False Allegations

by Andrew Vachss

  An idiot in an iridescent yellow Honda Accord sedan flew past me on the right, huge tires set so far outside the fender line they looked like pontoons. That's what the tires were about—looks. The car wouldn't handle worth a damn. Lot of guys make that mistake, and not just with cars.

  I nosed the Plymouth against the razor–wire–interwoven chain–link fence and waited. The junkyard was quiet, like it always is. It's always alive too. The dog pack ambled up to the fence, only mildly interested but on full alert. Then Simba chested his way through the pack. A German shepherd's face on a bullmastiff's body, his single–coated fur a dull gold color, his ears too big for his head. He looked misbegotten, but his carriage was a king's. Not a bloodline king, a warrior king who had taken his throne by combat. He was old now. Slower, maybe, but stronger than ever, case–hardened from years of successful survival. Darwin's Dog. A white pit bull female with a black patch over one eye strode next to him, a step back and to the side. Not deferring, guarding the flank. A harlequin Dane watched from the left, standing alone. To the right, a half dozen of that special breed of lean, dirt–colored, slash–and–burn brothers to wolves and coyotes—the American Junkyard Dog.

  Terry walked through the pack, good–naturedly bumping dogs out of his way with a knee when they blocked his progress. "It's Burke, Simba!" he called out to the boss dog, as he unlatched the gate so I could pull the Plymouth inside.

  If Simba was impressed with the news of my arrival, he managed to keep it concealed, pinning me with his alligator eyes as I climbed out of the car, his posture telling the pack to hold its ground. I stood there while Terry moved the Plymouth between some junked cars. It merged with the other wrecks, looked right at home.

  We walked all the way back to the clearing next to the Mole's bunker. "He's gone out," Terry said, answering my question before I asked.

  I raised my eyebrows—the Mole left the junkyard about every three, four years.

  "With Mom," he said. Meaning Michelle. She'd taken Terry out of a kiddie–sex freak show years ago. Adopted him by force. I was the force, Michelle was the love. She'd never said anything about wanting a kid all the years I knew her, but she took one look at Terry and gave birth.

  He was a little one then, performing on command. Sold by his bio–parents, pimped by a smooth–talking psychopath right out on the Deuce. A fast–food service: fresh hot chicken to go, rentals only. I didn't know how old he was, not for sure. Birth certificates aren't required in our family. He looked about sixteen now. A slim, handsome teenager. He'd be taller than me when he got his full growth. That was the only genetics in him. The Mole taught him science, Michelle taught him art. With those two in him, it was a sure bet the kid would break atoms and break hearts. Someday, he'll walk around the finest college campus, and he'll have lots of friends. He'll look just like them too. Except for his eyes.

  Michelle was done with her journey. It wouldn't be long before Terry started his. If that bothered the Mole, he kept it to himself. But Michelle was digging her talons in as deep as any mom who raised him from the cradle, knowing it was coming, holding tight against it anyway.

  "I need the phone," I told the kid.

  He just nodded his head, acknowledging the respect I paid him by asking.

  I went down the carved–earth steps to the bunker, moving past the machinery, the microscopes, the computers until I got to the phone. It was a blue–box loop job—the signal went into the 800 circuit and came back up, ready to dial, impossible to trace. I didn't know how it worked, but I knew it did. I lit a cigarette, thinking. The Mole tried to explain the filtration system he had set up down there once. I never understood that one either, but it worked perfect. The Mole put it together so he wouldn't kill himself with the fumes from his experiments—the bunker always smelled like an operating theater.

  I held Kite's business card in my hand. Noticed for the first time that it flickered in the light. I turned it slightly, looking close. Some kind of pattern punched into the vellum—blind embossing, they call it, kind of like braille. I traced it with my fingers. Something was under the engraving, but I couldn't bring it up. I tried one of the Mole's examining lamps for a couple of minutes before I saw it: a kid's kite, slightly puffed out against the lifting breeze, a long tail dangling.

  The number was a Manhattan exchange. Easy to tell now—all the other boroughs are 718. I tapped it out on the keypad, listening to the long series of beeps as the signal went out and looped back around. Then it started to ring. Once, twice, three times, then…

  "Good morning," a woman's rich, husky voice.

