Down in the Zero

by Andrew Vachss

  I was up with the first light, wondering what day it was. Hard to tell out there—people who don't work a regular nine–to–five don't have a good sense of weekends. I looked out the front window. At the head of the driveway there were two mailboxes. I walked out there. Turned out one of the mailboxes was for the local newspaper. It was empty. The regular mailbox only had some bills…no personal letters. I brought everything inside, left it on the kitchen table.

  I wanted a shower, but I checked on the kid first. He was in the same position. I moved close, some little flicker warning me he might be gone. But he was okay, breathing deep, his mouth hanging open, slack.

  The garage door was standing open, the cars untouched. The keys were in the kid's Miata—maybe he was expecting valet parking.

  I walked through the apartment, watching close this time. Nobody had been there.

  I showered and shaved, thinking about kids killing themselves. About the kid I'd killed.

  I was at the kitchen table by the time the kid came downstairs. His face was blotchy from sleep, eyes wary from his dreams.

  "You stayed here last night?" he asked.

  "On the couch, in the living room."

  "I'm sorry…I didn't mean for you to—"

  "That's okay. You want some coffee or something?"

  "I'll get it," he said, turning his face away from me.

  He put a couple of Pop–Tarts in the toaster, hit the switch on the coffeemaker, took a long pull at a wax carton of orange juice. I found a box of rye crackers, poured myself a big glass of water from the bottle in the refrigerator.

  "What's those?" he asked me, nodding his head in the direction of the pills I had taken out of my pocket.

  "Vitamin C, beta–carotene, vitamin E."

  "You take them every day?"

  "Sure."

  "How come?"

  "An old girlfriend of mine, she's a doctor. Told me if I was gonna smoke, this is what I needed to do."

  "Be better to quit smoking," he said, with all the superiority of someone who fucks up his life twelve ways from Sunday but doesn't share your bad habits.

  I didn't say anything, just crunched my crackers, popped the pills, chased them down with the water. The kid joined me at the table, started on his meal without much enthusiasm.

  "You expect the cops?" I asked him.

  "No, they didn't come around before, why should I?"

  "I don't know. I don't know how things work around here. It's just that if they do, you may need to explain me…what I'm doing here, see?"

  "Sure. I'll say you're the caretaker. It won't be any big deal."

  "It could be if they run my sheet."

  "Huh?"

  "I've got a record, kid."

  "Oh. I mean…I kind of figured that."

  "Did you?"

  "Well, from what my mother said…"

  I looked a question at him, waiting.

  "She didn't say you were a criminal or anything. Just that you could…take care of things. I know in her business, she had to deal with some pretty heavy people, so…"

  "Her business?"

  "When she was young. Before she had me. In England, where she lived."

  "What business was that?"

  "You know," he gave me a quizzical look. "She was a gem dealer. Traveled all over the world. That's when she met you, right? When you worked as a bodyguard?"

  "Right," I told him.

  "Were you…close with my mother?"

  "It was a long time ago, kid."

  "I know, but…"

  "What? You want to know if we were lovers?" Softening it for him if that's what he needed.

  "Lovers? Like romance? No. I want to know did you have sex with her?" he asked, looking at me head–on for the first time that day.

  "That's your mother's privacy you're talking about," I said.

  "Privacy? My mother? You have to be kidding. I was just curious, that's all. She never has sex with men."

  "She must have…at least once."

  "Yeah, with a turkey baster," he laughed, a feathery undercurrent to his voice. "Artificial insemination. My mother's gay. She told me, a long time ago. She said she wanted a baby, but she didn't want a man. That's why I was wondering…if she ever did."

  "I get it," I told him, not answering his question. "Your father, was he…?"

  "No. It was an anonymous donor, she told me. She was married once, but it was for money. The guy was gay too—he wanted her for a beard. I guess the joke was on him, huh? I don't know who my father is.

  "You mean your biological father?"

