Down in the Zero b-7

by Andrew Vachss

  "Could that be true…what she said?"

  "I kind of…asked around. Don't be mad— I was careful. It wouldn't be true. First of all, her parents aren't Catholic. And besides, lots of girls get abortions around here— it's a common thing. And Jennifer wasn't underage— she wouldn't have needed anyone's permission. They could have even gotten married if they wanted."

  "But they were both in Crystal Cove…"

  "I know. That's the funny thing— I think that's where they met. They really didn't know each other all that long…to be doing something like that."

  "How long does it take?"

  "Don't make fun of me, Burke. It's such a serious thing, doing what they did, I just thought…"

  "I wasn't making fun of you, girl. That's the thing about suicides— you can never ask them."

  Fancy drove us to a Thai restaurant in town in her NSX. I ordered skewered beef, seared in hot oil in a fondue pot they brought to the table. Fancy asked for stir–fried vegetables over sesame noodles.

  "What do you drink with Thai food?" she asked, looking over her menu.

  "Beer," I said. "At least that's what everyone says."

  "Could I have one?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "Well…you don't drink. I thought maybe…"

  "What?"

  "Well, I don't know. Maybe you don't like the taste of liquor…on me. You know, how some people who don't smoke can smell it on you?"

  "Is that a hint?"

  "Oh no! Honest. I don't care. I just didn't want to do anything you— "

  "You don't, Fancy. Have a beer."

  She ordered a Bud Light. Knocked it back like she was used to it. Halfway through the meal, she held up her hand and the waiter came over. "One more?" she asked me.

  "Go for it. I can always drive back if I have to."

  "Oh, I'm not that bad," she giggled. "I've been drinking since I was little. Wine, mostly. We used to have it at dinner."

  "Does Charm drink?" I asked her.

  She gave me a shielded look. "She plays with a drink. Like at parties and stuff. But she doesn't really like it."

  Sure.

  The captain ushered a portly man in his fifties past our table. He was dressed to the teeth, a dark suit just this side of a tux. The woman with him was taller, bone–thin, with straight auburn hair that looked too stiff to touch. The captain seated them somewhere to my left, just out of my line of vision.

  Fancy started fussing with her food, not talking. "Something wrong?" I asked her.

  "Burke, could you…oh, never mind."

  "What?"

  "It's too complicated. I…"

  "Fancy!" My tone was sharper than I intended. Her face came up, gray eyes widening. She pushed her seat back, got up. She walked around the little table to her right, bent over where I was sitting, her lips right against my ear. "I'm going to the Ladies' Room. When I come back, I'm going to give you something. Will you take it? Put it in your pocket without looking at it? Please?"

  I nodded, looking straight ahead. She stayed where she was, bent over, her lips still against my ear, but not saying anything, just getting her breath under control. Then she straightened up and walked off in the direction I was facing, an exaggerated twitch in her stride.

  The waiter cleared the plates. I lit a cigarette, feeling the eyes, not turning around. Fancy came back, a high flush on her face, walking more stiffly, eyes downcast. She took her seat.

  "Here," she said, leaning forward, extending her right hand around the edge of the table. I reached out with my left, holding her eyes. Felt silk. Bunched it up, put it in the side pocket of my jacket.

  I paid the check. Fancy got up to leave before I could move. She walked around behind me, slid the chair back for me like a maitre d'. As we walked out together, I saw the portly man watching. His face was blotched with patches of white.

  I opened the door to the NSX and Fancy climbed into the passenger seat. I turned the key and drove out of the parking lot, feeling the turbine–smooth power of the engine just waiting for a tap on the gas pedal to kick in.

  "What was all that about?" I finally asked her.

  "Could you light a cigarette?"

  "What?"

  "Light a cigarette…so I could have a drag?"

  I did it. Handed it to her. She put it in her mouth, played with it, not inhaling. Handed it back to me.

  "Tell me," I said.

  "Look in your pocket."

  I put my hand in, pulled out a pair of red silk panties trimmed with black lace.

  "They're mine," Fancy said. "I took them off in the Ladies' Room."

  "I don't get it."

  "Did you see that fat man? The one who came in with that skinny lady?"

  "Yeah. I mean, I didn't get a real good look, but I saw him."

  "He's one of my…clients."

  "So? I mean, that has to happen a lot, right? It can't be the first time."

  "It's the first time it happened when I was with someone. I don't…date. Not in public. I go out and everything, but not just a man and me."

  "I still don't get it."

  "It's like it was with Charm, Burke. I saw him looking. Like he knew something."

  "Fancy, he does know something. So do you, right? Sounds even–up to me…why should you be embarrassed?"

  "It's not me, it's you. He saw me with you. I saw the way he was looking. It's like he knows you, see? I never talk about a client. Never, never. That's why I never date them. This kind of thing…like before…it could happen."

