Blossom

by Andrew Vachss

  "Satisfied?"

  "Yeah. What was it like?"

  "What was what like?"

  "Africa. I thought of doing that kind of work myself. Merc stuff. Pay's good?"

  "Good enough."

  "Must be heaven. Killin' niggers and gettin' paid for it too."

  One of his boys laughed. I swiveled my head slowly, catching his eyes. Weasel. He stopped laughing, waiting for his cue, not knowing the script.

  "You go by Mitchell Sloane?" Matson asked. So he wrote down the Lincoln's license number. Or Revis was more helpful to him than just running my prints.

  "I go by a lot of things."

  "Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Where'd you hear I was in the market for some hardware?"

  "Around. I heard you were a serious man. Had serious business."

  He nodded sagely, basking in the praise. "That's the truth. Lots of groups like ours around, but we're the real thing. Everybody knows that. It ain't just the niggers, you know. Maybe it ain't as bad as Jew York yet around here, but we're workin' on it. Got homos in the government, Jew–bastard IRS on our necks, no room for a white man to breathe anymore."

  "That's what I sell. Breathing room."

  "I got you. You know, a nigger once came in here. Right in the fuckin' door. Like he owned the place. Lickin' his ape lips at the girls. Now that don't happen no more. The word's out. We've been growing. Slow but steady. Have to be real careful, who you let in."

  "Yeah, the feds are everywhere."

  "Undesirables too. You hear about Patterson's crew, down in Crown Point? They had a guy in there, ranking member and all. Turned out he was a Jew. Patterson's a fuckin' fool—he shouldn't be in a leadership position in the movement."

  "How's he supposed to know, who's a Jew?"

  "There's ways. We got our eye on them. On some of them. Send 'em a message one of these days."

  Virgil watched, bored.

  The Nazi's voice droned on.

  White Noise.

  I cut in at an angle, merging with his rap. Talked his talk. Guns and blood. Freedom for the Race. I let him bargain me into a half dozen Uzis, five grand for the package.

  "You use these, the cops'll think it was some nigger dope dealers, right?"

  "Yeah!"

  "COD."

  "Deal. I'll meet you right here on…"

  "I look stupid to you, I'm gonna ride around with a truckful of a life sentence?"

  "The cops won't bother this place."

  "It's not the locals I'm worried about."

  "So where, then?"

  "Chicago. I got a warehouse in Uptown. You drive in, drive out."

  His eyes went crafty with the chance to impress his punks. "No way, partner. Not across a state line."

  I pretended to give it some thought. "Okay. It'll take me a few days to get the pieces together from my source. Give me a number, I'll call you. We'll make the exchange on the road. Wherever you say."

  "I'll give you our Hot Line. When you call, you get our message. The Race Word. There ain't no beep, but it's an answering machine. When you hear a voice saying White Power! that's the sign–off. Just leave your message after that, I'll get back to you."

  "Good enough."

  The bouncer's eyes tracked me and Virgil out the door.

  128

  I HANDED BLOSSOM the pistol. "You better hang on to this, find a safe place for it." Thinking of Revis.

  "Okay, boss."

  "Be careful with it—it's loaded."

  She popped the cylinder, pointed the barrel at the ceiling as the cartridges dropped into her palm. "I know about guns. From the Army. M–16, M–60, grenades…we even practiced with LAWs."

  "You were in the Army?"

  "Don't look so surprised, baby. They paid for medical school. It was a good deal. And Mama didn't leave us a fortune. Violet and I agreed, we'd save the money for Rose. Pay her way through school."

  I held her against me until she stopped trembling.

  129

  LATER, THE PHONE RANG. Answering machine picked up.

  Virgil's voice: "He went to the same place. Alone."

  130

  TWO HUNDRED NAMES. For the first time, I missed New York. If I was home, if I could tap into my machinery, call in some markers, work the angles, make some trades…I could narrow them down. Find out which of the kids had later died, gone to prison, been institutionalized, moved away. But out here…I was working in the dark.

  I needed a match.

