Drawing Dead

by Andrew Vachss

  “Love!” Princess said, his voice jumping up a register. “If you’re in love, you don’t think about nothing else, right? Right?”

  “Yes, baby,” Tiger said. “But Wanda—”

  “Wait!” Cross cut her off. “Rhino, on that tablet you cracked, it was there all the time. We just didn’t pay enough attention to it. We were all sure Wanda knew me…and wanted me dead. But what we forgot was that she knew Tracker was with me when we hit that house.”

  “What difference—?”

  “Rhino, stop looking for her. It’s not going to happen; she’s not going anywhere close to that back channel again. But there’s something on that tablet. Maybe something. If it’s there, it’s time for voodoo.”

  “What in the name of Sappho are you taking about?”

  “I had to do something once, Tiger—it doesn’t matter what—but I learned something I thought I’d never have a use for. All voodoo has the same root….Maybe that’s why they use roots; I’ve heard Sharyn talk about them a few times. For healing or for hurting…”

  “That’s just a Gypsy hustle,” Tiger said. “For all we know, they passed it along to people on one of those islands a couple of hundred years ago.”

  “The root,” Cross continued as if Tiger hadn’t spoken, “the root of all voodoo is that the dead can walk.”

  Sweetie made a noise nobody could interpret. Even Princess—he’d never heard it before.

  “Rhino, scour that thing. Somewhere in there, we could find his special e-mail, the one he made just for her.”

  “Thalidomide Man?” Tiger said, trying to keep the skepticism from her voice and not quite succeeding. “You going to make him walk?”

  “Not me,” Cross replied. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t…feel him enough to even try. But Rhino…”

  “IS HE okay?” Princess asked anxiously.

  Cross and Tiger looked over to where Rhino had been sitting on the floor, filling the entire corner with his enormous bulk, the custom-sized laptop resting on the thighs of his gray jumpsuit. The huge man’s eyes were closed, and his breathing came in a measured cadence. He had not moved for almost three hours.

  “He’s fine, baby,” Tiger assured Princess. “He’s trying to solve a problem in his head, that’s all.”

  “But he hasn’t even—”

  “Princess, you know Rhino would never leave you. He found you, he brought you back…right?”

  “Sí,” said the child who had been turned into a cage fighter by narco-guerrillas and given to their boss as a special prize, unconsciously lapsing into the first language he’d learned.

  “So…?”

  “What if he’s…getting hurt? I wouldn’t let anyone—”

  “Sweetheart, Rhino knows that. We all know that. There’s nothing you can do, not now.”

  “Later?”

  “Maybe,” the Amazon said, very gently. “We won’t know until he comes back from…from wherever he’s gone to. But you have to stop fussing, okay? If Rhino thought you were in trouble, what would he do?”

  “He’d never let anyone—”

  “See?” Tiger said, softly. “If you get too anxious, you could make him stop before he gets where he needs to go. Look at Sweetie. He’s getting all restless, just like you are. But he’s getting that way because of you. He feels what’s inside you. He wants to protect you, but he doesn’t know how. That’s not fair, is it? To make your dog all upset just because he loves you?”

  Princess never hesitated. He pulled the Akita to him, patted his head, stroked his fur. “Easy, Sweetie. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I know you want to help, but I’m fine. Okay?”

  The dog settled at Princess’s feet, thoughtfully nibbling at the wide strip of dried pork the huge child dropped.

  If Rhino had been watching, the parallel would not have escaped him. He had never been called by the name on his birth certificate—he never would be. His search was painful. Deliberately putting himself in a state of near–suspended animation, traveling back to when his life was at the bottom of a deep lake. Always looking up, never seeing light. Going back to a time when he was sustained only by a faith that light would appear. A faith he could not have explained; a faith no religion could have produced.

  He was back to when that dot of light had first proved true…whispered words in the ear of an always medicated monster kept chained to a wheelchair, whispered by a prison-hardened youth whose own name had come from what others had been saying about him for years: That guy over there, the one you just said don’t look like much? Trust me on this, bro—that is one kid you do not want to cross.

