Strega

by Andrew Vachss

  We were about an hour into the game, with Max ahead for a change, when Immaculata came into the room from behind Max. Her long black hair was pulled back into a severe bun and her face was scrubbed clean of makeup. She was wearing a white jersey sweatshirt that must have belonged to Max—it was big enough for two of her. She bowed to me in greeting as she put one hand on Max's shoulder. Her long nails were lacquered a shade of purple so dark it was almost black. Max reached up to touch her hand, but he never took his eyes from the cards. The first time Immaculata had walked into our clubhouse like she belonged there, I felt a stab of something—but it passed. She did belong there.

  "Hey, Mac," I greeted her, "we're almost done."

  Max reached across the table and snatched the score sheet from in front of me. His score was under "X" and mine was under "O"—we'd started playing tic–tac–toe first, years ago, and Max wanted to keep the same identifications just because he won the last time—Orientals are superstitious people. He handed her the sheet. His meaning was obvious— it was me who was almost done.

  That did it—being ahead was bad enough, but bragging about it was gross. I immediately knocked, going down with two aces and a deuce— four points. Max spread his cards: three queens, three fives, and three tens. The only other card was my missing ace—an under–knock—worth four boxes and fifty points and the fucking third column too. The miserable thug couldn't keep the smile off his face as he handed me the pencil to total things up. Mac went to the hot plate in the corner to make some tea for her and Max—there was apple juice in the refrigerator for me. Max had cut deeply into his ongoing deficit with that last score.

  I made the sign of a man rolling dice with his eyes closed to show that it was pure dumb luck, and Max made the sign of a man playing the violin to show how sorry he felt for me and my dismal lack of skill.

  Max stashed the score sheet and lit a cigarette. He used to light up whenever he needed only one more card for gin. As soon as he realized I'd caught on to it, he just plain stopped smoking while we were playing— a typical fanatic. Immaculata brought the tea and the apple juice on a little tray and lit a cigarette of her own. I made the sign of talking into a telephone, telling Max I needed to plug into the phone system of the architects who had the building next door. I started to get up and Max held out his palm in a "stop" gesture. He turned to Immaculata, pointed to me, and waved his hands in front of his chest, fingers curling back toward his face. He was telling her to get on with it—whatever it was.

  "Burke," she said, "I'm having a problem with my work. Max insists you could help me with it," she said, in a doubtful voice.

  "I'll do what I can," I told her.

  "I'm not sure there's anything you can do," she said. Her English was perfect, the mixture of French and Vietnamese in her voice sounding exotic but not foreign. "When I interview abused children…about what happened to them…like you saw with the dolls?"

  I just nodded, listening.

  "Well, if they're old enough to really talk, what I have to do is get it all on tape. You can't take notes…you just distract them if you do…they want to know what you're writing down. And we may have to use the tapes in court. You understand so far?"

  "Sure," I said.

  "Anyway, for these children, what we're working on is something we call 'empowerment.' It just means that sexually abused children have no sense of power over their own lives…these children are always in fear—they never feel really safe. The goal is for them to eventually be able to confront their abusers, and feel safe while they do it, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "So they have to feel in control. They have to believe that they're on top of the situation—even when they're working with the therapist."

  "How come they don't feel in control when the freak isn't in the room with them anymore?" I asked her.

  Immaculata looked at me, two long dark fingernails against her cheek, thinking. "Wait here, okay? I want to show you something."

  She patted Max on the shoulder a couple of times, probably their signal that she was coming right back, and went out the way she came in. Max leaned back in his chair, looked over at me, and moved his fingers on the table top to make the sign of a trotting horse. He looked a question at me. I nodded in agreement. Sure, I was still betting on the horses—what was I supposed to do, open a fucking IRA? Max made the sign of opening a newspaper and glancing through it, and looked another question at me. He wanted to know which horse was the latest object of my interest. I shrugged—I didn't have a paper with me. The bastard moved his two fists like he was holding a steering wheel—didn't I have one in the car? Okay. I trudged out to the Plymouth, snatched the Daily News off the front seat, and went back to our clubhouse. I sat down and opened it to the right page as Max drifted around behind me. I ran my finger down the page until I came to the seventh race, showed him Flower Jewel, and waited. The line of Flower Jewel showed 8–4–3 reading across from her name—she had finished dead last a week ago, fourth the time before that, and third before that. Max pointed to the "8," put four fingers on the table, and moved them like a pacer would run, the two outside legs forward, then those on the inside—that's why they call them side–winders. He paced halfway across the table, then broke into a gallop—the two front legs moving together. He looked a question at me. Yeah, I told him, the horse had broken stride in the last race. I held up my right fist to indicate my horse, started to move it across the table in a circle. Then I had my left fist cut in front, with the right veering off to the side. My horse had broken stride, but she had been interfered with by another—not her fault.

