The Weight

by Andrew Vachss

  “No,” she said. “No, I don’t see. What was Solly going to do, come down and tear the place apart?”

  “Lynda, let’s say it was gold or diamonds or whatever in there. How are you going to turn it into cash without going through Solly?”

  She shifted a little, like a fighter taking a real hard shot but refusing to go down.

  “When Albie set that trap, he couldn’t know who would go first, him or Solly. But he knew, if Solly told you about the desk, you’d have a chance to get in the wind before he could send someone.”

  “To kill me,” she said. Like she was tired of living anyway.

  “Unless you gave it up, yeah. Probably even then, from the way Albie’s message sounded.”

  “Solly sent you.”

  “To talk to this Jessop.”

  “And get Albie’s book.”

  “Yeah. He was always a step ahead, Solly. He knew you’d get me to … Wait! Wait a minute. No, he couldn’t know that. It’s just like I said. Solly didn’t know you; what he knew was me. Sure. When I called and asked him to prove you had this ‘will’ of Albie’s, Solly, he was expecting that.”

  “So how come you didn’t kill me, then?”

  “I wouldn’t ever have done that. Solly, he knows that, too. Listen, Lynda. Solly, he’s every kind of tricky you ever heard of, and plenty that you haven’t. And I’m not trying to get you to change your mind about him, but he never told me to do anything to you. That’s why I was kicking myself, looking for the room where the partners desk was. I was afraid you’d think I was hunting you.”

  “I thought you might be, Sugar. I didn’t want to, but I was … taught better, you know?”

  “Yeah. And you were taught right, too.”

  “So this whole Jessop thing, that was just—what?—a convenient excuse?”

  “I don’t know. I for damn sure don’t know. But now there’s no choice.”

  “That’s why you asked me about getting him to Tampa?”

  “Yeah,” I said, glad she couldn’t see my face when I said that.

  I kept waiting for her to say something. I felt her body get softer and softer, her breathing change. She was asleep.

  I guess I must have gone out, too. I heard her say, “Oh, Sugar!”

  “Huh?”

  “I dropped off, like a baby taking a nap. And you couldn’t even move for … jeez, almost four hours! I even got your shirt wet.”

  She looked embarrassed when she said that last part, so I made like I didn’t hear it.

  “We just needed to rest,” I said.

  She jumped off my lap and started doing stretches on the carpet. I took off my shirt and worked the kinks out of my neck. I was finished way before she was. But when she got done, she jumped up and ran out of the room.

  Before I could even think about why she did that, she was back.

  “This is Albie’s phone,” she said, handing a cell to me. “It’s got a 305 area code. That’s Dade County. Miami.

  “Every town in the part of Florida where Jessop’s supposed to be living, that would be an 863 area code.”

  “Would he recognize your—?”

  “Not mine. Albie’s.”

  “What good does that—?”

  “Wait,” she said, “see this?” Holding up a little metal case. “Watch.”

  She hit some button. The case she was holding said, “New work. Same place. Tomorrow night at eleven. Leave message, in or out?”

  The voice sounded like it was in the room. Thin and strong at the same time, like piano wire.

  “That’s Albie,” she said. “I’ve got a couple of dozen different messages from him on this.”

  The next afternoon, we kept arguing all the way back.

  “If he recognizes you—”

  “He won’t see me, Sugar. Just you.”

  “Yeah? And how are we going to get that Lincoln out of the garage?”

  “Just drive in and take it. What’s the big deal? We’re not doing anything illegal.”

  “Albie told you to get out of that house and never come back.”

  “I won’t ever come back.”

  “What if they’re waiting?”

  “They wouldn’t do that. They only come after dark, and they never stay long. To them, it’ll look as if I already disappeared.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t know them. They’re … machines, not people. And I know things have been going wrong the past couple of years. Things they planned, I mean. Not crime stuff, like Albie did with those others. But … something. Something bad. I don’t know why anyone would want Albie’s blue book, but that note—that says Solly’s a traitor, straight out. I’m sure, if I showed them that, they’d know who’d been talking to the wrong people.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “We already agreed to do it, Sugar.”

