Blossom

by Andrew Vachss

  112

  I HIT PAYDIRT just past noon. Car phone conversations aren't private—I found a booth a short piece away. Called Virgil.

  "He's here. Everything set?"

  "I'll be there, ten, fifteen minutes."

  113

  VIRGIL AND I walked in together. No cover, no minimum. The bouncer stood in the corner. A heavy–duty piece of work. No bodybuilder poses on this one—hard, rubbery muscles under a thick layer of fat, no bridge to his nose, scar tissue for eyebrows.

  We found a table in the corner. Women in lingerie and high heels walked the runway. You bid high enough, you got to buy the cheesy crap right off their bodies, grope around handing it to them. Some stuff never goes out of fashion.

  Watching the room, we ordered shots and beers. Virgil drank mine. It took another round before I spotted Matson. Alone at a table right across from the bouncer. I got up, walked over, beer in my hand. He looked up as we approached, hands where he could see them. In case he learned anything from his magazine collection.

  The bouncer watched us, indifferent.

  We sat down across from him. No bracket, leaving him room to move. My back to the door, Virgil with a clear sight–line over my shoulder.

  His eyes were squinty under the bill of his red Budweiser tractor cap.

  "Buy you a beer?" I asked him.

  "I know you?"

  "Burke," I said, holding out my hand. He waited a heartbeat, shook it. "My partner, Virgil."

  "What can I do for you boys?"

  "I heard you were the man to see around here. If you were interested in certain things."

  "What things?" he asked, leaning back in his chair. Liking this.

  "Doesn't matter. I'm not looking to buy, I'm looking to sell."

  "Sell what?"

  "Ordnance."

  "We got all the guns we need."

  "I'm sure you do. But the way I heard it, you could always use some special stuff."

  "Like you said, I don't know you."

  I took a metal Sucrets box out of my pocket. Opened it to show him it was empty. Handed him a fresh white handkerchief.

  "What's this?"

  "Wipe it down. Get it clean as you want. Then I'll leave you a print, okay? You take the box with you. Check it out. See I'm what I say I am, maybe we can do business. I can give you some references too, you want them."

  He pursed his lips. Dragged on his cigarette. Took the metal box, wiped it down. Watched as I carefully rolled my thumbprint onto its surface. Wrapped it in the handkerchief, stowed it away in the pocket of his jacket.

  "Say I was interested…"

  "I'm a full–auto specialist. Anything you want. Even got some long–range stuff. Hand–held, shoulder–operated. Disposable."

  "Where could I find you?"

  "Right here. Say, in three days? Around this time?"

  He nodded. Big man, considering his big deals carefully. The bouncer watched. I could feel the sneer.

  114

  I DROPPED VIRGIL a quarter mile down the road. Rebecca was parked in her cousin's Chevy a few feet away. Paid no attention to us.

  I wheeled the Lincoln around, went back the way I came. The Blazer was still in the parking lot. A white Dodge sedan waited by the side of the road, Lloyd hunched over the wheel, eating a hero sandwich.

  115

  I PICKED UP some more clothes at the motel. Called Bostick, Glenda. Nothing new. Asked Bostick if I could pick up a few things from him.

  Blossom got back around eight. Put a leather portfolio down on the couch, slipped off her shoes. "Let me take a shower, then I'll make you some dinner."

  "We could go out."

  "I already ate."

  116

  LATER THAT EVENING, the kitchen table covered with press clips. "What'd he do?" I asked Blossom. "Pull every file in the morgue?"

  "He's a nice boy."

  "You tell him that?"

  Her smile was wicked. "I just thanked him. Politely. The way I was raised. You're my only boy."

  I sorted the clips, speed–reading, Blossom at my shoulder. "What are we looking for?"

  "First, we throw out what we're not. These, so far." Tapping a stack of body–count dispatches from the front lines they call city streets. Shootings where the gunman was apprehended at the scene. Shootings in the course of another crime. Where the victims were only male. Gang fights. Bars, nightclubs, bowling alleys…all discards.