  "Huh?"

  "Don't you get it? If one client saw me with another, the one I was with, he wouldn't know anything. But the other one, he'd know. It's a real…advantage to know about someone like that."

  "Are you talking about blackmail?"

  "Kind of. That's one of the most disgusting things in the world, selling secrets. Nothing would make me do that."

  "You worried about someone blackmailing me?"

  "No. How could they? Even if they saw you, they'd have no proof. That's not what I mean. It's so much power, to know what a person needs. Charm knows it. She used to always ask me who I was…doing. You know."

  "What about the videos?"

  "That's different. That's professional, not personal. Charm was always like that— she had to know secrets. That's why she joined Rector's. If you come there, you have to be into it."

  "So she has to— "

  "She doesn't have to do anything. There's lots of ways to be into it. Hanky–spanky isn't the same as B&D. Or S&M. Rector's has all kinds of rooms. Private rooms, like bedrooms. A couple of dungeons. All kinds of toys, equipment. A big room too, for group stuff. Some people pitch, some catch. Some switch, go both ways. And some, they just like to watch. That's Charm. She just watches. Mostly in the group rooms. One girl, a long time ago, she told us she was going to get it good that night. Her owner was going to really give her a session. Charm wanted to watch, but they wouldn't let her. She really got mad. I mean, I knew she was mad…I know her. You couldn't tell from looking at her."

  "Charm's a voyeur?"

  "No. She really doesn't care. It's not like she likes to look at porno or anything. She's a…collector. She collects information. It's from her science, I think. Knowing how things work and all that. She was always like that. I know she read my diary. That's where I learned. To trick her. I'd write stuff in there that wasn't true, just to throw her off."

  "Does she go on dates and stuff?"

  "Oh sure. But nothing serious. She wouldn't ever get married— she told me that when we were little."

  "Okay. So why the scene in the restaurant?"

  "The man who saw me…with you. He was going to think you were like him. So if you ever met him, he'd have that. An edge, like. I made out like you ordered me to do it…go in the Ladies' Room and take off my underpants. He saw me hand them to you. Like you were embarrassing me…to teach me who's boss. You wouldn't do that— you couldn't do that— if you were a submissive."

  "S
o it was just to throw him off? About me?"

  "About me too," she said, looking straight ahead out the windshield. "Why should people be so sure they know me when I don't even know myself?"

  Much later. In Fancy's shadowed bedroom.

  "Is there anything you want from me?" she asked.

  "How about some of this?"

  "Stop that!" she giggled, slapping at my hand. "That's not what I mean. A big thing. Money…?"

  "I'm…not sure," I told her. The truth.

  "If you'll figure it out for me, I'll do anything you want."

  "Figure what out?"

  "The mystery. My mystery. I'm not a mysterious woman, but I'm caught in a mystery. All my life, in a mystery. Charm's so sure she knows me, but she doesn't know me. Not at all. She doesn't know me. That's what I want."

  "To know yourself?"

  "Yes! That's what I want. I can't…do this forever. Not be anything. She was right, you know. No thing. That's nothing. But she's wrong too. This…domina stuff isn't me. It's what I do. It makes me feel things. But it isn't me. Not the whole me.

  "What makes you so sure I— ?"

  "You could, Burke. I know you could. Will you…?"

  "I'll try, girl."

  Fancy came out of the bathroom in a sheer nightgown, the radical curves of her body illumed in the backlight. She was holding something in her hand, a long, thin wand.

  She came over to the bed. I was lying on my back. She took the cigarette from my hand, held it to her lips, took a deep drag, put it out in the ashtray. She lay across me, her heavy breasts against my chest.

  "Do you want to…do something else?"

  "What?"

  "I told you…how Charm did it to me…put…things inside me…where a man goes," she whispered.

  "I remember."

  "She put it…other places too. With this," she said, holding up the wand. "Do you want…?"

  I shook my head. Fancy climbed on top of me, pulled up her nightgown, fitted herself over my cock, lowered herself. She put both hands behind her. I saw the upstanding wand, felt her soft grunt, heard the insistent buzz of the vibrator as she got herself over the top, anchored at both ends.

  She was sleeping when I got up in the dark. The greenhouse was cool, thick with humidity. I looked through the glass at the stars.

  Fancy didn't know where she wanted to be. I thought about the Zero.

  And for the first time, I knew I didn't want to be there. It didn't wash over me peacefully, it hit like a crowbar, making me dizzy.

  I leaned against the shelf in the greenhouse. I wanted to be in a hillbilly bar someplace. Holding Blossom in my arms, slow–dancing so slow it was something else. Blossom. If somebody started a fight, she'd drag you away from it— but if you got pulled along, she'd be right there.

  I went into that house to kill what they did to me. Told myself a lot of lies about it before it happened. None since.

