Down Here b-15

by Andrew Vachss

  It was only a few blocks to my car. I keep it behind a ratty old two-pump gas station that scratches out a living from used tires, dented hubcaps, and tired batteries. They also sell some specialized parts for cab drivers . . . like recalibrated meters that tick off a mile for every four-fifths they run. Word is you can buy other things there too, but I never asked.

  My ’69 Plymouth Roadrunner sat outdoors in a chain-link enclosure, under a roof made of woven concertina wire, protected by a combination lock thick enough to sneer at two-handed bolt cutters.

  The setup had been built for the owner’s prize pit bull, a vicious old warrior who had been retired to stud a few years ago. The owner kept a couple of bitches, too, so his champion wouldn’t get bored and maybe chomp his way through the chain link. I’d talked the owner into letting me park the Plymouth inside the cage. It cost me three bills a month, and a few weeks’ daily investment in getting the pits to accept me enough to let me inside whenever I showed up, but it was worth it. The back of the gas station was always in darkness or shadow, and the dogs made sure nobody got too close a look at the anonymous junker stashed back there.

  One of the bitches strolled over to the fence as I walked up. She snarled softly, just warming up.

  “It’s me, stupid,” I said.

  I didn’t know any of their names. But they knew me, and they knew I never came empty-handed. The big rooster trotted over, chesty and confident, knowing he was going to get first dibs.

  I took a slab of porterhouse out of the plastic bag I’d been carrying and unwrapped it. Then I slipped it between the sections of metal tubing that framed the doors.

  The pits went to work on their prize as I dialed the lock. I walked past them, leaving the doors open behind me. They never try to leave—the fence is just to keep people out.

  I unlocked the Plymouth and climbed inside. I pulled out the ashtray, toggling the off-on switch so that the ignition key would work. When I fired up the engine, it was like pulling a heavy layer of dusty burlap off a marble statue—the torque-monster Mopar crackled into life, hungry for asphalt.

  I let it warm up for a minute, checking the oil-pressure gauge, while I got the steak smell off my hands with a few scented towelettes I took from the glove compartment. Then I eased the Plymouth through the opening in the fence, jumped out, and relocked the gate. The two bitch pits sat on their haunches, watching. The old stud was already lying down, sleeping off his lion’s share of the booty I’d brought.

  I wheeled the Plymouth up Canal, then worked my way over to Mama’s restaurant. I parked under the pristine white square with Max the Silent’s chop painted in its center. The calligraphy sensei who created it comes by and renews his masterpiece every so often, so it always looks new.

  Even without all the security devices and the fact that it didn’t look worth stealing, I wouldn’t have been worried about anyone making a move on the Plymouth. In this part of the City, everybody knows Max’s sign.

  A thug in a white kitchen apron let me in the back door. I’d seen him plenty of times before, but I didn’t know his name, and he didn’t care about mine.

  I walked over to the bank of pay phones along the wall that separates the kitchen from the restaurant seating area. Mama still keeps a Mason jar there, filled to the brim with quarters. More than enough for a half-hour call to Taiwan, but AT&T won’t let you do that anymore—they want everyone to use one of their pre-paid phone cards. Once a monopoly . . .

  I picked out a coin, slotted it through, and punched in a 718 number.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” I said. “Can you and your father please meet me at the spot?”

  “My father is not here now, mahn. But he will call soon. Shall I come by my—?”

  “I need you both,” I told him.

  “I understand, mahn. Do we need to bring—?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Sure,” Clarence said, hanging up.

  I was reaching for more quarters when Mama appeared. Her round, ageless face was impassive under her perfectly coiffed hair. Her ceramic-black eyes were expressionless.

  “Not visit?” she said, making a gesture with her jeweled hand to show me she wasn’t insulted that I hadn’t greeted her formally when I’d first come in.

  “The Prof and Clarence are on their way over, Mama,” I said. “I have to reach out for Michelle now.”

  “So—you want Max, yes?”