  “Me, I agreed to do it. I didn’t agree to do anything with you.”

  “Would you listen for just a second? If Jessop doesn’t see that Lincoln, he’s going to spook.”

  “I know.”

  “Do the math, damn it! Two cars, we need two drivers.”

  “You got stubborn confused with smart, Lynda.”

  “I don’t have anything confused.”

  “Yeah, you do. Starting with me.”

  She sulked all the way. But when I told her she had to park the Caddy in the airport lot, way in the back, and lie down in the back seat with the windows up and the doors locked, she turned into a fucking volcano.

  “If I don’t fry to death, I’ll run out of oxygen.”

  “You’ll be uncomfortable, that’s all. This thing’s not airtight. You can even crack the far-side window a little bit, if you want. But once you get down, and I throw these jackets and stuff over you, you have to stay like that, understand?”

  “You think, just because it’s dark, I can’t bake to death? It must be over a hundred, even now.”

  “Stop all the damn drama, Lynda. You’ve got a water bottle, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “What if—?”

  “I don’t know what this Jessop’s going to be driving. But if he doesn’t see Albie’s Lincoln, he’s going to turn around and make tracks, right?”

  “Yes,” she snapped at me.

  “So, if that happens, you just climb into the front seat and go back to Tampa.”

  “Sugar—”

  “Zip it. I’ve got the key to the Lincoln and the button for the garage. That’s all I need, except for one thing.”

  That one thing was the address of a little mall not so far from where the house was. The cab driver didn’t even try and make conversation. He was an older black guy, and I guess he figured it wasn’t worth working a guy who looked like me for a tip.

  I went into the mall with my carry-on bag in one hand and walked through until I found the last exit.

  The bar was a couple of blocks away. I went in. And, like Lynda said, it was full of just what I told her I needed. Albie probably had the whole town mapped for people like them.

  I sat down at the bar, ordered a beer. It was loud: some kind of crash-pound-boom noise from the jukebox, people trying to shout over it.

  All the punk with “88” tattooed on the back of his shaved head knew was that I was there to do a job on some kikes who were contributing way too much money to the wrong people. He was down with the cause. RAHOWA all the way, bro. But he still snatched the C-note I offered him for a ride on the back of his cycle.

  When we got close enough, I slapped him twice on his right shoulder. He pulled over and rolled the cycle into a thick clump of bushes, just like I had told him in front.

  I also told him that a car was coming for me in half an hour, after I got finished doing whatever I was going to be doing with whatever I had in the carry-on.

  He gave me the White Power fist, saying goodbye. By then, I already had my left forearm around his neck, so I said goodbye, too.

  I left him there. I wasn’t
worried about prints, not with the leather gloves I’d been wearing.

  If there’s one thing I know, one thing I’ve studied all my life, it’s how to be a thief.

  And that’s me. Maybe, at first, I only got in on jobs because I was good muscle, and I’d stand up if the wheels came off. It was Ken who told me, and I never forgot: “This life of ours, where you stand isn’t about how much weight you can lift, kid. It’s how much weight you can take.”

  That’s all I ever wanted to be: a man like Ken. Maybe “all” isn’t the right way to say it. Ken was a legend. A legend with witnesses.

  I was getting there, I hoped. I was still a young guy, but I’d proved in by doing everybody’s time on that first robbery, so I could hang out in this bar where Ken did business. In fact, I was sitting right next to him when it happened:

  This guy, Eugene, he was good-sized, and he was supposed to be a shooter, too. Reliable, people said about him. Never turned. But he’d never been Inside, either, so I always wondered about that.

  Plus, he was twisted in his head. Always bringing his girlfriend in with him right after he finished working her over. Most guys, I think, if their woman had a big black eye and a split lip, they wouldn’t want her to be showing her face. But Eugene, he liked that.

