Down Here

by Andrew Vachss

  “You seemed to know your way around last night,” she said, smiling.

  “You’re confusing skill with motivation,” I said.

  She blushed prettily. Opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, as if biting off whatever she was going to say.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s try it another way. Was John very protective of you?”

  “Like how?”

  “I don’t know. Like giving your boyfriends the third degree when they came to the house.”

  “No,” she said. “He was never protective.”

  “You weren’t close?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Each had your own lives, huh?”

  “Yes. We even went to different schools.”

  “Parochial school?” I guessed.

  “I did. He didn’t,” she said.

  Her answers were getting shorter, more clipped. I shifted gears, asked, “How did your family react when he was first arrested?”

  “My mother had been dead for years,” she said. “So she never knew about any of it. And my father had already retired, moved to the Sun Belt. I don’t know if my brother told him what was going on at the time. Maybe he didn’t—my father’s got a bad heart.”

  “So that left you.”

  “Not really,” she said. “I was just starting to make headway in my job, trying to put enough money together to risk a few little moves of my own. Working eighteen-hour days, sometimes. I was frazzled, a real wreck. And, to be truthful, I never took it seriously.”

  “Him being charged with rape?” I asked, allowing just a trace of disbelief into my voice.

  “I thought it was some kind of mistake,” she said. “I was so sure I’d get a call from him saying they realized they had the wrong man.”

  “Did you go to the trial?”

  “I was supposed to,” she said. “I even arranged for some time off. But I got the dates wrong. By the time I showed up, the jury was already out.”

  “You were in the courtroom when they came in with the verdict?”

  “Yes. It was . . . it was about what you’d expect. A shock.”

  “Did they let you speak to him before they took him away?”

  “I was too stunned to even move,” she said. “It was like, I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, he was gone.”

  “Did you visit him in prison?”

  “No. John wrote and asked me not to. He said the visiting conditions were disgusting. The guards were very abusive to women. He didn’t want me there. Besides, he expected to be released any day.”

  “He never lost faith?”

  “Never once. But, with John, it isn’t ‘faith,’ exactly. It’s more like . . . certainty.”

  “You really don’t know much about the case itself, then?” I asked, walking the tightrope.

  “Well, I know John didn’t do what he was accused of. What more is there?” she asked, blue eyes on mine.

  “The . . . impact thing, remember? Are you saying that your brother’s faith—his certainty—that he’d be vindicated made the whole thing less hard on you? And maybe on your father?”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “Although I never thought about it until right now. Is that common?”

  “In a way, it is,” I lied. “For other families I’ve interviewed, it was always the belief that someday the truth would come out that kept them going. I guess the difference is, sometimes the families had an awful lot more faith than the person who had been convicted.”

  “But they would be the only ones who really knew, isn’t that true?”

  “I guess that is true,” I acknowledged. “In some of the cases, the evidence was so shaky, or there was such outright corruption, or there was a journalist already on the job, beating the drums so hard, that the public got to share the sense of innocence before the courts ratified it. But in your brother’s case, that wasn’t so. Until he was actually set free, I couldn’t find one line of coverage of the case after the trial was over.”

  “And when he got shot . . .”

  “Exactly. Truth is, Laura, if that hadn’t happened, I never would have heard of your brother’s case at all.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

  “I’m sure it was to you.”

  “I know how this must sound, but when I told you my brother and I were never close, that’s an understatement. When I heard about it, my first thought was how . . . humiliated I was at the idea of anyone connecting me to him. We don’t have the same name. . . . You think that’s disgusting, don’t you?”

  “I think it’s human,” I told her. “After all, for all you knew . . .”

  “Who knows what anyone’s capable of?” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  “This doesn’t do a lot for your book, does it, J.?” Her expression shifted, too quick to read. “Can I call you that? J.? ‘J.P.’ sounds like you should be a banker or something.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Does anyone do it? Call you that?”

  “Never in my life,” I said.

  “I never liked my name,” she said, wistfully. “When I was a little girl, I always wanted to change it.”

  “To what?”

  “Oh, all kinds of different things. ‘Laura’ always sounded so old-fashioned to me. I wanted a fabulous name.”

  “Like Hildegarde?”

  “Stop it!” she laughed. “You know what I mean. I went to school with girls named Kerri, and Pandora, and Astrid, and . . . names like those.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I did some research into this, for a story I was working on. All you have to do, to change your name, is file a petition in court.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. You have to file a notice in the papers—in case you’re trying to duck a bunch of debts and get some new credit—but it’s no big deal.”

  “I could never do that now,” she said. “In my business, a name is very important. Not what the name is, what it represents. Like a brand. ‘Laura Reinhardt’ isn’t what to call me, it’s what I do. Understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “So I guess I’m stuck with Laura the Librarian.”

  “That’s not how I see you. Although I bet you’d look real cute in glasses.”

  “I have glasses,” she said. “I never really use them—I wear contacts—but I have them. I always thought I looked dorky in them.”

