Terminal

by Andrew Vachss

  “Never mind. See this?” He held up a thin, rectangular piece of metal. “It’s disguised to look like a memory stick. Plugs into any USB port. All you have to do is insert it before you boot up the machine, and it recodes everything inside.”

  “What good would that do?”

  “You know what the Enigma Machine was?”

  “Yeah. It was—”

  “This is a thousand times more sophisticated. A team of top cryptographers couldn’t hope to crack it. Even a mainframe would fry its circuits trying.”

  “But you could read it?”

  “Yes,” he said, the way a polite person talks to a retardate.

  “Could you make one that restores, too? So I could plug that one in, turn the whole hard drive into gibberish, then plug in the other and make it good again. Like the antidote for the poison?”

  “Yes.” He sighed, as patient as Einstein explaining long division.

  “Why did you design it in the first place?” I asked him. I’d long since gotten what I’d come for, but I didn’t want to disengage too abruptly. When you find yourself too close to a land mine, you back away very, very slowly.

  “To hurt things,” he said, as if that was the only sensible answer to any question.

  Satan must have been burning up in frustration that the nephew never left the apartment. If that mutated-by-terror maniac ever played his games with real people, he’d make Ted Bundy look like the Dalai Lama.

  “Was Theodore helpful?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Very helpful.”

  “It’s not his fault,” the old lady said.

  “I know.”

  “Will you come back? And visit, sometime?”

  “Of course,” I lied.

  “You are a good man,” she lied right back.

  I thought about her nephew on the way back to the subway. I guess there had always been creatures like him, but technology seems to have changed the game. It’s cool to be cruel now. Some human puke who thinks he’s “cutting edge” makes a video of puppies being doused with gasoline and incinerated. Putting that video on the Internet for all to admire is about what you’d expect from a maggot like that. But when people actually pay to download it, I wish I could get them all together and show them what “cutting edge” means to some of us.

  On the side of a building, someone had sprayed DAM in huge yellow letters. To make sure the droll cleverness of the multimedia artiste was fully appreciated, Mothers Against Dyslexia was written out beneath it.

  “I don’t think we can wait,” I told the Prof late that night. We were in my Plymouth, parked at the end of a prostie stroll just a few blocks east of the Hudson. The real-estate agents call the area “Clinton.” Who’s going to want to pay seven figures for a bare loft in a neighborhood called “Hell’s Kitchen”? That’s why there’s no Lower East Side anymore. And why’s there’s a “TriBeCa,” and a “SoHo.”

  But the name game isn’t just for the real-estate pushers. The Bureau of Child Welfare calls itself the Administration for Children’s Services now. Of course, it still pays its workers a ton less for dealing with humans who treat their children like garbage than the “sanitation engineers” who empty the cans people leave at the curb.

  In this city, the agencies copy the criminals: when there’s too much heat, they just switch to an alias.

  Dannemora used to be the state’s worst place to do time, a max joint so far north you could walk to Canada. That icebox was so synonymous with extreme isolation that we called it “Little Siberia.” It’s still there, still doing what it always does. Only now they call it “Clinton,” just like the neighborhood. But this one’s never going to be gentrified.

  “You the one behind the wheel,” the little man said, mildly.

  “Yeah. I know. I wanted to…”

  “Right. You looking for truth, but all we really need is proof. This scheme is for the green, Schoolboy.”

  “That check?”

  “You got two packages from the Mole. That first one leaves us holding the gun. The other…”

  “You’re saying, what difference?”

  “Dead is dead. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Whatever that little girl was, she wasn’t one of us.”

  “I can’t just scam my way past all the barriers that a guy like that—”

  “There’s three of them.”

  “But we only have that one check, Prof. Besides, if it happened like that Thornton scumbag says it did, how’s the one guy not going to reach out for the others? I don’t care how rich he is, why should he pay the whole thing himself?”

  “You mean the money?”

  “What else?”

  The little man didn’t say anything. To him, I was a pane of glass, and he always carried a bottle of Windex.

  The girl who poked her round, sweaty face into the side window of my Plymouth might have been sixteen under that amateur paint job. Maybe.

  “You look like a man who wants a date,” she sex-whispered.

  “Get your ass around this side,” the Prof snarled, speaking across my chest, jerking his thumb as a summons.

  I watched her as she passed by the windshield. Cheap white halter top over cheaper red satin hot pants, baby fat jiggling. About as sexy as watching a drunk vomit on a curb.

  “Hey!” she blurted out when she saw the Prof. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Old enough to be your father,” the little man shot back. “Young enough to be your daddy, too…if I was enough of a two-bit simp to be running some R. Kelly bait like you.”

  “Hey! I’m—”

  “I know what you are,” the Prof said, letting another organ-stop into his voice, shifting into a reach-out. “You some little child who ran away, got pulled by a punk who talked a lot of junk, and now you think you gonna be a star.”

  “You’ve got it—”

  “My song ain’t wrong,” he dismissed her. “They all the same, child. They charm you; then they harm you.”

  “Tway-Z isn’t—”

  “He isn’t nothing. And that’s what you are to him, child. You nothing but a piece of toilet paper to that slimy little snake.”

