Safe House

by Andrew Vachss

  “Right in the gut,” Herk said. “I didn’t mean to, but . . . once I stuck him, I knew he was gone. I could see it in his face, like when the light goes out, you know? He was off the count.”

  “Anybody see you?” I asked. It was business now.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Porkpie said he didn’t see nobody.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two nights ago. I mean, it’ll be two nights when it gets dark.”

  “What do you need, Herk?” I asked him.

  “I need a stake, Burke. I got to get outa here. Outa this city.”

  Herk couldn’t say it, but he could feel it. He was a mine-shaft canary, just beginning to smell the fumes, fluttering his wings against the cage. I looked back at the Prof. He nodded.

  “I’m gonna take you someplace,” I told him. “You’ll be okay there. Meanwhile, I’ll see what’s going on, okay?”

  “Sure, Burke,” he said, smiling. A big, sweet dumb kid.

  “This one ain’t no Fourteenth Amendment citizen, is he?” the voice on the phone said.

  “He’s the same fucking citizen I am,” I said, keeping my voice down to a jailhouse whisper—soft with threat.

  “No offense, man,” the voice said quickly. “But you know how I have to play it. I mean . . .”

  “No offense. A yard a day, right?”

  “Right. Ten-day minimum.”

  “He’ll have it with him.”

  I checked on the wire. The police had it down as a mugging that went wrong. At least Herk had been smart enough to grab the dead man’s watch and wallet. And toss them into the nearest Dumpster, where some foraging wino was sure to pick them up. He’d never touched the dead man’s pistol, leaving it where it was. The cops had no suspects.

  But I did. Herk was the third day into his hideout before we found Porkpie. He was coming out of a dive in Red Hook, wearing a snazzy dark overcoat and his trademark little hat with a fat little white feather sticking up from the band. A zircon glistened on his hand, bloodshot from a faded red neon sign in the window of the bar.

  “Hey, Porkpie!” I yelled at him, closing the distance between us, hands empty at my sides.

  He stopped in his tracks, making up his mind. Before he finished, Max had him.

  One good thing about Red Hook, you never have to go far to find some privacy. I docked the dark-green Volvo sedan next to one of the piers, backing in carefully so I could spot any visitors. I didn’t expect cops—even when the weather is warm and the piers are crawling with longshoremen, the rollers working the pad know the money men only come out in daylight.

  Porkpie was in the front bucket seat, Max right behind him, one hand on the weasel’s neck. Max’s hands are hard autobiographies: big leather-colored maps of seamed scar tissue with callused ridges of horn along the knife-edges—flesh-and-bone sledgehammers with bolt-cutters for fingers. Porkpie couldn’t see the hand, but he could feel it, the fingers pressing his carotid artery, thumb hooked just under his Adam’s apple. What he could see was the pistol in my gloved left hand, held at my waist, pointed at his crotch.

  “Open the glove compartment,” I told him softly.

  “Burke, I . . .”

  “Open it, Porkpie.”

  He pushed the button and the door came down. In the light from the tiny bulb he could see the coil of piano wire. And the barber’s straight razor with its mother-of-pearl handle.

  “We wrap your hands and your ankles in the wire,” I told him. “We got a couple of car batteries in the trunk for the weight. Then I take the razor and open you up so you don’t float, understand?”

  “Jesus! Don’t . . .”

  “It’s a hell of a way to die,” I said. “But you tell us quick, I’ll do you a solid, okay? I’ll put a slug in your head first, so you don’t feel nothing.”

  His stink filled the front seat.

  “There’s only one way out,” I said, breathing through my mouth.

  “Anything,” he blubbered. “Just tell me, I’ll—”

  “You got Hercules to do a job for you. The girl, the one this guy was threatening, she yours?”

  “No. No, man. I don’t know her. I ain’t never even seen her.”

  “So somebody paid you, right?”

  “Right. It was just—”

  “Shut up, punk. Just answer what I ask you. Who paid you? And what was the job?”

  “I don’t know her name. Honest to God, Burke! She found me in Rollo’s. Said it was her sister, that girl. The one this guy was—”

  “Don’t make me tell you again,” I said. “I don’t want to hear your stories. How much was the job?”