  I kept working. On instinct now. Tossed out anything except white females. Anything outside the past eighteen months—two birth cycles. The thick stack was down to a few clips.

  White female, age twenty–four. Reported shot fired at her while she waited at a bus stop at midnight. Police investigated. Nothing more.

  White female, age thirty–one. Shot fired into her bathroom window while she was taking a shower after she got home from the night shift. Separated from her husband, history of domestic violence. He was under a court Order of Protection. Working his job at the plant when the shot was fired. Questioned and released.

  White female, age seventeen. Girl Scout leader. Shot in the arm while leading a troop of girls through the woods in the late afternoon, learning about nature.

  Human nature.

  117

  I HAD THE contact–address for two of the shootings. The woman whose bathroom window was shattered was listed in the phone book I'd gotten from Bostick's office. I tacked the street maps up on Blossom's kitchen wall.

  "You got a Magic Marker?"

  "No."

  "A crayon, anything?"

  She brought me a tube of red lipstick. I dabbed a tiny blood–dot at each address. Stood back to look.

  "A triangle," Blossom whispered.

  "Doesn't mean anything. Three dots, you're more likely than not to get a triangle."

  "Oh."

  "It's okay. Look at the dates. The first one was the bus stop, back in the late fall. The Girl Scout, that was in December. Then the woman in her own house, that was the spring. The lovers' lane killings, they were all this summer."

  "Why is that important?"

  "I don't know if it's important. If they're all his work, it is. See it building…? The first shot, like an experiment. The woman standing there, all bundled up against the cold. Probably only could tell she was a woman by her coat. Then the Girl Scout. All covered up too. But a lot of girls around. Little girls. He may have just stumbled on them. Felt the rage. See, here? The bullet they took out of her? A twenty–two Long Rifle. A plinker's gun. Not a sniper's. Then the woman in her bathroom. Her naked image against the pebbled glass. Maybe he passed there before. Saw her. Watched. Got the signal and came back. The paper doesn't say what kind of bullet they recovered."

  "Burke?"

  "What?"

  "You're scaring me. Your voice. Like you're…him. Like you see what he saw."

  118

  BLOSSOM'S PHONE RANG at one in the morning. The caller hung up before the answering machine could kick in. Rang again. Same thing.

  Again.

  I got up, started to dress in the clothes I'd brought with me.

  "Where're you going, baby?"

  "I'm not going anywhere. I've been right here, right next to you. All night. Never got out of that bed."

  "I'm coming with you."

  "No you're not."

  "Burke…"

  "Shut up, little girl. Close your eyes. I'll be back before you open them."

  119

  THE CHEVY PULLED UP outside Blossom's, headlights off. I climbed in next to Virgil. Saw Lloyd in the back seat.

  "What's he doing here?"

  "Caught me sneaking out."

  "He knows?"

  "You know how we are, brother. One of us got something on his plate, we all got it. Sometimes it ain't gravy."

  "Lloyd," I told the boy, "you wait in the car. You wait until we come out, understand? A cop comes by, you stay there. You don't panic, don't run. Worst that happens, they'll take you in. Got it?"

  "I got
it," he said, voice steady. Streetlights picked up the slash of honor across the bridge of his nose.

  "Any luck with the Nazi?" I asked Virgil.

  "Reba tracked him right to his house. Lives over in Lake Station. Little nothing of a house, he got. Chain link fence, chest high. Got him a dog, though. Big German shepherd, Reba said. Saw him in the yard."

  "Let's see if he wants to talk first."

  120

  THE BUILDING was dark. Virgil pulled around the back into a narrow alley, climbed out with me. Lloyd slid behind the wheel. Virgil opened the trunk, shouldered the duffel bag.

  The lock on the back door was a dead bolt. I couldn't see alarm wires anywhere. I felt crude, clumsy. Wished for the Mole.

  "Only one way," I whispered to Virgil. "I'm going to smash a window. Then we wait."