  This girl, she was kind of good-looking, but you could see she was … dull, or something. Ken and I were at the bar. Eugene, he drags the girl in by the back of her hair, throws her across from him, and sits down in a booth.

  We could see the whole thing in the mirror. The girl was trying to hide her face with her hands. Eugene must have told her to get him a drink, ’cause she got up and walked over to where we were. Her blouse was ripped; you could see her bra. And her bruises. She was trying hard not to cry, like she was afraid to.

  I turned my shoulders. I don’t know exactly what I was going to do, but Ken stopped me from ever finding out. He put his hand on my arm. “Not like that, kid,” is all he said.

  “I was just gonna—”

  “You know what happens when you slap a woman-beater around? He takes it, like the bitch he is. Then he goes home and makes her pay for it.”

  “Then what should I—?”

  But Ken was already gone. I reached out and pulled the girl into my chest. Not to hurt her, or to make a play for her. Just to keep her close enough to me so she couldn’t see anything.

  In the mirror, I could see Ken walk up to this Eugene. When he got real close, Ken pointed at the wall next to the booth. Eugene turned to his left to see what Ken was pointing at. Ken stuck something in Eugene’s ear. There was a little noise, like a dry twig snapping.

  Eugene’s face hit the table. Ken walked back to where I was still holding on to the girl.

  “Eugene went to the dice game out back,” he told her. “He left me a message for you: When he’s done shooting craps, he’s going back to his wife. From now on, you’re on your own.”

  She looked over at the booth. From where she was sitting, it looked empty.

  “I didn’t even know he was married,” she said. “What … what happened?”

  “I dunno,” Ken said. “I was walking by when he got up. Told me to tell you what I just told you.”

  “Oh Jesus.”

  “He got his clothes at your place?”

  “Sure. I mean, we—”

  “His wife’s in Boston, so you know he’s not coming back for them,” Ken said. Then he turned his back on her and started talking to me.

  It took a few minutes for her to walk over to the empty booth. Only by then it wasn’t empty anymore. Four guys were sitting there, playing cards.

  She kind of stumbled out, still crying.

  Ken slid a red handkerchief across the bar. There was a little lump in it. The guy behind the stick swept it up so smooth you’d have to be watching close to see it. One of the guys who’d been playing cards, a skinny guy in an old brown leather jacket, he walked over and handed Ken a shell casing. A real small one. Maybe a .25; I don’t know much about guns.

  “About those arrangements for your beloved aunt?” he said to Ken.

  “Ah, you wouldn’t think so, but what she always said she wanted was to be cremated. Said it was the cleanest way to leave this earth. Only her spirit left behind.”

  “Aye,” the man in the leather jacket said. He shook hands with Ken, pulled his cap down low over his eyes, and walked away.

  That’s why I never wanted to be a hammer; I never wanted to work for anyone but me. And I wanted people to talk about me after I was gone. The way they talk about Ken now. A true hard man. Always true. And hard to the core.

  Only, now that I’d met Grace, I realized there was more to being a hard man than what I’d always thought.

  By my thinking, I was getting closer all the time. Everyone knows: Sugar, he’s a real thief. Not just stand-up if he gets caught, but good at not getting caught.

  I know when someone’s been in my place. I was going to say “house,” not “place,” only I never had a house. That’s what convicts call their cell: “my house.”

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I can take one look and see if something’s wrong. Things don’t move themselves. I can always see this picture of how I left things. If the new picture doesn’t fit right over it, I know.

  If these guys Lynda told me about were as good as she said, no point trying to sneak up on them. The bike was noisy, but it was quick. I hit the garage button while I was still riding up to the door.

  The garage was exactly like we left it. But maybe they had another way in, so I took a few seconds to check down the hall. The place I’d stayed in, nobody had been in there since we’d left.

  I jumped back on the cycle and rode it over the bumpy trail Lynda had shown me when we first took off. I didn’t even try and find the best spot, just laid the bike down flat and ran back to the house.

