Sacrifice

by Andrew Vachss

  "Oh, you're so down there," she giggled. "Okay, two hundred."

  "How about one hundred? And how about you leave your mom and me alone?"

  She held out her chubby child's hand again. I put a couple of fifties in it. "Thank you so much," she said, no sarcasm, just a trace of breathiness. Practicing, getting it right. Then she gave her mother a kiss and made a dignified exit.

  88

  "How's it going?" I asked Lily.

  "He's coming along. It's not something you can do in a week."

  "I know. Not in ten days, either."

  Lily put her elbows on the desk, nestling her chin in the V of her fists. "What are you saying?"

  "I got an idea. Or the beginning of one, anyway."

  "Before you play around with any ideas, you should look at this stuff," indicating a handful of paper covered with typing.

  I looked a question at her.

  "Treatment reports," she said. "From Teresa."

  89

  I let Pansy out to her roof, made us each some supper while she took her pre–dump stroll. Then I sat down to read the reports. Had to hold the pages almost at arm's length to make out the words. I'd need reading glasses soon.

  Hair fell into my eyes. I combed it back with my fingers. Seemed like they were sliding through easier than they used to these days.

  The report was a war–zone dispatch—no overheated adjectives, no proposal writer's lies…cold truth. They were at the stage where they could call up the individual personalities, speak to them like they were different people in the room. I used the stuff I learned from the library like a Rosetta Stone, read it through.

  Individualized Reactions to Psychotropics:

  The core personality (Luke) was administered a single dose (1 1/4mg) Valium, PO. Within 45 minutes, subject was almost comatose, language was fragmented, dream–state, startle–response almost nonexistent, pinprick produced no reaction.

  At session #6, subject hooked to IV, simple glucose solution administered. No reaction. Hypnosis brought "Satan's Child" to surface. Subject was in a rage, restrained by flex–straps. In this state, 10 mg Valium administered IV. No reaction: subject remained agitated, angry. When "Satan's Child" personality departed, "Toby" emerged…and promptly fell asleep. IV immediately discontinued.

  Conclusion: The varying personalities are physiologically as well as psychologically distinct. The violent personality accesses significantly greater adrenaline flow, exceeding even limbic rage, producing phenomenal strength disproportionate to age and physical structure.

  The report went on. More about "core personality" and "fusion goals." But every word sang the same song.

  Inside Luke, different children.

  One a monster.

  90

  I nosed the Plymouth east on Houston Street, covering the distance from the West Village to the Lower East Side in minutes. Turned right on Ludlow, right again on Delancey, back the way I'd come.

  The car wash is on the corner of Delancey and the Bowery, the supplies stored on the concrete island at the traffic light. I pulled over just past Chrystie Street, watching the action. Cars pulled up to the light, two black men detached themselves from the island, dipping their squeegees in a big white plastic bucket, swinging them briskly to throw off the excess water. They walked the line of cars, looking for customers. One tried persuasion—you could read his gestures from a block away. The other just went to work, ready to demand money when he finished. Some drivers turned on their windshield wipers, others waved their hands signaling "No!" Some just sat rigid behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.

  I watched for a while. Cabdrivers never went for the windshield wash. Not truckers either. The washers were lucky to score one paying job every four, five lights. A bad time to work, early in the morning, dealing with commuters. Nobody was where they wanted to be.

  Seven o'clock. I pushed off from the curb, watching for a gap in traffic. Rolled to a stop right at the light. The Prof was perched on an abandoned car seat, smoking a cigarette like he was on the deck of a cruise ship. He flicked the smoke aside, majestically got to his feet, moved to my car as one of the washers ceremoniously slapped a squeegee into his hand.

  "Watch how it's done, son," the Prof sang out.

  I hit the switch, sliding down the driver's window.

  "Good morning, my man. Here's the plan: pay a buck and change your luck. Do something right and you see the light."

  I handed him a bill. The Prof did the windshield in a half dozen expert swipes, bowed deeply, tossed the squeegee to one of the washers, and resumed his seat. I took off, straight ahead onto Kenmare, turned left at Crosby, and waited.

