"Fuck you," she said, her voice soft.
Everybody's got a pimp.
I caught my train. A huge black guy got on at Queens Plaza. Walked up and down the car announcing that this was his train. He was a combat–trained Vietnam vet and nobody was going to pull any stuff on his train—all the passengers could feel safe with him. Took off his cap and went up and down the row, collecting contributions for his program. Right across from me was a young Oriental, a folded copy of the Times in one hand, a small dictionary in the other. The black man collected some change from the lady a couple of seats down from me, checked my face, passed me by. The guy next to me looked like a lab rat. He threw some coins. When the collector strolled back up the other side, I watched the Oriental. The black guy shoved his cap right in the Oriental's lap. The Oriental was stone–faced. The black guy was covering his newspaper with the cap, not moving. The Oriental reached into the cap, took out a handful of change, jingled it in one fist, watching the black man. The black man pulled his cap back. The Oriental tossed the change into it.
The black guy moved on, into another subway car. Maybe he really was a Vietnam vet.
I rode the train nearly to the end of the line. Walked up Sutphin Boulevard, looking for the house Jacques had described to me.
Three young blacks were watching the traffic from a topless white Suzuki Samurai. The driver stared through the windshield, his passenger watched the street. Another draped a casual hand over the padded roll bar to watch me approach. The passenger got out to sit on the hood, cradling a cellular phone in a white leather shoulder bag. Ten pounds of gold around his neck, brand–new orange leather sneakers on his feet. Wearing a white leather jacket with layered lapels. I kept coming, hands out where they could see them. The driver reached under the dash. The largest one climbed out of the back. Three gold rings on his right hand, welded into a slab across the knuckles. He put his hand to his cheek. I read "Stone" in raised gold letters. The one with the cellular phone took off a pair of dark shades, raised his eyebrows, tapped his nose. I looked through him, went on past. Crack dealers, not hiding it. Nujacks, they called themselves. Flashing. The way a fuse does before it reaches the dynamite.
They were marking out territory in the wrong neighborhood. This turf belonged to a Rasta posse. The last crew from Brooklyn had ended up extremely dead. That's the only War on Drugs going down around here.
I found the house. Knocked four times on the side door. Stepped into a basement. Nobody said a word in English—a couple of the men muttered in something that sounded like French. They pointed to a suitcase. Opened it. I looked inside, counted. They pointed to a phone. I called Jacques.
"It's me. They got one twenty–five."
"New or used?"
"Used, not in sequence. But I got no blue light with me, pal."
"That's okay, mahn. Put them on."
The guy who pointed at the suitcase listened to Jacques, said something to the others. They went out through a different door than the one I'd used. I sat down to wait. I'd told Jacques that the cash looked good, but I wasn't vouching for it. If it was funny money, I was taking the same risk he was—my five grand would come out of the suitcase.
I sat down to wait. Put my hand in my pocket for a smoke. The guy waiting with me said, "Easy, easy." I took it out real slow. I had the match to my cigarette before I realized the guy wasn't talking to me.
It was less than two hours later when they came back.
I hit the street with the suitcase. Before I got to the corner, a dark sedan pulled over, flashing its high beams on and off. The window came down. An Island voice said, "Burke?"
I got in the back. It took off smooth and easy. At the next corner, an identical car pulled in front of us. There'd be another one behind. I didn't look. We stopped at a light on Queens Boulevard. A guy in the front got out of the car carrying the suitcase. He handed it over to the car in front, got back in as the lead car took off in a squeal of rubber.
They dropped me off in Times Square. Handed me an envelope. I walked to the Plymouth by myself.
38
I WALKED BY myself a lot then. The court case was pending, but not hanging over my head. Davidson was right—if I didn't do something stupid, I was okay.
I didn't feel okay.
After a few more dead days, I called Candy.
39
SHE OPENED the door, wearing an apricot sweatshirt that came down almost to her knees, face sweaty, no makeup. No contact lenses either, yellow cat's eyes patient.
The apartment looked the same. Fresh rosebuds in a steel vase on the coffee table. The air smelled sharp, ionized. Like after a hard rain.
I sat on the couch. She curled her legs under her, wrinkled her nose when I lit a cigarette. I waited.
"I have a daughter," she said.
I dragged on the cigarette, watching the glowing tip.
"You don't seem surprised."
"I don't know you."
"I know you. You're the same. So am I."
"Okay."
"She's almost sixteen years old. Always had the best. The very, very best. Designer clothes, dance lessons, private schools. The last school she went to, they even had a rule about boys in the rooms. You had to have one foot on the floor at all times."
Candy's mouth curled—her laugh didn't come from her belly.
"Imagine that, huh? I was older than her before I knew people fucked lying down. Remember?"
I remembered. The dark stairwell at the back of the building where she lived with her mother in a railroad flat on the top floor. Candy standing one step higher than me, her back to me, her skirt bunched around her waist. I remembered taking down a drunk in an alley just past a waterfront bar with two other guys from the gang. Thinking my share of the loot would buy her a sweater she wanted. And me another few minutes on those stairs.
