Dead and Gone b-12

by Andrew Vachss

  “You’re alone?”

  “Yes.”

  He touched one finger to the tip of his nose, deciding. Then a twisting gesture with his other hand. I heard a heavy deadbolt slide back, tugged gently on the wrought iron, and the gate came toward me. I stepped inside.

  “After you,” he said, gesturing toward the staircase.

  The room hadn’t changed. Old-money heavy, thick, and dark. Only the computer marred the antique atmosphere—a different one from last time, with a much bigger screen that blinked into darkness as I glanced at it, defying my stare.

  “Notice anything new?” he asked, pointing to the chair I’d used last time.

  I sat down and eye-swept the room, playing the game. In one corner, a rectangular fish tank, much longer than it was high. I got up to look closer, feeling him behind me. The fish were all some shade of red or orange, with wide white stripes outlined in black.

  “This is different,” I said. “What are they?”

  “Clowns. The family name is Pomacentridae. They come in many varieties. The dark orange ones are perculas,” pointing at a fat little fish near the top. “And we have tomatoes, maroons, even some flame clowns—my favorites.”

  The flames had red heads with a white band just behind the eyes—the bodies were jet black. They stayed toward the bottom of the tank.

  “Saltwater fish?” I asked him.

  “Oh yes. Quite delicate, actually.”

  “They’re beautiful. Are they rare?”

  “More unusual than they are rare. Clowns get along wonderfully with other fish. That is, they never interact—they stay with their own kind, even in a tank.”

  “They don’t fight for territory?”

  “No, they don’t fight at all. Occasionally, a small spat among themselves, but never with another species.”

  I watched the aquarium. Each tribe of clowns stayed in its own section, not swimming so much as hovering. I saw his reflection in the glass fade as he went over to a leather armchair and sat down. I took the chair he’d first indicated, faced him.

  He regarded me with mild interest, well within himself, safe where he was.

  “You said you had something …?”

  “Yeah. The last time we talked, when you told me your … philosophy. About kids.”

  “I remember,” he said stiffly. “Nothing has changed.”

  “I know. I listened. You told me you loved little boys then. I came because I need to see how deep that love goes.”

  “Which means …?”

  “What you do, what others like you do, it’s all about love, right?”

  He nodded, wary.

  “You don’t force kids. Don’t hurt them … anything like that.”

  “As I told you. What is wrong with our behavior—all that is wrong with our behavior—is that it is against some antiquated laws. We are hounded, persecuted. Some of us have been imprisoned, ruined by the witch-hunters. Yet we have always been here and we always will be. But you didn’t come here to engage in philosophical discourse.”

  “No. Just to get things straight.”

  He got to his feet, turned his back on me. Tapped some keys rapidly on the computer, too fast for me to follow. He hit a final key with a concert pianist’s flourish. The machine beeped.

  He got up, went back to his easy chair.

  “You’ve been logged in. Physical description, time of arrival, your code name, everything. It’s all been transmitted. And the modem is still open.”

  “I didn’t come here to do anything to you.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Listen to me,” I said, leaning forward, keeping my voice low. “Can we not be stupid? I said I didn’t come here to do anything to you, and I meant it. But don’t fool yourself—the Israelis aren’t your pals. I don’t know what you did for them, what you do for them … and I don’t care. But all they are is a barrier. A deterrent, like a minefield. Somebody wastes you, they aren’t going to get even. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, quite well. You are saying, if I don’t give you information you want, you will kill me.”

  “That’s cute. You got enough for your tape recorder now? I’m not threatening you. Not with anything. I’m just trying to tell you something. And you should listen. Listen good. Maybe you don’t want this on tape.”

  He steepled his long fingers, regarding me over the top of the spire. I counted to twenty in my head before he moved a muscle. He got to his feet languidly, tapped the computer keys again. Then he sat down, waiting.

  “This is the truth, okay?” I told him. “You don’t have friends in high places. Not true friends. What you are is an asset, something of value. Everybody protects what they value. You know that good as anyone. Let’s say you have this valuable painting. Somebody steals it, you try and buy it back. But if there’s a fire, and it gets burned to ashes, all you can do is collect on the insurance. The Israelis can only protect you from the federales. They got no reach with the locals. What I have for you, it’s another barrier. Another layer of protection. Something you can’t get from your other friends.”

  He raised his eyebrows, didn’t say a word.

  I reached in my pocket, handed him an orange piece of pasteboard, about the size of a business card. He turned it over, held it up: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE.

  “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  “It’s not a joke. You got a lawyer, right? Probably got a few of them. Have your lawyer go over to City-Wide, speak to Wolfe—you know who she is?”

  “Yes.”

  “See if I’m telling the truth, then.”

  “I would get …?”

  “Immunity. Kiddie porn’s the only way you’re ever going down, right? The only real risk you take. You’re not going to get stung by Customs. And you don’t deal with strangers. So the only way it could ever happen is somebody drops a dime to save their own ass, and City-Wide does the search.”

  “There is nothing here.”