  "That's what I mean—I don't know whose genes I have in me."

  "Neither do I," I told him.

  "You were adopted?"

  "No."

  "Then how …?"

  "I was raised by the State. In an institution."

  "Like a foster home?"

  "Like a jail."

  "Oh." He got up, busied himself with loading the dishwasher for a minute. "You ever wonder about it? Who your father was?" he asked over his shoulder.

  "No."

  "I do," he said, coming back to the table. "All my mother could tell me was that he had a very high IQ. It was a special sperm bank. Very expensive. She had it done in Switzerland."

  "You already got all you're going to get from him," I told the kid.

  "What do you mean?"

  "The color of your eyes, your hair, maybe your height, I don't know. Physical characteristics. And your basic intelligence. Some hard–wired personality traits, stuff like that."

  "What's 'hard–wired'?"

  "You know how some folks have a basically happy temperament, some are more stubborn than others…like that. Nothing major."

  "You mean that?"

  "It's true. You can pass along DNA, but not behavior, understand? Blue eyes, blond hair…sure. But if a rapist and a murderer got together and made a baby, and if that baby got raised by good citizens, the kid would be one too, see? You get what you raise, not what you breed."

  "But with horses, they always breed the champions. To get better horses."

  "Those aren't better horses, kid. They're horses better at doing the stuff people want them to do, see? If you put those blueblood, inbred nags out on a prairie, they'd be the first ones the wolves would take down."

  He sat there for a couple of minutes, playing something around in his head, more alert and focused than I'd ever seen him. "In school, we had that. Genetics. I don't remember much about it. Hell, I don't remember much about any of it."

  "You passed all your courses?" I asked him. Shifting gears, setting up to blindside him.

  "Sure," he said, with a "Doesn't everybody?" look.

  "What are you going to college for?"

  "I don't know. My mother says if I learn anything, it will be good. You can always use what you learn, that's what she said."

  "But she doesn't care what?"

  "I don't think so. She never said."

  "What does your mother do now?"

  "I'm not exactly sure," the kid said. "Something with international finance—that's why she travels so much."

  "She travels alone?"

  "I…guess so. She never said."

  The kid was relaxed, talking. Softened around the edges from all the guidance–counselor questions. I lit a smoke, blew a stream at the ceiling. "Who's Charm?" I asked.

  "She's Fancy's sister. Her twin sister, actually, but they don't look alike. She…" He gave me a puzzled look. "How do you know about her? Was she here?"

  "No. There was a phone call for her. Last night. On this," I said, getting up and bringing the cellular phone back from the closet.

  "That's one of Mother's phones," he said, recognizing it.

  "One of them?"

  "Yeah, she has a whole bunch. She gives them to people who work for her on jobs. So she can reach out for them anytime she wants. They have special batteries and all."

  "Does Charm work for your mother?"

  "Charm? No. What wou
ld she do for her?"

  "I don't know. What about Fancy?"

  "Her either. I mean, they don't really work, either of them. Charm rides, and Fancy has her plants."

  "Rides?"

  "Horses. Like in shows. She jumps them too. I think she was supposed to be in the Olympics, but she hurt herself last year."

  I opened the cellular phone—there was no number on it. "Do you know the number for this phone?" I asked him.

  "Let me see it."

  I handed it over. He turned it so he could see the back. "Yeah, this is hers, for sure. See?"

  On the back was the number 4, stenciled on in white paint. "She left a list somewhere around here," he said. "Let me think for a minute."

  He got up, went into the living room. I could hear him opening drawers in the antique desk, rummaging around. He came back with a piece of paper in his hand, gave it to me. It was a list. Next to number 4 there was a local phone number. "Let's try it," I told the kid, handing the phone to him. I walked over to the wall phone, punched in the number from the list. The cellular phone buzzed. The kid opened it up, said "Hello." I could hear him through the receiver.

  "Bingo," I told him. "Do you know where she keeps any of the others?"