  If he was disappointed in his master–criminal brother from New York, it didn't reach his face. He nodded okay, walked back toward the car. I found a good–sized chunk of concrete block. Walked over to a ground–floor window and tossed it through.

  Nothing.

  Back in the car, I told Lloyd to drive slowly across the street, turn off the engine, and wait.

  We gave it half an hour, Lloyd fidgeting behind the wheel, Virgil smoking. Watching.

  Still nothing.

  "I didn't hear a sound when I broke the glass. If there was a silent alarm, the rollers would have been on the scene long ago. Let's do it."

  121

  I REACHED MY gloved hands inside the window frame through the broken glass, found the latch. Shoved it open. Virgil followed me inside.

  The third floor had several computer terminals scattered about. Virgil hooked army blankets over the windows. I used my pencil beam, turned it on one of the terminals. The screen flickered into life.

  I took a deep breath. If the machine asked for a password, I was finished.

  No.

  I followed the prompts, remembering what Blossom had been shown. Found the index for Reported Cases by Year. Figured my target for somewhere between fifteen and thirty years old just to play it safe. Typed 1960—and pressed the Return key.

  The screen said Select Sub–Index. I scrolled the cursor down. Stopped at Indicated. Hit the Return again.

  A new menu: Outcomes.

  I selected: Petition Filed.

  New menu. Selected: Adjudicated.

  I entered, scanned the new list of choices. Found the one I wanted: Family Reunified—Closed.

  I typed quickly through the next series of screens. Used the Sort key. Race = White. Sex = Male. Family Composition = One Child.

  Entered. Screen Message: Data Prior to 1972 Not Downloaded. See Central File.

  I tapped the Return key again to bypass the message. Hit the Print key.

  Nothing.

  Hit it again.

  Nothing.

  Selected Printer Menu. Blinking Message: Printer Is Not Connected.

  I turned to see if Virgil was watching. His back was to me, facing the door.

  I hit the On switch for the printer. Watched the lights blink as it warmed up. The screen asked me for printer speed. I selected the fastest.

  "Gonna make some noise now," I warned Virgil.

  He nodded, not moving from his post.

  The Print key rattled the machine into life. I went to the window, looked down. The Chevy was still there. Alone.

  I stood next to Virgil. "You think he's in there?" the mountain man asked.

  "Maybe. Wherever he is, he's not far."

  "You sure, now?"

  I shrugged. Feeling it more than knowing it, not sure why.

  The printer ran on like a machine gun in the darkness, spitting chewed–up lives onto paper.

  122

  VIRGIL PUSHED LLOYD over, took the wheel. I climbed into the back seat, holding a bundle of fan–folded paper as thick as the phone book.

  123

  THE BACK DOOR was unlocked. I found my way inside. Blossom was in bed, lying on her side, facing the bedroom door.

  "You okay?" she asked, wide awake.

  "Sure."

  I took off the dark prowler's clothes, put everything I'd worn into a pillowcase, tied it closed.

  Blossom didn't ask any questions. Patted the bed. Opened her arms.

  124

  "YOU WANT SOMETHING to eat? Take a break from that?"

  I rolled my neck to loosen the cramping feeling. I was in the easy chair in Blossom's living room. The fan–folded stack of printout was on the coffee table next to me, a yellow legal pad to my right. "What time is it?"

  "It's almost one in the afternoon, honey. You've been at it for hours."

  I stood up. Followed her docilely into the kitchen. Ate a sandwich I couldn't taste.

  "There's so many of them, Blossom. Even narrowing it down, taking the big guesses, there's so many."

  She was barefoot, in a pair of pink shorts, a T–shirt with balloons on the front. Looked sixteen. "Tell me," she said.

  "Two questions, right? Who he is, where he is. I can find who he is, I could get lucky. Point right to where he is. So I played with it. Patterns, like I told you. So I could see him in my mind."

  "What d'you see?"

