Only Child

by Andrew Vachss

  “Is the kitchen all right?” she asked, seeing me hesitate.

  “It’s fine,” I told her. “I just didn’t want to barge in....”

  “Your mother raised you right,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, maintaining the myth.

  “Lottie,” she reminded me, pointing to a kitchen table with a pink Formica top.

  “Burke,” I said, offering her a hand to shake.

  “Irish! I’ll bet we’re cousins, somewhere back on the Emerald Isle.”

  “Scotch, actually,” I told her, straight-faced.

  “Ah, well. I’m not clannish. You may be Scotch, but I’ll bet you fancy an Irish coffee now and then,” she said, the smile so at home on her face that I knew it was a permanent resident.

  “I do, that’s a fact,” I lied. “But never while I’m working.”

  “Well, suit yourself. And tell me how I can help you.”

  “Mrs. Greene called you...?”

  “She did. And I promised I’d tell you anything you want to know. So fire away.”

  “You understand what I’m trying to—”

  “You’re trying to catch whoever did it. Hazel told me.”

  “That’s right. So if some of the questions I ask seem—”

  “I’m not one who believes you can harm the dead. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Vonni was your babysitter?”

  “Sure was. And the best I’ve ever had. She was never late; never minded staying late, even if I only called to tell her at the last minute. She never went into the liquor cabinet, never had boys over—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but how would you know that for sure?”

  “That she didn’t have boys over?”

  “Yes.”

  “The houses around here, they’re not exactly estates. You probably saw that for yourself, driving over. Now, my neighbors on the right,” she said, pointing in that direction, “the Feinbergs, they’re experts at minding their own business. But on the left, Mrs. North, she’s an expert at minding mine.”

  “And she’d notice if—”

  “She’d notice if a new butterfly landed on a bush, never mind a young man coming around when I wasn’t home. She’d be over here in a flash, that poison tongue of hers ready for work, I promise you that.”

  “But she’s not home all the time, is she?”

  “Isn’t she? The woman’s in a wheelchair. Never goes out, except to the doctor, to hear her tell it. Her husband’s not home much, I give you that. Poor man. Between working two jobs and listening to her rant, he’d probably rather put in a third shift if he could.”

  “If she’s in a wheelchair, how would she get...Or do you mean she’d call you on the phone?”

  “I mean exactly what I say,” Lottie said. “That husband of hers built her a ramp and a little runway. Right up to my back door, he did, without even asking. So, when I saw what he was doing, it was me who asked him, what did he think he was up to? And he says, well, Flo, that’s the wife, he says Flo said she’d talked it over with me and that’s what we both wanted. He was all ready to build another ramp so she could just roll right into my house.”

  “And you stopped him?”

  “No,” she chuckled, “I sure didn’t. I took pity on the poor soul. I didn’t want him to have to go back and tell that harridan she wasn’t getting her little ‘access road.’ Ever since, whenever Flo’s got anything to report, you can be sure she does it in person.”

  “She’s got the area under surveillance, huh?”

  “That’s the right word,” she said, laughing. “Most of the time she comes over here, it’s to give me the lowdown on the rest of our neighbors. I suspect her of having binoculars, but I’ve never caught her at it.”

  “Your own Neighborhood Watch.”

  “Don’t think for a second she isn’t. And I won’t pretend it isn’t kind of a comfort, sometimes.”

  “How old is your baby?”

  “Baby? Oh, you mean my son. He’s no baby. But he’s not big enough to be left on his own. He’s only ten. And got himself some bad asthma, besides. So he wants watching.”

  She stood up, went over to the cabinets, moved enough stuff around to let me know she wasn’t going to force me into a staredown when she said whatever was coming next. “The reason I need a babysitter so much is, I’ve got a boyfriend. His name’s Lewis, and he’s a wonderful, gentle man. But Hugh never took to him, because of his father, so I can’t really spend much time with Lewis here. And certainly not at night...”

  “Did Hugh get along with Vonni?” I asked, before she went driving down her own road.

  “Get along? He adored her. Told me a thousand times he was going to marry her when he got big enough. He’s got a real contrary streak in him—gets it from his mother—but he minded Vonni like she was an angel from heaven. Now I guess she is....”

  I never know what to say to a woman who’s crying, even when it’s not me who made her cry. I reached over and took her hand, letting it run its course.

  It took her less than a minute to get back in control. “That’s the Irish blood for you. If there’s one thing we know from the cradle, it’s how to grieve. Nobody really dies if they’re still being mourned.”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “You know that for a fact, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That tattoo on your right hand. A hollow heart. That’s for someone who’s gone? Someone you loved?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, I’ll bet that’s a story.”

  “Not one it comforts me to tell,” I said. “What do you think about me speaking with your son?”

  “You might not be thanking me in a little while, but, sure,” she said. “He’s right out back.”

  The yard was mostly dirt, with a few patches of burnt grass and one wiry little tree. I admired that tree. I don’t know anything about horticulture, but I know tough when I see it.

  A little boy was sitting on a wooden milk crate, in the middle of a meager patch of shade the tree had wrestled from the sun. As we walked toward him, I saw he was talking earnestly to a short, blunt-bodied, mostly black dog.