  “Let me see.”

  “I . . . All right, wait here.”

  I thought I heard the bottle tree tinkle as she swept out of the kitchen, but I couldn’t swear to it.

  She was back in a minute, wearing a pair of plain round glasses with rust-colored frames.

  “All you need is your hair in a bun,” I said.

  “I knew it.”

  “It’s your own fault,” I said. “You picked out the glasses, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “But you didn’t pick them out the same way you picked out your dresses. Or your jewelry. Or your apartment, even.”

  “I see what you mean. . . .”

  “They’ve got thousands of different frames. You could get some that would show off your eyes. Like putting something especially beautiful under glass.”

  “Oh God, that’s so . . .” She started sniffling.

  Thanks, Little Sis, I said to myself, holding Laura Reinhardt against me.

  “I should go home,” I said, later.

  “Am I making you—?”

  “I just feel grungy in these same clothes,” I told her. “I need to change.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  Fucking moron, you didn’t see that one coming? I thought. “I’d like to have you stay with me,” I said. “But not until I . . . do some stuff to my place.”

  “You mean, like, rehab?”

  “No. I mean, like, clean.”

  She giggled. Then said, “Y
ou probably think I’m the world’s best housekeeper, looking around this place.”

  “It does look immaculate.”

  “It should. I’m hardly ever here. I have a girl come in twice a week, and I’ll bet all she does is watch TV.”

  “You don’t let her touch your bottle tree, do you?”

  “Never! I blow the dust off it with my own breath.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “When I put something together myself—even a deal, which is not really a thing you can touch—I get very protective of it. I don’t want anyone handling it but me.”

  “I understand.”

  “You’re the same way about your car, I bet.”

  “I guess I am, now that you make me think about it,” I confessed, lying. The truth was, the Plymouth had been built as a multi-user appliance—power steering and an automatic transmission made it possible for anyone to drive the beast, if they didn’t get too crazy with the gas pedal. “How about this? I go and get some fresh clothes, and come back in time for dinner?”

  “Do you want to go to—?”

  “Let me surprise you,” I said.

  A block away from Laura’s, I thumbed my cellular into life.

  “Gardens.”

  “It’s me, Mama. Can you get everyone over there?”

  “Now, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Basement?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  Max was the only one there when I walked in. He was in my booth, trying to play a game of solitaire. Mama was seated across from him, tapping the table sharply every time she detected what she considered a major error in progress.

  “Have soup at big table,” Mama said, confirming everyone was on their way. I never would have asked her. In my family, some things you know inside yourself. Other things—like “basement” meaning “weapons”—you learn.

  The Prof strolled in the door just as the soup came up from the back. He snatched a cup from the tray and put it on the table in front of him as he sat down.

  “I’m in,” he said, as if the cup were a poker chip.

  “Where’s Clarence?” I asked.

  “He’s with Terry, over at your place, cooking on those computers.”

  “But that’s just around the—”

  “You want the Mole on the set, letting him drive ain’t the bet, bro. They have to go and haul him over.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, just as Michelle swept into the joint.

  “This had better be important,” she said.

  She didn’t bother to wait for anyone to pull out a chair for her—Clarence is the only one who ever does. And I didn’t bother to assure her the meet was important—she was just being herself.

  “So? What’s up, pup?” the Prof asked.

  “Let’s wait until everyone’s here,” I said. “I don’t want to tell it twice.”

  “Righteous,” he said, lighting a smoke.

  “You did get to be with that girl?” Michelle demanded.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “And you are going to talk about that?”

  “Yes, Michelle.”

  “Not in front of my son, you’re not,” she said, in a tone of utter finality.

  “Honey, he’s old enough to—”

  “Don’t you say a word!” she warned me.

  “Terry’s been teaching Clarence some boss stuff,” the Prof slipped in. “Boy’s talking about going to school, for real.”

  “I’m sure,” Michelle said, not mollified. “And I’m glad, Prof,” she added, quickly. “But if you think I’m going to have Terry sit here and listen to the gory details of—”

  “There won’t be any details, honey,” I promised.

  “How can I know if my . . . expertise is needed without specifics?” she said, exasperated.

  “I can tell you that part right now,” I said. “Before they get here. Fair enough?”

  “Sold,” she said.

  “It was a Seimens,” I told the Mole, almost an hour later. “One of those jobs that work as a regular phone and as a cordless, too. The main one is in the kitchen. She’s got three of those pod-things in different rooms. You just lift the cordless unit out of them and talk. It’s a two-line job. Probably uses the second one for the fax. Or maybe the Internet.”

  The Mole shook his head. “That is a difficult one to plant a device in,” he said. “You don’t have the . . . knowledge. It would be better at the junction. In the basement.”

  “You see security cams?” the Prof asked.

  “Not in the garage. I don’t know where they’d go to; I didn’t see a monitor in her apartment.”

