Hard Candy

by Andrew Vachss

  "Get down, hound. You ain't bad enough to try me."

  Pansy made some noise I hadn't heard before. Maybe she was laughing.

  I left the motor running, jumped into an all–night deli and ordered three brisket sandwiches on rye, hold everything. In the car, I threw the bread out the window, squeezed the brisket into a ball the size of a melon. Tossed it back into the pit. Pansy made ugly sounds as she finished it off. She ventured an experimental whine, trying for seconds. Saw it wasn't playing with the home crowd, and flopped down to grab some sleep.

  I nosed the Plymouth back down to the waterfront, found a quiet place and pulled over. The Prof fired a cigarette, waiting.

  "I saw Wesley."

  "Damn! Up close?"

  "Close as you are right now."

  "You ain't dead, so you came out ahead."

  "Yeah."

  "What'd he want?"

  "The freak. The freak who wanted the duel with Max. Wesley was on his case. Way before we started."

  "So…"

  "Yeah. If we'd just gone to ground, holed up, it would have passed."

  "You couldn't've known, brother. No man knows Wesley's plan."

  "I know."

  "He knows the freak is dead. He has to know. Fuck, even the cops know. So what's he want?"

  "He wants to get things straight. Says the freak was on his list. A contract, right? And the guys who hired Wesley, they don't want to pay."

  "That ride is suicide."

  "Yeah. Wesley said he's going to be doing a whole lot of Italians soon."

  "Who cares? Let him do a few for me while he's at it. They ain't us."

  I lit my own smoke. "He gave me the name of another guy he wants. The same guy I took that little girl from a couple of days ago."

  "So?"

  "So he doesn't want me in the way. He thinks I'm working his beat now. Hitting for cash."

  "Oh."

  "I think I squared it."

  "You must've, man. With Wesley, you fuck around, you're in the ground."

  "You think he's crazy?"

  "Not middle–class crazy, bro'. Wesley, he's not…he ain't got but one button, and he pushes it himself."

  I looked out over the water toward Jersey. "Wesley said I was a burnt–out case. You think that?"

  "Wesley's the coldest dude I ever met. But that don't make him the smartest."

  "What's that mean?"

  "Like Michelle said, man. You not being yourself. Ever since…"

  "I'll be all right."

  "Who says no, bro'?"

  "Wesley…"

  "Wesley. Whatever my man's got, they ain't got no cure for. It's like he's got a couple of parts missing. He looks like a man, but he's something else."

  "Something…"

  "Else. That's all I can call."

  "You don't come like that stock from the factory."

  "Don't get on it, Burke. I didn't know Wesley when he was a kid."

  "I did."

  "Burke, if you not crazy, you putting on a great act." The little man lit a smoke. Drew it in slowly, taking his time. Like you do when you got a lot of it to spare.

  "This is the one true clue, brother. Wesley, he's the Mystery Train. Nobody knows where he's going, but everybody knows where he's been."

  "I…"

  "You got no case, Ace. I don't know nobody who ever walked away from a meet with Wesley. He's telling you something. Something just for you. Listen to the lyrics, brother."

  I threw my smoke out the window.

  Time passed. Wesley said I was off the track. And the Prof was saying that's where I needed to be. Out of the way.

  "You got it handled?" he asked.

  I nodded, thinking about kids.

  63

  I DIDN'T EXPECT ANYTHING to happen soon. Wesley ran on jailhouse time.

  Survive. That's what I do. The biggest piece of that is waiting. Knowing how to wait. Before Belle, I was the best at it. Drifting just outside the strong currents, keeping out of the pattern. Moving in on the breaks, never staying long. In and out.

  But if you just stayed in your cell—that was a pattern too.

  64

  MAX WASN'T at the warehouse when I pulled in. Immaculata was upstairs, in the living quarters they fixed up above Max's temple. She had a stack of mail waiting for me. One of Mama's drivers handles the pickup from my P0 box in Jersey, drops it off every few weeks. Mac bounced her baby on her knee while I smoked and went through the pile.