  People say you can't heal until you can forgive. Fucking liars. Cowards and collaborators. A beast steals your soul, you don't get it back by making peace with him. You make peace with yourself.

  I went into that house to do that. With a gun in my hand. And I killed a baby.

  Say it!

  I killed a baby. I didn't mean to, but he's just as dead. Surrounded by the bodies of humans who tortured him.

  Would he forgive me if he knew why I walked that walk?

  I got it then. Really got it. The Zero isn't where you go when you die…it's where you go when you volunteer for the ride.

  I could feel the dead child inside me— like Wendy's poem, talking across the barrier. The Zero was no good to me— I wouldn't find the kid there. But maybe he could hear me. I heard Wesley sometimes, maybe…

  I will always hate them, I promised the child I'd killed. Always. I swear on my true family I will never forgive. And if I could find them, I would kill them.

  Quick. Not like they did me.

  Like they did you too, child.

  I'm sorry, kid, I said inside me. But you're no place I can go to tell you— I can't make it right.

  I sat down on the cold floor and dropped below the Zero. Cried myself to sleep like I did when I was a kid myself.

  Before they taught me nobody was listening.

  The sun woke me, burning through the greenhouse. I was naked, cold, sore.

  I didn't want to go into the Zero anymore. Didn't want to be in this rich ghetto anymore either.

  I wanted my family back. The family I helped make for myself. I would die for them, but I'd die trying.

  I missed Pansy. I felt sick inside. Not sad anymore, sick with knowledge.

  A hundred years ago, I was standing on the prison yard, listening to the Prof tell me I couldn't use a shank to settle some petty beef I had with another con. Telling me to chill, get icy, pick my shots. I didn't want to hear it— what I wanted to do was stab the miserable motherfucker who sold me the tickets. "Do it like I say or get on your way," the Prof said, then.

  I stayed. I was going to stay now. Stay the distance.

  Fancy was sprawled on her stomach, face buried in a pillow, sleeping drained. The tattoo I'd drawn was almost gone. Fading away like the shroud around the mystery of her life.

  I slid in next to her, covered her body with mine. She muttered something, still under. I nuzzled at the back of her neck until she stirred. As soon as she was sure it was me, I held her until she went back to sleep.

  I was chewing on a granola bar I'd found in her kitchen, washing it down with some ice water. So calm I could count my heartbeats. Fancy walked in. "How's this?" she asked, posing.

  She was wearing hot pink stretch pants with a thick black stripe down the side of each leg. The pants ended at mid–calf. Shiny black spike heels. A black cotton bra with wide straps that crossed behind her back. She was holding a black sweatshirt in one hand.

  "You going to put that on?"

  "Well, of course! I just wanted you to see what's underneath first."

  "I didn't see what's underneath those pants," I told her.

  "There isn't anything," she said, sticking her tongue out at me. "There wasn't room. Is this okay?"

  "Dynamite."

  She turned sideways, shot a rounded hip, gave herself a hard smack on the rump. "Boom!" she whispered.

  I drove the Lexus to the parking lot where I'd promised it would be waiting, Fancy following in her NSX. She didn't ask any questions when I took the wheel from her.

  By the time we arrived, there was already a long line to get in. A young girl in a set of bright orange coveralls was walking down the line, taking money, making change.

  "How much?" I asked her when she got to us.

  "Ten dollars per car to get in. It's another ten if you want a pit pass.

  I handed her a twenty. "We'll take both."

  She peeled off two stickers, one white, one blue. "You can paste these on your dashboard," she said. "Make sure they're visible through the windshield. Here, I'll…"

  She bent over, put her head inside the car. "I'll take care of it" Fancy snapped at her, snatching the stickers out of her hand.

  "Easy," I told her, pulling off.

  "Oh, I'll take care of it," she mimicked, dripping sarcasm.

  "She's just a kid, playing around."

  "I'll give her something to play around with."

  "That's enough."

  "That's enough, what?"

  "That's enough, bitch."

  She unsnapped her seat belt, reached over and gave me a quick kiss.

  We found the pit area. It was jammed. I parked Fancy's car over to the side and we starting looking around. The whole joint looked like a Concours de Cash…the occasional Mercedes stuck out like a poor relative, only invited to the wedding for the sake of form. Ferraris, Maseratis, a gullwing Lamborghini. All toothbrush–polished, shrieking status.

  Fancy's sweatshirt draped down past her hips. We didn't get a second glance as we strolled through the grounds, even in that sea of Laura Ashley and count
ry barn chic.

  "There he is!" Fancy yelled, pulling at my arm. If a Mercedes looked out of place, the Plymouth looked like it was from outer space. The kid was standing next to it, a clipboard in his hand. A tall, slender girl with him, long reddish blonde hair almost to her waist, dressed all in black. But instead of the pasty indoor skin I expected, her face was porcelain, with a faint rose undertone.