Mask Market
Andrew Vachss
"I 'm not the client," the
ferret seated across from me said. He was as thin as a garrote, with a
library-paste complexion, the skin surrounding his veined-quartz eyes
as papery as dried flowers. He was always room temperature. "You know me, Burke. I only work the middle."
"I
don't know you," I lied. "You
knew--you say you knew--my
brother. But if you did--"
"Yeah,
I know he's gone," the ferret said, meeting my
eyes, the way you do when you've got nothing to hide. With
him, it was an invitation to search an empty room. "But
you've got the same name, right? He never had any first name
that I knew; so what would I call you, I meet you for the first
time?"
It's
impossible to actually look into my eyes, because you have to do it one
at a time. One eye is a lot lighter than the other, and they
don't track together anymore.
A few years ago,
I was tricked into an ambush. The crossfire cost me my looks, and my
partner her life. I mourn her every day--the hollow blue heart
tattooed between the last two knuckles of my right hand is
Pansy's tombstone--but I don't miss my old
face. True, it was a lot more anonymous than the one I've got
now. Back then, I was a walking John Doe: average height, average
weight…generic lineup filler. But a lot of different people
had seen that face in a lot of different places. And the State had a
lot of photographs of it, too--they don't throw out
old mug shots.
I'd
come into the ER without a trace of ID, dropped at the door by the Prof
and Clarence--they knew I was way past risking the
do-it-yourself kit we kept around for gunshot wounds.
Since the
government doesn't pay the freight for cosmetic surgery on
derelicts, the hospital went into financial triage, no extras. So the
neat, round keloid scar on my right cheek is still there, and the top
of my left ear is still as flat as if it had been snipped off. And when
the student surgeons repaired the cheekbone on the right side of my
face, they pulled the skin so tight that it looked like one of the
bullets I took had been laced with Botox. My once-black hair is
steel-gray now--it turned that shade while I was in a coma
from the slugs, and never went back.
The night man
sitting across from me calls himself Charlie Jones--the kind
of motel-register name you hear a lot down where I live. A long time
ago, I'd done a few jobs he'd brought to me. The
way Charlie works it, he makes his living from finder's fees.
Kind of a felonious matchmaker--you tell him the problem you
need solved, he finds you a pro who specializes in it.
Charlie pointedly
looked down at my hands. I kept them flat on the chipped blue Formica
tabletop, palms down. He placed his own hands in the same position,
showing me his ID.
The backs of his
frail-looking hands were incongruously cabled with thick veins. The
skin around his fingernails was beta-carotene orange. The tip of the
little finger on his right hand was missing. I nodded my confirmation.
Yeah, he was the man I remembered.
Charlie looked at
my own hands for a minute, then up at me. The Burke he knew never had a
tattoo, but he nodded, just as I had. Charlie was a tightrope
dancer--perfect balance was his survival tool. His nod told me
not to worry about whether he believed the story that I was
Burke's brother. By him, it was true enough. Where we live,
that's the same as good enough.
"It's
a nice story," I said, watching as he lit his third cigarette
of the meet. Burke was a heavy smoker. Me, I don't
smoke…except when I need to convince someone out of my past
that I'm still me.
"It's
not my story," Charlie reminded me. "Your brother, he was an ace at finding people. Best tracker
in the city. I figure he must have taught you some things."
Charlie never
invested himself emotionally in any matches he made. He was way past
indifferent, as colorless as the ice storm that grayed the window of
the no-name diner where we were meeting. But Charlie had something
besides balance going for him. He was a pure specialist, a middleman
who never got middled. What that means is, Charlie wouldn't
do anything except make his matches.
Everyone in our
world knows this. And for extra insurance, Charlie made sure he never
knew the whole story. So, if he got swept up in a net, he
wouldn't have anything to trade, even if he wanted to make a
deal. Sure, he could say a man told him about a problem. And he might
have given the man a number to call. He had liked the guy, even if
he'd only met him that one time. Felt sorry for him. In
Charlie's vast experience, drunks who babbled about hiring a
hit man were just blowing off steam. You give them a number to
call--any number at all, even one you
remembered from a bathroom wall--it helps them play out the
fantasy, that's all. "What!? You mean,
his wife's really dead? Damn! I guess you
just never know, huh, officer?"
"This
guy, he must not be in a hurry," I said.
"I
wouldn't know," Charlie replied. His mantra.
"It's
been three weeks since you reached out."
"Yeah,
it took you a long time to get back to me. I figured, with the phone
number being the same and all…"
"Most
of those calls are people looking for my brother. I can't do
a lot of the things he used to do."
"Yeah,"
he said, an unspoken I don't want to know
woven through his voice like the anchor thread in a tapestry.
"But,
still, three weeks," I reminded him. "I mean, how
do you know the guy still wants…whatever he wants?"
Charlie shrugged.
"You
get paid whether I ever call him or not?"
Charlie lit
another cigarette. "He knows these things take time. You
don't call, someone else will."
I waited a few
seconds. Then said, "You want to write down his number for
me?"
"I'll
say the number," the ferret told me. "You want it
on paper, you do the writing."
C ity people call winter the Hawk. Not because of
the way it swoops down, but because it hunts. Gets cold enough in this
town, people die. Some freeze to death waiting for the landlord to get
heat back into their building. Some use their ovens for warmth, and
wake up in flames. Some don't have buildings to die in.
I pulled out a
prepaid cell phone, bought in a South Bronx bodega from a guy who had a
dozen of them in a gym bag, and punched in the number Charlie had given
me. A 718 area code--could be anywhere in the city except
Manhattan, but a landline, for sure.
"Hello?"
White male, somewhere in his forties.
"You
were expecting my call," I said.
"Who
are--? Oh, okay, yeah."
"I
might be able to help you. But I can't know unless we
talk."
"Just
tell me--"
"You
know the city?"
"If you
mean Manhattan, sure."
"You
got transportation?"
"A
car?"
"That'll
do," I said. I gave him the information I wanted him to have,
walked to the end of the alley I'd been using as an office,
and put the cell phone on top of a garbage can. Whoever found it would
see there were plenty of minutes left. Probably use it to call his
parole officer.
I pulled the
glove off my left hand, fished a Metrocard out of my side pocket, and
dropped below the sidewalk.
"C harlie," said the little black man with
the ageless, aristocratic face. "That boy's one
diesel of a weasel. He might slouch, but he'd never
vouch."
"I
know, Prof. But no matter who this guys turns out to be,
there's no way that it's me he's looking
for. If anyone asked Charlie to put him in touch with a specific
guy, it would have spooked him right out of the play."
The only father
I'd ever known closed his eyes, looking into the past. The
ambush that had almost taken me off the count years ago had been set up
by a middleman, too. Only, that time, I was told the client wanted me
for the job. Me and only me.
"How
much green just to make the scene?" he asked.
"Two to
meet. For me to listen. That's as far as it's
gone."
"It's
a good number," the little man mused. "That's serious money, not crazy money."
"The
job is finding someone, Prof."
"Charlie
don't find people," the little man said. "He finds even one, he's all done."
"I did
meet him, though."
"Charlie?"
"Yeah.
And I called the spot."
"So, if
he was fingering you…"
"Right.
That diner, it's down by the waterfront. All kinds of bums
hanging around. And, in this weather, you could put a dozen men on the
street in body armor, and nobody'd even look twice."
"There's
something else about Charlie," the Prof said, nodding to
himself.
"What?"
"Maybe
he's going along with you being your own brother, maybe
he's not." The little man's voice dropped
and hardened at the same time. "But he knows what number he
called to get you to show up. You be Burke, you be his brother,
don't make no difference. Because Charlie, he knows you not
by yourself. You got family. He can't snap no trap on all
of us. He double-crosses you, he's out of the middle. For as
long as he lives. No way our boy bets that
number."
I cicles fringed the bottom of the venom-yellow
streetlight reflected in my rearview mirror, turning it into one of
those old-fashioned parlor lamps, the kind with tassels hanging off the
bottom of the shade.
I felt right at
home. Waiting.
I'd set
the meet for one in the morning, at a West Side bar in a building
slated for demolition. New York is a big piece of machinery; it needs
its gears greased to keep running. So the whole neighborhood was
getting plowed over, like a field being readied for a different crop.
That's Manhattan today--all the money goes up top,
while the infrastructure wastes away from neglect. The famous skyline
is a cheap trick now, a sleight-of-hand to draw your eye from the
truth, as illusory as a bodybuilder with osteoporosis.
In the
neighborhood I'd picked, strip joints where "upscale" meant five bucks for a bottle of Bud
Light were driving out residential buildings. Only the rumors that our
sports-whore mayor was going to find a way to green-light massive
razing so he could build a gigantic football stadium near the Javits
Center kept the whole area from being leveled. Building owners were
laying in the cut, waiting to see the City's hole card.
My '69
Plymouth was huddled against the alley wall, its black-and-primer body
mottled into an urban camouflage pattern. Anonymous, near-invisible.
Like me, to most.
A cinnamon Audi
sedan--a big one, probably an A8--circled the block
for the third time, cruising for a place to park. I figured it for the
guy I had been waiting for. There was an open space in front of a fire
hydrant just across from me, but parking tickets can cost you more than
money--ask David Berkowitz.
My watch read six
minutes short of the meet time when a man came up the sidewalk toward
the bar. He was bareheaded, hunched over against the razoring wind,
wearing a camel's-hair topcoat with a white scarf. The kind
of guy who would drive a hundred-grand car, and be used to parking it
indoors.
I let him get
inside before I made my move. I hadn't seen enough of his
face to pick him out of a crowd, but I wasn't
worried--it wasn't the kind of joint where you
checked your coat.
H e was standing at the bar, facing the doorway,
the camel's-hair coat opened to reveal a charcoal-gray suit,
white shirt, and geometric-pattern tie that flashed green-gold in the
dim light. He had a shot glass in his right hand, a pair of
butter-colored gloves in his left.
I walked toward
him. He saw a man in a well-traveled army jacket, winter jeans, and
work boots. If anyone asked him later, he would say the man's
hair was covered with a watch cap that came down over the top of his
ears, and his eyes were unreadable behind the heavy lenses of
horn-rimmed glasses. My face was temporarily unscarred, thanks to
Michelle's deft touch with the tube of Cover-mark she always
carries.
The man coming
toward him had a pair of gloves, too…on his hands.
I nodded my head
to my left. He stepped away from the bar and walked in the direction I
had indicated. I slipped past him and took a seat in an empty wood
booth, facing the door. He sat down across from me.
Up close, he was
older than his voice, but a guy who took care of himself, or had people
do it for him: hundred-dollar haircuts, facials, manicures. I was
guessing a heavy pill regimen, regular workouts, maybe even a little
nip-and-tuck, too.
"Are
you--?"
I held up two
fingers.
He nodded,
reached into the inside pocket of his coat, and brought out a plain
white envelope. He put it on the table between us. I picked it up,
slipped it into a side pocket.
"You're
not going to count it?"
"You
want something done, what's in it for you to stiff me on the
front end?" I told him.
"That's
right," he said, nodding vigorously.
I waited.
"Uh, is
this a good place to talk?" he said, looking over his right
shoulder.
"Depends
on what you're going to say."
"I
wouldn't want the waiter to--"
"They
don't have any here," I told him. "Go to
the bar, get a refill on whatever you're drinking, a whiskey
double for me, and bring them back. Nobody'll bother
us."
It was warm in
the bar, but, even all wrapped up, I wasn't uncomfortable.
When I was a young man, I had done some time in Africa. I was on the
ground as the Nigerian military slaughtered a million people, made the
whole "independent" country that tried to call
itself Biafra disappear. The UN, that useless herd of toothless tigers,
wouldn't call it genocide--that would mean they
might have to send in troops. Didn't call what went down in
Rwanda by its right name, either. Same for the Sudan. But they drew the
line in Kosovo. Ethnic cleansing? Go ahead; just remember to keep it
dark.
I got out of
Biafra just before it fell, and I took home malaria as a permanent
souvenir. Ever since, I can wear a leather jacket in July and not break
a sweat. But the Hawk can find my bone marrow under the heaviest cover.
The man came
back, sat down, put my whiskey in front of me, held up his own drink. "To a successful partnership," he said.
I
didn't raise my glass, or my eyes.
He put down his
drink without taking a sip. "I was told you specialize in
finding people."
"Okay."
"Yes.
Well…I, I need someone found."
If life was a
movie, I would have asked him why he wanted the person found. He would
have told me a long story. Being hard-bitten and cynical, I
wouldn't have believed him. But, being down on my luck, I
would have taken the case anyway. Unless he'd been a gorgeous
girl--then I would have taken it for nothing, of course.
I shrugged my
shoulders.
"Can
you tell me how much it would cost to do that? Find…the
person, I mean."
"No,"
I said. "I can't tell you that. Here's
how it works: You pay me by the day. I keep looking until I find
whoever you're looking for, or until you tell me to quit
trying."
"Well,
how much is it a day, then?"
"Same
as you just paid me. I cover all expenses out of that. And
there's a twenty-G bonus if I turn up what you
want."
"Ten
thousand a week," he said, the slightest trace of a question
mark at the end of the sentence.
"We
don't take weekends off," I told him. "One week, that's fourteen. Payable in
advance."
"That
could run into a lot of money."
"Uh-huh."
"I'll
have to think that one over."
"You
know where to find me," I said.
"Well,
actually, I don't. I mean, the man who I…spoke to,
he just took my number, and you called me, remember?"
"Yes, I
remember."
"So how
do I…? Oh. You mean, now or never, right?"
"Right."
He took a hit off
his drink. "I don't walk around with that kind of
cash," he said. "Who does?"
"Best
of luck with your search," I said, moving my untouched glass
to the side as I started to stand up.
"Wait,"
he said. "I've got it."
I settled back
into my seat. If we were still in that movie, I would have told him
that lying was a bad way to start a relationship. If we were going to
work together, I would need the truth, all the way. Down here, we play
it different: "true" means you can spend it.
"Not on
me," he said. "But close by. In my car. I keep an
emergency stash. You never know…."
I let my mouth
twitch. Let him guess what that meant.
"Hold
on to this," he said, handing me a black CD in a pale-pink
plastic jewel case, as if it sealed a bargain between us. "I'll be back in a few minutes, and we'll
go over everything."
I pocketed the
CD. Folded my gloved hands like a kid waiting for the teacher to come
back.
H e got up and left. I counted to thirty; then I
got up, too, heading for the restrooms. I walked past the twin doors
until I found myself in the open space behind the bar. I crossed the
space, moving like the Prof had taught me a million years ago. I
can't phantom through a room without displacing the air like
he does, but I can move smooth enough not to disrupt the visuals unless
someone's staring directly at me.
The back door had
a heavy alarm box next to it, but I could see it was unplugged. I
opened the door just wide enough to slide through, clicked it soft
behind me, and made my way down a short flight of metal steps to the
alley.
I
didn't want my car. I knew what direction he'd come
from; if I cut the alley right, I'd come out close enough to
see that camel's-hair coat.
Nothing.
Quick choice: was
he still behind me, or ahead? I felt the Hawk's bite,
remembered how the guy was dressed, and figured he'd be
moving as quick as he could. I took off the glasses, switched my black
watch cap for a red one, hunched my shoulders against the wind, and
started covering ground.
I saw him cross
ahead of me, moving toward the river. I gambled on another alley, and
drew the right card. I marked the direction he was going in, and moved
out ahead.
The big Audi was
parked mid-block, a purebred among mutts. I floated into a doorway,
wrapping the shadows around my shoulders. If he just took off, instead
of getting something from inside his ride and walking back to the bar,
I'd figure he was busy on a cell phone, and company was
coming--I wouldn't be there when it arrived. But if
he really kept that kind of cash in his car, I wanted that license
number.
He walked past me
on the opposite side of the street. I stayed motionless, but he never
glanced my way.
Two men came
toward him from the far end of the block, walking with too much space
between them to be having a conversation. The guy in the
camel's-hair coat was almost to his car before he saw them.
He put his hands up and started backing away, making a warding-off
motion with his palms.
A car door
opened. A man in a black-and-gold warm-up suit stepped onto the
sidewalk behind the man in the camel's-hair coat. He brought
his two hands together and spread his feet in one flowing motion. The
man in the camel's-hair coat went down. The shooter waved the
other two back with his free hand, then walked over to the man lying on
the sidewalk, an extended-barrel pistol held in profile. The whole
thing was over in seconds, as choreographed as an MTV video, on mute.
A vapor-colored
sedan pulled out of its parking spot. The shooter got into the back
seat, and it drove off. The two men who had blocked the target were
gone.
The street stayed
quiet.
I took a long
deep breath through my nose, filling my stomach. I let it out slowly,
expanding my chest as I did.
Then I got gone.
M y Plymouth looks like a candidate for the
junkyard. But it's a Rolex under all the rust, including an
independent rear suspension transplanted from a wrecked Viper some rich
guy had thought made him immune to physics, and a hogged-out Mopar
big-block with enough torque to compete in a tractor pull. So I
feathered the throttle, even though I wasn't worried about
snow on the streets.
The same year my
car had been born, the mayor had been a guy named Lindsay. He was the
ideal politician, a tall, good-looking, Yale-graduate, war-veteran, "fusion" Republican who ran on the Liberal ticket.
He got a lot of credit for New York not going the way of Newark or
Detroit or Los Angeles during the riots the year before. But when the
big blizzard hit in February of '69 and paralyzed the city,
Lindsay took the heat for the Sanitation Department being caught
napping, and that was the end of his career.
Every mayor that
followed him got the message. New Yorkers will tolerate just about
anything on their streets, from projectile-vomiting drunks to mumbling
lunatics, but snow is un-fucking-acceptable.
I made my way
over to the West Side Highway, rolled north to Ninety-sixth, exited,
and looped back, heading downtown. Even at two in the morning, I
couldn't be sure I didn't have company--in
this city, there's always enough traffic for cover. But I
knew a lot of places that would expose a shadow real quick, some as
flat and empty as the Sahara, others as clogged as a ready-to-rupture
artery.
I opted for
density. Took a left on Canal, motored leisurely east, then ducked into
the Chinatown maze. Made two slow circuits before I finally docked in
the alley behind Mama's joint, right under a white square
with a freshly painted black ideogram. My spot. Empty as
always--the Chinese calligraphy marked the territory of Max
the Silent, a message even the baby-faced gangsters who infested the
area understood.
I flat-handed the
steel door twice. Seconds later, I found myself staring into the face
of a man I'd never seen before. That didn't
matter--he knew who I was, and I knew what he was there for.
The restaurant
never changes, just the personnel. Like an army base with a high
turnover. I went through the kitchen, past the bank of payphones, and
sat down in my booth. The place was empty. No surprise--the
white-dragon tapestry had been on display in the filthy, streaked front
window when I had driven past. If it had been blue, I would have kept
on rolling. Red, I would have found a phone, made some calls.
Mama appeared
from somewhere behind me, a heavy white tureen in both hands. "Come for visit?" she said.
"For
soup."
"Sure,
this weather, good, have soup," Mama said. She used a ladle
to dole out a steaming portion into a red mug with BARNARD in big white letters
curling around the side. Mama is no more a cook than the place she runs
is a restaurant, but her hot-and-sour soup is her pride and joy.
Failure to consume less than three portions per visit would be
considered a gross lack of respect.
I took a sip,
touched two fingers to my lips, said, "Perfect!"--the minimally acceptable
response.
Mama made a
satisfied sound, her ceramic face yielding to some version of a smile. "You working?"
"I
was," I said. I told her what had happened. When I got to the
part about the shooting, Mama held up a hand for silence, barked out a
long string of harsh-sounding Cantonese. Two men in white aprons came
out of the kitchen. One went to the front door, crouched down, and
positioned himself so he had a commanding view of the narrow street.
The other vigorously nodded his head twice, then vanished.
I went back to my
story and my soup.
A few minutes
later, the front door opened, and the man who had gone back to the
kitchen area walked in. He conferred with the man by the window. They
came over to where we were sitting. Rapid-fire conversation. I
didn't need a translator to understand "all
clear."
"So?"
Mama said.
"I
don't think it had anything to do with me, Mama. The way I
see it, whoever this guy was, he was important enough for someone to
have a hunter-killer team on his trail. Once the spotter had him
pinned, he called in the others."
"We do
that, too, now, yes?"
"Right,"
I agreed. I got up and headed for the payphones.
E veryone was there in less than an hour. The Prof
and Clarence drove in from their crib in East New York. The warehouse
where Max the Silent lives with his wife, Immaculata, was only a short
walk away.
I'd
been on the scene when they first met, on a late-night subway train, a
lifetime ago. Immaculata was part Vietnamese, part who-knows? First
dismissed as a "bar girl" by Mama, she was
instantly elevated to Heaven's Own Blessing when she gave
birth to Max's baby, Flower. The moment her sacred
granddaughter decided on Barnard College, Mama had personally emptied
the school's merchandise catalogue.
Apparently, she
considered the sweatshirt she had presented to me last year to be
adequate compensation for the fortune she'd extorted from me
over the years "for baby's college."
I told the story
of my meet, gesturing it out for Max, even though he can read my lips
like they were printing out words.
"The
boss pay for a toss?" the little man asked, miming a man bent
over a victim, rifling through his pockets. Max nodded, to let us know
he was following along.
"Didn't
look like it, Prof. The shooter plugged him once, then walked over and
made sure," I said, gesturing to act out my words. "But I didn't see him search the body, and the
other two were already in the wind."
"If he
had a silencer, it must have been a semi-auto," Clarence
said. The young man usually didn't speak until he thought the
rest of us were finished. But when he was on sure ground, he would.
"My son
knows his guns," the Prof said, approvingly. "The
shooter pick up his brass?"
"Not a
chance," I said. "The street was too dark, and he
fired at least three times."
"The
police, they will know it was an execution," Clarence said,
his West Indian accent adding formality to his speech. "If
the killers did not search the dead man, he will still have everything
with him."
"If the
street skells don't loot the body before the cops get on the
scene," I said. "That neighborhood, that hour,
who's going to call it in, some good citizen? Besides, you
couldn't hear the shots, even as close as I was."
"They
couldn't be counting on all that," the Prof said. "Even if nobody did a wallet-and-watch on the dead guy, that
pistol's in two different rivers by now."
"Somebody
spent a lot of money on this one," I agreed. "That
means it'll make the papers. We might be able to find out
something then."
"The
way I see it, whoever this guy wanted you to find, they found him
first," the Prof said, leaning back in his chair and lighting
a smoke. "That ain't us, Gus. None of our
gelt's on the felt."
"My
father is right," Clarence said, more for the chance to say "my father" than to add anything. He used to do
that all the time after the Prof first found him; now it's
only once in a while. "The money you got from that man,
whoever he was, there will not be any more."
"Maybe,"
I told them, putting the jewel-cased CD on the table.
I used my key to work the brick-sized padlock,
opened the chain-link gate, and drove my Plymouth inside the enclosure
behind the darkened gas station. While I was jockeying the big car into
the narrow space, the three pit bulls who live there politely divided
up the half-gallon container of beef in oyster sauce I had brought from
Mama's. It sounded like alligators tearing at a pig who had
wandered too close to the riverbank. If they hadn't
recognized me, no bribe would have stopped them. By the time I finished
stowing the Plymouth, they were back inside their insulated dog condo,
probably watching the Weather Channel on their big-screen.
It was almost
four when I walked into the flophouse. There was a man behind the
wooden plank that held the register nobody ever signs. He looked up at
me from his wheelchair and shook his head, the equivalent of the
white-dragon tapestry in Mama's window.
"All
quiet, Gateman?"
"Dead
as the governor's heart at Christmas, boss."
All cons know
what Christmas means--pardon time. Last year, Sweet Joe, an
old pal of ours, had sent us a kite, saying he was sure to make it this
time. "Finally got my ticket to the door," is what
he wrote. His ticket was terminal cancer--the prison medicos
had given him six months to live. The parole board responded with a
two-year hit, meaning Sweet Joe was going to die behind the walls
unless the governor did the right thing.
Sure. When Joe
got the bad news, he took it like he had taken the twenty-to-life they
threw at him thirty years ago--standing up. He's
gone now. Didn't even last the six months.
I climbed the
foul, verminous stairs, past signs that warn of all kinds of DANGER! The top floor is "Under Construction"--there's
all this asbestos to remove, never mind the mutated rats staring
hungrily out from the posters on the walls. That's where I
live.
While I was away
the last time, my family knocked down every wall that wasn't
load-bearing and built me a huge apartment. It's got
everything a man like me could ever want, including a back way out.
I never get
lonely.
I woke up at eleven, flicked the radio into life,
and took a long, hot shower. While I was shaving, the mirror confronted
me with the truth. My own mother wouldn't recognize me.
That's okay--I wouldn't recognize her,
either. A teenage hooker, she had hung around just long enough to pop
me out. Then she fled the hospital before they could run her through
the system. Decades later, as soon as they unplugged me from the
machines, I'd done the same thing.
"Baby
Boy Burke" is what it says on my birth certificate. The rest
of it is blanks, guesses, and lies. For "father" it
says "Unk." It should say "The State of
New York." That's who raised me. Raised me to hate
all of them: scum who spend their lives looking the other
way…and getting paid to do it.
Having the State
as your father bends your chromosomes like no inherited DNA ever could.
You come up knowing that faith is for suckers. The only god I ever
worshiped was the only one who ever answered my prayers. My religion is
revenge.
That's
why, as soon as I escaped the hospital, I went on a pilgrimage. By the
time I reached the end, I'd squared things for Pansy.
Getting that done
had cost me my retirement fund, and I'd been scratching
around for another score ever since--a nice, safe one. I
haven't been Inside since I was a young man, and I
don't get nostalgic for being caged.
While I was gone,
a cop named Morales had found a human hand--just the bones,
not the flesh--in a Dumpster. There was a pistol there, too.
With my thumbprint on it. Far as NYPD was concerned, that upgraded me
from "missing and presumed" to "dead and
gone." And the longer I stayed away, the deeper the
whisper-stream carried that message into the underground.
I was halfway
through shaving when the story came on: Unidentified man found shot to
death on the sidewalk, in a quiet neighborhood just a couple of blocks
from West Street. The body had been discovered by a building super who
had gone out to rock-salt the concrete so his tenants
wouldn't break their necks going to work in the morning. A
landlord could get sued for that. The announcer said the police were
not releasing any details, pending notification to next of kin. Meaning
they knew who the dead man was but they weren't telling.
That
wasn't news, just a collection of maybes. Maybe the cops
found the cash the man in the camel's-hair coat said was in
his car. Maybe they divided it up among themselves; maybe they were
holding back the info to use as a polygraph key once they had suspects
to question. Maybe the money was in the car, but in a hidden
compartment, one they hadn't found yet. Maybe it was never
there at all, and the guy was just heading to his car to make a
getaway. Maybe the cops still hadn't connected him to the
Audi….
The print
journalists would take a deeper look--they always
do--but it would take them longer to come up with anything.
I walked
downstairs, picked up my copy of Harness Lines and
a couple of fresh bagels from Gateman--he's got a
guy who delivers every morning--and ate my breakfast while I
decided which horses were worthy of my investment. I only bet the
trotters. Like me, they haul weight for their money, and they usually
earn it after dark.
I smeared a thick
slab of cream cheese on the last of a poppy-seed bagel, and held it
under the table.
"You
want…?" I started to say, before I choked on the
words. Pansy wasn't lurking by my feet, waiting for the treat
she knew was always going to come.
I thought I had
stopped…feeling her with me. Stopped
seeing her looming dark-gray shadow in the corner by the window.
Stopped hearing the special sound she always made before dropping off
to sleep, like a big semi downshifting to climb a hill.
"This
late in the day, you're probably on your third quart of
French vanilla up there, huh, girl?" I said aloud.
If you think
I'm crazy to be talking to my dog like I do, fuck you. And if
you don't get how that's better than crying over
her, fuck you twice.
M y little sister called a couple of hours later.
"That
bar you recommended? Well, baby, let me tell you, it is beyond
tacky. Imagine, putting ice in a Bloody Mary!"
So the stash we
had gotten word about was from Sierra Leone. That
shifted the risk-reward odds too far to the wrong side for us to take
the shot. Stealing a load of "blood diamonds" would
be like hijacking counterfeit bills. Sure, we could find someone to
take the loot off our hands, but the discount would shred our profit
down to cigarette money.
"I
thought it sounded too good to be true, the way it was described to
me," I said, not surprised.
"Maybe
we should open our own place," Michelle said, switching to
the liquid-honey voice she earned her living with.
"I was
about to," I said. "But the financing fell
through."
"That,
too, huh?"
"Yeah."
"It's
this weather, sweetie. Winter is the suicide season. Like
it's raining depression. But it won't last,
you'll see."
"Sure."
"All
right, Mr. Grouch. Want to buy me dinner?"
"Okay.
I'll see you at--"
But I was talking
to a dead line.
D riving through Chinatown at night is like riding
the subway past one of those abandoned stations. You feel the life
beyond the shadows, but all you ever get is a glimpse--then
it's gone, and you're not really sure if you
actually saw anything. You might be curious, but not enough to leave
the safety of your steel-and-glass cocoon to get a closer look.
I was explaining
to Max why we might want to consider investing a significant chunk of
our betting kitty in a ten-dollar exacta wheel tomorrow night. For
seventy bucks, we could have all the possibilities covered, provided
this six-year-old we'd been following since he was a bust-out
flop in his freshman season came home on top.
With Max, this is
never a hard sell. Anytime he falls in love with a horse,
he's ready to go all-in. And Max gets there faster than a
high school kid in a whorehouse.
This particular
horse, a gelding named Little Eric, was a fractious animal who was
prone to breaking stride, a move that takes a trotter out of any chance
to win. But Max and I had watched some of those races, and we had
marked every single time it happened. We decided the breaks
weren't because Little Eric was naturally rough-gaited. He
couldn't handle the tight turns at Yonkers very well, so he
usually spent a lot of every race parked out. He was okay on the
outside, but every time he tried for a big brush to get clear,
he'd go off-stride. He didn't have the early foot
to grab the lead right out of the gate, but he was a freight train of a
closer. And he liked the cold weather, too.
The reason I
fancied him so much for tomorrow night was that he was moving to The
Meadowlands. That's a mile track, with only two turns to
negotiate, as opposed to the four at Yonkers. Little Eric could take
his time, settle in, and make his move late, down that long stretch. He
was in pretty tough, but he could beat that field if he ran his number.
And the outside post he drew wouldn't be as much of a
handicap at The Big M.
Nothing close to
a sure thing, but a genuine overlay at the twelve-to-one Morning Line
price; maybe even more if the favorite drew a lot of late action.
Michelle made her
entrance in a lipstick-red jacket with shoes to match. She glistened
like a cardinal in a snow-covered tree, defying winter to dull her
beauty.
"I'm
such a sucker," she said, as Max held a chair for her to sit
down. "I'm still a young girl, but I've
been around long enough to know better."
Max and I put on
matching quizzical looks--Michelle sometimes loops around a
story like a pilot circling a fogged-in airport.
"You
know what's the stupidest thing about racism?" she
said.
Max and I
shrugged.
"That
it's stupid," she said, grinning. "Racism, it makes you think you know a person just because
you know his race, see?"
"Sure,"
I agreed, thinking of some of the bogus wisdom I'd been
raised on, passed along by the older street boys I was sure were the
smartest people on the planet. After all, they lived on their own. And
they never seemed afraid. "Niggers are all yellow
inside," they'd counseled me. "In a
crowd, they act like they got balls, but get one of them
alone…"
I got one alone
once. We both wanted the same shoeshine corner. He was a little bigger;
I was a little faster.
"You
didn't run," I told him, a few minutes later. It
was hard to talk--my mouth was all bloody, and my tongue was
swollen to twice its size.
"You
didn't pussy out, neither," the colored
kid--I'd already stopped thinking of him as "nigger" in my mind, even though I didn't
realize it--said, sounding as surprised as I was.
I guess some
older guys had lied to him, too.
"Well,
you know the hard-core Jews? The ones who dress like the
Amish?" Michelle said, accepting a light for her
cigarette--a thin black one with a gold filter tip.
"Hasidim?
Like the ones who control a piece of Crown Heights?"
"Whatever,"
Michelle said, airily. "You know who I mean…the
ones who handle diamonds. For them, it's all a handshake
business, right? No paper. Everyone knows you can trust those guys.
It's always been that way."
"So?"
"So the
guy I trusted, the one who was setting up that job
for us? He never said the diamonds were dirty."
"You
didn't really trust him, girl. Otherwise, we would just have
gone on ahead, right?"
"Oh, I
know. But still. I mean, who would ever think one
of those super-straight Jews would go anywhere near dirty
stuff."
"They
bought diamonds from South Africa even when the boycott was
on," I said. "And uranium, too."
"Mole
says--"
"--they
just did what they had to do," I finished for her.
I've known the Mole since we were kids. By him, Israel drops
a nuke on one of its neighbors, it's just doing what they had
to do.
You could say
it's people like the Mole who keep Israel from finding peace.
Or you could say it's people like the Mole who keep it from
disappearing. Me, I don't care. The only country I care about
is about the size of Mama's
restaurant--that's enough space to hold every member
of my family.
"This
one was going to be so juicy," Michelle said, regretfully.
"Been
lots of those," I told her.
By the time the
morning light was making a run against the grimy windows, we
weren't any closer to a good scheme. This was the third plan
that had gone sour in the past couple of months.
Good scams are
harder and harder to come by these days. Too many thieves fishing in
the same pool of chumps. Colloidal silver for longevity, "form books" for tax evasion, orgasm enhancers for
patheticos who think a lap dance is a relationship. Online auctions for
collector cars that don't exist…and every
bidder's a winner. Even some neo-Nazis were going into the
penis-enlargement business to finance their
operations--skinheads aren't much for paying their
membership dues, and the self-appointed Führers are too afraid
of their own followers to get heavy about collecting.
I used to do
violence-for-money. But the older I get, the less it's worth
playing for those stakes. "The gun's fun, but the
sting's the thing," the Prof called it, when he
first started schooling me.
For lifelong
outlaws like us, crime is all about cash. We're not
psychopaths--we don't need the action to feel alive.
Crime's not about the buzz; it's a business.
Anyone
who's been running on our track for long enough has learned a
few things. Like, you'll get more time for a gas-station
holdup than for taking a few million out of a company pension fund. And
a double-nickel jolt for a young man is a very different trip than it
is for a guy with a lot of miles on his odometer.
A generation ago,
our whole crew got involved with hijacking a load of dope. It was a
foolproof scheme. The people we took it from wouldn't run to
the Law--they'd just buy it back from us. Nobody
gets hurt, we make a fortune, and they chalk it up to the cost of doing
business.
The first half
clicked as sweet as stiletto heels on a marble floor. Then the wheels
came off. If we'd known how deep some NYPD boys were involved
with the dope trade back in the day, we wouldn't have gone
near the job.
I was the only
one of us they caught. In an abandoned subway tunnel, with enough
heroin to give a small town a collective overdose. The dope never got
vouchered; I got to plead to some assaults, avoiding the telephone
numbers a possession-with-intent charge would have brought. And best of
all, I got to go down alone.
I'm a
two-time felony loser. The Prof has three bits under his belt. If
either of us ever falls again, we're looking at the
life-without they throw at habitual offenders in this state.
Clarence and the
Mole have never been Inside. Max has, but not for long. Just arrests,
no convictions. Why plea-bargain when you know the witnesses are never
going to show up for the trial?
Michelle was
locked up back when she was pre-op. About the hardest time you can do,
unless you're willing to whore out or daddy-up.
She spent most of
her time binged, in solitary. Not PC, Ad Seg. You go to Protective
Custody--aka Punk City--as a volunteer, to keep
yourself safe. You go to Ad Seg--Administrative Segregation,
aka The Hole--when you commit a crime inside. Michelle
wasn't big, and she wasn't fast, but she would
cut you, and she was real good at always finding something to do that
with.
In our world,
showing you can do time counts for something only when you're
young. After that, what earns you the points is showing you can avoid
it.
I spent most of my childhood caged. The rest of the
time, I was on the run--from the foster parents they "placed" me with, the "group
homes" they sentenced me to, and the "training
schools" I'd been destined for since birth.
In the juvie
joints, it seemed like nobody was ever there for the worst things they
did. One guy, he was in for stealing fireworks. He wanted the cherry
bombs and ashcans to torture animals with. Another guy was a
fire-setter. They caught him doing that a year after they caught him
raping his baby sister. He got counseling for the rape, but destruction
of property, that was something they couldn't let slide.
Most of the gang
kids were there for fighting, but, to hear them tell it,
they'd all gone much further down the violence road. One
little Puerto Rican guy was talking about how he chopped an
enemy's hand off with a machete in a rumble. A white kid
laughed out loud at the story, as deep a diss as a bitch-slap.
The Puerto Rican
kid went back to his bunk, came over to where we were all standing
around, and hooked the white kid to the stomach with a needle-sharp
file. Gutted him like a fish. The white kid didn't die, so,
instead of going back to court with a new charge, the Puerto Rican kid
got shipped to another juvie joint. With a bigger rep.
It was inside
that kiddie prison that I first claimed another human being as family.
I told the others that Wesley was my brother. I wasn't
worried that anyone would ever ask Wesley if it was
true--nobody ever asked Wesley anything. But a kid who called
himself Tiger called me on it.
Tiger was twice
my size, plus he never walked around alone. So he should have been
safe. But, one night, he got shanked in his sleep.
Everyone thought
Wesley had done it--that was what Wesley did, even then. But
it wasn't him. It was his brother.
"You
have anything, honey?" Michelle asked. "Anything at
all?"
"Little
Eric in the fifth," I told her, just to see her smile.
T he noon sun was a throbbing blood-orange blob,
pulsating against the mesh screen of a pollution-gray sky. For once, it
actually made an impact on my permanently crusted windows. I figured
I'd better get it while I could.
"You
want something from down the way?" I asked Gateman.
"Which
way is that, boss?"
"Diner?"
"Sold.
I could really go for some of their bull's-eye meatloaf
today."
"Two
sides?"
"You're
singing my song," he said, grinning. "Make mine
mashed potatoes and spinach, okay?"
I got the same
for myself, and brought the whole thing back, hot. Gateman and I
admired the way the half-cut hard-boiled egg looked embedded in the
thick slab of heavy-crusted meatloaf before we dug in.
"Ever
wonder how come this is the only good thing they make in that dive,
boss?"
"I
figure it's what they call a ‘signature
dish,' Gate. Every restaurant's got one.
It's how the chef shows off."
"Yeah?
Well, I been in that joint plenty of times, boss. And if they got a
‘chef,' I'm a fucking
ballerina."
"Got to
look past the cover, bro," I said mildly, holding out a
clenched fist.
Gateman tapped my
fist with his own, acknowledging the mistake more than one man had made
about him. Dead men now. Gateman is one of the reasons they have to
make prisons wheelchair-accessible. He was a pure shooter, and he could
conjure up the pistol he wore next to his colostomy bag like a fatal
magic trick.
A couple of years
back, the Prof had bet Max that Gateman could drill the center out of
the ace of hearts at ten yards. Took a couple of weeks to set up the
match, trucking sandbags down to the basement. The lighting down there
was so lousy I could barely make out the white card, never mind the red
heart in its center.
I should have
known something was up when Clarence put down a hundred on Gateman. The
Prof and Max were both hunch-players, but Clarence was a gunman. Still,
I faded his action, saying, "No disrespect" to
Gateman first.
Gateman braced
himself in his chair, holding his compact 9mm Kahr in both hands,
turning himself into a human tripod. He exhaled a soft sigh, then he
punched out the center of the card with his first shot.
"Got
something for tonight?" he asked.
"Just a
guess," I cautioned him.
"That's
all there ever is, right?"
"At the
track, sure."
"It's
all a bet," Gateman said. "Everything. All that
changes is the stakes, boss."
I started telling
him what I liked about Little Eric. By the time I was up to my two
favorite trotters of all time, Nevele Pride and Une de Mai, duking it
out at the International--I never saw that race; that was the
year I spent in Biafra--Gateman's eyes were starting
to glaze over. He wanted action, not ancient history.
"On the
nose, okay?" he said, shoving a twenty over to me.
A s I let myself back into my apartment, one of the
half-dozen cell phones I keep on a shelf in separate charging cradles
rang. I have each one marked with a different-colored piece of vinyl
tape so I don't make a mistake, but I don't really
need that system anymore, since I finally figured out how to give each
one a different ring tone.
I pushed the
button, said, "Lewis."
"It's
me."
"Okay."
"You
don't sound happy, honey."
"I was
expecting another call," I lied. Only one person had the
number to the phone I was holding, and she was at the other end of the
conversation.
"I
won't keep you. I just thought you might like to come over
and see me later."
"How
much later?"
"In
time to take me to dinner?"
"Ah…"
"Oh,
come on, sugar. We all have to eat, don't
we? So why can't we do it together?"
"I'm
a private person."
"There's
plenty of places we can go where you
won't--"
"There's
no place where you won't draw a damn
crowd," I said, trying for the soft deflection.
"I
won't dress up, I promise. Please? You
won't be sorry."
I let the
cellular silence play over us for a minute. Then I said, "Eight, okay?"
"Okay!"
I hung up without
saying goodbye. She was used to it.
T he easiest person in the world to lie to is
yourself. Anyone who's done time knows how seductive that
call can be. The Prof warned me about it, back when I was still a young
thug, idolizing the big-time hijackers who pulled major jobs and lived
like kingsuntil the money ran out. Then they went looking for another
armored car.
"You
pick up a pattern, it's harder to shake than a
hundred-dollar-a-day Jones, Schoolboy. You let motherfuckers read your
book, they always know where to look."
I had a few hours
before dinner, and I knew I wasn't going to sleep where
I'd be spending the night, so I grabbed a quilt and curled up
on my couch.
O ne of the cells woke me. The ring tone told me it
was family.
"What?"
I said.
"There
was a lot on that CD, mahn."
"A lot
of stuff, or stuff that's worth a lot?" I asked
Clarence.
"A lot
of stuff for sure. I cannot tell you about the other, mahn. You
probably want to look for yourself, yes?"
I glanced at my
wristwatch. Couple of minutes after six.
"Could
you bring it by tomorrow?"
"Sure."
I cut the call.
Showered and shaved. Put on a pair of dark cords with a leather belt
polished with mink oil--a trick I learned from a couple of
working girls whose private joke was that I'm a closet dom. A
rose silk shirt--I know a sweet girl who gets them made in
Bali for a tiny percentage of what I used to pay Sulka--a
black tie, and a bone leather sport coat that was pulled out of
inventory before it ever got the chance to fall off a truck. Alligator
boots with winter treads and steel toes, and I was ready to walk.
I strapped a
heavy Kobold diver's watch on my left wrist, fitted a
flat-topped ring onto my right hand: a custom-made hunk of silver
housing a tiny watch battery that powers a series of micro-LEDs on its
surface in random patterns. I slipped a black calfskin wallet into my
jacket. It held a complete set of ID for Kenneth Ivan Lewis.
I shrugged into a
Napapijri Geographic coat, a Finnish beauty like the ones they used in
the Antarctic Research Mapping Survey. It's made of some kind
of synthetic, with enough zippers, straps, hooks, and Velcro closings
to stock a hardware store. Weighs nothing, but it sneers at the wind
and sheds water like Teflon.
By seven-fifteen,
I was on the uptown 6 train.
I answered the doorman's polite question
with "Lewis." He opened his mouth to ask if that
was my first or last name, caught my eye, changed his mind.
"I'll
be right with you, sir," he said, making it clear he wanted
me to stay where I was while he walked over and picked up the house
phone.
I
couldn't hear his end of the conversation…which
was the whole point.
"Please
go on up, sir."
"Thanks."
I took the
elevator. The building was new enough so that it actually had the
thirteenth floor marked.
I stood outside
the door to 13-D, waiting. I didn't touch the tiny brass
knocker, or the discreet black button set into the doorframe.
"How
come you never knock?" she said as the door opened.
"You're
going to look through the peephole before you open the door, right? And
you knew I--or someone, anyway--was on the way up, so
you'd be on the watch."
"What
do you mean, ‘someone'?" she said,
standing aside to let me into the apartment.
"You
don't use video in this building. All the doorman had was a
name. Anyone can use a name."
"He
described you, too," she said, slightly sulky.
"And
that description would fit--what?--a million or so
guys in Manhattan alone."
"Oh,
don't be so suspicious," she
said, standing on her toes to kiss me on the cheek, right over the
bullet scar. "That's how you get lines on your
face, being suspicious of everything."
"Then
my face should look like a piece of graph paper," I said,
putting my coat in her outstretched hands.
"I'm
not dressed yet," she announced, as if coming to the door in
a lacy red bra and matching panties hadn't been enough of a
hint. "Go sit down; I'll only be a few
minutes."
She turned and
walked down the hall with the confidence of a woman who expects to be
watched and is ready for it. I sat down in a slingback azure leather
chair and watched tropical fish cavort in the flat-screen virtual
aquarium on the far wall. I slitted my eyes against the vibrant pixel
display until it became the kind of kaleidoscope you get when you press
your fingers against your eyelids. I don't mind waiting;
it's one of the things I do best.
The lady I was
waiting for was a zaftig blonde without a straight line anywhere on her
body, like a pinup girl from the fifties; the kind of woman who turns a
walk to the grocery store into an audition. A sweet little biscuit,
bosomy and wasp-waisted, with big hazel eyes like a pair of
jeweler's loupes. Her idea of foreplay is what she calls "presents," and the right ones make her arch her
back like a bitch cat in heat.
I met her in a
BMW showroom on Park Avenue. I was there to see a guy who does
beautiful custom work…on VIN numbers. She was just
window-shopping, keeping in practice.
I was dressed for
the part I was playing, all Zegna and Bruno Magli. She was wearing
white toreador pants, a fire-engine-red silk plain-front blouse, and
matching spike heels with ankle straps, holding a belted white coat in
her right hand. As soon as she was sure she had my attention, she
turned around to caress the gleaming fender of a Z8. Instead of back
pockets, the white pants had a pair of red arrows, pointing left and
right. I wished she'd get mad at something, and walk away.
Instead, she
walked over to where I was standing.
"Want
to buy me a car?" she said, flashing a homicidal smile.
"I
never buy cars on the first date," I said.
"Ooh!"
she squealed, softly.
That's
where it started. She doesn't know what I do for a living,
but she's sure it's something shady.
She's real sure I'm
married--you wear a wedding ring long enough, when you take it
off it leaves a telltale mark a woman like her could spot at a hundred
yards.
She's
so gorgeous she can show off just by showing up. Keeps a big mirror on
her bed, where the headboard should be. Her favorite way is to get on
all fours and wiggle a little first. She wants it so that the last
thing she sees before she lets go is herself, watching me doing her.
When I pretend to
go to sleep afterwards, she vacuums my clothes with a feather touch.
She's not looking for money, just information.
She thinks my
name is Ken Lewis. She calls me Lew. I never asked her why.
There's
a dirty elegance about her. She looks as lush as an orchid, and comes
across just about as smart. But that's just another kind of
makeup for her. She's got the dumb-blonde thing down so slick
that trying to get a straight answer out of her is like cross-examining
a mynah bird with ADD.
Her name is Loyal.
I never sleep over.
"Call
you a cab, sir?" a different doorman asked, as if getting a
cab at three in the morning in that neighborhood required a
professional's touch.
"Thanks,"
I lied, "but I'm parked around the
corner."
T he next day started out like the beginning of a
long winning streak. Before I could even take a look at the paper, the
TV called to me with a breaking story. A guide dog was walking with his
person just before daybreak when a couple of muggers descended.