  "Well, I guess some people have them with them. But maybe there's another one or two around. How come?"

  "Well, if we each had one, we could keep in touch while we're working."

  "Working?"

  "Yeah, Randy, working. You and me."

  The kid flashed me a shy smile, as if he liked the idea.

  While the kid was getting dressed, I walked out to the mailboxes again. This time, the newspaper was there. I carried it back inside to the kitchen table. Some local rag, a real good–news special. The local Little Theatre was doing Guys and Dolls, there was a big dressage event—whatever that was—coming next weekend. Somebody's kid won a scholarship. Another was spending the summer in Europe on a museum tour. Mr. and Mrs. Whoever announced the engagement of their daughter to Somebody's Son. A section of some road was going to be regraded. A bunch of ads for car restorers and restaurants—no personals. Most of the paper was about real estate, some of it with pictures. Not a word about suicide.

  The kid came downstairs, wearing jeans and an oversized Rugby shirt. He was holding another one of the cellular phones in his hand.

  "I found this upstairs. It's number seven—we can check the list."

  "Okay," I told him. "Now here's the deal. The phone rings, you answer it. If it's me, fine. Anyone else, just tell them it's a wrong number. You get an immediate callback, just let it ring. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  "Okay. Now you said the other suicides were in the paper, right? This paper?" I asked, holding up the one I'd taken from the mailbox.

  "No," he laughed. "Fat chance. The Bridgeport papers, I meant."

  "They deliver here?"

  "No, but we can buy one in town. They sell all the papers there."

  We took the Lexus—it was as anonymous there as my Plymouth was in the city. It drove so silky I couldn't tell how smooth the roads were.

  "What happened after the first time?" I asked him. "When the first kids died, didn't the town put something together? Counseling, whatever?"

  "Yeah, down at the high school. They got everyone together. And they had counselors come in from someplace. You could talk to them if you wanted."

  "Did you do that?"

  "No, I was out of school by then. I know they had a big meeting, the parents. With a psychologist. He, like, answered their questions and all."

  "A psychologist from the school?"

  "No, from Crystal Cove. They have a lot of experience with that stuff."

  "You go to that one?"

  "No, I told you, it was really for the parents."

  "Did your mother go?"

  "I guess so. She told me it happens a lot, suicide. She said the important thing was, if I had anything I ever wanted to tell her, I could do it. Not to keep secrets, they eat at you."

  "You think those kids had secrets?"

  "Everybody has secrets," he said.

  The paper we bought in town had the girl's name. Her parents names too. They played it like tragedy, not crime. Apparently they held back the news a couple of days…maybe the cops didn't want it released? The paper interviewed this Dr. Jubal Barrymore, from Crystal Cove. Gave a phone number for him, in case anyone wanted to know more about the subject of teen suicide.

  "Was this the guy?" I asked the kid, pointing at the doctor's name in the paper.

  "I don't remember," he shrugged. But his face was guilty.

  "Is the library open in the summer?" I asked the kid.

  "Library?"

  "The town library…I want to see if they have back issues of this paper on file."

  "I guess so," he replied.

  At least he knew where to find it. We parked and went inside. It was fuller than I expected, mostly women jockeying for position in front of the shelves that held the Seven Day books. The librarian was a woman in her late forties, with graying hair and a prominent nose. She got up as we approached her desk, standing over me by a good four inches.

  "Do you keep back issues of the Bulletin on file?" I asked her politely.

  "We have eighteen months only. We rotate the stock. There's no microfiche. But we do have the Times all the way back," she added hopefully.

  "It's the Bulletin we need," I told her.

  "Is there something you're looking for in particular?" she asked.

  "It's a research project," I told her. "Real estate."

  "Oh I see." She led us over to the reference room, showed us a few dozen issues suspended on wooden racks. "The rest are in the back. Do you know which dates?"

  "We need to go back about seven months," I told her.