  "I'd like to speak to Kite," I said, my own voice as neutral as a heart monitor.

  "May I tell Mr. Kite who's calling?"

  "Burke."

  "Could you hold just a minute, please?"

  She didn't wait for a response before switching the line to hold.

  "Thank you for calling," a man said suddenly. His voice was thin but strong. Titanium wire.

  "What do you want?" I asked him, done with the ceremony.

  "To talk. Face to face. I have an offer to make. For your services. Your professional services. The offer is complicated. I wouldn't feel comfortable making it on the phone."

  "I'm retired," I told him.

  "Yes," he replied, like he knew what I meant and it made sense to him. "But not retired from listening, I'm sure. That's all I want, for you to listen. I know your time is valuable. And I'm prepared to compensate you for any inconvenience involved. But I did go to considerable trouble—"

  "That wasn't neces—"

  "Actually, I believe it was, Mr. Burke. And I'm prepared to go to much more trouble if I must. May I have the opportunity to explain?"

  It was a perfect threat, skillfully delivered. He could find me if he had to…and he sure as hell knew where to look.

  And he knew about Michelle.

  "Sure," I said, like he was being too reasonable to refuse. "How do you want to do it?"

  "Completely at your convenience, as I said. I can come to you, you can come here…whatever you say."

  Telling me he knew where to find me? Mama's? The building where I live with Pansy? Max's dojo?

  "I'll come to you," I told him.

  "Would tomorrow be acceptable?" he asked. "Anytime after three…?"

  "Four."

  "Four it is. I appreciate this very much, Mr. Burke. I look forward to seeing you then."

  He gave me the address and hung up.

  For some reason I didn't quite understand but still trusted—maybe some tiny tug at the tip of the hyper–vigilance that comes standard with all Children of the Secret—I shaved real close the next morning. Then I combed some of that stupid gel Michelle got for me through my hair. Put on an undertaker–black worsted suit over a cobalt silk shirt with a plain black silk tie. I stepped into a pair of soft black alligator boots with steel toes and hollow heels. One heel held ten hundred–dollar bills wrapped around a handcuff speed key; the other a little round box like women keep lip gloss in. If you pulled the tab off the top and waited about five seconds, it would blow a door off its hinges. I fitted a smuggler's necklace around my neck under the shirt. Twenty–four one–ounce ingots of pure gold—you could pop them out one at a time, bribe your way free of damn near anything.

  A complete set of ID went into my wallet. Not the Juan Rodriguez stuff I used for my license and registration—I wouldn't be taking the Plymouth. Arnold Haines was up to date on all his credit cards. He appeared on a few visiting lists in a couple of Upstate prisons, but, hell, a lot of legit businessmen were on those lists.

  I never thought about taking a gun. But under the bead capping the tang to my belt buckle was an alloy needle tipped with a dab of paste the Mole gave me—a little present from one of his pals in the Mossad. And the gold coin I used for a money clip had a half–moon razor I could push out with a thumb without looking.

  Pansy watched me suspiciously, somehow knowing she wasn't coming along. "When I come back, I'll bring you s
omething special," I promised her. "No Chinese this time, okay?"

  She made her snarfling noise, ice water eyes regarding me with all the mercy of a polygraph. "I promise, okay?" I said, patting her massive head, scratching behind her ears until she shifted to a purring sound, trusting me again.

  I wish it was always that easy.

  "Oh be careful with it, mahn. Please, now. This is not a damn lorry you are driving, all right?"

  Max shifted the Rover into second gear as carefully as a surgeon removing a cataract—his huge hand looked like a scarred piece of old leather on the floor knob. His eyes flicked at me in the mirror, asking for sympathy for Clarence's mother–hen attitude. The West Indian hawk–eyed the Mongolian's every move, as nervous as I'd ever seen him.

  "He insisted on driving, mahn," he told me. "And you know how delicate my ride is."

  "So why'd you let him?" I asked.