  Anything goes through the U.S. mail. It moves more cocaine than all the Miami Mules going through customs. That's why they invented the "American key." Key as in kilo. A true kilo, European–style, is 2.2 pounds. And the Federal Express cut–off is two pounds.

  I work a different kind of dope. Some of the letters were from would–be mercenaries, sending their handwritten money orders to me for "pipeline" information. Child molesters sent cash, seeking the "introductions" I promised in my ads. Freaks ordered hard–core kiddie porn they'd never receive. Let them write the Better Business Bureau. Every so often, someone would answer one of my sting ads: "Vietnam vet, experienced in covert actions. One–man jobs only. U.S.A. only. Satisfaction guaranteed." You hire a hit man through the mails, you find out who first wrote that Silence Is Golden. Blackmailers.

  The P0 box isn't just for suckers. Anyone out there who knows the game I play can use it for a mail drop. One of the envelopes contained only a single page ripped from a doctor's prescription pad. A blank page except for one word. Shela. She was a high–style scam artist who hated the freaks as much as I did. I never asked why. Whenever she ran across a rich one, she'd pass it along.

  I left the money orders in a neat stack for Max to take to Mama's laundry, shrugged into my coat, bowed to Immaculata and the baby.

  "Burke…"

  "What?"

  "Max can take care of this thing for you."

  "What thing?"

  "This man…the one you met…the one with the machine gun."

  "Max told you about that?"

  Her lovely dark eyes shone under lashes like butterfly wings. "Do you think that was wrong?"

  "I'm glad he has someone to tell."

  "You have someone too, Burke. You have us. You know that."

  "There's nothing to tell. Wesley's not a problem."

  "Not like before?"

  "Let it go, Mac."

  "That's what you must do," she said.

  65

  I'M A GOOD THIEF. Two words—two separate things. When I had that name, I was out of the loop. Safe. The old rules are the best rules—you dance with the one who brought you to the party.

  I made some calls, put the team together.

  66

  "THIS'LL REALLY WORK?" I asked the Mole. He was bent over a lab table in his workroom, a pile of gold Krugerrands spread out before him.

  He didn't answer. Terry was standing next to him, his little face vibrating with concentration, nose two inches from the Mole's hands.

  Michelle was perched on a stool, her sleek nyloned legs crossed, smoking one of her long black cigarettes. Heart–shaped face peaceful. She could have been a suburban housewife watching her husband teach their son how to build a ham radio.

  Outside, dogs prowled the night–blanketed minefield of junked cars. Ringed in razor–wire and dotted with pockets of explosives. The safest place I know.

  Time went by. The Mole's stubby paws worked tiny probes under a huge magnifying glass he had suspended over the workbench. I heard the clink of coins, saw the red laser–beam shoot from a black box. I picked up one of the Krugerrands, turned it over in my hand. It looked like it was minted yesterday.

  "I thought these things weren't allowed in the U.S. anymore. No more trading with South Africa, right?"

  The Mole looked up. Hate–dots glinted behind the thick lenses. "No new Krugerrands. Illegal since 1984. But it's still legal to trade in older coins if they were made before that date."

  I looked at the coin in my hand. Gleaming new. "Thi
s says it was minted in 1984," I said.

  "It was minted a month ago," the Mole said. "This country always looks the other way for its Nazi friends."

  Michelle threw me a warning look. Don't get him started. The Mole was never far from critical mass when it came to his reason for living.

  I lit a smoke, patted my brother on the back, willing him to be calm, go back to work.

  Soon the Mole pushed back his chair. Pointed at a pile of a half dozen gold coins. "Which one?" he asked.

  I took them in my hand. Felt their weight. Held them up to the light. Tried to bend them in half. They were all the same. I tried the magnifying glass. Nothing. Handed them back to the Mole.

  He picked out the one he wanted. Handed me a jeweler's loupe. "Look around the edge—where the coin is milled."

  It took me a minute, even when I knew what I was looking for. A tiny dark dot standing between the ridges. I gave it back to the Mole.

  "Go outside," the Mole said to Terry. He handed me the coin. "Hide it," he said.

  "Put it in your purse," I told Michelle.