"Her name is Elvira. Pretty name, isn't it? I wanted her to have everything I didn't." She waved her hand, taking in the sterile waiting room to her office. "That's what I started all this for."
I watched her lying eyes, waiting.
"A few months ago, she ran away from school. She's staying with this cult. Over in Brooklyn. I don't know much about it…even what it's called. The man who runs it, he's called Train. I don't know how he got to her. I went there once. They wouldn't let me speak to her. I told them she was underage, but they must know something about me. Maybe she told them. Call a cop, they said."
I lit another smoke.
"I want her back. She's mine, not theirs. She's too young for this. She needs help. Maybe even a hospital. She…"
I cut her off. "What do you want from me?"
She tilted her chin to look up at me. "Get her out of there. Get her back."
"I don't do that stuff."
"Yes you do. You do it all the time. It's what you do. What you used to do before…"
I looked a question at her.
She pointed a finger at me, crooked her thumb. "Bang bang," she said softly.
I shook my head.
"All you have to do is ask, okay? Just go there. See the man. Ask him to let Elvira go with you."
"And if he says no?"
"Then I'll do something else."
"Do something else first."
"No! I want to keep my life. Just the way it is, okay? Just ask him."
"Why should he go along?"
"It doesn't matter. He will. I know he will."
I got off the couch, walked over to the window. It was dark outside, lights spotting the building across the street. Nothing was right about her.
"Say the whole thing," I told her.
"You go there. You ask him for Elvira. He gives her up. You bring her to me."
"He says no?"
"You walk away."
"No more?"
"No more."
"What kind of cult is this? They have the girls hooking, begging, selling flowers, what?"
"I don't know."
"How do you spell this guy's name? T
rain."
"Like a subway train.
I lit another smoke. "You said you'd pay me."
"I said I'd give you whatever you want."
"Money's what I want."
"Tell me the price. I'll have it here for you when you get back."
I smiled.
She didn't. "Half now, half when you come back."
"Five now."
She padded out of the room on her bare feet. I punched the redial number on the white phone, memorized the number that came up on the screen, hung it up gently before it could ring at the other end.
Candy came back in, handed me a thick wad of bills wrapped in a rubber band. I put it in my coat pocket.
"Here's all I know about him," she started, curling up on the couch again.
40
I DID IT RIGHT. Habits die hard. Like the woman I loved. The building was an old meat–packing plant in the shadow of the triangle formed by Atlantic and Flatbush, on the edge of the gentrification blot spreading east from Boerum Hill. A nonprofit corporation owned it. Four stories. The ground floor was a loading bay for trucks. The front–facing windows were new, vinyl–trimmed. The sides were flat–faced brick. The back windows were covered with iron bars. Front door was steel, set a few inches into the frame. The City Planning Office had the records. The place had been gut–renovated four years ago. The top floor had a domed skylight.
Traffic was light in and out. Most of the visitors were young. White. Empty–handed.
I went to see a guy I know. An ex–cop who doesn't pretend he's honest. For three hundred bucks, he told me the place had six separate phone numbers and two pay phones.
"You want the numbers, the toll calls?"
"How much?"
"A grand gets you the numbers, and one month's bill for each number."
"I'll let you know."
Four cars registered to the corporation. Two vans, a station wagon, and a Mercedes sedan.
Five hundred bought me an IRS scan. The corporation called itself Mission 999. It declared almost three hundred grand last year in contributions, none larger than a couple of thousand. The guy I paid told me that it had never been audited.
I had a picture of Elvira. Pretty little brunette in a school uniform. Looked about thirteen. Smiling a school–picture smile.
It made me think of something. Something that wouldn't come to the surface.
41
I TOLD MAX about the deal. Sitting in my booth in the back of Mama's restaurant, I drew a picture of the house. Max kept tapping the paper, not satisfied until I drew in every detail I could remember. He curled his fingers into a tube, held it to one eye, flicked a finger across the opening at the end. I shook my head—I didn't need photographs of the place. When I was finished, I handed the drawing to Max. He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, let the smoke bubble slowly out his nose as he concentrated.
He ground out his cigarette. Reached down, gestured like he was pulling a plant out by the roots. I shook my head again. We weren't going to snatch the kid. I took him through the whole bit again. And again. Finally he nodded.
42
THE NEXT morning we parked a couple of blocks from the building. Walked the rest of the way. Calm and quiet. I knocked on the steel door. Waited. Max stood next to me, just off my shoulder, centered inside himself, ready.
A young guy just past his teens opened the door. Wearing a blinding white karate gi, black belt loosely tied at his waist, black headband.
"Can I help you?"
"I want to talk to Train.
"Your name?"
"Burke."
"Wait here, please." He closed the door gently. No sound reached us from inside.
It wasn't a long wait. "Please come with me," he said.
The door opened into a long, narrow room. Kitchen sounds to one side. Young people moving around, serene looks, quiet smiles. "This way," he said, turning toward a staircase.
We followed him to the second floor. Sounds of a postage meter, telephones chiming. More people moving around. Nobody gave us a glance.