  "Ah, he is my brother," Clarence said. "And he wanted to so badly…"

  For some reason I never quite got, Max loved to drive. He wasn't real good at it, especially in the city. It was like he expected cars to step aside for him the same way people did. He'd banged the Plymouth up more than once. But he was handling the Rover like it was a fragile child, keeping a nice cushion of air around him as we wove through the narrow streets of Chinatown. It was just past two in the afternoon—plenty of time to get to the midtown address Kite had given me.

  "It'll be okay," I assured Clarence. "Max knows you love your car."

  A truck blocked the cobblestoned street ahead of us. One–way street, traffic behind us. There was almost room enough to get past. Max inched the Rover forward. Clarence clasped his hands in prayer. A parked car on our right, the outside rearview mirror of the truck to our left. We were only about four inches short of slipping by, but that still left us wedged in—no place to go.

  I signaled Max to stay put and climbed out of the back seat. Three guys were sitting on a loading platform, drinking something out of big white styrofoam cups.

  "That your truck?" I asked them.

  "Who wants to know?" the guy in the middle asked back, chin up, neck muscles starting to tighten.

  "You're blocking the road, pal," I told him. "Just pull over a few inches and we can get by."

  "In a minute," he said, dismissing me. The guy on his right nodded approval.

  Asshole. I got back in the car, lit a cigarette. Max rapped the dashboard. I leaned forward, caught his eyes. Put my inside wrists together, clapped my hands, making a "yap yap" gesture. I tapped my watch, held up my hand, fingers spread. Meaning: another five minutes, they'll get tired of the game and move the truck—no big deal. Max started to get out of the car. I held my palm out like a traffic cop. No—it wasn't worth it.

  "He wants to tell those guys to get a move on?" Clarence asked me.

  "Yeah," I said. "But he wouldn't tell them nicely and I don't want trouble."

  "I tell them, mahn," Clarence muttered, his hand snaking under his jacket.

  "Chill," I told him. "They're just profiling. Give 'em a minute, they'll move the truck. Nothing to it."

  Horns honked behind us. I smoked my cigarette. A red–faced fat slob knocked on my window. I hit the switch to let it down—his sweat–smell flooded in.

  "What's the fucking problem?" the slob wanted to know. His face looked like an overripe muskmelon, about to burst from the heat.

  "There's no room to get by. The truckers said they'd move out the way in a minute. We're just waiting."

  "Well, I'm not," Fatso snarled, walking over to the guys on the loading dock.

  He came back with the three truckers. All screaming at each other, lots of fingers being pointed. And nothing moving. Horns really blasting now—a lot of them, it sounded like. Someone was going to do something stupid, guaranteed.

  Max hit the switch and his window came down. One dark, deep–veined hand extended out. He grabbed the mirror on the truck and twisted. There was a crack and the mirror came free in his hand. Max held the mirror in one hand high above the car. As soon as he was sure the truckers saw it, he flipped it over the top of the Rover in their direction, flicked the gear shift into first, let out the clutch and pulled away. Slow.

  By the time we got over to Canal, Clarence had calmed down a bit.

  We were heading up First Avenue, pointed toward Sutton Place, the address Kite had given me. "I'll ring every fifteen minutes or so," I told Clarence, holding up the cell phone. "Don't answer it. Don't do anything. A half hour goes by and it doesn't ring, call this number and ask to speak to me," I said, handing him Kite's card. "You don't get an answer, or they won't put me on the phone, come on up. Both of you."

  "Got it, mahn."

  "The Prof looked it over?" I asked him.

  "My father says it is Old Money, mahn. Very exclusive. No funny stuff in that place, that is for sure."

  "And he's in the penthouse?"

  "Yes. It has a separate elevator, the last one in the row."

  "Security?"

  "My father did not go up, mahn. But even when they had to throw him out of the lobby—he had his shoeshine kit—they only had a couple of old men with uniforms. No professionals, not on the ground floor, anyway. If he has muscle, it will be inside his apartment, I am sure."

  When we pulled up front, Clarence was out the door before I was, going over his beloved Rover with a chamois cloth, checking for scratches.

  Max just sat there, waiting.

  I told the deskman my name. He didn't bother to pick up the phone, just pointed at an elevator standing open at the end of a four–car row.

