Haiku

by Andrew Vachss

  Levi pushed a button, and the speaker went silent.

  I got to my feet, faced the therapist—I now knew the true meaning of the word—bowed, and said, “Would a true friend of Brewster’s allow him to sell his medication?”

  “Never,” Levi said, holding my eyes with his own.

  “So it shall be,” I said, signing my own contract.

  I followed Brewster to a window where he picked up a packet. After a moment’s hesitation, he took a proffered plastic cup of water, and swallowed the pills he had poured into his hand.

  We left the building together.

  89

  “You can’t rush these things.” Lamont spoke out of the side of his mouth as he continued to scan the street from a “fishing spot” we had claimed earlier that day.

  Darkness had fallen. Thus, we had fewer competitors. And considerably less fish. But our presence would not be seen as remarkable; this city’s streets are so thoroughly covered with those seeking money from strangers that only their absence would attract attention.

  Although they all seek alms, few would regard themselves as beggars. Some stalk the subway cars, virtually demanding money as they loom over seated citizens. Some prefer the street, putting on “performances,” such as singing or dancing or playing an instrument, an open receptacle nearby for passersby to reward their efforts. Some spend all day in front of hand-lettered signs that explain their plight. “Disabled Vet” was highly favored until recently, but has now largely been replaced by references to lost employment. Some stagger about, holding an empty cup, mumbling incoherently, glassy-eyed and drooling. Some reek of cheap wine. Some wander aimlessly, others have rigidly established routes. Occasionally, there are even physical battles over a particularly desirable location.

  According to Michael, the city’s homeless shelters are so overcrowded that people are often turned away. Lamont told me that today’s shelters were just like the “dorms” he had been sentenced to as a youth. His description of those dorms was horrifying, but Lamont said they were considered a rite of passage for those who sought high status among youth gangs.

  Silence fell between us, as it does when Lamont and I both need to search ourselves.

  I thought of adaptation. Here, winter kills by its very presence. Some who cannot find shelter fall asleep and do not awaken. Were it not for our dugouts, desperate measures would have been required years ago.

  “Watch that one,” Lamont suddenly intruded, his chin tilted toward a dark-haired young woman in a shimmering red skirt that barely concealed her sex, and a matching band of the same material in lieu of a blouse. She was expertly navigating on extraordinarily high heels, weaving between the cars driving closest to the curb. The ones driving very slowly.

  Perhaps ten minutes later, one of those cars came to a stop. The young woman walked over to it as its window slid down. She put her head and upper body inside the car, creating an exaggerated display of her buttocks. A moment later, she withdrew, and the car pulled off.

  “Too rich for the boy’s blood,” Lamont said.

  Before I could ask him to explain, another car had stopped. The young woman repeated the same gestures. But, this time, a bargain must have been struck, because she walked around to the far side of the car and climbed in.

  “They’re going to the Cheshire,” Lamont said. “That’s a trick hotel. Rooms by the hour. Girl like that, she won’t be doing you in the front seat. You want that kind of action, you go over to the West Side. Cheaper meal, smaller menu.”

  I said nothing, watching similar choreography repeated by other young women.

  “This is one of the best strolls in the city,” Lamont told me. “At least, it is today. They move ’em around.”

  The young woman in the red outfit returned in less than an hour. She held a brief conversation with a blond woman, each of them smoking a cigarette. The blonde took a small cell phone from her purse and opened it, apparently answering a call. I could not hear whatever she said, but she seemed to be remonstrating with whoever the caller was.

  Both women returned to their work. The girl in the red outfit was more consistent, but all succeeded in attracting customers.

  It was getting quite late when a black sedan with lavish gold trim and oversized wheels of the same color pulled to the curb. It gleamed as if polished with oil.

  Both girls scurried over to the car. They seemed to be competing for the attention of the driver, but the exchange was short, and the black sedan pulled away without either one inside.

  “His game is weak,” Lamont said. “That’s old-style, checking your traps like that. A player who’s got his game down, he don’t need to be checking; he knows his ho’s gonna bring him his money.”

  “So he is not the one we want?”

  “He’s just what we want, bro. Lightweight like him, he’s gotta carry his flash with him. We’re not gonna find some major-leaguer out here. A pimp on that level, his ass is parked in some club right this minute, snorting lines off a platinum spoon one of his women bought for him. What we want is a man who wants all that, but he’s still dialing longdistance. Maybe he’s too young, maybe he’s new to the game—I don’t know. But you saw his play, right? See how easy he’d be?”

  “No.”

  “No?” Lamont said, apparently surprised at my response.

  “He stopped only to converse with those women. Not only did they expect him, they might attempt to interfere with any attempt to rob him.”

  “That’s what we need Michael’s five C’s for,” Lamont said, his teeth showing in a lupine grin.

  90

  Over the next several days, our band developed separate schedules. Although Lamont, Target, and I rose with the others, we would only go far enough to find a place to continue sleeping until afternoon. This is more difficult than it might first appear, but it is really no great achievement when the weather is warm, especially to those who have been forced to learn this city as our kind have.

