Another Life

by Andrew Vachss

  She walked out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Rejji leaned over and licked my mouth.

  Cyn came back in, looked at Rejji, said, “Your cheeks are red, bitch,” causing a deeper blush. “I’ll help you with that later.” Then she turned to me, said, “Even the phone-sex operations—and, trust me, you wouldn’t want to meet some of the girls they use—have guidelines. The classier ones, anyway.” She handed me a piece of paper, neatly typed:

  The following scenarios are STRICTLY FORBIDDEN:

  Violence or use of weapons

  Rape fantasy

  Beast work

  Incest

  Red or brown showers

  Amputation or mutilation

  “See what I mean?” she said as I glanced over the list. “That particular service is Gold Card or better. A girl gets caught breaking any of these rules, she’s gone, no matter what kind of earner she is. And a supervisor spot-checks every call.”

  “I get it.”

  “We don’t,” she said, a faint aura of accusation in her voice. “We know you’re hunting.” She turned to the still-blushing Rejji, said, “What? You think Burke came over here to play with you, brat?” She turned back to me. “What’s your problem? You don’t think you can trust us, why come at all?”

  “You know better than that,” I told her. “I’m just feeling my way through this. I didn’t come to ask you for something; I came over to learn.”

  “And did you?”

  “I might have.”

  “Which means . . . ?”

  “If you know a girl who fits a certain profile, I’d like to hear about it.”

  “You said that funny,” Cyn said, tilting her head. My fault: sometimes I forget that her IQ is as outrageous as her chest.

  “Hard-core sub,” I got specific. “Professional. No boundaries. The kind who’d let a trick do anything to her, even with a kid in the room—”

  “Ugh!” Rejji.

  “Shut up!” from Cyn, who was listening intently.

  “—and might have access to people who could put together a snatch of that same kid.”

  “Like a mobbed-up boyfriend?”

  “Heavier than that,” I told them, measuring my words. “I’m talking about a girl with a client list that could include the kind of guy who could put together a military-type operation. A man willing to gamble big bucks, if he can play for much bigger ones.”

  “So she’d have to be in on it herself,” Rejji said.

  “At first,” Cyn said, “but maybe not in on anything, anymore.”

  I nodded. You can recycle the script, but the ending never changes.

  “Same number?” was all she asked.

  “Why didn’t you just level with them?” Michelle asked, later that night. “Rejji and Cyn are—”

  “Leveling with them means telling them the truth. And I don’t know the truth, girl.”

  “You think that baby wasn’t snatched because a professional sub wanted to make some money?” my little sister said, her voice a blended sourmash of anger and disgust. “Please!”

  I knew better than to say anything.

  “This rich freak pays whores, and has his kid watch the action, right?” my sister said. “Who knows why he does it, but we know why they do. So maybe one of them has a pimp, or maybe her trick book’s full of big-bucks clients. Either way, somebody smelled a big payday, and called in the troops. What’s so . . . ?”

  “Girls with that level of client don’t go dropping names, sis. They may know things, but they know what it costs to say things, too.”

  “And you think, just because they’re into pain, you couldn’t make them talk?”

  I ignored her sarcasm, said: “Whoever put together that snatch team was top-drawer, with a lot of experience. Maybe armored cars, maybe banks . . . I don’t know. But it had to be the kind of man who would be very touchy about who he’d work with.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you can forget about torture—a pro won’t deal with anyone into that. Nothing to do with morals; you just never work with guys who’re bent, because they bend too easy themselves. Plus, we’re looking for a heister; no way blackmail’s his regular business.”

  “Maybe surveillance is his business, mahn. That would mean he already has a team. And a team is what it would take to clamp a twenty-four/seven on an address, never mind a moving target.”

  “Sure”—I nodded at Clarence—“unless that custom Rolls was GPS’ed. Pryce thinks he’s looking in the right places, but he can’t get in deep enough; that’s why he came to me. For us, the key isn’t the baby, it’s the ransom.”

  “But there’s been no—”

  “That’s just it, girl,” I told Michelle. “If anyone had contacted that scumbag, he would have forked over whatever they asked for. For him to go to the government, and for them to reach out for Pryce, this can’t be anything money could fix.

  “Remember, no contact’s been made. None. This sheikh had to be way past desperate to go to the feds, because now his hobby’s not on the down-low anymore. That kind of info is unbelievable leverage; he has to want that baby bad to put his own head on the chopping block.”

  “So the feds know there’s a missing baby, and Cyn and Rejji don’t?” Michelle said, glaring at me.

  “Step back, okay? Sure, I told them that much. But in their minds I’m working for the parents. What’s the point of telling them anything else?”

  “You don’t actually know. Not for sure. And that baby was—”

  “No, honey,” I told her. “This was no damn kidnapping. Unless you can show me how this whole thing adds up to money—major money—I think this little prince of theirs is reading it right. There’s something else in play here.”

  The a cappella voice was as pure as pain, called up from a place that only a child who lost his father to a soulless assassin can know.