Probably junkies who'd spent the whole night trying to score,
I thought. The muggers kicked the blind man's cane out of his
hand. When he went down, they dropped to their knees to rip at his
jacket. Apparently, that was a major mistake. When the cops arrived,
the blind man still had one of the muggers in a painful joint lock. The
other one got away, but left a lot of blood on the sidewalk.
The newscaster
said the blind man was a veteran of World War II. They showed a photo
of a man who looked vaguely Asian, with a stiff white crew cut and a
prominent tattoo on one biceps that I couldn't make out. As
the camera panned down, my earlier guess was confirmed: who but a
desperate junkie would try to put a move on a blind man whose
seeing-eye dog was a Doberman?
I raised my glass
of guava juice in a silent toast to the man and his dog.
The day got
better when I saw the race results. Little Eric had gotten away cleanly
and settled back in the pack, letting the favorite and another horse
battle for the lead. The first quarter went in a blistering .28 flat.
While the lead horses dueled on the front end, Little Eric moved to the
outside, picking up cover just past the half. The three-quarter went in
1:26.2, with Little Eric still two deep on the outside. He made his
move at the top of the stretch, going three wide to calmly gun down the
rest of the field, nailing the win and taking a lifetime mark of 1:54.4
in the bargain.
He paid $27.40 to
win. Even with the two-to-five favorite hanging tough for second, the
exacta returned a sweet $89.50. Our seventy-buck investment was going
to net well over four hundred.
Damn!
I switched on the
bootleg satellite radio the Mole had hooked up for me, and was
instantly rewarded with Albert King's "Laundromat
Blues," the Sue Foley version of "Two
Trains," and, to cap the trifecta, Magic Judy
Henske's new cut of "Easy Rider."
Today's
the day to play my number, I remember thinking. Then I made
the mistake of opening the paper from the front.
M URDERED MAN
IDENTIFIED, BUT MYSTERY DEEPENS, the headline
read. I scanned the article quickly, then reread it carefully, culling
the facts away from the adjectives the way you have to do to translate
the tabloids.
The dead man was
a "financial planner" named Daniel Parks. He was
forty-four years old, an Ivy League M.B.A. who lived on a "multimillion-dollar" waterfront estate in Belle
Harbor with his wife and three children, the oldest a teenage girl who
tearfully told the reporters that her father couldn't have
had an enemy in the world.
They
hadn't ID'ed him from prints; his
wallet--containing several hundred dollars, the reporter
noted--had provided a wealth of information. Not just his
driver's license and the registration and insurance papers
for the Audi, but a permit for the "automatic
pistol" they found in his coat.
New
York's very stingy with carry permits. There's only
about forty thousand active ones at any time--you've
got better odds of finding a landlord who voluntarily cuts your rent.
Almost all those permits go to celebrities--they're
an important status symbol in a town where status is more important
than oxygen. Of course, if you're one of those "honorary police
commissioners"--the "honor" comes from a heavy annual contribution to
some murky "police fund"--you get to walk
around with all the iron you want. Park anywhere you want,
too--another one of the perks is an official NYPD placard for
your windshield.
I
didn't like any of that. When I got to the part about Parks
being "rumored" to have recently testified before a
grand jury investigating money laundering, I liked it even less. If the
hunter-killer team had been shadowing him, they might have sent a man
inside to see who he was going to meet.
The scenario was
bad enough, but it wasn't worst-case. The federales
aren't the only ones who can tap phones. If the shooting team
had a heads-up for where the target had been headed that night, they
could have had the place covered for hours before I even showed up. It
didn't look as if they had, so I was probably in the clear.
Probably.
Even if
they'd had a man inside, I told myself, they
wouldn't know anything but my face--and you have to
get real close to see anything distinctive about
it. I didn't think they had seen my car, and even if they
had, the license was a welded-up fake. A trace-back on the number I had
called Parks from would dead-end no matter how deep they looked.
So I was clear
unless…unless Charlie had been offered enough cash to stray
out of his home territory, take a vacation from the middle. If there
was a bounty on the dead man, Charlie would know about it. So, when the
target came to ask Charlie to put him together with someone who could
help with his problem, Charlie could have sold him.
Bad. That little
ferret practiced a dark martial art, the kind that lets you kill a man
with a phone call. But if I asked him about it…very
fucking bad. Word gets out you were looking for Charlie, it could make
a lot of people nervous. Where I live, it's a lot cheaper to
kill the hunter than hide the prey.
I went into
myself. All the way down the mine shaft where the only ore is truth and
pain. Like when I was a kid, and those words were synonyms.
I had one hand to
play. I was holding it in my mind, turning it over, seeing the
aces-and-eights full house, the only one my ghost brother ever dealt.
Then Clarence walked in the door, and made things worse.
"I t's a dossier, mahn," he
said, holding out the CD I'd given him.
"The
person who put this together, he had a lot of time on his hands. Spent
some money, too."
"Any
money in it?" I asked, hoping for
something to get me back to my winning streak.
"Maybe,"
the West Indian said dubiously, tossing his cream cashmere topcoat over
the back of my futon couch, the better to display a fuchsia satin shirt
with black nacre buttons worn outside a pair of black slacks with
balloon knees and pegged cuffs. "There's account
numbers and all, but no access codes or PIN numbers."
"How do
I--"
"Got it
right here, mahn," Clarence said, removing a narrow silver
notebook computer from a black brushed-aluminum case. "I
downloaded the CD to a USB key, so all I have to do
is--"
Catching the
expression on my face, he clamped down on the geek-speak long enough to
hit some keys and bring the machine to life.
The first screen
was all vital statistics. Peta Bellingham, DOB September 9, 1972, five
foot seven, 119 pounds, and a note to "see photos."
Whoever had put together the package had her home and cell phones, fax,
e-mail, Social Security number, three local bank
accounts--checking, savings, and a handful of sub-jumbo CDs,
all showing balances as of a couple of months ago--plus one in
the Caymans and another in Nauru, with a series of "????" where the balances should have been. Two
cars registered, a Porsche Carrera and a Mazda Miata…which
didn't make sense, for some reason I couldn't quite
touch. A co-op on West End, recent purchase; estimated value a million
four, against a seven-hundred-grand mortgage. A one-bedroom condo in
Battery Park, free and clear. A mixed-bag portfolio, weighted in favor
of biotech stocks, managed by…Daniel Parks, MBA, CPA, CFP.
So this woman
had--what?--skipped out on a big pile of money she
owed to this guy Parks? That didn't add up. Walking away from
all those assets would have to cost her a cubic ton more than any
commission she could owe a money manager.
I shrugged my
shoulders at Clarence.
He tapped a key,
and another screen popped up, displaying a whole page of thumbnails. "Put the pointer on the one you want to see, double-click,
and it will blow right up, like enlarging a photograph."
The first one was
a young woman--hard to tell her age without a tighter
close-up--standing next to a fireplace, one hand on the
mantel. She was fair-skinned, willowy, with long, slightly wavy dark
hair. I couldn't see much else.
I scanned the
thumbnails with my eyes, looking for a full-face shot. Found it.
Clicked it open.
And went back
twenty years.
"Y ou know her, mahn?" Clarence said,
reading my face.
"Let me
look at a few more," I told him, moving the cursor and
clicking the mouse.
I flicked past
the ones with her in outfits--everything from French maid to
English riding costume--and the nudes, which were all posed as
if she was sitting for an artist's portrait. It was the
close-ups that sealed the deal. Those icy topaz eyes hadn't
changed at all.
"Yeah,
I know her," I said.
B eryl Eunice Preston had just turned thirteen when
she disappeared from her parents' mansion in one of
Westchester's Old Money enclaves. It was her father who came
to see me, back when I had an office carved out of what was once
crawlspace at the top of a building in what the real-estate hucksters
had just started to call "Tribeca." I lived in that
office, in a little apartment concealed behind a fake Persian rug that
looked like it covered a solid wall.
Where I lived may
have been the top floor, but it was so far underground it made the
subway look like a penthouse. The Mole fixed it so I could pirate my
electricity from the trust-fund hippies who lived below me. I used
their phone, too…but only for outgoing. So long as I made my
calls before noon, there was no chance any of them would catch wise.
They were on the Manhattan Marijuana Diet--no coherency
allowed before lunch.
The narrow
stairway that led to my place was on the other side of the building
from the regular entrance, and I kept my car stashed in a former
loading-bay slot that was concealed from the outside by a rusted metal
door.
That was back
when I worked as an off-the-books investigator. I could go places a
licensed PI wouldn't even know existed, and I found all kinds
of things during my travels. One thing I stumbled across had been an
address for the building owner's son, a professional rat who
was doing very nicely for himself in the Witness Protection Program.
The little scumbag had a federal license to steal--he cheated
everyone he dealt with, then turned them all over to the law, and got
to keep the money, like a tip for a job well done. I found more than
just his address, too. I had his whole ID trail…and a real
clear photo of the new face the Law bought for him.
Hard to put a
price on something like that, but the landlord agreed that making a few
minor structural changes to his building would be a fair trade. He
didn't charge me rent, but it wasn't like he was
losing money on the deal.
Pansy lived with
me then. We would have stayed in that place forever, but the
landlord's son eventually got exposed, and the stupid bastard
blamed me for it--as if I'd queer a sweet deal like
I had just for the pleasure of playing good citizen.
So the landlord
had called the cops, said he had just discovered the top of his
building was being illegally occupied by some Arabs. I wasn't
there when the SWAT guys hit the building, but they tranq'ed
Pansy and took her away. They could have killed her, but they were
afraid to just blast through the door, so they sent for the Animal
Control guys.
Pansy was as
unlicensed as I was, and I knew what happened to unclaimed animals. We
had to jail-break her out of that "shelter" they
were holding her in.
After that, I
called that landlord. Told him he'd made a mistake. Two of
them, in fact. One stupid, one fatal.
"I 'm…not comfortable, doing
this," Beryl's father had said to me the first time
we met, his thin, patrician face magnifying that message.
"You
didn't find me in the Yellow Pages," I told him. "And you must have already been to guys with much better
furnishings."
"I
don't want the police…."
"I
don't want them, either."
"Yes. I
understand you've had some…"
"It's
your money," I said, referring to the five hundred-dollar
bills he had put on my battered excuse for a desk as soon as he walked
in. "It buys you an hour, like we agreed on the phone. You
want to spend it tap-dancing around me having a record,
that's up to you."
He clasped his
hands, as if seeking guidance. Pansy made a barely audible sound deep
in her throat. I lit a cigarette.
"My
daughter's run away," he finally said.
"How do
you know?"
"What…what
do you mean by that?"
"You
said ‘run away,' not
‘disappeared.' What makes you so sure?"
"Beryl
is a troubled child," he said, as if the empty phrase
explained everything.
I blew smoke at
the low ceiling to tell him that it didn't.
"She's
done it before. Run away, I mean."
"How'd
you find her those other times?"
"She
always came back on her own. That's what's
different now."
"How
long's she been gone?"
"It
will be two weeks tomorrow. If school wasn't out for the
summer, it would be difficult for us--my wife and
me--to explain. As it is…"
"You
did all the usual stuff, right?"
"I'm
not sure what you--"
"Contacted
her school friends, checked with any relatives who might be willing to
let her hide out at their place, read her diary…"
"Yes.
Yes, we did all that. Under normal circumstances, we would
never--"
"Does
she have a pet?"
"You
mean," he said, glancing involuntarily at Pansy, "like a dog or a cat?"
"Yeah."
"What
difference would that make?"
"A kid
that's going to run away permanently, you'd expect
them to take their pet with them."
"Beryl
never had a pet," he said flatly, his tone making it clear
that, if they had deemed one advisable, her devoted parents would have
run out and gotten her one. The very best.
"Okay.
What about clothes? Did she take enough to last her awhile?"
"It's…hard
to tell, to be honest. She has so many clothes that
we couldn't determine if anything was missing."
"What
makes you think she's in Manhattan?"
"One of
the private detectives we hired was able to trace her movements on the
day it…happened. We don't know how she got to the
train station--it's about twenty minutes from our
house, and the local car service hadn't been
called--but there's no question that she bought a
ticket to Penn Station."
"Penn
Station's a hub. She could have connected with another train
to anywhere in the country. Did she have enough money for a
ticket?"
"I…don't
know how much money she had. None of the cash we keep in the house was
missing, but we've always been very generous with her
allowance, and she could have been saving up to…do this. But
the last detective agency we retained was very thorough, and they are
quite certain she didn't catch a train out…at
least, on the day she left."
"So you
hired this ‘agency,' and…?"
"Agencies,"
he corrected. "Two of them rather strongly suggested we call
in the police. The third place we consulted told us about
you."
"Told
you what, exactly?"
"They
said you were a man who…who could do things they
wouldn't be comfortable doing."
"What
makes you think your daughter is with a pimp, Mr. Preston?"
"What?!"
"You
didn't want to come here," I said, calmly. "Now that you showed up, you don't like being
here. You want to waste your money lying to me, that's up to
you. But there isn't a PI agency in this town that would have
recommended me--they don't even know I
exist."
He sat there in
silence, not denying anything. Back then, NYPD had a Runaway Squad, and
I went back a long ways with the best street cop they had, a
nectar-voiced Irishman named McGowan. His partner was a thug with so
many CCRB complaints against him that the only thing keeping him on the
job was that all the complaints came from certified maggots:
baby-rapers a specialty. Guy named Morales. So the Commissioner teamed
him with McGowan, and, somehow, they meshed into a high-results unit.
Word was, if they had partnered Morales with the devil, it would be
Satan who played the good cop in tag-team interrogations.
Years later, when
McGowan finally retired, Morales went off by himself. He was an
old-school street beast, a badge-carrying brute who'd always
pick a blackjack over a warrant. He'd been dinosaured to the
sidelines because nobody wanted to partner with a bull who knew every
china shop in town.
In his eyes, I
was always a suspect--which was nothing special for
Morales--but I'd saved his life once, and he hated
the debt more than he did me. It was Morales who planted the pistol and
the bone hand, calling things square in whatever crazy language he used
when he talked to himself.
It
wasn't just his feral honor that guaranteed Morales would
never change the story he'd made up. When 9/11 hit, he was
one of the first cops into the World Trade Center. When his body was
recovered from the wreckage, the papers called him a hero. Down here,
we know they got the answer right, but had figured it all wrong.
Morales had charged into the flames with a semi-auto in one hand, a
lead-weighted flashlight in the other, and a throw-down piece in his
pocket, like always. The old street roller hadn't been on any
rescue mission; he'd been looking for the bad guys.
Jeremy Preston
wasn't the first parent McGowan had sent my way. He never
came right out and recommended me,
exactly--he just wove my name into one of his long, rambling
accounts of the shark tank that was the Port Authority Bus Terminal
then, each newly arriving bus discharging chum into the water, the
pimps circling.
We're
not talking Iceberg Slim here. The Port Authority trollers were the low
end of the scale: polyestered punks with CZ rings and 10K gold, not a
Cadillac among them. They didn't turn a girl out with smooth
talk and sweet promises. For that breed, "game" was
coat-hanger whips and cigarette burns. And gang rape.
I lit another cigarette, watched
Preston's derma-glazed face through the bluish smoke. Said, "Well?"
"Look,
I don't know for a fact that my daughter
is with some…pimp."
"I
understand," I said. "Just tell me what you do
know, okay?"
By the time he
was done, we'd agreed on a price. And I went hunting.
M y first rescue had been an accident. One thing I
had learned from my last stretch Inside: steal from people who
can't go to the Law. And stick to cash. I had lurked for
days, watching for what I thought was a good target. When he made his
move, I followed him and the teenager he had plucked off a bus from the
Midwest. The derelict building he took her to was a couple of notches
below slum, the kind of place where the mailboxes were all wrenched
open on check day, and the despair stench had penetrated down to the
last molecule. There was no lock on the front door. I followed them up
a few flights, listening to the pimp saying something about how this
was "just for tonight."
The top floor was
all X-flats--cleared of occupants because the building was
waiting on the wrecking ball. The pimp had put his own padlock on the
door. I figured he had another one on the inside, so I didn't
wait. I came up fast behind them, shouldered them both into the
apartment, and let the pimp see my pistol--a short-barreled
.357 Mag--before he could make a move.
"What
is this, man?"
"I'm
collecting for the Red Cross," I said. "They take
money or blood, your choice."
"Oh,"
he said, visibly relaxing as the message that this was a stickup
penetrated. "Look, man, I'm not carrying no real
coin, you understand?"
"A
major mack like you? Come on, let's see the roll. And move slow--this
piece could punch a hole in you the size of a manhole cover."
The girl stood
rooted to the spot, her eyes darting around the vile room, taking in
the stained, rotted mattress in one corner, the white hurricane candle
in a wide glass jar, the huge boom box, and the word "Prince" spray-painted in red on a nicotine-colored
wall.
The pimp
reached…slowly…into the side pocket of his
slime-green slacks, came out with a fist-sized wad of bills. At a nod
from me, he gently tossed it over.
I slipped the
rubber band with my left thumb. A Kansas City bankroll: a single
hundred on the outside, with a bunch of singles at the core.
"Where's
the rest?" I said, gently.
"Ain't
no ‘rest,' man. I'm still working on my
stake."
The girl walked
over to the closet, head down, as if some instinct told her not to look
at my face. She opened the door, gasped, and jumped back. I glanced in
her direction. Inside the closet was a single straight chair. Draped
over the back were several strands of rope and two pairs of handcuffs.
On the seat of the chair was a thick roll of duct tape, and one of
those cheap Rambo knives they sold all over Times Square.
"Get
the picture?" I said to her, nodding my head at the other
item in the closet--a Polaroid camera.
"I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"What?"
But she just kept
saying "I'm sorry," over and over again.
So much for my
big score.
"Turn
around," I told the pimp.
"Look,
man, you don't gotta--"
"I'm
not going to shoot you," I said. "I'm a
professional, just like you. Thought you'd be carrying heavy
coin. Now I've got to get out of here. So I'm going
to put those handcuffs on you. Your friends will get you loose soon as
they show up."
"I
ain't got no--"
"Friends?
Yeah, that's right, you probably don't. But
you're expecting some company, aren't you, Prince?"
"Shit,
man," he said, resignedly. He turned around, put his hands
behind his back.
The Magnum was a
heavy little steel ingot in my right hand. I stepped close to him,
tipped his floppy hat forward with my left hand. He was still saying "What you--?" as I chopped down at his
exposed cervical vertebrae with all my strength. He dropped
soundlessly--his head bounced off the wood floor and settled
at an angle that looked permanent.
"Come
on," I said to the girl.
She followed me
without a word.
On the walk back
to the Port Authority, I said, "You know what was going to
happen to you, right?"
"Yes.
I'm sorry. I--"
"Don't
say another word," I told her. "Not until you get
back where you came from."
"I
don't have any--"
"Where
did you come from?"
"St.
Paul. I thought I--"
"Shut
your stupid fucking mouth," I said.
Inside the
terminal, I bought her a one-way ticket to St. Paul, handed her two
ten-dollar bills, said, "I'm going to watch you get
on that bus, understand? If you ever come back here, you're
going to get hurt worse than you ever imagined."
"I'm--"
"I told
you to shut up. Don't say another word until you're
talking to someone you know."
I watched the bus
pull out. She didn't wave goodbye.
I never got paid
for that one.
L ike I said, that was back in the day. In Times
Square, you could buy anything on the back streets, from a hooker to
heroin, and some of the stores sold magazines with photos so foul you
wanted to find the people who took them and make them dead. Today,
Times Square is another planet: Disney World.
You
can't buy porn from Disney. They're all about
family. Of course, they've got no problem hiring a convicted
child-molester to make horror movies…about kids. Tourists
think things have changed. People who live here, they know all that
ever changes are the addresses.
But even back
then, freaks had to know their way around to find a baby pross. A girl
pross, anyway; the little-boy hustlers were pretty much out in the
open, working the arcades.
You
won't find kids hooking in Times Square now. But
it's just like what happens anytime the cops crank up the
heat on a drug corner--the traffic just moves to another
location. You want an underage girl, there's always Queens
Plaza after dark, and dozens of other spots.
A while back, two
dirtbags grabbed a fifteen-year-old runaway, raped and sodomized her
until she had nothing left, then put her out on the street. She
wasn't working back alleys, either. Last arrest was on Queens
Boulevard, in a nice section of Elmhurst. They took the girl to Florida
for the winter, where the local cops grabbed her…and
probably saved her life.
Extradited to
Queens, the dirtbags got the usual sweetheart deal from the
tough-talking clown who calls himself the District Attorney. He threw
out the rape, sodomy, and kidnapping charges, let them plead to "promoting prostitution." Now they can prance
around the yard Upstate, jacketed as pimps, not kiddie-rapists. When
they get out, they won't even have to register as sex
offenders. With all the heavy cred they'll have
accumulated--what's more max than being a player and
an ex-con?--they'll probably start their own rap
label.
I
didn't know where Beryl was, but I had a good idea of where
she wasn't. A snatched-up runaway wasn't going to
end up in a high-end house. Kiddie sex is a specialized business,
and--back then, before the Internet--that meant a lot
of risk for the money.
I had the
girl's picture, half a dozen different shots. And a one-two
punch: not only the promise of heavy coin if you turned her up, but the
guarantee that, if you saw her and I didn't
get word, you better be carrying a lot of Blue Cross.
It
wasn't me that scared anyone. It was Max at my side. And
Wesley in the shadows. On top of that, the city was full of bad guys
who thought kiddie pimps were a disgrace to their good name, and I knew
a lot of them.
I was a different
man then. I was just making the transition from armed robber to scam
artist, and if you pushed me anywhere close to a
corner, violence was still Option One. I was still learning how to
sting freaks: promising everything from kiddie porn to mercenary
contracts, never delivering. Once I took your money, good luck finding
me. And bad luck if you did.
This part never
changes: The best way to track someone down is to plant the word,
burying the trip wires under sweet promises. Then you put on a lot of
pressure, and wait for whoever you're tracking to stumble
over one of them. But when you're looking for a kid
who's in the wrong hands, too much patience can be fatal.
So I started in
Hunts Point, the lowest end of the scale for working whores, then. They
were all turning scag-tricks. Their only customers were truckers who
had dropped off their cargo at the Meat Market, or serial killers who
liked the odds of a desolate piece of flatland where you could find
anything on earth except a cop.
Getting any of
that sorry collection of broken-veined junkies to talk was
easy--for money they'd do anything you could
imagine, and plenty that would give you nightmares if you
did--but getting them to talk sense was
near impossible.
So I just
cruised, with the girl's photo taped to my dashboard. I came
up empty a few days in a row--Hunts Point was a daylight
stroll. Nights, I worked lower Lex, which was racehorse territory then.
Fine, young, sleek girls, with much stronger, smarter pimps running
them.
I
didn't waste time down there, just showed Beryl's
picture around, told every working girl who came over to my rolled-down
car window about the bounty, and moved on.
Next stop, under
the West Side Highway. Back then, it ran all the way downtown, and
below Canal was Hookerville. Michelle worked that stroll in those days,
when she was still pre-op. She got into the front seat of my car,
listened to my story, and promised if Beryl showed she'd make
sure she didn't leave until I got there.
That should have
sounded like big talk, coming from a small, fine-boned little tranny.
But Michelle hated humans who fucked kids as only a kid who'd
been fucked could, and she'd learned a lot since prison. Now
she was snake-quick with the straight razor she never left home without.
It was almost two
weeks before I got word that someone had a girl to sell. Not to rent,
sell. Supposedly, an eleven-year-old virgin with a hairless pussy who
loved to suck cocks and was looking for a permanent home with the right
man.
I called the
number I had gotten from a guy who ran a private camera
club--"The girls will pose any way you tell them,
gentlemen. No film allowed." As soon as I heard the voice on
the other end, I knew this could be for real: He was a young guy with a
sociopath's chilly voice, talking from a payphone.
"I
don't know you, man. All I know, you could be
The Man, you know what I'm saying?"
"So
meet me, wherever you say, and I'll prove I'm a
legitimate purchaser," I said, softening my voice as I
pictured myself as the seal-sleek, middle-aged man who had told me how
much money there was in "unbroken" little girls.
The sleek man had
come into my life just after I first got out. I thought he'd
be the start of my career as a scam-master. Instead, he turned out to
be a still-unsolved homicide. It took me a long time to get still
enough inside myself so I could listen to one of his tribe without
having to hurt him.
"How
you gonna do that?"
"Surely
you don't expect me to say on the phone?"
"I--Yeah,
all right, I see where you coming from. This number's no good
for me after today, man. Leave me one where I can call you, when I got
it set up."
"I'll
give you a number, but I am rarely there in person. My assistant will
always know how to reach me, and I'll get back to you within
an hour or two, fair enough?"
I raced back to
Michelle's stroll, saw her getting out of a white Oldsmobile.
By the time I closed the distance between us, she had taken a slug of
the little cognac bottle she always carried with her, rinsed and spit,
and was already snake-hipping her way back toward the underpass. I took
her over to Mama's, set her up in my booth, and told her
there was a hundred in it for her to just sit there until the last
payphone in the row against the wall that separated the kitchen from
the customers rang. The line was a bridge job, forwarded from one of
the dead-end numbers I always kept for emergencies--the Mole
had set it up so I could divert it by calling and punching in a series
of tones.
The phone rang
while Michelle and I were still having our soup; the dealer was getting
anxious to unload his merchandise.
"It's
him," is all Michelle said when she came back to the table.
"Quick
enough?" I said into the receiver.
"You
want to see quick, just fuck with me, and watch how quick you get
yourself a problem, man."
"What's
all this?" I said, hardening my voice. The kiddie-trafficker
whose ticket I had canceled had been steel under the sealskin.
Stainless steel. If I acted too intimidated, it would be out of
character; might spook the bottom-feeder I had on the end of my line.
"I thought we were going to do business," I said, "not sell wolf
tickets."
"I
ain't selling no fucking tickets, man. I'm just
saying--"
"Just
say where and when, all right? Then you can satisfy yourself
I'm straight up, and we can do what we have to do."
"You
know," he said, barely suppressing his admiration for his own
cleverness, "this jewelry we talking about, it's
expensive, man."
"I
heard it was twenty."
"Twenty-five,
man."
"If
it's as fine as you say it is--"
"It's
finer. You'll see."
"When?"
"Tonight,
maybe. If you check out. I'm nobody to fuck with, man. 'Long as you understand."
The pathetic
amateur gave me the address of a vacant lot behind a deserted
tool-and-die plant in South Jamaica. That wasn't the amateur
part. Telling me about a midnight meet at four in the afternoon, that
was.
B y the time I pulled into the back lot behind the
wheel of a gunmetal Mercedes four-door, Max was dialed into the
molecular vibrations of the empty building as if he'd been
part of the first concrete poured into the foundation. The Mole had
dropped him off, driving one of those Con Ed trucks he seems to be able
to "find" whenever he needs one. Probably the same
place he had found the Mercedes.
I got out,
dressed in a dark-gray suit, a white silk handkerchief in the breast
pocket matching the white shirt I wore without a tie. I spotted the
target, but acted as if I hadn't. He was lounging in the
shadows of the back wall, cleverly dressed all in black. I lit a
cigarette and paced in tight little circles, glancing at my watch:
11:51.
He let me wait a
few minutes. Not because he was a pro, but because making people do
what he wanted made him feel more like himself.
He rolled up on
me out of the darkness, like some movie ninja. I jumped back,
fake-startled.
"You
got something to show me?" he said, voice swollen with
confidence now that he was sure he was dealing with exactly what he
expected--a nervous man with a heavy fetish and a heavier
wallet.
"Sure,"
I said, keeping my voice soft.
"I got
to search you first," he said. "You know the
routine."
"What
do you--?"
"Oh,
fuck it, man! Just turn around, assume the position. I got a piece,
see?" he said, holding up some little pearl-handled
popcorn-pimp special. "You do anything stupid, and--pow!--that's
all they is for you. Way out here, nobody find your body for a
month."
"Listen,"
I said, standing with my arms extended away from my sides, "just take it easy, okay?"
His pat-down was
just like him--rough and stupid.
"All
right, man. You can turn around."
"Can I
see her now?" I said, a little too eagerly.
"You
know what I got to see first, right?"
"Sure,
sure. I brought it."
"You
brought twenty-five K with you?"
"Yes. I
didn't want to…drag this out. You're not
going to rob me, are you?"
"I
fucking should, dumb as you are, man. Show it to
me."
"It's
in the trunk. I put it in a briefcase, so you
could--"
"Well,
open it, motherfucker."
"Sure.
Just don't--"
I unlocked the
trunk. As it slid up, I stepped aside, and the nose of the
Prof's double-barreled sawed-off went jack-in-the-box on the
pimp.
"Surprise!"
the little man said.
"Hey,
man. I--"
Max had him by
then. The little pistol dropped from the pimp's nerve-dead
hand.
The Prof climbed
out of the trunk, the sawed-off never wavering from the
pimp's midsection.
"I
think we should talk now," I said.
I nside the building, I used my pencil flash to
illuminate a clear spot. Max crooked his left forearm around the
pimp's neck, grabbed his own right biceps, and curled his
right hand over the top of the pimp's head.
"All he
has to do is squeeze now," I said. "You
understand?"
"Look,
man--"
"Sssh,"
I said, gently. "There's nothing for you to be
worried about. I kept my word, didn't I?"
"I--"
"Ssssh,"
I said again. "You know I'm not a cop now,
right?"
"Yeah,
man. I was--"
"But
you, you do have the girl, right?"
"Nah,
man. I was just trying to run a game, you know?"
"If
that's true, you're a corpse," I said,
not raising my voice.
I brought my
thumb and forefinger together. Max tightened the noose. The
pimp's eyelids fluttered. I moved my fingertips apart.
The pimp gasped a
few times.
"Want
to try again?" I asked him.
"It
ain't what you think, man. I swear! It was all her
idea."
"This
‘her'?" I said, showing him the photo
with my flashlight.
"Yeah!
She came up to me, man. This whole
thing--"
"That's
enough," I told him. "We don't care how
it happened. Some people put up a hundred grand for her. So we want
her, and we want her right now. It's worth the twenty-five we
promised, you turn her up, okay?"
"She
ain't here," he said.
"We
know that," I said, barely above a whisper. "That's not the question you were asked."
I held up my thumb and forefinger again, letting him see the gesture.
"No,
no, man! Listen, I prove it to you, okay? She's at my
woman's house. Few minutes from here. But she ain't
tied up or nothing, she just sitting there, watching TV.
How's that?"
"That's
real good," I said, soothingly. "Now
let's go pick up the package."
"T his place where your woman has the merchandise,
is it an apartment or…?" I asked him. I was behind
the wheel, the pimp seated next to me, Max behind him, the choke hold
back in place.
"It's
a private house, man," he said, a wire-thin twist of pride in
his voice. "You know where Union Hall Street is? You
just--"
"I know
where it is," I told him, keying the ignition.
"H ey, man, this ain't the way
to--"
"Just
relax. Be very calm. You know the payphone down
that way?" I said, pointing with my whole hand, so the
sparkler on my finger would calm him. "A few blocks past the
boulevard?"
"That
one? Man, that one hasn't worked for years. It's
all ripped out and--"
"It
works now," I promised him. "I'm going to
pull up right next to it. We're going to get out, all of us.
What you're going to do, you're going to call your
woman, understand? You're going to tell her everything went
down just like you planned. What you need her to do is bring the girl
outside. Nice warm night, let them sit on the front stoop, so you can
see them when we pull up. Soon as we're sure it's
the right girl, we hand you this," I said, making a gesture
with my right hand. The Prof handed over a hard-sided
attaché case. "Look for yourself," I
told the piece of toxic waste sitting next to me.
He unsnapped the
case on his lap. "Damn!" he whistled. "You for real, man."
"This
is just business, like I told you all along. Maybe a little different
than you thought, but it's the same payoff, right?"
"Right!"
he said. "Look, man, you don't need this noose
around my neck, okay? I'm a businessman, just like
you."
"Maybe
you're right," I said, making a sign. Max released
his hold. "We'll trust you that much. But hand the
money back over; we're not going to have you jump out and
run."
"I
wouldn't--" he started to say, then
interrupted himself to hand over the attaché case. I
casually tossed it into the back seat, where the Prof caught it deftly.
"You
ever get more like her?" I asked him.
"Me?"
he said, slyly, a man who had just figured things out for himself.
There was no reward for the girl he was holding. We weren't
working for her father. That was all cover; we wanted the girl as
merchandise, and we expected to get a lot more than twenty-five grand
when we retailed her. "Sure! A man in my line of work, I gets
all kind of--"
"Then
maybe we can do business again, if your stuff is together
enough."
"What
you mean, together? Didn't I--?"
"This
place where you're holding the girl, you said it was a
private house? You mean one of those up-and-downs, or are you the only
one there?"
"Just
me. And my woman, like I said. It's perfect, man. Nice and
quiet."
"Your
woman, she got any kids?"
"Yeah,
man. She got a couple, but they ain't around; the Welfare
took 'em away."
"So you
and her, you're the only ones who live there?"
"Yeah,
man. Why you asking all this?"
"Because
we have…packages we sometimes like to have watched for a few
days at a time. Before we can move them, you understand?"
"Yeah,"
he grinned. I was disappointed he didn't have any gold teeth.
"Okay,"
I said, pulling up to the phone. "You call her. Tell her what
you'll be driving up in. She brings the girl to the curb. You
get out of the front seat; the girl gets in, we drive away with her,
you walk away with the twenty-five, and
that's all there is. Got it?"
"How I
know you won't--?"
"We
already have the address," I said, patiently. "Like
you said, that building you brought us to, nobody would find a body
there for a month. I think we can do business again. We're
not risking a murder rap for a lousy twenty-five
G's."
I attached the
telephone receiver the Mole had given me with a set of alligator clips.
The pimp dialed a number, holding the phone so I could hear both ends
of the conversation.
"H ey, man," he said, on the way over. "Soon as you know it's the girl you want, I just
get on out, right?"
"Right."
"So how
about I hold the money? I mean, make it nice and smooth, so you
don't have to hang around."
I thought it over
for a couple of seconds, then said, "Give it back to
him," to the Prof.
T wo figures were standing by the front door to the
house, turned into silhouettes by a lamp glowing inside the front
window. When the taller one saw us, they both walked down toward the
street. I didn't see any sign of force or restraint.
The pimp got out,
the attaché case in one hand.
"Get
in!" he ordered the girl. "The man wants to look at
you."
She climbed in
docilely, a tentative smile on her face.
"Hello,
Beryl," I said.
Her mouth opened
in a silent "O" of surprise. The pimp slammed the
door behind her, and we took off. The pimp had about thirty seconds of
triumph left…if it took him that long to open the
attaché case, an identical twin of the money bag
we'd switched it for.
T he Con Ed truck was waiting where the Mole said
it would be. I pulled over, and the back seat emptied out. In a few
minutes, the Prof would dial the number Preston had left with me. When
he heard a voice, he'd press the button on the little
cassette player; and Preston would hear me say: "I've got her. We're on the way. Sit
tight and don't make any calls."
I slipped the soft-riding sedan through the
streets, heading for the Van Wyck. At that hour, the Whitestone Bridge
was my best bet.
"My
father sent you," the girl said to me. It wasn't a
question.
"That's
right, Beryl," I told her. "You'll be
home in an hour or so."
She
didn't say another word all the way.
A s soon as the Merc's headlights cut
across his driveway, Preston bolted out the front door. He was tearing
at the passenger-side door handle before I came to a full stop.
"Beryl!"
he half-sobbed, clutching at her like she was about to go over a cliff.
The girl turned,
gave me a look I couldn't interpret, then surrendered to her
father's embrace.
The two of them
walked back toward the house, his arm wrapped protectively around her
shoulders. I followed, keeping my distance.
A
woman's backlit shape filled the doorway. Preston passed the
girl to her like a baton in a relay race. The girl was pulled into the
woman's shadow. By the time I crossed the threshold, the
shadow had vaporized.
"Come
on in," Preston said, gesturing with his hand to show me
where he meant.
It was either a
den or a library--hard to tell, because the walls were mostly
bookshelves. I'm no appraiser, but the desk looked like a
piece of one-off cherrywood, and the dark-burgundy leather chair
hadn't come out of a catalogue, either. Blond parquet
flooring, with some kind of Navajo blanket used as a throw rug.
"Sit,
sit," he said, pointing to a tufted armchair that matched the
other furniture. For what it must have cost, it should have been more
comfortable. The plate-sized brass ashtray on a wrought-iron stand next
to the chair encouraged me to light a smoke.
Preston closed
the door, then walked over and seated himself behind his special desk.
He fiddled with a pipe--something uncharitable in me guessed
it was cherrywood--until he got it going. "Tell me
all about it," he finally said.
"That
wasn't our deal," I told him.
"Well…I
guess it wasn't. But surely you understand that
I'm--"
"You
wanted your daughter back. The reason you came to me was because you
thought I might be able to do that. You never asked me how I was going
to do it. I figured that was no accident--that was you being
smart, protecting yourself."
"You
mean, there's things I wouldn't want to
know?"
"I'm
not saying that. I'm just saying we had a deal, right? Cash
on delivery. And here I am, delivering."
"I'm
not disputing that. I just thought…I guess I thought you,
what you do, it isn't just about money."
"I
don't know where you got that idea," I said.
"From
the--"
"I
wasn't asking."
"Oh.
I…"
His voice spooled
out into silence until he finally accepted that I wasn't
going to say anything more. "Here's your
money," he said, putting a neat stack of bills on the top of
his desk. Probably dug it out of a safe somewhere in the house as soon
as he heard my tape-recorded voice on his phone. I wondered how much he
usually kept in there.
I
couldn't tell if making me step over to his fancy desk to get
the money was a little bit of nastiness because I wouldn't
give him the gory details, or because he was back to being himself
already--a boss, paying off a worker.
As I pocketed the
cash, he answered the question. "Berry will tell me all about
it," he said, self-assured.
I found a lot of kids back then. Sometimes it was
the parents who paid me. Sometimes it was the people who I took them
back from. Sometimes both. Every so often, neither.
I
hadn't told Preston the truth. Not just because he was a
citizen, and lying to citizens was one of the first things my
father--the State--had taught me, but because of
something Wesley told me once. "You can't ever give
them any reason but money," the iceman whispered one night. "They think there's something else in it for you,
they might want to do you down on the price."
"I set
the price in front," I replied, a little hurt that Wesley
would think I'd be such an amateur.
"But
you don't get it paid in
front," he said. "And this thing you got about
kids, it's a marker. A way for people to find you."
"People
know where my--"
"Not
know your address," the iceman said. "Know you.
They know that, your address don't matter--they can
get you to come wherever they need you to be."
That was a long
conversation for Wesley. He had the same one with me, over and over
again, right up to the time he checked out of the hotel he had hated
from the moment the State had booked his room.
I might have kept
going like I was: working the edges of the fringes, a poacher on rich
men's estates, a liar, con artist, thief…and,
sometimes, a man who found kids and brought them home. But after I shot
a pimp, McGowan stopped recommending me. And the people who started
coming to me for tracking jobs after that weren't looking for
rescue work.
I might have kept
going anyway--my lifestyle didn't require a lot of
income--but things kept…happening.
I thought I was
done with things like that.
"W hy did you give me this?" I asked Mama.
I held up my cup of soup as if I was toasting an audience, so there
wouldn't be any doubt about what I was saying.
"You
don't like soup?" she said, ominously.
"I
don't like this soup. I mean,
it's not terrible or anything, but it's not
yours."
"Ah!"
she said, expressionlessly. "No time last night. Cook make
soup himself."
Every year or so,
Mama tests to see if I recognize the one thing in that restaurant she
makes herself. It would never occur to her to question that I love her,
but she occasionally needs some reassurance that I love her soup.
I bowed slightly,
brought my fingertips together. She removed the steaming tureen and my
Barnard cup without another word.
"Prawns
today," she said. "Cook fix them good,
okay?"
"I'm
not hungry, Mama."
"Max
coming?"
"Should
have been here already."
"Okay,"
she said, getting up and walking over to her post by the front register
just as Max loomed up behind me.
As soon as he sat
down, I made a gesture of ladling out a cup of soup, taking a sip. Then
I made a face to indicate the soup was lousy today. Max nodded his
thanks--Mama wasn't going to waste a bogus pot of
hot-and-sour without testing it on more than one of us.
I was in the
middle of regaling Max with Little Eric's monumental triumph
over the Forces of Evil--that's the Morning Line,
for all you hayseeds--when the Prof strolled in with Clarence
at his side. He slid in next to me, spoke out of the side of his mouth
in a barely audible prison-yard whisper: "What's
with the old woman, Schoolboy?"
"What
do you mean?" I said, charitably not mentioning that the Prof
himself was older than corruption. Or that I knew why he was keeping
his voice down.
"She
tells me it's cold out, maybe I want some soup.
It's the off-brand stuff today, am I right?"
"On the
money."
"Damn,
son. You'd think she'd stop trying to gaff us with
that tired old trick after all these years."
"You
want her to think up a new one?"
The little man
turned and gave me a look.
"Where
is my little sister?" Clarence asked, looking at his watch.
"Michelle's
not in on this," I said. "Not this part,
I mean."
"I
thought there was green on the scene," the Prof riffed. "Something my boy found in that computer thing."
"There was
money," I said. "All over that CD Clarence looked
at, sure. But--"
"Right!"
the Prof interrupted. "So--we did the scan, now we
need a plan. And if we're going to go in soft, we need our
girl to walk point, don't we?"
"The
money on that CD, it belongs to the girl the guy who hired me was
looking for."
Max pointed his
finger, ratcheted his thumb in the universal gesture of a hammer
dropping.
"Yeah,"
I said. "The guy who got smoked. And, it turns out, he was
some kind of money man. Other people's money."
"So he
wasn't looking for the girl, he was looking for her
stash?"
"I…I
don't think so, Prof. But we can't start looking
for either one without some answers."
"But
you know the girl, mahn," Clarence put in. "That is
what you said."
"I know
who she is. But the last time I saw her, she was just a kid. You saw
her, too, Prof. You, too, Max," I said, miming the last
sentence.
The waiter
brought a tureen of the booby-trap soup. Mama left her register just in
time to see Max spit out a mouthful. He lurched to his feet, bowed an
apology to the waiter.
"What's
up with this stuff?" the Prof said, pointing to the tureen. "You serving us tourist food now?" He
wasn't faking the annoyed look on his handsome
face--if there's one thing the Prof hates,
it's being upstaged.
"Oh,
sorry," Mama said. "Big mistake, okay?"
"This
isn't Mama's soup," I explained.
Max pointed an
accusing finger at me, for not warning him.
Mama's
lips twisted--whether with pleasure at her family's
immediate recognition of the impostor, or in admiration of
Max's drama-queen performance, I couldn't tell.
As soon as she
left, I told Clarence about the time we had rescued Beryl Preston,
watching the recognition flash in Max's face, hearing the
Prof say, "Oh yeah. That one,"
next to me.
"Her
name is different now," the West Indian said. "Why
would that be?"
"I
don't know," I said. "She came
from money, that much we know. If only her last name was different,
maybe she got married. But…"
"What's
the front name she's using now?" the Prof asked.
"Peta."
"And it
was, what, Sapphire or something?"
"Beryl."
"Middle
name, maybe?"
"Nope.
The girl we pulled away from that pimp, her middle name was Eunice.
This one--on the CD--didn't have a middle
name at all."
"Maybe
the guy who wanted you to find her, he didn't know
it."
"No,
Father," Clarence told the Prof. "There was a
wealth of information there. Very, very detailed. If the woman had a
middle name, it would have been there, I am sure."
"And
the guy who hired me, I don't think it was money he was
after," I added, more sure of myself than when the Prof had
first asked, even though I couldn't say why.
Max responded to
my rubbing my first two fingers and thumb together and giving a
negative shake of my head with a "What then?"
gesture.
"I
don't know," I told them all. "He did
have a whole lot of financial information on that CD, but if he was her
money manager, he'd have known all that, anyway. And those
photographs…that's personal, not professional.
It's like the only reason he had all the financials listed
was just to help whoever was going to look for her."
"You
think she played the player?" the Prof said.
"That
would fit. He wouldn't be the first manager to get himself
managed. But let's say she did--why would she just
disappear after that? If the stuff on the CD is true, she had loads of
assets in her own name. Legit, aboveground stuff. She gets in the wind,
she can't get her hands on any of that. Who gets to steal so
much that they can afford to walk away from millions?"
"This
guy, the one who hired you, he had money,
right?"
"Looked
like it, sure. But I only saw him that one time; it could have all been
front."
Max clasped his
hands in front of him, then slowly pulled them apart. His fingers made
a plucking gesture, one hand taking from the other. The looted hand
balled into a fist as the thieving hand fled.
"They
were a partnership, maybe working some kind of paper scheme, and she
ran off with all the cash? Could be," I acknowledged. "That'd make him spend time and money looking for
her, sure."
"And if
she really had all that coin, she could buy herself major
muscle," the Prof said.
"But
now that the man who was looking for her is…out of the
picture, would she not come back to her own home?" Clarence
asked.
"Maybe
he wasn't the only one looking," the Prof said,
lighting a cigarette.
"Right,"
I agreed. "We don't know anything about the
shooters. If they were working for her, that's one thing.
She's got that kind of protection in place, making too much
noise looking for her is a good way to get ourselves dead. But if they
were looking for her themselves…"
"Yeah,"
the Prof rode with me. "Same thing. But we can't go
nosing around the dead guy's life. The cops would get on that
like a priest on an altar boy."
"I'm
not worried about that end of it," I said. "Not
now, anyway. If she stole from the dead guy, she's got the
money. Finding her, that's what we have to do. But
I'm not even going to start looking until we know one thing:
How did the shooters know where the guy who hired me was going to be
that night? That's the only way to know if I'm in
the crosshairs, too."
Nobody said
anything for a few minutes.
Finally, Max got
up. He returned with a handful of objects he had pulled off other
tables. Identifying each one with gestures, he constructed a triangle
on the tablecloth: the guy who hired me, the girl, and the shooters.
Then he built another: the guy who hired me, the shooters, and me. One
more: the guy who hired me, the shooters…and Charlie Jones.
Using chopsticks, he built a matrix. When he was done, a wooden arrow
pointed right at the ferret.
"Charlie
tipped off the shooters?" the Prof said, touching
Max's chart.
Max shrugged his
shoulders.
"Even
if he did, he would not have to bring Burke's name into it,
would he?" Clarence said.
Now it was the
Prof's turn to shrug. "Who we gonna ask?"
he said. "We don't know who the shooters are. And nobody
knows where Charlie cribs."
"If
he's kept the same place he had years ago, we
might know," I said.
"How?"
the Prof asked. But his voice was already tightening against what he
knew was coming.
"The
book," I told them, gesturing to Max at the same time.
T he book was Wesley's once. Mine now. It
had shown up in one of my drop boxes after Wesley had canceled his own
ticket. What the media called his "suicide note"
was a confession to a whole string of paid-for homicides. A couple of
those had been mine. Wesley knew how things worked: If he left the cops
enough to clear those cases, it was the same as clearing me.
But Wesley
hadn't told them everything. That was in
the book he had mailed to me. The killing machine had recorded it all,
the details of every hit: who got done, who paid for it, and how much.
That was my legacy, a Get Out of Jail Free card, but I could only play
it once. I hoarded it tight, my most valuable possession.
I knew Charlie
Jones had to be in that book. He'd never put a penny in
Wesley's hand, but he was a bridge to plenty who had. And the
iceman always covered his back trail.
