"Prosecuting for homicide? Yes, that was the trump card. I could get a grand jury to go for it, I'm sure. It makes logical sense. We could get in all the psychiatric testimony that way too. Then we'd have a club over their heads…split them up, get one to roll over, talk to us, make a statement. At least we'd have a chance."
"So? What's wrong with…?"
"What's wrong is that the office won't let me go after the indictment. I heard more crap these past few days about defendants' rights than I hear from Legal Aid in a year."
"You think somebody's bent?"
"No, I think they're cowards. An indictment like we'd want, it's not a sure thing. It'd go up and down on appeal for years. They're scared…they're scared of all those 'false allegations' freaks…you know, the ones who talk about the 'myth' of ritual abuse." She lit another smoke, blew out a puff angrily, sipped at her coffee. "You want to know what's funny? They may be right, those people. I'm not sure Satanists are doing anything to children…you know how they say the devil can quote the Scriptures? Well, anyone can quote the devil. This stuff is the flip side…child molesters can put on the costumes, and all of a sudden, it's 'Satanic.' It's like a scam inside a scam…we find the kids, they tell us what happened, and we get lost in prosecuting the devil. The office doesn't want any part of it—they won't authorize the presentation. And even if I snuck in the indictment, they'd move to dismiss it themselves. They've done it to me before."
I lit a smoke of my own, buying time. "Did that guy ever send his lawyer around?"
Her smile showed up, low wattage. "Oh yes. His lawyer is a partner in one of our most respected Wall Street firms. Doesn't know a lot about criminal law, though. We made our deal."
"You gonna keep it?"
"Sure. He gets flat immunity for anything we drop him for. Limited to nonviolent offenses, of course. That's the way he presented his client—we just went along. And he throws in truthful testimony about any others involved."
"That'd get him dead."
"Yes." She made a clicking sound with her tongue. The Rottweiler sat up. Wolfe held the coffee mug steady as he lowered his snout and slurped. "It's decaf," she said, like I was accusing her of dog abuse.
"We'll take them in. Throw a bunch of charges at them, see if one'll crack even without the homicide hammer. It depends how many of them there are, how well organized, who's representing them. You know how it works."
"Yeah. Discovery motions'll get them Luke's statements. He ends up hospitalized too. And they walk away."
"Maybe next time," she said, looking right into my face. "What's the address?"
I ground out my cigarette, getting up to leave. "I didn't bring it with me," I said.
She didn't say another word. I let myself out.
176
I spent that day drifting. The building where they were holed up was freestanding, but it hadn't been designed that way—rubble from the wrecker's ball still on either side. In the South Bronx, just over the Willis Avenue Bridge. Pioneer–yuppie territory. When real estate prices went out of control in Manhattan, every square inch of land turned gold. Yuppies charged out of the center like maggots exposed to light:
Long Island City, Flatbush, Harlem, anywhere you could find dwelling space. If you could get in first, you could get in cheap. Staking out the frontier. You held the land against the natives, you could turn it over for cash, big time. The people who'd been living there first, they got the '8os equivalent of smallpox–treated blankets. Then God died on October 19 and the real estate market crashed. Some of the pioneers were cut off from the supply lines. Too late for the natives to make a comeback, though—they got tickets in the Projects lottery, sleeping on the streets while they waited their turn.
The next–nearest building was maybe twenty–five feet to the right. Six stories, abandoned. No windows in its eyeless corpse. Chain link fence all around the occupied property, glimpse of cars parked around the side. Satellite dish on the roof, all the ground–floor windows barred. A meter–reading scam wouldn't get me inside.
It was just an address—still couldn't be sure it was them. The vampire may have gotten it wrong. Or gotten me right.
177
I was still drifting when it got dark. I let it happen. Found myself on the BQE to Queens. Thought I was heading to Wolfe's when I felt the amulet around my neck. A hot spot—the kind you get from fever.
Pulled up outside the house. Turned off the engine, giving them plenty of time to notice me. Started it up again, pulled into the driveway, around to the back.
The messenger didn't seem surprised to see me.
She was downstairs, two young women with her. They stepped aside as I approached, bowed to her, and moved away. It was so dark, I couldn't tell if they were still in the room with us.
"You are troubled," she said.
"Yes."
"Ask your questions."
"I found the people I was looking for. But they're beyond the law."
"As you are."
A soft light glowed to my left—looked like flame floating in water.
"I'm not beyond the law," I told her. "They could bring me down like swatting a fly."
"Do you seek justice?"
"No."
"What, then?"
"Revenge."
"Yes, truth does not change with names. You are afraid?"
"Not of them. Not now."
"But once, yes?"
"Yes. When I was a kid."
"These are not the same people who hurt you."
"Yes, they are. You said it yourself. Only their names have changed."
"So it is not for the child you seek them?"
"Maybe. I don't know. That's the truth—I don't know."
"That is your sacrifice. To tell me the truth. A truth you have told no other, yes?"
"Nobody knows."
"You have it on you, hunter. You will never be free. Not until you cross over. Do not fear, treasure your sadness. This earth will not hold happiness for you, but your spirit will return. Clean and fresh."