Another flight. Quiet. All the doors closed. The guy in the karate outfit never looked back.
He opened a door at the top of the last flight. Stood aside, sweeping a hand to show us in. A room the size of a basketball court. Wide–board pine floor, scrubbed so hard it was almost white. The walls were eggshell, the single row of windows blocked by thin aluminum blinds, slanted to make horizontal bars across the floor. The skylight threw an oblong slash of bright light into the center. A teardrop–shaped blob of concrete was placed at the center of the light. The guide led us to it. The center was hollowed out, red and white pillows arranged in the core to form a chair.
"Please wait," he said. He walked across the room, tapped on a door at the far end, came back, and stood next to us. A rainbow formed an arc over the concrete chair. I flicked my eyes to the skylight, catching a glimpse of a long arc–shaped prism suspended by a thread from the ceiling.
The far door opened. A man came through at the head of a wedge, three men on each side of him. Medium height, dark hair. Barefoot, loose faded cotton pants. He was bare–chested under a flowing white silk robe.
"I am Train," he said to me, ignoring Max.
"Burke."
"Get chairs for our guests," he said to nobody in particular. He sat down, one man on each side of his chair. The other four came back carrying one of the concrete blobs between them. I saw where hand–holds had been cut into the sides. They put the chair down. Went back and returned with another. Nobody spoke. The four men came back, each carrying two black pillows. They arranged the pillows in the hollow of the chairs. I took the chair closest to the windows. Max swept the room with his eyes, sat down next to me. One of the men put a metal bowl between our chairs. The four chair–carriers walked out. Train spoke to me from between his two remaining guards—their eyes tracked me. Nothing serene in them.
"You wanted to speak with me?" His voice was mellow–calm, almost polite.
I reached into my coat, watching his eyes. They stayed calm. I took out a smoke, fired it up, dropped the match into the metal bowl.
"You have a girl here. Elvira. Her mother wants her back."
"Is that your message?"
"Half of it. I'm here to take her."
"Just like that?"
I shrugged.
"Do you want to know why she's here?"
"No."
"Or how she got to us?"
"No."
He closed his eyes. Held his hands to his temples like he was waiting for a message.
"Are you a private detective?"
"No."
"What if she wants to stay?"
"She's underage. It's not her choice."
"Everyone makes choices."
"Everyone tries."
He put his fingers to his temples again. "Can we discuss this?"
"What's to discuss?"
"I'm interested in people. Why they do things. It helps me do my work."
I dragged on my cigarette.
"Are you interested in a proposition?"
"Enough to listen to it."
He leaned slightly forward. "I'm interested in you. Why you would do something like this. An hour or so of conversation. Just you and I. We'll talk. You'll answer my questions. And I'll answer yours, if you want. A dialogue. I will have to prepare the girl. You'll come back tomorrow. She'll leave with you. Fair enough?"
My face stayed flat. "Even if you don't like the answers I give you?"
"Yes."
I made a sign to Max. He flowed to his feet, approached the man sitting across from us. Train didn't move. The guards stepped in front of him. Max kept coming. I couldn't hear what Train said, but the guards parted when Max closed in. He took one of Train's hands in his, turned it over, examining it. Stepped back, nodded to me.
Train's eyes flickered in the artificial rainbow. "What was that about?"
"My brother is leaving now. I'll talk to you. Like you said. I'll come
back tomorrow. For the girl. Like you said."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Yeah it does. You keep your word, there's no problem. You don't, my brother comes back to see you. He'll know you when he does."
Train shrugged. Max stepped away from him. Stood behind his own chair. Thrust his fingers into the handholds and lifted the concrete blob off the ground. The only sound in the room was the whistle of air through the Mongol warrior's flat nose.
That wasn't like Max. Muscle–flexing. Maybe none of us would be ourselves again.
He gently lowered the chair to the floor. Bowed to Train. Walked to the door we used to enter the room. The guy in the white karate outfit stepped in his way, looking to Train for a sign. By the time Train shook his head, the guy was on the floor, face a black shade of red, holding his ribs gently so they wouldn't cut into his lungs. And Max was on the other side of the door.
I lit another cigarette. "Let's have that dialogue," I said to Train.
43
THE TWO guards helped the guy in the white outfit to his feet. Went out the same door, leaving us alone. Train put his hands to his temples again.
Silence.
"What do you call yourself?" he finally asked.
"Burke."
"Not who, what. You say you're not a private investigator…you're not a lawyer, not a doctor…all of us are something. You're…"
"Waiting."
His eyes stayed calm. "A dialogue. As we agreed."
I nodded my head forward, acknowledging. "I'm just a man. I guess you could call me a contractor."
"Could you explain?"
"I make contracts with people. I promise to do something for them, they promise to do something for me."
"Pay you money?"
"Sometimes."
"And other times?"
"It depends. I need certain things. Just like you or anybody else. I do my work to get those things. It's not always money."
"Are you for hire, then?"
"Only by people who know me. Or know my people."
"This girl you want…her mother hired you?"
"Yes."
"And you know her?"
"Yes."
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