  At the top of its ride, the elevator car opened inside a small foyer painted a robin's–egg blue. It was all clean–cut lines in the wood, stark and sharp–edged, without a scrap of furniture. On the far side of the foyer was a narrow opening covered top to bottom with wrought–iron grillwork—it looked like the door to an upscale prison cell. As I walked closer, a dark shape materialized behind the grille. A woman, thick–bodied but curvy, with the kind of pinched–in waist that you can't get from genetics. Another step and I could see she had jet–black hair, straight and thick, curving sharply just past a tiny, pointed chin to frame a fleshy face. Small red rosebud mouth. Heavy blusher on her baby–fat cheeks, eyebrows plucked down to pencil lines, curved to parallel the hairdo. The orange eyes Bondi told me about. There was a hard shine to her face, like a ceramic glaze. Her small eyes were as bright as a bird's, and about as warm. She was wearing a black dress of some shiny material, slashed deeply down her chest, thin black straps crisscrossing the cleavage.

  "Mr. Burke," she said, the husky voice of the woman who had answered the phone.

  I nodded. She turned a knob—I heard the heavy bolt giving way. She pulled the gate toward her, stepping back as she did. I crossed the threshold, closing the space between us.

  "Come with me," she said, moving away in a smooth, flowing motion.

  Her hips were wide and rounded, muscular bottom outthrust in the tight skirt. Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked down a hall lined with framed certificates. I stayed a couple of paces behind, hands at my sides.

  She turned a corner. When I followed, I found myself in a long narrow room. The wall to my right was pitch black, empty. A white formica table ran its full length, its top covered with machinery: three computer screens, only one of them alive with what looked like a color spreadsheet, fax machine, copier, a reel–to–reel recorder with four separate mikes, each with its own VU meter, a fat box with something that looked like a blood–pressure cuff attached to a standing tube. The wall to my left was pure dazzling white, as blank as its mate opposite except for a bright chrome picture frame maybe two feet square. The frame was empty, the white wall gleaming from within its borders.

  Between the walls was a big fan–backed chair with a diagonal bisected design, white leather on one half, black on the other. Behind it, nothing but windows. Old–fashioned casement windows with small individually framed little squares of glass.
Behind the glass, the East River.

  Next to the chair, a little round café table with black legs, topped with a white marble disk. On the table, a miniature dumbbell, gleaming chrome. I'd seen one like that before. They use them to test for telekinetic power. A long time ago, I met this wild–haired, calm–eyed girl—a graduate student at NYU. She was in the wrong place, a storefront in Bushwick where somebody told her she'd find a psychic who could speak to the dead. The storefront was empty, another Brooklyn burnout. But the rat–packing teenagers who surrounded her thought it would still do just fine for the games they had in mind. They weren't real bright, those little beasts, but they knew what the sawed–off twelve–gauge I was holding would do to their futures, so they backed off quick enough. I stuffed her into the Plymouth and took her back where she belonged. Tanya was her name. She was doing her Ph.D. on psychic phenomena. After we got to know each other better, she got convinced I had this telekinetic power…and I spent hours trying to move one of those little dumbbells. She told me I could, if I would only care about it enough. I guess I never did.

  "Mr. Burke." A man's voice, the titanium wire I'd heard before, snapping me out of the memories.

  I turned slowly. He was moving toward me, coming from around the same corner I'd turned. Short, slim man. Elegantly dressed in a dove–gray suit with a faint red chalk stripe, a white shirt and a red tie with a black swirl pattern running wild against it. His hair was white. Not gone–from–gray white—no–color white. His face was the same no–color, a faint network of capillaries clearly visible beneath the skin. Pink–tinted glasses covered his eyes. He stepped closer, holding out his hand for me to shake. A white hand, the veins clear blue against the translucence.

  An albino.

  His grip was moderate—measured, like there was plenty left. His skin was dry; I felt a faint trace of powder. He smelled like lime.

  "What sort of chair do you prefer?" he asked, inclining his head toward the fan–backed one sitting under the windows, telling me that one was his. "Straight–backed, armchair, director's…I thought you'd be more comfortable with your own preference."