Another Life

by Andrew Vachss

  “It’s called ‘micro-lending,’” I said to Clarence. “In some countries, you do it right, a man goes from watching his family starve to death to watching them grow up. Grow up into more than he ever dreamed they could.”

  “We’re not talking about Welfare, honey,” Michelle assured him, patting his hand. “This isn’t charity; it’s a bridge to another life. Nobody has to trade their dignity for food. No begging, no ass-kissing, no soup-kitchen religion.”

  “It ain’t sharking, either,” Gateman added. “Paying back a loan, that’s nothing but showing the guy who fronted you the coin that he was right to trust you in the first place.”

  “I cannot just travel around the world looking for—”

  “Come on, Clarence; you know what a susu is.”

  “That is different, mahn. A susu is no loan. All contribute, every month. Then, when your turn comes, you—”

  “Every group that comes here has some kind of way to do that,” I told him. “You think it’s only people from the Islands? The Koreans do the same thing. So do the Greeks. It’s not about where you come from; it’s about why you came.

  “I’m not talking about illegals in sweatshops, working off their bonds; I’m talking about people who came here to stay here. What do they all want? Same thing anyone else wants: something of their own.

  “So they work. You know what a Jamaican woman calls a man with two jobs?”

  “Lazy,” Clarence said, grinning.

  “Yeah. Some people come here with skills they never get to use; some people are born here, and they teach themselves. After a while, they got everything they need to make a go of working for themselves, except for . . .”

  Max pulled a wad of cash out of somewhere, dropped it on the table between us.

  “Right,” I echoed. “But what’re they going to do, get an SBA loan? Not for the kind of businesses I’m talking about.”

  “I thought you were—”

  “Not crime,” I cut him off. “Remember where you lived before you found the Prof? That neighborhood, I mean?”

  “Of course, mahn.”

  “You always loved that Rover of yours, right? But when you needed work done on it, you never brought it to some certified mechanic in a fancy shop, did you? Even when you finally had the money to take it anywhere you wanted, you stayed close to home. How come? Because you knew guys who could make a dead car get up and walk, am I right? Word-of-mouth beats the Yellow Pages, every time.”

  “This is true, but—”

  “That’s the way it is, all over,” I said. “Say you want some barbecue, okay? You know the best joint might not even have a sign on the door. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters . . . anything people need doing, there’s somebody knows how to do it. Do it good. They make their living because word gets around. Yes?”

  “Ah. Yes, we always have our own—”

  “And what about the craftsmen?” I overtalked him. “There’s men who can make miracles with their hands, build you a bookcase you could sell on Fifth Avenue for a fortune. But the only wood they’ll ever touch is the broom they push in some ware-house. This city’s full of silversmiths who scrub toilets. Women who could make you a copy of a designer gown from a damn picture, no pattern . . . and you’d never be able to tell it from the original. But the only sewing machine they’ll ever see is in a sweatshop. You got gardeners who could grow lemon trees on concrete, but they’ll never have any land to do it on. Right or wrong?”

  “This is all truth. But how could I—?”

  “My girlfriend Alitha, she found herself a man with substantial assets,” Michelle said, touching the Islander’s sleeve. “Now, she can get her hair done at one of those places that’ll lick your feet while they paint your toenails. But she’s still not letting anyone but Miss Jasmine touch her hair.”

  Clarence just looked puzzled.

  “Alitha’s a black girl,” Michelle explained. “Where she’s from, Miss Jasmine is famous. She doesn’t have a shop; you have to sit in her kitchen while she works. But, like your father always says, when you want magic, you go wherever the magician is.”

  “Yes,” Clarence said, gravely. “The man who works on my car—he is a genius. I would never think of allowing anyone else to touch my treasure. You are saying, if Miss Jasmine had her own shop . . .”

  “Damn, kid. If you cleared leather as quick as you think, those fancy suits of yours would look like Swiss cheese by now,” Gateman told him.