  He hesitated. I nodded to Max. Porkpie spasmed in his seat, his spinal fluid turned to liquid pain. “I don’t like this part,” I told him. “I’d rather ice you right now than keep hurting you, understand?”

  “Yesss . . .”

  “How much was the job?”

  “Five grand.”

  “And you were supposed to do . . . what?”

  “Just scare the guy. Like, spook him, you know? Run him off.”

  “Not total him?”

  “You crazy? I ain’t no hit man.”

  “That’s right, punk: you ain’t.”

  “Burke, listen to me. Please. If I was gonna have Herk do him, would I go along? I didn’t know nothing until he comes charging back to the car. I . . .”

  “That’s enough,” I told him. The smell of truth came right through the stench. Porkpie didn’t have the cojones to be anywhere within a mile of a killing, even as the wheelman. “Describe her.”

  “I told you—I never even seen her, not once.”

  “The woman who paid you, Porkpie. Her.”

  “Oh. She’s some kinda Chink.”

  “Chinese?”

  “I don’t fucking know, man. Something like that. Small. She had a hat on, with one of them veil things, black, like they wear at funerals.”

  “What did she call herself?”

  “She didn’t say no name, man. Just asked me, could I get it done? I told her the price. She paid me. That’s all. I never seen her again.”

  “But she gave you a phone number.”

  “No, I swear it! Nothing. I didn’t need to talk to her—she paid me the whole thing up front.”

  “So how come you didn’t stiff her? Just take the cash and walk?”

  “She said she could find me again. I . . . believed her, like.”

  “You believe I can find you again, Porkpie?”

  “Yeah. I know your rep.”

  “You know who’s holding your neck? That’s Max the Silent. You know his rep?” I asked him gently.

  He shuddered a reply.

  “I’m gonna trust you,” I lied. “We’re gonna let you slide on this. You take the car. Drive it anywhere you want and leave it there. But don’t fuck around with it—it’s hot. Understand?”

  “Sure. I mean—”

  “Ssssh,” I said, holding my right finger to my lips. “You get popped dumping the car, that’s your problem. I can find you in jail, Porkpie. You know I can. You’d be easy in there. This is your last chance. That woman calls you, you call me. And if you’re holding anything back, you’re landfill, understand?”

  “I’m not! I—”

  I nodded to Max. He released his grip, slid out of the back seat, quiet as Ebola. I opened the car door and backed out, still pointing the pistol at Porkpie.

  Max and I faded back into the shadow of the pier. In a minute, we heard the Volvo start up. We watched Porkpie pull away fast, the rear wheels spinning on the slick pavement.

  Clarence pulled up at the wheel of my Plymouth and we all went back across the border.

  I worked the relay over the pay phones, got the word to Hercules: Stay put.

  And hoped the Prof wasn’t right about him.

  Days passed. I vacuumed the newspapers, listened to the radio, even watched some TV. Nothing about the homicide. There was no outcry, no pressure. It would probably disapp
ear into the black hole the cops called Unsolved. It wouldn’t be the first time—not all floaters go into the water.

  There was a cop I could ask, a cop who owed me, but that would be the same thing as telling him I was connected in some way. Even if you trust a man not to play certain cards, there’s no point in dealing them to him.

  Time was on our side. But the statute of limitations wasn’t. So I went to see a lawyer. Davidson’s a hard-nosed criminal-defense guy, but he passed for honest in our world. He might jug you a little on the fee, but he wouldn’t favor-trade with the DA, and he wouldn’t sell a client for some favorable press ink, the way some of the others do.

  His office is in midtown, just one good-sized room with a secretary’s station outside. At one time, he had a big joint with a bunch of associates, but he went lean-and-mean a few years ago. His office is furnished in early Salvation Army—all the money’s in technology. And in the heavy cork paneling. In Davidson’s business, traveling sound can get you killed.

  “Feels like a decent justification defense to me,” he said, puffing appreciatively on one of the mondo-expensive Expatriados cigars I’d brought him. “Where’d you get these?” he asked.