"Mama,"
I said, when she came over to where we were sitting, "could I
have the book?"
I
didn't have to say anything more. Her eyes narrowed, but her
expression didn't change. Mama was our family's
bank, and Wesley's book was in what passed for a safe-deposit
box. Only, in Mama's house, you never say the
iceman's name out loud.
"Now
you want it?"
"Please."
"Order
food. I get it, okay?"
Meaning: The book
was buried somewhere in the catacombs under the building that housed
the restaurant, and it would take a while for her to dig it out.
"Bring
me some duck for luck," the Prof said to one of the
white-coated hard men who passed for waiters in Mama's joint.
I t was almost an hour before Mama came back. She
put a thick notebook about the size of my hand on the tablecloth and
walked away, as if afraid it was going to explode. The book was bound
in oxblood leather, with a gold ribbon page-marker, its fine linen
pages almost three-quarters full of Wesley's tiny,
machinelike printing. I always wondered where he had found such a book,
and what he would have done when he ran out of pages.
I'd
been through the book plenty of times before, but every time I opened
it, there always seemed to be more than I remembered, as if my ghost
brother was still making entries from wherever he was. There was no
real organization or index, but it moved in rough chronological order.
From looking at the first date, I could tell Wesley hadn't
started his book when he'd started killing. That would have
been a long time earlier, back when we were kids.
I felt the book
throb in my hands. Not like a beating heart; like an oncoming train. I
opened it, and started reading.
I took a drag off the cigarette I hadn't
remembered lighting, put it back in the ashtray that hadn't
been on the table when I'd started reading. "I've got him," I said.
The Prof and
Clarence came back to where I was sitting. I looked up and there was
Max, right across from me; he had never left.
"Charlie
hired Wesley four times," I said. "Not directly,
but he made the matches."
"Everything
go okay?" the Prof asked. He wasn't asking if the
hits had gone down, that was never a question; he was asking if Wesley
had been paid. The one time we knew he hadn't been, the
iceman had turned the whole city into a killing ground.
"Yeah,"
I said, still thinking about one of the jobs I'd run across
in the book. Looked like Charlie Jones had known some politicians.
"Must
have followed him home," the Prof said. "No way my
man pays anyone for info."
"It
doesn't say. But he's got an address here, all
right."
"Where
was the little weasel holing up back then?" the Prof asked,
frankly curious.
"Over
in Queens. Briarwood."
"Briarwood?"
the Prof jeered. "In that neighborhood, Charlie'd
stick out like the truth in Jesse Jackson's mouth."
"He
might," I said, my finger on the page where I'd
found him. "But Benny Siegel wouldn't."
"T hat boy is big-time slick," the Prof
said, his preacher's voice garnished with admiration. "You got to give it to him. Folks been trying to pass ever
since there was folks, but that's a
one-way street--people trying to move up, not down. Charlie
got to be the first time I ever heard of anyone trying to pass for
Jewish."
"You
know how Wesley worked it," I said, looking over my shoulder
to make sure Mama wasn't close by. "You wanted work
done, you never got to see him face-to-face. You hired a voice on the
phone, sent the money to wherever he told you. But it was a different
number and address for every job. So Charlie, he had to know a way to
find Wesley. Or to leave word for him, anyway."
"Do you
think they ever met?" Clarence asked. He was the only one of
us who hadn't known Wesley, but he'd been hearing
the legend since his early days working for a Jake gunrunner in
Brooklyn. He always wanted to know more, but he had to balance his
curiosity against the Prof's disapproval.
"You
mean, like, were they pals?" the little man said, bitterly. "Forget that. Wesley, he was about as friendly as a cobra
with a grudge."
"But if
he and Burke--"
"We
came up together," I said, hoping to cut off the young
man's questions before we had a problem.
"Still.
If he was as--"
"Look,
son," the Prof said, gruffly. "Wesley was the
mystery train. You never knew where he was going, but you always knew
where he'd been--dead men be all over the tracks.
Nobody knows why he picked Burke out when they were little kids.
Ain't no point talking about it. Nobody knows. And nobody
ever gonna know, okay?"
"Your
father's right," I told Clarence, gently guiding
him away from the edge. "When it comes to Wesley, you ask a
question, the answer's always the same: Nobody knows. But I
can tell you this for sure: He wasn't friends with Charlie
Jones. He wasn't partners with him. That wasn't
Wesley. He was always one up. If Charlie knew where to leave a message
for Wesley, then Wesley had to know where Charlie lived; it's
as simple as that. Wesley wasn't a gambler. The only way
he'd play is with a marked deck."
"He has
been gone a long time, mahn."
"You
mean, the address might be no good now? Sure, that's true.
But if Charlie went to all the trickery and expense involved in a
complete ID, he could still be there. Remember, we know one
thing--he never crossed Wesley."
"How
could we know that, then?"
Nobody answered.
It only took the young man a few seconds to catch up.
F or some places, a cab is the perfect surveillance
vehicle. You can circle the same block a dozen times, go and come back,
even park close by and eat a sandwich, and nobody pays attention. A
leaf on a tree, a bird in the forest.
But that
wouldn't work in Briarwood, a community of upper-middle-class
houses and even higher aspirations. The only Yellow Cabs you see in
that neighborhood are making airport drop-offs, the cabbies seething at
the "shortie" trip. For the drivers, waiting on an
airport line is a dice-roll. A Manhattan run is a soft six. A carful of
Japanese tourists who don't have a firm grasp of the exchange
rate is a natural. Briarwood, that's snake eyes.
Walk-bys would be
even riskier. In that neighborhood, people were peeking out from behind
their curtains decades before anyone ever heard of Neighborhood Watch.
The population is aging and house-proud, the kind of folks who keep 911
on speed dial. Nobody hangs out on the corners at night. And the
community has enough political clout to ensure for-real police patrols,
too.
But this is still
New York, where info is just another peach to pick. If you
can't reach the branches, you have to know how to shake the
trees.
Some do it with
research, some do it with subpoenas. People like me do it with cash.
T here's two kinds of
bribes--the ones where you get asked, and the ones where you
offer. A building inspector looking for mordida
knows he has to make the first move--too many DOI stings going
on today for an experienced slumlord to take the chance. But the pitch
is always so subtle you have to be listening close to catch it.
That kind of
bribe, it's just the cost of doing business, an everyday
thing. But if you want someone to go where they're not
supposed to, it's a lot trickier to put a deal together. The
phone company's wise to employees selling unlisted numbers;
the DMV knows what the home address of a celebrity is worth; and
there's always a bull market for Social Security numbers. So
there's all kinds of safeguards in place: You access the
computers from inside the company, you're going to leave a
trail. You say the wrong thing on the phone, someone could be
listening. Somebody's always watching, and they're
not anyone's brother.
Computers make it
a lot easier to check on what your employees are doing. But putting all
the information in one place is a party where you have to screen the
guest list. Not all hackers spend their time trying to write the
ultimate virus or crack into a secure site. Some of them are people
like me. Working criminals.
The best tools to
unlock an account are a Social Security number and a date of birth. We
didn't have either one for Charlie Jones, but we had the name
he had been living under and the address where he lived at the time. If
that info was dead, so were our chances.
I know a few
cyber-slingers, but I don't trust any of them enough to let
them work a name when its owner might wind up deceased. So I had to go
to people who don't trust me.
P epper is a sunburst girl. She's got
more bounce than a Texas high-school cheerleader, and a smile that
could make Jack Kevorkian volunteer to teach CPR. She probably likes
everybody on this planet, except…
"It's
me," I told her, on the phone.
"Okay,"
she answered, warm as a robbed grave.
"I want
to buy a package."
"She's
not going to meet you."
Pepper was
talking about Wolfe, the warrior woman who headed up their operation.
Back when she was still a prosecutor, she had let me hold her hand for
a minute. But then the road we were walking divided, and I took the
wrong fork. I did it knowing she'd never follow, hoping
she'd wait for me to come back. When I did, she was still in
the same spot. But she wasn't waiting for me. She was doing
what she always did--standing her ground.
Not many men get
a second chance with a woman like Wolfe. I was probably the only man
alive who could have blown them both.
"This
isn't about her," I said. "It's
not about me, either. I need a package, that's all."
"Say
where and when."
"The
cafeteria? Tonight? Anytime after eight?"
"Bring
it all with you," she said, and disconnected.
S he came in the front door, beamed a "Hi!" to Mama, and breezed over to my booth. Mick
was a couple of paces behind her, like he always is. He clasped his
hands, bowed to Mama, who returned the gesture of respect.
Mick's
a big man, broad-shouldered, with a natural athlete's build.
His face would be matinee-idol material if it ever had an expression.
Pepper once told the Prof that Mick had gone to one of those colleges
where the football coach makes more than the whole science department,
but he got disgusted with it and left. Made me curious enough to do a
little research. Apparently, fracturing the coach's jaw was
enough to get your scholarship canceled.
Mick glided
behind Pepper so he was standing beside her as Max and I got to our
feet. Mick bowed to Max as he had to Mama, caught the return, then gave
me mine. Pepper was still smiling…at Max. We all sat down.
"Oh,
could I have some of that special dish we had last time,
please?" Pepper said, as Mama came to our table.
"Sure,
okay," Mama said, and disappeared into the back.
"I love
fortune cookies," Pepper said, turning around agilely and
swiping a small metal bowl from the table behind her.
"You
don't want those," I told her.
"Why
not?"
"They're
for tourists, Pepper."
"So?"
"So
Mama doesn't like tourists."
"Oh,
stop!"
I exchanged a
look with Mick. He made a "What do you want me
to do?" gesture with his eyebrows that might have been one of
Max's.
Pepper delicately
cracked one of the cookies open. "Oh, ugh!" she
said, tossing the tiny scrap of paper onto the table.
Max picked it up,
twisted his lips, and handed it to me. Life is the road to
death. All you choose is your speed.
"Told
you," I said.
"Are
they all like that?" Pepper asked, curious despite herself.
"Pretty
much," I assured her. One of Mama's proudest boasts
was that no tourist visited twice.
"But
the food here is wonderful!"
"That's
not customer food," I said. "It's just
for…people Mama knows."
"Then
why does she even--?" Pepper started to say, before
a look from Mick cut her off.
A waiter came out
with a huge, shallow bowl of…whatever it was that Pepper had
eaten the last time she'd been there, I guessed.
We ate in
silence. Mick was a kung-fu man, and it looked like he was questioning
Max about some sort of praying-mantis technique. Or maybe he was just
practicing his nonverbal conversation skills. Pepper watched,
fascinated. One of the prettiest things about her is how interested she
always is in things. I wish she liked me.
The waiter took
away our dishes. Max lit a cigarette. Pepper frowned. I reached over
and took one for myself. Mick shook his head sadly at my immaturity.
"I've
got a name," I said to Pepper. "Two names, really.
We don't know if either one's legit. One address,
but it's real old."
"What
else?"
"White
male. Between five eight and five ten, slim build. Brown eyes, brown
hair. Looks to be somewhere in his fifties."
"You
think he's on paper somewhere?"
"No.
Far as I know, he's never taken a fall."
"And
you want what exactly?"
"I want
to know where he lives. If he's still at the same place, that
would be good enough. If not…"
"You've
seen him personally, or are you just working off that vague
description?"
"I know
him."
"So you
want a picture? Of him at the address?"
"Yeah.
That'd do it."
"All
right," she said, all business. "You know we
can't give you a price until we know how long it's
going to--"
"I
know," I said, grinding out my cigarette. "Be
careful, Pepper. This guy's no citizen."
"How
could I have guessed?" she said, smiling. At Max.
"W ant to go someplace with me?" I asked
Loyal, later that night.
"Someplace
nice?"
"Afterwards."
"Do I
get to dress up?"
"You're
always dressed up."
"Yeah?"
she said, deep in her throat.
"T his isn't so much fun," she
said later, doing it in baby talk to take the sting out.
"I
thought you loved acting."
"Well,
I do. But this isn't…I mean,
all we're doing is driving around."
"Why
are we driving around?"
"We're
tired of paying a fortune to rent in Manhattan, and co-op prices are
just ridiculous. We heard this neighborhood has real value
in it," she said, in the bored tone a schoolgirl uses to tell
you, yes, she did do her homework.
"That's
good!"
"It's
only good if someone asks us," she said,
pouting. "And who's going to ask us anything
if we just keep driving around?"
"I was
thinking a cop."
"A cop?
You mean…Oh my God! Are we, what do you
call it, casing someplace to rob? Is that what you
really--?"
"I
don't do things like that," I said, my tone
indicating that a criminal of my stature didn't do manual
labor. "We're just…scouting, okay? You
know what eminent domain is, little girl?"
"Yes!"
she said, suddenly interested. "I once had
a…friend who was a lawyer. A real-estate lawyer, in fact. He
told me all about how it works."
"Good.
See all these houses?" I said, turning my head from side to
side to indicate I was talking about the whole area. "They've gone up in price like a rocket, the past
couple of years. Nobody knows where the top floor is. Everyone here
thinks they're sitting on a gold mine, okay?"
"Okay…."
she said, interested despite her pose.
"What
if the rumor got started that the city was going to cut a big swath
right through this area, to sell to some private developer? The Supreme
Court says they can do that now."
"The
government never pays fair market value," she said, firmly.
"Right.
And…?"
"And
people would want to sell before the word got out so
that…Oh!"
"Yeah."
"That's
the kind of thing you do?"
"One of
them."
"I hate
these seat belts," she said, crossing her legs and taking a
deep breath. "They make me feel all…restrained,
you know?"
"I eyeballed the house," I said. "Nice size, solid, set close to the sidewalk."
"Look
like anyone was home?" the Prof asked.
"Couple
of lights on, behind curtains. And one out front, but that was more for
decoration."
"My man
got burglar bars?"
"In
that neighborhood? They'd probably run him out of town for
messing up the decor."
"Might
be going electronic."
"Sure."
"Could
you see the yard?"
"In
front, there isn't much of anything at all. I got some old
City Planning maps of the neighborhood. Near as I could tell, if those
houses have back yards, they're postage stamps."
"He
could still have a hound on the grounds."
"Yeah."
"I've
been thieving since way before you was born, Schoolboy.
Any crib can be
cracked. But that one's in a bad neighborhood for B-and-E. If
Charlie's holed up there, it's a mortal lock that
he's got the place wired."
"I'm
not thinking about going in, Prof."
"Then
what's with all the--?"
"I'm
not thinking about going in," I repeated. "But I have
been thinking. If Charlie's there, he's been there
for a long time. He might have a wife, kids, who knows? But, whatever
he's got set up, he's got a big investment in
it."
"How
does that help us, mahn?" Clarence said.
"Motherfucker's
not bringing his work home," the Prof announced, holding a
clenched fist out to me. I tapped his fist with mine, acknowledging
that he'd nailed it.
"I do
not understand," Clarence said, without a trace of impatience.
"Charlie's
been at this forever," I told him. "If
he's still at the same place, it means he went to a lot of
trouble to keep one life separate from the other. Charlie never goes
hands-on, remember. He probably leaves his house to go to work, just
like everyone else in his neighborhood. Which
means…?"
"He has
an office, somewhere else."
"Good!"
the Prof said to his son.
"And if
that's true, what?"
"Then
his home would be sacred to him, Burke."
"Yeah,"
I said, slowly. "This is starting to look less like a muscle
job every minute."
"If
your man's info is still good," the Prof cautioned.
T he next morning, the sun came out of its corner
swinging. It didn't have a KO punch in its
arsenal--not this time of year, not in New York--but
it came on hard enough to drive the Hawk back against the ropes. My
breakfast was a hot mug of some stuff that Mama gives me to microwave.
It's almost as thick as stew, and smells like medicine, but
it unblocks your nasal passages like someone went in there with a
rototiller.
I checked the
paper to see if there was anything new on the dead man, and came up
empty. Some half-wit--or, maybe,
bought-and-paid-for--columnist had a piece about how the Bush
administration was finally winning the war on drugs. Seems all that
money poured into Colombia was paying off. Or maybe God really is on
his side.
The writer had an
orgasm over how the number of acres under coca cultivation was down 75
percent. That's like dipping a yardstick into the Atlantic
and reporting back that it's three feet deep.
There's
only one way to measure how "the war" on any
contraband is going--street price. When the Taliban was
running Afghanistan, they banned poppy farming. No more opium, on pain
of death. Being such devout Muslims, they were strictly against the
evils of heroin. Sure. Poppy production dropped like a safe off a
building. Only thing was, the street price of H didn't
trampoline in response like you'd expect--it stayed
as steady as a sociopath's polygraph needles.
You
didn't need a degree in higher mathematics to figure out what
was going on. The Taliban banned poppy farming because they already had
huge stocks on hand. Same way OPEC gets together and reduces oil
production--to keep the barrel price high…and
stable.
Colombia
doesn't have one gang ruling the country, so
there's no price-fixing. Both the pseudo-liberation
guerrillas and the right-wing death squads run on money, so they were
all madly pumping product, widening the pipeline. How could I know
that? Because the street price for coke--grams to
kilos--was even lower than it had been years ago.
The only war on
drugs the sanctimonious swine are winning is the one to keep old folks
on fixed incomes from filling their scrips in Canada or Mexico. And Ray
Charles could see who was making out on that deal.
Why was I even
bothering with the damn newspaper? It was a chump play to keep looking
for Beryl. I wished I could just walk away. That job Charlie Jones had
brought me was turning out to be the worst kind, the kind where you end
up spending money instead of making it. No choice, though: I had to pay
whatever it cost to make sure Charlie hadn't been the one who
put the man in the camel's-hair coat on the spot. Because
that might mean the shooting team knew about me, too.
The dead man
wasn't going to pay me to find the woman he knew as Peta
Bellingham anymore. And even if she really had all the money showing on
that CD, that didn't necessarily add up to a dime for me.
I don't
like looking for my money on the come, but that's where I was
stuck now.
I sipped some more of Mama's brew while I
thought it through again. All that money didn't mean anything
by itself. Her father had been a rich man--maybe it was from
an inheritance.
But what would
have made her disappear? If the dead man had been stalking her, there
would have been other ways to deal with that problem. For a woman as
rich as she was, anyway.
I used to do a
lot of that kind of work, about the same time I was looking for missing
kids. I didn't have much finesse back then.
And even less
self-control. But I learned.
I got schooled good the time a soft-spoken man in
an undertaker's suit came to my office. I didn't
know him, but he had a message from a guy I'd done time with.
A solid, stand-up guy who wasn't ever coming home. The
soft-spoken man told me this guy had a little sister. And the little
sister had a husband.
The husband
turned out to be a big man, with a bad drinking habit and a worse
temper. That made it easy.
The celluloid
crunch of his boozer's nose brought both his hands up to
cover his face. I hooked to his liver with the sap gloves, and he was
on his knees in the alley, vomiting, bleeding, and crying at the same
time. I leaned down quick, before he passed out, said, "Next
time you beat on your wife, we'll snap your fucking
spine."
When the
soft-spoken man came back with the other half of my money, he was
shaking his head apologetically.
"What?"
I said.
"We've
got a problem."
"We?"
"The
girl. Our…friend's sister. She saw her husband in
the hospital and she just went off. Started screaming."
"So?"
"So
she's the problem."
I
didn't say anything.
"Your…friend,
there's nothing anyone can do to him, okay? But your friend,
he's our friend, too,
understand?"
"No,"
I said, lying.
"Then
let me spell it out for you," the man said. "The
sister, she knows more than she should. Instead
of…appreciating what her brother wanted to do for her,
she's decided that her husband is this innocent victim. So
she made a phone call."
"To the
cops?"
"To my
boss. But her next call will be to the cops, unless
things get made right."
"Which
means…?"
"An
apology. And some money."
"So
apologize. And pay her the money."
"It's
not her," he said. "Him. He wants ten large to
forget the whole thing."
"Why
tell me all this?"
"Because
you didn't do the job right."
"I did
what I got paid to do."
"You
got paid to fix it so he stops using the girl for a punching bag, not
to bring heat down on my boss."
"It's
not me who's doing that."
"Exactly,"
the man said, soft-speaking the threat.
I lit a
cigarette. Watched the smoke drift toward the low ceiling. Pansy
shifted position in her corner, the movement so slight it might have
been the play of light on shadow. The soft-spoken man was trapped. But
nowhere near as bad as I was.
"S he's my only sister," the man
on the other side of the bulletproof glass said to me through the phone.
"I'm
sorry about that," I told him. "But I
didn't pick the people you sent to me, you did. And
it's me they're putting in a cross."
"I can
talk to them," he said.
"You
already did that," I told him, guessing, but real sure of the
guess. "It's her you have to
talk to."
"She
missed her last two visits," he said. "And she
didn't answer my letter, either."
"Call
her."
"I did.
She wouldn't accept the charges. She never did that
before."
"You
understand what they asked me to do?"
"I can
figure it out," he said.
"I'm
not doing it," I told him. "But there's
plenty who would."
"What
if…?"
"If she
went as far as she already did behind what happened, what do you think
she does if something heavier goes down?"
"Yeah."
"So?"
"I only
wanted to help her," he said, shaking his head sadly.
I thought I had more time, but I was wrong. While I
was visiting the prison, the soft-spoken man's boss was
making a phone call. To Wesley.
Husband and wife
went together. Two surgical kills the papers called "execution-style." The apartment had been
ransacked. That made it "drug-related."
I was sad about
everything. But I learned from it.
J ust because I'm good at waiting
doesn't mean I like to do it. I'd been good at
doing time, too.
It took me
another three full spins through the CD before I snapped that, for all
the info this "financial planner" had put together
on his target, he had nothing from her past. If he didn't
know her birth name, he didn't know where she had grown up.
I'd met
Beryl when she was a runaway. Now, maybe, she had run back home.
People with
records learn not to keep records. I've
got a memory so sharp and clear that, sometimes, I have to wall off its
intrusions before they finish the job the freaks started when I was a
little kid.
Every one of us
feels those spidery fingers sometimes. There's no magic pill.
Therapy works for some of us. Some self-medicate: everything from
opiates to S&M. Some of us go hunting.
I knew I could
find Beryl's house again. I probably couldn't give
directions, but, soon as I started driving, the sense impressions would
flood my screen and guide me, the way they always do.
The Plymouth
wasn't the correct ride for where I had to go. Clarence had
what I needed--an immaculate, restored-to-new '67
Rover 2000TC, in classic British Racing Green. Just the kind of
expensive toy someone in Beryl's father's
neighborhood would have for Sunday drives. But Clarence was as likely
to allow his jewel out in this weather as Mama was to file a legitimate
tax return.
I could get
something out of the Mole's junkyard, but he specialized in
shark cars--grayish, anonymous prowlers that no witness would
be able to recall. Except that what blended into the city would stand
out in the suburbs.
Renting was
always an option, but I hated to burn a whole set of expensive ID just
for a couple of hours' use.
So I made a phone
call.
"Hauser,"
was all the greeting I got.
"It's
me," I said.
"Whatever
you want, the answer is--"
"You
still leave your car at the station when you take the train in to
work?"
"Yeah…"
he said, warily.
"I'd
like to borrow it. Just take it out of the lot, use it for a couple of
hours, put it right back."
"Use it
for what?" Hauser demanded. I've known him a long
time; it wasn't so much that he gave a damn, it was that
being a reporter was encoded in his genes, and he always needed to know
the story.
"I have
to visit someone tomorrow. Not in your neighborhood, but close by.
I'm looking for a runaway." Only the very best
liars know how to mix a heavy dose of truth into their stories. And
which buttons to push. Like I said, Hauser knew me going all the way
back. And he has a couple of teenage sons.
"It'll
be there when I get back?"
"Guaranteed,"
I promised. I'm the rarest of professional
liars--unless you're the one I'm playing,
my word is twenty-five-karat.
T he next morning, I was riding the Metro-North
line, one of a mass of reverse-commuters heading out of the city. The
car was about three-quarters full. I sat across from a scrawny,
intense-looking man with short, carelessly cropped, no-color hair,
indoor skin, and palsied hands. A pair of tinted trifocals dominated
his taut, narrow face. Behind them, his eyes were the color of a manila
envelope. He looked me over like a junkie who's afraid of
needles, his need fighting his fear.
The two of us
were probably the only ones in the car not jabbering into cell phones.
The fool next to me, clearly annoyed that the racket might actually
render his own conversation private, compensated by damn near shouting
the "Just checking in!" opening he'd
already used half a dozen times in a row. Some of the howler monkeys
tried to sound businesslike, asking if there had been any
calls--apparently not--but most
of them dropped the pretense and just blabbered what they thought was
important-sounding crap. They weren't talking, they were
fucking broadcasting--using volume as signal strength. We were
all captives.
I caught the
paranoid's eye, made a "What can you do?"
face. He studied me for a split second, then nodded down at the thick
briefcase he had across his knees and twisted his lips a millimeter.
The fool next to
me said, "Hello. Hell-o!" before
pushing a button on his phone to disconnect. He hit another
button--my money was on "redial"--then stared blankly at the
little screen, as if it would explain some deep mystery. All over the
train car, people were shouting into their phones but not getting a
response.
"Dead
zone," I heard someone say, smugly. "We'll pass through it in a minute."
I locked eyes
with the paranoid across from me long enough to realize that the smug
guy had it all wrong. Portable cell-phone jammers are
expensive--good ones go for a couple of grand--but
they're a reasonable investment for a lunatic who wants to
make sure nobody watching him can report back to HQ. I would have
offered the jammer a high-five, but I suspected that would start him
suspecting me. So I leaned close, whispered, "You should
carry a phone, too. Just in case one of these morons ever looks around
and does the math."
He nodded sagely.
After all, I wasn't one of Them.
Who says therapy
doesn't work?
H auser's car was waiting just where he
promised--a dark blue ten-year-old Lexus ES300 with a spare
key in a magnetic box under the front fender. It had Westchester tags,
with registration and insurance papers in the glove box, plus a
today's-date note on the letterhead of the magazine Hauser
works for, saying that Mr. Ralph Compton was using the vehicle with his
permission.
I never felt more
like a citizen.
I
didn't remember exactly what Beryl's father did for
a living--if he'd ever actually told
me--but I figured the odds on my finding someone home at the
residence were good, even if it was only the maid.
The Lexus was
front-wheel drive, but I didn't need that extra safety
cushion--the roads had been precision-plowed, and it was too
sunny for black ice to be a problem. I drove around until I found a
reference point, then went the rest of the way on autopilot, guided by
the signals from my memory.
I get those a
lot, and I always trust their truth. For most, I wish I
didn't.
The house was a
three-story mass of wood and stone that had been built to look like a
carefully preserved antique. No cars in the circular drive, but the
door to the detached garage was closed. The place felt like someone was
home.
I
couldn't spot a security camera, but that doesn't
mean much today, not with tiny little fiber-optic eyes everywhere. I
parked at the extreme end of the drive, at an angle. Anyone who wanted
the license number would have a long walk to get it. I strolled up the
driveway, casual.
A pewter
sculpture of a bear's head was centered in the copper-painted
door. I saw a discreet silver button on the right jamb, pushed it, and
was rewarded with a sound like wind chimes in a hurricane.
The click of
heels on hardwood told me whoever was coming to the door
wasn't the cleaning lady. I felt myself being studied. The
door opened--no security chain--and a tall,
too-skinny woman regarded me for a second before saying "Yes?" in a taking-no-chances voice. She was way
too young to be the wife I'd never met, but maybe Preston had
gotten a divorce, and picked up a trophy on his next hunt.
"Ms.
Preston? My name is--"
"Oh,"
she said, smiling. "We haven't had anyone asking
for them in quite a while."
"You
mean they--?"
"Moved?
Yes. At least…well, we've
owned the place for…it'll be eight years this
summer."
"Damn!"
I said, shaking my head ruefully. "I haven't seen
Jeremy since I moved to the Coast. I just got back, so I thought
I'd drive out and surprise him. That's what I get
for not staying in touch."
"Oh,
I'm sorry," she said, putting more sincerity into
it than I expected. "I know the house was on the market for
some time before we bought it. If we had known how prices were going to
go through the roof, we never would have bargained back and forth for
so long, but my husband…"
"I'm
the same way," I assured her. "You
wouldn't know where they moved to, by any chance?"
"I'm
afraid not. We never met them, actually. Everything was done through
brokers and lawyers. You know how that is."
"I do.
Well, sorry to have bothered you, then."
"Oh,
that's all right."
I turned to go.
"Mr….?"
"Compton,"
I said, turning back toward her.
"Would
you like to leave a card? I don't think there's
much hope, but I could give the broker a call, and
see if she has any information…."
"I'd
be very grateful," I said. I took out a business card for
Ralph P. Compton. It had a midtown address--I've got
a deal with a security guard who works there; I slip him a hundred a
month, and he slides any name I tell him into the building's
directory--and a 212 number that would dump into one of the
cell phones at my place.
She took the
card, held my hand a little too long. I knew where that came from; one
of the worst things about being locked up is how boring it gets, even
in a mink-lined cell.
I returned the Lexus, took the near-empty train
back to Grand Central, grabbed the subway downtown.
The car I picked
was densely packed, but there was an empty seat on the bench at the end
of a row. I started for it, but the woman sitting in the next spot
pointed at a suspicious puddle on the gray plastic seat, warning me off.
Three stops
later, when she thought no one was looking, the woman reached into her
handbag, took out a small bottle of water, and freshened the puddle.
That held off all
applicants until a guy wrapped in about seven layers of coats and an
even thicker odor stumbled in. The woman frantically pointed to the
puddle on the seat next to her. The homeless guy took that as an
invitation, and plopped himself down. The woman jumped up like
he'd hit the other end of her seesaw.
The homeless guy
had an empty seat next to him for the rest of the time I was on the
train.
Many paths to the
same door.
I stopped by a deli on my way home, planning on
grabbing a sandwich to go. But the tuna looked suspicious and the egg
salad looked downright guilty, so I passed.
I looked a
question at Gateman as I stepped through the doors.
"All
good, boss."
"You
have lunch yet?"
"Yeah.
I had the Korean kid from down the--"
"Okay,
bro," I told him.
"I got
the paper, you want to check last night's Yonkers."
I
hadn't bet anything last night, but I took his copy of the News
anyway.
N o messages waiting.
I had roasted
almonds and papaya juice for lunch, idly going through the paper by
habit, a soldier scanning the jungle even when there's been
no activity reported in the area.
If I
hadn't gone cover-to-cover, more to kill time than anything
else, I would have missed it. The gossip column had an unsourced item: "What financier's wife had filed for divorce just
weeks before he was gunned down on the streets of Manhattan?"
Then some stuff about how the wife had charged him with adultery,
naming a "Ms. X" as the co-respondent.
I went back
through the paper. Nothing. Which meant the cops had already talked to
the wife, and knew a lot more than they were releasing.
I wished I was
one of those private eyes in books; they've all got a friend
on the force. I didn't, but I knew someone who did.
"S he's not going to meet with
you," Pepper said, letting a drop of vinegar into her sweet
voice. "Nothing's changed. And it's not
going to."
"I just
want to ask a question. Not of her, okay? A question I want her to ask
one of her pals."
"Ask
me," Pepper said, unrelenting.
B y the time I remembered that I had a date with
Loyal that night--worse, that I had promised to take her
somewhere special, somewhere she could really dress for--it
was edging into five o'clock.
"Davidson,"
the lawyer's bearish voice growled into the phone.
"It's
me," I said. "You still repping the guy who owns
Citarella?"
"The
stores or the restaurant?"
"The
restaurant."
"Josephs
by Citarella, yeah. Who wants to know?"
"An old
pal, who desperately needs a reservation for two."
"So
call and make one. They're open to the public."
"Uh,
it's for tonight."
"Christ.
Business or pleasure?"
"Business."
"Then
you won't need the window."
"Come
on."
"This
worth me using up a favor?"
"I'll
make it up to you."
"Call
me back. Half an hour. And, Burke…"
"What?"
"Make
sure you order the fish--that's the specialty of the
house. And there's no apostrophe in
‘Josephs,' so don't make a fool of
yourself telling them there's something wrong with their
sign."
T he hostess at Josephs treated me like royalty,
proving she wasn't just a pretty girl but a damn fine actress.
"Oh,
this is gorgeous," Loyal said, tapping
her foot as she tried to decide between sitting with her back to the
window and missing the glittering view along Sixth Avenue, or facing
the window and making everyone in the restaurant miss their view of her.
The hostess
immediately tuned to her wavelength. "The corner is
perfect," she advised.
Loyal seated
herself, glanced to her right out the window, to her left at the other
tables, and, finally, across at me. "You're so
right," she said to the hostess, flashing a megawatt smile. "Thank you."
I still had the
image of Loyal's little foot in the emerald-green spike
heels, tapping a toe so pointed it looked as if it would deform her
foot.
"How do
you get your feet into those shoes?" I asked her.
"What?"
she said, sharply. My sister's voice rang in my mind like an
annoyed gong. You are a hopeless, hapless idiot.
Her refrain, when it came to me and women.
"No,
no," I said, hastily. "I meant the toes.
They're so…radical."
"Oh,
don't be so silly," she said, shaking her head at
my stupidity, but mollified. "They're just for
show."
I'm no
gourmet--Davidson is, even though every meal I'd
ever shared with him was sandwiches in his office--but I could
tell the food was world-class. Loyal did her trick of appearing to
really chow down, but only picking at her food as she moved it around
her plate. I didn't mind.
"Lew,"
she said, looking up from her perfectly presented crusted arctic char, "you know a lot about money, don't you?"
"Who
really knows about money?" I said,
positioning myself for a deflection move.
"Oh,
stop! You know what I mean. I've got a problem, and I wanted
to ask your advice."
I heard the
Prof's voice in my head. We were back on the yard, and he was
explaining women to me. If all you want is gash, all you need
is cash. But if you want a woman's heart, you gotta do your
part. One way or the other, there ain't no such thing as free
pussy, Schoolboy. There's always a toll for the jellyroll.
So I was on
all-sensors alert, but all I said was, "Sure, girl."
"Well,
you know what the real-estate market has been like, right? I mean,
it's just insane. Even studios
are going for half a million in some parts of the city."
"It's
a bubble," I told her, with more confidence than I felt.
"That's
what people say," she said, nodding as if to underline the
words. "But if it's a bubble, when is it going to
burst?"
"If I
knew that…"
"I
know. But I feel like I have to do something,
before I miss out."
"But
you already have a--"
"That's
exactly it!" she said, excitedly. "I bought that
apartment ages ago--well, not ages,
of course," she interrupted herself, not being old enough to
have done anything too long ago,
right?--"but it feels like that,
the way the market keeps rising and rising."
"I
still don't see a problem."
"Well, I
do," she said, emphatically. "I could
get…well, a lot of money for that place, if I was to sell it
now. In two or three years, it could be worth a lot more…but
it could also be worth a lot less. If I sold now, I'd have a
big pot of cash."
"You'd
need a big pot of cash if you wanted to keep living
in this town."
"That's
just it," she said, regretfully. "But if I had a
place to stay, I could do it. I'd only need a couple, three
years here, working, then I could go back home…with enough
to live on forever, I bet."
"Where's
home, Wyoming?"
"No,
silly. I'm from a little town in North Carolina. I
haven't been back since--oh, I don't even
remember--but my daddy left me a little place when he passed
on. There's people living there now. Renters, I mean.
It's not a big house, but it's got some land around
it. I could be happy there…especially after this city. I
know I could."
"I
never picked up an accent," I said.
"Well,
you better not, all the voice lessons I paid for," she said,
turning her bruised-peach lips into a practiced pout. "When I
came to the city, I was just a girl, not even old enough to vote. I was
going to be an actress. Everyone back home told me I was a dead ringer
for Barbara Eden--when she was Jeannie, I mean--and I
was dumb enough to listen."
"You do
favor her," I said, gamely.
"You're
sweet, Lew," she said, not diverted. "But I know
that's not going to be for me, not now."
"Things
didn't work out?"
"I
didn't have any talent," she said, soft and blunt
at the same time. "This so-called agent I had told me to
change my name--the only part I was ever going to get with a
name like Loyal Lee Jenkins was if they remade The Beverly
Hillbillies--so I did. A little. But that
didn't make any difference. Casting directors would see my
pictures--oh, did I have to work to pay for those--and
I'd get calls, but as soon as I opened my mouth, that was
it."
"Your
accent?"
"Well,
I thought it was my accent, but I ground that rock
into powder…and that still
didn't change anything. I tried and tried for years until I
got the message. You know what it comes down to, baby? I'm
not fashionable anymore."
"You?
Come on!"
"You're
thinking of the shoes, aren't you? There's a lot
more to being fashionable than buying things, Lew. You know those jeans
everybody's wearing now? They're not built for
girls like me. I work out like a fiend, but I can't change my
shape."
"Why
would you want to?"
She turned her
big eyes into searchlights, scanning the terrain of my face for a few
seconds. Whatever she found must have satisfied her, because she nodded
as if agreeing with something. "I remember, once, this man
who wanted me to pose for him," she said. "He told
me I had the classic American hourglass figure. I was thinking about
that just this morning, looking in the mirror. And you know what, Lew?
No matter how tiny the waist of an hourglass, the sand still drops
through it. Running out. I have to start thinking about my
future."
"Your
apartment."
"My
apartment," she agreed. "Now, I told you some truth
about myself, even if it was embarrassing. So can I ask you a
question?"
"Sure."
"Are
you married?"
I had been
expecting that one for weeks. "No," I told her. "Well, I guess that's not a hundred percent.
I've been separated for years, waiting for her damn lawyers
and mine to get together on some financial issues."
"You
have kids?"
"No."
"And
that one is a hundred percent?"
"Oh
yeah," I said, shrugging my shoulders to show she was being
absurd.
"When
you say ‘separated,' you mean physically, too,
don't you?"
"Well,"
I said, seeing where she was headed, to block the exit before she got
there, "it's not that simple. I own a brownstone.
That is, we own a brownstone. The lawyers made it
clear that the one who moves out is the one who gets the short end of
the stick, so we're both still there. We live on separate
floors, so we're not even roommates. Sometimes I
don't even catch sight of her for weeks. But I've
got so much of my money tied up in that place, I'm not
leaving. And neither is she."
"So you
sleep there?"
"Uh-huh."
"And
that's why you can't bring me to your place?
Because that would be, like, adultery, right? And that would make your
wife's case better."
"That's
right," I said, wondering how Loyal was such an expert on the
topic…for about a second.
"But if
you had a friend who let you stay at their place anytime you wanted,
for as long as you wanted, I'll bet you'd like that
just fine."
"I
guess."
"I
mean, a friend who'd just clear out and disappear. So, say,
if your girlfriend wanted to spend some time with
you…"
"I
guess I never really thought about it."
"Well,
you should. Because it could solve both our
problems in one jump," Loyal said. Breathlessly, because all
her breath had dropped into her cleavage.
"I'm
not following you," I said. Stalling, because I was.
"You
wouldn't want to rent an apartment in your name,"
she said, leaning forward and licking a trace of something off her
lips. "But I could rent one,
couldn't I? Then I could rent out my co-op, have a place to
stay while I keep my eye on the market, and you'd have the
best setup in the world, too."
For
three grand a month, I could have a lot of things,
I thought, but kept it off my face. "That could get
tricky," I said, still looking for an opening.
"You
mean you would have to go back to your place and spend the nights?
That's no big deal, honey. That's what you do now,
anyway. If I had my own place, like we're talking about, I
could be ready for you anytime you wanted."
Like
you're talking about, I thought. "There might be a way," I said aloud. "But it would depend on some things working out."
"I'll
do anything," Loyal said, lips slightly parted in abject
sincerity.
I met Pepper the next morning, in the lobby of an "I'm cool, but are you?"
hotel on West Fifty-second. It's perfect for a man in my line
of work. The people who hang out there put in so much mirror time that
their observational skills have atrophied from disuse. And the doorman
doesn't come on duty until after dark, when his outfit works
better.
"What?"
Pepper said, as she sat down on one of the quasi-sofas artfully
scattered near the revolving door. Mick stood behind her right shoulder.
"Daniel
Parks…?" I began. Got a blank stare for my
efforts, kept going: "He was gunned down a little while back.
Made the papers. First he wasn't ID'ed. When they
released his name, there was nothing else, except for the usual filler.
Then I read in a gossip column that his wife had sued him for divorce
just before it happened. Named another woman."
Pepper turned and
shot Mick a look that would have terrorized a gorilla.
"The
gossip columns have trollers," I said. "They root
through the bins in Supreme Court, looking for celebrities'
names. Lawsuits, restraining orders, divorce filings--stuff
like that. This guy's name wouldn't be on their hit
list until he got hit, which is probably why it
didn't make the columns before now."
Pepper rolled her
eyes dramatically in a "Tell me something I don't
know" gesture.
"That's
one possibility," I said, unfazed. "The other is
that a cop leaked the info. Some of them have a standing arrangement
with the gossip boys."
"So?"
"So I
need to find out what was in the actual complaint, Pepper. Supposedly,
the wife named the other woman--they called her ‘Ms.
X' in the column, which means either they don't
know or she's not famous--and that's info
I need. Plus anything else she charged him with--"
"Like?"
"Like,
especially, anything to do with money."
"Why
can't you just go down to the courthouse
and--?"
"I
guarantee that's all sealed up by now. And if it's
not, it's a baited trap, and the cops will be all over anyone
who goes looking."
"So you
want us to do it?"
"Pepper,
I know you don't think much of me, but I'm sure you
don't think I'm stupid, okay?
Wolfe--"
Mick made a sound
somewhere between a grunt and a threat.
"I know
she still has friends on the force," I
went on, nothing to lose.
"Friends
do favors for friends," Pepper said, flatly. "What
you want, it's not that sort of thing."
"I know
what you're saying. I know money won't do this. All
I'm asking you is to ask her, all
right?"
"Don't
call us," she said, getting to her feet.
Mick glided out
behind her, his broad back covering her like a steel cape.
T he calendar said spring, but instead of
blossom-bringing showers, the city stayed mired in dry cold. I never
considered trying the co-op on West End. Parks was the source of that
address, so he'd already worked it over long before he asked
Charlie Jones to find him a tracker. Anyway, the info CD he had given
me didn't say anything about the girl I had known as Beryl
Preston being married, or even living with someone, much less having
kids.
A three-bedroom
in that neighborhood would fetch a fortune for the owner--if
the co-op board in her building allowed owners to rent out their units.
But the Battery Park apartment was a condo. It wouldn't have
a board. Or a doorman.
Getting around
this town isn't complicated. You need to go north-south,
there'll be a subway someplace close, get you there quick
enough…on days when its crumbling innards aren't
showing their age. You want to go east-west, you're better
off walking. I could spot most crosstown buses a couple of avenues and
still catch them before they got to the next river. Battery Park is a
nice walk from where I live, but not in bitter weather. And not when
I'm working.
All I had for the
pits who guarded my Plymouth was a few sawdust-and-pork-products
wieners I picked up from a street vendor, but the beasts went for them
like they were filet mignon. Or an enemy's throat.
Every time I
came, I got another micromillimeter closer to patting one of the
females, an orca-blotched beauty who had begun twitching her tail at my
approach a few months ago. "Hi, sweetheart," I said
to her. She's the only one I ever talk to. She cocked her
head, gave me a look I couldn't read, then went back inside
her house.
The Plymouth
fired right up. I let the big pistons glide through the engine block on
their coat of synthetic oil for a couple of minutes, waiting for the
temperature gauge to show me signs of life. Then I motored over to the
West Side Highway and turned left.
The ride lasted
just long enough for James Cotton's cover of the immortal
Slim Harpo's "Rainin' in My
Heart." Blues covers aren't the bullshit "sampling" rappers do,
stealing and calling it "respect." When a bluesman covers another
artist's song, he's not just paying dues,
he's paying tribute. From the moment I'd caught Son
Seals live in a little club in Chicago years ago, I'd wished
he would cover "Goin' Down Slow,"
following the trail of giants like Howling Wolf and Big Bob Hite. But
before that ever happened, he went down himself. Diabetes, I heard.
I found the
complex easy enough; it was only a few blocks west of the blast zone
from where the Twin Towers had fallen. Supposedly, the air around what
tourists call "Ground Zero" is still full of
microparticles from the atomized glass of all those exploded windows. I
don't know what effect stuff like that has on your lungs, but
it hadn't changed the asking--and
getting--prices for lofts in the neighborhood. In this city,
you could build apartments on top of a nuclear reactor and
they'd be full by the weekend.
The gate to the
parking lot wasn't manned. A speaker box sat on a metal pole
at the entrance. I hit the button, told the distorted voice coming
through the grille that I was William Baylor, EPA, there to do some
ambient atmosphere sampling.
I
couldn't tell if they understood a word I said, but the gate
opened. I backed the Plymouth into the far corner of an open lot and
climbed out. I was just taking a six-dial meter with two carrying
handles and "EPA" stenciled across its side out of
the trunk when a short, broad-chested Latino in a dark blue private-cop
uniform strolled up.
"You're
the guy from…?" he said.
"EPA,"
I answered, holding up the meter like it was an ID card.
"That's
what they give you to ride around in?" he said, nodding in
the Plymouth's direction.
"Nah.
That one's mine. If you use your own, you can make out like a
bandit. Even with gas the way it is here, at forty-point-five cents a
mile, you come out way ahead."
But the guard
wasn't interested in the finer points of government
reimbursement. "Is that righteous, man?" he asked,
pointing at my car.
"Nineteen
sixty-nine Roadrunner," I told him, proudly. "All
steel and all real."
"Damn,
it's fine," the guard said, strolling around the
Plymouth like he was examining a prize horse.
"It's
gonna be, when I get all done with her."
"It's
not a hemi, is it?" he asked, hopefully.
"It was
once," I lied. "But by the time I got it, the whole
thing was in pieces. I'm running a 528 wedge."
"That's
a crate motor?"
"Yep.
Pulls like a train, and ticks like a good watch when it's
done."
"What
are you going to do for rims?" he asked, looking at the
dog-dish hubcaps on the Roadrunner's sixteen-inch wheels like
you'd look at a potato sack on Jayne Mansfield.
"I
haven't decided yet."
"A ride
this size, you could run dubs, bro."
"Maybe…"
"It
would be awesome sick, man. Awesome."
I looked around
the near-empty lot. "You want to try it out? I know you
can't leave your post, but just a couple of
laps…"
He stole a quick
glance at his watch. "Oh, hell,
yes!"
I handed him the
keys, got in on the passenger side, putting my bogus measuring device
in the back. He sat there for a second, taking it all in. Then he fired
it up. "Oh, man, you can feel
it."
He pulled the
shift lever into D, delicately eased off.
"No
burnouts," I warned him, keeping my voice light so
he'd know I wasn't taking him for an idiot.
He maneuvered
around the lot, barely off idle, steering carefully. He
wasn't timid, just feeling his way.
"When
we turn at the end, give it a little down the straight. But watch
out--this sucker's got mad torque."
He
didn't say anything, concentrating. Made the turn, carefully
straightened the front wheels, and gave the throttle a quick stomp. The
Roadrunner squatted and launched, pinning us back in our seats. The
guard stepped off the gas. We both listened to the sound of the monster
V-8 backing off through the twin pipes. The muscle-car signature, as
American as the blues.
"Oh,
you one lucky hombre, esé," the guard said.
U nit 229 was a townhouse, the last one in a row of
immaculate, white-fronted look-alikes. Pushing the doorbell triggered
some ethereal quasi-Asian music. I tucked the meter under one arm and
waited, not hopeful.
The man who
opened the door was a compact blond, with delicately precise features.