  “I make—” she started to say, defensively.

  “What you make ain’t the same as what you take, you dumbass little bitch. What you keep is what counts. Please don’t tell me how some faggot motherfucker is ‘taking care’ of you, either. You see this?” he said, holding up a thick wad of bills, fanning it so she could see nothing but hundreds. “You want some?”

  She licked her lips, on home ground now.

  “Sure, Daddy.”

  “I’ll give you two yards for an hour.”

  “I usually get—”

  “You ‘usually’ get a twenty to suck some stranger’s cock, maybe a little extra if you take it without a rubber,” the Prof cut off her lie before she could finish it. “You hear me? Some stranger. Could be a psycho with a straight razor in his pocket, could be a freak with AIDS who wants to take a whole bunch of little whores with him when he goes. Could be anybody, ready to do anything; what do you know? You ain’t no ‘escort,’ bitch. You ain’t got no security, no protection, no nothing. Remember that word: nothing. That’s your real name.”

  Her face twisted. The Prof grabbed her wrist. “You want money? I’ll give you the two bills for an hour of your time, and you don’t have to give up nothing.”

  “What do you mean?” Scared for real now.

  “There’s a place. In the Village. We drive you there. You talk to the lady inside. One hour. Then you do whatever you want.”

  “I don’t…” She looked over her shoulder, breathing hard.

  “You think your ‘man’ is out there, watching your back?” the Prof sneered. “You think, we wanted to snatch you, you wouldn’t already be snatched? You got a panic button? Nah, you don’t even know what one is. Your ‘man’ ain’t a man at all. Look, bitch, I’m not trying to pull you; I’m trying to pull your coat, get it?”

  It took longer than it usually d
oes, but she finally climbed in the backseat, holding the Prof’s two hundred in both hands, like a cross to ward off vampires.

  We dropped her off. If the program could talk her into staying, Tway-Z was going to be one girl short…which should empty his stable. If not, we could find her again.

  And then she would lead us to what I’m always looking for.

  Michelle was dressing me for my frontal assault on Reedy when her cell phone trilled.

  “That’s—”

  “I know, honey,” I said, shrugging off her apologetic face.

  She stepped out of the room to take the call. When she came back, I read her heightened color like it was Caller ID.

  “You have to—?”

  “Not until…later. And I can get Terry to come and pick me up, baby. Don’t fuss.”

  In all the years since they first connected, this was the first time the Mole had ever called that Michelle hadn’t asked—hell, demanded—that I get her out to his place, personally and pronto.

  I let it go. She tossed a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit into the corner like it was a dust rag, yammering, “Classic doesn’t mean ancient, you idiot.”

  I wasn’t enough of an idiot to say anything.

  “And we can’t have tomorrow’s look, either,” she rolled on. “You’re supposed to be…?”

  “A problem-solver.”

  “Yes. But not a thug. And not a con man, either. What we want to show is expertise, understand?”

  I didn’t say anything. What would be the point?

  “Not just expertise, successful expertise. You’re not some criminal who stumbled across a piece of information in a bar. You’re a professional. A spider, at the center of a web. When the web trembles, you know you’ve got something, so you go and take a look. Most of the time, it’s garbage. But when it’s gold, you know the spot price. The going rate.

  “So what we’re after is dignified, baby. Not mortician-dignified, okay? Calm, self-assured, confident.”

  “You can dress to be that?”

  “Oh, you can dress to be anything,” my little sister said, dismissing any argument with an airy wave of her hand. “But the best that does is get you in the door. After that…”

  I took a deep breath.

  “And nobody’s better at it than you, baby,” she said, fiercely. “Nobody.”

  My wheels dressed the part, too. The graphite Mercedes E500 sedan was a generic in the parking lot of the bronze glass building, which only a discreet brass plaque identified as the home of QuisitionDevelOp Enterprises, LLC.

  The security guard at the green-veined black marble desk had the resentfully dull eyes of a retired cop who hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea that his authority had been handed in with his badge. His eyes took me in, figured me for someone it wouldn’t be a safe idea to get all TV-show with. I might have a mug-shot face, but Michelle was right—the outfit spoke louder. To this fool, anyway.

  “Sir?”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Reedy.”

  “And you are—?”

  “My name is Thornton,” I said, smiling. “And, no, Mr. Reedy is not expecting me. I’m an old friend. I was in the area, and thought I’d take a shot at inviting him to lunch.”

  “I’m not sure he’s even in the building, sir. I’m sure you understand—”

  “That Mr. Reedy uses a private entrance? Or that there’s a helipad on the roof?” I cut him off, smiling again.

  “You got that right.” He chuckled. “Well, let me call up and see.”

  I stepped back, deliberately showing respect for the delicacy of his position. He was on the phone for way longer than he should have taken.

  “Yeah,” he said, gesturing for me to approach. “Just like I figured. Mr. Reedy’s not in. In fact, he’s not even in the country at the moment. If you want to leave your card, though, I’ll make sure they—”

  I was already handing him a card. Delicately engraved on off-white vellum, it identified me as:

  Donald R. C. Thornton

  Nothing else was on the card except a 212 number in the lower left-hand corner, and “By Appointment Only” in the lower right.