"Without hate?"
"It is your spirit to hate, hunter. Your true path is to hate righteously. Guard the health of your spirit—do not endanger your soul."
"I'm going to…"
"I know. Any man can break the circle, but no man can prevent it from closing again. That man, the one who came to us with the baby's body. For the sacrifice. There is one who loved the baby. She still lives."
"The mother…"
"She is not the one. She was never the one. The mother is with child now. She will not survive the new infant—she will die in childbirth. And she who loved the baby who died will have a new child to love."
"How…?"
She put her hands behind her head, arched her back like a cat, stretched. Her smile was the secret of sex. "In the Islands, in the jungles just outside the cities, people whisper. No man lives without food. Even the spirits must eat. They must mate too. I know. It is that to be Queen. Listen now: some say baby snake eggs hatch in the stomachs of those who have offended. The babies hatch, their poison kills. Then you must cut open the body to let the spirit–snake free. The inside of a bamboo stalk is many tiny little hairs, like baby snakes. In your food, the hairs cause great sickness. Some die. The spirits are surgeons, not butchers. The mother will die, the baby will live. We will make our sacrifice—I will give myself—they will come into me. It will happen."
"Give yourself?"
"The myths are true, hunter. As I told you. I can raise the dead. As you were dead, once. Tell me this is true."
I saw Candy in my mind. Bound and gagged. And deadly. Later, on her stairwell, skirt hiked to her waist, losing my impotence inside her, paying the price.
Raise the dead—for the first time, I knew what it meant.
"It's true," I said. "Do I…?"
"You too, hunter. You will not find what you seek with your own sacrifice, but it is your spirit's destiny to seek. Remember what I have told you."
I stood up
. Bowed. She stood too, moved close to me. She was much shorter than I'd thought. Hands reached up around my neck, pulled my face down. Her tongue was fire in my mouth. "When you come back, it will be yours," she whispered, raising the dead.
178
The gypsy cab rolled past their house, me driving, Mole in the passenger seat, Max in the back.
"You see any way in?" I asked.
The Mole ignored me, scribbling something on a notepad strapped to his thigh.
Back in the junkyard, he looked up from a drafting table. "My friends told me you visited that…person. Off Fifth Avenue."
"I didn't hurt him."
"You should have told me."
"Your friends, they ask you if you knew about it?"
"Yes."
"Nice to be able to tell your friends the truth, isn't it?" The Mole took off his Coke–bottle glasses, rubbed them on his greasy jumpsuit, said nothing.
179
Later that night, Max slipped out of the gypsy cab, all in black. We were half a block away from the target, on a side street facing the back of their house.
Nothing to do but wait.
We sat in silence, Mole checking the windshield, me the back window. No smoking, a .38 held against my leg, pointed at the floor. It wasn't Max I was worried about—in this neighborhood, they strip cars with the passengers still in them.
Max moved like a squid in ink—didn't see him until he was almost on top of us.
Back in the bunker, Max made the sign of opening a door, held up two fingers. Two doors, front and back. Held up one finger, pushed forward, made a sign like turning a doorknob, put a fist to one eye, like looking through a telescope. Held up two fingers, pulled back, flattened his palm like it was gliding over a smooth surface.
The Mole sketched quickly, showed Max the house: front view, a door between two barred windows, peephole about face level, doorknob to the left. Max nodded yes. Then the back view: the door just a slab of flat metal, no peephole, no doorknob, arrows showing it opened out. Another nod of agreement. The Mole sketched a fire escape along the back of the building, running from window to window. Max shook his head, made the flat–palm gesture again. The Mole used his eraser, showed us a pure slab, windows bricked over.
"Only way in is the front," I said. "Have you got…?"
"We'll look again," the Mole said.
180
I found the Prof on Wall Street the next day, working his shoeshine rag like a virtuoso. Clarence was his customer, sporting alligator loafers to go with his pearl–gray suit. I waited my turn.
"How about riding shotgun tonight, Prof?"
"Go slow, bro'. Put another quarter in, give me one more spin."
"We got to check out a building. In the Bronx. Me, Max, and the Mole. Can't leave the car alone in that neighborhood. Just a watcher's job—scare anyone away, they come by."
"If it's a score, there's room for more."
"It's no score. Just something I'm gonna do."
"Me too."
"Listen, Prof, there'll be nothing to split up, where we're going, okay?"
"It don't scan, man. But I'll do what you say, back your play. Pick us up on the pier."
"Us?"
"This boy don't take a turn, he ain't never gonna learn," nodding his head at Clarence.
181
Clarence drove the Plymouth along the back street, its muffled exhaust motorboating against the sides of the diseased and deserted cars lining the block. He pulled to a stop, the back seat emptied. He took off as we started across the empty lot to the abandoned building.
Max went first. I brought up the rear, the Mole between us. Broken glass crunched under my feet as I turned to check behind us. I could see the Mole's bulk in his jumpsuit, stumbling along, his leather satchel in one hand.