He was wearing a thin black mock-turtleneck pullover that had to be
cashmere tucked into cream-colored slacks with elaborate pleats. His
pale hands were as neat as a surgeon's.
"Yes?"
"Uh, I
was looking for Peta. Peta Bellingham?"
"I
think you have the wrong address," he said, politely.
"No, I
don't," I said, letting a current of concern into
my voice. "I've been here before. To
see--"
"‘Peta.'
Yes, I understand. But that must have been a while ago."
"Not so
long ago," I said, taking the risk.
"Ah,"
he said. "You must mean whoever lived here before I
did."
"I…guess.
I mean, I always thought this was her own place. But I could
be…"
"Well,
I don't think so," he said thoughtfully, one hand
on his hip. "Not with the way the owner has things set
up."
"Damn."
"You
haven't seen her…Peta…in quite a while,
have you?"
"I've
been away," I told him, watching his eyes to see if it
registered.
"You're
not some stalker, are you?"
I shook my head
sorrowfully. "No, I'm not a stalker," I
said. "I'm a professional disappointment.
Peta's not my girlfriend; she's my sister. Maybe if
I'd ever answered her letters while I was…away,
I'd know where she is now. She's the only one in
the family who stuck by me. I figured, let me…finish what I
had to do by myself, not drag her into it, you know?"
He studied me for
a long minute, making no secret of what he was doing.
"Do you
think the owner might have a forwarding address for her? You know,
where to send the security deposit and all? All I want to do is send
her a letter, tell her I'm…"
"That
wouldn't be much help, I'm afraid."
"Maybe
not. But it would be worth a try. I've got no one else
to--"
"No, I
mean…Oh, come in for a minute, I'll show you what
I'm talking about."
I followed him
into a living room that looked like a Scandinavian showroom, only not
as warm.
"Just
sit down anywhere," he said. "I'll be
right back."
I found a
metal-and-leather thing that I guessed was a chair, right next to a
wrought-iron sculpture--another guess--and a plain
black cylinder that seemed to be growing out of the hardwood floor.
He came back into
the room, a purple file folder in one hand, a black-and-white marble
ashtray in the other.
"You
smoke, don't you?" he said.
"Yeah,
I do," I lied. "How did you know?"
"I'm
good at things like that," he said, just this side of smug.
He placed the ashtray in the precise center of the black
cylinder--at least now I knew what it was for. I took out a
pack of Barclays, tapped a cigarette free, and fired it up with a
wooden match.
He seated himself
on a severe-looking bench the same color as his hair, and handed me the
file folder.
"This
is why I don't believe the owner would be of any help to
you," he said. "I've never met him. Take
a look at the lease. Did you ever see anything so bizarre?"
I opened the
folder. It looked like a conventional lease, on a preprinted form. On
the last page, just above the line for the tenant's
signature, was a paragraph in large bold type. It specified that the
rent was to be paid via wire transfer to a numbered account in Nauru;
the tenant was to authorize auto-debit from his own account no later
than the third day of each month. Then, in big red letters:
THIS
CLAUSE IS DEEMED TO BE AND SHALL BE THE ESSENCE OF THE AGREEMENT. IT IS
UNDERSTOOD AND AGREED THAT ANY VIOLATION OF SAID CLAUSE CONSTITUTES A
WAIVER OF ALL TENANT'S RIGHTS TO OCCUPY THE PROPERTY,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE RIGHT TO CONTEST IMMEDIATE EVICTION
PROCEEDINGS.
"My
attorney told me that's all nonsense," the blond
man said, as if to calm my anxiety over the prospect of him being
evicted. "Absolutely unenforceable. But, as you can see,
it's all so very mysterious, isn't it?"
"Sure
is," I agreed. Thinking, Here's something
that wasn't on your little dossier, Mr. Certified Financial
Planner.
"I'm
truly sorry," the blond man said. "I wish I could
have helped you."
"You
did," I told him, grinding out the cigarette I'd
allowed to burn down in the ashtray. "If you know a
room's empty, saves you the time of knocking on the door,
right?"
"Well, my
door…I mean, if you think of something that I might be able
to help you with, please come back."
"I just
might," I lied, again.
P atience. I knew I had to wait for
Wolfe's crew to get back to me with something--like
a solid confirm on the address Wesley had for Charlie Jones, or
whatever was in the police file on the divorce papers filed by Daniel
Parks's wife--before I made my next move. There
wasn't any point working the rest of the info on that CD. If
Beryl still owned the condo in Battery Park--and it felt like
she did--she'd had it all locked and loaded way
before she got in the wind.
I was spending
money like I was actually working for Parks, but he was never going to
settle his bill. In my world, that's just wrong. But I had a
writhing viper by the back of its neck, and I couldn't just
drop it and walk away until I was sure it wasn't me it wanted
to bite.
I stayed low, waiting. Every time Loyal called, I
told her I was trying to put a deal together, and it needed all my
attention.
"Has it
got anything to do with…what we talked about,
baby?"
"It…it
could, is the best I can say now, little
girl."
"Well,
are you sure you can't come by? Even for an hour or so?
I'll bet you'd work better if you got your
batteries recharged every so often."
"I'd
work happier," I said. "But not better. When
you're on top of a deal like this, you can't take
your eye off the ball, or it gets dropped."
If she knew that
was all deliberately vague snake oil, she didn't let on.
"N obody call," Mama said, in response to
a question I hadn't asked.
I made an "It's out of my hands" gesture.
Max looked down
at his own hands, a pair of oversized slabs of bone and sinew, each
with a horned ridge of callus along the chopping side, the first two
knuckles as dark and bulging as ball bearings.
I shook my head
No. With nobody to answer our questions, it didn't matter if
we came on sweet or sour.
The
Mongol's face settled into lines of calm. He reached inside
his jacket and took out a deck of cards, still in the original box, and
put them on the table between us, raising his eyebrows.
"Let's
do it," I said.
Out came
Max's score pad. Probably Volume 90--we started our
life-sentence gin game a million years ago. When we had gotten bored
with the steady diet, I taught him to play casino. Now we alternate
randomly.
But it
didn't matter what game we played; we always kept score in
dollars. At one point, Max had been into me for six figures, built up
over a decade. He was lousy at cards to start with--a
hunch-playing, omen-trusting, logic-hating sucker to his
core--and Mama's incessant-insistent kibitzing made
him even more incompetent. Then, one day, he caught a streak gamblers
only fantasize about. Before we stopped--Max
wouldn't let me walk while he was on his prime
roll--it was more than thirty-six hours later, and he was just
about even.
Took me another
few years to get it all back.
I opened the pack
of cards as Mama, smelling an opportunity to screw things up for Max,
drifted over from her register. Mama worships numbers. Adores them. She
can work her way through the toughest sudoku puzzle faster than the
Prof can pick a lock--"Not
Japanese!" she had hissed at me the first time I noticed her
doing one. "Chinese invent, Japanese copy. Like
always"--and she keeps three sets of books in her
head. But when she gambles, the fever burns up the abacus in her brain
like it was dry-twig kindling.
I held up both
hands, fingers splayed, asking if Max wanted to try gin. He shook his
head, held up four fingers.
Okay, casino it
was.
I shuffled and
dealt. The flop was the queen of spades, ten of clubs, ace of clubs,
and seven of diamonds. I was holding a king, a pair of
nines…and the deuce of spades, a money card.
Max studied the
table. Mama pounded on his arm with a jeweled fist, hard enough to
raise a bruise on a two-by-four. Max ignored her, concentrating.
Max took the
queen with one of his own. I'd given up trying to teach him
to count cards and spades; when it came to gambling, Max was a Taoist.
I dropped my king.
Max threw the
jack of spades.
That left me with
two choices: throw my Good Two on top of the seven, building nines, or
put one of the nines, a club, on the table, in case Max was holding a
ten. But if Max had been holding the ten of diamonds, he would have
snatched the club ten off the table with it in a heartbeat. The ten of
diamonds is worth two points; they don't call it the Big Ten
for nothing.
Or would he? I
knew Mama would have; maybe that's what she was beating on
him about….
I threw the nine
of clubs.
Max slowly and
deliberately turned to face Mama. She looked away as the Mongol
dramatically produced the Big Ten. He showed it to me, scooped the nine
of clubs and the ace of hearts plus the ten of clubs into his hand.
Three points, four cards, one move.
I bowed, and put
the Good Two on the seven.
Max threw down
the four of diamonds, and bowed to me as I took in my build.
Mama looked
disgusted.
One of the
payphones rang.
"P olice girl call," Mama said, a minute
later.
"You
mean Pepper, Mama?"
"Police
girl," she repeated, adamantly.
I must have gone
blank for a minute. Next thing I heard was, "Burke! You want
number?" I nodded. "Police girl" is what
Mama always called Wolfe, even years after the beautiful prosecutor had
gone on TV to denounce a sweetheart deal the DA was giving to a bunch
of frat boys who'd raped a coed.
Wolfe's
pale, gunfighter's eyes had been chips of dry ice, the white
wings in her dark hair flaring as if in anger. She knew this was going
to cost her more than just being Bureau Chief of CityWide Special
Victims: She'd never work as a prosecutor again, anywhere.
But she never took a backward step.
After that, when
every legit door closed in her face, Wolfe had gone outlaw, running the
best info-trafficking cell in the city. But to Mama, there's
lines you can't cross. To her, Wolfe would be "police girl" for life.
I grabbed a
throwaway cell, dialed the number Mama had given me.
"That
was quick." Wolfe's voice.
"Anytime
you--"
"This
isn't about me," she said, softly but with no
warmth. "Not about you, either. I have half of what you asked
for--the half I had to do myself."
Meaning she had
to ask a cop. Ask him personally. I wondered if it was the same
sex-crimes detective who was so in love with her that he'd
committed a half-dozen felonies to protect her when Wolfe had been
false-arrested a while back. Sands, that was his name.
I don't
know what he got for going out on that limb for her. Me, I went a lot
further out than he did. And when it was over, all she had for me was a
goodbye.
"How do
I get it?" I said.
"I
don't know where you are now," she said, not
expecting me to tell her. "You know the short piece of Park
Lane, on the northeast edge of Forest Park? Not Park Lane South, or
Park Lane North, the little connecting piece, just up from Queens
Boulevard?"
"Yeah.
I was--"
"Can
you get there in an hour?"
My watch said
ten-twenty. "Give me to eleven-thirty?"
"Okay.
Look for a light-colored Chrysler 300."
"Finally
traded in that old wreck of yours--" I started to
say. But she had already cut the connection.
F orest Park was in Wolfe's home
territory, just up the hill from the courthouse-and-jail complex on
Queens Boulevard where she'd once had her office.
At that hour, I
didn't play with side streets, just grabbed the BQE to the
LIE to the Van Wyck to the Interborough. When I exited at Union
Turnpike, I was only a few blocks from the meet, twenty minutes to the
good.
The big Chrysler
was sitting at the curb next to the park, steam burbling from its
tailpipes. I drove past, glanced over to my right, saw a bulky male
shape behind the wheel. Wolfe might still have her old car somewhere,
but she sure had a new friend.
I spun the
Plymouth into a U-turn, crawled along back the way I'd come
until I found a place to pull over. I got out, started walking toward
the Chrysler. The passenger door opened, and Wolfe stepped out into the
spray of light. She was wrapped in a grape-colored coat with a matching
toque, moving toward me quickly, as if to keep me from getting too
close to the Chrysler.
I let her make
the call, stopped in my tracks. She closed the ground between us, as
sure-footed in spike heels as a Sherpa on sandpaper.
"It's
too cold to stand around out here," she said. "Let's sit in your car."
I did an "after you" gesture. She strolled over to the
Plymouth, let herself in. By the time I got behind the wheel, she had
lowered her window and fired up a cigarette.
"You've
got something for me?" I said, matching her all-business
posture.
"Not
with me. Pepper has it. I told her to bring it over to that restaurant
of yours by one."
"One in
the morning?"
"Yes."
"That's
not a lot of time for me to--"
"You'll
have plenty of time," she said, dragging on her cigarette. "This won't take long."
I
didn't say anything, not liking it already.
"That
other thing you asked for? It's not going to
happen."
"Why
not?"
"It's
not what we do," she said. Her voice was gentle, but
hardcored. "Information, that's what we deal in.
You know that. I won't put my people in risk
situations."
"All I
wanted was--"
"You
wanted my people to get you a photo…or some other kind of
confirm on a certain person at a certain address."
"Right.
And what's so--?"
"You
think I don't know what Charlie Jones does, Burke?"
"He's
just a--"
"What?
A ‘businessman'? I don't think so. And
the only reason a man like you would be looking for him is if he put
you into something and it went wrong."
"A man
like me?"
"A man
like you," she repeated, turning to face me. "You
used to be…something else, once. When we first met. You had,
I don't know, a…code of some kind."
"I
still do."
"Is
that right?" she said, snapping her cigarette out the window. "Remember that first time, what you were doing? Why you were
doing it? When's the last time you worked a kid's
case?"
"I'm
working one now," I said, hurt in a place I didn't
know I had.
"No,
you're not," she said, sadness thick in her voice. "That's not the kind of stuff Charlie Jones deals
in."
"Do you
want me to tell you about--?"
"No. I
don't want you to tell me anything. I came here to tell you
something, and I want you to listen. Listen good, Burke. This is the
last time you put my people in harm's way, understand? You
think I don't know what you brought Mick into last time you
went off the rails? From now on, it's like this: You want
information, you can buy it from us, like anyone else. But no side
deals, or you're cut off. Are we clear?"
"Yeah,"
I said. "I got it. No matter how careful I wipe my feet,
I'll never be good enough to walk on your carpet."
"You
want to feel sorry for yourself, go for it, Burke. You can't
be a mercenary and expect to be treated like a patriot."
I stared straight
ahead as she got out. I felt the door close behind her.
I was back at Mama's by a quarter of. At
one, Pepper walked through the front door, Mick looming behind her
right shoulder. She came over to my booth, studied my face for a
second, then said, "You didn't expect her to come
herself, did you?"
"No."
She sat down
across from me. Max was having an animated conversation with Mick,
using playing cards to make some kind of point.
Mama brought
Pepper a plate of assorted dim sum, and a pot of tea. They spent a few
minutes trying to out-polite each other. Then Pepper slid a dark-brown
nine-by-twelve envelope over to me.
I thumbed open my
sleeve knife.
"It's
not original," Pepper said. Meaning, don't worry
about opening the envelope delicately.
Inside was a
sheaf of photocopied court documents. Mrs. Daniel
Parks--née Lois Treanor--charged her
husband with separate counts of adultery and "cruel and
inhuman treatment." The meat of the complaint was the
wife's affidavit. "Upon information and
belief," Parks had been maintaining a "long-term
illicit relationship" with a woman "whose specific
identity is not, at this time, known."
The key word was "maintaining"…and as I read through the
affidavit I could see why the cops were sitting on this one. According
to his wife, Parks had been systematically looting the assets of the
private hedge fund he managed, "with estimated diversion of
no less than seven million dollars."
That
didn't sound like a lot--hedge funds charge a
percentage of assets under management as their fee, so Parks
wouldn't have come close to emptying the vault with those
numbers. But then came the kicker: The complaint charged that Parks had
stolen the money to "artificially inflate the management
results for his paramour." Like a Ponzi scheme, where you pay
dividends to old investors with new investors' money,
syphoning off the cream until the pyramid collapses. Only this one
wasn't set up to benefit the manager; according to the
complaint, it was set up to "impress and fascinate"
one of the investors.
"Ms.
X" was a siren, all right.
I read it over a
couple of times. Most of it was lawyerese: lots of heavy adjectives
bracketing slender facts. Whoever drew it up was careful not to accuse "Ms. X" of being in on the scam with Parks.
Stripped to its core, it came down to this: Some guys will use presents
for seduction, trading a piece of jewelry for a piece of ass. But this
guy's idea of a present was way off the charts; he was
pumping himself up as a financial-management genius by pumping cash
into the mystery woman's account.
I went over the
chronology. Parks had been served with the papers on
Valentine's Day--the kind of touch lawyers who keep
press agents on staff think is very, very special. By the time Parks
had gotten desperate enough to ask Charlie Jones for a referral, over a
month had passed.
There was no
indication that Peta Bellingham had been subpoenaed as a witness. And
neither she nor Parks had been charged with a crime. Not yet,
anyway--the forensic accountants would have to pick through
the paper first.
And it
wasn't the cops who'd been looking for Peta; it was
Parks.
I read through
the papers again, but it was like trying to buy a Big Mac in a
health-food store. Whatever I needed, I wasn't going to find
it in there.
Why would Peta
Bellingham get in the wind? Even if Parks had
diverted funds to her, she could always claim she was just an investor
who thought her money manager was doing a great
job…especially if she paid taxes on the gains, and had her own
CPA do the returns. Plus, even if all the skimmed money really went to
her, she had walked away from damn near that same amount in assets she
left behind.
Or had she?
Anyone with the contacts and connections to set up banking in Nauru
might have been getting ready to vanish for years. Co-ops can be sold
through agents, money can leave one account and appear in another
without any human hands touching the cash.
And who had the
hunter-killer team been working for when they X-ed out Daniel Parks?
Wolfe's
package was full of info, but it was a mutant hydra, birthing five new
questions for every answer it disgorged.
"Thanks,
Pepper," I said, looking up.
She was nowhere
in sight. I must have gone somewhere in my head--that happens
when I hyperfocus.
I looked at my
watch. Damn. Almost three in the morning.
"Where's
Max?" I called over to Mama.
"He go
back home. Friend go with him."
Friend? "Mick? The big guy who was here with--?"
"Sure,
sure."
I knew Max
trusted Mick--the big man had been on the scene when we
canceled the ticket of the guy who had made up the case against
Wolfe--and I knew Mick was a kung-fu guy, but I never imagined
the two of them working out together, especially in Max's
temple.
"Did
Pepper go with them?"
"Little
girl, big smile?"
"Yes,
Mama," I said, patiently. "You know who Pepper
is."
"No.
She stay with me, we have tea."
"So
where is she now?"
Mama pointed
instead of speaking. She doesn't like the way the word "bathroom" sounds in English.
When Pepper came
back out, she glistened as if she'd just bounced out of a
shower.
"What
are you so happy about?" I asked her.
"Well,
you may find this hard to believe, Burke, but Mick doesn't
make friends easily."
"A
charmer like him?"
"He's
very charming when he wants to be. He just
doesn't like…"
"People?"
I filled in, helpfully.
"Oh,
stop that! You know what I mean. Anyway, he and Max are, like, real
pals now. I told them I'd just wait here until they were done
working out, or whatever it is they do. You know, the karate?"
"Yeah."
"And I
had a great time talking with Mama! Did you know
her husband was an architect?"
I answered her
with a noncommittal facial gesture--I didn't know
Mama even had a husband.
Max floated in
behind me, Mick at his side.
"Did
you have fun?" Pepper asked, brightly.
Mick and Max
exchanged looks. "Yes," Mick said. Yeah, I could
see where all the charm came from, all right.
"We
have to go," Pepper told me, holding out her hand, palm up.
"How
much?" I said.
"She
said there was no charge," Pepper said, lifting my heart a
little. "But I have to take everything back with
me," she finished, putting it back where it belonged.
B y the time I got up the next morning, every
channel had some version of the same story: Some young kid, a
reservation Indian out in Minnesota, had walked into the local high
school with a shotgun, a pistol, and a bulletproof vest. He killed a
bunch of people at random--a security guard, a teacher, and a
lot of students--before he took himself out.
The kid had been "troubled." I guess that's the new word
for a born-to-lose with a father who committed suicide, a mother who
was severely brain-damaged, raised by a grandmother who constantly
called him a "human mistake" when she
wasn't beating him. The kid became a Nazi--in his
own mind, anyway. He preached racial purity to anyone who would
listen--no one ever did, but he was used to that--and
posted endless shrieks to his personal blog, too. At school, he wore
black clothes and eyeliner, as if to make sure nobody ever forgot he
was an outcast.
Producers spun
their Rolodexes, and the lucky winners got to be on television, "analyzing" what happened. None of them went near
the truth. I knew that truth. The kid was a member of a bigger tribe
than you could ever find on a reservation. My tribe. The Children of
the Secret. We know.
The experts
droned on about "communication" and "reaching out" and "peer
rejection." But this kid hadn't flown under the
radar. Everyone around him knew he was buried in despair. They probably
figured they knew the outcome, too--the suicide rate on
reservations is right up there with the alcoholism level.
That kid was just
another of the invisible ones--bullied, beaten, and belittled
every day of his marginalized life. If anyone had the slightest idea
that he might be a danger to someone other than himself, they would
have unleashed a snowstorm of "services."
Suicide, well,
kids do that kind of thing. Homicide--now, that's
serious.
Every high school
in America has them, the invisible ones. They all silent-scream the
same warning: If you won't see us,
you'll never see us coming.
But nobody ever
starts the analysis until after the autopsy.
O ne of the cell phones trilled. I looked at the
label on its holster:
Ralph P. Compton.
I'd only given that number to…
"Compton,"
I answered, in a brisk, businessman's voice.
"Mr.
Compton? My name is Sophia…Sophia Ginsberg. You were at my
house looking for--"
"Oh, I
remember you," I said, my tone of voice telling her
she'd made a reverberating impression.
"Well,
you'll be glad I called, in any event. I did speak to the
broker, and I got an address for Mr. Preston. I don't know if
it's still a good one, of course. But it was certainly good
at the time we bought the house."
"That's
great," I said. "Let me just grab a
pen…."
"Oh, I
can give it to you tomorrow," she said, quickly. "I'm going to be in the city, and I thought you
might like to buy me lunch."
"It
would be my pleasure."
"Oh,
good! I didn't want to come off as too--"
"I
would have called you anyway," I told her. She took the lie
like a deep-tissue massage. I gave her the address of a midtown bistro
where I knew Michelle could get me treated right, even on short notice.
"I don't see where she gets her attitude
from, after what you did for--"
"Let it
go, honey," I told Michelle, gently. Knowing she
wouldn't. Ever.
"You
don't need to know the reason to feel the season,"
the Prof said. "Wish the weather was better,
but…"
"I
could be a Bible man again," Clarence volunteered. He had a
door-to-door routine down pat, came across as a bright, sincere young
man on a mission to spread the Word.
"Wrong
neighborhood," I vetoed.
The Prof walked
out of the room without ceremony. Came back with a chilled can of Red
Bull and a small bottle of blueberry juice. Michelle poured the two
together over a tall glass of shaved ice, sipped it delicately. My
sister had a new personal drink every week, but the Prof and Clarence
never strayed from their Red Stripe. I went with pineapple juice and
seltzer.
We all sat in
silence for a few minutes.
"Charlie's
a night man," I said, finally. "How about I just
pick a day, around noon, okay? I walk up to his front door and ring the
bell, ask for Mr. Siegel?"
"I
don't like it," the little man said. "What if he's not home? What if his
wife--got to have one, if he's been there that long,
I'm thinking--says he's a traveling
salesman, been on the road for months? He don't come to the
door himself, in person, we're not making him pay to see our
hole card, see?"
"It
would be the same thing if I went there," Michelle said. "It's all chance, all luck."
"Couldn't
you reach out for him, Burke?" Clarence asked.
"Anyone
ever asked to meet with that motherfucker,
he'd take off like a hellhound was on his trail,"
the Prof said. "That's not the way Charlie works
it. He knows where to find you; you don't
never know where to find him."
"That's
the truth," I agreed.
"Next
time he has a job for you, we follow him to his home?"
"That
play won't pay, son," the Prof told Clarence. "One, could be months--years--before
Charlie calls Burke again. Two, odds are, he don't go
home when a meet is over. Strike three, no way to shadow a man like
Charlie Jones. Takes more than skill to do something like that; you got
to have powers."
The Prof and I
shared a look. Wesley had powers. He was as relentless as obsession
itself, a remorseless land shark. Not a great white, or a
mako--no, Wesley was a bull shark, the deadliest of them all.
A bull shark can work the deep ocean or shallow fresh water. It can
take prey even in knee-high depths. And it's the only shark
with a memory.
It hit me then,
why Wesley was the consummate shadow. He was one of the Invisibles. And
nobody had ever seen him coming.
"Could
we ask the Dragon Lady?" Clarence said, hopefully.
"To do
what?" Michelle said, a slight tinge of sharpness in her
voice.
"Hack
the Con Ed records," I answered for him. "Or
Brooklyn Union Gas. Charlie probably never makes a call from that
house, but he has to have the utilities turned on."
"So, if
this ‘Benny Siegel' guy is still
there…"
"Yeah.
It won't pin him down, but it might tell us if
we're wasting our time."
"Or we
could ask the Mole," Michelle said.
"Ask
him what?" said Clarence, retaliating.
"Oh, I
don't know," she said, in a "don't be dumb" tone. "He's only the most brilliant scientific genius in
the whole world, that's all. If anyone can figure out how
to--"
"We can
take a ride out and see him," I offered. Quickly, before the
fuse burned down to the TNT.
N o point in telling the Mole we were coming.
He's got a phone, but he never answers it if he's
working, and he's just about always working.
Michelle fumed at
me all the way. She'd been building her mood from the moment
I told her we didn't have time to stop at her place to let
her change outfits, and hadn't let up since. I ignored
her--easy enough, since she was putting so much effort into
ignoring me.
I slid one of my
custom CDs into the slot, and let the music drift over us, tugging at
the buried blossoms. Chuck Willis, "Don't Deceive
Me." Johnny Shines swearing "My Love
Can't Hide." Sonny Boy's "Cross
My Heart." Timothea's "I'm
Still Standing." Champion Jack's version of "Goin' Down Slow," the one
he called "Failing Health Blues." By the time the CD got to
the lush black velvet of Charles Brown's "Early in
the Morning," my baby sister was back to herself.
"That
young boy"--she meant Clarence, who was a long way
from that now but, being younger than her, had to be a teenager, at
most--"just wanted an excuse to see that
woman," she said, smiling now.
"The
Dragon Lady? She's married."
Michelle's
the only woman I ever knew who can make a snort sound feminine.
"Fine,"
is all I had in response.
"Burke,
you know Mole will come up with something."
"It's
not that, girl. No one respects the Mole's stuff more than
me. I was just thinking of something Wolfe told me."
"Her?
What would you even--?"
"Enough,
okay? Just listen," I said, as I wheeled the Plymouth off the
Bruckner onto Hunts Point Avenue, heading for the badlands. "I thought I had a deal with her crew. Do a little
surveillance on the address we had, see if they could get me a photo.
Or anything that would lock it down as Charlie's address.
Then Wolfe pulled them off. She said it was because they just do paper
stuff, no agents in the field. But there was something else going on,
and I think I know what it is. Charlie Jones might not be much on his
own, but anyone who tightropes over an alligator pit for a living gets
to know the alligators pretty good after a while."
"That's
right. I wouldn't want him…"
"I know
it, honey. That's why I didn't
go running to the Mole right away, see?"
"Yes,"
she said, crossing her legs. "I'm sorry. Maybe this
wasn't such a good idea."
"It's
fine," I soothed her. "We'll
just…consult him, okay?"
Her smile was a
floodlight.
W e rolled through the badlands, while I thought
about how it was probably the last piece of real estate in New York
that hadn't been gobbled up for new construction. Not yet,
anyway. With the tidal wave of property-greed crashing over the city,
some Trump-oid was going to find the money--other
people's money--to renovate the barren prairie
sooner or later. As we made the turn to the Mole's junkyard,
I pointed out a prowl car, parked in the shadow of what had once been a
building.
"ROAD
officers," I said to Michelle.
"What
are those?"
"Retired
on Active Duty," I told her. "It's a good
spot for cops like that. Plenty of crime, but no citizens to report it.
They need something for their activity sheets, they can always bust one
of the prosties working the trucks out of the Meat Market."
"Very
nice," she said, stiffly. Michelle had worked the streets for
years, when she was still pre-op. She still had a working
girl's mind: hated the cops, feared the johns.
I'd
known my little sister since we'd been kids. I was older; she
was smarter. I was stronger; she was quicker. The only times we were
apart was when I was Inside, or she was. She'd been
distance-dancing with the Mole for years before they ever got together.
What finally
pushed them over the bridge to each other was the same thing that got
Michelle off the streets and onto the phones. Love. Not the love they
had for each other--that had been there since the minute they
met, arcing between them like electricity, searing the air. No, this
was love for a kid. A little kid who'd been turned out before
he ever got to kindergarten. I'd snatched him from a pimp in
Times Square, back when that part of town was a festering pus pit.
I
hadn't thought things through, just did what I used to do all
the time back then--hurt the pimp, took the kid. But this
wasn't a kid I could take back to his parents:
That's who the pimp had bought him from.
While I was still
running through options in my head, Michelle had already adopted the
boy, pulling him to her in the back seat of my car. She
hadn't let go since.
Terry was her
boy--hers and the Mole's. The kid had his
father's nuclear mind and his mother's titanium
delicacy. His real father's, his real
mother's.
I nosed the
Plymouth against the rusting barbed wire that wound through the
chain-linked entrance to the Mole's junkyard like
flesh-tearing ivy. I knew the motion detectors would have already set
LEDs flashing where the Mole could see them.
Maybe there was a
hidden dog whistle, too. The pack assembled like it always did, moving
with the slow and easy confidence of an inexorable force. I looked for
Simba, feeling a needle poised above my heart. The ancient warrior was
about a hundred years old; one day he wouldn't answer the
bell for the next round. Just as I felt my throat close, I spotted his
triangular head cutting through the mob like a barracuda parting a
school of guppies. The pack was silent except for a couple of yips from
the young ones who hadn't learned how to act yet.
"Simba!"
I called out. "Simba-witz!"
The old beast
looked at me, white-whiskered face as impassive as ever. His eyes were
filmy with age, but one shredded ear shot up as he tracked my voice,
ran it through his memory banks. He gave out a short half-bark of
greeting just as the Mole lumbered up and began unlocking the back part
of the sally port.
The Mole drove
from the gate back to his bunker. I wasn't worried about
letting him behind the wheel of my Plymouth: The tiger-trap potholes
would keep his speed down to a crawl, and he could see well enough in
daylight, even with the trademark Coke-bottle lenses covering his
faded-denim eyes.
Simba and I
walked back together, the pack at a respectful distance.
"We've
still got it, don't we, boy?" I said.
Far as I was
concerned, he nodded.
A s usual, the Mole was miserly with his words. But
he listened good. When I was done, he said, "Why does he
matter?"
"Charlie?"
"Yes.
Either he is no danger to you, or he does not know where to find
you."
"Because,
if he was a danger, he would have already moved on me?"
"Yes."
"Charlie
middlemanned a meet between me and this guy who wanted me to find a
woman. The guy left to get something from his car. A team boxed him in,
and just gunned him down. They didn't ask any questions,
didn't even search the body. They knew who they wanted, and
what they had to do."
"So?"
"So
maybe Charlie's found himself another line of work."
"As a
Judas," Michelle said.
"Even
if that is so, it wasn't Burke he betrayed," the
Mole said, reasonably.
"There's
a hundred other possibilities," I said, lamely. "I
just want to talk to him."
The Mole gave me
a look.
"You
have a photograph?"
"I've
got nothing," I told him. "And a physical
description wouldn't do any good--it'd fit
a million guys. All we've got is that address I told you
about. If it's still good, he spent a long time building that
nest. That'd give us something to bargain with."
"So you
want a photograph?"
"Exactly."
"Couldn't
you hook up some kind of--?" Michelle started to
say, but I cut her off with: "No, honey. Now that I think
about it, Wolfe's right. Surveillance isn't the way
to go. No way we could put a stranger into a neighborhood like that,
it's too--"
It was the
Mole's turn to interrupt. "I know," he
said.
We were all quiet
for a couple of minutes. Fine with me. I liked sitting out there in the
fresh sunlight, my hand resting on the back of Simba's neck.
"You
have one of those new phones?" the Mole asked Michelle. "One that takes pictures?"
"Mais
oui," she said, insulted that anyone would think
she was a fraction of an inch off the cutting edge…of
anything.
"Everybody
has them now," the Mole said, as if Michelle had just made
his point.
"So it
wouldn't make Charlie nervous, seeing one," I said,
picking up the thread.
"No,"
the Mole said in a voice of finality. Then he launched into a string of
Yiddish. The only word I recognized was landsman.
T he bistro was called Le Goome. Before I could say
a word, a guy who looked like he should be bouncing in a waterfront
dive--except for the lavender satin shirt with the first three
buttons undone to display a hairless swatch of chest--walked
over, said, "Mr. Compton, yes?" His voice was right
out of a cellblock.
"That's
me," I told him.
"Michelle
is very special to us," he said, making it sound like a
warning. "We have a lovely, private table for you, away from
the window, yes?"
"That'll
be great."
"And
the lady?"
"Her
name is Sophia. She's tall, with--"
"She'll
ask for you, yes?"
"Yes."
"I'll
bring her to you, sir," he said, about as servile as a bull
elephant during mating season.
"I 'm sorry I'm late,"
she said, as I got up to greet her.
"Don't
give it a thought."
The waiter was
androgynous, of no apparent age, wearing a lavender satin shirt. Maybe
it was a theme.
"I
always feel guilty in a place like this," she said. "I eat so little, and they charge so much."
"Food's
just fuel," I told her. "People come to places like
this for the experience."
"Oh,
that's just right!"
I made a toasting
gesture with my glass of vitamin water, telling her I was glad she
agreed, but I was done talking….
She got it as if
I'd spelled it out in neon. "I know you must want
this," she said, sliding a folded piece of paper across to me.
I opened it. One
glance and I knew it was a dud. Jeremy Preston's last known
address was care of a law firm in Manhattan. They might know where he
was now, but they wouldn't be telling if they did.
"I'm
sorry," she said, telling me she knew what she'd
given me was useless.
"That's
okay," I told her. "I might be able to work with
this. My company's no stranger to lawyers."
"It was
just an excuse," she said, looking down at her French
manicure.
"I'm
glad," I said, lying.
B y early evening, the Ralph P. Compton number had
been nuked, the phone itself sledgehammered and tossed into a vacant
lot. A new name was in the slot at the office building.
Michelle's lavender-shirted pal would respond to any
questions with the blank look he'd probably learned in reform
school.
And if
I'd guessed wrong on the range of security cameras at
Sophia's house, and Hauser ever got a call about his license
number, he'd pass a polygraph that he'd left the
car at the station that morning, and it was right there waiting for him
when he returned.
But all of that
was reflex--I knew Sophia wasn't going to be looking
for me. Just the opposite. She'd had her sad little
adventure; Ralph would get the message when she never called again.
Of course, she
couldn't be 100 percent sure that Ralph wouldn't
come looking for her. Get angry, demand an explanation, insist on
seeing her again. That would have frightened some women, but not
Sophia. Action like that would have buzzed her neurons. She was a
junkie who needed a risk-fix every so often. And Ralph Compton had
disqualified himself.
"You
know what I always wanted to do?" she'd said,
walking around the hotel room like she was thinking of buying it.
"This?"
I guessed aloud, giving her the chance to pretend this was her first
time with a stranger, if she wanted it.
She
didn't. "Did you ever do it outside?"
"You
mean, like, in a car? When I was--"
"No.
No, that's not outside. I mean, like…we came up in
the elevator, but there's stairs, too, aren't
there?"
"There
have to be. In case there's a--"
"We
could go out there," she said, leaning back against the wall. "It would be so…exciting. Why do you think I wore
this skirt? I could just…" She slowly turned her
back, tugged at the hem. By then, I wasn't surprised to see
she was naked beneath it.
Part of me wanted
to tell her I never had sex indoors until I was a grown man. Alleys,
cars, rooftops--that's where kids like us got it on.
One girl I had was so much shorter than me that I used to stand her one
step higher on the stairs, come into her from behind.
I
didn't tell Sophia that. And I didn't tell her
about the sex I didn't want. When I was small, when I
couldn't stop them from doing whatever they wanted with their
property. Not their property, actually--I belonged to the
State. But the State was always very generous about loaning out its
possessions.
No, I just told
her doing it outside the hotel room was too much for me.
She'd almost walked out then, disgusted. But I guess she
figured she'd already made the trip, so…
T hat night, I paid another installment on the
malaria I'd bought with my stupidity so long ago. Fever
dream. They come when they want to, but less and less over the years.
Usually, they're just jungle visions: running, pieces of
earth blowing up in chunks, blood in the ears so thick you
can't hear the gunfire, fear rising like ground fog, clouding
your eyes and imprisoning your mind. Sometimes the location shifts.
I'm not always in a jungle. But that ground fog is always
there, hungry.
I was my old self
in the dream. I mean, I looked like I did before my face got
rearranged. It was years ago--I knew that because I was in the
downtown meat-packing district at night, and it was deserted. So it had
to be before the place turned itself into Club-ville, like it is now.
I parked my
car--my old car, a 1970 Plymouth four-door sedan so plain it
made vanilla look exotic--off Gansevoort Street and started
walking. It was as if I was watching from behind myself--I
could see with my eyes, but I couldn't see my face.
There was no
music to the movie. It was like watching a man in an aquarium.
"You
looking for a date, mister?"
I saw a
girl's face, peeking around the corner like she was playing
hide-and-go-seek. Not one of the tranny hookers who had made the area
their personal stroll; this was an XX-chromosome package. I remember
thinking, How do I know that? But I never answered
my own question.
She was under
five feet, way short of a hundred pounds. Wearing a baggy pink
sweatshirt over jeans and pink sneakers. Her hair was in pigtails. A
teenager, trying to look even younger.
"Maybe,"
I said, to bring her closer. "Would it be an expensive
one?"
"That
depends on what you want to do on your date," she said,
biting her lower lip and looking a question at me in the darkness.
"You
have a place?" I asked her.
"It's
a nice night out," she answered, as if she'd been
expecting the question. "And back
here"--she shot an unrounded hip in the direction of
the alley she'd come from--"it's
real private."
"I
don't…"
"Oh,
you'll love it, mister. You
don't have to get undressed or anything." She
stepped closer. "Just let me take it out. A man built like
you, I'll bet you've got a big
cock."
I had her then,
left hand clamped on the back of her neck.
She
didn't panic. "All I have to do is
scream," she said, calmly. "My man's back
there, and he's a real--"
"Scream,"
I said, pulling my .357 Mag loose.
"Oh
God!" she said, very, very softly. "You're a cop, aren't you? Please,
please, please, please, please."
"Just
come with me," I said, watching the mouth of the alley.
"Please,
please, please." She was crying with her voice, but her eyes
were dry.
"Please
what?"
"I can
do it in your car. I'll suck your cock until it explodes,"
she whispered against me, groping with her hand.
I turned
slightly, guarding my groin.
"No,
no, no, mister. I just wanted to show you how good I can be. Come on, please.
I always wanted to suck off a cop. You see how good I am,
you'll come back, right? Anytime you want, I'll be
right here."
"Come
on," I said, clamping down a little tighter to get her moving.
"Please!"
she hissed at me. "It doesn't have to be like that.
I'll do anything, mister. I'll take it in the ass,
if you want. Anything."
"You're
not being arrested," I told her. "I'm
just going to take you--"
"No!"
the girl begged. "Please. I never did
anything to you, did I? And I'll do anything you want. Anything.
Just don't take me back."
"Back
where?"
"You
know," she said, accusingly. "Back home."
I woke up coated
in sweat. I felt a white-hot wire somewhere in my brain, writhing like
a stepped-on snake.
U nless Beryl's father was deep
underground, any of the Internet "public records
search" services would turn him up in an hour. Their best
customers are stalkers, and they cater to their clientele with a wide
variety of options. They'll give you access to DMV
records--there's an extra charge for states where
that's against the law--tax rolls, employment
history, student-loan databases. If you want, they'll even
send you some photos of the target's house.
You
don't have to be a celebrity to make the list. There are
humans who worship property rights. Their property.
Some of them see therapists with their "abandonment
issues." Others visit a gun shop.
All stalkers have
one thing in common: a profound, overwhelming, all-encompassing sense
of entitlement. Leaving them is worse than an affront; it's
an act of deadly aggression, a threat to their core. Punishment is
required.
Most people who
flee don't have the resources to really get gone. They have
to work for a living. Open a bank account. Rent an apartment. Get a
driver's license.
Ex-cons talk
about "getting off paper," meaning no wants, no
warrants, no detainers, no parole, no probation. But the one paper
nobody ever gets off is a stalker's "to
do" list.
For some
disturbos, the relationship they think was "broken
off" never existed in the first place. A true erotomaniac can
construct the illusion of reciprocated love out of a
celebrity's autograph, a form-letter answer to fan mail, a "shared moment" during a public appearance. Or from
secret messages the victim sends in a magazine interview, a line he
writes in a novel, a gesture with his hand during a TV show. Messages
only the "special one" can decode.
There's
nothing so dangerous as an armed narcissist, but the gun's no
good without an address. That's why the highest level of
threat assessment is reserved for the ones protection experts call "travelers." Some stalkers get their rocks off
writing letters; travelers always deliver their messages in person.
The search
services never ask customers what they intend to do with the
information they buy. After all, people are entitled to their privacy.
"W hen I was in high school, girls got a name for
what they'd do.
Or
wouldn't do," Loyal said.
"It was
a small town?"
"That's
right. But I don't see why that would make any difference.
When I was in school, if you ever went all the way with a boy, just
once, every other boy in school would expect you to do the same with
him."
"How
old were you when you figured that out?"
"I
didn't have to figure it out; it all got explained to
me."
"By
your mother?"
"Nope.
Not my father, either. They didn't talk about things like
that. It was my brother, my big brother. Speed told
me--"
"Your
brother's name was Speed?"
"Yes,
it was," she said, hands on hips, as if daring me to make
something of it.
I held up my
hands in surrender.
"Speed
told me how boys talk. See, I always thought it was just girls who did
that. I remember him saying it: ‘There's some
things I can't protect you from, sis. Talk like that, once it
gets out of the bottle, you can never put it back in.' I
never forgot that."
"He was
a good protector, your brother?"
"Oh, he
was just the best! Some of the boys I went to school with, they could
get a little rough, be too free with their hands, especially when
they'd had some liquor in them. But none of them wanted to
get Speed mad. He wasn't the biggest boy in the school, but
he was just so…willing. Do you understand what I'm
saying?"
"Sure.
I came up with guys like that. You might be able to beat them, but
they'd make you do it. Cost you something
to try, too."
"That's
him exactly!" she said, clapping her hands. "It's like you knew him."
"Maybe
I will, someday."
"No,"
she said, shaking her head. "Speed's gone. A year
after I left, he was killed in an accident over to the mill. About
killed my mother, too. She didn't ever seem to get over him
dying. She kept saying it wasn't right--the parent
is supposed to go first.
"In the
beginning, she was just plain mad. Mad at everyone and everything.
Stopped going to church. Told the preacher if taking Speed was part of
God's plan she didn't want any part of it. Or Him.
Then, one night, she went to sleep and never woke up. Never let anyone
say you can't die of a broken heart, Lew. Because my momma
did, sure as I'm standing here today."
"Didn't
you want to go--"
"Home?
Well, sure, I did. I mean, I did go, for
Speed's funeral, and to stay with my mother for a bit. But it
was her, her and my father, who got me to leave. They said Speed would
have wanted me to try. I knew, the minute they said those words, it was
true. Speed was always willing, and I had to be, too. Because I loved
him so much."
"He'd
be proud of you, Loyal."
"For
trying? Yes, I guess he would be. Even if I didn't succeed, I
tried and tried."
"You
make it sound past-tense, girl."
"It
kind of is," she said, as if really considering the idea for
the first time. "Remember what I was talking to you about? My
apartment?"
"Sure."
"Well,
that's kind of my exit line. I am going
back home. And I guess I could, you know, just sell out and go. That
other plan--the one I told you
about?--that's only a good one if there's
a reason for me to stay."
"You
mean, like, a part or something?"
"More
like a ‘something,'" she said, looking up
at me through the veil of her long lashes.
"S pring came in like treachery," the
precise-featured man next to me said. We were sitting on an outdoor
bench on Central Park West. "It popped up like a mugger out
of the dark, pounced, and stole away with the cold. Get it?"
"Nice,"
I said. He was wearing a black quilted jacket, left open to display a
turquoise turtleneck jersey over black narrow-cuffed slacks and black
slip-ons just a half-glisten less shiny than patent leather. I knew
four things about him: he went by "Styx," he was a
writer, and he was plugged into a bunch of data banks.
The other thing I
knew about him didn't matter to me, and that
mattered a lot to him.
All he knew about
me was that I get paid for what I do, and I pay for what I want.
"You
ever hear of Surry, New Hampshire?" he said.
"No,"
I told him. Talking with this guy, the less words the better.
"There's
no ‘e' in it. You spell it like it was
‘Furry,' only with an ‘S' in
front, all right?"
"Sure."
"If
there was an ‘e' there, it would be like those
hansom cabs in the park. You know, a ‘surrey with the fringe
on top.'"
"Ah."
"It's
not far from Keene…?"
"Is
that anywhere near Hinsdale?"
"Hinsdale?
What's up there?"
"Used
to be a racetrack. They closed it down a few years back."
"You
mean, like, for racehorses?"
"Yeah.
Trotters, not Thoroughbreds."
"Oh."
He half-yawned. A mugger must have stolen his interest. "Anyway, that's where your man lives. Surry, New
Hampshire."
"Preston,
that's a common name. You sure you got
the--?"
"If
he's the same Jeremy Preston who sold the house in
Westchester you told me about, he's the one you
want," the man said, a little huffy that I could be
questioning his skills. He's a very sensitive guy. I guess
writers are like that.
We got up and
started walking through the park. He lives on the East Side;
we'd part company where the traverse gives you the
Fifty-ninth Street option.
A jogger passed
us. He was wearing a white bodysuit with orange fluorescent bands
around the sleeves and thighs. On his back was embroidered: "Runner Carries No Cash."
"My
mistress says to say hello," the writer said. I guess this
was one of those days when he wasn't allowed to say her name.
"Back
at her."
We walked some
more, watching spring descend all over the park.
"I'm
working on a novella now," he said. "I'm
calling it ‘Sub Plot.' What do you think?"
"Very
strong," I assured him.
I t took Clarence only a few minutes to
computer-map me a route to Surry, New Hampshire. Close to a straight
shot: 95 North to New Haven, 91 all the way across the border into
Vermont, take Exit 3, and then follow the directions I had taped to the
dashboard.
I'd be
running in the seam--it was too late in the season for the ski
crowd, and too early for the foliage freaks. Even at cop-avoidance
speeds, probably no more than four hours.
I would have
liked company on the drive, but Beryl's father had known a
man with a different face, and I didn't want to spook him any
more than I had to. Or let him think anybody but me knew his business.
Once, I would
have taken Pansy with me. She loved to ride, and she was a better
conversationalist than she looked.
I walled that one
off. Quick, before it took hold. Bad dreams are one thing; somewhere
down in that darkness, you know they're
dreams. But invasive memories are ice-pick stabs that bring their own
darkness. Waking up won't help you. The best you can do is
hold them off until they get tired and fade. Until the next time.
I rolled out at
four in the morning. Even at that hour, the city's never
empty, but there was nothing you could call "traffic," and I cruised all the way to the bridge
without stopping for anything but the occasional light.
The Roadrunner
was contemptuous of the speed I held her to, the tach loafing at around
two grand. I switched between the all-news stations, listening for
anything about the investigation into the death of Daniel Parks, but
all I heard was the usual putrid stream of packaged press releases,
endless sports scores, some breathless celebrity-watch crap, and a lot
of commercials.