  The Lincoln fired right up. I backed it out, clicked the garage closed, and took off.

  Part of being a good thief is not needing a map to a place you’ve already been. And not writing anything down. The clock on the Lincoln said 10:15. Plenty of time.

  I drove careful. Not too slow. And I was still twenty minutes to the good as I backed the Lincoln into a slot all the way across from where Lynda was. I could see the white Caddy, but nothing else.

  Lynda didn’t know how these airport meets were supposed to go—Albie never told her details. Probably only told her anything at all so she wouldn’t get worried when he went out late at night.

  Albie wouldn’t have a bodyguard. Or even a driver. So Jessop, he’d be looking for Albie behind the wheel. I eased the passenger-side door open, ready to break any bulb that lit up … but none did.

  I thought of waiting in the back seat, leaving the door cracked. But it was too risky. Jessop might open the door, but he’d check the front seat before he climbed inside.

  A man like Albie, he tells you eleven o’clock, you’re not there by one minute after, he’s gone.

  Running through my mind: Was this Jessop smart enough to get there way early? No. If Albie saw a strange car, he’d just pull off.

  I had Lynda’s pistol in the carry-on, but a gunshot in that open space would be loud. And the way airports are today, the place would be swarmed with fifty different kinds of cops in ten seconds.

  Plenty of darkness, but if Jessop’s headlights picked me up …

  I settled for crouching behind the trunk, all the way over to the right. The tire would give me a little cover—best I could do.

  The tool I was carrying looked like a long, thin canvas bag with a loop on the end. It was filled with ball bearings, weighed about thirty pounds. I put my hand through the loop. Then I started hyper-tensing different muscle groups. Tense, hold, release. Tense, hold, release. Not as good as stretching, but it would keep me from getting stiff.

  A wash of headlights. I heard a car door open and close.

  Footsteps.

  I snuck a peek. A man, walking straight toward the Lincoln. His hands we
re empty, but that didn’t mean anything—if you’re expected, you don’t walk up on a man with a gun in your hand.

  Heavy shoes, but light-footed, not much noise. Little crunching sounds from the parking lot, louder as he got closer.

  I could hear him breathing. Calm and relaxed. Probably did things like this a hundred times before.

  One more and … yeah, it was Jessop, all right. He was reaching for the door handle as I came around the back of the Lincoln.

  Damn, he was fast. But by the time he whipped around and reached for the gun in his belt, the lead-shot club was already on its way. Instead of the back of his head, I caught him full in the face.

  The way he went down, I was pretty sure he was already finished—flat on his back, eyes wide open.

  I took out a crowbar. Knelt down and held it across his throat with both hands. Then I rammed it down with everything I had.

  I heard some kind of sound, but it wasn’t coming from his mouth; it was the little bones crackling in his neck. One of his eyeballs came way out of his head. I didn’t need the smell to tell me he was done.

  I kicked the door shut and popped the trunk. Dragged Jessop’s body around to the back by his belt. Heaved him inside. Stuck the key to the Lincoln and the button for the garage in the outside pocket of his jacket. Closed the trunk.

  I pulled the gloves off my hands as I walked over to the Caddy, moving easy.

  “Jesus, I am rank,” Lynda said.

  “You’re fine.”

  “Sure. It wasn’t you who was back there. I could hardly even breathe.”

  “You’re not back there now, okay? Just tell me where to turn.”

  By the time we got to the highway, she was a little calmer. But she was rank, for real.

  Then she started shaking. Real bad. I had to light the cigarette for her.

  “I guess I’m just a fraud,” she said, an hour later.

  “How are you a fraud?”

  “I’m supposed to be … I’m supposed to be what Albie taught me to be. He said, he said over and over, ‘Rena, a man has to believe in something bigger than himself, or he can never truly be a man.’ I thought I understood that. I thought I was doing that. But … what was he telling me, that it’s only men who have to do that?”