  I pitched my voice low, let him hear how deep the commitment really was: “You’re looking at the big picture, pal. And that’s a mistake. What you should be looking at is the frame, see?”

  He took a breath. Small, cold eyes on mine. “You couldn’t deliver,” he said quietly. “We know about Wolfe. People have … talked to her before. She’s not amenable to … whatever you propose.”

  “Have your lawyer talk to her again. Do it first, before you do anything for me, okay? I’ll tell you what I want, tell you right now, in this room. Just listen—I guarantee you it won’t be against you or your people. Give me a couple of days, have your lawyer go see her, all right? Nothing’s changed, you don’t have to do a thing. You decide, okay?”

  He steepled his fingers again. I counted in my head. “Tell me what you want,” he said.

  I lit a smoke, centering. I’d only get one shot. “We both know how it works, you and me. Child molesters …”

  His thin lips parted. I held up my hand in a “Stop!” gesture, going on before he could speak. “I’m not talking about your people now. There are people who molest children, right? I’m talking about rape. Sodomy. Hard, stick-it sex. It happens. Don’t go weak on me, now. I know what you do—I know what you told me. I could play it back for you, word for word. The kids you’re involved with, it’s love, right? There’s always true consent—you wouldn’t do a thing without it. I remember what you said. You’re a mentor, not a rapist. Listen good. I’m separating you now. Those people who say child sexual abuse is a myth—we know better, you and me. I’m not saying you do it—I’m saying it gets done. People do it, right?”

  “Savages do it.”

  “Right. Fathers rape their daughters, that’s no fantasy. Humans torture kids, make films of it, it’s not a myth.”

  “And you think we’re all the same, you think—”

  “No,” I said, eyes open and clear, calling on a childhood of treachery for the effortless lying that they made second nature to me before I was eight. “What you do, people could
argue about it, but I know you love children. Maybe I don’t agree with it, but I’m not a cop. It’s not my job. It’s the baby-rapers who make your life hell, isn’t that true? You love children. You’d be as angry about torturing them as anybody else would. Even if the laws changed, even if they eliminated the age thing, made it so a kid could consent to sex, then they’d be like adults, right? And rape is rape.”

  “Society calls it rape when—”

  “I’m not talking about statutory rape, here. Listen close. Stand up to it now. I’m talking about black-glove, hand-over-the-mouth, knifepoint rape. Blood, not Vaseline. Pain. Screaming, life-scarring pain. A little boy ripped open, maybe one of your little boys … you like that picture?”

  “Stop it! Stop it, you—”

  I dragged deep on my cigarette, staying inside. “That’s what I want to do—stop it. That’s what you’ve got to do. Help me.”

  “I …”

  “You know. You know it happens. They did it to my client. A little boy. They split him open like a ripe melon. He’s a basket case. And they videotaped it. A group. An organized group. Satanists, they call themselves, but we know what that’s about, don’t we?”

  “I don’t deal with …” His voice faded away, sweat streaking his high forehead, tendons cabling his hands, veins like wires along his throat.

  “I know you don’t,” I finished for him. “You wouldn’t do anything like that. Or your people. I know.” I spooled velvet over him, a cop telling a rapist he understands.… Those dirty cunts, displaying themselves, wiggling like a bitch in heat, fucking begging for it, right? Men like us, we understand each other. “But freaks like that, they have to be stopped. They bring heat, and heat brings light, you know what I’m saying? You know what I do. But it’s been years, and I’ve never made trouble for you, right? So help me now. ”

  “How could I—?”

  “The computer. They raped that little boy to make a commercial product. Not like your icons—not to remember a boy as he was—pictures to sell. The kid was a product, and they need a market. They’ll be on the board somewhere. You could find them. Your friends could find them. That’s all I want.”

  “And …”

  “And, one day, if you should happen to slip yourself, Wolfe will make sure you don’t fall.”

  He searched the pockets of his robe. Found a black silk handkerchief, patted his face dry, deciding. I waited, watching the dice tumble across the green felt in my mind.

  Finally, he looked up. “Tell me what you have so far.”

  “Leave him alone!” Gem’s voice. From somewhere outside … me.

  I shook my head. It wouldn’t clear. My eyes wouldn’t open, or I’d gone blind. But then my mind started to clear, and I realized my body would catch up—I’d been down there before. I concentrated on staying quiet, letting the air in my lungs bring me to the surface.

  They were all standing around me in a loose semicircle. Only Lune hadn’t moved.

  I took deep breaths through my nose, coming the rest of the way back.

  Everyone watching could see it happening. Maybe they knew what they were seeing, maybe not. Maybe some of them had been there, too.

  They all breathed in rhythm with me, helping.

  I felt Gem’s hand against my cheek, her little thumb against the bullet hole, rubbing it in tiny circles.

  My screen cleared. I knew where I was. Why I was there.

  And where I’d been.

  I turned to Lune. “You broke me out, brother,” I told him.

  His eyes looked wet. Or maybe my own were still cloudy from the trip.

  I told them the whole story, exactly as it had just flashed back to me. How the freak had stumbled into the trap I’d set and found out his “immunity” was as real as his “love” for little boys. I knew he went down, heard it was a pretty significant jolt.