  131

  CALLED BOSTICK. "Can you check some real estate for me?"

  "If it's local, sure. Take about an hour."

  I gave him Matson's address.

  132

  IN VIRGIL'S back yard, night falling.

  "She checked the place again?"

  "Yep. Reba says he lives alone, looks like."

  "The house is in his name. Nobody else on the mortgage. He could have a girlfriend living there. Or maybe one of his Nazi pals. We'll play whatever's there."

  "He's got that dog, though."

  "It's a long shot. We can't wait for him to be somewhere else. Have to go in while he's there, brace him, take a look. He's gonna guess who we are, tell his pal the cop."

  Virgil shrugged. "Kids go to bed early. I'll be up, watching TV with Reba. Lloyd too."

  "He's dirty anyway. Can't see him going to court. And I'll have a message for him, he does that. Let me do the talking, it comes to that."

  "Okay."

  "We'll leave Lloyd in the car, like last time."

  Virgil nodded. I caught a look on his face. "What's wrong?" I asked him.

  He dragged on his smoke. "I don't hold with killing dogs, brother."

  "Matson, he's an amateur. Probably thinks the way to make a good watchdog is to starve him. I'll take care of it."

  133

  "I NEED TO knock out a dog."

  Blossom didn't change expression. "What kind of dog? How fast?"

  "A shepherd. Figure, eighty, ninety pounds. He needs to go down pretty quick, stay down for at least a half hour."

  "Can you use a needle?"

  "No. Unless you got a tranquilizer gun lying around."

  "Let me look."

  She came back with a black medical bag. Opened it on the countertop, starting stacking little vials and bottles in a row. I leaned over her shoulder to watch. Opened a bottle, spilled out some tiny round orange pills. Cupped a handful. Stared down at them. SKF T76 in black letters.

  "You know what those are?" she asked.

  "Yeah. Thorazine. Fifty milligrams."

  "How come…?"

  "When I was a kid…before I learned to keep inside myself…they used to give it to me."

  "You were in a psychiatric hospital?"

  I didn't like the sound of my own laugh. "I was in what they called a training school."

  "You still remember…?"

  I nodded, remembering it all, saying nothing. It was always dark in there. The gym was fear, the shower room was terror. Nothing clean, nothing private, nothing safe. Some kids ran. They brought them back. Some found another way to go—a swan dive to the concrete, a belt tied around a light fixture. Viciousness was worshiped, icy violence was God. When the rage–dam broke inside me, I didn't know when to stop. Stabbing inmates was okay, but not fighting a guard. So they went to the Thorazine. Chemical handcuffs. They didn't work the same on everyone. This one boy in there with me, the stuff worked on him like an anabolic steroid—he raged against the chemicals inside his body so his life was an isometric exercise. It got so he could crush a man's life with his hands. And that's what he did. Me, all I wanted was to learn to ride the storm.

  The prisons were full of men they trained in those training schools. By the time I went down, I was ready.

  Blossom was quiet, pawing through her supplies. Then: "Here it is." Holding up a stainless–steel needle, encased in plastic.

  "Here's what?"

  "Secobarbital sodium. Like Seconal, you know what that is?"

  "Slee
ping pills."

  "Like that, but this is damn near an anesthetic dose. It's in Tubex. One–shot needles, preloaded. Just inject them right into whatever the dog's going to eat."

  "Is that enough?"

  "There's a grain and a half in each cartridge. I've got four here. Enough for a whole kennel."

  "How long would it take to work?"

  "Depends. It has to go through the GI tract. He laps it right up, runs around some to get his blood pumping, maybe five, ten minutes."

  "Okay. You got any chopped liver around?"

  "Chopped liver?"

  "Like you get in a deli. Never mind. I'll be back in a little while."

  134

  TWO MORE DAYS of working with the clips, trying to match an address for any of the "Family Reunified—Closed" cases with something close to one of the shootings.

  Nothing.

  135

  TWO A.M., at the end of Matson's block. Lloyd at the wheel, Virgil and I in the back seat, me on the passenger's side.