  “Please,” I told her.

  She nodded her head a fraction short of bowing, then turned and walked past me, heading toward the basement.

  “ If you don’t know what to do, and when to do it, you’ve already left your message,” the hard-honey voice on Michelle’s answering tape said.

  “It’s me,” I said, after the beep. “It’s . . . six-oh-five in the afternoon. I’m going to be here in the church for a little while, but I can’t stay long. I need to see you. If I’m not here when you call, leave a way for me to get in touch with you, probably past midnight.”

  I reached for more coins . . . then stopped. I walked around the wall, through the beaded curtain, and into the restaurant.

  My booth, the one against the back wall, was empty, as always. So was the rest of the place. Occasionally, some tourists would ignore the filthy, fly-specked front window and wander inside. If the service didn’t send them packing, the food they were served would guarantee they’d never come back.

  I sat down, glanced at my watch. Not like me to do that—patience is the one card I always keep in my deck.

  Mama came through the kitchen, carrying a heavy white tureen on a tray with three matching bowls, slightly larger than cups. She placed the tray on the table, uncovered the tureen, and ladled out a bowl for me. Hot-and-sour soup—Mama’s personal creation. I bowed my thanks, took a sip. “Perfect,” I said.

  At that, Mama sat down across from me, and helped herself to a bowl.

  “Not work, right?” she asked me. To Mama, “work” could mean anything, from stealing to scamming to smuggling. What all of us did, one way or another. Our family doesn’t care about crap like genetics, but it’s got no room for citizens.

  “Not work, Mama,” I said. “Trouble.”

  “Trouble for you?”

  “Not for me. Not for any of us. It’s Wolfe. She just got arrested.”

  “Police girl?” Mama said, raising a sculpted eyebrow.

  “Yeah. I don’t have any real facts yet. She’s supposed to have shot some guy.”

  “Not kill?”

  “Not . . . yet, anyway. He’s in a coma; they don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

  “So how talk?”

  “Supposedly, he talked before he went out, Mama. And he named Wolfe as the shooter.”

  “You say not work.”

  “Not work, right. Nobody hired me. There’s no money in this.”

  “You and police girl . . . ?”

  “It’s not that, either, Mama. Look, there’s no money in this,” I repeated. “Probably end up costing money, okay? Only, I’m doing it. And it doesn’t matter why.”

  “Not to me, matter,” she said, shrugging to add emphasis to her lie. “You have more soup, okay?”

  “ I’ve got to split,” I told Mama a short while later. “Over to the courthouse. When Max—”

  “Max wait here for you?”

  “No,” I said. Then I told her what I wanted him to do.

  “Okay, sure,” she said. “Come when you . . . ?”

  “When I light a cigarette. Now, listen, Mama. The Prof and Clarence will be here, too. I’m not sure when. They don’t have to actually stick around, just leave numbers with you where I can reach them later tonight, okay?”

  “Sure okay. What you think?”

  “Sorry, Mama. I’m just . . . edgy. See you later.”

  Night Court never changes. Years ago, when I was trying to make a living as an off-the-books investigator, I sometimes worked the corridors. I was a hove
ring hawk, searching for marks to steer over to one of the lawyers I had a fee-splitting arrangement with.

  First I’d convince the wife or the mother or the girlfriend—90 percent of the crowd was always women—that the guy being arraigned would fare much better with a “private” lawyer than Legal Aid. Not a hard sell. Then I’d find out how much cash they were carrying—none of the lawyers I shilled for would touch a check—and make the connection.

  Whatever lawyer I was working with that night would stand up on the case, make a bail argument or a quick deal, then move on. None of that breed ever actually tried cases. Most of them didn’t even have an office, just a business card and a mail drop.

  Anytime you have a steady stream of people being arraigned, you’ll find lawyers like that . . . and men like me trolling for prospects. In the Bronx, some of the fishermen speak Spanish. I heard, over in Queens, there’s one who’s fluent in Korean, and Brooklyn even has a guy who does it in Russian. All working for two-bit grifters with law licenses.