  Halfway through my second smoke, the Prof slid into the passenger seat.

  "Where to?" I asked.

  "Head over to Allen, find a place to park."

  91

  I found a spot just off Hester, pulled in behind a red Acura Legend sedan. A man in his thirties crossed the street, oiled muscles gleaming under a cut–down T–shirt, baggy shorts, baseball cap and sunglasses, zinc ointment covered his nose. Surf's up, somewhere. A battered pale green Cougar pulled to the curb. Two kids got out: teenagers, a boy and a girl, dressed alike in black, sporting matching asymmetrical haircuts. They wobbled down the street together as the Cougar roared off. Home from a night at the clubs? A dark sedan stopped at the light, overflowing with Vietnamese. The guy riding shotgun swiveled his head to look at me–I could feel homicidal eyes behind the sunglasses, measuring. Up close, he'd stink of cordite.

  "What's up?" I asked the Prof.

  "Queen Thana, schoolboy. Word is, you've been dancing with the devil."

  "What word?"

  "The drums hum, bro'. Stay close to the ground, you can hear the sound."

  "And…?"

  "And stay away, don't play, okay?"

  "I'm not playing."

  The little man's deep brown eyes turned to me. "I can't keep squaring your beefs, chief. You wanted to go play gunfighter games out in Hillbilly Harlem, I tried to make you see some sense, but I didn't press too hard, right?"

  I nodded.

  "This ain't the same, lame. The Queen is mean, Jack. She got people who want to die, that's no lie."

  "I'm not in anything with them—I don't even know who they are."

  "Don't be slick with the man who taught you the trick, schoolboy. Got to be, you holding something they want."

  I lit a smoke, thinking it through.

  "You talked to them," I said.

  "We rapped across the gap, exchanged some ideas, like the UN."

  "They lean on you?"

  "That's not the way they do—I thought you knew. Just asked me to talk to you."

  "Come on, Prof."

  "You took something of theirs. They say, maybe you didn't know whose it was, okay? They want it back. Said to bring it with you when you come."

  "Come where?"

  "Man said they'll tell the dealer. Jacques. But you got to have it with you, understand?"

  "Yeah." Thinking of Wolfe. How to get it back.

  "I'll call, every day. Once in the morning, once at night. You get it, leave word. I'll set up the meet. Better if it comes from us."

  "I'll try.

  "Try hard, homeboy."

  92

  It was still early. I rolled by Central Park, telling myself I was scanning Carlos. Practicing my lies. But the woman who said her name was Belinda didn't come by.

  93

  The white dragon was still on guard in the window. Always a dragon there—white for clear, blue for cops, red for danger. I drove around the back. The guys in the kitchen looked me over like they'd never seen me before.

  I found my booth, waited. Mama wasn't at her register. No waiter came by.

  A copy of the Daily News was in my booth. Five kids murdered so far this week. Separate incidents. Gunned down—cross–fire killings. The city's loaded with homicidal punks, and not a marksman among them.

  If you wrote a book about it, t
he critics would say it was full of gratuitous violence.

  Letter to the editor from some cop, arguing with a citizen who complained the police don't ticket off–duty cars parked near the precinct house. The cop said he put his life on the line every day—he was entitled to park on the house.

  That was true, they should give cabdrivers free rent.

  I turned to the race results.

  94

  "You not want soup?" Mama materialized at my elbow.

  "I was waiting for you."

  "Cook not come out?"

  "Nobody came out."

  "Cooks nervous—strangers in the basement."

  "Luke?"

  "Luke not a stranger. Woman…Teresa…come every day."

  "I know."

  "Alone with the boy. Every day," she said, eyes narrowing. Mama doesn't trust citizens."

  "I'll go talk with her."

  "Not now. She come up here, finished. Talk then, okay?"

  "Okay. Could I have some soup, then?"