  Max smiled knowingly. He rubbed the first two fingers and his thumb together in the sign for money, shrugged his shoulders, and spread his hands to ask how much I'd invested. I held up two fingers. Max reached over and pulled one toward him—he wanted to take half my action. The last time he'd done that was the first time he'd ever bet on a horse—back when Flood was here. And we'd won. I hadn't hit a horse since— maybe my luck was changing. But it was probably just that Max was standing up with me. He knew I'd been blue, and his own good fortune in finding Immaculata made him feel even worse for me.

  When I wrapped up my sentence for the heroin scam, Max took me over to the warehouse and handed me an old airline carry–on bag. It was stuffed with money—almost forty thousand bucks. He took a paper packet of sugar out of his pocket, tore it open, and dumped the sugar on the table. He spread it flat, then divided it precisely in half with one fingernail. He swept half off the table into his hand, and pointed to the other half, and then to me. I got it—from the day I got arrested, he'd put away half of every score he'd made and saved it for me so I wouldn't have to start all over when I got out.

  I didn't know what to say. Max cupped one hand on the table and used two fingers to burrow through it. The Mole. He put one hand on his chest, and spread the other wide in a gesture of impassioned oration. The Prof. The bag was half of everything they'd all made while I was inside. Then he touched his heart with his fist, and extended an open hand to me. Telling me that money didn't square the debt—he would always owe me.

  I've done time with a lot of gangsters over the years. The cream of the crop, the real elite, were the "made men," the guys who get to cut their fingers and swear undying loyalty to some boss. They keep their mouths shut and do their time, just like the movies say. When they finally make it back to the streets, they get a kiss on both cheeks and a few bucks from their boss. And they call themselves "wiseguys."

  31

  IT WAS another few minutes until Immaculata came back. She had an armful of paper with her.

  "Look at this," she told me, and sat down next to Max.

  They were kids' drawings: stick figures, crude crayons—they didn't mean anything to me.

  "So?" I asked.

  "Look at them again, Burke. Look closely."

  I lit a cigarette and went through them again. "How come the pictures of the kids have no arms?" I asked her.

  "Tha
t's it. Now you see. The children have no arms. And see how small they are next to the big figures? Look at this one…"

  It was a picture of a little child looking at a giant penis pointed at her face. The child had no arms—her mouth was a straight line.

  "She's trapped," I said.

  "Yes. She is without power, you understand? She is small, her abuser is huge. The penis is her whole world. She has no arms to fend it off. She has no legs to run. She's in a cage."

  "How do you break her out?" I wanted to know.

  Immaculata took a deep breath. "Some of them never do break out. We have to give them back a sense of control before that happens. If we start too late, they look for control with drugs, or they try suicide. Or they surrender."

  "Surrender?"

  "To the feelings. It's not just the loss of power. Children have sexual feelings too. If you awaken them too early, they get out of control, and the kids themselves look for sex…it's what they think is love."

  "Fucking maggots."

  Immaculata didn't say anything. Max reached across and took a couple of the wooden matches I used for my smokes. He broke one until it was about a third the size of the rest, and put it next to a full–size match. Then he took the big match and snapped it off until it was even smaller than the first one. He looked at Immaculata.

  "It won't work. To the child, the abuser is always all–powerful. You can't make him small—you have to make the child big."

  I took the tiny piece of match that was supposed to be the parent, lit another match, and touched it to the little piece. It went up in flames.

  "That won't work either, Burke. You can make the perpetrator disappear from the earth, but not from inside the child's mind."

  I didn't say anything. Immaculata's face was calm, her eyes watchful but showing nothing. I looked at Max—his face was a concrete mask. He wasn't buying this any more than I was.

  "What's this got to do with the tape recorder, Mac?" I asked her.

  "In my office, the child has to not just be safe, she has to feel safe. She has to learn she can control parts of her life. She has to learn she has the right to say 'No!' Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Most of the kids have been involved in a conspiracy of silence. The offenders make them promise not to tell—keep it a secret. Or they make the kids believe something terrible will happen if they do. So I tell them if there's something they don't want to go on the tape recorder, all they have to do is reach over and turn it off. So they are in control."

  "And they turn it off when they get to the stuff you need for court?"

  "Sometimes they do," she said.

  I lit another smoke and closed my eyes, buying some time to think. When it came to me it was so simple I was sure they'd already thought of it.

  "Use two tape recorders," I told Mac.

  "Two tape recorders?"

  "Sure. The one on top of the table—the one the kids can turn off if they want, right? And you keep another one out of sight, maybe under the table or something. And you let that one run all the time. So even when they turn off the first one, you still have everything on tape."

  Immaculata put the two fingernails back against her cheek, thinking it over. "That would be dishonest," she told me.

  "Better to let some scumbag walk away laughing?" I asked.