  "Tell me again," I said to the kid.

  "I drove by last night. Like you said. The dog didn't do nothing. So I got out of the car, walked up to the fence. He started barking like all holy hell, snapping at me. I get in, drive away. Wait ten minutes. On my watch. I drive back, he's quiet again. Simmered right down."

  "Okay. Put it in gear, cruise by slow. You see anyone, see another car, just keep on going."

  Virgil gave him a couple of hard pats on the shoulder and the Chevy rolled forward.

  No lights on in the house. The dog's sleek shape loomed in the shadowed front yard. Lloyd slowed to a stop. I got out, the softball–sized glob of hamburger with its chopped–liver core in my gloved hand. The dog hit the fence, snarling. I slapped the meat against the chain link with an open palm, feeling his frenzied gnawing against my glove as I stuffed it through. The dog grunted his rage, clawing at the fence.

  I backed away, jumped in the car. No lights went on in the neighboring houses—they'd probably heard all this before.

  136

  WE GAVE IT fifteen minutes. The dog was lying in the front yard. He didn't stir as we approached. Virgil worked the bolt cutters and the padlocked chain gave way. We were inside. I watched the dog with my pistol. He didn't watch back.

  The Nazi had a lock on his back door even I could open. Door chain lasted one snip of the bolt cutters.

  We reached inside our navy watch caps, pulled down the pantyhose masks, adjusted our eyes to the gloom. No carpet on the floor, but our rubber–soled shoes didn't send a warning.

  Downstairs: a kitchen, dirty dishes in the sink; a living room with a console TV, staircase.

  No basement.

  Up the stairs, linoleum runner down the middle. Bathroom at the top, door standing open. Another room with file cabinets, desk, telephone with an answering machine next to it.

  He was sleeping on his side in the other room, snoring softly. We stepped inside, Virgil across from his face, covering him with my pistol. I took the heavy gym sock filled with hard–packed sand from my jacket pocket, wrapped my fist around the knotted end, swung it back and forth for balance, nodded to Virgil.

  Virgil prodded Matson in the chest with the pistol. The Nazi stirred, said "Wha…" and propped himself on one elbow just as I slammed the sock into the top of his head. I spun back for another shot, but he was down.

  I handed Virgil the sock, pulled out my flashlight, and went into his office.

  It didn't take long. There wasn't much. Stacks of magazines. Guns and girls. Loose piles of hate sheets on cheap newsprint: swastikas, drawings of blacks, Negroid features exaggerated to make them apelike, Christian crosses and devil–lyrics to racist songs. Three rifles on wood pegs stood ready on the wall.

  The file cabinets were mostly empty. Except for some personnel folders he must have brought home from his job. One for each freak. Writing on the front in thick black Magic Marker. One folder had two stars. I popped a green plastic garbage bag from my jacket, snapped it open, threw in the files.

  One look around before I left. Nothing else worth taking. I found his Magic Marker. Picked a clean piece of wall. Wrote: We Know Where You Live.

  I threw the bag over my shoulder, checked on Virgil. He was still holding the gun on Matson's body.

  We went past the dog, closed the gate gently. Stepped into the Chevy and Lloyd motored away.

  Virgil looked back over his shoulder. "I hope that dog's gonna be all right," he said.

  137

  IT WAS ON the news in the morning. He hit again. Just on the other side of the dunes. Three couples were parked, a little past midnight. Shots zipped out of the night, puncturing the last car in the row. The girl was dead, the boy wounded, on the critical list.

  Nothing about Matson.

  138

  I CALLED SHERWOOD from the Lincoln. Met him in the Illiana Raceway parking lot. The place was quiet—they only run on Saturdays. If he was wasted from working all night, he didn't show it.

  "We're going to shut him down, put him in a box," the big detective said.

  "You want to talk to Lloyd? About the shootings last night?" I asked the big man, watching his face.

  "No. He's got an alibi for last night, doesn't he?"

  I met his eyes. "Probably does. How you gonna shut this freak down?"