  "Well, that would be a pretty heavy stack," she said doubtfully.

  "I'll carry them out," the kid said.

  She flashed him a smile as I nodded approval. They went into the back room as I sat down and started to work.

  The kid was a help. He knew the names, cruised through the back issues looking for the suicide stories. It took less than two hours and we had everything the papers had printed. With the parents' names, it was easy enough to get the addresses from the bank of local phone books the library had.

  "Did you find what you wanted?" the librarian asked.

  "Pretty much," I told her.

  "You can just leave the papers on the table," she said. "I'll have one of the—"

  "I'll put them back," the kid said, earning another smile.

  Driving back, I heard the chirp of a phone. I pulled the cellular out of my pocket. Nothing. The phone sounded again. The kid laughed, reached over and popped the console open, pulling out a car phone.

  "Hello?" he said into the receiver. I couldn't hear the person on the other end.

  "It's Randy."

  …

  "I just felt like driving her car," he said, an edge to his voice. "What's it to you?"

  …

  "He's around somewhere," the kid said, glancing over at me. "I don't know. How come you—?"

  …

  "Okay, I'll tell him. So long."

  He replaced the car phone, looked over at me.

  "That was Fancy," he said. "She wanted to know if you were still working…being the caretaker."

  "How come you didn't tell her I was right here?"

  "I don't know. I just thought…"

  "You thought right," I said.

  The kid nodded gravely, a slight flush on his face. Embarrassed that he'd done something right. "She said to tell you to call her."

  "Exactly that?"

  "Yeah. 'Tell him to call me,' that's what she said."

  I didn't say anything. I made the turn onto the road for the house, shoved in the dashboard lighter, fitted a cigarette in my mouth.

  "She's a bossy bitch, isn't she?" the kid said.

  "Not mine," I told him. Not my bitch—not my boss either. />
  I spread out my notes on the kitchen table, working with what I had. The kid watched me for a few minutes. I expected him to get restless–bored the way they do, but he hung in, quiet.

  "You want me to do something?" he finally asked.

  "We're looking for a pattern," I told him.

  "A pattern?"

  "Yeah, stuff all these had in common, you understand?"

  "Sure. Like on TV, when they're trying to catch a killer."

  "I don't know if we got a killer here, kid. But one thing's for sure—we got enough bodies."

  He got to his feet, rubbing his head with both hands. "You want some food?" he asked.

  "Sure. Whatever you're having."

  He went into the living room to use the phone. I kept my head down, concentrating.

  The back doorbell startled me. Randy opened it up, signed something the deliveryman gave him. He opened a couple of paper bags, started assembling stuff on plates.

  "I figured you might like Chinese," he said. "I mean…that restaurant in the city and all."

  "Sure," I told him. "You didn't give the guy any money. How come?"

  "My mother has an account with them. With a few others too. It makes it easier. She says I really won't need cash while she's gone."

  "Un huh."

  The food was hot. And limp. The soup was thin. The rice clumped, the vegetables sagged. The pork was undercooked. "You like this?" I asked him.

  "Yeah, it's great. They don't use any MSG either."

  "You need to try some of Mama's cooking someday," I told him.

  "What's the difference?"

  "Same as between Debbie Gibson and Judy Henske."

  "Which is the Debbie Gibson?"

  "This stuff."

  "Oh." He took a deep mouthful of the food, chewed it experimentally. "So who's Judy Henske?" he asked.

  It was getting dark by the time I was done playing with the charts I had made.

  "You going anyplace tonight?" I asked him.

  "Not really. I was just gonna…hang out, you know?"

  "Yeah. Okay, I'll see you in the morning."

  "Are you gonna do something?"

  "Yeah. Take a look around."

  "Can I…"

  "I'll be back before you," I told him. "And I'll sleep here again tonight, you want me to."

  "No, I didn't mean that. I just meant…maybe you want me to come along."