  Those “arraignment only” lawyers take some of the caseload off Legal Aid’s back. And the judges like them fine too, because they never make trouble. Even most of the people who hire them go home happy, convinced they did the right thing by their loved ones. Another piece of the “system” you’ll never see on Law and Order.

  I moved through the crowd, looking for Davidson. Most of the people milling around had the dull, slightly anxious faces of cattle being herded down a chute, toward the sound of evenly spaced gunshots.

  Davidson wasn’t in the hall. I pushed open the doors and walked into the courtroom. It was about half full; people sat distanced from one another, like they do in porno theaters. I didn’t recognize the judge on the bench, a dark-brown man with close-cropped gray hair.

  I moved down the left side of the courtroom, looking for an aisle seat so I could scan without calling attention to myself.

  A clot of gangbangers sat down front, eye-fucking everyone who looked their way. A young court officer, his short-sleeved white shirt tailored to show off impressive biceps, deliberately strolled by their area, playing his role.

  A pair of whore lawyers were just over to my right. Those permanent-retainer lackeys spent every night pleading working girls to time served—usually two, three days—and paying their fines. They did volume business, representing the interests of a few pimps with good-sized stables of street girls. Higher-class hookers didn’t often get pinched. And when they did, whoever was running them would put real legal talent into the game.

  A Spanish woman who looked like she’d just gotten off work—hard work—fingered a rosary. Waiting for them to bring her son out, I figured. A skinny, pasty-faced girl with barbell studs piercing her nose, eyebrow, and the top of one ear stared straight ahead, her face as bleak as her prospects.

  A woman with a prominent black eye and swollen lip sat with her hands in her lap. Waiting to post bail for the guy who had beaten her up, my best guess.

  A fat, sleekly dressed Chinese man was bracketed by two marble-eyed young guns, their leather fingertip jackets marking them as clearly as the tattoos under them.

  A heavyset, weary-looking black woman held a sleeping baby on her lap.

  A pair of guys in their thirties, dressed costly-casual, sprawled back in their seats, still glazed. I figured the one they were waiting for had been the driver.

  I spotted a few press guys, sitting together. Way too many for a typical night arraignment. I was looking around for Hauser when Davidson came from the back, where the pens are, and headed for the door. I slipped out behind him.

  Davidson moved through the crowd outside the courtroom with the assurance of an all-pro halfback in an open field. I thought he might be heading for the pay phones, but he passed them by and went out the door.

  By the time I spotted him, he was leaning against one of the railings, firing up a cigar.

  I walked over, moving deliberately slow.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  He took a long, deep puff on his cigar, gave me a professional appraiser’s look, not trying to hide what he was doing.

  “Say a few more words,” he said, finally.

  “You’ve got two little girls. Born the exact same day, only three years apart. The big one’s about twelve now. Natural leader, smarter than you ever imagined. Loves to read, an ace at archery. The little one’s going to be a gymnast. Or a sky-diver—she was still making up her mind the last time we talked. In your office. Where you have their pictures on your desk at an angle, so everyone who sits down has to see how beautiful they are.”

  “Say more,” he said, not changing expression.

  “A few years ago, a coalition of gay activists hired you to do some very specialized work. You brought me in to help with the investigative end of it,” I told him, not mentioning a significant fee that the IRS never heard about.

  “The voice is the exact same,” he said. “But I never would have recognized you. Word is that you were—”

  “I wasn’t. And I’m showing you a lot of trust, saying that, right?”

  “If anyone’s looking for you, you are.”

  “Someone’s always looking for me,” I said.

  “Fair enough,” Davidson said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “But I’ve got a problem.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “You sound exactly like a . . . man I used to know. And somebody did call me about this case, or I wouldn’t be here tonight. But when I mentioned your name to my client, back in the pens, my client expressed some, shall we say, concern about your involvement.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Meaning, she didn’t tell anyone to bring you into this. So she wants an explanation. And some proof that you’re . . . who you say you are.”