  This new schedule was necessary because our surveillance required that we be awake and alert until approximately four in the morning. Each time we departed, I would note that, as if in obedience to some unspoken law, the streets themselves had taken the coming of dawn as a command to change ownership.

  The deeper the darkness, the more the streets had belonged to the predators. Despite the artificiality of human predation, an organic food chain always imposed itself.

  When I told Lamont what I had discovered, he simply shrugged. Seeing that I would not accept one of his “that’s just the way it is” explanations, he pointed out that the prostitutes we watched would prey upon a customer only opportunistically. “A good whore’ll work some plastic out of the trick’s pocket the second he uses the bathroom. Swipe it in two seconds. He won’t catch wise until he sees some big-ass charges on his bill. Not too big, though—that’d force his hand, blow the deal.”

  “Deal? Would such a … customer not be a victim?”

  “It don’t work like that, Ho. He’s giving up something, but he’s getting something, too. He doesn’t make a squawk about the money, and his wife never learns where he was the night the charges got rung up. A whore who doesn’t get too greedy’s got nothing to worry about.”

  Yet, despite Lamont’s explanation, I could not regard the women as the skillful exploiters he depicted. It did not require in-depth knowledge of being a “sex worker”—Luzanne had always referred to herself as such—to realize that each woman was taking unimaginable risks each time she entered a stranger’s car. When I asked how the male’s risk of losing money could ever be balanced against the female’s risk of losing her life, Lamont had no more to contribute than: “That’s the game, Ho. Always has been; always will be.”

  Perhaps the natural balance lies unseen. The men who profit by the dangerous labor of such women could themselves be prey, I thought, as the screen of my mind displayed the murky image of a white car rolling to a stop next to our dugouts.

  As dawn broke, the morning light wo
uld herald the influx of the new owners of the streets. Among those, dress and mannerisms clearly delineated status—some were the masters of huge buildings, others cleaned those buildings. Often, they would pass one another, moving in opposite directions, one having finished his labors, the other about to begin.

  While I continued to focus on the two women, calculating distances and angles, I noticed that Lamont’s attention was constantly shifting to our left, to the end of the block. It was that corner around which the pimp’s distinctive car would come each night.

  “No way he’s gonna cruise Lex in that ride, Ho,” Lamont said. “He cribs uptown, I’m thinking. So he jumps on the FDR, and comes across at the exit, see?”

  I did not.

  “Never mind, bro. Look, hold the fort, okay? I gotta go scout Triple-A for prospects.”

  With that, Lamont stood up and shuffled his way down the street. No actor could have portrayed a shambling drunk more convincingly.

  91

  Three more nights passed before Lamont said, “Time to buy our supplies. I figure two and a quarter should do it.” He rose to his feet and walked toward the corner. This time, his gait was steady and purposeful—a man on his way to work.

  When he returned, he said, “This is our last night here, Ho. We can go home now. Tomorrow, we set up in a new spot.”

  We arrived at the dugout much earlier than we had for several days. Only Brewster was there.

  “You guys still scoping out the job?” he asked, his voice once more a reflection of the heroes of his treasured books.

  “Nope,” Lamont said, confidently. “We’re ready to go.”

  “You need another gun?”

  “We’re okay, bro.”

  Brewster smiled. It was a relaxed, genuine smile. He seemed at peace with his parallel world. It was only then that I understood “another gun” to mean “a helping hand.” And that Lamont’s respectful refusal was taken not as an insult, but as vindication.

  Brewster had been keeping his contract.

  “My sister says I can come back first thing this morning,” he told us. “Gonna take a while, she’s way the hell out in Queens. So I better get in the wind.”

  “That is a good plan,” I said.

  92

  Knowing Michael and Ranger could return at any time, I turned to Lamont. “And what is our plan?”

  “Where we’ve been setting up shop the last few nights, you know what’s just around the corner from there, Ho?”

  “More prostitutes?”

  Lamont lit a cigarette, studying my face as he did so. My friend guarded his power of irony zealously; he would not appreciate seeing it displayed by others. His slight nod communicated his belief in the innocence of my question.

  “Sure,” he said. “What else? But Lex is off-limits to those girls—that’d be working without a net.”

  “You mean, those women, they have no pimps?”

  “They all have pimps,” Lamont said. “I don’t care if they’re blowing guys in an alley for a buck, if they’re on the game street-level, they got some kinda pimp. But, like I told you before, there’s pimps and there’s pimps. Our guy, he’s up there, but not top-shelf, okay?”

  I nodded. When I taught, I had always emphasized that there was only one true universal measurement—combat. High proficiency in one style would only apply to that style. This is why sporting contests have highly specific rules—a Shodokan tournament would not permit Muay Thai knee strikes; a boxer may not kick his opponent. My students were told never to accept a challenge, because a duel is no different from a tournament. My system was designed for the reality of life. And life has no rules.

  Ah, yes … my system.

  I told Chica she was ready. That indictment never left my thoughts. It stabbed at my arrogance, always drawing blood.

  “What I’ve been checking out is this one girl working around that corner. Lot of miles on her, maybe, but she still got plenty of bounce to the ounce,” Lamont continued. “But not enough to get her a stall in a top player’s stable.”