  Mama smiled with a corner of her mouth, spewed out a torrent of Chinese with the other. One of the waiters came through the back door. Bowed, nodded, went away.

  "You bet horse?" Mama asked, pointing at the open newspaper.

  "Maybe. If I see something I like."

  The waiter came back with the soup. Also some hard noodles and a plate of dim sum floating in clear sauce with tiny flecks of green. Mama watched me eat, taking only token sips herself, tapping her long fingernails on the cheap Formica tabletop. I waited—she wouldn't say anything she didn't want to.

  The waiter came back. Said something to Mama. She nodded.

  "Woman coming up," she said to me.

  I stood up to greet her. Silver–streaked blonde straight hair parted in the middle, hanging down almost to her shoulders. Brown eyes, nose slightly off–center, small nostrils, tiny jaw at the bottom of an oval face. Dressed in a camel's–hair blazer over a silk turtleneck, wide dark blue skirt, sensible bone pumps.

  "Hello, I'm Dr…ah, Teresa. You must be Burke—Lily described you."

  "But I'm even better–looking than she said, right?"

  "No." She laughed gently. "You're not."

  I made a sweeping gesture and she sat down across from Mama, who showed no sign of moving. I slid in next to her.

  "What can you tell me?"

  "In a way, it's good news. Luke is very young to have gone full multiple. We can get to fusion a lot easier if the behavior isn't calcified over time—if the membrane between the personalities doesn't harden. For a child, there's no real investment in any of the alternates. So when the situation changes…Are you following me?"

  "The safer he is, the easier it is for him to come together."

  "Yes." She smiled. "That's a good way to put it."

  "How long?"

  "I don't know. There's no schedule for these things. But I don't feel it will be that much longer."

  "What did Lily tell you about his…situation?"

  "Luke is a patient, I'm a physician." Meaning she knew the whole story.

  I lit a smoke as the waiter came to clear away the plates. Noticed Mama didn't offer Teresa anything.

  "Lily tell you how I fit in?"

  Teresa let her gaze trail across Mama's face. "There are…confidentiality issues. If Mrs. Wong would…"

  "Mama is my family," I told her. "I have no secrets from her." Mama smiled—at the truth and at the lie.

  Teresa watched my face. I dialed sincerity right up into my eyes. Waited.

  She took a breath. "Lily said you were her friend. That you specialized in some sort of currency transfers…she wasn't specific. And she said you could be trusted."

  "She tell you I was in the middle of a goddamned war between her and one of her sisters?"

  "Yes. Wolfe."

  "Yeah, Wolfe. And this Wolfe has a pack, understand? I'm about out of time. What I need is to have you talk to her. Let her see where things are. Back her off a bit."

  "I'm on shaky ground with that," she said. "I can't reveal information about a patient."

  "She doesn't have to know your name—she'll play square."

  "You think if she believes Luke is close to recovery, she'll give him more time."

  I dragged deep on the cigarette. Mama's face was bland, like she didn't understand English.

  "Wolfe's gonna give somebody some time, Doc. Somebody has to pay. I know that's not your department, but that's the game. I'm no psychologist, but I know Luke wasn't born like he is, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Somebody did something to him. Something bad. You go far enough, you'll find out, yes?"

  "Probably. Not for sure."

  "That's what I need you to tell Wolfe. Just like that."

  "I don't understand what good that will do."

  "Wolfe's a hunter. That's what she does. Sometimes she does it by trading, you understand? Gang rape, four punks involved, okay? The evidence is weak…dark in that alley, hard to make a stand–up ID, like that…but they nail one of them—say with a DNA match. The rest are gonna walk. Rape's a B felony here: twenty–five max on top. So she offers the one freak she has cold maybe four–to–twelve…and he rolls over on the others, nails them down."

  "Yes, I know. Plea bargaining."

  "No, you don't know…not the way Wolfe plays it. When she deals, it's a bargain for the victim, not the rapist. She'll take any case to trial, go the limit. She makes a deal, it's gotta be a good one."