  And then he felt about in the darkness until he found that thread that connected him to Thalidomide Man—an accident of nature the world would never acknowledge.

  But, just as Rhino’s IQ had been grossly underestimated by his captors, Thalidomide Man had a mind that was far more powerful than his body—a mind unknown to those who kept him in the most luxurious of surroundings but allowed him no human contact.

  “I can do it,” the giant said, opening his eyes. “At least I think I can. And I’ve got to try. I owe it to—”

  “No,” Tiger said, stopping him. “You didn’t do anything to him. Or to her. How they connected, we’ll never know. Or even what Wanda must have gone through to…get like she is. He’s gone. And she can’t go where he’s gone to. All that’s left for her is revenge. She blames us for what happened. The whole thing. Either we stop her, or she stops us. I’m…sorry for…for both of them, I guess. But we’re your people, not them.”

  “Yes,” Rhino said, nodding his head as if reinforcing her words.

  “Sweetie was worried,” Princess said.

  “Wanda doesn’t even know about—”

  “He was worried about you,” the armor-muscled man said, sneaking a glance at Cross.

  “I understand,” Rhino said. “Tiger, is there a place to take a shower here? I want to get on this, but I need—”

  “Everything you want,” the Amazon assured him.

  “RHINO, HE’LL be fine,” Cross told her, as Princess and Sweetie departed. “Blondie’s gone. The G wants Wanda gone, too. I don’t think Percy could find her, but Ace isn’t so sure of that—he says the guy’s full-bore crazy. And not squeamish about wasting anyone that gets in his way.

  “One thing we all know, both sides: Percy isn’t going to stop, and Wanda knows that. Knows it now, for damn sure.”

  “BEFORE YOU try, can I tell you something, brother?”

  Rhino gave Cross a quizzical look, the When did you ever need to ask permission? unspoken but clearly transmitted.

  “I don’t know what people believe. Or even why they do. I don’t know how those two connected, and it doesn’t matter anymore. But let’s say Wanda knew what Thalidomide Man did—maybe she was even part of it. If she thinks there’s any kind of…hereafter, or whatever…that’s the key. There’s only one way she can be sure to be with him in the same place. She wouldn’t be looking for a hiding place—she’d be looking for a Suicide Bridge. One they can jump off together, holding hands.”

  “I understand,” Rhino said.

  Without another word, he started attacking the keyboard.

  An hour later, he looked up. “I’ve put the packets everywhere I can think of. But it has to work twice over. Wanda has to believe he’s been looking for her. And that it’s actually him that’s looking. If she makes contact, even if its only to ask questions–just making sure it’s not a trap—this thing will start beeping and flashing. Just like his would, if he was still here.”

  “Just don’t think anymore, brother,” Cross said. “No more logic. For this to work, you have to be him.”

  “IS HE sleeping?” Tiger whispered to Cross.

  “The way a computer sleeps, yeah. Goes inert, takes some kind of action to wake it up. Rhino already said a signal would start beeping and flashing. Until then, we have to be quiet.”

  “Isn’t your smoking…?”

  “No. Some p
art of him knows I’m here. He’s like me—I don’t understand some of the things I know, I just know them.”

  “And trust them.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’ve tested them and—?”

  “It’s not like that. I’m no scientist. More like they test me, if that makes any sense.”

  “It…Oh! That’s it. That has to be it.”

  “Tiger…”

  “Those other computers, not that grand piano Rhino uses, the other ones over there, are we using them for anything?”

  “No. They’re just for—”

  “Mural Girl,” Tiger interrupted, keeping her voice below a whisper. “We can’t talk to her any more than we already did. But the camera-feed, it’s loaded on one of those computers?”

  “Far as I know, on all of them.”

  The warrior-woman pointed at her eyes with both index fingers, then moved one of those fingers so it was pointed at Cross, raising her eyebrows in a question.

  MURAL GIRL was working with a series of black pens, creating an architectural image that was three-dimensional to the eye.

  “What’s that?”

  “She’s almost done,” Cross said. “Just putting the finishing touches on the cash-out room.”

