109
The two Chinese youths walked past Lamont and I as if we were crumpled pieces of paper on a dirty street. They were laughing between themselves when Lamont whipped his striking instrument at the knee of the one closest to us. Before that one had fallen, I was behind the other. It was over in seconds.
As Lamont and I moved off, the night air was ripped by a vampire’s scream. Ranger descended upon the fallen youths, his matte black knife stabbing as methodically as a piston, over and over. Pedestrians began to scream. Ranger suddenly stopped, scanned the area, and fled in the opposite direction from the one Lamont and I had taken.
“Crazy motherfuc—”
“Not now,” I said to Lamont.
As police sirens sounded, we turned the corner and made our way down behind the row of eating establishments. The delivery van was waiting, “Kabuki” emblazoned on its closed sides. The key was in the ignition.
As Lamont drove off, I prayed that Ranger’s orgy of violence had not destroyed the sign I had placed so carefully on the bodies.
110
Behind Brewster’s library, Michael was holding the bottom of a length of cargo netting. Lamont expertly maneuvered the van into place. Michael and Target each tied an end of the netting around the rear axle, then threw open the back doors.
Books began to flow.
Lamont, Target, and I loaded them into the van.
As the load increased, Target ran off. Michael took his place beside me. Lamont moved back behind the wheel.
A sharp “Pssst!” broke the silence. Michael did not hear it. But Michael had not been listening for it as I had. Perhaps some part of me even expected it.
Lamont’s barely audible warning touched my center, transporting me back to when I first became a creature of dark nights spent in even darker alleys. My senses opened, guiding me to my left. I shifted position without moving, knowing that to alarm Michael could be fatal to our mission.
A police car stood at the mouth of the alley through which we had entered. It was not moving. As I watched, the window closest to us slid down.
Data was being collected.
Data from which decisions would be made.
If the stream of books resumed with the police car still in place, the new data would become the decision.
Lamont had disabled the overhead light that turned on whenever the van’s doors were opened, and greased the hinges and locks so heavily that they opened without a sound. His warning was also a message—Lamont had chosen to stand his ground.
Michael was too fragile to make such choices. I could not risk speaking, and if his own eyes detected the police car …
I put my hand on the back of Michael’s neck, as if to get his attention. As he turned toward me, smiling, I used my thumb and forefinger to disconnect his brain from his body. I gently lowered him into a welcoming pool of shadow.
I then asked the night for permission to enter, knowing it might be my last such request. When it was granted, I moved toward the police car.
111
When an adversary has the ability to inflict harm from a distance, that distance itself is an adversary. A rifle that is capable of delivering death at one hundred meters is useless if the target can place himself between the tip of its barrel and the marksman holding it.
That is the essence of fear. Efforts to avoid it only magnify its power—fear is an enemy that can be killed only at close range.
Fear must always be acknowledged, but never respected. Only when such a state is achieved may fear become an invited visitor.
The closest range of all is intimacy. The deeper the fear is embedded in one’s spirit, the more vulnerable it is.
As I closed the distance to the police car, I walled off everything outside the immediate task. If a single policeman were to walk down the alley, his flashlight would have far greater power than his pistol. He must be allowed to penetrate deeply enough into the darkness for me to disable him before the van was exposed, without alerting his partner. What was the range of his flashlight? Would his partner follow him into the dark … or would he use his radio to summon others?
If the police moved in, Lamont could vanish down the other end of the alley—but that would mean leaving the van in place. It could easily be traced, but the restaurant manager would quite truthfully deny any knowledge of its role in our book-transfer scheme. Without Lamont or Ranger present, the others were in no real danger. The books belonged to Brewster, and he was already “registered.” Target would be judged as insane on the spot.
But the plan was our heartbeat.
With that sudden understanding came the answer to my strategic dilemma. I moved much closer than I had originally planned. Close enough to hear the policemen talking in a jargon I did not fully understand.
“A nose like that, fucking asshole should be working K-9, am I right? He’d make those dogs look like amateurs.”
“Yeah. Only I got a better idea. How about if we put a leash on him and let him work the bomb squad?”
They both laughed, but there was an ugliness to their laughter that would not have comforted whoever they were talking about.
Just as I slithered out of the alley, a stream of expelled cigarette smoke from the opened window decoded their conversation. Apparently, another officer had complained about smoking in that particular car, and they had stopped so that they might enjoy their cigarettes in peace.
I moved to my left, walking in the opposite direction from the way the police car was facing. Once out of what I judged to be their visual range if they were using their mirrors, I crossed the street and worked my way toward them, until I was just across from the driver’s open window.