  “Oh, stop that!” Michelle scolded. “Any kid can get all speedy; it takes a grown man to know when to take his time. Especially with something real important.”

  Gateman blushed at Michelle’s triple-entendre. That’s my baby sister. She gave up a lot of things when she chose the Mole, but making macramé out of men wasn’t one of them.

  She used to do surgery, too. I still remember her, back when we were runaway kids. A little tranny, way south of a hundred pounds, back against an alley wall, facing a quarter-ton rough-off artist. He had a bicycle chain; she had her straight razor. “You hungry?” she hissed at him. “Come on, fatso! I got your diet, right here.”

  The tough guy hadn’t seen me in the shadows—if he had moved on her, I’d have planted my switchblade deep into his liver by the second step. But Michelle was so raged-up she couldn’t see anything but a pig who thought he could muscle her onto her knees. He wanted a quick piece, but Michelle wanted a piece of him.

  I came back to business, said: “What did you think, our big plan was for you to be some bodeguero? You’re not going to be building a little shop, Clarence; you’re going to be building a network. Instead of collecting interest on the loans, you’ll own a piece of every business you finance. A little piece, but there’ll be a lot of those. You’re going to have scouts all over the city. They know who to look for; the rest is up to you.”

  “Money-lending is a dirty business,” the Mole said.

  We all looked at him, waiting for more, as if we didn’t know better.

  “What Mole means is—” Michelle began, before a look from the father of her child made her blush.

  “That is why I would not be lending, I would be investing, yes?” Clarence said, dubiously. “But there would have to be a source of the money I invest in any legitimate business. How would I explain—?”

  “For government, very easy.” Mama spoke for the first time. “You own little building—maybe eight apartments. Plenty equity. Rents pay mortgage, leave plenty income. You use that money smart. Maybe buy special jade pieces. Some collectors, they pay big money. They tell government how much they pay. Tell insurance company even more.”

  “This is . . .” Clarence struggled for the words he needed. “But how could I do such things? Even if we could find this baby, Pryce would owe us nothing. What we are doing now, that is not earning; it is working off our own debt.”

  “You do what Burke tell you, build, how you say, ‘network’? Then you have cash, yes?” Mama asked.

  “But you have to start with cash, Mama. I cannot—”

  “Cash goes in bank. Not like our bank, one of theirs. Pay taxes, everything.”

  Clarence nodded, but confusion was all over his face.

  Mama tapped a long crimson fingernail against a glass to get our attention. “Americans always say stupid things like they saying smart things. ‘Money not grow on trees.’ Then why money always have roots?”

  “Yes, Mama,” the young man said, choosing his words carefully. “But an apartment building, that cannot exist only on paper.”

  Mama smiled, said, “On this paper,” and placed an official-looking document on the tablecloth in front of him.

  Clarence picked it up, handed it to Michelle. She glanced at it, then passed it around the table. It was the deed to a building a few blocks from where we had gathered.

  “Wedding present,” Mama said.

  Michelle started to cry. Clarence embraced her. Gratefully, so his own tears wouldn’t show.

  We all managed to look somewh
ere else.

  But we all saw the same thing.

  “How many of those do you have?” I asked Mama, after all the others had left.

  “Buildings?” she asked, innocently sipping her soup.

  “Cut it, Mama. I read that deed. It had Clarence’s name on it.”

  “So?”

  “So it had a date, too. On paper, he’s been collecting rents, paying taxes, making repairs, the whole deal . . . for years. That’s a CPA’s work. Clarence never knew any of this, which means there has to be a bank account in his name around somewhere, too.”

  “So?” she said, again.

  “You have property for all of us, don’t you?”

  “Only for children.”

  “Children? That’s not you, Mama. You don’t mean children, do you? You mean grandchildren, right? How long has Flower owned a building?”

  “Day born,” she said, calmly, as if no other possibility could exist.