I switched to
talk radio. People were still foaming at the mouth about some woman in
Florida who'd been brain-dead for over a dozen years. She was
way past a coma--"persistent vegetative
state" is what the doctors called it. A feeding tube in her
stomach was all that was keeping her body from rotting--to
some, a lifeline; to others, a harpoon in dead flesh. Her husband said
she had told him if she was ever in that kind of situation
she'd want to go. Her parents said that was all a lie.
Her husband had
the final say, and that probably would have ended it, except that the
anti-abortion crowd decided this was some kind of "right to
life" issue, and they lit a fire under their lackeys. The
governor of Florida--a passionate believer in capital
punishment, because that's what the Bible told
him--stuck his God-fearing nose in, personally passing a law
that stopped the husband from disconnecting the feeding tube. When the
courts said he couldn't do that, his brother, Big Christian,
took over. Once that happened, the same Congress that hasn't
been able to come up with a national health plan in twenty years took
about twenty minutes to pass a law that sent the whole thing back to
the courts.
The TV stations
had all been running footage of the woman. Her eyes were empty, lips
drawn away from her teeth in a permanent rictus her parents said was a
smile of grateful love.
One caller said
the husband should be on trial for attempted murder. Another screamed
he was a "confessed adulterer," since he was openly
living with another woman. Someone else calmly recited that he was
going to get "millions" from the lawsuit over what
had made his wife brain-dead in the first place.
Fair and balanced.
When
she's finally allowed to go, I figure they'll fight
over the remains. If the parents win, my money's on
cryogenics.
No matter which
station I switched to, there was the same topic. One degenerate said
the woman was still smarter than his ex-wife had
been--probably had worked on that line for days, in between
popping Viagra so he could get his money's worth out of his
porno DVDs. Then there was a panel of medical experts, who went on
about "loss of upper-cortical function," and a
bunch of other stuff nobody was listening to or cared about.
The only honesty
I heard was from a brimstone-voiced woman who warned, "When
America finally becomes a Christian country, cases like
Terri's won't be decided in any court. The Lord
will rule."
I shivered like
it was winter inside the car.
O nce I got onto Route 91, I had to break my vow to
stay at the speed limit if I wanted to avoid calling attention to
myself. I inserted the Plymouth into a clot of cars and let them pull
me along with them. Our pack was running a little over eighty when a
red Mustang shot past on the left. The driver gave me a hard look, like
he'd just backed me down from a challenge. Probably practiced
it in his rearview mirror whenever he was stuck in traffic.
When I left the
highway, I was only about twenty miles from my target. The Plymouth
blended right into a thin stream of mixed vehicles, everything from
working-class trucks to luxo-SUVs, with a seasoning of anonymous
Japanese sedans and the occasional kid's jacked-up Camaro.
My ID said I was
James Logan, who lived in a building in the Bronx that hadn't
gotten a mail delivery since a drunken squatter kicked over a kerosene
heater a few winters back. License, registration, and proof of
insurance all matched the plates. Jim Logan had taken early retirement
from his job as a manufacturer's representative, selling
restaurant supplies. His hobby was restorations. The Plymouth was a
work-in-progress, and now he was looking for an old farmhouse he could
bring back to life, too. Friends had told him that southern New
Hampshire had a lot of wonderful possibilities, but he preferred to
look around on his own first, before dealing with brokers.
There was snow in
the fields, but the roads were crisp and clean. A few flakes may be
enough to paralyze cities like Charleston or Atlanta, but up here even
a major blizzard wouldn't slow things down for long.
It's always easier handling what you're used
to--that's why people with my kind of childhood do
so well in prison.
The town
didn't have a lot of street signs, and I wasn't
carrying a premarked GPS, so I just meandered around, getting a sense
of the place as I searched for the address.
I passed it twice
before I pulled over and checked what I had written down. The number
matched, but my expectations didn't. Instead of the
semi-mansion and fancy grounds I'd expected--and
I'd driven past enough of those to know the little town
didn't lack for upscale housing--it wasn't
a lot more than a cottage, set off to the side of an unpaved driveway.
I drove back,
thinking maybe I'd been looking at a guest house, or some
kind of artist's studio, and the real thing was somewhere
behind it. But the only other building I could see as I went up the
driveway was a small garage, sided the same as the house, with a
matching roof. The house itself was bigger than it had looked from the
road, but no more than a couple of thousand square feet, I guessed. If
you transplanted the whole thing to Westchester, probably cost you
three-quarters of a mil. Up here, maybe a third of that? I
didn't know enough to even guess.
I parked the
Plymouth at the end of the drive, jockeyed it around until it was
facing out the way I'd come, and walked across a patch of
ground to the front door. Before I could raise my hand to knock, it
opened.
"Yes?"
said a gray man. I blinked twice, and the gray man turned into Jeremy
Preston. Or whatever was left of him.
"Mr.
Preston," I said, confidently, "my name is Logan.
James Logan. I'm here about a matter my brother handled for
you, quite a number of years ago. I've driven a long way, and
I'd sure appreciate a few moments of your time."
"If
it's about the business, that was closed
when--"
"No,
sir," I said, politely. "It was a private
matter."
He stared into my
face, nakedly searching. Came up empty.
"Look,
Mr…. Logan, is it? I don't know
any--"
"My
brother's name was Burke, sir. And the matter he handled for
you concerned your daughter. Do you think we
could…?"
I nside, the cottage looked like a lot more money
than it had from the road. The peaked ceiling must have gone up fifteen
feet, with massive beams running across; a series of skylights cut into
one side flooded the room with pale northern sun. The furniture looked
like it was wall-to-wall antiques, but, for all I know about stuff like
that, it could have been a collection of three-dollar bills. A
serious-looking woodstove occupied one corner, the cast-iron ducting
showing it was used to actually heat the house. The stone fireplace
that took up most of one wall must have been put there for
entertainment.
"Coffee?"
he asked.
"No,
thank you."
"Tea?
Hot chocolate?"
I could see he
wasn't going to engage unless I gave him time to put himself
together. "Hot chocolate sounds great, if it
wouldn't be too much trouble," I told him.
"Nothing
to it," Preston said, leaving me alone in the living room. I
could hear the sounds of glass and metal in what I guessed had to be
the kitchen.
Enough time
passed for him to have called the cops, if that was what he was going
to do. But I didn't think so; he wouldn't have let
me in if he didn't want to hear what I had to say first.
"How's
that?" he said, handing me a heavy white china mug.
"Smells
perfect."
"It's
store-bought," he said apologetically, as if I had been
expecting him to produce something more authentic.
"Just
about have to be, right? I've never been up here before, but
I can't believe the cocoa bean would survive this
climate."
"Yes,"
he said, seating himself in a rocking chair covered by a white
horse-blanket with red diagonal stripes. "Now, can you
explain the whole thing to me, please? I'm a bit confused as
to what you're doing here"--smiling to
take the edge off his words.
"My
brother and I had different fathers," I told him. "His name was Burke."
The expression on
his face told me he was ahead of me, but I went on, a man explaining
his mission.
"We
weren't close," I said. "Different lives,
different coasts. So, when I learned I had been appointed the executor
of his will, I admit I was surprised. I flew in from
Portland--Oregon, not Maine--and the lawyer who had
handled the will gave me an envelope. Inside, there was a list of my
brother's cases--apparently, he was some sort of
private detective--and, well, I suppose you'd call
them a list of last requests. Things he wanted me to do."
"He
wanted you to finish his cases?"
"Nothing
like that," I said, smiling to show how absurd the idea was. "I'm not a private detective, I'm a small
businessman. Very small--I own a motor
court on the coast, me and my wife. What Burke wanted me to do was,
well--I'm not sure how to say this--kind
of, maybe, check on how his cases turned out. It seems most of them
involved children. I guess he wanted to know they came out okay. In the
long run, I mean."
"Why do
you call him that?"
"Call
him…what?"
"‘Burke.'
It seems strange to call your brother by his last name."
"Oh,"
I said, chuckling. "I see what you're saying. Well,
that's what I always called him--a private thing,
just between us. He always called me
‘Logan.'"
"I
always called him Mr. Burke."
I shrugged, as if
to say my brother's ways were a mystery to me.
He rocked gently
in his chair. "So your brother's records indicate
he did some job for me?" he said.
"That's
right. There isn't a lot of information there, but, whatever
he did, it concerned your daughter. Beryl, right?"
"I had
a daughter named Beryl," he said, planting his feet to stop
the rocker from moving. "But you're going back a
very long time. She's a grown woman now."
"So
everything turned out for the best?"
"That's
what your brother wanted to know?"
"I guess
so. He left…bequests to several of the children on his
caseload. Not very much," I said, holding up my hand as if to
disclaim any big-bucks potential, "but…Well, like
I said, we weren't close. I couldn't begin to tell
you what was in his mind. He left some property he owned to me, and his
car--that's it, sitting out there in your
driveway--too. But all the rest of his estate, and, like I
said, that wasn't much, he wanted divided up among five
people. From the instructions he left, I could tell they were all old
cases of his."
"And
you started with my daughter?"
"Actually,
I'm finishing with your daughter. The
other bequests have all been disbursed."
"Well,
as I said, Beryl's not a child anymore. So why not just go
straight to her?"
"That
is what I did, for the others," I said. "It took me
a while--I don't have to be a private detective to
know that some women change their names when they get married. And the
only addresses I had were for the parents, anyway."
"I
haven't lived at the address Mr. Burke had for me for many
years."
"I
found that out when I tried to visit. Luckily, your number was
listed."
"So why
didn't you just call?" he said, a flash of color
showing under his grayness.
"I
don't believe this is the kind of thing people would take
seriously if they heard it on the phone. With all the con men and scam
artists running around today--you'd be amazed at
what you learn, managing a motel--how would you
have reacted if a stranger called and said he had money he wanted to
give to your daughter?"
He nodded, but
didn't say anything.
I took a sip of
the hot chocolate. "I couldn't find a Beryl Preston
in any phone book--I used the Internet to search. So I thought
I'd drive up, answer any questions you have, and
you'd tell me how to get in touch with her."
He cupped his mug
closely, as if warming his hands.
A minute passed.
"You
think I'm nothing now, don't you?" he
said.
A beam of sunlight bent itself through the
skylight, standing between us like the third rail on train tracks.
"I
don't understand," I said, buying time.
"This
house, the land it sits on, the furniture you see here, it's
mine. Truly my own. I never knew what that felt like, back when I
was…back when I first met you."
"Me?
I--"
"I
wasn't just a dog on a leash," he said, bitterness
etching his thin voice like vitriol on glass. "Not just an
actor playing a role, either. I ran the company,
even if I didn't own it."
"I
don't know what--"
"You
know what my strength always was? My secret strength? I was a good
listener. I paid attention. A person's voice, it's
like an instrument. You can hear if it's out of tune, whether
it's under stress. The FBI even has machines now, for
listening to voices. It's supposed to be better than a
polygraph. I'll bet it is."
I sat back on the
couch, waiting for whatever he was going to come at me with.
"Feel
free," he said, pointing at a shallow brass bowl on a coffee
table made from a cross-sectioned piece of timber, varnished to a high
gloss. "That's an ashtray."
"I
don't smoke," I said.
"Gave
that up when you had the plastic surgery, did you?"
I
didn't say anything.
"Your
voice," Preston said, two fingers on his chin in a smug,
pedantic pose. "It's completely distinctive.
I'd know it anywhere. I couldn't be sure at first;
maybe not smoking changed it a bit. But there's a
special…timbre to it. As if every word you say is wrapped
around a threat."
"You're
the one doing all the talking," I said, just barely loud
enough to carry across the room.
"Perfect!"
he said, happily vindicated. "That's it.
That's it, exactly."
"S he always blamed me," he said, an hour
and a half later. "And she would never tell me what
I'd done wrong."
"When
did that start?"
"I…don't
know, exactly. It seems it was ever since she was a little girl. It was
so…bizarre. I mean, I loved her so. She had to know that. No
matter what she did, I always forgave her. The way she talked to me
sometimes! My wife said I should put her over my knee, for being so
disrespectful, but I never did, not once."
I
didn't like the way his face morphed when he said "my wife," but my own face showed him nothing.
"She
was in trouble all the time?" I guessed.
"All
the time," he agreed, misery and mystery swirling in his
voice. "She was smart; my goodness, was she smart. Her
teachers said she could be anything she wanted, but she never applied
herself, not to anything."
"She
went to public school?"
"And
private school. And a residential
facility…for troubled teens. Nothing made a
difference."
"That
time I brought her back…?"
"She
just ran away again. Not from us, from that…program we sent
her to. The last resort. When she ran from there, she just disappeared.
Fifteen years old, you wouldn't think she would have the
wherewithal to survive on her own."
"Why
didn't you--?"
"What?
Hire a man like you again? What good would it do? Beryl made it clear
that she was not going to stay with us. A lawyer
told us we could have her locked up--have her declared a
‘person in need of supervision,' I think he called
it--but that would just mean a state facility instead of a
private one."
"You
never saw her again?"
"Oh,
certainly I did. I'll never forget that day. It's
an easy date to remember: nine, nine, ninety. Her eighteenth birthday.
She drove right up to the house--the one in Westchester.
Actually, I don't think she drove herself; I had the sense
that someone gave her a ride, and was waiting for her
outside."
"Did
she--?"
"I
asked her how had she managed to be on her own for all that time. She
laughed at me. It was a nasty laugh. I can still
hear it: ‘You think I was the only one to run away that
night, Daddy?'
"I
didn't know what she meant, and it must have shown in my
face. She told me she ran away with one of her teachers. I
hadn't heard--nobody told me about any such thing.
She thought that was hilarious. ‘She didn't run
away from school, Daddy,' she said. ‘She ran away
from her husband.'"
He sat there, his
expression stunned, as if hearing Beryl's words again.
"I
couldn't…believe it for a minute," he
finally said. "What my daughter was telling me."
"That
she was gay?"
"No! I
would never have cared about such a thing. Beryl knew that. We used to
have very frank discussions. I talked to her about all the things I was
supposed to: sex, drugs, drinking…. It wasn't that
Beryl was gay, it was that she wasn't, do
you understand?"
"She
was just using that teacher to support her while she was on the
run?"
"Yes,"
he said, his voice trembling at the memory. "Using her,
that's right. And Beryl was proud of it, like it was a new
game she had learned, and she was already the best at it."
"That's
all she came to tell you?"
"No.
That just came out," he said, looking down at his lap. "What she came all that way to tell me was that I was a
spineless coward."
"Because…?"
"I
don't know," Jeremy Preston
said, wretchedly. "When I asked her what she was talking
about, she just laughed that nasty little laugh of hers
again."
"W hy are you really looking for her?" he
asked, later.
"I ran
across some information--more like a rumor, actually; I
can't speak for its accuracy, considering the
source--that she might be in danger. This was in the middle of
another case, nothing to do with her. Or you. But I remembered her from
that time when I brought her back. And I
thought…I'm not sure what I thought. I guess I
just wanted to be sure she was safe."
"So why
did you come here with that story of yours?"
"She's
changed her name," I said, flatly. "There's a lot of reasons people do that. But in my
business it usually means they don't want the
family's brand on them."
"You
mean, you thought I was the reason?"
"No way
to know," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"I
didn't know she changed her name. What does she call herself
now?"
"Peta
Bellingham," I told him, watching his face for a tell.
"What
kind of name is that?" he said, almost angrily. "I
mean, it doesn't connect to…anything I
know."
"I
can't tell you. Not yet, anyway."
"You
thought I might know where she is…but that I
wouldn't want to tell you?"
"Right.
I thought she might be…aware of the situation. That the
rumor I'd heard had some truth to it. I thought she might be
staying underground until things got straightened out. Maybe staying
with you, I don't know."
"You
wanted to help her?"
"Yeah.
Yeah, I did. I still do."
"Because…?"
"I
don't have a good answer for that one. Maybe I'm
just chasing down things I did when I was young."
"Things
you did wrong?"
"I
don't know," I said. "I
couldn't know that until I talk to her."
"Bringing
her back to me!" he said suddenly. "That's
what you thought you might have done wrong."
I
didn't deny it.
"I
don't know where she is," Jeremy Preston said. He
stood up, paced in front of the cold fireplace for a minute, then
turned to face me. "I don't know where she
is," he repeated. "But I'll pay you to
find her."
"Why?"
"Because
I want the answer to your question, too, Mr. Burke. A lot more than you
ever could."
P reston told me he met the woman who would become
his wife when he'd been a student at
Harvard--"That's right," he
interrupted himself, sharply, as if I had challenged his words. When I
didn't respond, he visibly relaxed, then went on again. All
ponderous and pedantic, like a celebrity twit being interviewed.
"Those
were tumultuous times. Not just Vietnam. The civil-rights movement,
feminism, music…When they talk about a
‘counterculture,' that's very accurate. I
was a senior, my wife was a sophomore. At BU, just across the river. I
met her at a teach-in. Later, she told me that she wanted to marry me
from the minute I stood up and…well, made a little speech, I
guess.
"We had
an understanding. A contract, even. We weren't going to be
dropouts, we were going to be…participants. Change-agents.
Not by living on some commune, or marching in protests. It's
all very well and good to talk about the inevitable rise of the
proletariat, but we knew revolutions need financing to move forward,
the same way a car needs gas.
"Her
father brought me into his company, but I was never the
son-in-law," he went on, as hyper-vigilant to attacks on his
credentials as an abused child is to a subtle shift in a
parent's voice tone. "I hadn't studied
business in college--I don't think anybody
studied business back then--but I had an aptitude for it, and
it came to the surface quickly. Before I was thirty, I was virtually
running the company. And when my father-in-law died--heart
attack; he wasn't a man who ever listened to
doctors--the segue was as natural as if I'd been
groomed for the position since birth."
"But
your wife was the actual owner? Is that what you meant earlier, when
you said--?"
"That
this was mine?" he said, sweeping his hand in a gesture meant
to encompass the whole house. "Yes, that's exactly
right. When we divorced, the prenup--I remember us laughing
when I signed it: just a piece of paper her bourgeois father insisted
upon, it was never going to matter to us--kicked
in. There was never an issue of child support. Beryl had been gone
quite a while, and she was no longer a minor, anyway."
"Beryl
was an only child?"
"Yes,"
he said. "I wanted more kids. Especially later, when Beryl
started to…act out. I thought, if she had a little brother
or a little sister, it would be…I don't know, a
good experience for her. For them both, I mean."
"Did
she ever have a pet?" I asked. Remembering that she
hadn't when her father had first come to me, wondering if
they'd ever tried that.
"You
mean, like a dog or a cat? No, my wife was highly allergic."
"She
couldn't be around animals?"
"Well,
she could tolerate them in small doses. Like when we visited a
friend's house and they had a dog, she would pat it and
everything. But to have one in the house, well,
that would have been impossible for her."
I shifted
position to show I was listening close, said, "You were still
together when Beryl came back to visit you, that last time?"
"Together?
We were still married, yes. But the life we planned for ourselves had
already disappeared."
"You
never got to be bankrollers?"
"Oh, we
certainly did that. You wouldn't believe
some of the people who were guests in our home. That was part of what
we wanted from our…contributions, I suppose. For Beryl to be
exposed to the finest thinkers of our generation. The best minds, the
best causes. And she was. My wife and I funded some major
initiatives. And plenty of them weren't tax-exempt,
either."
"Did
you attract government attention?"
"Oh,
I'm sure we did. Everyone in our circle was under some form
of surveillance--it came with the territory."
And made
you feel like a real player, too, I thought, but kept it off
my face.
"By the
time Beryl was, oh, I don't know, maybe eight or nine years
old, it seemed like the revolution was dying. You know, the Age of
Reagan and all that. The country changed…and so did
our…raison d'être, you might say. Oh, we
still contributed--the Southern Poverty Law Center, for
example--but we weren't dealing directly with the
principals anymore. Instead of sitting around our living room, being in
on the strategy, we were going to galas and writing checks.
"If you
study history, you come to understand that everything changes in
cycles. A wave crests, breaks, and the water is calm again. I knew,
eventually, we would return to a time of…involvement, I
suppose you'd call it."
Good
fucking luck, I thought. But my expression told him I was
paying attention to every word he spoke.
That's
technique. Professionalism. And it's going out of style. If
America is a nation of sheep, TV is the shepherd. Jurors think CSI
is a documentary. They'll vote to acquit even when three
witnesses saw the defendant shoot the victim, because there were no
fingerprints on the recovered pistol--the one with checkered
wood grips. Defense attorneys sum up in child-molestation cases by
shrieking, "Where's the DNA?" at juries
who just know every human contact leaves traces a
lab can detect. After all, the TV told them so.
Cops get infected
with the same virus. They overdose on Law and Order
reruns and end up thinking they have to "win" every
interview. It's not about the information anymore;
it's about the repartee.
I don't
care what side of the law you work: You never want
to confront your subject while he's still talking. In fact,
you don't want to interrupt him at all. Threats are for
amateurs; verbal dueling is for fools. A pro knows there's no
reason to get your man talking if you're not going to listen.
Good
interrogation is like panning for gold. You let everything the other
guy says pass through the mesh of your attention, encouraging him to
keep it coming, knowing that the little nuggets won't be
obvious until you're done sifting.
There's
a rhythm to it. When the flow slows, you have to tap the right nerves
to get it moving again.
"You
don't think that Beryl…I don't
know…felt let down when things changed around your
home?" I probed. "When you
stopped…participating so actively?"
"Beryl?
She was hardly ‘political' at that age. And, the
truth is, she never seemed to care. Oh, she got along well enough with
the people we had over, and she understood why her mother and father
were so committed to social change. She knew racism was wrong. She knew
Vietnam had been an ongoing war crime, perpetrated against innocent
citizens. She knew about the grape boycotts. About apartheid.
About…well, a whole range of progressive
movements. And she seemed, if not enthusiastic, at least supportive.
But it was never her passion.
"She
had a wonderful collection of…mementos, I suppose
you'd call them. Special little gifts that people who came to
visit would bring to her." He gestured toward a chest-high
shelf hung on two wrought-iron brackets, standing against the wall to
his left. The shelf was crowded with small objects, a random sprinkling
of wood, metal, and stone. I wasn't close enough to see more.
"She
never took them with her," he said, sadly. "Even
that last time."
"So
when you and your wife stopped…?"
"It was
fine with Beryl," he said. "She had plenty of
activities. Piano, dance, art lessons, horseback riding--I let
her do anything she wanted to try. Except that karate. That was going
just too far. I mean, we were all for young women growing up with
self-confidence, but the only place she could have gone for classes was
run by a man my wife said made her very nervous. People
didn't talk about it back then, but we all knew
some…pedophiles deliberately put themselves in a position to
have access to children."
"Did
you ever meet the guy?"
"Well,
I did, actually. Beryl was just so insistent, and I could never really
say no to her, so I drove over there myself one night. Frankly, I
couldn't see what my wife had gotten so worked up
about--the instructor seemed like a perfectly innocuous
individual."
"Was he
Asian?"
"That's
right," Preston said, defensive again. "But that
had nothing to do with my wife's decision, I assure you. His
English wasn't all that…precise; I guess that
would be an accurate assessment."
"He
didn't try and sell you anything, then?"
"You
mean for Beryl? No. In fact, he said he personally didn't
teach the children's classes. But he did suggest I might want
to study with him myself."
"You?"
"Yes.
Do you find that so strange?"
"Not at
all. I was just wondering if you listened to him."
"How do
you mean?"
"The
way you explained it to me when I first got here. How you've
got a gift for--"
"I
didn't say it was a gift," he cut me off, somewhere
between aggressive and defensive again. "I said it was a
technique, listening for qualities in a person's voice. And
that I discovered I had some aptitude for it."
"Okay.
So when you were talking to the sensei…?"
He closed his
eyes, going back there. I could see him listening
then.
"No,"
he said, slowly, dragging out the syllable. "There
wasn't anything there I would…mistrust."
"But
your daughter never did go for lessons?"
"No. As
I said, her mother was opposed. And she was entitled to her own
instincts. I always respected that."
"A re you still in touch with your wife? Your
ex-wife, I mean?"
"She
knows where I live. I know where she lives. That's about the
extent of it. We're not enemies or anything, but
there's really nothing left between us. Nothing to talk
about."
"Where
does she live?"
"In
Virginia. Not too far from Washington, D.C."
"Did
she ever remarry?"
"Not to
my knowledge," he said, not faking his lack of interest. "But she could have, for all I know."
"Did
she ever resume her maiden name?"
"Oh
yes. Summerdale is her name now. Beryl Summerdale."
"Your
daughter was named for--?"
"Yes,"
he said, adding a dash of unhappiness to his depression cocktail. "But she always had my name, too. Beryl Preston."
"Look,"
I told him, "all I wanted to do was to see if she's
doing okay. Don't ask me why. Maybe I'm just
getting older, and I wanted to…look back, see if I ever
really accomplished anything back then."
"You
don't do that sort of work anymore?"
"I…do.
But not very much of it. I don't know if I could find
her--"
"But
you'll try?"
"Yeah.
But if I do, she's an adult now. I'm not bringing
her back."
"I
understand," the gray man said. "I want the same
thing you do, Mr. Burke. Just to know she's all right.
That's worth something to me. It always has been."
I spent another couple of hours there. Half a dozen
cups of coffee for Preston, another couple of hot chocolates for me. I
kept panning until I was sure there wasn't another nugget in
the riverbed.
He offered me
money. I told him that if I did turn something up,
it would be the same as last time: COD.
Darkness was
dropping by the time I left. It didn't feel like city night
to me. There wasn't a hint of menace in it. Softer, like a
blanket of comfort.
I knew better
than to trust it.
I knew how to run different programs in my head at
the same time way before anyone heard of "multitasking." Any kid who's been
tortured learns how to do it. You can call it splitting off. Or
compartmentalizing. Dissociating, if that makes you happy. It all comes
down to the same thing: not being there while it's happening.
You watch them doing…whatever they want…to you,
but you don't feel it.
Not physically, I
mean.
Not every kid
learns it the same way. Some learn it so good that pain loses all
meaning. It just doesn't register. Prison guards call guys
like that "anesthetics." When they go, they go.
Clubs bounce off their heads; they wear mace like it was a coat of
sweat; they pull stun-gun wires out of their bodies and strangle you
with them.
You
can't hurt them. It takes death to stop their pain.
Other kids split
off for good. When it's happening to them, they're
not there. It's not that they go
somewhere else like the splitters do; they are
someone else.
There's
names for them, too.
I found another
way. When it was happening, I watched it. Watched them, watched me. And
in a little corner of my mind, a place they could never go, I was
watching another movie, on a different screen.
That's
where I found my religion, watching that other screen.
I prayed and
prayed. No one answered, but I never lost faith. I had
to believe my god was true. Because I knew, if there was no god for
kids like me, if the real God was the one the people who beat me and
raped me and hurt me for fun had pictures of in their houses, I was
lost.
I was still
trying to understand when Wesley found me.
We were both just
kids, locked-up, powerless kids. But where I had fear, Wesley had hate.
I cried; Wesley plotted.
One night, he
showed me how to do it.
Years later, I
finally had something to show him, too. I had a family. One I made for
myself. They chose me; I chose them. I wanted him with us. But it was
too late for Wesley. He never came close to the campfire. He watched
from the shadows until the day he checked out.
I know Wesley
loved me, in the only way he could. When he crossed over, he left me
the only thing that ever had meaning for him in life: a weapon.
I drove on autopilot, rerunning the session with
Preston in my mind, looking for a loose thread to pull.
Beryl's
mother wasn't hiding; she had a listed phone number. If I
could just 411 her, Daniel Parks could have, too. A man like him would
have exhausted every possibility before he ever went near the places
where you could find a Charlie Jones.
But the CD Parks
had given me hadn't had a single line of info about parents.
He knew where Peta lived, where Peta
kept her money, where Peta shopped. He had to have
been close with her. Intimate, anyway--those nude photos of
her didn't look commercial.
Daniel Parks had
known a lot about Peta Bellingham. But he hadn't known Beryl
Preston. Not even that she existed.
B y the time I got the Plymouth docked and walked
over to the flophouse, it was too late to do anything but check in with
Mama.
"Gardens,"
she answered the payphone, the way she always does.
"It's
me, Mama."
"Baby
sister say you call her, okay?"
"Thanks."
"Sure."
"I t's me, girl."
"You
took your time," Michelle said, indignant without asking for
my reasons.
"That's
me," I said.
"Don't
you be sarcastic with me, mister. I knew you'd be anxious to
get what I had, that's all. And I didn't want to
leave anything on a tape."
"Okay,
honey. I'm sorry."
"My boy
says his father wants to see you."
"Now?"
That was plausible. A man who lives underground doesn't use a
sundial.
"No.
Tomorrow. In the afternoon."
"I'll
be there."
"You'll
pick me up first," she ordered.
"Two
o'clock?"
"Very
good," she said, back to being sweet-voiced. I'm
not smart with women, but I wasn't stupid enough to tell her
I had finally snapped to why she hadn't just left a message.
T he next morning, I dipped into my cache of
dead-ended cell phones and dialed the number I had for
Beryl's mother. Three rings, a click, then…
Sounds of a baby,
gurgling happily. Laid over it, a woman's pleasant voice: "Hi. This is Elysse and her mommy. If you have a message for
either of us, we'd love to hear it. Have a wonderful
day."
Nothing so
unusual--a lot of people think it's precious and
special to have their kid record the outgoing message on the answering
machine. But Beryl's mother had to be in her early fifties.
And her father said Beryl had been an only child….
A grandchild? Beryl's
child, being raised by the mother? That happens. Girl finds herself
pregnant, but can't find the father. Or doesn't
know who he is. Or does, and wishes she didn't. So she comes
home with the baby--"just until I get on my
feet." Sooner or later, she makes tracks, leaving the baby
for her mother to raise. Goes back to the life that put her in that
trick bag to begin with.
If you think that
only happens in ghettos, get yourself tested for cataracts. Rich folks
may live on never-touching parallel tracks, but the same train runs on
both of them. For some unwanted kids, there are "state
homes." For others, boarding schools. Some humans dump their
children on the grandparents. Some sell them.
If that baby was
Beryl's, could Daniel Parks have been the father? Is that why
he was diverting cash to her?
I went back to
the CD, using the search function Clarence had shown me. Not even a
hint that Beryl might have a child, much less that Parks might be the
father.
Was Beryl
Summerdale the mother and the daughter? Had Peta
Bellingham just gone back home, with her child, and taken her
mother's maiden name as her own? Hiding in plain sight,
separating herself from whatever mess Daniel Parks had gotten himself
into, waiting for it to blow over. Or for him to be blown away.
"Y ou got pals in D.C., don't you,
honey?" I asked Michelle, on the trip up to Hunts Point.
"Good
pals," she assured me.
"Good
enough to lend a car to a stranger?"
"Oh,
please," she said, waving away such pettiness. If Michelle
called them good pals, they'd drive a man
in a ski mask to the nearest bank…and wait outside, with the
motor running.
"That's
some outfit," I said, not lying. She was wearing a lilac
business suit over a plum-colored silk blouse trimmed in black around
the collar. Her ankle-strapped spike heels were the same color as the
blouse. So were her nails. A jet-black pillbox hat with a half-veil
completed the picture, and it was a box-office smash.
"Well,
I'm glad someone noticed."
"Girl,
how can you get on the Mole's case before he even gets a
chance to drop the ball?"
"Why
wait?" she said, grinning wickedly. "I know my
man."
M ichelle had brought a for-once/for-real spring
day with her. The Mole's junkyard lanai was drenched with
sun, transforming the random shards of metal and glass that surrounded
the area into a glistening necklace.
"You
look gorgeous, Mom," Terry told her, adroitly cuing his
father, who still couldn't come up with
the required compliment in time. Michelle generously settled for the
blush that suffused the Mole's pasty skin.
The kid opened a
laptop computer with a gigantic screen and fired it up, canting the
screen so that I could see, blocking the sunlight with his shoulder.
The screen
flashed too quickly for me to follow. A row of what looked like
different-colored balloons popped up. Terry played the cursor over a
red one and double-clicked. A photo snapped open, as clear as a
movie-screen image.
A man in a dark
overcoat, caught mid-stride moving down a sidewalk, a bulky briefcase
in his right hand. A businessman, returning from a hard day?
"What's
this?" I asked Terry.
"Hold
up," he said, fingering the touchpad.
Another picture.
The same man, just turning in to the front walkway of a house.
Click. Close-up
of the house.
I'd
seen it before.
In Briarwood.
"Got
it?" Terry asked.
"Yeah."
"Okay…"
He clicked again.
Close-up of a man
carrying a briefcase. Three-quarter profile.
Charlie Jones.
"Are
you sure he wasn't just--?"
Before I could
say "visiting," Terry had clicked again. This time,
the man was standing on the front step, talking to someone whose back
was to the camera. Click, click, click; each one a tighter close-up.
Charlie Jones.
"I
never thought those camera phones could get anything like
that," I said, impressed.
"They
can't," Terry said, proudly. "But when
Dad makes one…"
"You
see?" Michelle said, preening.
"What's
on the rest?" I asked Terry, indicating the unopened balloons
on the screen.
"More
of the same," he said. "He usually comes home
from…well, from whatever he does, around two, three in the
afternoon."
"When
does he leave?"
"We
didn't have infrared," the Mole said, answering my
question. "You said you only needed--"
"Ah,
this is perfect, brother."
The underground
man blushed again.
I n New York, a new restaurant opens every seven
minutes. Then Darwin takes over, and most disappear within a few
months. But they keep coming, like a stampede off a rooftop.
Loyal was all
pumped up about trying this Italian joint she'd heard about.
It was on Ninth, in the Forties. Way too far to walk, especially in the
high heels I've never seen her without. It was raining, so
getting a cab was a crapshoot, and I didn't feel lucky.
"Is
this your car?" she asked, looking around
the interior of the Plymouth like a girl who expected to find a
baby-grand piano hidden in a tarpaper shack.
"One of
them," I said. Then I gave her the whole restoration-hobby
routine.
"It's
nice," she pronounced. "Nice and big."
N ew York parking lots charge more per hour than
some hookers, and they both end up doing the same thing to you. Loyal
had a red vinyl raincoat and a little matching umbrella. It
didn't really cover the both of us, but she insisted, molding
herself against me as we walked the two blocks to the restaurant.
An olive-skinned
woman in a black cocktail dress who'd spent way too much time
on her hair tapped an open ledger book with a silver pen and looked at
me expectantly. I was about to tell her we didn't have a
reservation--it was only a few minutes past seven, and I could
see a dozen empty tables in one glance--when Loyal said, "Lewis," as she squeezed my left arm with both
hands.
A hatcheck girl
took Loyal's raincoat, handed me the ticket and a half-wink.
"Bitch,"
Loyal said under her breath.
"She
was just working me for a tip when we pick up the coat later."
"There's
all kinds of tips," she said, grimly.
A guy in black
pants, white shirt, and a black vest showed us to a table for four.
"Will
you be joined by--?"
"Just
us," I said. That's the way guys doing time spell "justice," but I didn't share that gem
with him.
The waiter looked
like he'd been betrayed, but manfully went on to recite a
list of specials. Endlessly.
When he was done,
Loyal gestured at me to go ahead, she was making up her mind.
I ordered shells
and sauce, although they called it something else. Loyal had one of the
specials, and a glass of red…although they called it
something else.
"To
drink?" the waiter said to me.
"Water,
please."
"Perrier?
Or--?"
"Just
plain water."
"You
want tap water?" he said, as if asking me to confirm I was
too miserly to be at large.
"Unless
you've got something cheaper," I said, smiling.
As soon as he was
gone, Loyal leaned forward.
"You
scared him, Lew."
"Me?"
"You
scared him," she repeated. "And you scared me, too,
a little bit."
"I
didn't say--"
"You
have an ugly smile," she said, very seriously. "Is
that why you never use it?"
"That's
a nice thing to say, with all the money I've invested in
these teeth."
"You
know what I mean," she said, hazel eyes steady on mine. "That was an ugly smile. And your voice was ugly,
too."
"I
guess that goes with being an actress. You pick up all these subtle
little things that someone like me would never--"
"Be
like that," she said, closing the subject.
M y plate of shells was all-the-way tepid. The
pasta was mushy, the sauce had no bite. Even the basil leaf was
extra-limp. But maybe I was prejudiced.
"It's
not that good?" Loyal said.
"I
didn't come here for the food."
"You
think I like food too much?" she said, archly.
"I like
to watch you eat," I said, truthfully. Loyal didn't
put away much food, ever, but when she enjoyed something, she let you
know.
"You
know why I love going out to eat so much?"
"Because
you hate to cook?"
"I hate
to cook for myself," she corrected. "What fun is that? But I'm really a damn fine cook.
Not fancy stuff," she said, hastily, "just regular
food. Bacon and eggs, roast beef and potatoes, things like that. And I
bake, too. Not cakes, pies. That's really my
specialty."
"Do you
scratch-bake?"
"I do,"
she said, smiling widely. "Oh, I might cheat a little on the
filling, but I never went near one of those crusts you can buy in a
store."
"Sounds
good."
"What
kind of pie do you like, Lew? I'd love to bake one for
you."
"Chocolate."
"Chocolate?
What kind of a pie is that? Oh, you mean like chocolate-cream
pie?"
"French-silk
chocolate pie," I said, on sure culinary ground for once.
"Okay,"
she said, nodding gravely, as if confirming a suspicion.
"D o you ever wonder about people working in places
like this?" she asked, over her espresso cup.
"Restaurants?"
"Not in
front, where you can see them. In the back. Doing the dirty
work."
"You
mean like illegals, working off the books?"
"Yes. I
read in the paper this morning where they arrested a man in Queens for
bringing in dozens of people from--I
forget the exact country, but it was in South America,
maybe?--and they had to work doing all kinds of terrible
things for almost no money. They were all living in his basement, like
pigs in a pen. It was disgusting. Like they were slaves."
"They
were," I told her. "It's called debt
bondage. They take out a loan to be smuggled here, then they have to
work it off. That's all they do, work. Believe me, they pay
‘rent' for that basement pen you're
talking about. By the time they send a little money
home--which is what they came here for in the first
place--there's almost nothing left."
"How
come the people who do them that way don't go to
jail?"
"Sometimes
they do, but not often. It's big business, supplying bodies
for labor. There are contractors who'll find illegals for
whatever you want done: picking crops, loading trucks, cleaning
toilets. Guaranteed not to gripe about working conditions, complain
about the pay, or join a union. They open their mouths, and they get
shipped back across the border."
"But…"
"Anytime
there's a big profit margin, you'll get people who
want to play, Loyal. Going to jail, that's a business risk.
And, in that business, not much of one."
"But
they don't tell them, right?"
"I
don't understand."
"The…workers.
They don't tell them what's
really going to happen once they get here, do they? I mean, they
promise them all kinds of wonderful things, to get them to make the
trip."
"Yeah,
they do. How'd you know?"
"Because
that happened to a girlfriend of mine," she said. "It almost happened to me, too."
I n the short time we were inside, the weather had
changed again. It was warmer after dark than it had been all day, and
the air smelled fresh after the rain.
"I
could never do that," she said, as we stepped onto the
sidewalk.
"What?"
"Not
tip a waiter. I can't believe you did that."
"You
think it was wrong?"
"Well,"
she said, taking my arm, "I don't think
I'd go that far.
But they all work
for tips, don't they?"
"Yeah.
And I gave him one that'll pay off a lot better than the few
bucks I stiffed him out of."
"What
do you mean, sugar?"
"He
thinks tips are a percentage play, understand?"
"No, I
don't!" she said, deliberately bumping me with her
hip.
She was looking
up at me from under those impossibly long lashes, biting her lower lip. "Don't use…language with me,
Lew," she said, pleadingly. "I'm smart,
but I don't talk the same way you do."
I drew in a
shallow breath, thinking how right she was.
"Whoever
schooled that waiter told him people always tip some set
amount--in this town, most folks just double the tax and call
it right. So he figures, if he embarrasses people into spending more
money just to prove they're not cheap--"
"Oh!
Like he tried to do with you?"
"Yeah.
If he does that, the check for the meal will be bigger. And so will his
tip. But that's not going to work all the time. And when it
backfires, you get nothing. So if you do the math--"
"He
comes out with less," she said, nodding in understanding.
"Right.
Some people come to restaurants to be bullied by the waiters, true
enough. But not that restaurant."
I paid the
parking tab. Added a fin on top, since the car jockey had listened to
my "Keep it ready, okay? Two hours." My Plymouth
was right next to his booth, aimed out at the street.
I held the door
open. Loyal sat behind the wheel for a second, then wiggled her way
over to the passenger side.
"Have
you ever been in one of those restaurants?" she asked, as I
aimed the car at the West Side Highway. "Where people like to
be bullied by the waiters?"
"I
have."
"Did you
like it?"
"I
wasn't the one who had the reservations. I was the
guest."
"So?"
she said, not to be deterred.
"I
never like it, little girl. I don't like it, period. Not when
someone tries it on me, not when they try it on other people,
either."
"I hate
bullies, too," she said. "I always did."
Images flashed in
my mind. Quicksilver fire, candlepoints of pain in inky blackness. I
closed them off.
"The
last time I was in a big old car like this, I was in school,"
she said. "A boy I went out with, he was going to be a
stock-car racer."
"Was
his name Junior?"
"Don't
be so smart," she said, reaching over to punch me on the
upper arm. "His name was Holden. All the girls knew his
trick."
"His
trick?"
"I
don't know what you call it in New York, but where I come
from, if a boy had a special way he'd use to get a
girl…to do stuff, we'd call it his
trick."
"And
Holden's was his car?"
"Not
the car itself, the way he drove it. He'd take a girl out on
the back roads and drive like the devil was in his rearview mirror. My
girlfriend Rhonda told me he got her so scared she wet her
pants."
"Maybe
that was what--"
"Oh,
just stop!" she said, punching me again. Harder. "I
know what you mean, but that isn't what she was saying. She
meant…you know."
"So you
went out with him to show Rhonda he couldn't make you
do that?"
"Well,
maybe not that, exactly. But you're
right, it was sort of that way."
"So
what happened?"
"It was
pretty much like Rhonda told it. Holden was a maniac, all right. A few
times, I was just sure we were going to wreck. But it wasn't
scary at all. I kind of liked it."
"You
think Holden was disappointed?" I said, turning onto the
highway, heading north.
"Oh, I know
he was," she said, grinning.
A s we passed the Ninety-sixth Street turnoff,
Loyal asked, "Where are we going, Lew?"
"It
turned out to be a beautiful night. I thought you might want to take a
little ride."
"I sure
would. But where can you really ‘ride' in this
city?"
"Just
be patient," I said.
"Watch
me," she retorted, sticking out her tongue.
I paid the
extortion to get onto the Henry Hudson, and finally got to let the
Plymouth run a little on the Saw Mill River Parkway.
"Hmmm,"
Loyal said, as we shot past a big BMW sedan. "This thing
feels like it's not even trying."
"Wait,"
I promised.
Another tollbooth
allowed us to get to Yonkers. From there, it wasn't far to a
narrow road that ran as jagged as a mid-attack EKG. The Plymouth had
been there before, when I'd had to leave the area in a
hurry--the big car acted like it remembered.
"Whooo-ee!"
Loyal whooped, as I whipped around an S-curve in low gear and floored
it just as I got the nose aimed right. The Roadrunner's xenon
lights ripped blue-white holes in the blackness ahead. She flipped open
her seat belt and slid over so she was jammed up against me, her left
hand on my thigh to hold her in place.
I came off the
back road into an underpass, hooked the entrance ramp, and charged onto
the highway again, looking for an opening. It was there, and I had the
Plymouth past the century mark in a finger-snap. We slipped off at the
next exit, found the side road again, and went back to corner-carving.
For a finale, I powered her through a full-sideways slide, making more
noise than I needed to about it.
"Over
there!" Loyal said, pointing to a side road as if we were
being chased.
I nosed the
Plymouth along cautiously. I knew she was a tiger on
pavement--even wet pavement--with that Viper IRS
under her, but I didn't want to try my luck on dirt. I spun
the wheel hard left as I braked, then backed into a small clearing
barely big enough to let us in.
"Oh,
that was fine!" Loyal said, a little breathless. "I
can see why you're putting money in this one,
Lew"--patting the dashboard. "She's got a nice big butt under that shabby old
skirt, doesn't she?"
"Surprised
a lot of people with it, too," I agreed.
Loyal took a pack
of cigarettes out of her little red purse.
"I'm
a secret smoker," she said. "When I was in school,
nice girls didn't smoke. But when I came to New York, it
seemed like the girls who knew what was going on, they all
did. So I picked it up. Then, all of a sudden, it was, like, if you
smoked, you were some kind of a degenerate. So I stopped. Only not
really. And sometimes I just want one, you know?"
"I
do," I said, taking the pack from her. I tapped out a pair of
smokes, lit them both, handed her one.
"I t's beautiful here," she
said, later. "Even though you can't see the sky
because of all those branches, you know the stars are out.
It's that kind of night."
"It's
beautiful here, all right. But it would be even if it was the middle of
a rainstorm."
She moved against
me. Just a tiny bit, more like a twitch than a snuggle.
"You
know something else good girls didn't do?"
"Drink?"
"Yes.
That and have sex in cars. Well, not have sex, even. Just be seen in a
boy's car in certain spots outside of town. I did that once.
Because I didn't know any better, I let this boy talk me into
taking a ride, and we ended up parked in one of those places. He never
did anything more than kiss me, but by the time Monday came around, it
was like I was the Whore of Babylon."
"Your
brother must not have cared for that."
"Oh my
goodness, he did not. Speed went up to the boy that
had been telling the story and asked him to fight. Well, the boy
wasn't going to fight Speed, and Speed couldn't
just up and start beating him. But Speed was so smart. He said
something to the boy that made him have to
fight."
"What
was that?"
"Well…"
She looked down at her lap. "He told the boy, ‘I
know you didn't do what you've been telling
everybody you did. Because you can't bust a girl's
cherry with your nose.'"
"I
guess that would do it," I said, admiringly.
"Uh-huh.
I was only fourteen then. It was right after that when Speed had that
talk with me."
"He was
a fine brother."
"He
still is," she said. "And he'll always
be."
"Y ou think I'm silly, don't
you?" Loyal said. It was a little after midnight. I was lying
on her bed, a pillow propped under my head. She was standing with her
back to me, candlelight playing over her lush curves, holding a
cigarette in her right hand.
"Because
you only smoke in your house when you can open a window?"
"This
is my whole stake," she said. "I can't do
anything that might mess it up."
"I
understand."
"No,
you don't," she said, as she dropped her cigarette
into a glass of water. She left the window open as she padded into the
bathroom in her bare feet. I heard the toilet flush. Then the hiss of
the lemon-scented aerosol can she kept on a little shelf next to the
sink.
She brought the
spray can back with her, gave the bedroom a liberal blast before she
closed the window. She returned the can to its resting place and
crawled back onto the bed. She stopped when she got as far as my knees,
posing on all fours as if she couldn't make up her mind.
"I want
to tell you something, okay?"
"Sure."
"Don't
you want to know what?"
"When
you tell me, I'll know."
She
didn't move for a few seconds. Then she crawled the rest of
the way toward me, gave me a soft kiss on the mouth, and curled herself
into me, her cheek against my chest.
"Remember
what I told you, about needing a place to stay for a couple of
years?"
"Uh-huh."
"That
was a lie," she said. "A little lie. But
it's part of a lot of other ones."
I
didn't say anything. My hand on her back didn't so
much as flex.
She went quiet. I
matched my breathing to hers, waiting.