  “Hugh, this is my friend Burke,” his mother said. “He wants a word with you.”

  The kid looked up at me, his left hand resting on the dog’s head. “What about?”

  “About Vonni, son,” she said gently.

  “I knew you’d come,” the kid said.

  I squatted down, held out my hand to shake. “I’m pleased to meet you,” I told him.

  He shook, gravely, not speaking.

  “That’s a great-looking animal you have.”

  “He’s the best dog.”

  “I can see he’s all class. What’s his name?”

  “The Brains of the Outfit.”

  “Uh, okay. What do you call him?”

  “The Brains of the Outfit,” the boy said, the way you explain the obvious to the dull-witted.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him, Burke,” Lottie said. “Hugh loves those old gangster movies.”

  “What did you mean before,” I asked him, “when you said you knew I’d come? Did Vonni’s mother—?”

  “She was killed, right?” he said, his voice hard against the pain.

  “Yes, she was.”

  “And they never caught the guy.”

  “The police—”

  “Those coppers couldn’t find their—”

  “Hugh! You watch your mouth,” his mother cautioned.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. But, Mom, I know who he is.”

  “You know who Burke is, son? Is that what you mean?”

  “I know who he really is,” the kid said, utterly certain, letting his eyes travel over my face. “You’ve been in the Big House, right?”

  “A long time ago,” I said, trusting whatever kept me from a glib lie.

  “Nah. Not so long ago. I know.”

  “How would you know something like that?” I asked him.
>
  “I told you. I know who you are.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Who am I?”

  “You’re Vonni’s father,” he said, stone-sure. “And you came for payback.”

  “Vonni told me,” he said, later, seated at the kitchen table, having some cookies and milk. The Brains of the Outfit was getting a disproportionate share of the cookies, but if Lottie noticed, she kept it to herself.

  “Told you what?” I asked, staying near the edges.

  “She was the same as me,” the kid said proudly. “See, her dad was supposed to be dead. Like my dad. Only thing is, they weren’t, not really.”

  Lottie got up, walked behind the boy, caught my eye, shook her head sadly.

  “Her father was in prison. He probably could of gotten out by now, but he wouldn’t rat on his partners. Vonni, she wouldn’t care. But her mother,” he said vehemently, his pale-blue eyes challenging, “she didn’t want anyone to know, so they had to tell everybody he was dead, see?”

  “How do you know that?” I asked, keeping my voice soft and reasonable.

  “Well...maybe I don’t know. Not for sure. About Vonni’s dad. But I know mine isn’t dead.” He turned his head, looked at Lottie. “Is he, Mom?”

  “They say he is, honey. You know that.”

  “But they don’t know for sure, right?”

  “Sweetheart, if your father was alive, he would have made contact....”

  “Nah. He can’t do that. He knows they’re watching. He’s too smart for them, that’s all.”

  I put it together in my head, asked, “Your father, he escaped from prison?”

  “Yeah!” the kid said triumphantly. “See, Mom? Burke knows the score.”

  Later that night, alone in the rented house, I thought about the only score I really knew. Scores I’d made, scores I’d settled.

  Fathers and daughters.

  A long time ago, when I was just getting started, I had a father get word to me he’d pay serious cash if I turned up his daughter. He was a referral, from a guy I’d known Inside. Told me he didn’t just want me to find his kid; he wanted me to make sure nobody else ever did. He never actually said the words, but his meaning was clear enough.

  I took his money, a lot more than a simple locate job would ever be worth. Found the girl, too. It was easy enough—she was still doing what Daddy taught her, only now she was getting paid for it. By the time I showed up, she knew The Life was a lot uglier than the pimp’s pretty pictures, and she came along with me willingly enough, once I convinced her that I wouldn’t bring her home.

  The pimp was even easier to convince. Gunshot wounds are real conversation-stoppers.

  It should have ended there, except that the father got stupid. He found me in this Master Race bar where I was trolling for chumps, told me he wanted his money back—I hadn’t done what he’d paid me for. I played dumb, said I’d done the job, found her, like he’d wanted. Didn’t know what he was talking about. My voice was soft, and that gave him a bully’s courage. He got right in my face, loud.

  Too loud—that dive had more white rats in it than a cancer lab. A couple of days later, the rollers had me.

  The way they broke it down, I had two choices—I could testify the father hired me to hit his daughter, or I could take a fall myself, for the unregistered piece they’d found when they’d snatched me.

  Neither of the detectives said a word about running the ballistics on the slug the ER had dug out of a known pimp a little while back, but it hung in the stale air of the interrogation cell. A heavy hammer, waiting to drop.

  Two very bad choices. Ex-felon, carrying, loaded-operable-concealed, I was looking at another trip Upstate. But testifying? That’d be worse. A snitch jacket would make it impossible to do time—that’s the way it was back then. Besides, in my business, a rep for helping out the cops was the same as a vow of poverty.

  When a man sets things up so the only way you survive is if he gets dead, he’s just written a suicide note.

  The whisper-stream tells a lot of stories. Ones like that are what got me this job.