  "So…"

  "So whatever Luke did, he was just the messenger. The freaks who turned him out, Wolfe'd take them in exchange, see?"

  "Yes. All right, tell her to call…"

  "That's not the way it's done. I'll bring her here. You'll talk to her here."

  "Why not just…?"

  "I think I know Wolfe, how she'll act. But if I'm wrong, if she won't play, then I'll take her away …she won't find this place, she won't know your name."

  I ground out my cigarette, waiting for her answer.

  She got up to leave. Turned to speak to me. "I am treating a patient. A seriously disturbed patient who also happens to be a child. If someone shows up in my office…wherever that is…and I believe it to be in my client's interests to discuss the matter, I would do that."

  "Thanks."

  She offered her hand. I shook it. "Goodbye, Mrs. Wong," she said to Mama.

  Mama inclined her head a fraction of an inch.

  Teresa went out the back, one of Mama's waiters just behind her.

  95

  I took the Manhattan Bridge to the BQE, heading for Queens. Shoved a cassette into my tape player. Judy Henske. Making a comeback now, playing clubs on the Coast. She wasn't back in the studio yet—the bootleg tape cost me fifty bucks. Fucking thieves. It was like she'd never been away–still had all the chops–wailing, growling, cooing at the crowd, owning the audience. Shining her torch. "Duncan and Brady," her own take on "StagoLee." Perfect. The Plymouth hit one of those lunar craters they call potholes here—I just caught the tail end of some Primo Bitch piece I hadn't heard before.

  I've had just about enough of your love

  It's time to take it on the road

  It started out with a hug. darlin'

  But now it's a stranglehold

  You say you've been saving for our future

  You say you got some Master Plan

  Well, you can keep your Social Security, sonny

  What I need now is a man

  I listened to the end–tape hiss, thinking about the waiter in Mama's joint, the one following Teresa. Sword or shield?

  96

  I found a pay phone on Queens Boulevard. They put her through.

  "This is Wolfe."

  "It's me. Could you spare a few minutes to talk to me about something?"

  "You don't want to come here?"

  "No."

  "Remember where we last had lunch?"

  "Sure."

  "One–fifteen, more or less, okay?"

  "Okay. Rem
ember what I brought you—last time we ate there?"

  "Sure."

  "Can you bring it with you?"

  "Why?"

  "I'll explain."

  "I'll see."

  97

  They were in the same place, Wolfe and Lola. I sat down, ordered another chef's salad. It wasn't much—the restaurant's produce buyer had gotten to the market after the Koreans that day.

  "You bring it?" I asked her.

  "Tell me why you want it."

  "Okay with you, I talk like this…?" Eyes on Lola.

  "Yes. In fact, it's the only way."

  "You looked in the bag, right?"

  She nodded, not saying anything.

  "And you took it apart real careful, one pin at a time, analyzed what you found inside?"

  Nodded again.

  "No baby?"

  "Chicken parts," Lola said. Caught a warning look from Wolfe.

  "I need it back. You probably tagged it, so you'll have to put something else in its place in the evidence locker."

  Wolfe pushed her salad aside, lit a smoke. Raised her eyebrows to ask why.

  "The people who it belongs to…they want it back. You opened it, you know what it is. These aren't people I can play with. It was evidence of the homicide, I wouldn't say anything."

  Wolfe pulled on her smoke, thinking. Lola scanned the room over my shoulder.

  "You get the divers yet?" I asked her.

  "Couple, three days," she said.

  "What I asked for…?"

  "Your turn to pay the check," she said.

  98

  Lola opened the trunk of her Reatta. I transferred the package to the Plymouth.

  "Is she married?" I asked, nodding my head toward Wolfe, sitting in the front seat.

  Lola held her finger to her lips in a "ssssh" gesture.

  99

  Back in my office, I took a look. Carefully unwrapped the layers of plastic, bracing myself for the smell. It didn't come.

  The juju bag looked like it hadn't been touched. Somehow smaller than when I'd first seen it, not as menacing lying on my desk.