"You
know what I want?" she whispered.
"No."
"I know
you're mad, Lew. I don't blame you. But I still
want to do it."
"Do
what?"
"Tell
you the truth," she said.
"I don't own this place," she
said, as if confessing to a mortal sin. "I mean, I do,
but I don't own it all."
It took her a
solid minute to figure out that I wasn't going to be asking
questions: I was the audience at a one-woman show.
"What I
mean is, there's a mortgage on it. A big one. And it seems
like every year the maintenance goes up, too. When I bought it, I used
everything I had saved up just to make the down payment. And I had to
get…someone…to lie for me about my income, too.
The board here is very strict."
I moved my
knuckle along her spine, just enough to tell her I was listening.
"For a
long time, that worked out okay. I didn't have a job, not a
real one, but I never missed a payment. It's all one payment
here, every month. Your mortgage and your maintenance--the
taxes are in there, too.
"But I
haven't worked in…in a long time, Lew. If I sold
this apartment tomorrow, I'd walk away with maybe two
hundred, two hundred and fifty. And that's only because
prices have gone up so much. So I have to gamble. I know the
bubble's supposed to break, but that's what
everyone said a couple of years ago, and the elevator still keeps
climbing. I have to keep riding it, and jump off just before the cable
snaps. That's what I meant about waiting another two or three
years. But if I take out one of those home-equity loans to cover the
maintenance, I'm never going to come out with the cash I
need."
Time for me to
participate. "So the plan is, you find another place to live,
rent this one out, make enough to cover the mortgage and maintenance,
build some more equity, and hope the co-op market keeps
climbing?"
"That's
right," she said, sounding as if she was ashamed of herself
for such a devious scheme. "I could only rent to someone who
the board approved, but that wouldn't be hard--other
owners in the building have done it."
"Why
couldn't you just do that, and use the money you get from
renting this place to rent a smaller apartment? If you rented this one
furnished, you could get a pile of money. If you're willing
to live outside the city, it wouldn't cost all that much.
Then, when you go back to work…"
"I'm
not going back to work, Lew. Not ever again. The last job I was going
to apply for changed all that."
"What
was the last job?" I asked, shifting my weight slightly.
"You
were," Loyal said, reaching down to cup me in her soft, warm
little hand.
"I t's all in there," she said,
an hour later.
We were sitting
at a café-style table that barely justified an ad that would
someday read "eat-in kitchen." Loyal in a pink silk
kimono, me in a white terry-cloth bathrobe that she'd given
me when I got out of bed--a brand-new one, still in the
original wrapper. She thrust an accordion file folder at me, as if I
had demanded it, then folded her arms over her chest.
"What
am I going to be looking at?"
"Everything.
My bank account, my checking account, my mutual fund, my tax returns,
the papers for the co-op…"
"I
don't need to see any of this, Loyal."
"Don't
you want to know if I'm telling the truth?"
"I
always want to know if you're telling the truth."
"I
haven't been."
"Like
you said, the whole business about needing a place to stay, it
wasn't exactly the lie of the century."
"You
know what's not in there, Lew?"
"What?"
"How I
earned my money. What I do for a living."
"That's
not my business."
"No?
Then how come you're so careful about condoms? Most men hate
them."
"I
don't want children," I said. A truth, with a lie
at its heart--my vasectomy had taken that possibility off the
table a long time ago.
She gave me a
searcher's look.
"So if
I told you I had my tubes tied…?"
"I--"
"It
wouldn't change anything," she said, cutting me
off. "You don't know who I've been with,
for one. And, for two, I could be lying. Plenty of girls who sleep with
married men deliberately get pregnant, don't they? Maybe they
want to force the man's hand. Or maybe it's just
about collecting a fat child-support check every month. It could even
be for blackmail."
"I
suppose," I said, as if none of that had ever occurred to me.
"It
doesn't matter," she said gravely. "I
never had my tubes tied." She waited for a reaction. When
none came, she went on, "And I never would,"
clasping her hands prayerfully. "I couldn't even
have an abortion."
"You're
Catholic?"
"No,
no, no. I'm a…Well, I don't know what
I am. Not that way, I mean. I was church-raised, but I
haven't gone since I was last home. To say goodbye to my
daddy. But that…other thing, it's got nothing to
do with church. I wouldn't fault a woman for protecting
herself, no matter what she had to do. I couldn't do it
because…"
"Because…?"
"Never
mind," she said, moving her hands to her hips.
I nodded,
accepting her judgment.
"That's
it?" she said sharply.
"What
are you--?"
"You
just let me get away with that? What's wrong with you,
Lew?"
"I
don't under--"
"When a
woman says, ‘Never mind,' you're supposed
to ask her again. At least once."
"Why?"
"To
show you're interested, silly. Of course,
if you're not…"
I
wasn't that slow. "Sure I am,
honey. I was just respecting your--"
She leaned
forward, generous breasts threatening to spill out of the pink kimono. "That's my secret dream," she said,
librarian-serious. "A baby of my own. When I was growing up,
I never thought much about things like that. I never thought about a
big church wedding, or having kids. I don't know when it got
into me. Since I've been up here, I know. Someday,
I'd love to have a little girl. I'd be a good
mother. A real good one. And I could teach her things, too."
"It's
a good dream, Loyal."
"It
is," she said, closing her eyes for second. "I used
to babysit all the time when I was in school. But it wasn't
until I got out in the world that I understood what that takes. Not to
have a baby--anyone could do that--to be a mother. I
kept telling myself I wasn't ready. And the years kept on
rolling, like a river that won't be dammed. You
know?"
"Yeah."
"Remember,
when we were having dinner, I told you about something that almost
happened to me?"
"Your
girlfriend? The one who went somewhere on a promise, and it turned out
to be a trick?"
"A
trick," she said, bitterly. "That's it,
exactly."
"S he wasn't my girlfriend, not like
you'd say ‘girlfriend' where I come from.
Just another girl I knew, from the business."
It was like a
game of chicken--the loser would be the first person to say "prostitute" out loud. It wasn't going to
be me.
"I
didn't come to New York to be in movies," Loyal
said. "Nobody in their right mind does. I wanted to be on the
stage. Not Shakespeare or Mamet, more like musical comedy. I can sing
and dance, too. Not good enough to be the lead, and I'm way
too short to be a Rockette, but I thought I could get chorus
work."
"That
didn't work out?"
She made a harsh
sound in her throat, like a strangled laugh. "No. I did all
the usual stuff girls like me do: went to a thousand auditions, waited
on a thousand tables. I got little, little tiny
parts. In off-off Broadway. Plays that ran a weekend, and
didn't cover my cab fare home.
"The
first ‘agent' I got didn't want to get me
jobs; he wanted to get me. But I was expecting that, and all it cost me
was time. I didn't get discouraged; I didn't think
I was going to set the town on fire or anything. But I was hustling
like a crazy woman just to put together the cash for head shots and
audition tapes.
"That's
when I started working as a B-girl. I told myself it was just like an
acting job, sitting with men, listening to them go on and on. I threw
down so many watered drinks, I spent half my time in the bathroom, I
swear.
"After
a couple of years, I'd had my fill. I'd been up
here long enough so I could go home and tell folks I'd given
it my best shot. I even had a couple of clippings I could show people,
but…"
I stayed in my
silence, waiting.
"Could
you go in the living room?" she said.
I got up without
a word. Walked over to the armchair, guided by the light spilling from
the kitchen.
Time passed.
I heard sounds I
couldn't identify, coming from the bedroom area but deeper,
as if there was another room behind it.
Loyal stalked
into the living room like a woman on business. "Here," she said, handing me a leather folder. The
cover was soft, as if filled with foam. She walked behind me, turned on
the lamp. My lap filled with frosted light.
"Go
ahead," she said, still standing behind me.
It was a photo
album. The first shot was black and white, an eight-by-ten glossy.
Loyal, in a straight chair, facing the camera head-on. She was wearing
a short black skirt and a white blouse, black pumps on her feet, blonde
hair pulled back into a bun. Each of her ankles was lashed to a leg of
the chair. Her hands were behind her back. A white cloth was tied
around her mouth, parting her lips.
"Keep
going," she said from behind me. "I did."
The photographs
were in some kind of sequence, telling Loyal's story. They
went from ropes to duct tape, from cloth to ball gags, from fully
dressed to partially, then not. The last one had Loyal on her knees,
facing a wall, naked. You couldn't see her face. Her wrists
were handcuffed behind her back, her ankles were bound together, and a
single chain linked the two.
When I was
finished, I closed the book.
Loyal turned off
the light behind me.
"Say
something," she said.
"You're
a good actress."
"What
does that mean, Lew? What are you trying to say?"
"Just
that. In the earlier pictures, when they came in close on your face,
you looked like a damsel in distress."
"What
does that mean?" she said again, her voice tightening down to
braided wire.
"You
looked terrified," I said. "Like the villain had
tied you up, and your only hope was that Dudley Do-Right was going to
ride in and rescue you."
"That
wasn't acting," she said, putting her hands on my
shoulders.
"T hey really do it," she said, standing
by the window in the living room, this time facing me. "Tie
you up, I mean. The first time I…modeled, I thought it was
all fake. Like it would be Velcro or something. But it
wasn't."
"So you
were afraid of…what, exactly?"
"I
don't know," she said, blowing a stream of smoke
out the opened window. "Being…helpless, I guess.
Not in control. They loved that. I had the ‘look.'
So I had all the work I wanted."
"Why
did you stop, then?"
"Did
you ever look into a fireplace when it's working? Well,
that's what it was like. If you start a fire, you either feed
it, or you watch it go out. Do you have any idea of what I'm
telling you, Lew?"
I flashed on a
not-so-young-anymore girl I'd met in Los Angeles years ago.
I'd been out there looking for a photographer who took
crime-in-progress pictures for money. He knew I was looking, and
he'd gone to ground. I'd gotten the
girl's name from someone who told me that she might have an
address for him. And that she'd be stupid enough to give it
up, if I worked her right.
That girl
hadn't been stupid. Just sad. All done, and she knew it.
When
you're fresh stuff out here, they may not treat you like a
little princess, but they don't…torture you, you
know? But every video you shoot takes a little of the bloom off you.
One year, you're getting a thousand bucks for naughty
schoolgirl--and I was never the lead, okay?--the
next, they expect you to take some rough stuff for less money, and do
it more often. And if you do that? Another year and you're
down to double anals and gang bangs. After that, it gets
really disgusting.
"A real
good idea," I said to Loyal.
She took my tone
for truth, shifted her own to one less challenging. "It's like with my
apartment," she said. "I knew I had to get off the elevator before it
started going
down."
"They
asked you to--"
"I
wasn't looking at myself. Just sleepwalking through it. But I
was sliding. It started with girl-girl. Not sex--they never
even asked me to do that--but there'd be another
girl in the pictures. Like she was the one who tied me up. Maybe I
wasn't raised on the fast track, but I could feel the heat
when I got close enough to the fire."
"You're
not the first actress to do that kind of modeling, early in her
career."
"If
that was all I'd done, I could see what I want to see when I
look in the mirror."
"I
don't see that when I look, either," I said. "I don't know anybody who does, all the
time." That wasn't the truth. I'd done
time with glistening psychopaths whose self-worship was the sum total
of their existence. But that was Burke, not the man she knew.
"Yes,"
she said absently. She gutted her cigarette. I waited while she did her
full-disposal routine in the bathroom.
"All
the time I was…modeling, I had been trying out for parts.
But I was getting used up there, too. Like I was disappearing. And the
less of me there was, the less I felt I could go home."
"So you
stayed…."
"Until
now. Yes. But I didn't just quit modeling, I quit trying to
work, too."
"How
could you do that and--?"
"--still
afford a place like this? You know the answer to that, Lew.
I'm a toy. A pet. A rich man's life-size doll.
I've had four of them since I left off working. You were
going to be the fifth. That day we met? I wasn't shopping for
cars."
I don't know why I told you all
that," she said, as the green numbers on her alarm clock
blinked 4:09. "I know how it makes me look. You know, I used
to be able to lead boys around by the nose. All I
had to do was take a deep breath, wiggle a little, and talk baby talk.
I never had to…do what I told you to pay the rent, or keep
food on the table.
"I
wasn't addicted to drugs, I wasn't…I
didn't have any excuse, not really. I was just ashamed to go
home. Not because of anything I did, but because I wouldn't
have anything to show for it. Can you understand that, Lew?"
"Yeah.
Yeah, I can. And when you go now, after you sell your apartment,
you'll have been a hardworking actress who saved her
money."
"I sure
will. I'll be able to fix up the house so it's one
of the nicest ones around. Have a swell car. Maybe
even…"
"Meet a
guy?"
"I…don't
know about that," she said, letting me in on a conversation
she must have had with herself a hundred times. "Here's what I do know: I can't go back
home just to be getting a job in some store. I need to come back with
enough money to live right, so people know I made something of myself
while I was away, be proud of me for it. It wouldn't take a
fortune for me to be somebody back home. I just don't want to
be a fraud."
I touched the
vertebrae at the base of her neck. She made a little moaning sound that
didn't have a trace of fake in it.
"It
looks like you're staying the night, for once," she
said, reaching for me.
L oyal slept with her face buried so deep in the
pillow I couldn't see how she got a breath, but her rib cage
moved rhythmically as I punched in a number on my cell. I stepped into
the living room and waited for the call to be answered.
"Gardens."
"It's
me, Mama. Can you find the Prof, ask him to meet me, anytime this
afternoon?"
"Twelve
hours?" Mama said, making sure.
"Perfect."
"Max,
too?"
"No, I
won't need--"
"Yes,"
she said, hanging up.
"Y ou don't take coffee even in the
morning?" Loyal asked me. We were back at her kitchen table.
She was bustling around, wearing a pair of baggy gray shorts and
matching jersey top. I was just sitting still, stealing glances at my
watch. Almost ten in the morning.
"Well,
you have to have something in your stomach to start the day,"
she said, firmly. "At least let me make you some
toast."
"That
would be great."
"And
have some juice, too. I've got…" She
bent at the waist to look in the refrigerator.
"You
keep juice on the bottom shelf?"
"Oh,
you!" she said, turning over her shoulder to smile at me. "You know all a girl's tricks, don't
you?"
"Not
even close," I said, as much truth as I'd ever told
in three words.
"Well,
you sure know what a girl likes."
I chuckled. Said, "Even I know that trick."
"Hmmpf!"
she said, turning around, hands on hips, face glowing with mock
annoyance.
"Come
here for a minute, girl."
She took that as
a request to sit on my lap.
"What?"
she said, innocently.
"Remember
last night? You were telling me about how you almost got into real
trouble. A girlfriend of yours went somewhere…."
"Oh!
That's right, I was. I forgot. You really want to know about
that?"
"Yeah,
I do."
She squirmed
around in my lap. Not playing, getting comfortable. "I never
thought I was better than anyone else," she said, her tone
telling me it was very important to her that I believe her. "I met a lot of girls like me. Not just when I
was…modeling. When I worked in bars, too. And went on
casting calls, of course. I was kind of in the middle of them. Not one
of those dreamy-eyed ones who believe they're going to be
‘discovered' someday, and not one of those who
believe you have to put out for producers if you ever want to get a
part, either.
"You
know how they say there's lines you shouldn't ever
cross? Well, I found out that those lines move. Right in front of your
eyes. Even if they don't move for you, they move for your judgments.
Do you see what I'm saying, Lew?"
"What
you might have once thought was…wrong, or whatever, you
learned that there might be good reasons for it."
"Yes! I
may be very old-fashioned. I guess I'm even country in my
heart. But, to me, there's always going to be a difference
between a woman who sells herself for money to buy a fur coat, and one
who does it to keep a roof over her kids' heads."
"And
before you came to this city, you would have thought the same of both,
that's what you're saying?"
"That is
what I'm saying. It's easy to point the Bible at
folks like you're aiming a gun, but it's just a
book, isn't it? Everybody who reads it comes away with
whatever they bring to it. So it wasn't going to be me
casting that first stone."
"Right,"
I said, squeezing her waist slightly to underline my approval.
She took a deep
breath. Let it out slowly. Then she stood up, went to the sink, and
drew herself a glass of tap water.
"The
job was what they called being an ‘entertainment
hostess.' Like a B-girl, but very, very high-class. It was a
six-week contract, working for this club. They paid for everything:
plane fare, your hotel room, meals, the works. And you came back with
thirty thousand dollars. In cash, no taxes."
"Where
was this, Tokyo?"
She gave me a
long, measured look. "Yes, that's right. How did
you know?"
"Just a
guess."
"Uh-huh.
Then I bet you could guess the rest of the story, too."
"I
might. When your girlfriend got there, they took her passport away. And
her visa. That was to make sure she fulfilled her contract, they told
her. And they told her she'd misinterpreted what they meant
by ‘entertainment,' too."
"I'm
not sure about that last part," Loyal said. "I
mean, about them fooling her. Lace--that's what she
called herself--she was…I'm not going to
call names, but I think she might have known what she was going to have
to do. What she didn't know was that she wouldn't
have any choices. It wasn't one man. Or even one man a night.
By the time they allowed her to leave, it wasn't even one man
at a time. When they let her go, they took most of
the money away from her, too."
"She
told you this when she came back?"
"Yes. I
told her she should report it. To the UN or something, I
don't know. I mean, Japan, that's not someplace
where they don't have laws. It's a very civilized
country. And we do all kinds of business with them, don't
we?"
"All
kinds," I agreed.
"Lace
said she was mad, but she wasn't crazy.
‘They've got different rules for whores,'
is what she told me. It made me sick."
"I
don't think you were lucky, girl."
"What
do you mean?" she said, frowning.
"It
wasn't luck that kept you from going over there. You were
either too smart or too scared."
"Scared."
"When
it comes to an offer like that, one's as good as the
other."
She came back
over to me, threw one leg over mine, and sat down on my lap again, this
time facing me.
"I told
you a lot of truth, these last few hours."
"I
know."
"Yes. I
think you do. I think you do know it was the
truth." She bounced slightly, as if she were making up her
mind what to do next.
"What?"
I said.
"How
about you tell me some truth, Lew?"
"What
truth would you like, girl?"
She leaned in so
close I lost focus on everything but her eyes. "Tell me why
you pretend you're married," she said, very softly.
"I don't like it," the Prof
said. "You never get too brave around another man's
cave, because…?"
"That's
the quickest ticket to an early grave." I finished the rule,
to show I hadn't forgotten the first time he'd
taught it to me, eons ago.
"You
want to trap a weasel, you don't look for his den,"
the little man rolled on, unmoved. "What you do is, you set a
trap in a chicken coop. You don't need to know where a man
lives…?"
"To
know where he's going to visit," I said. "I know, Prof. But we've got no way to put the
watch on Charlie, not in that neighborhood."
"My
main man Mole--"
"He got
us the pictures, sure. But that was because he knows people who live
around there. They weren't watching for Charlie special; they
just snapped off a shot when they ran across him."
"What'd
they take the pictures with?" he asked. From the way he
turned toward Clarence, I knew the old man wanted to make sure his
audience was in place before he hit me with a jab.
"One of
those camera phones," I said, playing along.
"Camera
phone, you said, Schoolboy?"
"I get
it, Prof. But it's not that simple. Who do they call? They
don't know us. And the Mole doesn't want
them to know us. But let's say he could get them to just ring
a number when Charlie was in the street. Where are we going to be
sitting in ambush? There's no hotel close by. No poolrooms or
gin joints we could hang out in. Not even a lousy OTB. And we could
never rent a house in that neighborhood. So?"
"If my
father--" Clarence started to say.
"Nah,"
the Prof cut him off. "I never said Burke was wrong, just
that I didn't like it. We're done, son."
Max tapped the
face of his watch, shook his head in disapproval.
"You,
too?" I gestured. "We only get one chance,
right?" I said to them all, holding up one finger. "And, from what Mole's people told him, the window
only opens at certain hours," I went on, my hands saying the
words to Max. "So there's only one way I can see to
make our move."
T he next morning, I woke up thinking about Loyal.
That hadn't happened to me before. I guess I stopped thinking
of her as a party girl the minute she told me she was always afraid of
ending up as one.
The newspaper had
a make-you-retch story. Cop arrested for rape and sodomy. Too many
counts to list, over too many years, because the victims were his
daughters. The Queens DA put out the red carpet for the poor guy. They
let him surrender himself at the courthouse, arraigned him in seconds,
and cut him loose on his own recognizance, no bail. The paper said the
DA wouldn't identify the cop, because they wanted to "protect the alleged victims." Nice.
"A t your age, this is supposed to be an annual
examination," my doctor said. He's very tall for a
Chinese man, good-looking enough to be a movie star, and a magazine
survey I read last year said he was one of the top urologists in New
York. With all that, his office is still down on Canal Street, his
prices haven't changed, and his receptionist still blinks
when I tell her I'm a patient, not a salesman. Or a cop.
"Sorry,"
I said, lamely.
"The
outcome for prostate cancer is directly related to early
detection," he said, for at least the fifth time since
I'd been coming there.
"I
know," I mumbled, holding up my hands in surrender.
"The
lab is right around the corner, on Mott Street," he said,
unyielding. "This time, you call for the
results, all right? The PSA test isn't a perfect indicator,
but it's the best lab screen we have now. Last
time"--he glanced down at my
folder--"you got the test, but you never called for
the results."
"Sorry,"
I said again. "What were they?"
"Three
point seven," he said. "That's not a
cause for concern, but anything over four is something we would want to
follow closely."
"Sure."
"We
would call you, but the number on your file never
seems to be up-to-date."
"I move
around a lot."
"Yes.
Well, we don't," he said, sternly. "We're right here. And our number hasn't
changed."
T he blood lab on Mott Street had the decor of the
waiting room at a Greyhound terminal. I was the only non-Asian in the
place. The Oriental flower at the receptionist's desk took
the paper I handed her, pointed at a row of plastic chairs, said, "Few minutes, okay?"
I settled in for
the duration, but it turned out the girl was telling the truth. My
phlebotomist was a burly Hispanic, with stress-pattern baldness. He
wrapped a piece of rubber tubing around my arm faster than a junkie who
hadn't fixed in days, tapped the crook of my elbow to bring
up a vein, slid the needle home.
"How
many of these you do a day?" I asked him.
"Many,
many," he said, sliding out the needle and slipping a cotton
ball over the entry wound in one motion.
As I left, I saw
a sex worker waiting to be tested, a young-bodied, older-faced woman in
jeans and a too-small stretch top. If she got the same blood-taker
I'd had, she'd learn the real meaning of "quickie."
B y the time I climbed off the F train at the Van
Wyck/Briarwood stop, spring had arrived, a light rain misting the
streets. I walked over to the small branch library just off Queens
Boulevard, spotted the Prof sitting on the steps enjoying a leisurely
smoke, and strolled on past. I boxed the corner, crossed the boulevard,
and set off to find the middleman.
I wore a brown
leather jacket that I had picked out of a Goodwill bin, leaving a
brand-new nylon one in its place. I hadn't been looking for a
bargain; I wanted something I might have to leave at the scene.
Something with enough random DNA on it to confuse the hounds. A white
jersey cable-knit, dark-green corduroy pants, scuffed brown work boots.
In the pockets of the jacket, a pair of deerskin gloves and an orange
wool watch cap.
No gun, no knife,
no brass knuckles. I was coming in peace.
Charlie's
street was quiet, but it was time-of-day quiet, not the peligroso
silence that falls in some neighborhoods whenever a stranger walks
through. The kids were home from school--playing on their
computers, not in the street. Working parents weren't back
yet; retirees were watching whichever one of the endless parade of "court" shows was on at the time.
It
wasn't the kind of neighborhood where you'd find
basketball hoops nailed to telephone poles, or dogs running wild, but
it still throbbed with the muted rhythms of life behind the
well-maintained façades.
Charlie's
house was a stone-and-stucco job that looked vaguely British to me.
Maybe it was the ivy that trellis-climbed on one side, or the small
windows broken into even smaller rectangles by the copper-colored panes.
I went up to the
front door like I was expected, pushed the little white button nestled
inside a silver filigree, and stepped back slightly, hands clasped in
front.
"Hello?"
the woman said. She was medium height, with thick raven hair pulled
back into a single plait, wearing a plain blue dress that was too good
a match for her eyes to be off-the-rack. Her smile was open and
friendly, showing perfect teeth. I figured her for somewhere in her
thirties; would have laid good odds she'd been a swimsuit
model or a pageant contestant earlier on.
Was
Charlie playing the Benny Siegel role so heavy he got himself a
gorgeous Sabra to flesh out the skeleton? I wondered, but I
just bowed slightly, said, "Good afternoon, young lady. My
name is Kolchan. Meyer Kolchan. I was hoping I could have a quick word
with Benjamin…."
"Yes,
sure," she said, smiling again, some kind of Slavic accent in
her voice. Not an Israeli, then. "Ben?" she called
out, sweetly. "Mr. Kolchan is here to see you. Can
you--?"
Charlie Jones
stepped past her, grinning. "Go fix supper, woman!"
he said, mock-commanding, giving her a swat on the bottom as she turned
away, giggling.
"What
can I--?" he started to say. Then he saw my face.
"N o," he said, very softly.
"It
isn't what you think," I said, not moving from my
spot, radiating calm out to him. "I just needed to ask you a
question, and I didn't know where else to reach
you."
He looked over my
shoulder, expecting…I don't know what.
"One
question," I said. "Then
I'll--"
"Pick a
place," he said, his voice so tight it vibrated like a tuning
fork. "Pick a time. I'll be there. Set it up any
way you want. Please! Just don't--"
"You
know the plaza next to Penn Station, on the Eighth Avenue
side?"
"Yes."
"Say,
eleven tomorrow morning?"
"Yes.
Yes, I'll be there, okay?"
"Don't
ruin a good thing by being cute, Benny."
He looked at me
the way a steer in the killing funnel looks at the rifleman waiting at
the end: a stare of dull, helpless hatred. I turned my back on him and
started for the subway.
I was about twenty minutes into my meandering
half-hour walk when a dark-blue commercial van with tinted windows
pulled over to the curb ahead of me. The back doors opened and two men
jumped out. I didn't have to see the tracksuits to know who
they were.
The smaller one
was a mongoose. He circled behind me, looking for the back of my neck.
The big one plowed straight ahead, a charging bull. I glanced over my
shoulder. The mongoose was holding what looked like an oversized
plastic automatic--Taser! screamed in my
head. The bull had his hands spread wide, like we were going to do
Greco-Roman. I spun to my right to give them a visual of me running,
planted my right foot, torqued hard, and rushed the big one.
I registered a
broad face and a flattened nose just before we closed. As he wrapped
thick arms around me, my steel-toed boot shattered his right ankle. He
grunted in pain and locked on, trying to take me to the ground with
him. I drove my inside forearm against his chest, jammed my right hand
under his chin, and snapped my wrist as I forked my
two front fingers past his nose into his eyes. He shrieked, grabbed at
his face, and let go.
I spun to face
the mongoose. He danced, looking for the exposed flesh his weapon
needed to work. I X-ed my jacketed forearms over my face and ran at
him. He stepped back, surprised, and I caught him with a side kick to
the thigh. I rolled with the kick and took off running.
I dashed across
two lawns, looking for a back yard. Heard shouting behind me, but no
shots. Cold comfort--I hadn't heard shots when
they'd snuffed out Daniel Parks, either.
I ran through
some back yards and pulled myself over a wooden fence, hoping there was
no dog on the other side and cursing Daylight Saving Time.
I made it to the
street, scanned the area. Looked clear, but I figured by then the
locals were lighting up the 911 switchboard. I turned a corner, pulled
off the leather jacket, and dropped it on the ground. I put on the
gloves and the orange watch cap, then walked down the sidewalk until I
hit the apex of a triangle--Clarence in his Rover at one
point, the subway back to Manhattan at the other.
I
couldn't see the blue van, but I couldn't be sure
it hadn't seen me, so I chose the subway.
I looked over my
shoulder as I swiped my Metrocard. Nothing. Down on the platform, I
spotted a battered payphone, but the Manhattan-bound train was pulling
in. No time.
Two stops later,
I got out at Continental Avenue, slipping into the heavy foot-traffic
that's always there at that hour. I crossed over to the cab
stand, told the driver I wanted the Delta terminal at La Guardia.
At La Guardia, I
dropped the gloves in a garbage can, used an alcohol wipe to clean the
congealed eyeball fluid off my right forefinger in the men's
room, and left the watch cap in a stall.
Plenty of working
payphones there. I rang Clarence's cell.
"I'm
out," I said.
"Saw
you drop down, mahn."
I waited my turn
on the airport cab line, then rode a Crown Vic with bad shocks to
Broadway and Seventy-fifth, just north of what guys my age still call
Needle Park. If the cabbie wondered about my lack of luggage, he kept
it to himself. Or maybe he intuited that I wasn't fluent in
Senegalese.
I walked over to
the 1/9 line, and used my Metrocard one more time.
W hen violence erupts at me, the same thing always
happens. A tiny white dot lasers in my brain, bathing the world in a
blue-edged light. I watch myself move through that blue-edged light,
like a man underwater, everything so very slow.
Later, I can play
it back, like a stored VCR tape.
Over and over
again.
What I can never
do is erase it.
M ax tapped his temple, raised his eyebrows in a
question.
"No,"
I told him, shaking my head. "I didn't
think."
The Mongol nodded
approval. The foundation to all his teaching is replacement of
instinct. That viper-strike he'd taught me is really an
escape move; it can't be thrown from a distance. You have to
give your enemy a grip on you to make it work, and that goes against
every instinct…especially mine.
I'd
been a boxer in prison--one of the Prof's endless
schemes. It didn't require me to actually win any fights to
pay benefits. As a fighter, I was what they used to call "pretty." Slick and smooth. Very fast hands. I
didn't have one-shot KO power, but I threw cutter's
punches, and I was a good finisher.
I always had
plenty of backers, because, even with all my speed, I was never a
runner--I stayed in the kitchen and traded. There was never a
lot of money on me to win--they don't pay too much
attention to weight classes Inside, and I was usually matched against
bigger guys--but I was an ace at going the distance, even
against the hardest bangers.
"Fighting's
the same as friendship, Schoolboy," the Prof told me. "The best ones always try to give a little more than they
take."
When I got out
the first time, it took Max about ten minutes to show me I was never
going to make a living with gloves on my fists. At first, we sparred a
lot. Me trying to hit him, him watching me try. Once he had me dialed
in, he worked with what he had. No more boxing, no more rules.
Surprise
is speed
Speed
is power
Thinking
is slow
Slow
is weak
I'd
been ready for the two men who'd jumped out of the van. Been
ready for a long time.
"It was
a snatch," I said out loud, gesturing to include Max. "If they'd wanted to shoot me, I was an easy
target."
"Didn't
even need all that noise and nonsense," the Prof agreed. "They could have done you just the same way they did that boy
who was gonna hire you."
"Yeah,"
I said, slowly. In our world, we know that there's no such
thing as the "precision beatings" you see gangsters
order in the movies. Violence isn't surgery: You send a
couple of men out to break a guy's legs, the guy struggles,
the bat slips, and, just like that, the beating's a homicide.
There's
a thousand ways that can happen. You can't order a
pre-beating medical report on a target, like those degenerate doctors
who worked in Southern prison farms used to do, telling the
torture-loving guards whether it was safe to keep whipping. One punch
can do the trick. All it takes is a heart condition you
didn't know about. Or an eggshell skull.
"It was
a capture, not a kill," I said. "They wanted to
talk to me, all right."
"I was
in position the whole time," Clarence said. "There
was nothing like a blue van by the subway."
"You
said you saw me go down there?"
"Oh
yes, mahn. As soon as I spotted the orange cap, I knew something had
gone wrong. But you were moving nice, and I didn't see anyone
interested in you."
"I had
your back all the way to the hack, Schoolboy," the Prof said.
"You
were in the subway?"
"The
Invisible Man," the Prof chuckled. That's what he
calls himself when he's dressed as a foot soldier in the
Vagrancy Corps. The ankle-length coat he always wore was big enough for
three of him, and they only have metal detectors in the subways on
special occasions.
"They
came awfully quick," Michelle said,
grim-faced.
"It
don't take a lot of time to drop a dime," the Prof
told her.
"Could
they have followed you, mahn?"
"How?"
I asked Clarence. "From where? Starting when?"
"That
clue is true," the Prof agreed. "Only way that
works is if Burke was spotted same time they took out that rich guy,
and followed him, right? Come on! That was so, they already passed up a
hundred better shots than the one they took."
"They
don't have anything," I said, checking my voice to
make certain I wasn't graveyard-whistling. "That
night, they never saw where I came from, or where I went. And all
Charlie's got for me is a phone number."
"He's
got something else," the Prof said.
"What?"
"He
knows where you're going to be tomorrow morning, son. Time
and place leaves him holding an ace."
"You
think he'll show, then?"
"Got
to, honeyboy. He knows where you'll be one time, sure. But
we, we know where he lives."
T he flower boxes outside Penn Station were pure
New York: thick concrete tubs surrounding death-brown evergreens, with
spikes all along the border to prevent panhandlers from finding a seat
between engagements.
I crossed
Thirty-third Street to the plaza, where they get a different class of
visitor, and sitting is encouraged. I took the place up on its
invitation, looked around casually. After dark, this place would be a
skateboarder's paradise. The broad expanse of flat surfaces
would magnet the graffiti taggers, too. In another hour or so, the
place would be crowded with office workers eating pushcart lunches,
eyeing one another like it was a singles bar. But now it was all
business.
A scrawny
Caucasian in a white mesh jacket with a neck tattoo I
couldn't read at the distance was performing an elaborate set
of hand gestures. It looked like he wasn't having any luck
persuading his audience, a big-headed black man in a hugely oversized
basketball jersey, red and white, with number 23 on the back.
A flushed-faced
man in some kind of green maintenance uniform stared openly at a
reddish-brown man sporting an American flag do-rag, trying to make up
his mind.
A black pigeon
with a perfect circle of white on its head patrolled the grounds,
treasure-hunting. A flock of tiny brown birds with pale undersides
surrounded me, asking me to slip them something before the pigeon mob
caught wise. I crumpled a piece of bagel in my fist, flicked the crumbs
behind me. The little birds hit like a flight of locusts.
I
didn't have to glance at my watch to know I was early. The
group of Chinese teenagers catty-corner from me had been there since at
least midnight. Or maybe they were handling it in shifts. I
couldn't even tell how many of them there were, the way they
kept drifting together, then pulling apart to float around the
perimeter. They were all wearing shiny fingertip black leather jackets
over goldenrod silk shirts buttoned to the throat, their obsidian hair
greased into high pompadours.
The gang kids all
worked for Bobby Sun, but Max had some sort of treaty with his crew,
the Blood Shadows. They left the restaurant--and my personal
parking space in the alley behind it--alone, and Max left them
alone. But there was more to it than a nonaggression pact. Some of
those empty-eyed killer children worshiped Max in a way they
couldn't have explained and didn't
understand…but trusted with all of their life-taking lives.
Anyone who moved
on me in that plaza would be Swiss cheese.
Clarence posed
against the entrance, resplendent in a bottle-green jacket with wide
lapels and exaggerated shoulder pads, a white felt hat shielding his
eyes. Charlie had never met Clarence, but he knew the Prof, who was
being invisible somewhere close by. Max stood right in the center of
the plaza, arms crossed. He looked as if he had sprouted from the
cement, still as a statue except for his eyes, which were swiveling
like a pair of tank turrets.
Clarence left his
post, started a slow strut around the plaza, hands in his pockets. He
looked like a peacock, hoping to audition some new hens. But he was
really a coursing hound, and the under-clothes bulges he was looking
for weren't female curves.
I watched as a
dark-blue BMW coupe slowly drove by. It had been circling the block
since before I arrived, passing by irregularly, depending on traffic.
If I hadn't been looking for it, I never would have noticed.
Michelle.
Nobody could miss
the mammoth old Buick four-door, though. Originally painted egg-yolk
yellow, years of never seeing a garage had faded the rolling hulk to
fish-belly white, with a rust-red roof. The Blood Shadows'
war wagon, far out of its territory, orbiting like the mother ship,
ready to take everyone home when it got the signal.
Still no men in
tracksuits. No blue van.
And there was
Charlie Jones, walking toward me, making sure I saw him coming.
"H ere," I said, as he sat down next to
me, "put this on."
"What
for?" he asked, voice quavering as he looked down at the red
baseball cap with a white bill I was holding in my lap.
"It's
to make you easy to pick out, Charlie."
"Pick
out? For who?"
"Who do
you think I got your address from, Charlie?" I wanted him to
hear his own name coming out of my mouth. Over and over again.
"I
don't…"
"Yeah,
you do," I told him. "You're a very smart
guy, Charlie. You've been fishing in the whisper-stream for
so long, you know what to keep and what to throw back."
"So you
didn't die," he said. Like
he'd just won a big bet but the bookie wouldn't pay
off.
"We
don't die, Charlie. None of us. We just come back looking
different. You won't know my brother if you ever see him
again, either."
"Your…?"
"Put
the cap on, Charlie," I said. "You
wouldn't want Wesley to hit some citizen by mistake, would
you?"
I t took him a while to put the cap on his
head--his hands were shaking so badly, he dropped it the first
time he tried.
"How
long have you known?" he finally asked.
"Years
and years," I assured him.
"So why
now? What did I--?"
"That
last job you had for me…"
"Yeah?"
"The
guy who was going to hire me stepped out to get something from his car.
He got gunned down on the way. It was in the papers."
Charlie shrugged,
saying it all.
"What I
don't know, Charlie," I continued, "is
whether the shooters want to clean house. My house."
"I
don't do names," he said, a little strength coming
into his voice. "You know that, Burke." Saying my
name, reminding me how far back we went, how long his own reputation
stretched.
"The
dead guy, his name was Daniel Parks."
Charlie just
shrugged again.
"He was
looking for someone. Someone he wanted me to find. Maybe the shooters
were looking for that person, too."
"All I
had for that guy was the number I gave you to call," he said. "That's all I ever have."
"That
does sound like you, Charlie. It even sounds like the truth.
There's only one problem, okay? I'm on my way back
from your house yesterday and this van pulls up. Out pops some guys
dressed like the ones who killed the guy you sent to me. And they try
and snatch me, right there on the street. I can't quite see
that as a coincidence. Maybe you can help me out here?"
He went
stone-still for a second. Then a tremor shot through his body like a
current. His face looked as if a vampire was clamped to his jugular.
"Galya,"
he said, barely audible. He slumped forward, face in his hands. The red
baseball cap slid off his head and fell to the cold concrete.
I f Charlie's sudden move had been a
signal, nobody was tuned in. Sometimes you can feel violence coming,
like a rolling shock wave ahead of the actual impact. The penitentiary
gets like that when a race war's running. When
you're trapped in a tiny stone city, when your color makes
you a combatant, it changes the air you breathe. Most of the time, you
never get a warning--you go from ignorance to autopsy in a
fractured second.
That's
the way Wesley liked it. He wasn't programmed for fear, but
he knew how it worked. Sometimes he used it--to spook the herd
so he could spot the one he wanted. But mostly he liked it better the
other way.
"They're
easier when they're sleeping," he had whispered to
me one night, after one of the dorm bosses told us if we
didn't get money from home we'd have to pay him
some other way.
Detectives were
all over the place when we got up in the morning. Word was that the
dorm boss's skull had been caved in, right next to one of his
eyes. By the time they discovered the body, the murder kit had
vanished: the D-cell batteries returned to the flashlight of the
night-shift guard, the gym sock they had been carried in shredded and
flushed down a toilet.
That joint had
been lousy with rats. Some informed for favors, some just because they
liked to do it. But, even then, nobody ever told on Wesley.
The Blood Shadows
looked bored. That didn't mean
anything--they'd look bored in the middle of a
shootout. Clarence was on his second circuit. I couldn't see
Max. Hadn't seen him move away, either.
Charlie
hadn't brought friends.
Or he
didn't have any.
I looked over at
him, still slumped. Realized that I'd never seen Charlie
Jones in daytime, never mind daylight. He looked
defeated. Drained. And old--he looked really old.
"Better
tell me," I said.
"C an I smoke?" he asked me, like I was a
cop in an interrogation cell.
"Come
on, Charlie," I said, trying to get him to unclench. But even
a hit of liquid Valium wouldn't have gotten the job done, not
once I'd brought Wesley back to life.
Charlie looked
down at his shaking hands, as if to add them to the list of people who
had betrayed him. "Treyf," he
mumbled to himself.
"What's
not kosher?" I said. "I've been straight
with you from the--"
"Not
you," he said, sorrow drilling a deep hole in his delicate
voice.
Max materialized
to Charlie's left, just as a shadow blotted out the sun to
his right. I didn't have to look to know a couple of the
leather-jacketed kids were forming their half of the bracket.
Suddenly Charlie
and I had as much privacy as if we were in a hotel room.
"The
guys who jumped me, they were either watching your house
or…"
"Somebody
made a phone call," he finished for me.
"Yeah."
"Galya."
I gave him thirty
seconds, then said, "Galya. What's that?"
"My
wife," he said, like a man watching his oncologist hold up
three fingers.
"The
girl who came to the door?"
"Yes."
I waited, patient
as the stone I was sitting on. When it finally came, it flowed like pus
from a lanced wound.
"Her
name is Galina," he said. "This June,
we'll have been married fifteen years. She was only nineteen
when I found her. Nineteen. I was old enough to be her father, but she
said that was what she was looking for. She wanted a man, not a boy. A
man to take care of her.
"It was
through one of those services. A legit marriage bureau, I mean. They
screen you, just like they were the girl's parents. And
it's not some green-card racket, either--I went over
there, to Russia, twice before
she…before she said she'd come back here with me
to live."
I gave him a
no-judgments look, waiting for the rest.
"My
Galya wasn't one of those ‘bought
brides,'" the night dweller said, angry at someone
who wasn't there. "That's
just…slavery. Those people sell those girls like
they're fucking cars. Used cars, you
understand what I'm telling you?"
"Sure."
"I
was…lonely, okay? Thirty-seven years old, but I felt like I
was a hundred. This life…"
I let the silence
throb between us, waiting.
"To
you, I'm…Never mind," he finally said,
holding up his hand like I'd been about to interrupt him. "I know what I am in your eyes. But where I live,
I'm not Charlie Jones, the matchmaker. I'm Benny
Siegel, the businessman. I'm respected. Part of the
community. I've had my house there since I got out of the
army. Cost me every dime I had saved up just to make the down, but it
was worth it."
He went silent. I
gave him a few seconds, to see if he'd pick it up. When he
didn't, I said, "The army, huh? Were you
in--?"
"Yeah,
I was there," he cut me off. "Even got myself a
couple of medals for it. Wouldn't have thought it, would
you?"
"I
wouldn't know how to tell," I answered him,
truthfully.
"That's
where I learned to do what I do," he said. "Down in
those fucking tunnels."
No
wonder he's more comfortable in the dark, I
thought, but kept it to myself.
"You
weren't there yourself, were you?" he said, turning
his face to me. "No, that's right. Word is, you
were some kind of mercenary. In Africa, right?"
"This
isn't about me, Charlie."
"No,"
he said, forlornly. "I guess it's not. All right,
you want to know, I'll tell you. Over there, once you got off
the line, the whole country was nothing but a giant fucking trading
post, like a flea market on steroids. Some people wanted things; other
people had things. People wanted things done; there
were people who wanted to do those things.
Everything got moved: dope, ordnance, medical supplies. Even whole
jeeps. I fell into it by accident. A guy asked me, did I know someone
who could do something. It doesn't matter what. Not now. But
I did. Know someone, I mean. A sniper.
"That's
where it started. The middle, it's like a deep trench. You
fall into it, then you find out it's not just deep,
it's long. Endless. One day, you look up, and you
can't see the sky anymore. That's when you know
you're back in the tunnels. Tunnels so long that you
couldn't walk to the sunlight in your whole life."
Charlie looked
down at his hands, as if seeing the unlit cigarette for the first time.
He put it to his lips, used a throwaway butane lighter to get it going.
I noticed his hands were steady now. Lancing an abscess will do that
sometimes.
"When I
came home, I just picked up where I'd left off," he
said. "I had a lot of names and numbers. For a long time, I
just worked with people I knew. I'm not sure when it
happened, but word got out I was down there, and people looked me up.
Like it was my address. Word got around. People who needed things done
would look for me. Ask around. And I knew people, too, by then. People
I could match them up with. People who knew I could be
trusted."
"Trusted,"
I said. Just the word.
"Trusted,"
Charlie repeated, a touch of pride slipping into his voice. "You know how the tunnels work?"
"No,"
I said. I didn't know which tunnels he was talking
about--Vietnam or New York--but I let him run.
"You
have to have something to believe in," the ferret said. "And it has to be something you can do.
Not religion. Rules. You have to do things right. By the book. No
matter what comes up, there's a plan for it. You'll
be all right as long as you stick to the rules. The guys who went down
and didn't come back, it's always because they
forgot the rules."
"And
you never did."
"I
never did," he repeated, like taking an oath. "One
tunnel's the same as another. Maybe one's lined
with punji sticks, one's got those little gas bombs. Another
one, there's a VC pop shooter, sitting there for days without
moving, just waiting for the fly to stumble into the web. It
doesn't matter what's down there. You
can't control that. But you can control how you
act."
"Follow
the rules."
"That's
right. And I have. I always have."
"You've
got a good rep," I acknowledged.
"‘Good'?"
he said, snapping away his cigarette. "Fuck you,
‘good.' I'm not good; I'm
gold."
There!
His ferret's pride finally bursting through the crust of
fear, the opening I'd been probing for.
"Easy
to say when you're not looking at a ride Upstate,"
I said. And I could say it--everyone in
our world knows that when Burke goes down he goes down alone. My
diploma was from my last felony jolt, magna con laude.
"I've
been jugged three times," Charlie said, like a tennis player
returning an easy lob. "Twice as a material witness, once for
some okey-doke they made up to put me in the pressure cooker. I just
sat there until they cut me loose."
"So
they couldn't bluff you. That's not the same
as--"
"‘Bluff'?"
the ferret said. "The last one, they had a body, and they had
the shooter. He was a pro. A contract man."
He glanced up, as
if calling my attention to something we both knew was there. The corner
of his mouth twitched. Not a tic, telling me something in a language we
shared.
But telling me
what? That the contract man had been Wesley. Making an offering out of
his honesty?
He
couldn't be bragging about keeping quiet, because nobody in
our world would give Wesley up. Not out of loyalty--Wesley was
alone. Not out of obedience to some twit screenwriter's idea
of "the code." No, out of a fear so deep and
elemental that it transcended logic and reason. Everybody knew: If you
said the iceman's name aloud to the Law, you were dead.
Or was the little
ferret gambling? The whisper-stream had all kinds of rumors running
about me and Wesley. Maybe Charlie thought I already knew about the job
he was talking about, showing me he could have put me on the spot when
he'd had the chance.
"Nobody
could make a connection to the dead woman," he went on, not
missing a beat. "They knew it had to be her husband who paid
to get it done, but they didn't have a link. Oh, the shooter
rolled on him," he said, contemptuously, "but the
husband was ready for that. Alibi in place, lawyers spread out thick as
chopped liver on a bagel. The cops needed me to make the
bridge."
"So the
shooter gave you up, too?" I asked, knowing it
couldn't be Wesley he was talking about now.
"Tried
to." Charlie shrugged. "First they offered me a
free pass. Tell what I knew and walk away. Not a misdemeanor slap, not
even probation. Immunity, straight up. I just looked dumb,"
he said, showing me the same blank face he must have shown them. "Then they tried to scare me. A skinny little guy like me, a
skinny little white guy, everyone knew what was
going to happen if I had to go Upstate, they said."