  “He fits either side of the pattern,” Lune said. “He might want vengeance for what you did to him. Or he might believe you would be coming after him, anyway, once you connected him to Darcadia.”

  “Or both,” the Latina said.

  “Or both,” Lune acknowledged. “He knows you are dangerous in ways your ‘reputation’ does not indicate. And he knows you have resources within law enforcement. This Wolfe … the prosecutor who—”

  “She’s gone,” I told him. “Off the job. Fired for not kissing political ass. Wolfe wouldn’t be a problem to him.”

  “The way you describe her, she sounds like a fierce woman,” Heidi said. “What does she do now?”

  “She runs a private network. Mostly info-trafficking.”

  Clint and Minh exchanged looks, but it was Levi who put it into words: “And she still has deep law-enforcement contacts, yes?”

  “She does,” I admitted.

  “And if she came across this Darcadia thing, she’d know who to take it to, right?” Clint asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, seeing the tiles drop into the mosaic.

  “This man knows you have a … relationship with Wolfe, as well,” Lune said. It wasn’t a question.

  I just nodded.

  “And he must have considerable resources. Indicated by several authenticated factors in addition to his financing of the assassination attempt. But the Darcadia project has already taken in …?” he asked, turning to Heidi.

  “No less than twenty million. Double that would not be beyond probability,” the math girl answered.

  “I got it,” I told them all.

  And I did. It was a familiar song. I’d learned it as a tortured baby, and heard it the rest of my life.

  What it always comes down to.

  Them or me.

  Just before we were ready to pull out the next morning, I went to see Lune. He was in the command center, working at his charts.

  “Lune, will you do something for me?”

  “I would do anything for you,” he said. “If it wasn’t for—”

  “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be a walking target, stumbling around in the dark until they finally took me out,” I cut him off. “I know what to do now. That isn’t the favor.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Tell me, Lune. Tell me about your real parents.”

  “Why?” he asked, topaz eyes bright with something I’d never understand.

  “Because, as soon as this is over, I’m going to try and find them for you, brother.”

  And for the next couple of hours, I listened while the beautiful crazy man with the desperado’s searching heart told me all about his parents, who never were.

  We went out the same way we’d come in. Not the same route, but with Heidi and the Latina pack-muling, while Levi led the way, his sniper’s eyes checking the path. Indeh trotted alongside, happy to be out working again.

  Even though it was pretty much downhill, it was a good thing we had help lugging out our stuff. Lune’s crew had put together reams of material about Darcadia and the man behind it, and I was going to need it to get my work done.

  They walked with us all the way to where Levi had stashed the Land Rover. The Latina gave Gem a deep hug while Heidi shook hands with me and said, “Good luck, Burke.” Then she turned to hug Gem herself. The Latina turned her back and started walking away.

  Levi drove us down through the mountains, his Canary dog on the front seat next to him. He didn’t say a word until we got into Albuquerque.

  “Lune gave you a way to reach us,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “He did,” I acknowledged.

  “There are always two tasks. One is to find the path; the other is to walk the path. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no rule about walking the path alone,” he said.

  “I won’t be,” I promised him.

  “I would walk it with you, if you wish.”

  I was too stunned at the Indian’s dealing himself in to say anything. Gem didn’t have that problem. “We would be honored,” she said.

  On the trip back, I stayed inside myself
, thinking through that last exchange. Gem didn’t press me, letting me have my silence. Finally, on the last leg of the flight into PDX, I told her where we stood: “What you said to the Indian … There’s no more ‘we’ in this, little girl. Understand?”

  “It is not your choice,” she said, her lips drawn tight.

  “You know what I have to do now?”

  “Yes. I am not stupid.”

  “I have to go back to New York,” I said, ignoring her tart answer. “To my family. I need a plan. This is a bad guy. With bad people backing him up. When it’s over, I’ll—”

  “I will come to New York with you,” she announced, like it was something she planned to serve for dinner.

  “You don’t understand, Gem. I got no place to go to there. I’m supposed to be dead. I don’t know who’s looking … or even if anyone is. But I have to stay very low. You’d just be in the way.”

  “I will not. I have places I could stay there myself.”

  “No.”

  “No? You are my husband, not my master. I am going to New York. I will give you a phone number where you can find me there. I will be close, if you need me.”

  “Gem …”

  “In the meantime, it is better if we travel together. As I said before, that is not what people would expect of you.”

  Two weeks later, I watched Wolfe’s tango-dancer legs flash in the sunlight as she climbed out of her battered old Audi. Her Rottweiler stayed in the car. I was glad of that, and not just because I was afraid of the beast. Seeing people with their dogs …

  “I heard you were dead,” she said, sarcastically.

  “Sure. Are you telling me nobody’s buying?”

  “Oh, I think they are. Word is you got blown away by some drug dealers you’d ripped off a long time ago. Remember that?”

  Remember it? I’d done time for it when the wheels came off. And I’d done it the right way, too. Alone.

  I didn’t bother to answer her.

  “So what do you want?” she asked, gray eyes glacial.