  She waited a second or two. "No," she said. And a smile broke across her lovely face. "That's what we'll do."

  Max made an "I told you so" gesture to his woman, now smiling himself. Immaculata reached over and squeezed my hand, and Max's smile broadened.

  Immaculata was the first woman ever to come into our clubhouse. She'd be the last. Like all truly dangerous beasts, Max would mate for life.

  I left them with each other and went in the back to make my call.

  32

  IT WAS just getting dark as I walked through the catacombs behind the warehouse. The cellar was one of many that ran under all the buildings on the block. The City Planning Office sold me a set of the plans years ago, and the Mole figured out how we could make all the basements connect to each other by drilling a few holes. It took almost a month for us to finish, but once you got to the warehouse basement, you could get out a dozen different ways. We originally did it just in case we had to leave quickly, but once we were under there, the Mole showed me how we could tap into the telephone lines in the other buildings. The warehouse is owned by some corporation Mama Wong set up, but it belongs to Max. His temple is upstairs, and the rest of the space is for whatever we need. For Mama, it's a warehouse. For me, it's the post office.

  I found the metal footlocker, rooted through it past the stuff we kept there—coats, hats, glasses, anything to make you look different. I found the field telephone and the set of alligator clips. I walked through our cellar into the next basement. Above us was a firm of Chinese architects, and they never worked late. I clipped the field phone onto the junction points the Mole had shown me and I got a dial tone right away. I used the little box that looked like the face of a calculator and punched out the number Julio had written down, lit a cigarette, and waited.

  I didn't have long to wait—she must have been sitting by the phone. "Hello." It was the redhead.

  "Hey, baby," I leered into the mouthpiece, "you free tomorrow night?" She got it right away.

  "Sure. What time will you pick me up?"

  "I'm going to be working late. I'll meet you, okay?"

  "Where?"

  "Same place—nine o clock," I told her, and unplugged the phone.

  I put everything back where it was supposed to be and walked back rough the cellar. Our clubhouse was empty. I fired up the Plymouth, hit the garage–door switch, and backed out into the alley. I got out to go back inside and close up, but I saw the garage door slide down. Max was on the job.

  I drove over to Mama's. I needed some food for Pansy and an alibi for tomorrow night.

  33

  IT WAS past midnight before I was ready to go back to the office. If Mama didn't hear from me by the same time tomorrow, she'd know the meeting had been a bust. Mama would tell Max, and call Blumberg to get a bondsman over to Arraignments in Queens. If I wasn't in jail, Max would go see Julio.

  One more call to make and I could bring Pansy her Chinese food. I found a pay phone off Atlantic Avenue.

  A young woman with a sweet West Indian accent answered. "A & R Wholesalers. We never close."

  "Is Jacques around?" I asked her.

  "Please hold one moment, sir."

  It was cold in the phone booth, but the man's voice was as sunny as the Islands.

  "Yes, my friend. May we be of service?"

  "Jacques, this weather is really turning ugly out here, you know? I think I can move some of those portable electric heaters if I can get a good price."

  "We may have some in stock, mahn—I'll have to check the inventory. And the price…it depends on how many you want, like always."

  "If I can get some tonight, I'll take a dozen and try them out."

  "That's not a big order, my friend. The more you take, the less they cost."

  "I understand. But I'm not ready to risk a lot of capital—I have to see how they move this year, okay?"

  "Whatever you want, mahn—we are here to serve. You are familiar with our line?"

  "Sure. Now, look, I only want new merchandise, still in the original cartons."

  "Of course, of course. You understand this too affects the price."

  "I understand."

  "Now, we have a good supply of the new automatic models—the ones which shut off by themselves if they tip over?"

  "No, I only want the old–style. They throw plenty of heat."

  "Yes, my friend," said Jacques, "but many customers prefer the advanced safety features."

  "The new ones are too complicated for me. I want a product I can trust."

  "We have just what you want, mahn," he assured me. "Do you at least want the ones that run on both twelve hundred and fifteen hundred watts?"<
br />
  "Yeah, that's a good feature. Can I pick them up tonight?"

  "We never close, my friend," he said. We both hung up.

  I drove down Atlantic toward Queens. Soon it turned into a West Indian neighborhood. I turned left on Buffalo Avenue, past the abandoned bar on the corner, until I saw the storefront restaurant. There was a sign for Tower Isle Jamaican Meat Patties in the window, a pair of black Cadillacs parked in front. I turned into the driveway and pulled around the back. When I had the Plymouth's headlights aimed at the back door, I flashed the lights three times and turned them off.

  The door opened and a man came out, both hands in the pockets of a big leather apron. I had the window down and my hands on the sill by the time he got close enough to see me.

  "Jacques is expecting me," I told him.

  The man said nothing. He backed away, still facing me, until he was inside the door. I lit a cigarette and got ready to do some waiting.