  Terry came back into the bunker holding a transmitter about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

  "Find it," the Mole said.

  The boy pulled a short antenna from the corner of the transmitter. Hit a switch. Soft electronic beeps, evenly spaced. He moved toward the far wall. The beeps separated, a full second between them. The beeping got more intense as he neared the workbench. The boy was patient, working the room in quadrants. When he got near Michelle, the transmitter went nuts. He worked around her, closing in. When he put it next to her purse, the beeps merged into one long whine. "In there," he said, a smile blasting across his face.

  Michelle gave him a kiss. "You're going to take Harvard by storm, handsome."

  "Will it work through metal?" I asked the Mole.

  "Even through lead," Terry assured me solemnly. I lit a cigarette, satisfied.

  "This is the way we're supposed to work," Michelle said. "This is us. I'll see the doctor tomorrow."

  67

  THE DOCTOR wouldn't blink at a transsexual for a patient. He didn't judge his clients, he just wrote their needs on his Rx pad. He sold what the customer wanted, and he didn't take checks. Quaaludes, steroids, amphetamines, barbiturates. That kind of traffic wouldn't make him rich. But the page from the prescription pad told me what I wanted to know: the doctor was selling Androlan, Malogex…all the injectable forms of testosterone. Even threw in a supply of needles. There's a new program for child molesters. The shrinks still haven't figured it out—the freaks, they don't want to be cured. This new program, it's only for special degenerates. Ones with money. Counseling, therapy…and Depo–Provera. Chemical castration, they call it. Reduces the sex drive down to near–zero. Supposedly makes the freaks safe, even around kids. Methadone for baby–rapers. Some judges love it. The freaks are crazy about the program—it's a Get Out of Jail Free card. The maggots do their research better than the scientists and all their federal grants. They figured out that a regular dose of testosterone cancels the Depo–Provera. Gets them back to what they call normal.

  Testosterone's not a narcotic. The feds don't check on how much you dispense. The doctor was doing all right. Medicine changes with the times. When I was a kid, the underground plastic surgeons would give you a new face if you were running from the law. Now some doctors will put a new face on a kid—a kid whose face is on a milk carton. It would do until they outlawed abortions again.

  Michelle bought such a big supply that the doctor must have figured she was going into business for herself. The word I got was that he'd wholesale the stuff if the price was right. Michelle paid him in Krugerrands. A dozen gold coins, almost six grand.

  The doctor lived up in Westchester County. He had two kids—a boy away at college and a fifteen–year–old girl. We watched the Mercedes pull out of the driveway, his wife next to him in the front seat. The girl was already out for the evening. We figured on a few hours.

  The back of the house was protected by an unbroken row of thick hedges. Max unscrewed the top of a cardboard tube, the kind you keep an expensive fishing rod in. Pulled out two aluminum poles. They telescoped like car antennas. He cross–latched the two poles with some X–braces, making a ladder. Max went up first, climbing backwards as easy as if he was using a staircase. The Mole followed him, satchel on a strap over his shoulder. I came next—the Mole was no athlete.

  It was a short drop to the ground. The windows were free of burglar–alarm tape. The doctor's wife wouldn't like the look. The Mole fluttered his hand—a flag in a breeze. Motion sensors. "Hard–wired," he whispered. "Expensive."

  "Can you take it out?" I asked.

  The Mole didn't answer, looking through the window with some kind of lens held up to his glasses. "There," he said, pointing.

  I saw a wooden box in a corner of the living room. Some kind of dark wood, a slim crystal vase standing on top. A tiny red light glowed near the base.

  The Mole fumbled in his satchel. Max braced the pane of glass with his hands as the Mole fitted a tiny drill against the surface. He nodded. Scratched an X on the glass with a probe, fitted the drill point into it. Pressed the trigger. A split–second whine. He reversed the drill bit, pulling it free of the glass. Then he threaded a wire through the hole. Attached the other end of the wire to something inside his satchel. The Mole pushed a toggle switch and the red light on the box inside the house winked out. I could have opened the back door with a credit card.

  We left Max on the first floor in case somebody came home. The Mole took the upstairs bedrooms, I hit the basement.

