Baby Face

In these unsettled times, sometimes we need a little distraction. This story is as if Raymond Chandler, David Lynch, and Carl Hiaasen sat in the back booth of a seedy bar, chugging cheap whiskey in the middle of the afternoon, and they decided to tell a story about beauty and greed. Enjoy!

I thought desperation would sit heavier on me. Either I’d be in hyper-panic mode, ideas ping-ponging randomly, or I’d be catatonic. Right now, I’m neither. I feel more clear-headed than I have in months.

Yes, Charlie is dead. There is no ambiguity; his blood is pooling around his head, and I’ve got nasty bits of what I guess are his brains splattered on my shoes. How I wound up sitting in this armchair with a glass of good brandy on the end table and Charlie on the floor is as surprising to me as it is to you.

I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself to you. I’m Angela, and you should know I was never in love with Charlie. He knew that. He didn’t care. It was a mutually transactional relationship. He gave. I took.

It wasn’t only about money, although, of course, that mattered. It sure as hell life or death mattered to me. I had Quint, the loan shark, on top of me, and he wasn’t buying anything I could sell him. I like pretty things, and I bought a lot of them. What can I say? You look pretty, you act rich, and people pay attention to you. Not exactly a secret.

Quint wasn’t about breaking kneecaps to get paid back. he had an actual damn shark in a tank, and he cut off body parts, bit by bit, until you paid up, or the shark got the whole enchilada. I prefer keeping all my body parts attached.

And Charlie, lying dead at my feet, had derailed my plans to pay off Quint. Talk about needing a Hail Mary.

I’m going to have some brandy to calm my nerves. Would you like some? I need to take a minute.

You look confused. Hang on. I’ll bring you up to speed while I’m figuring out my options.

It started with Harriet. She’s the linchpin in all this. She was Charlie’s wife and his first cousin, but that’s a whole other story.

Harriet was the smart one. She ran the business. Nothing happened without Harriet giving the OK. I don’t think Charlie took a piss without getting permission from Harriet. And she made him pee sitting down so there weren’t any dribbles on the rim. Maybe Harriet was uber-smart, but she was also… what used to be called…plain. Mouse-colored hair, a chin that clung to her neck, tiny bird eyes that never missed a trick, and teeth she should have straightened when she was ten years old. Frankly speaking, she was butt ugly, but it was her voice like a rooster at dawn that really got to me. Then again, being homely turned out to be the least of her problems.

Harriet had a brother. We call him Bob, but that’s not his real name. Bob is, sorry, was, a genius. A chemist, and a philosopher, he could see what people needed before they knew they needed it, and he delivered. Unfortunately, Bob’s public-facing career was cut short when it was discovered he had a penchant for buggering juvenile penguins. I cannot be the first to throw stones at someone else’s obsession, but banging penguins is a whole new level of weirdness.

Anyway, Bob went underground to avoid the animal activists who were calling for his head and his manhood. Harriet, smelling an opportunity, set Bob up in a brand new state-of-the-art lab, including an underground Artic habitat for his feathered friends.

In return for giving him his lab and a place to play with his penguin buddies, she tasked him with a mission.

What’s something that literally everyone wants? You guessed it. Youth. To look young. Not surgically altered young with a perfectly symmetrical face, inflated cheekbones, and blowfish lips. Not a masquerade mask, but truly, freshly, unwrinkled, glowing young. And Bob, the genius, figured out how to make BabyFace™, a velvety miracle cream that came in a jar. Imagine being able to buy something on Amazon, and five days later, you look like a movie star. It was that good.

Harriet had her product, but she needed capital to make this business soar, and that’s where Charlie came in. Charlie was a chameleon. He could be whoever you wanted him to be. His special talent was convincing people he was going to make them money, boatloads of money, as soon as they gave him lots of money.

To make things tidy, Charlie and Harriet got married, although it was more of a merger than a marriage. They were both in it for the money. If anyone thought twice about cousins getting married, they were better off keeping their mouths shut. You didn’t want to get on Harriet’s bad side.

Unfortunately, Charlie could only talk about money. That was it. He was a one-topic man working in a business that sold happiness in a jar. They needed a pretty face to help sell desire, and that’s where I came in.

Charlie needed me the way a snake needs a smile. He needed me to make him appear to be a normal human being, not a money-leeching changeling without scruples. Harriet didn’t like it, but I was brought in to be his smiling ‘personal assistant’. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m hot. I’ve got curves that you want to hit without touching the brakes. I can be the girl next door if you want coveting thy neighbor to keep you up at night. And if there is one thing Charlie liked besides money, it was sex. He liked it a whole lot, just not with Harriet.

I needed to keep Quint happy, which meant I needed money, and I needed it quick, and that’s where Bob came in handy. Charlie was paying me, but not enough, and If there is one thing I’m very good at, it’s sniffing out some extra cash. And Bob? He was lonely and ripe for the plucking. I poured on the honey, and he lapped it up.

To be honest, I let him marinate more than consummate because I was playing the long game with Charlie. He held the purse strings, and I do love a pretty purse.

You see where all this is headed, right? We were after the big bucks. Fame and happiness were way down the list. It was money we were after, and the four of us worked together like greased cogs in an engine.

Each of us had our part to play, and it took us about 37 seconds to build Babyface™ into the goose that kept laying piles of golden eggs. People, men, women, and everyone in between went crazy. They sold their cars, their firstborn, and whatever else it took to get a jar of BabyFace™.

BabyFace™ became a verb. “Hey, you look great. Babyfaced?” The Washington Post ran a whole series on the etiquette of mentioning if you’d Babyfaced or not. Gen Z or 3’s or whatever they are when they’re about ten years old, started asking for it in their Christmas stocking. Like a ten-year-old wants to look younger? Parents, you need to keep the kids away from TikTok, ok?

You’re still wondering how Charlie wound up splattered on the rug. I’m getting to that.

To be Continued…
Next drop: Tuesday, January 28, 2025