  Don’t need no silver spade

  To dig my grave

  Don’t need nobody cryin’

  I’m ready to pay for the sins I made

  And I don’t need no preacher’s lyin’

  Just put me down

  In that cold, hard ground

  And tell Mamma I died tryin’

  I knew the song; the Prof once told me he’d learned it as a boy coming up in Louisiana. One of those sly “spirituals” that mocked the opiate the slavemasters were feeding their captives. That was when “Prof” was short for “Prophet,” not “Professor.” Depending on where you stood, he could still be either one.

  Clarence’s voice was low, but it carried like an ICBM. He stood on the outdoor terrace, one floor below where the hospital was cradling his father. He was on his feet, both hands gripping the railing. Standing like the Prof did when he was preaching to his congregation, back when we were Inside:

  “The Lord don’t want you on your knees, brothers. The bars only keep us in; they can’t keep us down. We don’t gotta be in their house; we can be in God’s house . . . if we make it so.

  “You know how it go: Twelve jurors, one judge, half a chance. We all here because we got convicted. So we all convicts by law. I say convicts! Convicts, not inmates! An inmate is an animal in a cage. A convict is a man of conviction! And a man stands up for his convictions, am I right? Now stand up with me, brothers. Stand up right now! Being a convict ain’t about color; it’s about being a man. So stand up together. Show those punks in the gun towers what men look like! Now give that an amen!”

  I’d gone looking for Clarence; I knew he had to be somewhere close by. But when I found him, he was looking, too.

  I vaporized; it hadn’t been me Clarence had gone looking for.

  “I only do restraint.” The woman was past full bloom, but still ripe, even with the Shirley Temple curls and raccoon eyeliner. “And only here, in my own place.”

  “But when you’re restrained . . .”

  “It just looks like I am,” she told me, very matter-of-factly.

  “I understand. But when you lo
ok like you are, the clients, they like to talk?”

  “Some do,” she said, as if stating the obvious. “Some like to listen.”

  “The talkers, some of them, they can get . . .”

  “What are you, anyway?” she said, fitting a cigarette into an ivory holder. “Cyn told me you were a real heavy.”

  “So I’m not supposed to have manners? Not supposed to show some respect?”

  “I’m not used to it,” she said, warily.

  “Meaning you don’t trust it? Or that you think Cyn made a mistake?”

  “If a guy who I expect to pay me to put on a dog collar so he can walk me on a leash and make me say I’m a filthy bitch cunt shows up with roses one day, that would spook me.”

  “I’m not that guy. You’ve never seen me before; you’ll never see me again. And, so far, I’m not paying you, either.”

  “Cyn said you would.”

  “Oh, now her word’s good, huh? She negotiate a price, too?”

  “She . . . she said, if I had information, you’d pay for it.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to find out, if you have that information. That’s why I asked you about guys who like to talk.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You don’t need to. Here’s what I’m looking for, okay? A regular. Ties you up, whatever. But this one, when he’s finished, he always tells you you’re nothing but a hole.”

  “A . . . ?”

  “‘Hole.’ Like in the ground. That’s the word I’m looking for. That specific word.”

  She gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. “I did have a guy once who—”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Alone? Who else would be there? I don’t do sets.”

  “He’d have a baby with him. A little baby. Maybe in a stroller.”

  “And I’d let him do me in front of a baby? What the fuck kind of woman do you think I am?”

  As I stepped across the threshold to the Prof’s room, I saw the nurse leaning over the armchair where Clarence had fallen asleep during his vigil. She shook the exhausted young man gently, said, “He is here now.”

  “My father . . .” Clarence was half dazed, half on fire.

  “Go look,” she said, flashing teeth whiter than heat.

  “Son?”

  “It’s—” both Clarence and I said as one, the “me” that would have ended the sentence never reaching our lips.

  “How long?” the Prof whispered.

  “Few weeks,” I said.

  “I got called over to the other side,” the old man said, more strength in each successive syllable, “but I wouldn’t take the ride.”

  “They never built the joint that could hold you, Prof.”

  “I remember . . . some of it. Caught a round. Went down. Thought I had my . . .”

  His voice trailed off.

  Clarence was slumped on the floor, shaking like a man with ague. His face was wet, but he didn’t make a sound. Not out loud, anyway. It was up to me, then.

  “They never came, Prof,” I said, talking out of the side of my mouth, like he’d first taught me on the yard. “Soon as they saw you holding your hammer, they ran like rabbits. By the time we got the rescue wagon over to you, the whole street was empty.”

  “For true?”

  “John Henry barred that door,” I said, bending close to kiss his cheek.

  “He’s back to himself,” Michelle was telling Clarence, much later. “He lost a few pints of blood, honey. But not a single brain cell.”

  “Thank you,” he said. We didn’t know who he was talking to. Didn’t ask.

  “You know that gorgeous nurse, Taralyn?” Michelle asked him.

  “The Island girl?”

  “No, the space alien,” she snapped. “Couldn’t you even bother to learn her name, you pig?”

  “I was not—”

  “I’m so sure. Well, anyway, Taralyn was there when I showed up a few hours ago. Just in time, I might add. The Prof was asking her how’d she gotten to be a nurse, with that disease she got. Taralyn thought he was still brain-fogged—I could see it on her face—but she got over that idea quick enough when that old rogue told her she needed to gain some weight if she wanted to haul the freight.”