I drew all doubt deep into my belly, held it for a moment, then released it through my nose, narrowing my focus. If the door closest to the alley opened and one of the policemen got out, I would have to cut the communications link between the police car and their headquarters before following the other officer down the alley from behind.
Having no choice but one brings great comfort.
The policeman behind the wheel snapped his cigarette into the street. It sparked briefly as it hit. The driver’s window slid up as the police car pulled away.
112
Michael was still on the ground when I returned. I brought him back by reconnecting what I had temporarily blocked.
“What the …?”
“You fainted,” I whispered.
“I never—”
“It does not matter …” I began, just as what had earlier been a stream of books suddenly became a raging river. It was all the three of us could do to keep up, but either there were fewer books than Brewster had described or they took up less space than we had envisioned—only a few more minutes passed before the netting was empty.
Michael and I untied it, and watched as it was drawn back up into the building.
There was room in the back of the van for us all.
113
“Where’s Ranger?” Gloria asked me, wiping sweat from her face. All the books had been transferred to the ACT basement, and we were about to return the van.
“He never appeared,” I told her.
“Right” is all she said.
114
After that night, we never returned to the restaurant. Unlike the possibly mythical murder of a pimp who owned a white Rolls-Royce, the newspaper had deemed the butchering of the two Chinese youths worthy of front-page coverage.
115
Weeks passed without a sign of Ranger. Michael, in particular, seemed to mourn his disappearance. As if in tribute to his friend’s memory, he had entered some sort of “day program,” and was learning computer-programming skills.
Brewster visited his library regularly, nearly always accompanied by Target.
Lamont filled his notebook, working every day, even while we were fishing.
116
I stood, a part of the darkness. I watched as Earl stepped out of the ACT building and took a position o
n the sidewalk, arms folded across his broad chest, as if standing guard over the empty building behind him.
Target suddenly appeared. As mysteriously as he had among us the first time. He approached Earl, who clearly had been expecting him. They went inside, together.
117
Michael, Brewster … and now Target.
As I fought to banish the encroaching smugness from my spirit, I sensed a presence behind me. I did not turn, accepting whatever was to come.
“I nailed the ear to the door of their joint.” Ranger’s voice. “It was easy to find—they got their name right over the door. Shadow Riders, Lamont said they were. I figured they’d know what it meant, the ear.”
“What did it mean?” I asked, still not turning around.
“Some psycho Vietnam vet’s on the loose,” Ranger said, his clipped words as measured as a fire-walker’s steps. “Probably can’t tell one gook from another. Maniac like that’s running around, you don’t want to be going out for a stroll in the wrong neighborhood. Best stay close to home.”
“Hai.”
“That ear thing, I didn’t plan it, Ho. It didn’t come to me until the next morning, when I woke up behind a Dumpster. It was in my pocket. That’s when I figured it out.”
“But why were you even—?”
“Just backing you up, brother. That’s what I told myself, anyway. Ranger, playing his role. I was on fixed post, across the street. That’s why I swiped that pea-shooter from Lamont, just in case. When I saw you guys had it handled, I was going to fade. But when I saw them lying there, I just went …”
“Ah.”
“Every night, I come by here.”
I could think of nothing to say to that.
“I called Gloria,” Ranger said. “She told me I have to come in. I know she’s right. But I can’t do it. I can’t play that game anymore.”
“Gloria is waiting for you, Ranger. She has not called the police. She has shown her trust.”
“I know. But I’m not like that kid Brewster. That other world of his, it’s not such a bad place. It never … takes over, you know? He’s still in touch. If you told him he could spend his whole life in that library of his if he wanted, he’d turn down the offer. Just like he wouldn’t stay with his sister. He’s some kind of crazy—that’s the only way they take you where Gloria works—but he don’t need to be locked up or anything.”
“Brewster is not dangerous,” I agreed.
“But if he had lost that damn library … who knows, right?”
“Hai.”
“And now he won’t. He’s got a lot of worlds he lives in, but they’re all home, see?”
“We all have a—”
“Remember when I told you that’s what we used to call home, Ho. The World. Like, if we could just make it back here …”
“Ranger,” I said, still with my back to him, “you did make it back. And you are here.”
“But I’m not home, Ho. See, I’m not crazy. Maybe I was, once. But not for a long time now. Every time something … happens, the shrinks say, ‘Ranger lost it,’ like they’re on my side. Like they understand. But they got it backwards. When they say I lost it, that’s when I found it. Gloria, she’s good people, but she doesn’t get it. But you do, don’t you, Ho? You always knew. I could tell.”