  “Would not her experience—?”

  “Nailed it, bro. That’s what she should be doing, schooling the fresh turn-outs. But those sorry-ass pimps they got out there now, all they think about is, how much cash am I gonna get tonight? The way I read her, this girl, she got too much pride to be last in line.

  “But that’s not how I came on to her. First, I had to give her the quarter for five minutes of her time. She was a little spooked—and not the way you think,” he said, grinning. “But I told her we could talk right there—she never had to step down no alley or nothing—so she listened.”

  Still, I waited.

  “This tells the story,” Lamont said, as he held up two halves of a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Where is the other bill?” I asked.

  “This is both, Ho. Right here. And Mercy—that’s our blonde—she’s got both, too. I showed her the pair of C-notes, told her what she’d have to do to earn them.

  “Being a natural-born whore, she wanted the money up front. But I was hustling before she was born, and I know how to deal with that.

  “So now we’re each holding half. No good to her; no good to me. The deal is, she gets the other half soon as she opens the window for us to slip in.”

  “Now I am lost,” I acknowledged.

  “A pimp only stays in business if he can keep pulling new girls,” Lamont told me. “Some do turn-outs—sweet-talk a country girl into just turning a couple of little tricks until she gets herself together. You got some broads been out here for years, still telling themselves their man is putting all the money away so they can open a business or whatever. ‘Just till we get on our feet, baby.’ Only they never get off their backs.

  “Then you got your gorillas. Snatch some runaway kid, torture her until she goes along. Those ain’t pimps, no matter what they call themselves.

  “There’s other ways—ship the girls in from China or Mexico or wherever, keep them locked up until they get used up. Or scumbags who rent out their own kids. But you won’t see those girls on the street—the people who own them, they can’t take the chance.”

  Lamont lit another cigarette, studying the glowing tip as if it held secrets.

  “Just think of sharks, okay? You know their deal—keep swimming or die. For a pimp, it’s either keep getting new stuff or you’re out of the game.

  “Lots of ways to do that, like I said. But the prize would be a girl who’s already in The Life. You don’t have to school her; she knows what to do and how to do it. The best ones, they’re like stars. And stars got egos, and they’ll always listen to a sales pitch. So a good pimp, he’s always out there, trolling for a new catch.”

  “Would not the pimp who originally—?”

  “No, bro. You know what a girl in The Life calls it, when she gets with a pimp? She says, ‘I chose him.’ It’s that feeling that keeps them working. A top player expects girls to come and go. Chase after a girl who walks away, you lose a lot of face behind that kind of punk move. A real player holds a woman with his mind, not his hands.

  “The guy we want, that’s what he wants to be—a real player. Top-shelf. And now we got ourselves some bait.”

  “This woman … Mercy?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “She is going to convince this pimp—”

  “Jesus!” Lamont said. “Whores don’t be convincing pimps of nothing. She’s gonna flag him down, just like he was a trick. But, see, he’s gonna know what’s happening—she’s asking to be pulled, saying she wants to step up in class. No way our boy’s not gonna call her over, get a closer look at the goods.”

  “And that is when—”

  “Exactly when,” Lamont said. “All Mercy’s got to do is get his car to stop. When he opens his window to rap to her, that’s our window opening, too. You take the pimp, I take the wheel, and we just drive down to the river. While he’s still out, we grab his cash and fade. What’s he gonna do when he comes around, call the cops?
”

  “But he will know it was this woman—”

  “You think he’s ever gonna find her ass anywhere around here after that? That’s why she’s so perfect, Ho. We’ve been talking, her and me. She’s been around long enough. Ain’t nothing stupid about that woman. She’s gonna flip the script. Find some little town where the wannabes are young boys, just starting out. A woman like her, she’d be gold to a man like that. I figure she’s on the Greyhound before we even get back to our place.”

  “Place! Case! Trace! Face!” Target chanted.

  “He cannot hunt us,” I assured Target. “Lamont will be just another homeless drunk in his eyes. And he will never see me at all.”

  “Rehearsal time,” Lamont announced, and began drawing lines in the dirt with a sharp-edged stick.

  93

  “Don’t you need some … stuff?” Lamont asked me.

  “For what purpose?”

  “Hell, bro, I don’t know. I thought you guys had all kinds of special gear.”

  “Lamont,” I said, using his name to indicate I was growing weary of his circumlocutions, “we do not have much time before Ranger and Michael return. …”

  “Ninja gear, Ho. You know, like one of those black bodysuits and hoods and all.”

  “How many times have I—?”

  “Right. You ain’t no ninja. I got it, okay? I just thought …”

  “That I have been lying?” I asked, heartsick that my friend would think such of me.

  “You? Come on, Ho. I just thought you were being … humble. You know, like you’re always saying.”

  “Thank you,” I said, with sincerity. “Perhaps I have preached humility to the point where it has become a form of posturing.”

  “Fuck me! I can’t do this. Look, Ho, I just want to know. Whatever it is, I’m down with it. Down with you. But you’re always doing stuff it don’t look like you can do, you see what I mean? Look, I know this ain’t the goddamned movies, all right? I was just trying to help, man.”