  “His father...my husband, he’s a hero to the boy,” Lottie told me, later. “In Hugh’s mind, Shane was a big-time gangster, some kind of Jimmy Cagney or Humphrey Bogart. The fact is, Shane was just a wild young man. Him and those friends of his. I was pregnant with Hugh, and we were broke. It was just that simple. Shane was just that simple. My fool of a husband listened to his bigger fool of a friend, Davey Boy. I’ve no idea what they tried to rob. All I know is it was down in Florida. Nobody was killed. Or even shot. It was the first offense for both of them. But they still got so much time....

  “It wasn’t even a year later when they just took off, running. Five of them. No plan, naturally—Shane never planned anything in his life. They made it to the edge of some damn swamp, him and Davey Boy, still together, when the posse caught up with them. They didn’t have any weapons, but they wouldn’t surrender—that’s what the police said, anyway, later—so they opened fire. Davey Boy died right there. They said Shane was hit, too—he had to have been—but they never found his body.

  “That was a long time ago. Nobody’s ever heard a word since. In that swamp, there’s a million things that could...dispose of a body. But Hugh, he is Shane’s son, no doubt about that. Hugh is mortally certain his father’s alive. Out there, somewhere. That’s why poor Lewis never had a chance with him. How can you compete with a little boy’s dreams?”

  “You don’t think there’s any chance he’s—?”

  “No. Because Hugh’s wrong about one thing, Burke. If my fool Shane was alive, he’d have come for me by now, even if a squad car was parked in the driveway.”

  We sat out on the back step, next to the ramp Flo’s long-suffering husband had built, Lottie smoking, me pretending to, watching Hugh and The Brains of the Outfit deep in consultation under the scrawny tree.

  “Did you know about Vonni saying her father was alive?” I asked her.

  “She never said that, Burke. What she did, she went along with Hugh. My son wanted Vonni for a big sister. He’s not old enough to say those words, not yet, but he can feel the feelings. So he gave them a kinship. It was his gift to her.

  “He’s the kind of kid, he thinks if you’re true-faithful, if you wish hard enough, long enough, you can change things. So, little by little, this story of Vonni’s father being alive came out of his mouth.

  “And Vonni, may the Lord always love her, she was such a treasure, she never broke his dream. Their secret, it was supposed to be. But you saw for yourself: my Hugh, he can’t keep a secret. Just like his father, the fool,” she said, eyes wet.

  “Maybe it’s only his own secrets he can’t keep.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “If Vonni confided in him...”

  “Sure! He’d never tell. You’re right, Burke. Hugh would consider that ratting her out.”

  “But if he thought he was talking to Vonni’s father...”

  Lottie took a long, deep drag on her smoke, closed her eyes as she exhaled. “This business about Shane being alive? I took him to a counselor. She told me that Hugh couldn’t grieve for his dad until he acknowledged that he was dead. It wasn’t good for him to keep believing Shane is alive, is what she told me.”

  “And if I was Vonni’s father, that would...”

  “Yeah. That would absolutely convince him that he’s right.”

  “And you don’t want that?”

  “I don’t. I’m not going to force my son to say his father’s dead, no matter what some counselor says. But I’m not going to encourage him, either. He’ll face it, someday. Not for a while, maybe. But he will, I know.” She took another drag, ground out her cigarette. “And he’ll have pain enough then,” she said.

  “You and me, we’ve got to talk,” I said to the boy that night. He was pretty well exhausted—dinner at Adventureland over in Melville, with a couple of hours in their endless arcade for dessert; a stop at Dairy Queen for a supplement, fol
lowed by three rounds of miniature golf in Deer Park. All with The Brains of the Outfit waiting patiently in the back seat of my Plymouth, sustained by what he apparently believed was his rightful share of every score in the food department.

  The miniature golf had surprised me. After the arcade, I’d asked the kid what he wanted to do, expecting a crime movie or maybe even one of those paintball parlors, but he never hesitated.

  And he was really good at it, too. Clearly disdaining any competition from me or his mother, the kid attacked par like it was his mortal enemy.

  “Has he ever played real golf?” I asked Lottie, as the kid walked the course toward some through-the-windmill hole.

  “No, he’s not. Well, a man I was dating once took us to the driving range, but all he wanted to do was show off. Hugh never actually got a chance.”

  And neither did that moron, I thought. “Does he like it, though?” I asked her.

  “How would I know, then?”

  “Well, I...Does he watch it on television?”

  “Golf?” she said incredulously.

  “Okay. Uh...does he know anything about the game? The various clubs and stuff?”

  “I...never asked him, to be honest. It’s not like I’m going to take him to the country club.”

  “You can call him Boo,” the kid told me a couple of days later. “Just not in front of people.”

  “Short for ‘Brains of the Outfit,’ right?”

  “Right,” he said out of the side of his mouth, giving me a wink.

  “I’m with you,” I told the kid, holding out an open palm.

  He gave me a grave look, nodded, put his little fist in my hand. I squeezed it to seal our deal.

  “I’ve got a budget for this one,” I told Lottie, after the kid was asleep.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m expected to spend money. Spread it around. That’s what you do when you’re looking for information.”

  “I don’t know anyone who could—”