  “The explanation is easy. Just repeat that Pepper came to see me. With Bruiser—she’ll know what that means. Pepper didn’t know what else to do, and Wolfe didn’t give her anything to work with. I think she was going to just pro se it when they called her name tonight.”

  “That’d be like her,” Davidson said, nodding. “But after we talked, she agreed that having me do the talking is a better play.”

  “Good.”

  “Now, about that proof? What else can you—?”

  “Give me a minute,” I said, reaching into my jacket. I extracted a single cigarette, said, “Got a light?”

  By the time I took my second puff, Max the Silent was at my side. An old army jacket covered a gray sweatshirt; stain-blotched corduroy pants and an abandoned pair of once-white sneakers were topped off by a black watch cap. But even dressed in a vagrant’s costume, there was no mistaking the Mongol warrior. Not once he got close enough for you to see his hands.

  Max’s eyes were as flat and hard as the slate bed of a tournament pool table. And as true. Even with all the assorted humans standing around outside the courthouse, his ki was a palpable force, creating a circle of empty air around the three of us.

  “Oh!” was all Davidson said. Neither of us had seen him coming—people don’t call him Max the Silent because he can’t speak.

  “Good enough?” I asked Davidson, snapping my cigarette away.

  “Absolutely,” he assured me. “Let me get back inside. I want to talk to her before the fun starts. I’ll meet you right back here, soon as I can, all right?”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You need any—?”

  “Later,” he said, walking off.

  I gestured to Max that I had to go back inside. Shrugged my shoulders to say that I didn’t have a clue what we were going to have to do when I came out. I knew Mama would have already told him why I was there.

  I took my cell phone out of its shoulder holster, held it up for Max to see. Then I pulled out its mate—a new one, never used. I held it against my chest, patted my heart.

  Max nodded. When I needed him, I’d call. The phone I gave him would throb soundlessly against his chest, the vibrations telling him it was time to move.

>   I tilted my head in a “come with me” gesture. We walked all the way around to the back of the courthouse. There’s never a place to park there, but it’s custom-made for lurking. I pointed to the spot I wanted, handed Max the keys to my Plymouth.

  With Max, this was a high-risk move. He could tap an enemy’s carotid with surgical precision, but he drove like a man who reads the daily papers in Braille. Still, if I wanted a getaway car waiting for me when I called, Max was the only choice—if the Prof and Clarence had already shown up at Mama’s, they would have contacted me.

  I touched the face of the watch, shrugged again.

  Max put his hand on my shoulder for a split second, squeezed just enough to let me know he’d be there, no matter when. Then he was gone.

  As I entered the courtroom, I saw Davidson’s broad pinstriped back, looming over a young guy seated at the DA’s table. It didn’t look like the conversation was going well.

  Davidson stalked off, in the direction of the pens. I found the same seat I’d had before, settled in.

  The parade went on. Most of the cases were disposed of on the spot. Conditional discharges, ACDs—Adjournments in Contemplation of Dismissal, a six-month “behave yourself” deal—misdemeanor probations, time-served walk-offs . . . bargain-basement justice. They even worked out a few bullets—Legal Aid’s term for a year on the Rock. Even one day more makes it felony time, and a trip Upstate.

  Occasionally, some brief argument would break out, but you could see it was only the lawyer putting on a show for his client. Never affected the outcome.

  Prostitution, lightweight drug possession, simple assault, trespass, violation of a restraining order, shoplifting, DUI, car-stripping—anything that could be pleaded down to misdemeanor weight, it was all fair game. The felony cases that didn’t plead out all ended in the Kabuki dance of bail arguments.

  Davidson came out a little before midnight. Walked over and sat next to me.

  “They’ll be bringing her up soon,” he said. “They weren’t jerking her around on the paperwork. Just volume. If they held women in the Tombs, it’d be faster to get them before the—”