  “Yeah. And Terry?”

  “Day born,” she repeated, patient with a slow learner like me. But I wasn’t that slow: “born” for Terry meant the day he came to Michelle and the Mole.

  “You never said a word. None of them know, do they?”

  She gave me an “are you actually that stupid?” look that women have been giving men since Adam bit the apple.

  “And their parents, they don’t know, either?”

  I got the same look.

  “Because your own children—like me and Max—they can’t own anything that has to be registered,” I said, feeling it hit me then. Hit me deep. What could a man like me ever own? I don’t even have a name. Neither does the Mole. Or Michelle.

  It must have shown on my face. “You feel bad?” she asked.

  “No, Mama.”

  “You think maybe I don’t—?”

  “You insult me,” I told her, just short of angry. Only her eyes stopped me from saying anything more. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never seen them go liquid before that moment.

  An attack-trained dog isn’t a “guard dog.” Just about any dog will protect its own territory. If a puppy grows up associating you with its only source of food, if you’re the one who plays with her, walks her, sleeps next to her, cuddles her . . . that’ll usually do it. Depending on her personality, the dog might snap at anyone who gets too close to you, even a friend. But she’s almost a sure bet to really rip anyone she thinks is hurting you.

  Some bark at anyone who comes near your house, but that’s a watchdog, not a protector. A burglar alarm might let you know someone’s coming; it won’t do anything to stop them.

  A true attack dog is one who can do no-provocation work. You sit down across from some guy, patting your dog as you talk things over. The dog lies next to you, looks half asleep. No threat displays, no growling, no showing teeth. My Pansy looked so dumb and friendly that strangers would walk right up to her. And I’d let them. But if I said the right word, or made the right gesture, she’d turn a guy into scraps of flesh even if she’d just licked his hand.

  When you think of an attack dog—a real one—think of a chain-saw covered in fur, with a remote-control on-off switch only one person can push.

  A lot of trainers use agitators, usually drunks willing to dress up in protective gear and taunt a dog until it goes for them. You make sure the dog always “wins,” build his confidence. Sounds good, but it’s really sending all the wrong messages. You don’t want your dog thinking that the smell of booze is a signal to hit. Or that biting a sleeve is how to bring a man down.

  That kind of stuff is good enough for K-9s, but we’re not cops. Where we live, we don’t use dogs to run down escapees. And we don’t deal with gunmen by telling them to fucking “Freeze!” either.

  We trained Rosie using some of Max’s advanced students; they had the speed and agility we needed. There’s no scholarships at Max’s dojo. You pay your own way, every way.

  We had to poison-proof her, too. That turned out to be one hell of a job; she was used to tearing into food without asking questions.

  We couldn’t train her out of her natural tendency to nail any stranger she decided was encroaching, so we taught her the signal for “friend,” instead.

  “I love this, boss. It’s like learning all this new stuff and watching her have fun at the same time.”

  “She loves it, too, Gate. That’s the trick to training any dog: make it fun. That’s why we always keep the sessions short. Rosie pays attention because she wants to, not because we make her. That’s why you always end a session with her getting it right, see?”

  “Yeah! And she likes to just hang out, too, bro. I swear to God, that little girl sees something on TV she don’t like, she lets me know.”

  “The only thing I’m worried about—”

  “I got that covered, boss. Look what Terry hooked up for me.”

  The chain he had in place behind the counter was now attached to a padded circle of steel that was screwed into a concrete block about the size of a small sofa. Gateman called, and Rosie trotted over. She waited patiently as he hooked her up.

  “She can’t get past the desk now,” Gateman told me. “Unless I press this little gadget.” He held up a box the size of a cigarette pack, with a button that took up most of its surface. “Watch.”

  The steel-circle collar popped off, and Rosie was free.

  “Got another of those buttons under the counter, one on the TV remote, another by the light switch . . . .”

  “So anytime—?”