  “An old pal of mine makes them down in Honduras. Cuban seeds, Cuban artisans, but he says Cuban soil is all played out. These are better.”

  “Sure are,” Davidson said, holding the dark cylinder at arm’s length to admire the shape. Then he got back to work. “One guy pulls a gun, the other one pulls a knife. One gets a jury trial, the other gets an autopsy. Self-defense. It happened in a bar, we walk. But your guy, his story’s shaky. He was just strolling through the alley at that hour, minding his own business . . . ? I don’t think so.”

  “And we don’t know if the other guy’s pistol was still there when the EMS crew arrived,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, nodding his head. “We’d get that on discovery, but if it comes up blank . . .”

  “Anyone could have picked up the piece and walked off with it,” I told him. Thinking of the dead man’s wallet and watch.

  “Forensics?” Davidson asked. Meaning: fingerprints, blood splatters . . . anything the police-lab vultures could vacuum from a corpse.

  I flashed on what the Prof had said about that same question: “Blood don’t tell no more, Schoolboy. We ain’t gotta worry about that. A good shyster can always O.J. the DNA.” I scratched my temple, like I was thinking about it. “Nothing,” I told him.

  “It’s still dicey,” Davidson said.

  “So you advise—what?” I asked.

  “Your guy got a sheet?”

  “Long one.”

  “For this kind of thing?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “He a predicate?”

  “Twice over.”

  “So he couldn’t take even a Man Two,” Davidson mused. “No way to bring him in and make a deal.”

  I didn’t say anything. Manslaughter Second Degree is a Class C Felony in New York. Even if Davidson could sweet-plea his way past the life sentence a Habitual Offender tag would bring, Herk was looking at seven and a half to fifteen.

  “You got any more cards?” Davidson asked.

  “A witness,” I told him. “He’s not a hitter, but he’s no citizen either.”

  “Would he roll?”

  Would Porkpie turn informant? It wasn’t even a question. The Prof had dismissed any other possibility with a contemptuous snort: “That punk ain’t no real thief, chief. You know the way he play—don’t do the crime if you can’t drop a dime.” He was right: give Porkpie a pass on one of his own cases, he’d sell his mother.

  Then again, so would I.

  But I’d never sell my family.

  “Sure,” I replied.

  “Well,” Davidson said, switching to self-protective legalese, “given the facts of the hypothetical with which you’ve presented me, I would advise absolute discretion.”

  Meaning: Herk couldn’t come in.

  Only two ways to tap Porkpie’s home phone—take a major risk or use up a major favor. And even if he had a phone in that pesthole he lived in, he probably wouldn’t use it for business. He was a weasel, but not a stupid one. “Got to send Clarence in,” I told the Prof.

  “No way, Schoolboy. I told you true—my boy don’t work for Herk.”

  “Look, Prof. The only place we know we can possibly get to this girl Porkpie told us about is at Rollo’s, right? If Porkpie’s there, he spots me in a second. You too. Max can’t negotiate. Who’s that leave us?”

  “I don’t feature no undercover crap,” the little man said, giving ground grudgingly.

  “Clarence goes in, he hangs around, okay?” I said, pleading my case. “He spots Porkpie talking to the girl . . . spots any girl who matches the description . . . he steps back, makes a call. The rest is ours.”

  “The whole motherfucking thing should be ours.”

  “What’s the problem?” I pressed him.

  “Bad juju, youngblood. We ain’t fucking detectives,” he said, jeering the last word. “We don’t solve crimes—we do ’em. Maybe Herk should just relocate his dumb ass to some fresh green grass.”

  “What good’s that gonna do? He tries to make a connect on strange turf, he’s just gonna end up back in jail.”

  “But no fear if he stays here?” the little man challenged.

  “Okay,” I said, throwing up my hands in surrender. “Fuck him. Let him fall.”

  The Prof looked at me a long quiet minute. Then he said: “Guess I taught you even better than I thought, son. Two weeks, all right? We put it together by then, good. If not, Herk’s gotta walk his own way.”

  I bowed my head in agreement.