  “My father only meant—”

  “Oh, for Hera’s sake!” Michelle exploded on the young man. “You think I need a translator? Besides, he was talking about you.”

  “Me? I do not—”

  “That old devil was telling her what you like. Bragging on you like you were a combination of Billy Dee and Denzel, only with Einstein’s mind, Trump’s money, and . . . well, he just went on.

  “‘Time I had me some grandbabies to play with,’” she growled, imitating the Prof’s tone to perfection. “‘But my boy ain’t looking for no toy.’ He was just . . . impossible! Told her she had the hips for it—can you imagine?—but, no matter what she had in her hope chest, she needed some more in her trunk.

  “I swear, Miss Taralyn couldn’t make up her mind between slapping him and kissing him. ‘That old man is bold,’ she says to me later. I told her, ‘Wait ’til you get to know his son.’”

  If you think a black man can’t blush, one look at Clarence would fix that.

  “He does not yet know?” he asked Michelle. Anything to get her off the scent.

  “About the leg? No, baby. Taralyn said she would tell him if we wanted. But she thought we’d—”

  “I’ll do—”

  Clarence and I, again speaking as one. But we both knew that one was mine.

  “I’m a star,” the slim young woman with vaguely Oriental eyes and short, dark hair told me. “Spanking videos—well, DVDs, really—earn a ranking, just like in any entertainment industry.”

  “I heard that,” I lied. Thinking she wore her hair short so she could put on whatever wig the role required, keeping Rejji’s words in mind:

  “She goes by Barbi. How yesterday can you get? Barbi Lacoste. It’s a pun, get it? You know what makes her such a ‘star’? You can find a nice round butt anywhere. But she’s got real pale skin, so the buyers don’t just see her get spanked, they see the results—makes it more real. And some want serious bruising for their money.

  “This one, I heard she can work all day! You know what that means? She’d have to take . . . God, I don’t know, hours of it. And she doesn’t need a whole lot of downtime, either, the way some do. I heard she gets a shot of novocaine in each cheek before—”

  “You’re so jealous,” Cyn interrupted, laughing.

  “Of that trash?” Rejji fired back. She turned away from Cyn, said: “Look, Burke, I know her kind. Maybe she loves it, maybe not. But you pay her enough, she could learn to love something else.”

  So I didn’t word-play with this Barbi. “You know who I am?”

  “I heard of you, that’s all.”

  “Then you know what I do. This isn’t personal. I want something. If you’ve got it, I’ll pay you for it. Either way, you’ll never see me again.”

  She lit another cigarette, fumbling a little with an intricate gold lighter.

  I sat there radiating no-threat, misting it like soft fog over her fear.

  “I don’t smoke much—except when I’m a naughty girl sneaking a smoke. On camera, you know? But I . . . want to think about this.”

  “I’m not coming back.”

  “You already said that.”

  “I did, but I don’t think you were listening. So let’s try it this way: if you want to get paid, it’s now or never.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll make a phone call, huh?”

  “No,” I said, just above a whisper. “You’re afraid I will.”

  “How did you find me?” she asked, snubbing out her cigarette. “Like you said, you’re famous.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You’re a for-real sub. When you get to pick your partner, you wouldn’t even think about cash. But when you don’t . . .”

  “You’re quick.”

 
“I can be.”

  “Do I do anything for you?”

  “Not yet,” I said, fanning a sheaf of centuries.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You’re quick, too.”

  “Sometimes, I think better after—”

  “This isn’t about thinking, Barbi. It’s about talking. Or not. You call it.”

  >That got me a through-the-eyelashes look. When I didn’t react, she said, “What do you want? And how much is it worth?”

  “A private client. The more little-girl you get, the better he likes it. Drops hints that what he wants is the real thing. Maybe even comes right out and says it.”

  “A little girl? You mean, not playing: a real little girl?”

  “Babies. He’d want to know if you knew someone who could connect him. Maybe he’s a black-market adoption guy, maybe—”

  “I’ve got a whole lot of them who want to spank naughty little girls. But it’s me they come to. I’m the little girl. I’m like an actress: you want a strict librarian, you want a brat, I’ve got the outfits and the attitude. None of that’s really about pain. You want to know what pain is, try getting yourself a Brazilian. So, yeah, I’ve got the costumes. And the lollipops. But Little Lolita would be too old for the guy you want, right?”

  “Right. I’m not looking for a client of yours—I want someone you would have turned down. A buyer, not a renter. Maybe even someone looking for a regular supply.”

  She blew a smoke ring expertly. Waited a beat. Said: “How about one who brings his own?”

  “Baby?” I asked casually, controlling my voice.

  “No. She’s maybe, I don’t know, five, six years old, like that. I mean, she’s his own kid, right? So if he wants her punished for doing something wrong . . .”

  “He pays you . . . ?”

  “To spank the little snot, that’s right,” she said, daring me to say anything. “Kink is kink. I don’t judge.”

  “Me, either,” I lied, thinking how Rejji had nailed this one cold. “And he does sound like he could be the right guy.”