  “Oh, hell yes, bro. Look, we can’t do this ‘friend’ thing with every rummy who staggers in here, right? The way it works now is, the door opens, Rosie lunges, but that chain holds her. We don’t want her killing some wino, but it don’t hurt that word gets around she might be behind the counter with me, either. And if I ever need her to really do some work, well . . .”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “It fucking is, boss. Terry even has it set so that the smoke alarm pops that collar off, too . . . just in case. Rosie, she’s the most amazing thing I ever seen. Looks like such a pretty little pup you want to pick her up and give her a kiss. But she could be munching on your guts before you even knew what hit you.”

  “And some women got the nerve to think they’re real bitches,” I said.

  We tapped fists, and Rosie followed me upstairs to our home.

  I didn’t use the red circle for this one. The answer wasn’t buried that deep. I had it somewhere, if I could only . . .

  “You have to let it just float over you,” I told Rosie. “Like balloons drifting by. When you see the one you need, you reach up and grab it. But you can’t be jumping around, understand? The balloons only float over you when the air is very still: you try chasing them, you cause the wind . . . and they sail away, out of your grasp.”

  I patted the couch. When Rosie jumped up and curled next to me, I went into the semi-trance I needed.

  They always get the idea from somewhere floated by, but I never reached for it. I knew the taproot; knew I was looking for people who do things they’ve done before. Rapists rape; that’s what rapists do. But the rapist who only targets blondes in red dresses and high heels is playing out some script. The general impulse is always there, but it takes a specific image to fire his synapses before he acts.

  Porn can do that for some of them—narrow the general impulse into some specific imagery. Once that happens, it’s that image they look for when they’re hunting.

  I never dealt with a sex-torture freak who didn’t have a porn collection of some kind. Some even created their own.

  The scrawny kid sported shoe-polish-black spiked hair with a green streak on one side, a leather vest, and subtle eyeliner. He was behind the counter inside the filthy-window storefront, thumbing through a manga porno-comic. He didn’t know me, but when I walked into the computer-repair shop empty-handed, he knew I was a cash customer. And I knew there wouldn’t be a security camera anywhere in the place.

  He looked across at m
e, waiting.

  “An armadillo walks into a disco,” I said. “He sees the big mirrored ball, but it’s too high for him to reach, so he walks out. Get it?”

  “No. What’s it supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” I told the Goth-geared slug.

  “Huh?”

  “Zen.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I get it.”

  “Nothing means something, because nothing means nothing. You with me?”

  “Everything has a meaning,” he said, nodding sagely.

  “Yeah. But not the same meaning to everyone. Some people might even think there’s enough work to keep a computer repair shop afloat, even though it’s cheaper to buy a new one than get an old one fixed.”

  A fear-glint showed in his eyes. Too soon. I brought him back to where he’d feel like an insider, not a target:

  “Some people, I tell them I got a friend’s who’s going to go all Shaolin Cowboy on their ass, they wouldn’t even know what I was talking about.”

  “What friend—?” he started to say, as Max materialized next to me.

  “This is Max the Silent,” I told him. “You see how he got his name? Now, I just let you in on a secret of mine, how about you let me in on one of yours?”

  He was a lot smarter than he looked. Or played. “Kill the lights,” he said. “That means we’re not open.” Then he led us into a back room, down the stairs, and into what looked like storage space.

  As we watched, he showed us everything they had for sale, all the time repeating that he was only a clerk, a functionary who filled orders someone else gave him. “I don’t even look at that stuff, man.”

  It took almost half an hour for me to accept that he didn’t have any of the Sheikh’s training program on a for-sale CD.

  I didn’t bother to tell him to keep our little discussion to himself.

  I couldn’t check out every porno shop in the city—that would take an army and a year. Besides, it’s not like the dull-eyed piles of jaundiced flesh who sat next to the cash registers actually knew the contents of every DVD on the shelves—that’s what the packaging is for.