  "We close the parks. Should of done it before, after the first ones. Have squad cars cruise the lovers' lanes, all the parking spots. Chase the kids away. No parking after dark, period. Stupid fucking kids, you think we wouldn't need to be telling them."

  "Hormones."

  "Yeah. I ain't that old. But they don't get it, these kids. You ever been in combat?"

  "Yeah."

  "You think about sex while you were getting shot at?"

  "Okay, I get it."

  "We got nothing else to do. We must of rousted every ex–con with a sex sheet in the county. Blank. I'm beginning to think, maybe your idea wasn't so fucked up."

  I raised my eyebrows.

  "Some gun–freak degenerate motherfucker. One of those Nazi–boys. You know, I'd like it to be one of them."

  "Me too."

  He lit a cigarette. "Notice you haven't been smoking, last couple of times."

  "You don't miss much."

  "I'm missing something here. Someone."

  "I got an idea. Maybe not much of one. Something. You can really shut the parking places down?"

  "Oh yeah. Cold fucking turkey."

  "I got to take a look at something. I'll call you soon."

  139

  I WANTED to look at Matson's files, but I'd bolted out of Blossom's house as soon as I'd heard the news. One stop to make first.

  The phone picked up in the junkyard.

  "Mole," I said, "I need a shark cage."

  140

  MATSON was one selective Nazi. His files showed nine "actives," seventeen "affiliates," three "candidates," and thirty–four "rejects."

  I looked closer. The "actives" were listed by "MOS." Rifleman, Communications, Infiltration. Every military occupation except Intelligence. Between the arcane symbols and the lavish praise for the "warriors," a collection of life's losers lurked, waiting for their flabby Armageddon.

  The "affiliates" were members of other groups who occasionally came to meetings or corresponded. About half lived in southern Illinois or Indiana, the others were scattered throughout the country.

  "Candidates" turned out to be humans who Matson thought had potential. One human's credential was a news clipping saying he had been arrested for spray–painting filth on a synagogue.

  And the "rejects" were a clump of former "candidates" whose hostility wasn't exclusively confined to blacks. One was rejected after he fractured the jaw of one of Matson's boys in a bar. In his black Magic Marker, Matson neatly printed Unsuitable for Service across the file. Most of his other reject–reasons weren't so sweetly phrased: Jew! Suspected Homosexual. Suspected Government Agent.

  I went through them again. Carefully.<
br />
  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  Blossom came into the kitchen, face glowing from her shower. Dark purplish band across her throat. My fingerprints drew my eyes.

  "It's okay, baby. I'll be pretty as a prom queen in a few days." Her voice was a sugar–edged rasp.

  "Yeah."

  "Yeah! Just stop it, okay? I know what happened, why it happened."

  "Blossom…"

  "You want a cigarette?"

  "What?"

  "Your time's up. A week, like we agreed. And you been such a good boy too. Not one drag, huh?"

  "How would you know?"

  "I can smell it. All over you. On your hands, in your hair. You've got nice thick hair for such an old man."

  "It won't be a week until tonight."

  "That's okay. You're off the hook. I lost. I know you could do it now. For as long as you wanted."

  "I wish I could do this."

  She fumbled in her purse, brought out a fresh pack of smokes. My brand. Slit the cellophane with a fingernail, struck a match, got it going. She walked over, pushed her shoulder against me, sat in my lap, her legs dangling over the sides like a kid on a boat. Held the cigarette to my lips. "Maybe this'll help you think."

  141

  BLOSSOM WOKE ME with a quick tap on my chest, standing her distance. "Supper's ready, honey."

  I couldn't taste the food.

  142

  LATER THAT NIGHT.

  "Blossom, can you make a list of all the names from the child abuse stuff? Just the names and dates of birth?"

  "Sure."

  I went back to the Nazi files, grinding at the paper with my eyes.

  Blossom's list was printed in a clean, sharp hand, slightly slanted to the right.

  "Can I read you some names, you check to see if any of them are on your list?"

  "I should have alphabetized them."

  "It's okay, it's short."