  "He's shooting women. The boys who died, they were just in the line of fire. White women, I figure a white shooter."

  "Just like that?"

  "There's things I can't explain to you. It's not a black man's crime, sex–sniping."

  "Like white women don't throw lye?"

  "Don't be cute, girl. This isn't a job for the ACLU. There's a way you just know things. Your mother, she knew men, right?"

  "She did."

  "Could she explain everything to you…how she knew? There's something way past the red–light district, Blossom. A million miles underground. A white–light district maybe. The white light of the video cameras where they make kids perform for freaks."

  "You've been there?"

  "Yeah. And now, that's where I hunt."

  "I'm sorry. Just tell me, okay. I'll keep my big mouth shut."

  "Something happened to this kid. Something so ugly the social workers don't have a name for it. Maybe nobody ever found out about it, but I'm betting they did. Maybe through the back door. Maybe he was torturing little animals and a teacher caught him. Maybe a fire–setter. The way I dope it out, somebody caught wise, but they missed the boat. Missed the reasons. And they took him away for a while. Fixed him up. Gave his parents some counseling. And then they sent him home. Where he still is. Those files, they don't get you inside a kid's head. Or his heart. But I feel like this kid's rooted, you know. Like he never went far. Like he's been out there, brewing. Stewing in freakish juices."

  "You're giving me the creeps."

  "Something you don't know. Virgil brought me out here not to save Lloyd. To find out the truth. Whatever the truth was, he was going to stand up to it. The reason I know Lloyd didn't do it, it has nothing to do with what the cops know. The reason he didn't do it, he's not the person who could do it."

  "Burke…if he's in there…if you're so sure he's in there…why do you look so depressed?"

  "There's so many…so many. I can't bring it down too tight. I could miss him if I do. These reports are full of busted–up babies. Burned, beaten, crippled. Sexually abused. And every one of these files, they sent the kid home again. Everything all right again."

  "And you're sad because you're not sure he's in there."

  "I'm sad because …of what else is. All the success stories."

  "You sound so evil when you say that. Like there's a chill in here."

  "How should I sound?"

  "I hate him too, honey. He killed my sister. But that boy…he has to be so…sick."

  It felt like I was being baited. Goaded into something. "You think he needs a psychiatrist?" I asked her.

  "Don't you?"

  "No."

  125

  IT WAS TEN o'clock that night before I finished. Counted the files I had set aside. Almost two hundre
d. I closed my eyes. Went down inside. Where only the devil knew my secrets.

  Called his name.

  Wesley. The monster who signed his suicide note with a threat—I don't know where I'm going, but they better not send anyone after me.

  "Where is he?" I asked the monster.

  "Out there."

  "Can I find him?"

  "He can find you," the monster said, in his dead–machine voice. "Fire works."

  I knew. He wasn't talking about the Fourth of July.

  126

  A HAND on my chest. Foggy voice. A strangled scream. Blossom's face inches from mine, the pink glow gone dark. My fingers locked around her throat. The soft flesh turned to acid—I whipped my hand away.

  Later, on the couch, her head in my lap. Cold water dripping onto my thighs from the ice pack she was holding against her throat.

  "I never saw anything move so fast. It was like a steel vise…" Her voice was raw, raspy.

  "Don't talk."

  "Burke…"

  "I'm sorry. I was somewhere else. Didn't know it was you."

  "It's okay. I thought you were asleep. I just wanted you to come to bed."

  "Close your eyes, Blossom. Go to sleep."

  She found my hand, separated the fingers like she was counting them. Put my thumb in her mouth, curled onto her side, closed her eyes.

  I felt the cold go through me, reaching where the ice pack couldn't touch.

  127

  VIRGIL AND I spotted the Blazer in the parking lot. Matson was sitting in his spot. Two guys with him. Looked like he did: mean–eyed, blotchy–faced, chinless. The Master Race.

  We sat down.

  The fashion show went on behind us.

  Matson leaned forward. "You got yourself quite a background, friend."