"But
after the tunnels…"
"Yeah,"
he said, unwilling to dignify the attempt to frighten him with another
word.
"So
what happened?"
"To me?
Nothing. My lawyer told them, if they brought me into the case, I was
going to testify the shooter was lying--about ever meeting
with me--and since the DA needed the shooter to be telling the
truth about the hit, they couldn't risk letting the jury see
him lie about any part of it. So they tried it on
murder-and-motive."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah.
The husband would have beat it, too. Only the DA had another card. His
girlfriend. She testified she had been pressuring him to get a divorce
so they could get married, but his wife had all the money, so he was
trapped. He told her they'd be married by Christmas. The wife
got smoked in September. When he hadn't married her by April,
she went to the Law."
"Happy
ending."
"That's
what I want here, too," the tunnel-runner said. "A
happy ending. Tell me what I have to do to get one, Burke. All I need
is the rules."
"Y ou want to go back to being Benny
Siegel?"
"I am
Benny Siegel. That's what it says on my birth certificate. On
my 214, too. I'm like a farmer, okay? It's not any
one year's crops I care about so much, it's the land."
"I get
it."
"No,
you don't."
"Jews
weren't allowed to own land," I said, softly,
remembering the Mole's lessons. "That's
why they wandered."
"And
did the work nobody else wanted to do…" Nodding
for me to fill in the blank.
"…but
everyone needed done."
"Yes,"
he said, solemnly.
In the silence,
he took out another cigarette. His hands were as steady as a dead
man's pulse.
"Were
the guys who jumped you Russians?" he asked.
"I
don't know. We didn't have a
conversation."
"My
wife…"
"What?"
"I love
her. Tell me how she survives this, and it's done."
"Meaning
it was her who called in the troops?"
"I
don't know that. But it's all that's
left."
"Does
she work with you, Charlie?"
"Galya?
She doesn't even know--"
"Yeah,
she does," I cut off his self-delusion at the root. "If you didn't sic those guys in the van on
me--and I don't think you did, okay?--then
it was her. What's she doing, calling the same crew that
executed the man who was trying to hire me, Charlie? The same guy you
sent to me?"
"I
never told her a--"
"This
is your wife, Charlie. She's not just in
your house; she's in your business. And she's in
deep. At least this piece of it."
"I--"
"She's
in your business," I said again. "And if you want
to protect her like you say, you better get in hers."
"Just
tell me," he said, defeated.
"I want
to talk to the people who want to talk to me. I want someone to tell
them they don't need to be trying to snatch me off the street
to do that."
"But,
you do that, they'll know who you are," he said,
his ferret's brain back to professionalism. "And
now they don't know--or they
would have come for you already."
"You
let me worry about that. I don't like things hanging over
me."
"Me,
either," he said, pointedly.
"Then
it's time for you to have a talk with your wife."
He just
nodded--a man who knew the rules.
I t took only another few minutes for me to run the
whole deal down. Charlie didn't argue. In fact, he made
himself my partner in the enterprise, suggesting a couple of ways we
could get what we needed done a little better.
"Call
the number I gave you," he said.
"When?"
"Anytime
after midnight."
"You'll
have it by then?"
"One
way or the other," he said, grimly.
He lit another
smoke.
"It
took a lot of guts for you to walk in here," I said, making a
gesture to encompass the whole wired-up plaza. "To come in
all alone."
"I
always work alone," the middleman said. "And
this"--imitating the gesture I'd just
made--"this is just another tunnel."
"C harlie Jones, a tunnel rat," the Prof
said, musingly. "Who would've thought there was any
glory in his story?"
"Everybody's
got a story. That's not the same thing as an
excuse."
"You
didn't buy his lie, Schoolboy?"
"I…I
guess I did, Prof. Even the timing works. The woman who came to the
door first--his wife, now we know--she went right
back into the house, left me outside talking to Charlie.
That's when she has to have made the call."
"That's
why he asked you if the snatch team was Russians?"
"Has to
be."
"Which
means he knows more than he gave up," Michelle put in. "Which is what we'd expect."
"Yeah.
But it wasn't Charlie," I said, more sure of myself
after a few hours of thinking it through. "If he wanted to
set me up, all he had to do was ring the number he has for me, make a
meet, like he had a job--"
"Like
he did before," Clarence said.
"Right.
And if he just panicked, seeing me at his door, and called in muscle,
why would they have tried to grab me? If they're the same
crew that hit Daniel Parks, they're not shy about
shooting."
"So
you're going to talk to them because you think
that's what they want?"
"No,
honey," I said to Michelle. "I'm going to
talk to them because the guy they hit is a money man. Was
a money man, anyway. We've been trying to figure out if
there's something for us in all this. If anyone knows, they
do."
"Or
your girl," the Prof said.
"Yeah.
Or her. But, so far, we can't find Beryl. And we can
find the Russians."
"Uh-huh,"
the Prof grunted. Not convinced, and making sure I knew it.
"A ny way you want to do it."
Charlie's voice, on the phone. "It's not
you they want, it's information."
"And if
I don't have it, they're going to take my word for
it?"
"They
don't expect you to have it. They know
it's a real long shot."
"Any
way I want to do it?"
"Yes."
T wo-fifteen the next morning. The man in the
blue-and-white warm-up suit had been standing on the corner of a
Chinatown back street for almost half an hour, as still as a sniper. He
never once glanced at his watch.
When the
oil-belching black Chevy Caprice--Central Casting for gypsy
cab--pulled up, he got into the back seat.
From that moment,
his life was at risk. Not because the hands of Max the Silent could
find a kill-spot like a heat-seeking missile, but because those hands
were on the steering wheel. Max drives like he walks, expecting
everything in his path to step aside. He still hasn't figured
out that cars are like guns--they make some morons braver than
they should be.
We box-tailed the
Chevy all the way out to Hunts Point. If the man in the warm-up suit
had brought friends, we couldn't see any sign of them.
I'd already told Charlie what would happen to whoever they
sent if we found a transmitter on him. Or a cell phone. Or a weapon.
Wesley rode with
me. My brother, still protecting me from the other side. Charlie
couldn't be sure Wesley was really gone, but I was sure he
wouldn't want to bet his life on it.
A riderless
bicycle sailed past on the sidewalk. I looked over and saw a clot of
kids way short of puberty. They were gathered around a few more bikes,
one of them holding his hand high. I knew what would be in
it--a piece of fluorescent chalk. The kids were ghost riding.
You take a bike--I mean take; the game is
played with stolen property--get it going as fast as you dare,
then bail out. The trick is to jump off while keeping the bike pointed
straight ahead. The bike that goes the farthest before it crashes is
the winner; the chalk is for marking the spot.
After all, every
educational system needs report cards--otherwise, some child
might be left behind.
The Chevy stopped
on the prairie. It looked like a black polar bear, alone on a dirty ice
floe.
I walked over as
Max opened the back door for the guy inside, who stepped out lightly
and moved in my direction. I held out my hand for him to stop. He stood
still as Max searched him. The Mongol nodded an "okay." I gestured for the man to follow me. We
walked over to the gutted-out shell of what had once been a car. I
leaned against the charred front fender, opened my hands in a "go ahead" gesture.
"You
were never going to be hurt," he said, without preamble.
"I
couldn't know that."
"Oleg
only has one eye now." Looking at my bad one, as if we were
sharing something he didn't need to explain.
I
didn't say anything.
"We
don't want to fight," he said. Not
pleading--stating a fact. He was a burly man, a little shorter
than me, and a lot thicker. I could see a gold chain, more like a rope,
at his neck, and a diamond on his right hand that threw enough fire to
give a pyromaniac an orgasm. His watch cost more than some cars. And
that warm-up suit wasn't the kind you buy where they sell
sneakers.
"Me,
either," I said, waiting.
"Okay,
then." He put his hands together like we'd just
sealed a deal. "We did not know who you were, or where to
find you. We still do not. But we had to talk with you, so
we…did what we did. You know how such things are."
I
didn't say anything.
"We
would have preferred to do what I am going to do now," he
said, watching my face as he spoke the words. When I didn't
react, he went on: "Pay you for your time. For your time and
your trouble."
"What's
the going rate for being tortured?"
"You
think we were going to--?"
"You
weren't looking to hire me," I said, keeping my
voice edgeless. "So you must think I know something.
Something you want to know. If I told you that you were wrong, that I
didn't know anything, what were you going to do? Thank me for
my time and cut me loose? Or use that Taser on me?"
"We
would never have--"
"I like
this way better," I cut him off.
He grunted
something I took for understanding. "My name is
Yitzhak," he said. "But I don't have to
know your name to know you are a professional. So! A man hired you to
do something. All we want to know is what he hired you to do."
"Which
man?"
"The
man who can't pay you anymore."
"What's
it worth to you to know?"
"That
depends on what you tell us."
"I
don't think so."
"Bravo.
What is it worth to you, then?"
"I'm
not sure," I said, making it a question he had to answer, if
he wanted us to keep talking.
"This
man, he stole from us. Money. A great deal of money. Wherever that
money is, it's not in a wall safe. Or a suitcase."
"Why
didn't you just ask him?"
"You
mean, instead of…? All right, I will tell you. Maybe, if you
understand us, you will believe us, too."
I lit a
cigarette, a signal to my backup that I was okay. For now.
"This
man was in trouble," he said. "He thought this
trouble was a burden he could transfer. Do you understand?"
"He was
a cooperating witness?"
"He
was, if our information is correct, negotiating to
be exactly that. But the deal had yet to be struck."
"So you
needed to move before--"
"No.
Not for that. This man was a thief, and he stole from many. We are
businessmen, and money is important. But in our
business, there is something much more important than money. It is not
just that this man stole from us; it was known that
he did it. Do you understand what I am saying to you?"
Understand
it? I thought to myself. I was raised on it.
Inside, if a
sneak thief takes your stuff, it's nothing
personal--it's just part of living there, like rain
falling in Seattle. But if the thief shows off what he took,
it's like he raped you. If you don't square that
up, you don't get to keep anything
that's yours.
You've
got a pack of Kools in your cell. A fresh, new pack. You go to take a
shower, come back, and find it's gone. That happens. And that
night, you see a guy on the tier smoking a Kool, holding a whole pack
in his other hand. Still nothing--the commissary sells them to
anyone with money on the books. But then the guy says, "Thanks for the smokes, punk." And now, now you have
to hurt him. You don't do that, you're going to be
meat on some freak's plate.
But all I said to
Yitzhak was, "If other people thought it was safe to steal
from you…"
"Americans
see with wide eyes," he said, sounding more like a Talmudic
scholar than a businessman who regarded hunter-killer teams as a line
item on a budget. "You say ‘Russian' to
an American, and he thinks he knows all there is to know. But there are
Odessa Beach Russians--you know the people I
mean--and there are…others.
"We
have been on this earth for thousands of years. But, every place we go,
we have to establish our own identity. In American minds, a Jew is
always motivated by money. Money comes first. That is a perception we
have to change, if we are to be allowed to conduct our own business.
You understand this?"
"If you
don't build a rep for always getting even, it makes people
think you're weak."
"Correct!"
he said, pleased with the pupil. "The stereotype is that we
are clever people, but not strong people. In our business, it is more
valuable for our enemies to believe we are crazy than that we are
clever."
"Which
is why this guy who stole from you couldn't just disappear.
You needed his head on a stake."
His shrug was
eloquent.
"But
the money…?"
"We
made our own inquiries. Before we…acted. This was a
sophisticated thief. There was some system in place--it is too
complicated for me to understand; that is not my role--but the
money was vacuumed right out of his accounts, and then it just
disappeared. The thief himself would not know where it ended
up."
"Then
what good would it do him?"
"He had
a confederate. Maybe more than one. Someone he trusted."
"And
you think I know who that is?" I said,
snapping my unsmoked cigarette into the darkness.
"No,"
he said, smiling. "If you knew where that much money was, you
would be long gone. Far away."
"So
what did you want to snatch me for?"
"We
know you met the thief. We had to learn whether you
were…"
"His
‘confederate'? Get real."
"Yes,
we understand that. We understand that now. The
information we had was…sketchy. A man such as that one, he
would have no friends."
I understood what
the Russian was telling me. "Friends," as in those
who would avenge his death.
"So
what was I supposed to tell you?"
"We
still want the money," the man said. "We thought
maybe you could help us find it."
"You
think this guy told me?"
"No,"
he said, brushing off my sarcasm. "We don't think
this man knew we knew he was a thief. But he knew
we would find out eventually."
"That
explains it," I said.
"What?"
he asked, too eagerly.
"Why in
the world a white man would want to go to Africa."
"Please,"
he said, tilting his chin at me for encouragement.
"I did
some…work over there. Years ago. But I keep up my contacts.
It's a good thing to have people in a country that
doesn't have an extradition treaty."
"Where?"
"Nigeria."
"Nigeria?"
His voice reeked suspicion. "Free-lancers haven't
worked there since--"
"Nineteen
seventy," I finished for him. "But it's
still the most corrupt country on the planet."
"You
have not been to Russia recently," he said, as if his
nationalistic pride had been insulted.
"I
haven't been to Russia at all. But I know how to get things
done in Nigeria."
"And
that's what this man wanted?"
"He
didn't know specifics. All he'd heard was that I
could get someone set up in an African country where a lot of cash
would guarantee a lot of safety. I think, from the little bit he said,
that he thought it was South Africa, but he wasn't
particular."
"So
what happened?"
"You
know better than me," I said. "I told him I needed
twenty-five thousand just to start the process. I thought
we'd have to make another meet, but he said he had it with
him. Not on him, in his car. He went out to get it…and he
never came back."
"Did he
leave anything with you?"
"Yeah.
The tab for the drinks we'd ordered."
He said something
under his breath. Sounded like Russian.
"Did he
come to you directly?" Asking me a question he already knew
the answer to.
"No."
The truth.
"Will
you tell me the name of the person who introduced you?"
Testing me; they already knew it had been Charlie, thanks to his wife.
"No."
"A man
must choose his own path," he said, very deliberately. "Must it be your choice to stand in mine?"
"I'm
no different from you," I answered. "If I gave you
a name, my own name would be hurt. And that would put me out of
business."
"For
fifty thousand dollars? Cash?"
"No."
He made a
guttural sound I took for approval. "You are a businessman,
fair enough. Let us say the name of the person who introduced you to
the thief means nothing to us, yes? But, should you happen to run
across information--say, from another
source--that might be of value, you understand that you would
be compensated?"
"Sure."
"What
do you think is fair?"
"For…?"
"For
your time and trouble, as I said."
"For my
past time and trouble?"
"If you
like."
"I like
the number you mentioned."
"What
we did was wrong, but we had no other way," he said. "That is worth something, I agree. But not fifty thousand.
That was an offer for information. This you declined. So, for the time
and trouble, let us say…ten?"
When I nodded, he
unzipped his warm-up suit. "If you want to earn ten times
this, all you have to do is call me."
"Call
you with what?"
"With
the name of anyone else who wants to go to Nigeria."
"A re we okay now?" The voice of Charlie
Jones on the phone. Soft, with just the faintest trace of a tremor.
"You're
still into me," I told him. "Into me
deep."
"Could
I square it with--?"
"This
isn't about money," I told him. Meaning it
wasn't about money now.
"What,
then?" he said, his voice already sagging under the weight of
what he felt coming.
"I have
to talk to her."
"Not
my--?"
"Yeah.
You can be there, too. But there's questions I have to
ask."
"Just
tell me and I'll--"
"You
know I can't do that," I said.
His end of the
line went on semi-mute; the only sounds were his shallow breathing and
the cellular hum. Then…
"When
will this be over?"
"When I
know I'm safe, that's when you'll know
you are, too."
That brought me
more silence. I waited. Then…
"It
can't be here. At the house, I mean."
"Of
course not," I said, as if we had agreed on everything up to
then. "Let me treat you to dinner. Wherever you'd
like."
"Not in
Manhattan."
"Wherever
you'd like. Fair enough?"
"O h God! How could you know?"
Loyal squealed, staring into the box she had unwrapped so daintily that
the floor was carpeted in shredded paper. "This is just
like the dolly I had when I was a little girl. She was too big to be a
baby, but that's what I called her.
‘Baby.'"
"I'm
glad you like it," I said.
"‘Her,'"
she corrected me.
"Baby."
"Yes,"
she mock-pouted, cuddling the oversized porcelain doll Michelle had
promised me would be worth the fat chunk of my money she'd
spent on it.
"What
happened to your…to the original one?" I asked her.
"I gave
her away," Loyal said. Her eyes were damp, but her chest was
puffy with pride. "When I was only…about twelve, I
think, I saw this story in the paper. It was about this little girl, a
real little girl, much younger than me. She lived in another part of
town. There was a big fire, and her whole house got burned up. Her
momma went right into the flames to save her, and she died doing it.
"The
little girl--Selma was her name--she was in the
hospital. In the paper, it said she was going to live with her
mother's family. I asked my father, what about her daddy, why
wasn't he going to take her home? My father told me Selma
didn't have a daddy. I was young, but I wasn't
dumb. I knew enough to ask Speed, and he explained it to me.
"The
next day, I made him drive me over to the hospital. They
wouldn't let me see the girl--she was burned up too
bad to have visitors, they said--but they let me leave Baby
there for her.
"When I
told my father, I thought he might be mad enough to…Well, I
thought he'd be mad for sure, because that doll had cost a
pretty penny, and I knew it. But he put me on his lap and gave me a
kiss and told me I was a fine girl.
"I
never forgot that. Because, just the week before, when I tried to sit
on his lap, he said I was getting too old for that kind of
thing."
"Do you
ever think about her? That little girl, Selma?"
"I
do," she said. "And when I do, I think about her
with my Baby, and I feel good inside myself. I could never explain it.
It was like, when I heard that child's story, my heart just
went out to her. Went out to her and never came back."
I f you need to get to D.C., Amtrak's a
lot better than a plane. No baggage scanning, no real ID check, and
door-to-door quicker, too.
A business-class
ticket on the Acela Express gave me access to the "quiet
car"--the one place on the train where cell phones
were banned. I had figured it would be packed--the cars I
walked through to reach it sounded like they were full of magpies on
angel dust--but it was just about empty.
I cracked open my
newspaper. A human--the paper called her a "mother"--in Florida had been prostituting
her little girl for years. Twenty bucks a trick. Extras were extra. Her
older daughter, almost twelve, had finally resisted the beatings. So
the mother just sold her outright. A used car plus five hundred in
cash, and some lucky vermin got to make his slimy dreams come true.
I wished I had a
bullet for every one of them. Not a simple death-dealer, a magic
bullet--the kind that would take one life and give back
another.
In my world, you
get even because you're nothing if you don't, but
it's never enough. It can't be. You can't
really get even. You can make someone who hurt you
dead, but whatever they took from you is never coming back.
The ride was less
than three hours, right on time. Even more on time was the
canary-yellow Corvette convertible waiting at the curb outside, a truly
spectacular redhead behind the wheel.
"Toni?"
I said, as I walked up to her.
"Who
else?" she answered, grinning.
S ome women get annoyed if you stare at their
breasts. This gorgeous Titan didn't care where I looked, so
long as it wasn't at her Adam's apple.
"So
you're Michelle's big brother," she said,
appraisingly. "Somehow, I thought you'd
be…"
"Better
looking?"
"No!"
she giggled, patting my thigh.
"More
sophisticated? Smarter? Taller?"
"Stop
it! I just meant…Well, you know Michelle. She's
so…refined. You look a little rough around the edges, if you
don't mind me saying so."
"You're
not the first. And most don't say it so
euphemistically."
"That's
what I was looking for! Michelle said you were a real
intellectual."
"Is
that right?" I said, reaching into the breast pocket of my
Harris-tweed jacket and slipping on a pair of plain-glass spectacles.
"Oh,
those are perfect! You're some kind of investigator,
aren't you?"
"I
guess I am."
"Well,
anyone who works with that husband of hers must be smart. That Norm,
he's a genuine genius, she says."
"She's
not lying," I promised, finally learning the name Michelle
assigns the Mole for social occasions that require bragging. "He's way past being a genius. Their
son's going to win a Nobel Prize someday."
"Terry?
That's if Hollywood doesn't grab him first. That is
a gorgeous young man!"
"That's
outside my area of expertise."
"What
exactly are we doing, you and me?" she said, making it clear
she was just curious--the answer would have no effect on her
participation.
"We're
going to look at a house. You already have the address."
"A
house you're thinking of buying?"
"No.
There's a woman living there; it's her
I'm interested in," thinking, Michelle
said she was one of us. "Interested in
professionally."
"Oh?"
"Michelle
told you what I do for a living?"
"Well,
of course. Like I said. You're some kind of investigator,
aren't you?"
"An
investigator who doesn't know one end of this part of the
country from another."
"Toni
the Chauffeur, at your service," she said, saluting.
"I
appreciate it, Toni. Very much. But this isn't about finding
a house as much as it is finding a way inside it, do you follow
me?"
"In
broad daylight?" she said, sliding the 'Vette
through an intersection on the caution light.
"We're
not talking about a burglary here. I want to talk to the person
who's inside--who I hope is
inside. Not because she's the one I'm looking for;
because she can…maybe…lead me in the right
direction."
"And
you don't think she'll be, what's the
word you guys use, ‘cooperative'?"
"I
can't even guess," I said, truthfully.
"So
where do I come in?" Toni asked.
"I'm
not sure yet," I told her. "I was hoping you might
have some ideas."
"T his neighborhood is first-tier," Toni
said, her sheer-stockinged legs flashing in the sun as she changed
gears. "Not absolutely top of the heap--the plots
are too small for that. But these are all seven-figure
houses."
"There's
slums in New York where you could say the same thing."
"Oh, I know.
Michelle showed me around the last time I was up. I couldn't believe
it."
I looked down at
the map spread open in my lap. "What's a
‘crescent'?" I asked.
"If you
mean when they use it for an address, it's just a fancy name
for ‘street.' Probably shorter than most, maybe a
cul-de-sac. How far…?"
"Next
left."
"How
fast do you want to go by?"
"Like
we're just passing through. On our way to
somewhere."
"What
number?" she asked, turning in.
"Twenty-nine."
"Be on
your side."
The house was two
stories with an attached garage. Dark green, with white shutters around
the windows.
"Nothing
special," Toni said. "Four bedrooms, three baths,
probably. But they spent seriously on the landscaping."
"I
hadn't noticed," I said. We were at the end of the
block, and Toni turned the Corvette onto a slightly wider street.
"Those
back trees are old growth," she said. "The way the
plantings were arranged beneath them, it's almost like
outdoor bonsai, with the flower beds and those hedges and
all."
"A
privacy thing?"
"Could
be. You think whoever you're looking for could be staying
there?"
"You
should consider a change of careers," I told her.
"You
mean I'm right?" she said, flashing another smile.
"On the
money."
"Let's
get coffee," she said.
"T his is her?" Toni asked, holding the
blown-up photo of Beryl Preston. The redhead's long nails
were beautifully manicured, heavy bracelets concealing wide wrists.
"Yep."
"How
long ago was this taken?" A woman's question. A
suspicious woman.
"I
don't know exactly. But she'd be in her early
thirties now, so it looks recent, don't you think?"
"Maybe,"
she said, grudgingly.
"I was
going to just walk up and see who answers the door.
But…"
"What?"
"Well,
you're about the age of the girl I'm looking for. A
bit younger, sure, but close enough."
"Yes?"
she said, widening her improbably greenish eyes.
"If you
were to just ring the bell, and say you were looking for Beryl, who
knows? Her mother--that's the woman who lives
there--might just call her downstairs or something. Hell, it
might be Beryl herself who answers the door. She's got no
reason to think anyone would be looking for her here."
"But
she does know people are looking for her?"
"Oh
yeah."
"This
isn't a--?"
"What
did Michelle tell you?" I said, letting my voice harden.
"I
know," she said, working her lips like she was making a
decision.
I sipped my hot
chocolate, feeling the minutes slow-click against the clock in my mind.
"Let's
talk outside," she said.
"I was a runaway," Toni said. "I
didn't know what I was, but I knew what I wasn't.
Do you understand what I'm--?"
"Yeah,"
I said. And I did.
"I…My
family had money. They sent me to…professionals. That
didn't work: I was still a girl inside, no matter what they
called it. I was…I was sad, but I wasn't suicidal.
Until they sent me to the healer."
I made an
encouraging sound in my throat.
"It was
a…They called it a Christian retreat, but it was a
prison."
"Because
you couldn't leave?"
"Because
they had bars on the windows," Toni said, fingering the tiny
gold cross that caught a shaft of sunlight as it twinkled against her
white sweater, standing between her prominent breasts like a warning.
"Because there was no privacy. No privacy ever. Not even in
the bathroom. Because they were afraid you might…do
something to yourself.
"What I
had…what I had inside me, they said that was being
possessed. Satan had my soul. But if I worked hard enough, if I prayed
hard enough, if I did everything they told me to, I could drive it all
out.
"Only I
didn't want it out. I wanted to
be…I wanted to be myself. Me."
I nodded my head.
"At
first, I kept that to myself. When I finally said it out loud,
that's when the beatings started."
She shifted
position, opening her stance like a boxer loading up to throw the
equalizer. Her voice dropped into a metallic baritone.
"They
called it ‘correction.' The rod, right out of the
Bible they made me read after each time. My parents never knew. Part of
the program was that they couldn't have any contact with me
for the first six months. ‘Total immersion in the
Lord,' is what they called it.
"I was
only fifteen. And sheltered, too--my parents had taken me out
of school years before that. Because of my…problem. So I
didn't know much about the world. But it didn't
take me long to understand. They taught me a lot in that place. And the
first thing I learned was, those beatings, they liked
doing that. It was exciting for them. Got them all…you
know."
"I do
know," I said, reaching for her hand. She let me take it, but
didn't return the squeeze I gave.
"We
were at the zoo. To see the baby pandas. It was like a field trip. Only
for students who had been good. Obedient, they meant. I knew how to be
‘good' by then. That's when I ran.
"I knew
I couldn't go to my grandmother's--she
would have just called my parents. And I didn't have any
other place to go. I kept seeing New York in my mind. The biggest city
in the world. Magic was there, I was sure of it.
"Michelle
found me on my second night. I was looking for a place to sleep. These
two men were…taunting me. It was at this old empty building,
right next to a pier, all the way downtown. But they had been there
first, they said, so it was their home. And I had to pay rent.
"I
would have done it. Whatever ‘it' was, it would
have been better than going back. And then Michelle just burst
in. She's so small--I was bigger than her even then,
and the men were much bigger. But they were scared
of her. She was so fierce. And she had a
razor….
"I
stayed with her for a few weeks. She worked nights, but we talked when
she came home. Every day. I told her everything.
"One
day, she told me she had to go away for a while. She promised
she'd be back, and made me promise I
wouldn't go out while she was gone.
"I
don't know how she did it, but when she came back, she told
me it was time for me to go home. I was so scared, but I believed her.
And when I got home, it was like I had different parents. They apologized
to me. My mother was crying, and my father was…well, I
don't know what to call it, but he was very, very determined.
"That's
when I started to become Toni. The doctor they sent me to was so good
and kind. I couldn't have the surgery until I was of age, but
he explained I had to live as a girl for at least two years first
anyway, just to be sure."
"Your
parents turned out to be really something."
"They
did," she said, relaxing her shoulders, her hand soft and
damp in mine. "They were Christians, but real
Christians, like Jimmy Carter, not fundamentalist freaks.
That…place they sent me to, it was out of ignorance. When my
father found out what they really did in there, he…I
don't know exactly what he did. But I know there was a big
lawsuit, and the place ended up closed."
"That's
quite a story."
"Oh,
it's a long story, I know," she
said. "But I told it to you for a reason."
"Did
you, Toni?"
"Yes. I
wanted you to understand what I'm going to say now."
I waited.
"Michelle
said, anything I did for you, it would be the same as doing it for her.
Do you understand?"
"I
do."
"And
I'd do anything for Michelle," the big redhead told
me. "That's N. E. Thing. Understand now?"
T oni dropped me off at a bowling alley. Luckily,
they also had a few pool tables. I wasn't even finished with
the first rack before a pudgy kid in a short-sleeved shirt big enough
to be a dust cover for a refrigerator wobbled over and asked me if I
wanted to play some nine-ball.
The hustler was
patient. I was up fifty bucks--the worm on the hook he was
baiting--when Toni walked in. She sashayed her way over to me,
snapping necks as she went, mane of red hair bouncing.
"How
much have you managed to lose so far?" she said, hands on her
hips, but smiling to show she was being the indulgent girlfriend, not a
harpy.
"Hey!
I'm up about fifty, right?" I said, turning to the
fat kid for confirmation.
"That's
right," the kid said, gravely, nodding his head to
reluctantly acknowledge my clear superiority with the cue.
"Well,
we are late," Toni announced.
"Just
one more game?"
"One
more," she said, warningly. Then she perched herself on a
high stool, crossed her long legs, and cupped her chin in one hand.
"Double
or nothing?" I said to the fat kid.
"Oh,
hell, it's the last game, let's make it for a
hundred."
"Your
break," I said, winking at Toni.
The pudgy
kid's shot hit the rack like a cannonball going through crepe
paper. The balls ran for cover--three of them so terrified
they ducked down into the pockets. The cue ball was centered, a little
short of the head spot. He cut in the one-ball, came three rails for
perfect shape on the two, tapped it into the side, pirouetted like a
bullfighter, and comboed the four-nine without drawing a breath.
"In
between tournaments?" I asked him, as I paid up.
"You
recognized me?" he said, caught between surprise and pride.
"Sure,"
I lied.
"You're
pretty good yourself. Want to go one more time?"
"You
see that girl over there?"
"I sure
do, bro."
"That's
all the luck I'm ever going to find in this place,
son."
"S he was the third house I visited," Toni
said. "I'm a broker--for real;
that's what I do--Michelle must have told you. I
told the woman I have a client who's much more interested in
the right neighborhood than in any individual house. He and his wife
have three school-age children, and he's done his research. I
didn't get where I am today by waiting for the right MLS to
pop up--I go out in the field and scout around. Occasionally,
you run across someone who wasn't thinking of
selling…until they hear the kind of money my
client's willing to put on the table."
"Very
nice," I said, giving her a con man's respect for a
superior opening shtick.
"It's
actually true," she said, smiling. "If someone were
to make a phone call to my office, it would get verified,
too."
"Even
better."
"She
was last on my list," Toni said. "Fortunately, the
first house I tried, no one was at home. And the second one, it was
only the maid. But if anyone had been watching…"
"Beautiful."
"The
woman who answered the door isn't your girl. Too old. Not
that she doesn't keep herself up--she was all
toned-and-tucked, believe me--but she hasn't seen
thirty for a good long time. Has to be the mother."
"Did
you get the sense anyone else was there?"
"Well,
there was at least one more," Toni said. "The baby.
More like a toddler…? I don't know; I'm
not good with guessing ages when they're that small. Young
enough for the mother to be carrying her around in one arm,
anyway."
"Did
she act like--I'm not sure how to put
this--did she act like the baby was her
baby? Or a kid she was watching for someone else?"
"Oh, it
was her baby. She had that…protective way of standing you
see in mothers."
"Some
mothers."
"Some
mothers," Toni agreed. "But there was
more…. She was, like…I don't know how
to say it…. Maybe the way she talked, like the baby was in
on the conversation. She didn't treat her
like a baby. Didn't just make noises at her, she called her
by her name. Elysse. That was her baby, Burke. I'd bet a
month's commissions on it."
"She
let you come in?"
"Not
exactly. She didn't tell me to get lost, but--this
is all part of the way she was standing; I can't quite
explain it--she wasn't going to give any ground. She
acted like she had all the time in the world. Even took my business
card. But she wasn't offering me a cup of coffee. Not even
when I said my client was a seven-figure buyer, all cash."
"That's
great, Toni. You did a perfect job."
"Thanks.
I would have felt better if she'd let me in, but I
didn't want to push it." She glanced at the
dashboard, said, "If you're not going back to see
her today, we can still make your train."
"Let's
get that train," I told her.
"When
you spend your life going in and out of houses, you get a feel for
them," she said. "That place was big, but it was
empty, too. I got the distinct impression that she lives there by
herself. Her and the baby, I mean."
"Well,
it was long odds."
"She
might have a cat. Everyone says cats are so curious, but some of them
couldn't be bothered to get up just because
someone's at the door."
"But a
dog…"
"That's
right," she said, "a dog is different. My
Samson--he's a Jack Russell terrier--if you
let a mosquito in the door, he'd have to
go and see for himself."
"Jack
Russells are all lunatics."
"That's
true!" she said, laughing. "But there was no dog in
that woman's house at all. I could just tell."
I
didn't say anything, watching the scenery change as we got
back inside the D.C. limits.
"Maybe
she doesn't think she needs a dog," Toni said, as
she pulled up to the station. "Just inside the front door,
there's a blue box on the wall. Some of my clients have the
same one. It's a central-station system. If that alarm goes
off, it doesn't ring some clown who's supposed to
dial 911 for you; it rings right inside the cop
shop."
T he next morning, the newscaster said Amtrak was
taking the Acela out of service for a few months. Something about the
brakes not being trustworthy.
Another man might
have taken that for an omen.
T he restaurant was Japanese, not far from the old
tennis stadium in Forest Hills. The hostess had a treacherously demure
smile, too much rouge, and glossy black agate eyes. She showed me over
to a corner booth shielded from the rest of the place by rice-paper
screens.
Charlie saw me
coming, stood up, shook hands like we were business friends.
"Hello,"
the dark-haired woman next to him said. Polite smile, wary eyes.
"John,
I'd like you to meet my wife," he said. "Galina, this is John Smith."
She reached up
and extended her hand. It wasn't so much cold as neutral.
Inanimate.
I sat down across
from them, noting that Charlie had set it up so that I was facing the
entrance, my back to the wall.
"Do you
know my husband a long time?" Galina asked, as the waiter
placed bowls of miso soup in front of us.
"More
years than I care to remember," I told her, smiling to show I
wasn't being hostile, just regretting my age.
All the way
through the meal, we talked about everything except what I'd
come for. A New York conversation, ranging from superficial to
fraudulent. Taxes, real estate, crime.
"Dessert?"
the waiter asked.
"Let us
think about that," Charlie told him, handing over some folded
bills.
"He
won't come back until I call him," he said to me.
That was my cue.
Turning to face Galina, I said, "When I came by your house
the other day, you told your husband I was there, then you went back
inside. While you were there, you made a phone call."
Her face was a
mask of polite interest.
"Your
husband promised you would explain that to me," I went on. "I'm sure he told you how important…how
very important this is."
"Yes."
"Then,
please…"
She looked over
at Charlie. He nodded.
"I am
Ashkenazi," she said. "You know what this
is?"
"Jews
born in Eastern Europe?"
A quick flash of
surprise registered in her dark eyes, opening them to a new depth. "It is more complicated than that, but yes. I was born in
Russia. My family, too. And their family. My ancestors fought
the Nazis. In the Red Army. Many died. Those who lived, maybe they
thought things would be different for them when the war was over. But
it was not.
"To be
a Jew in Russia was always dangerous. And so it is today. More than
ever, maybe. The skinhead gangs, they say they are targeting
immigrants, but their alliances are with their brothers in Poland. In
Croatia, too. The fascists are there in strength.
"The
way we survive is the way we have always survived--we do not
look to the government for protection; we look to each other."
My eyes never
left her face. A faint flush rose in her cheeks.
"You do
not believe me?"
"About
what you just said? Sure I do. But I guess I don't understand
what all that has to do with the phone call you made."
"Because
you are not a threat, so why should we need protection from
you?"
"You don't
need protection from me. I didn't even know you existed until
a few days ago. You made that phone call because you already
knew whoever you called wanted to talk to me."
"So?"
she said, raising her chin as if I was the butler, defying the mistress
of the manor.
"That's
it?" I said to Charlie.
"No,"
he said quickly. "Just have a little patience, all
right?"
I sat back,
waiting. He looked at his wife.
"The
people I called are my family," Galina said. "They
ask; I do. This is always."
I
didn't move. She looked at her husband.
"Yes, I
knew they wanted to talk with you," she finally said. "They are…crazy people. But they are my people. By
blood. So if they want something from me…"
"They
want a lot more than phone calls from you, Mrs. Siegel," I
said.
"What
do you mean?"
"Remember
I said I didn't even know you existed until recently? Well,
your people knew I existed before that. They knew I
went to a meeting. A meeting with a client. Nobody knew about that
meeting but me and the client. Your people might have been following
the client. Maybe that's how they spotted me."
Her dark eyes
never left my one good one.
"But I
don't think so," I went on. "I think they
knew my client had a meeting. I think they were listening in on his
calls. And there's only one way they get his number to do
that."
"We
already talked it over," Charlie said. "Galina was
just doing--"
"Please
don't say ‘what she had to
do,'" I said, chopping off whatever speech he was
going to make. So long as Charlie Jones stayed a lizard, he could
survive in the desert world of middlemen. But if he tried to go
warm-blooded, the climate would kill him.
I squared up so I
was right on Galina. "You understand what's at
stake?" I said.
"Yes,"
she answered. She put her left hand to her mouth, kissed her wedding
ring. Her way of telling me the man next to her wasn't some
long-term meal ticket; he was her heart. Charlie had been
right--this one was no "bought bride."
"I want
to walk away from all this," I said, just barely above a
whisper. "That's what you want, too. Your husband
and I, we're never going to do business again. You go back to
your life; I go back to mine. If you ever see me again, feel free to
call whoever you want. Understand?"
"Yes."
Ice-cold, now, and at home with it.
"Showing
up at a man's house without being invited, I understand how
that could be seen as an act of aggression," I said, rolling
my shoulders slightly to include both of them in what I was saying. "But you understand…you understand now…I
didn't come for that reason, don't you? You
understand I had no choice."
"Yes,"
they replied, as one.
I shifted my
total focus to the woman.
"I will
never need to do that again," I said. "I know how
to reach your family now. I met with--"
"--Yitzhak,
yes. He is my cousin."
"And I
know how to reach him," I repeated. "But that would
be my choice, not his. If I see him again, if I see anyone
connected with you, even by accident, everything changes. I have
people, too. Ask your husband."
"I
understand," she said. "And it is fair."
"T hat's not what we sell in our store,
and you know it," Pepper said, her voice a hard, tight ball
of Freon.
"It's
information. And you deal in--"
"It's
information we can't get."
"Yeah,
you--"
"We
can't get it," Pepper said, as clear as spring
water, and as cold. "Only she could do
that. And you were already told--"
"I'm
not coming sideways, Pepper. There's only one thing I
want," I lied.
"Yes,
one thing: You want her to take a risk. Worse, you want her to ask
someone else to take a risk. More than one,
actually. What you want, it's complicated."
"I
know."
"We
came all the way down here," she said, looking around at the
restaurant, "because you said you had something very
important. Too important to say on the phone."
"And it
was, right?"
"Important?
I don't have any idea. Important to you, maybe."
"It's…Look,
Pepper, here it is. I told you what I want. What I want to buy,
remember? I'm not asking to meet with Wolfe. I got
that message, all right? I just want your crew to do what you do. Not
for me, for--"
"Money."
"Not
for that, either. This is something…this is something
you'd want to do."
"Yes?"
Skeptical-suspicious.
"I
can't tell you any more than I already have," I
said, knowing I'd already blown it. But I'd had to
try.
Pepper exchanged
a look with Mick. I couldn't see a muscle move in his face,
but she nodded like she'd just finished reading a long
letter. Mick got up from the booth and walked out the front door. Max
waited a few heartbeats, then moved out in the same direction.
Pepper stepped
out of the booth, took out her cell phone, and deliberately turned her
back to me as she walked off.
In a minute, she
was back. "You have the best food in the whole
city," she sang out, as Mama passed by on her way to the
kitchen.
Mama held one
finger to her lips, but she was smiling.
One of the
payphones rang.
Mama came back
over to my booth.
"Police
girl," she said.
"I thought we had an understanding."
Wolfe's voice, through the receiver.
"We
do," I said. "But this, what I need,
you're the only one who can get it for me."
"Even
if that was true, why should I?"
"I'm
back to…what I was when you met me."
"When I
met you, you were a lot of things."
"You
know what I mean."
She was quiet for
a few seconds. Then: "Yes, I know what you mean. What I
don't know is whether you mean it."
"I
swear I do."
"On
what?"
I stayed silent,
waiting.
"What
does a man like you swear on, Burke?"
I'd
never said it before. Not out loud. And, probably, if I'd
thought about it, I wouldn't have said it then. I was just
reaching for one true thing, and…
"I
swear on my love," I told the woman who had always known.
"W on't you have another slice,
sugar?"
"Slice?"
I said, looking at the gaping empty wedge in the French-silk chocolate
pie sitting on the kitchen table. "That was a slab,
girl. Three normal pieces, easy."
"Didn't
you like it?"
"It was
the best pie I ever had," I told her, holding up my palm in a "the
truth, the whole truth" gesture. "I'm just not used to eating so much."
"Oh, I
can see that. You're way too skinny, Lew. You're
not one of those men who think skinny means high-class, are
you?"
"Come
here, brat."
"M en are so lucky," she said, an hour
later. "Fashions don't change for you. A big deal
is when ties get narrower, or lapels get wider--stuff like
that. For us, you can go from being just right to all wrong in a
month."
"I
don't see what that mat--"
"Do you
like these jeans on me?" she said, turning her back and
looking over her left shoulder.
"Who
wouldn't?"
"Uh-huh.
Except nobody hardly even makes jeans like this
anymore."
"They're
just regular--"
"They
are not. These are old-fashioned. See how high the
waist is? The new ones, they ride so low on your hips they almost make
your butt disappear."
"There's
no chance--"
"Don't
you even say it!" she said, her voice
caught between threat and giggle. "The point
is, I'm not built for the new ones. Everything they make now
is for those girls with Paris Hilton bodies."
I made a sound of
disgust.
"What?
You don't think she's cute?"
"I
think she looks like a really effeminate man. And when she opens that
lizard-slit of a mouth, she makes Anna Nicole sound like Madame Curie.
I wouldn't just kick her out of bed; I'd burn the
sheets."
"Oh,
you're so mean."
"You
asked me."
She came over to
where I was sitting, turned, and dropped into my lap. "How
about we go for another ride in that car of yours, big boy?"
she giggled. "I'm all dressed for it."
"P eople around here don't do
this," Loyal said, her shoulder just brushing mine. "Go for drives, I mean. They get in their cars to be going
someplace, not just to be going."
"We're
going someplace," I said.
"Where,
Lew?"
"I
don't mean tonight. I just meant, you and me, we're
going someplace, aren't we?"
"You're
the driver," she purred.
"W here do you get all that music of
yours?"
"The
CDs? A friend of mine mixes them for me."
"‘Mix'
is the truth," Loyal said. "I never heard such
a…collection of different songs before."
"You
like any of them?" I asked her. Between the Midtown Tunnel
and the Suffolk County line, the Plymouth's speakers had
gushed out a real medley: Little Walter's "Blue and
Lonesome," Jack Scott moaning "What in the
World's Come Over You?," Dale and Grace begging you
to "Stop and Think It Over," Chuck Willis pleading "Don't Deceive Me,"
Sonny Boy's "Cross My Heart," even a rare cut of Glenda Dean
Rockits, "Make Life Real," sounding like Kathy
Young backed by Santo and Johnny.
"That
‘Talk of the School' one was so sad. Kids can be so
mean, especially in high school."
"You
know who that was, singing?"
"No.
But I'm sure I never heard him before."
"But
you did, girl. That was Sonny James."
"The
Sonny James?"
"Yep."
"But
he's country, not--"
"Not
doo-wop? Roy Orbison had a doo-wop group himself once."
"For
real?"
"Sure.
Roy Orbison and the Roses."
"My
goodness."
She drifted into
a sweet, connected silence. We were encapsulated, the Plymouth sliding
smoothly through the night.
"I loved
that girl singer," she finally said. "You know the
one?"
"Sounded
like a young Patsy Cline?"
"Yes!
Can we play hers again?"
I hit the "back" button until I found the cut. A driving,
insistent bass line, the plaintive haze of a steel guitar hovering over
the top. A nightingale's voice cut through the steel like an
acetylene torch:
You
say that was your cousin
But I
know what I saw
And if
that girl was your cousin
You
both was breaking the law
"Oh, I
know I should just hate that," Loyal said, chuckling, "but that Kasey Lansdale is just too good! That
child's going to be big
someday."
"Why
should you hate it? The song, I mean."
"Well,
it's another of those stupid stereotypes, isn't it?
You know, rednecks and incest. Tobacco Road stuff. We're
supposed to be all kinds of bad, Southerners. To hear some of the
people around here talk, we're all Bible-thumping, ignorant
racists with no teeth, living in shacks. Well, you know what, sugar?
That's just another kind of prejudice."
"It
is."
"You're
not going to argue with me?" she said, lightly scraping her
fingernails over the top of my thigh. "Or are you just making
sure I'm going to be nice to you later?"
"I
can't speak for the South. I haven't spent enough
time there to say. But anyone who thinks there's no racism in
New York hasn't lived here long."
"I know,"
she said, vehemently.
"And
anyone who thinks one part of the country--one part of the world--has
got a patent on incest is in a coma."
"There's
good and bad people everywhere," Loyal said, a schoolgirl,
reciting a hard-learned lesson.
I 'm a lifelong gambler, but I never go
all-in unless we're playing with my deck. Hedging bets is
more my style.
When I left
Loyal's apartment building, I drove downtown. I like the
subway better, but this time of the year it's a hermetically
sealed disease-incubator, a particle accelerator for germs. Winter
flu's bad enough, but springtime flu can drop you quicker
than a Jeff Sims overhand right.
Chicago is a city
of neighborhoods. New York is a city of streets. Five blocks away from
where I stopped, ruptured-synapse zombies trembled in doorways, down to
nothing but the prayer that the next rock they bought with blood-bank
money would be a sweet crackling in their glass pipes, not a tiny chunk
of drywall pretender. But I was standing in that sparkling piece of
Manhattan where they shoot those perky and precious romantic comedies.
The block was lined with wonderful little shops and reeked of ambiance.
The princes who lived there kept their organically grown marijuana in
rosewood humidors.
I used my cell
phone instead of ringing the bell. Stayed on the line until I was
buzzed in. Took the tiny little elevator cage to the top floor.
The man who let
me in was built like a jockey, all muscle and bone. He had a shaved and
waxed skull, a ruby in his ear so heavy it had elongated the lobe, and
a red soul patch under his lower lip, the same color as his tank top.
His eyelids sagged, dark half-moons stood out against the bleached
whiteness of his cheeks. He looked as weary as a platitude in a
mortician's mouth.
"So?"
he said, exhaustedly stepping aside to let me in.
I walked over and
took a seat at one end of a long, narrow slab of butcher block. He
followed me languidly, sat down at the other end.
I slid a copy of
the CD Clarence had made over to him like I was dealing a card. It was
an edited version of the one Daniel Parks had handed over.
"I'd
like to find that woman," I said.
"That's
nice," he said. Like any good psychopath, he lived in the
Now, and whatever ethics he had were long past their sell-by date. He
knew that the only way the meek were going to inherit the earth was if
the last predator to go left it to them in his will.
"I'd
consider it a big favor," I told him.
"Redeemable
for…?"
"The
last job I did for you…"
"You
were paid for that, as I recall."
"I was
paid to do one thing," I reminded him. "The job
turned out to be more than you said it was going to be."