  “Rollo’s is an old-time thief’s bar,” I told Clarence. We were sitting in my booth at Mama’s a little before midnight, drawing the diagrams. “I been in there a few times over the years. Little round tables in the middle, booths against the wall. Lousy food, watered booze. The tables are for bragging and bullshitting, the booths are for deals. You got something you want to buy or sell, you take a booth. Waitress comes over, you order food, she’s gonna tell you the booth’s reserved. You get stupid, say you wanna eat there anyway, guy they call T.B. comes over. I don’t think that’s his initials—man’s bad enough to be named after a disease, you don’t mess with him. Tall, slim build. Nice looking kid, long knife-scar across his face below the left eye. He’s a kenpo man, snap you like a twig without breaking a sweat. So no Bogarting in there, got it?”

  “Yes, mahn. It is clear.”

  “But if you ask the waitress, ‘Where’s Mimi tonight?’ she’ll just walk away, no problem. Then you’ll get Mimi. A real pretty Latina. Watch her hands: long nails with black polish, gold wedding ring. You tell her what you want, just work around the edges, you don’t have to come right out with it. No drugs, but anything else is all right. She says okay, you give her a hundred. That’s the rental.”

  “I tell her firearms, mahn. I am known for this a bit. From when I was with Jacques.”

  That’s when I first met Clarence, a long time ago. When he was a young tiger working for a Jake gun-runner in Brooklyn. He hadn’t come up with the rest of us, but he’d been forged just as hard in another fire.

  “That’ll do,” I assured him. “I got a crate of AK’s I been holding back to sting one of those dumb-fuck gangbangers, so we could show the goods if anybody wanted a checkout. Now what you gotta do is dance, brother. Make sure you string it out, stay as long as you can, set it up so you come back a couple of times, right?”

  “I have it,” the young man said. He was wearing a black jacket—looked like a regular suit coat, but it came down almost to his knees—over a pale-violet silk shirt buttoned at the neck. Clarence doesn’t really peacock it up until the warm weather hits, clothes blooming with the foliage.

  “You know who to look for?”

  “Porkpie, you already described him, mahn. And a Chinese girl with one of those pillbox hats, like. And a veil.”


  “She may not be Chinese, not Chinese like Mama, anyway. Oriental, though, if Porkpie was right. And we don’t know if that outfit is a trademark or she just wanted to hide her face. Porkpie’s the key. No way he stays away from Rollo’s for long. You got any questions?”

  “Who will watch my ride, mahn? I do not like to leave her alone in some nasty parking lot, you know?”

  “We’ll cover her,” I promised. Clarence’s beloved British Racing Green 1967 Rover 2000 TC was his prize. He took it for granted that we’d have his back at Rollo’s, but his car was a separate commitment. “We can’t go inside, but the parking lot’s no problem.”

  I lit a cigarette and smoked in silence, thinking it through. Rollo’s wasn’t a dangerous place. They had to keep it under control to do their business. But still . . .

  “Want the Mole to go along?” I asked Clarence. “Porkpie’s never seen him, and he could—”

  “Oh, that’s quick, Slick,” the Prof snarled. “What’s that maniac gonna do if something jumps off, blow the place up?”

  “Mole’s smart,” I defended him.

  “Smart? Man’s a motherfucking genius!” the Prof shot back. “Did I say no? But he ain’t smart like people, you understand? I don’t want none of his science shit around my boy, see? We be right outside, laying in the cut. One tap on the cellular and we Rambo the joint, we have to, okay? Ain’t no need to go nuclear.”

  “I was just—”

  “Nix that,” the Prof cut me off, any concern for Clarence’s safety quickly overridden by even the slightest implication that the kid wasn’t competent to handle the job. “Clarence walks point, we cover the joint. Our dice, loaded nice—it’s all on ice.”

  But our dice didn’t make one good pass all night. A five-hour investment drew nothing but blanks. “I didn’t see no Chinese woman, mahn,” Clarence said during debriefing. “And never this Porkpie guy either.”

  “It worked like I said? With the booth?”

  “Yeah, mahn. Just like that. Only two nibbles on the pieces, though.”

  “Sound legit?” I asked him, leaning close. In our world, when we’re dealing guns, “legit” means criminal. And “crooked” means the goddamned ATF.