  The doctor had a nice little home–office setup downstairs. IRS would approve. I pulled the antenna on the same little box Terry had used to show off for his mother and went to work. It only took a couple of minutes. Second–rate wall safe behind a framed painting of assholes on horses chasing a fox. Amateur Hour. I could have knocked off the dial and pried the thing open in twenty minutes.

  It took the Mole less than five. It looked like gray putty he pasted around the edges of the safe. Until you saw the fuse. When he touched it off, we stepped back to watch. A soft pop and the door crumpled.

  Our Krugerrands were inside. The doctor liked gold. Canadian Maple Leafs, Chinese Pandas, Australian Koalas. American cash in neat stacks. A small leather loose–leaf book. A Canadian passport. The doctor was prepared—but not for us. We took it all.

  68

  AN AMATEUR steals only when he's broke. I'm a professional—I work at my trade.

  It didn't stop the pain, just put it on hold.

  I've had bad dreams all my life. But now it was sad dreams…bone–marrow pain. Belle. I never would have left her. Now she wouldn't leave me.

  I told Michelle I'd pick Terry up at Lily's. Got there early, looking around. Waiting. Lily came down the corridor at high speed, shrugging out of her parka, long black hair streaming out behind her. "Tell her I'll call her back!" she shouted over one shoulder. She pulled up when she saw me, a busty, glowing woman with a scar over one of her big dark eyes. Lily's old enough to have a teenage daughter, a little heart–breaker named Noelle, but she looks like she's still in college. Noelle's at the age where she's always griping because her mother isn't stylish enough. She tried to get me on her side once.

  "Don't you think Mom would look cool with her hair up?"

  "Your mother is beautiful, baby. She looks like the Madonna."

  "Oh, Burke!" the kid shrieked. "She's not even blond!" It's not a generation–gap anymore, it's a time–warp.

  I waited until she ran up on me. "Hi, Lily."

  Her face was reserved, eyes watchful. "Is there trouble?"

  "I'm here to pick up Terry."

  "Okay." Dubious.

  I lit a cigarette, ignoring her frown, moving aside to let her pass.

  She wasn't going for it. "She doesn't bring Scotty herself."

  "Scotty?"

  Her eyes raked my face, looking for the truth. A trained
therapist against a state–raised thief. No contest. I knew who she meant. Scotty was the little boy sodomized by a freak who had a feeder deal with a day–care center. The freak took a picture of his fun—took the little boy's soul for a souvenir. The kid never told anybody until he let it slip to the mother of a little girl he played with. The devil stole his soul, so he asked a witch to get it back. Strega. Flame–haired, steel–hearted Strega. I made a promise to her. To never come back. If she and Wesley mated, their child could walk through Hell in a gasoline overcoat.

  Immaculata came down the hall, her arms on the shoulders of the pair of ten–year–olds framing her slender body. One kid was black, the other white. Her long nails made bright slashes of color as she emphasized her words, looking for the right chord to play. Her English was perfect, but the Catholic school in Vietnam where she learned it left a few things out.

  "Benny, the very last thing on earth you need is another model airplane. It would be…coals to Newcastle."

  She pulled up short when she saw me standing with Lily. Raised her eyebrows in a question. I shook my head.

  "Burke, these are my friends. Benny and Douglas."

  I shook hands with each of them. Benny tugged at Immaculata's smock.

  "What's coals to Newcastle?"

  "Cocaine to Colombia," I told him.

  A grin flashed. He raised an open palm and I slapped him a high–five. His buddy grinned.

  "Maybe you missed your calling," Immaculata said, pulling the kids down the hall with her, leaving us alone.

  Lily wouldn't let it go. "You came here to volunteer…teach one of our self–defense classes?"

  I dragged on my cigarette. Lily wasn't an ex–con, but she had enough patience for a dozen of them. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

  "Come on," she said, charging down the hall to her office. She walked through the open door, tossed her parka on a couch already overflowing with files, plopped herself in a battered old chair next to the computer she only used for video games. She didn't wait for me to work around to it. "What?" she demanded.

  "I lost a friend. Somebody close to me."