“Brewster visits his sister—”
“When he wants to, Ho. Those people over there, they’ve got his back. They can … I don’t know, help him deal. That’s what they do, see? They don’t try and fucking ‘fix’ you, like they do at the VA. They just give you … tools, like. And now you’ve even got Target hooked up, huh?”
“It was not I who—”
“Sure it was, Ho. You came to save us.”
“No, no, Ranger. Please. I came to save myself.”
“Sure, I got it,” he said, as if placating a foolish child. “Where’s Michael?”
“I do not—”
“Come on, Ho. This is me, Ranger. You think the door don’t swing both ways? You know me. Inside me. The real me. It doesn’t matter where Michael is, am I right?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, wondering if Ranger’s use of Michael’s “closer” was unconscious mimicry … or showing me something I had failed to see before. Not in Michael; in Ranger.
“Michael, he went home. Just like you wanted. I saw Lamont before I came here. You know what he was doing?”
“Writing.”
“He’s home, too,” Ranger said. “You came to save us all. Bring us home.”
“Please,” I begged the presence behind me. “I have no such—”
“Sure you do, bro. Like I said, I know. Where’s your home, Ho?”
“I have no—”
“Yeah, you do. And you’re already there.”
I felt the shame of Ranger’s truth. But before I could—I do not know the words—he spoke again:
“I go home, Ho. Then I come back. That’s when I’m with you and the guys. Back to The World. That’s not my home. Every time I come back, I’m not coming home, I’m just … waiting.”
“I, too, am—”
“No. Listen! I like doing it, Ho. Up close, with my knife. They probably got some special name for that, but I know what it really is. It’s me. It wasn’t me before—when I was psycho for real—but it is now.”
“Ranger …”
“Don’t even say it, Ho. It doesn’t matter now. I wasn’t born to be … whatever I am. And there’s enough of my true self—remember how you’re always saying?—there’s enough of that left so I know what’s right. It’s slipping away from me, that part. I have to go before it’s all gone.”
“Can we not—?”
A soft pop! behind me was his answer. I spun around. Ranger was lying on the ground, that little pimp pistol in his hand, a small droplet of blood forming between his eyebrows.
I knelt, searching for what I knew I would not find. Ranger had returned to himself.
I bowed before the warrior who had chosen seppuku. Not for the selfishness of his own “honor,” but to protect others from the beast within himself.
118
Winter has come.
We still have our dugouts, but most nights they are shared only by Lamont and myself. Target and Brewster still come and stay with us occasionally, but it is not the same.
Nor shall it ever be again. Brewster has a part-time job in a used-book store. When he speaks of finding a place to live, he does not mean shelter for the night. Each passing day, he becomes less of our world.
Target has actually found a place to live—some sort of residential facility. He is not incarcerated, but free to come and go as he wishes. There are obviously some requirements attached to the food and housing provided him—whatever they might be, they do not frighten him. He continues to communicate in outbursts, but they are more muted, almost conversational.
At first, Lamont was pleased when either would appear. Now he is barely cordial. “They’re not with us anymore, Ho. They found themselves a new crew.”
“They found themselves,” I said.
“Spare me, bro. That place they go, it’s only for people who ain’t right in the head. ’Specially that kid Brewster. He’s always trying to sell me on the joint, like he’s working on fucking commission. What would I want with a bunch of head doctors? I know how I got here. And it’s where I want to be. My choice, okay?”
Michael never comes at all. Perhaps he found his white Rolls-Royce.
I cannot follow the man who finally freed me of those self-worshiping shackles I had forged and fastened around my own soul.
I had not truly known Ranger. But he had truly known me.
119
Finally, I know myself. Ranger said I had been sent to save our band. He believed this in his soul. His last act had been to remove my final burden, thus allowing the savior to complete his mission.
No wonder “mission” had always held such sacred meaning to my horribly wounded friend.
I found a proper resting
place for Ranger’s medal.
The warrior had gone to the only place where he might find peace.
120
Ranger’s sacrifice was also his gift of truth.
I have learned that a man who counts himself a shepherd is not worthy to be a member of a flock.
This shall be my last night in the dugout. Tomorrow, I will bid farewell to my friend Lamont.
He has been anticipating this for some time, I know. Showing me how he had filled his notebook to the brim was his way of telling me he wanted to return to the field of battle and reclaim his heart.
121
Tomorrow, I begin again. I will walk, alone, until I come to where Chica waits.
May I be worthy when I kneel before her, and offer my final haiku.
The trampled flower
Blooms anew, beauty drawing
Father to daughter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for “aggressive-violent” youth. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the eighteen-volume Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material, including song lyrics, graphic novels, essays, and a “children’s book for adults.” His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, the New York Times, and many other forums. A native New Yorker, he now divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.
The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com.
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