Bass and the baby

"Are you kidding me? I can't take care of this thing!" I shouted into the receiver. The screeching baby next to me only screeched harder. "I need somebody to handle it while I figure out what the hell to do!"

"I can't fucking do it either!" I worried for a moment that I wouldn't be able to hear Ruby over the implacable child, but I guess with Ruby, I didn't need to worry that much. "I can't believe you called ME about it, either! You should get the cops down there or something, I don't know!"

"If I call the cops, I lose this entire crime scene, and all the evidence! I cannot get them involved right now!"

"What do you care about more, right now? Solving this case, or getting this baby to safety?"

This was not the time for moral quandaries. I could barely concentrate on talking as it was; the baby was kicking and screaming in the crib next to me, and the poor mother was still sitting there, very dead, in the most horrific way possible.

"ANSWER ME, shit pile!"

"I FUCKING CAN'T!" My voice broke as I screamed for all I was worth. The baby wouldn't shut up. Ruby wouldn't shut up. My own brain wouldn't shut up. Nothing was going to give me an inch of quiet with which to concentrate. I needed to do something, right the fuck now. My hands took control on their own, first, by slamming the receiver down on its cradle, knocking over the pencil cup on the end table next to it. My eyes were starting to flood over. My hands were still stinging from the act of telephone violence, but they picked the thing back off the hook and brought it back to my ear. My other hand shook as it operated the dial - nine, one, one.

They answered before I even heard it ringing on their end. "9-1-1 Emergency."

"I-I-I… please send an ambulance," I croaked.

"I can send paramedics your way right now, sir. Help is on the way." I had no idea who she was, but her voice was simultaneously urgent and reassuring. A far cry from Ruby's. She probably heard the screaming baby in the background, too. "I'll get a social-worker down there too. Can you tell me where you're at?"

I didn't remember the address right then. My other hand instinctively reached for my notebook and awkwardly thumbed through it until I was at roughly the page I needed. "Seventeen-seventeen… Wood Brook Parkway." The notebook slipped out of my hand. The hand stayed where it was anyway.

"OK. I'm dispatching the ambulance right now, sir. Stay where you are, alright? It'll be over soon."

I dropped the phone and sat down on the floor, holding my head in my hands. As soon as they got here, the paramedics would see what happened to Mrs. Kitamura. They'd get the police involved. The police would find out what I was doing to figure this thing out. They'd… what would they do, anyway? Wasn't somebody in there supposed to be paying me for this? What would they end up doing with the kid, considering Mr. Kitamura was already in hospital for having tried to stab himself, and his wife was now bleeding out on the floor? And this baby will just not shut the hell up no matter what…