So much garbage piled up in the gully behind the building that we could step right into the first–floor windows. The smell told me we weren't the first ones to figure it out. Rats scurried. I threw my pencil flash forward, sweeping. Newspapers piled in one corner, a shopping cart without wheels, metal frame to a TV set, plastic coat hangers, rags that had been clothes once. Another corner was the bathroom. Crack vials scattered among broken chunks of concrete from the building itself. Wine bottles. Fire scars on the walls, blackened pillars. Open–grave smell.
The metal staircase was still standing, pieces of the railing missing. Max took a length of black cord from somewhere, looped it around one of the stairs about halfway up, pulled as hard as he could. It held.
We started up the stairs, testing each one. The second–floor landing was solid. I played the flash over the walls—gang graffiti, faded under dust and ash. The next floor was better. Stronger staircase, less damage.
"Basement fire," the Mole whispered. After the building had been abandoned, some wino fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand. They probably just let it burn itself out—worth more money to the landlord empty anyway.
When we stepped out onto the roof, we could see in every direction: headlights on the highway, the quiet bulk of the Plymouth waiting. Looking straight down to the target, eyes pulled to a bright light like moths. A skylight, glowing yellow–orange, set into the center of their roof.
The Mole reached in his satchel, took out a pair of night glasses, and started his scan. Max walked the roof corner to corner, leaning far out over the edge, palms out as though the air could balance him.
The Mole handed me the glasses. I narrowed in on the cars parked along the side of the building, behind the chain link fence. Five of them, parked parallel to the building. One a Mercedes coupe for sure, but no hope of getting a license number from that angle.
182
"Their roof edges make a trapezoid," the Mole told us. "No way to get a grip. The top is smooth—even a grappling hook would come loose. And if you hit the skylight, broke the glass, it might be wired. Some kind of sensors all around the building, about chest high. Maybe infrared, motion detectors…can't tell."
"Which leaves what?" I asked him.
"Tunnel through to the basement, punch through the front door, or land on the roof."
"It's the door, then. They have to be getting electricity in there, right?"
The Mole nodded.
"And you could take it down?"
He nodded again.
"Okay, next thing is to make sure it's them. I got their mug shots, from when they were arrested. Had some blowups made. They have to come out sometime…it's a tough neighborhood to hang out in, but maybe we could…"
"I can watch for them, mahn," Clarence said. "Just get me an old car to drive."
Max tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at Mole, touched his mouth, patted his fingers against his thumb in a talking gesture, made the sign for "what?"
I translated, standing over a silent jackhammer, digging with an invisible shovel, moved my hand in a reverse parabola to show coming up from underneath. Shook my head "no." Then I locked my thumbs, fluttered my hands like flapping wings, showed a takeoff and a landing. Shook my head again—we'd need a helicopter. Then I mimed pushing down the T–bar on a dynamite detonator, threw my hands apart in the sign for an explosion. Made the sign for "okay."
Max looked only at the Mole. Got to his feet, pointed. They walked away together.
183
"He is still missing, mahn."
"He can't stay missing for long, Jacques. He doesn't have but one way to earn a living. And Wolfe's people are on his case."
"Yes. And if they find him, what happens? He will go to jail for killing the baby?"
"Maybe. Who knows? He'll say it was an accident…or maybe that the mother did it. There's no sure things."
"A sure thing if we find him first, mahn."
"Yeah, I know. That's not why I came. I need some stuff"
"What, then, mahn? You have only to ask."
"Two shotguns. A semi–auto and a double–barrel. Both twelve gauge. And a Glock with a long clip. Straps for the scatterguns, shoulder holster for the Glo
ck, butt down. Okay?"
"A Glock? That is not like you, mahn. You are my only customer who will never use an automatic—always complaining that they could jam no matter what I tell you, huh?"
I just shrugged, thinking about what I'd learned in Indiana.
"You need that much firepower, maybe you could use a couple of men, yes?"
"No, I'm okay. It's just in case, you know?"
"I know. Clarence is still working with you? Looking for that man, Emerson?"
"Yeah."
"He is a good boy. Maybe his temper is too quick, but he is young yet."
"He is that. How soon could you have the stuff?"
"Just a day or so, mahn. I will have them all tested, in perfect order. When you're done, you may leave them wherever you work, ice–cold clean, all right? Anything you want done to them first?"
"Cut down the barrels on the scatterguns."
"Of course, mahn. Modified choke, yes? Twelve–gauge, three–inch shells, double–O?"
"Perfect."
"Tomorrow night, then."
184
I was teaching Luke how to play casino when one of the pay phones rang at Mama's. She came to the table, pointed at me.
"It is her, mahn. The woman in the photo. A dead ringer."
"Get out of there. Now."
The phone went dead in my ear.
185
How many cards left?" I asked Luke, pointing at the pile between us.
"Twelve."
"How many cards have you already collected?"
"Nineteen."
"How many spades?"
"Five."
"How many cards loose?"
"Four in my hand, four in yours, two on the table. Ten."
"How many cards have I collected?"
"Eleven."
"Okay, now what do you do when…?" Max sat down next to Luke, made a "come on" gesture to me, impatient.
"We'll finish this later," I said to Luke.
The kid bounced in his seat, eyes pleading. "Can't I come too?"
Sacrifice Page 23