"I
never promised--"
"You
told me someone had something that belonged to you, and you'd
pay me to get it back."
He raised what
would have been his eyebrows, if he hadn't shaven them off.
"It
wasn't yours," I said, placidly.
"Well,
that's a matter of some dispute."
"The
dispute turned into a bullet wound."
"So
you're here for more--"
"I told
you what I'm here for," I said. "Be a
good listener; that's how people stay friends."
"I'm
not alone here," he said. "You don't
think I would have just let you come over if I was, do you?"
"You
don't think, if I wanted to do something to you,
I'd call first, do you?"
He folded his
arms across his chest, eyes involuntarily darting over my left
shoulder. "Point-blank, I didn't know Hector was
going to go psycho on you, Burke. Polygraph that."
"Oh, I
believe you. I just figured you'd feel bad about how it
turned out. And you'd want to make it up to me."
"And if
I don't?"
I looked over at
the wall of glass to my right. "You know how people talk
about a ‘window of opportunity'?" I said. "You know why leaving it open a little's always
better than keeping it shut?"
"I'll
bite."
"Because
that way the glass never has to get broken."
He touched his
temples, tuning into whatever frequency guided his ship.
"I
can't promise anything," he said.
W hen I got up the next morning, the whole right
side of my head throbbed. A quick glance at the mirror showed me my
right ear was inflamed. I get that from grinding it against the pillow
all night. Only happens when I dream so deep and dark that
it's a blessing not to remember any of it.
I stepped out of the flophouse into the
red-and-gold blaze of a chemical sunset. That's this city for
you, a toxic-waste garden, full of beautiful artificial flowers.
The pit bulls let
me reclaim my Plymouth, even though all I had was a couple of gyros I
bought from a vendor on the walk over.
It
wasn't about the quality of the bribe for them; they just
wanted to be shown some respect.
The orca female
sat and watched me for an extra minute. I tossed her a cube of steak I
had saved from Mama's. She snapped it out of the air without
a sound. We both looked at the other two pits. Neither of them had seen
a thing. Our secret.
T he windowless, slab-sided building in Sunnyside
had a fresh display of swastikas, spray-painted by some glue-sniffing
member of the master race. I thought how nice it would be to introduce
him to my new pal, Yitzhak. Or dip him in a vat of meat gravy and throw
him over the fence that surrounded my car.
The bouncer
looked like a recycling project from wherever they dump disbarred
bikers: greasy hair pulled back into a Shetland ponytail, jailhouse
tattoos across the knuckles of both hands, bad teeth, wraparound
shades. If he had a name, I didn't remember it.
The first time
I'd been there, he had followed me out into the parking lot.
"Hey!"
"What?"
I had said, turning to face him.
"You a
cop?"
"Sure."
"You
don't want to fuck with me," he growled, moving in.
"That's
right, I don't."
"We
don't like motherfuckers coming in here asking
questions."
"I'm
not a fighter," I said, edging backward.
"I
heard that one before," he taunted. "You're not a fighter, you're
a--"
"--shooter,"
I finished for him, showing him the .357.
"Hey!"
he half yelled, spreading his arms wide. "I was
just--"
"No,
you weren't," I told him, cutting off the "just doing my job" speech he was going to launch
into. "Go back inside, call your boss on the phone. You
handle it right, he'll think you're being smart,
just checking out this guy who was acting suspicious. Instead of
shaking down the customers, that is."
"You
don't know my boss."
"Tell
Jiffy, Burke said hello," I told him.
The next time I
visited, the bouncer had pointedly ignored me. He did the same tonight.
"Hello,
Dolly," I said to the waitress who came over to my table. It
wasn't a line; that's her name.
"Hey!"
she said, giving me a smile as genuine as Ted Bundy's remorse.
"Sit
down with me for a little bit."
"You
know I can't do that, baby. Only the
dancers…"
I spread five
twenties on the tabletop. "So you'll
share," I said.
D olly had been a dancer once. A drop-down after
she started sagging too much to work escort. She'd kept
sagging all the way down to table hostess in a Grade C strip joint. I
didn't want to think about what was next for her. Neither did
she. Cocaine helps her with that.
"Nope,"
is all she'd said when I showed her Beryl's
picture. It had been a long shot, but that's what you do when
you're killing time.
"Show
it around," I told her. "I've got a grand
for an address."
"These
girls," she said, glancing at the stage, where a scrawny
brunette with ridiculously huge breasts was humping a pole, next to a
cellulite blonde who was fingering herself and moaning from boredom, "they're all on drugs. They'll tell you
anything you want to hear."
"An
address," I said again. "Not a story."
"I got
to get back to work," Dolly said.
E ven in springtime, the basement apartment was
cold. Not A/C cold, but the clammy cold of damp, moldy rot. The man who
lived there was dressed for his role: He wore enough layers of clothing
to pass for the Michelin Man. Had the right skin color for it, too.
Fingerless gloves on his hands--hands he warmed over the glow
of the money he had stashed somewhere in the place.
I knew about the
money, but I didn't know how much it really was, never mind
where he had it hidden. It would take a team of greenback-trained
bloodhounds years to dig through the fetid swamp of that basement to
find it.
If it was even
there.
A long time ago,
a no-neck mutant named Harold who lived in the same building figured
out that the man in the basement must be hoarding something. After all,
he never went out. Never. Lived on take-out food passed through a slot
cut into the steel door to his den, the same way they do it in supermax
prisons. He hadn't needed the landlord's permission
to put in that door--he owned the building.
The mutant
didn't know that; he wasn't the research type. His
idea of a complex extortion scheme was to pound on the man's
door and scream, "Give me money, motherfucker!"
When that didn't work out for him, he remembered a technique
he'd heard about in prison. So the next time he came back, he
had a plastic squeeze bottle full of gasoline with him. Told the man
inside that he was going to roast him alive unless he got paid.
I was the one who
got paid instead. I used some of the money to buy my partner Hercules a
nice suit. Had to go to a tailor for it--department stores
don't make suits to fit guys who spend most of their time
Inside hoisting iron.
"What?"
the mutant yelled in response to my knock.
"Open
the door, Harold," I said. "Mr. G. sent
us."
"Who
the fuck is Mr. G.?"
"Harold…"
I said, my voice clearly losing patience.
He flung open the
door like a Bluto cartoon. "What the fuck
are--?"
The sight of
Hercules calmed him right down. I guess he remembered more about prison
than just the burnouts.
We had a nice
talk. I explained that the man who lived in the basement was the crazy
old uncle of a very important individual. Harold the Mutant never asked
who "Mr. G." was; maybe he thought he knew. In
fact, he seemed to be getting smarter by the minute. When I told him if
he ever went near the basement again he was going off the roof without
a parachute, his comprehension was perfect.
"H ow many steps?" the man in the basement
asked me, through the slot in the door.
"Eleven,"
I said.
"You're
sure?"
"Positive.
I counted them," I told him, connecting us.
The door swung
open soundlessly. That always surprised me--I expected it to
squeak like the ones in horror movies--but I guess he kept it
lubricated, somehow.
I
didn't offer to shake hands; I knew he didn't like
that.
He
didn't offer me a seat, just looked at me with the
beyond-disappointment eyes of an orphan staring into a shopwindow at
Christmastime. I don't know how he ended up where he is now.
But I know he knows money.
"Is it
hard to set up an account in Nauru?" I asked him, without
preamble.
I waited for him
to count the syllables in my question. I knew it had to be an even
number, or he wouldn't respond. He doesn't care how
the dictionary breaks up a word, only how it comes out of
someone's mouth.
"No,"
he said, playing out his ritual: questions are even, answers are odd.
"Why do
people do it?"
"Secrecy."
"Like a
Swiss bank account?"
"Liechtenstein."
"Like
that?"
"No."
"What's
the difference?" I asked, knowing he'd hear "difference" as two syllables.
"Government."
"You
need big money to do it?"
"Yes."
"Do
they make money doing it?"
"Yes."
"So
it's like a big laundry job?"
"Yes."
"For
criminals, then?"
"Yes."
"And
everybody knows?"
"Yes."
"Do you
have any contacts there?"
"No."
"Thank
you."
He made some
noise. I wasn't sure what the word was, but I knew it was a
single syllable.
I tried other places. Other people. Other
possibilities. Even a "journalist" who spent his
slimy life pawing through garbage looking for morsels to peddle to the
sleaze-sheets. He promised he'd sniff around. I believed
him--that's just what dung beetles do.
I
wasn't holding good cards, but I wasn't down to
drawing dead, either. Not yet. Beryl's picture was
circulating all over the city. Favors were being called in, pressure
was being put on.
You
can't really do surveillance on houses as isolated as her
father's, or in neighborhoods as ritzy as her
mother's. Not unless you have a government-sized budget and
government-level immunity for felonies. I know how to get in touch with
some sanctioned black-bag boys, and I know what it takes to turn their
crank, too. But telling your business to people like that will
guarantee you go on a list. The bone-and-pistol package Morales had
planted had gotten me off a bunch of those, and I didn't want
to start new ones.
With the kind of
money that Daniel Parks had made disappear, Beryl could have
disappeared, too. She could be anywhere. But it didn't feel
like that to me. And I'd found her once….
"S ay where and when."
"You
know where I used to work? There's a parking lot, the public
one. The upper deck is outdoors."
"Got
it."
"I'm
there now."
"Give
me an hour."
I thumbed off the
cell phone, slipped it into the pocket of my jacket.
"That's
her, isn't it?" Loyal said.
"‘Her'?"
"Yes,
‘her.' Not that fake ‘wife' of
yours, the one woman you really love."
"This
is just business," I said.
"Sure,"
she said, soft and somber, like in church. "When
you're done with your ‘business,' you
come right on back here, sugar, and I'll fix whatever she
broke. That's the kind of woman I
am."
T he Chrysler was standing by itself in the
farthest corner of the lot. I parked at the other end, backing into the
open space. At midnight, the lot was empty. The courthouse was closed,
visiting hours were over at the jail, City Hall was shut down.
The
Chrysler's passenger door opened and Wolfe got out. Instead
of moving toward me, she opened the back door, and a thick black shape
flowed onto the ground.
Great!
I thought. Just what I need, another one of my big fans.
Wolfe snapped on
the Rottweiler's chain and stepped over to where I was
parked. Her shiny lime-green raincoat was tightly belted at the waist,
blazing in the night.
I got out of the
Plymouth. Slowly.
Not slow enough.
The Rottweiler let out a threatening growl.
"Bruiser!"
Wolfe said. "Enough."
"Hey,
Bruiser," I greeted him.
He said something
like "Go fuck yourself!" in Rottweiler. The
barrel-chested beast had decided to hate me the first time he saw me.
And once he locked his bonecrusher jaws around a feeling, he never
dropped the bite.
"Your
dog's a real party animal," I said to Wolfe.
"Bruiser?
He's a sweetheart," she said, patting the
monster's huge head. "You're the only one
he doesn't like."
Wolfe walked over
to the edge of the lot, leaned her elbows on the railing, and looked
down at the dark. I stayed where I was.
"Down!"
she told the Rottweiler.
He did it in slow
motion, his "give me a reason" eyes pinning me all
the way.
I moved over to
the railing, my hands already coming up with a flared match for
Wolfe's cigarette.
"Thanks,"
she said.
"I'm
the one who needs to be thanking you. You found--?"
"Maybe
not much," she said. "Maybe enough."
"How
did you--?"
"That
little tombstone was a perfect surface for prints." I
didn't bother telling her that that was why I'd
pocketed an item from the shelf full of artifacts bestowed on little
Beryl by professional revolutionaries grateful to her parents for their
financial support. It was a lead-cast miniature of a clenched fist
rising from the engraved tombstone of Fred Hampton. "You're lucky nobody had polished it."
"Just
how lucky did I get?"
"There
were three different partials that could be lifted. One of them matched
to a Beryl Eunice Preston, DOB nine, nine, seventy-two.
That's her, right?"
"Right,"
I said, not surprised to see Wolfe's hands holding nothing
but her cigarette--I'd seen her cross-examine expert
witnesses for hours without ever glancing at her notes.
"She
was in the system," Wolfe said. "Arrested eleven,
twenty, ninety-seven. Attempt murder, CCW, whole string of
stuff."
"All
one event?"
"Yes,"
she said, exhaling so that smoke ran out of her nose. "This
was in Manhattan. She was working for one of the escort services,
claimed the john had demanded she do something she didn't
want to do, then got violent with her when she refused."
"A
self-defense case?"
"It
might have been, if it had ever gone to trial," Wolfe said. "The escort service said they'd never heard of her,
big surprise, but she posted bail and walked. Then the complaining
witness stopped complaining. When the detectives leaned on him, he said
the whole thing had been a mistake. He was showing her the
knife--said he was some kind of collector, and this was a
fancy one he'd just bought--and he slipped and fell
on it. The hotel never should have called the cops."
"Anyone
buy that?"
"Why
would they?" Wolfe said. "But what were they going
to do, threaten to tell his wife he was using his credit card to have
some fun? Bluff the girl into taking an assault plea? This is real
life, not a TV show. They dropped it like it was on fire."
"Nothing
since? For Beryl, I mean?"
"As far
as the system's concerned, she could have joined a
convent."
"You
pulled an address?"
"Sure,"
she said. And gave me the condo in Battery Park.
When I
didn't say anything, she said, "You had that one,
didn't you?"
"Yeah,"
I admitted, not trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
"The
arraignment judge played it like it was a stand-up assault with a
deadly weapon," Wolfe said, grinding out her cigarette with
one precision stab of her spike heel. "Set bail at a
quarter-mil. Your girl, she didn't use a bondsman."
"She
put up that much in cash."
"No,"
Wolfe said. "A friend put up his house."
"Must
have been some house."
"Oh, it
was." Her white teeth flashed in the night. "Want
the address?"
"S he had that hideout in place for a long
time," Michelle said. "Even before she met that
Daniel Parks guy, you think?"
"Yeah.
That is what I think. She bought the property in '94."
"She
would have been…twenty-two years old then,"
Clarence said, looking up from his laptop.
"Pretty
young to be that smart," Michelle said. "She must
have had a crystal ball, too, buying a house in that neighborhood back
then. I'll bet it's worth five times what she paid
for it."
"It
wasn't leveraged, either," I told them, tapping a
stack of paper in front of me. "She put a hundred down,
leaving her with a twenty-one-hundred-dollar-a-month nut for
everything--mortgage, taxes, insurance, the whole thing.
It's a two-family, and she was getting eight fifty for the
first floor, seven hundred for the second. The C of O for the building
says it's strictly a two-family, but I'll bet the
basement's another apartment, off the books."
"You
sure it's our girl?" the Prof said.
I looked around
the table, ticking the points off on my fingers: "One, the
name on the ownership papers is ‘Jennifer Jackson.'
That's a motel-register name. Two, whoever owned that
property put up the whole thing, deed and all, to make bail for Beryl
when she was arrested. Three, we know she knows how to change her name,
and how to move money around, too. And, four, she's the kind
of operator who never builds a house without a couple of back
doors."
"Park
Slope's gone way upscale, but it's no gated
community," Michelle said, looking over at the Mole.
"I love these," Loyal said, fitting the
blue leather bustier over her breasts. "But you
can't get into them without help."
"At
your service," I said, slowly pulling the laces tight.
"That's
what you think I am, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"You
know what I mean, Lew. I've been so honest with you.
Now
it's coming around to hurt me."
"I
don't--"
"You
know what? I thought you loved me. I don't mean I was your great
love. Not that special, once-in-a-lifetime-if-you-get-real-lucky love.
But a whole lot more than…than just liking
me, I guess. I guess I just told you too much truth, didn't
I?"
"No,
you didn't. You told me just enough. And you showed
me a lot more."
"But
I'm not the one you--"
"You are
the one," I said. "Not like you think,
but…Look, Loyal, to me you're a princess. A little
princess. And I've got a plan for this to have a happy
ending."
"But
not a marriage plan, right?"
"Better."
"What
could be--?"
"Just
wait," I said. "Wait a little bit. You wanted to
know what I do for a living, remember?"
"Yes.
But I don't--"
"I'm
a gambler, little girl. And I've got something going now. The
dice are already tumbling. If I can throw the hard eight,
you're going to have your happy ending. That's all
I can tell you now. Is that enough?"
Loyal paused in
the act of pulling on one of her stockings. "A coral snake is
one of the most beautiful things you could ever see. But one bite and
you're all done. Then there's milk snakes.
They're just as pretty, but they're harmless. You
know how to tell them apart?"
"Red
and black, he's a good jack. Red and yella, kill the
fella."
"Oh!"
she said. She raised her chin, looked down at where I was sitting. "You've spent some time in the South,
haven't you? I wondered about that, ever since I told you
about people saying I looked like Jeannie, remember? And you said I do
favor her. That's not the way people around here
talk."
"I've
traveled a little bit."
"Gambling?"
"That's
right."
"And
you're going to win me a happy ending?"
"I'm
trying."
"That
would be the sweetest thing a man could give a woman, a happy
ending."
"I--"
"I'm
a girl who gives as good as she gets," Loyal said, turning
away from me and bending over the couch. "And you
don't have to wait for yours."
"T hat's her?" Clarence asked,
pointing at his laptop screen.
"Go
through them one more time," I said.
He trailed his
finger over the touchpad, and a new set of thumbnails popped into life.
He clicked on them, one by one, and each new image burst into
full-screen life.
A woman in a
beige parka, so densely quilted that it was impossible to tell if she
was a stick or a sumo, walked down a tree-lined street, carrying a
large green tote bag with a yellow logo.
The same woman
inside a market, the tote draped over the handlebars of a shopping
cart. She had pixie-short light blonde hair, bright-red lipstick.
"I can
zoom in on that one," Clarence said.
"Go."
The woman had
china-blue eyes, a beauty mark at the corner of one of them. It looked
like one of those tattooed tears gang kids put on their faces, one for
each jolt Inside.
"That's
her," I said.
"Are
you sure, mahn? She looks nothing like the girl on
that--"
"Her
stuff is tough," the Prof interrupted his son, "but
it ain't close to enough.
That's the same girl Schoolboy and me snatched."
"You
have not seen her for--what?--twenty
years?" Clarence said. Not challenging, fascinated.
"She's
still got the look," the Prof said.
"She
does not look afraid to me," Clarence said, respectful but
doubting.
"She
never did," the Prof answered. "Ain't
that right, Schoolboy?"
"O n the move." Terry's voice,
over my cell. "Walking."
"Probably
a Starbucks run," I said, glancing at my watch. "Gives us twenty minutes, tops."
"I can
double that for you," Michelle said. "Drop me off
at the next corner."
I glanced over my
shoulder at the Prof. He patted the outside pocket of his ankle-length
canvas duster. "I already been in once," he said. "I left it so's I can pop that box like I had me
the key."
"Eight-fifteen,"
Clarence said. "The tenants have all gone to work."
"You
take the wheel," I told him.
I heard the sound of a key working the lock.
Pointed my finger at Max to warn him.
She walked into
the living room, one hand holding a paper cup. A sixteen-ounce double
skinny mocha latte, if she hadn't changed her usual order.
"Hello,
Beryl," I said, from the darkness of the couch.
She was fast, but
Max was ready for the move, wrapping her up as she bolted back toward
the front door. He held one finger against the buccinator muscle in her
right cheek, nerve-blocking the pressure point so she
couldn't scream.
He lifted her off
the ground with his left hand, letting her feel the price of
resistance. She got the message and sagged, allowing him to deposit her
next to me on the couch.
"Nobody's
going to hurt you, Beryl," I said. "Just the
opposite. We know people are looking for you; we're here to
fix that."
"Who
are--?"
"You
know who we are, child," the Prof said, as he stepped
forward. "We're the ones who got you back from that
pimp when you were just a kid. Remember?"
"You're…"
She paused, looking at Max. "You were there," she
said to the Prof. "And him, too"--nodding
at Max. "But who are--?"
"It's
me, Beryl," I said. "I had some work done on my
face, but--"
"It is
you! I would never have known your face, but that voice,
it's…it's the same."
"You
have your father's gift."
"My…what?"
"Your
father's gift," I said again. "He's real good with voices, too."
"My father
sent you?"
"You
mean, like he did before?"
"That
wasn't him," she said, as if the words were poison
in her mouth.
"I
know," I told her. "I didn't know then,
but I do now."
"You
think so?" she said, curling her lip. She shrugged out of her
coat, crossed her legs, telling us she wasn't going anywhere.
"Let's
see," I said. "You were involved with a man named
Daniel Parks. A money manager. He siphoned off money from a hedge fund
he was running. A lot of money. He probably knew a lot more about high
finance than he did about the people who put their money into his fund.
So maybe he figured the most he was risking was a civil suit. Or even a
fraud prosecution he could lawyer his way out of. How am I doing so
far?"
"You're
talking," she said, opening a silver box on the coffee table.
She took out a prerolled joint, lit up, and pulled a heavy hit of
Maryjane into her lungs.
"We
don't know exactly how much Parks stole. Probably take years
to figure that out. But we know you ended up with a pile of it. He
thought you were his secret bank. But the first time he started talking
about making a withdrawal, you disappeared on him. You must have been
planning it for a long time. It's easy when they trust you,
huh?"
"He was
in love," Beryl said, her drawl suggesting, "If God
didn't want them sheared…"
"Men
aren't your favorite humans, huh?"
"Good
guess, Sherlock. If it weren't for my mother, I'd
be as queer as Ellen and Rosie combined."
"Got
it," I said, trying to get her train back on the track I
wanted. "You figured it for a low-risk play too, and you
were right. So Parks gets arrested, so what? So he decides to name
names, big deal. Far as you were concerned, he was
just a generous lover."
"Some
men are," she said, smiling ugly and dragging deep on her
joint. She didn't even bother to hold the smoke
down--plenty more where that had come from.
"Then
he gets himself gunned down, right on the street. Now you know the
people he ripped off aren't going to the Better Business
Bureau. And they're going to be looking for their
money."
"And so
are you," she said, her voice so thick with contempt I could
barely make out the words. "Just like you were the last
time."
I could feel the Prof vibrating in the corner, a
step away from erupting. I held up my hand to silence him.
"Don't
put it on anyone but me, Beryl," I said. "The whole
thing was mine. Everyone else just backed my play. I thought I was
doing the right thing."
"You
know what they say about the road to Hell."
"Yeah."
"Well,
you don't even get that much slack. I know
you got paid to bring me back."
"I did
you wrong. I didn't know it then. I know it now.
That's why I'm here."
"What,
to make it up to me?" she asked scornfully.
"I
can't do that. Because it can't be done. Nobody
could do it for me; nobody can do it for you."
She gave me a
sharp, appraising look, but she didn't say anything.
"Here's
what I can do," I told her. "I can get you safe.
Not just off the hook--safe forever."
She gave me a
serpent's grin, certain she was back on her home ground now. "Sure. All I have to do is give back the--"
"Not a
dime," I cut her off. "You walk away free and
clear. You won't have to hide in this basement. You can go
right back to being Peta Bellingham, if you want."
"Just
like that, huh?"
"There's
more," I said. "To sweeten the deal, I'll
even throw in some justice."
"S he might still run, son," the Prof said
on the drive back, signing with his fingers so that Max could follow
along.
"No,"
I said, shaking my head. "She knows we found her once, we can
find her again. Probably thinks we have her watched
twenty-four/seven," I went on, turning my hands into
binoculars, then cupping my right ear in a listening gesture. "The deal I offered her is the only way out."
I turned slowly
in my seat, capturing each of them with my eyes until I had them all
with me.
"There's
something else, too," I told them. "She wants
to do it."
"I sn't this a little flashy for a
lawyer?" I asked Michelle. She was busy adjusting the lapels
of my tuxedo-black suit, threaded with a faint metallic-blue windowpane
pattern. Under the jacket, my shirt was royal purple with vertical
stripes of pale lemon. French cuffs, with Canadian Maple Leaf gold
coins for links. My tie was a Dalíesque riot of color that
you couldn't look at for long without vertigo. The shoes were
black mirrors, softer than most gloves.
"Not
for the kind of lawyer you're supposed to
be, sweetheart," she said, confidently. "And this
is the pièce de résistance." She meant
the black leather Tumi attaché case, gusseted to expand to
carry a laptop and whatever other tools a bar-certified extortionist
might need.
The initials on
the case were "ROM." Roman Oscar Mestinvah
wouldn't come up on a Martindale-Hubbell search, but he was
registered with OCA--the New York State Office of Court
Administration. Admitted to practice in 1981, and a member in good
standing. Roman was an elite lawyer, with a very narrow
practice--
Gypsies only. I
don't know his real name--no Gypsy ever has only
one--but the one he'd used since law school gave him
those inside-joke initials.
If anyone
speaking English called his office, his girl would know it was for me,
and message me at Mama's--my rental of his name
included a few extra services.
"No
diamond watch?" I said, sarcastically.
Michelle gave me
one of her patented looks. "You'll be driving a
Porsche, not a Bentley," she replied, as if that explained
the Breitling chronograph she had handed me.
"I
guess I'm ready," I told her.
She stepped very
close to me, stood on her toes, and kissed my cheek. "I'm proud of you,
baby," she whispered. "This is the real Burke now. My big brother.
Coming
home."
"Y ou want to go over it again?" I asked,
as I plucked the EZ Pass transmitter from the inside windshield of
Beryl's metallic-silver Porsche and stowed it in the glove
compartment before we hit the Holland Tunnel. She was wearing a
navy-blue pinched-waist jacket over a beige pleated skirt, sheer
stockings, and simple navy pumps. A successful woman, on her way to
work.
"I've
got it," she said. "Don't worry;
I've been doing this kind of thing all my life."
"Even
before I--?"
"Years
before," she said, flatly.
"Why
didn't you say anything?"
"To
you? What for? You were just another hired man. And it wasn't
me paying your salary."
"I
would never have brought you back," I said, hearing the
defensiveness in my voice. "That happened before. More than
once."
"Sure."
"It's
the truth," I said. Hearing You know it is
in my mind. Realizing it was Wolfe I was talking to.
"Even
if I believed you, which I don't, where were you going to
take me? You think I hadn't tried telling
before then? Way before then? You know what that
got me? More hired men, doing more things to me. Before they sent me
back, that is. I'll give you that much: You just drove the
merchandise home like you were paid to do, didn't even make
me blow you first."
I shook off the
image, said, "But you weren't really running
away."
"What's
that supposed to mean?" Turning to give me a quick, hard
stare.
"That
pimp, the one you were with, he hadn't kidnapped you.
I've seen enough of those to know."
"Because
I didn't throw my arms around you for rescuing me from the
big bad man?"
"Because
you weren't scared," I said. "You
weren't stoned. And you weren't hurt."
"You're
smarter than you look," she said, smiling sardonically. "At least, you're smarter now.
That's right. You think some half-wit nigger could have
tricked me? I was playing him, not the other way
around. But I didn't know the game then. Not the whole game.
I never figured he'd try to actually sell
me."
"What's
with ‘nigger,' Beryl?"
"You
don't like the word?"
"It
sounds nasty in your mouth, and--"
"Ah.
When you spoke to my dear daddy, he told you we were all such wonderful
liberals, yes?"
"He did
say they were--"
"Fakes,"
she said, spitting the word out of her mouth like a piece of bad meat.
"Both of them, complete frauds. Every word they ever spoke
was a lie. The big ‘radicals,' fighting oppression.
That whole house was a nonstop masquerade ball. Everybody had their own
mask. Especially me."
"Your
father was--"
"Weak,"
she dismissed him with a single word. "A pathetic, cringing
weakling. Funding the revolution from the safety of his living
room."
"And
your mother?"
"Oh,
she was never weak," Beryl hissed. "She was even
harder than the steel she used on me."
W e gassed up on the Jersey Pike. While Beryl used
the restroom, I thumbed my cell phone into life.
"Anything?"
I said.
"Nothing,"
Michelle answered. "You know I would have called you
if--"
"Yeah."
"Relax,
baby. We've got a Plan B, remember?"
B eryl accelerated back onto the turnpike, her
fingers relaxed on the wheel. As she settled into the middle lane, I
said, "You're sure you--?"
"If you
say fucking ‘reparations' to me one more time,
I'm going to throw up all over that cheesy suit of
yours."
W e stopped at a diner off the Baltimore-Washington
Parkway. Beryl wanted the restroom again. And a cigarette. She was a
heavy smoker, but she wouldn't light up in her car.
"You
don't smoke anymore?" she'd asked me, the
first time we'd stopped.
"No."
"Doesn't
go with the new face?"
"You're
smart enough to be anything you want," I told her. The truth.
"Oh,
Daddy!" she mock-squealed, clasping her hands behind her back
and stepping close to me. "That's so sweet. You
just want your Berry to be the very bestest little girl she can be,
don't you?"
I looked away.
"Now I
made you mad," she said, reaching down and pulling the hem of
her skirt high over her thighs. "You think I should be
punished?"
"Give
it a rest, Beryl."
"Why?
You're not much of a conversationalist, but it's
been a while, and I could always use the practice."
I looked away.
"Makes
you mad, that I'm such a little whore?"
"That's
your business," I said.
"Exactly,"
she retorted, sticking out her tongue in a deliberately cold parody of
a sassy brat.
"D id you ever tell him?"
"Who?
My father?"
"Yeah.
You said you tried to tell people, but you never
said you actually did it."
"He
knew," she said, with a sociopath's unshakable
certainty.
"Just
like that? You said your mother had a special--"
"Just
because he was a coward doesn't mean he was a stupid
one."
"But
you couldn't be--"
"Yes, I
could," she snapped. "I could
be sure. I'm sure he would have just closed his eyes, no
matter what I showed him. You know why?"
"No."
"Because
my mother had the power,"
she said,
licking her lips as if the very word was caressing her under her skirt.
"If you have power, you can do anything you want, go anywhere
you want, get away with anything. It's all yours. Everything.
And you know what makes power? Money. If you have enough
money--"
"It's
not that simple."
"You're
right; it's not," she snapped. "If
you'd let me finish what I was going to say, you would have
heard this: If you have enough money, and the spine
to use it, every door opens. The whole world is nothing but a market.
And humans are just another commodity."
"In
some places--"
"In every
place! You think it's not a market just because the buyers
wear masks when they shop? If you have the price, you can have whatever
you want--it's just that
simple."
"Not
all prices are money," I said, thinking of Galina's
cousin.
"I
don't like word games. They're just another way for
liars to lie. I don't care what you call it. Some say money;
some say God. Some call it a button--a button you push to make
people do what you want. Everybody's got one; you just have
to look for it.
"And if
you don't know where to look, there's tricks to
make it come to the surface, where you can see it. I learned something
from everyone who ever had me. And I took something
from them, too. Like a vampire does. It all comes down to the same
thing. Power. That's all that counts."
"If
that's all that counts, then most people
don't."
"Good
boy!" she said, rewarding a dog.
"W hy do you want to know?" she asked me,
a few more miles down the road.
"So I
can learn."
"How bad
do you want to know?"
"I
don't know how to measure that."
"Did
you ever fuck a girl outdoors? Like in a park, where anyone might come
along and see you?"
"What
diff--?"
"We're
trading," she said. "You tell me, I tell
you."
"And me
first, right?"
"Money
in front," Beryl said, giving me a whore's wink.
"T hose so-called feminists make me
retch," she said, lighting another cigarette. We were sitting
at a wooden picnic bench at a rest stop. We were the only customers. "They say they're all about choice--like
abortion, how they adore abortion--but
you're only allowed the choices they say
are okay. They whine about ‘empowerment,' but you
can only be empowered if you lap up every word they say, like a tame
dog."
"You're
talking about--?"
"You
know what the great buzzword is now? The high-concept plot for the
movie they all think they're starring in?
‘Trafficking.' This great evil that's
been set loose on the world. It's all those kind of people
can talk about."
"It's
not worth talking about?"
"Why?
Because, if enough people talk about it, someday they'll
actually do something about it? That was my
parents' line. All that ‘consciousness
raising' they wrote checks for."
"What's
your answer, then?"
"My
answer?" she said, twisting her lips to show teeth, not
smiling. "I don't even have a question. Because
this ‘trafficking' thing, it's all just
another mask. Read the papers. Watch TV. Go to a cocktail party. Nobody
cares about trafficking in children so long as you're going
to use them the way they're supposed to
be used," she said, planting the barb and twisting to make
sure it hooked deep. "You know, like making them work in
diamond mines, or sewing soccer balls, or plowing fields."
She turned to me
full-face, her own beautiful mask crumbling against the acid of her
hate.
"Every
kid's nothing but property, anyway. If you want to sell your
own property, who cares? The only time anyone bitches about it is when
they get sold a lemon, like when some yuppies adopt one of those
Russian babies with fetal alcohol syndrome.
"And
the media? The only time those whores get excited
is when they can do a story on ‘sex slaves,'
because that's what sells, okay? And you
know what? Most of those girls, they're not slaves at all.
They're just women who made a deal. A choice,
okay?"
"You
mean, like to be hookers?"
"You
think that's never a choice?"
she said, mockingly. "You think every stripper is a
domestic-violence victim? You think every girl who acts in a porno
movie is a drug addict? You think every escort was sexually abused as a
child? You think Linda Lovelace didn't like
fucking and sucking?"
"I
wasn't saying--"
"That's
right," she said, making a brushing-crumbs gesture. "You weren't saying anything.
All that ‘trafficking' hysteria is just so much
political bullshit, a good way for thieves to get grants. A woman grows
up in a country where there isn't enough food to eat. She
makes a decision to come to a place where she can make more money on
her back in an hour than her whole family could earn in a
month--what's wrong with that? She's a
whore to you, fine. But she's a hero to her family."
"What
about the girls who think they're coming here to work in
factories, not whorehouses?"
"Grow
up!" she snapped. "You really think even they
believe that? You really think they're going to pay twenty,
thirty grand for the chance to earn five bucks an hour?"
"That's
not an investment," I said, my one good eye scanning her
mask, looking for an opening, "that's debt bondage.
They have to work off the cost of their passage. And if they open their
mouths, they get deported."
"Isn't
that a crying shame."
"Not
enough to make you cry, I guess."
"Who
cried for me?"
"So
that means--?"
"It
means I found my own way out," Beryl
said, pure self-absorption wafting off her like thick perfume. "You think anyone cares about slavery? There's
people in slavery all over the world, aren't there? You buy
something made in China, it was probably out of some forced-labor camp.
Are you going to pretend that makes a difference to you?
"Slavery,
my sweet white ass. All anyone pays attention to is the sex part. And
here's a nice irony for you: That is a
choice, okay? These women, they come here, like you said, they know
they have to work off their debt. They can be maids, take them twenty
years to get caught up. Or they can gobble some cock for a few months,
and end up flush.
"You
think if you ‘rescued' them they'd jump
at the chance to be stuffed into some basement, sewing until their
fingertips got paralyzed or they went blind from the lousy lighting?
Fucking's not just better paid; it's easier work,
too."
"Work?"
I said, thinking back to how I had dismissed that woman in the blood
lab as a "sex worker." Not liking myself for it now.
"It is
work," she said, as hotly composed as a high-school debater. "The higher up the scale you go, the better it's
paid. And safer, too. You know those legalized houses they have in
Nevada? When's the last time you ever heard of a girl being
killed in one of them?"
"I
don't think I ever did."
"Right!"
she said, triumphantly. "Those serial killers, they grab
girls off the streets, not out of houses."
"So an
escort service is better?"
"You
know about that, too, huh? That was when I was still learning. I worked
in houses, too. But, really, it's all the same. You only have
yourself. They promise you all the ‘security' in
the world, but when you're alone in that room, it's
all on you."
I
didn't say anything. It wasn't a
strategy--her hate had just run me empty.
"And
it's the same when you're all alone in the
world," she said. Slowly, as if concerned I'd miss
something important. "You know where I learned
that?"
"Yes."
"Yes,
that's right, Mr. Knight in Shining Armor. In a little room.
A little girl in a little room. All alone. That's what you
brought me back to. My hero."
W e stopped one more time, to switch places. The
Porsche was supposed to be the lawyer's car, not the
client's.
I hit my phone. "It's me," I said, when it was picked up
at the other end.
"She
was home an hour and fifteen minutes ago," Toni said. "I dropped by with an even better offer. She wasn't
any more interested than she was the last time."
"You're
a doll," I told her.
She blew a kiss
into the phone.
T he woman who came to the door was dressed in
workout clothes, a sweatband around her head, towel around her
shoulders.
"What
can I--?" she started to say, then froze as her eyes
went past me to Beryl.
"Hello,
Mother. You're looking good."
"I…"
By then we were
inside. Beryl closed the door behind us as her mother stood there,
mouth half open, as if frozen in the act of speech.
"Good
afternoon, Ms. Summerdale," I said. Oil in my mouth,
too-bright smile on my face. "My name is Mestinvah, Roman
Mestinvah. I represent your daughter--"
"Represent?"
she said, voice hardening. "What do you think you have to
‘represent' anyone about in this
house?"
"Let's
all sit down, Mother," Beryl said, sweetly. "This
won't take long."
"It
will take less than that for me to call the police," her
mother said, standing with her fists clenched at her sides.
"Do
it!" Beryl suddenly hissed at her. "Do it, you
fucking cunt.
Come
on!"
Her mother sagged
like she'd been body-punched.
We all sat down
in the living room, like the civilized adults we were. Nobody offered
coffee.
Beryl lit a
cigarette.
"We
don't allow smoking in--"
Beryl blew a puff
of smoke in her mother's direction.
"Ms.
Summerdale, I understand this all may be a bit…traumatic for
you, seeing your daughter after all these years," I said. "We came here in the hopes we can settle things without the
need to…well, without the need to leave this room,
frankly."
"What
‘things'?" she said, as Beryl flicked the
ash from her cigarette into a crystal vase that held a single blood-red
rose.
"Reparations,"
Beryl said, on cue.
"What
are you--?"
"My
client," I said, holding up my hand as if to stop Beryl from
saying anything more, "has a number of causes of action she
intends to pursue, Ms. Summerdale. You would, needless to say, be the
defendant in any such litigation. And please don't tell me
about the statute of limitations," I went on, as if
she'd tried to interrupt. "A team of eminent
treatment professionals has already provided sworn affidavits that my
client had suppressed all memory of the horrors inflicted on her until
very recently. We are quite confident that we could survive any motion
to dismiss."
"I
don't under--"
"I told
them everything, Mother," Beryl said,
vomiting the last word.
"I have
no idea what you think you might have ‘told'
anyone," the mother said, strength coming back into her
voice. "You have a very troubled history, Beryl. Your mental
state was never--"
"That's
what happens to little girls who get turned into trained dogs, Mother. Lap
dogs, remember?"
"You're
being--"
"You
still have your collection of baby-sized speculums, you filthy fucking
bitch? You still have your model-train transformer? The one with the
extra wires for bad little girls who don't learn to make
Mommy happy?"
"You
are insane," the woman said. Emphatically enough, but I could
hear the stress fractures in her voice. "You've
been insane since you were a child."
"Nobody's
insane here," I said, soothingly. "Nobody's even unreasonable. You see, your
husband--your ex-husband, I should say--was very
forthcoming, Ms. Summerdale."
"He
never knew any--" she blurted out, before she
realized what she was saying, and clamped down on the words.
"He
knew more than you ever imagined," I said, finishing her
thought. "And it wasn't just that he had an idea;
he had proof. I wonder if the people who bought your house in
Westchester ever found the wires for the microphones."
She sat there,
stone-still, not moving a muscle. Her face was a frozen, expressionless
mask.
"Your
‘crafts room,'" I said. "The
one with the lock on the door, the double-pad carpet, and the
acoustical tiles on the walls. The room where you were teaching Beryl
private mother-daughter stuff. The room your husband was never allowed
in. You thought he bought that, didn't you? Everybody needs
their own space, right? And, after all, he had his den,
didn't he?"
She still
didn't move. Didn't react when Beryl dropped her
burning cigarette butt into the vase, and immediately lit another.
"There
are over twenty boxes of cassette tapes,"
I lied. "No video, but the audio makes it clear
enough."
"I was
in therapy for years and years," Beryl said, on cue again. "But I could never figure out what was wrong.
If it wasn't for those tapes, I'd still be loaded
up on antidepressants, walking around like a zombie. Good old Daddy.
All those years, you thought you had him castrated. But he was doing
just what you were doing, only coming at it from a
different angle. You were both fucking me. Fucking your little girl.
You did it for fun, and Daddy did it for money. Your money. Now
it's my turn."
"What
do you want?" the woman said, dead-voiced. Speaking to me as
if Beryl wasn't in the room.
"My
client is going to need a lot of treatment," I said,
greasily. "Expensive treatment. This is much more important
to her than digging up the past. What good would that do?"
The
mother's mask shifted. "You think you can come into
my own home and blackmail me, you grubby little shyster? I've
got lawyers that would crush you like the cockroach you are."
"I'm
sorry you characterize a sincere attempt to settle a viable case out of
court as ‘blackmail,' Ms. Summerdale," I
said, reaching for my attaché case. "I did warn
you this was a possibility," I said to Beryl.
"I like
it better this way," she said, licking her lips. "I
can't wait."
We
hadn't even gotten to our feet before the mother caved.
"H ow do I know you won't be
back?" the mother said, a half-hour later.
"Because
we're going to give you not only a properly executed and
fully binding release of any and all claims against you for any reason,
covering my client's life from birth to the present day, but
a cast-iron confidentiality agreement, one that requires my client to
pay you triple the amount of the settlement as liquidated damages
should she disclose any of the…material we
discussed."
"I…"
"And,"
I said, "something even better. A notarized affidavit from my
client acknowledging that the…allegations we discussed were
a complete fabrication. I have all the documents right here,"
I said, soothingly, fondling the black leather attaché case. "You're not settling a lawsuit; you're
agreeing to pay for your daughter's desperately needed
long-term treatment."
"It's
a lot of money."
"Oh,
please, Mother," Beryl said, in a
teenager's voice. "It's, like, only a
fraction of what you'd be leaving me in your will anyway,
isn't it? Just look at it as an accelerated
inheritance."
"When
do you expect to--?"
"Right
this second," Beryl told her, both hands on the leash. "You've got a computer somewhere in this house. And
you've got online access to your money, too. Maybe not all of
it, but more than enough to cover what you're going to pay
me. A few mouse-clicks, and it's all
wire-transferred."
"Even
if I could--"
"Oh,
you can, Mother. Come on, let's go
play."
B eryl tapped keys on her cell phone.
"It's
there," she said. "Move it out, and close the
account down. Now!"
"I
never want to see you again," the woman said, spent.
"Oh,
you won't, Mother. Just one more thing,
and we're out of here forever."
"What?"
she said, hollowed out way past empty.
"The
baby," Beryl told her, a hideous smile playing over her lips. "After what you taught me, I always wanted a little girl of
my own."
"You're…"
"You
can just buy another one. And I know you will. After all, you
haven't even started ‘training' this one
yet. But I need more than money, Mother. I need to take something from you."
She clasped her hands in a prayerful gesture, said, "Oh,
please, please, tell me you understand," as soft-voiced as a
scorpion.
"S ign there…and there," I told
Beryl.
"I
still don't see why I should have to split the money with
you. It was me she did those things to, not you. And if you
hadn't brought me back…"
"We
went over all that. You keep what you got from Parks; we split what we
got from your mother."
"Maybe
I changed my mind."
"Don't
do that."
"Are
you threatening me?"
"Yes."
"Haven't
you already stolen enough? From me, I mean."
"You
already played that card."
"I
always thought my so-called father was the most pathetic man on
earth," the beautiful viper said. "Thanks for
showing me otherwise."
"Sign both,"
I reminded her, pointing at a line on the papers below which her name
and Social Security number had been typed. An embossed
notary's seal was already on the page.
"What
do you want that baby for?"
"What
do you care?"
"I
don't," she said. I believed her.
Her silver
Porsche pulled away, leaving me on the downtown sidewalk with a baby
girl in my arms.
Toni's
Corvette came around the corner.
I punched in a twelve-digit number. When Yitzhak
answered, I said, "I have something for you."
"S he has all of it?"
he asked me later that night, out on the prairie.
"I
don't know how much ‘all' is,"
I said, reasonably. "But she has out-front assets of
something like thirty mil. On paper, it was all supposed to have come
from her father's business, but all that paper's
bogus…just a screen."
"How do
you know this?"
"Daniel
Parks wasn't just stealing from you," I said. "He had a whole long sucker-list. But he had to find a place
to stash the money. Spend some money yourself, check out the divorce
papers his wife had filed. Parks had a mistress. Her name, her real
name, is Beryl Summerdale."
"Beryl
Summerdale," the Russian repeated carefully, committing the
name I'd given him to memory.
"That's
right. And I've got something else for you, too.
She's got access to her money online. Right over a modem. If
you could get her to tell you the right numbers…"
T he AP wire said, "Luxury Home
Firebombed!"
Beryl
Summerdale's neighbors hadn't heard a thing until
the house on Castle Crescent suddenly burst into flames at
approximately three in the morning.
It took the local
Fire Department only minutes to respond to their frantic calls, but the
house was already incinerated.
The Arson Squad
said a highly sophisticated series of incendiary devices had been used,
but no more information could be released at this time.
The crime-scene
investigators said "human bone fragments" had been
located.
The lead
detective on the case said that the house was known to have been owned
and occupied by Ms. Summerdale and her infant daughter. Both were
presumed to have perished in the explosion.
The Special Agent
in Charge of the local FBI office said that speculation about
terrorists targeting the wrong house "has, to the best of our
knowledge, no basis in fact at this time," although he
acknowledged that the neighborhood was home to several prominent D.C.
insiders.
Beryl Summerdale
had no known enemies. Her ex-husband had been ruled out. The police had
no suspects.
L oyal stood on the sidewalk outside her building.
A white Cadillac sedan was at the curb. The trunk was full of luggage.
The back seat was full of baby stuff.
"Her
name is Charisse, after my mother," Loyal said. "Of
all the things you did for me, she was the best. I never even knew how
much I wanted--"
"It's
what I wanted, too," I said. Pure truth.
"You
know where I'll be, Lew."
"You'll
be home."
"Home
with my little girl," Loyal said. She stood close, her heart
in her eyes. "Your home, too, if you ever want
one," she said, very softly.
"I just
might," I said, lying to her for what I knew was the last
time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Vachss
has been a federal investigator of sexually transmitted diseases, a
social-services caseworker, and a labor organizer, and has directed a
maximum-security prison for "aggressive-violent"
youth. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and
youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the
Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of
other material, among them song lyrics, graphic novels, essays, and a "children's book for adults." His books
have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared
in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, the New
York Times, and numerous other forums. A native New Yorker,
he now divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific
Northwest.
The dedicated
Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com.
ALSO BY
ANDREW VACHSS
Flood
Strega
Blue Belle
Hard Candy
Blossom
Sacrifice
Shella
Down in the Zero
Born Bad
Footsteps of the Hawk
False Allegations
Safe House
Choice of Evil
Everybody Pays
Dead and Gone
Pain Management
Only Child
The Getaway Man
Down Here
Two Trains Running
Copyright
© 2006 by Andrew Vachss
All rights
reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division
of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of
Canada Limited, Toronto.
Pantheon Books
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of
Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vachss, Andrew H.
Mask market /
Andrew Vachss.
p. cm.
eISBN-13:
978-0-375-42441-0
eISBN-10:
0-375-42441-5
1. Burke
(Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. Private
investigators--New York (State)--New
York--Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)--Fiction. 4.
Missing persons--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3572.A33M37
2006
813'.54--dc22 2005048285
www.pantheonbooks.com
This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.
v1.0