eddie
could
have a child—of your own. I mean, you wouldn’t have to settle for
someone else’s
. That’s like raising some child of your husbands former lover. How awful…don’t you think?”

Chantain appeared as though she just took a walloping blow between the eyes, then she recovered. She stretched and yawned with her arms extended from end to end and arched her back. To show the best of herself, she stuck out her glamorous chest too. Quite hard to miss was her shape beneath her tight, white silk dress. Under all of that was her brand-new bullet brassiere, showing no fear of sagging whatsoever. “Well, yes, of course…my baby would be the most beautiful and charming of all….
hmmm
, I thought you knew that.” She then dropped her charm, like a box of rocks. “I mean, look at you and Arlis…I mean,
um
.”

“What about Arlis?”

“Well, anyone can see the resemblance of you two in my old chair. Speaking of which, I’ve got to get a new one…one of these days…soon I guess.”

Julie tried to look at the chair she was sitting on, but her body wouldn’t let her. Not that she wanted to see her chair. She must have seen it many times before, empty. The invisible chair was there, unfortunately, beneath hips and thighs the size of tree trunks.

Realizing this, Julie wiped her stubby nose then sheepishly adjusted Arlis back into her lap, which could have been anywhere. Still, she sat tough. “We look just fine. Isn’t that right, Arlis? Yeah, you’re cute…Mommy likes your little nose and wooly red hair, doesn’t she?”

Chantain grinned. “At least that’s all you see.”

Just as Julie began to say something…

Ca-crack, crack!

A surprising clap of thunder came rattling through the windows, causing both of them to jump.

Chantain quickly closed all of the windows then headed for the front door: “That didn’t sound too good…I think I’ll call Eddie inside before he gets rained on. Maybe you should go before it starts raining too. I hate to see you and Arlis catch a
cold
or something.”

Julie cordially got up to head outside. “Yes, I best be going. It’s pretty dark out there too…here’s your bottle. Thanks for our little visit anyway.”

Julie stepped out into the yard before turning around. “Oh, Chantain, honey?”

“Yes?”

“I never expected you to be a mother. Hope,
uh
, Dolly works out.”

Julie then turned and walked away, taking a good dose of sorrow with her. As she passed Eddie and disappeared out into the street, Eddie turned back to the fire, warming his hands, muttering to himself, “Who would’ve believed?
Hmmph
, didn’t think I’d see her leaving like that.”

He then offered a glance up to Chantain, who was still under the light of the porch, glaring at him. Softly, he spoke, “Everything go okay?”

Chantain didn’t answer, nor did she call him inside. Instead, she turned around and closed the door behind her. Shortly thereafter, the porch light went out.

Eddie rubbed his hands whispering, “Al…that rat-fink… wonder what he’s doing right now.”

Al, next door, was trying to relax in his living room chair with his feet kicked up on a stool. Apparently, he was waiting for Julie to return. Periodically, he glanced at a small
clock ticking on the wall. Next to him was his low-boy cabinet radio, playing a scratchy segment of the news. Every so often he looked up to the ceiling when he heard his two older children making noise upstairs. They were making a little too much noise, so he folded his newspaper down and grabbed a broom next to him, thumping on the ceiling with it. “Quiet down up there, I’m listening to the radio!”

After they quieted down, he took a drag from his worn-out pipe and tuned the radio for a better signal.

“—and now more news from inside the station here at JDVL. The famous author, Vera Connolly, best known for her highly controversial articles printed in the February 1933 issue of
Better Housekeeping Magazine,
is back in the news again. Her laughable articles titled ‘Is Your Man Worth Fighting For?’ and
‘Thousands of Women Go to War against Divorce’
look like they’re starting to come true nearly a decade later
.

“The little-known female writer claimed America was going to become the land of divorce. Her credibility was under attack when she exaggerated the numbers that nearly two hundred thousand divorces were granted in the United States in just one year
.

“It makes little difference a decade later. America is well on its way to Connelly’s outrageous predictions made back then. The divorce rate has nearly doubled to four hundred thousand nationwide
.

“Who’s laughing now? The divorce numbers have started to climb so high that some United States government officials have answered. They say there’s no cause for alarm. Their reasons given were, in part, due to war. Whether their reasons for blaming the war are plausible, only time will tell—”

Al yelled to his kids upstairs, “Shut up the noise! I’ll get the belt out! Holy cow! Trying to get peace and quiet down here!” He paused for a sound check. When all became quiet, he hurled his pipe back into his mouth as the radio kept playing.

“—tonight’s news is brought to you by Fels-Naptha…smell the clean Naptha odor for the difference. Remember, everybody loves a gentle giant. Don’t forget Crisco…Crisco—instead of bacon grease.”

Al had no more than quieted down his children when a slamming front door shuddered throughout the house.

Julie barged into the living room with Arlis. Without saying a word, she made a beeline past Al and directly into the kitchen. She grabbed the telephone and frantically dialed the rotor as fast as it would go.

Al stretched a concerned look toward the kitchen. “Who you calling at this hour, woman? Nothin’s open.”

“Never mind. Don’t bother me right now. Can’t you see? I’m trying to dial. See? You made me mess up. Now I gotta dial all over again.”

Al grumbled and buried his face back in his newspaper as the radio continued:

“—and now an update on the war locally along the Eastern seaboard. Our special edition of Wars of the World. The two hundred-member lost crew of the U.S
. Chameleon
is now officially considered one hundred percent unaccounted for. From the way it looks, the mystery behind the vanishing battleship continues
.

“No evidence was found at the scene except a floating piece of material which was said to have come from an unidentified, flying spacecraft with unusual, never-seen-before markings. The discovery further raises the question, ‘Did President Roosevelt’s unsinkable warship actually have an alien encounter?’ Fact or fiction, so far the U.S. government refuses to release any further details or pictures of the strange material found floating, thereby confirming the possibility of at least some support to the story they deny—”

Julie’s face lit up on the phone. “
Ah
, finally, hello? Is this the constable? I’d like to report a lost baby at a shipwreck at
Port Rock Beach. Yes, that’s right…no, it’s true…
uh huh
… yes…right. I’ll hold, but you better hurry before I change my mind.”

Al put his paper down, then glared into the kitchen. “What you doin’? Hang up that phone, now.”

“Shut up, Al. I know what I’m doing.”

He went on, “When you goin’ to stop pokin’ y’r nose in other people’s business?”

The radio kept playing.

“—we’ll end the evening with a song called ‘Stormy Weather,’ by Lena Horne. An appropriate song for tonight’s weather. Stay dry and stay tuned to J-Devil.”