  I knew they had me on video from the time I walked in the door, but didn’t expect the black Dodge Magnum wagon to be in my rearview mirror so quick.

  I drove like I had no idea I was being followed. Motored sedately down to Bronxville, where I used the Mole’s code-grabber to remote-open the door to a three-car attached garage standing a covered archway’s distance from a fieldstone home whose owner was at work. His wife and kids were visiting her mother in Pepper Pike, Ohio—he was going to join them that weekend.

  I went out the open back window of the garage, drab green mechanic’s coveralls over my suit. The stage actor’s cheek-altering clay, black mustache, and red-rose “tattoo” decal on my right hand were all sitting in my pocket.

  Michelle would turn my hair back to its natural steel gray from the jet black they’d have on their videotape, and cut it, too. I’d be three inches shorter without the lifts. And a good long soak would remove the acetate from the pads of my fingers and thumbs.

  I was through a short patch of woods—half an acre was a big piece of property in that neighborhood—and into the Honda EV while the two guys in the Magnum were still waiting for instructions.

  The electric car didn’t make a sound as I moved off. That’s me: green is what I live for.

  I don’t know how the guy who owned the house was going to explain the stolen Mercedes in his garage to the men who would be coming to call, but I knew he could pass a polygraph that it was all a mystery to him.

  I left the Honda in an underground garage just over the border, keys in the ignition. I exited via the freight elevator to the loading dock. The Roadrunner—now a bilious yellow with Mopar-heresy red bumblebee stripes around its rear end—was waiting.

  The Honda was probably gone before I was; that place is always full of thieves. Max had been waiting within striking distance, but it took Clarence a couple of minutes to come down from the roof.

  I dropped them both off at the flophouse first, not wanting to introduce the dogs to strangers. The pits enjoyed the random assortment of deli sandwiches I tossed out. As I was converting the Roadrunner back to its original camouflage, the orca-blotched female sat next to me…pretty close.

  She’d already had her special bribe, so I didn’t think this was about food. The battle-scarred male watched as I knelt and cooed to the girl, but he didn’t move.

  The distance between us shrank as she approached, bouncing in the way pits do when they’re making up their minds. When she got close enough to nail me, I risked a gentle pat on her wedge of a skull. She sat, as if in response to a command. I scratched her behind the right ear.

  “You’re a beautiful girl,” I said, softly.

  She gave me a look, then trotted away to join the others.

  “Fucking amateur probably got the mark’s guard up,” the Prof said when I’d run down the past few hours. “Tapping that baby-killer like he was a fucking maple tree.”

  “I do not understand,” Clarence said, his face alive—not from puzzlement, but with the joy of learning something from his father.

  “Blackmail is a one-stop shop,” the little man told him. “Hit and run, son. One jack, and you never go back. Even if the well ain’t dry, you still fly, understand?”

  “So because this…person kept going back to him, over and over again…?”

  “Could just be corporate,” I said. “Who’s got the kind of serious money our guy’s holding without putting some protection in place? Figure he hears the name—the one I used with the security guy in front—and he grabs me on video, live feed. Doesn’t recognize me, but he knows I’m not Thornton, so he figures he better find out who that weasel may have sold him to. Good luck with that.”

  “Sure,” the Prof said, sourly. “But it didn’t get us in the door.”

  “He’s got the card I left. When the trace goes dead, how’s he not go
ing to call? A man like him, information is plutonium. Worth a fortune in the right hands, blow you off the planet in the wrong ones.”

  Max held up three fingers. Pulled the middle one back toward his palm.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “There’s still two left, but Reedy’s the only guy we can actually connect to Thornton. Besides, he’s probably already gotten word to the others.”

  “And if he don’t call…?”

  “I don’t have a Plan B, Prof. But that doesn’t mean we can’t—”

  One of the cloned cell phones I keep in individual charging cradles made a sound I recognized. I walked into another room, pulled it loose and opened the channel. Said, “Uh,” which is all anyone was going to get until I knew who I was talking to.

  “You get more Paleo every day.” Michelle, her voice even waspier than her waist.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, it must have not come off, or I know you would have requested my presence by now.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “I’m sorry, baby. But there’s more than one—”

  “Yeah,” I said, again. I know my little sister loves me, but some things you just don’t need to hear more than once.

  There’s parts of Chicago I’ve always loved, ever since the first time I went there. Just a kid, picking up a package for some guys in Brooklyn. Had to go to this fleabag hotel in Uptown—they called it “Hillbilly Harlem” then—and wait for a man with a blue-and-yellow flight bag. They said he’d be there between ten and noon, but couldn’t be sure what day he’d show. The nights were mine.

  I was so young and dumb then. Hell, I’d once taped a plastic bottle to the front end of a revolver and thought I had a silencer. Now, when I have to work quiet, I use one of Clarence’s custom-built semi-autos, the magazine packed with hand-loaded poison tips, the casings cast to luminesce in the dark, so I can pick up my brass without a flashlight.