  “Just a voice system, like they got in regular apartment buildings?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “I haven’t gone in the front door.”

  “But you’re going back this evening, yes?” Michelle said. “So then we’ll know if—”

  “No,” I told her, holding up the plastic card Laura had given to me. “She gave me hers, for the garage. Said she wouldn’t be using her car all day, so . . .”

  The Mole took the card from my hand, studied it for a few seconds. He nodded, asked: “It doesn’t have to look the same?”

  “As long as it works,” I told him.

  “You can test it later,” the Mole said, pocketing the card.

  “I don’t see a play except the phone,” I said. “We don’t have the personnel to shadow her—”

  “Not in that neighborhood, for sure,” the Prof said, sourly.

  “—but the house phone’s not enough,” I told them. “What if he contacts her on her cell? Or even at work? Hell, what if he drops her a goddamned postcard?”

  “What makes you so sure they’re going to meet at all?” Michelle asked.

  “They met once,” I said. “Or planned to meet, anyway. If the story we got is true, the sister shows up, he’s already down from the shots. Whatever he wanted to tell her, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do it on the phone. And he didn’t just want to meet her in a public place. He went to a lot of trouble to set the whole thing up.”

  “You think he wanted to give her something, mahn?” Clarence asked.

  “If he had it with him, whoever shot him got it,” I said. “But Wychek’s still running scared. Big scared. He’s got—still got—something good enough to convince the cops to keep him on ice. But, whatever it is, it has to be something . . . physical. Not just info he could carry around in his head. Otherwise, he would have already cut the deal he wanted. And there’d be no need to keep the charges running against Wolfe.”

  “Maybe he’s still trying to work that one out,” the Prof said. “How he can turn loose of what he’s got, and still keep himself protected?”

  “Even if that was so, why keep the charges alive?”

  “They don’t want to tip off whoever shot him? That he’s ratting them out?”

  “No,” I said. “Doesn’t work for me. Wychek’s dirt. If all he could do for the cops is dime out the guy who shot him, what’s that worth? Not the DA’s Office cooperating in a bogus charge against Wolfe. Too much potential downside for them, especially with all the press attention.

  “He’s got something,” I went on, filling in the blanks with guesses. “And either he needs the sister to get it for him, or he needs her signature on a safe-deposit box, or . . . something like that. Whatever he has, he’s had it for a long time. Since before he went into the joint.”

  “Because . . . ?” Michelle said.

  “Because he was protected in there. Off a contract. Somebody paid real money for that. And for the fancy appellate lawyer, too.”

  “So why’d he wait?” the Prof demanded.

  “He . . . Damn, Prof! It isn’t just that he waited so long to hire Greuchel. He never even made bail on the charge Wolfe dropped him on. And he wouldn’t have needed PC at Rikers if the Brotherhood was protecting him there. So, whatever he found out, it must have happened while he was at Rikers.”

  �
��Yeah?” the Prof snorted. “You think someone in there sent him a kite, made him see the light?”

  Nobody said anything. Whatever they were thinking, I don’t know. Me, I was wondering if Wychek had ever asked his sister for bail money.

  Suddenly, Max tapped a knuckle against the tabletop, drawing all our eyes. The Mongol looked up at the ceiling, dropped his gaze to eye level, let his eyes wander around aimlessly. He glanced at the floor. Picked some imaginary object up, gave it a quick, examining look, shrugged, and put it in his pocket.

  Max got to his feet. Walked over to one of those promotional calendars, mostly a large poster, with a little pad of months you can tear off one at a time on the bottom. The one on Mama’s wall featured a Chinese woman, elegantly dressed, having a cocktail. The writing on the poster was all in Chinese, and the calendar pad was for 1961.

  Max turned the pages of the calendar, indicating the passage of time. Then he snapped his fingers, made an “I’ve got it!” face, and reached into his pocket. He brought out the imaginary object in one hand, and used the fingers of the other to turn it, as if examining it from all sides.

  He nodded a “Yes!,” then went over to Mama’s cash register and patted it, like it was a good dog.

  I stood up, bowed deeply. “You nailed it, brother,” I said, making a gesture to match the words. “He got it before he went down, but he didn’t figure out it was worth anything until later.”

  “Adds up,” the Prof said.

  “Very logical,” the Mole agreed.

  “And I think I know where he got it now,” I said. “So I’m going to Iowa.”

  I walked out to the back alley with Clarence and Terry, the Mole stumbling in our wake. I pulled Clarence aside, asked him a quick question, got the answer I expected.

  Back inside, I sat down in my booth. I felt . . . depleted. Like I’d fought ten rounds, to a decision that wasn’t going to go my way.

  Mama came over and sat across from me. “All for police girl?” Mama said, accusingly.

  “There’s money in this,” I said, stubbornly.

  I closed my eyes, felt Michelle slide in next to me, ready to defend her big brother. Mama had known about Wolfe for years. “Police girl” said it all. Our family is outlaws; we don’t believe in mixed marriages.