  “A casino? But the other things look like…little houses, schools, the Projects, a library with only a few books, a…I don’t know what that is,” she said, pointing at what Cross instantly recognized as a generic “training school” for juvenile delinquents.

  Before he could explain, Tiger scratched one of her talons across the back of his right hand, as if drawing a “No” diagonal symbol across the bull’s-eye tattoo. “ ‘Cash-out room,’ that’s an execution chamber, right? That gurney…it almost looks like a Christian cross, only laid down flat.”

  Cross didn’t say anything.

  They watched in silence, Tiger’s hand slipping into Cross’s.

  “It’s the path,” the gang leader finally said. “Look over to the far right. That’s a graveyard. You get it now?”

  “No.”

  “Any gang boy would. ‘The jailhouse or the graveyard.’ They grow up to that soundtrack. None of them expect to see twenty-one without going one place or the other. Some of the OGs, they outlive the deal by doing time. They live longer because they’re in prison. Shot-callers. They can reach out to the street anytime. But there’s one thing they can’t do. They can’t walk away. That’s what that lethal-injection chamber means.”

  Tiger leaned slightly forward, turned her head. “It’s flashing. Can you feel it?”

  “Yeah. But it’s not…burning. More like when an infection starts throbbing. Like it has its own pulse.”

  “Then…Oh, look!”

  Cross shifted position so he could see the complex architectural renderings hold their starkly black-and-white position as they became the background for two playing cards: king and queen of spades. Within seconds, two more cards popped up on either side, each one the ace of hearts.

  Bracketed by…what, love? ran through his thoughts, just as a final card fluttered slowly down, spinning so that it was impossible to make out the face side of its checkerboard-patterned back.

  When it finally came to rest, Cross and Tiger saw a card lying across the others. A translucent pale blue, with a large, hollow “3” in its center.

  What the…? joined their thoughts as the see-through blue background turned darker and darker and…

  “It’s the same!” Tiger whispered urgently.

  “What’s the same?”

  “That blue color. It’s the exact same color as the…brand they left on your face.”

  “Are we supposed to know what it—?”

  Whatever Cross had been about to say stuck in his throat as they watched the hollow “3” fill with colors, flickering from one to another so quickly that it was impossible to register any single one.

  Finally, the “3” became the same color as the background, a solid rectangle in that same blue that had branded Cross just below his right eye ever since that…whatever it was had butchered its way through the prison’s abandoned basement.

  It held that position, as if to be sure even the slowest pupil in the classroom had time to memorize it.

  Then everything disappeared. The wall had returned to pristine white. And Mural Girl was gone.

  CROSS HELD his finger over Tiger’s lips.

  At any other time, she might have playfully nipped it, but she took it for the signal it was and let Cross move her head so she was facing Rhino’s big-screen computer monitor.

  It was silently flashing an image of a knotted rope.

  A beep sounded.

  Rhino’s eyes opened.

  His cigar-sized fingers hovered over the keyboard.

  “It’s him,” the once-chained man said. “I’m him. She’s there now, too. Wait…”

  >say name

 
  >clever. never died. where, then?

 
  >how long?

 
  >how shelter/food/clothing?

 
  >how survive shot?

 
  >police?

 
  >but *they* know?

 
  >never truth to me.

 
  >mind/body = [

 
  >trapped, both us.

 
  >2?

 
  >No. us, together, decided long ago. me running. alive, always B *un*wanted.

 
  >C?

 
  >No. but we can be together.

 
  >I know. but I come, B w U until…

 
  >no place for me except 1. with U. *we* decide when 2 go. and we go TOGETHER.

  >Wanda

  …

 
  >yes. 4ever.

  <*together* forever.

  >we will not die apart?

 
  >foundation has surface cracks. most weather, but one I made. SW corner, you will see two <<2>> cracks intersect. insert 4-foot fiber-optic probe. flash 3x, then stand back. my robot will pull cracks apart, hydraulic power still working. U come in until past hips, then hands above head & drop. robot can close crack behind you.

 
  >I have waited all my life. just be careful.

 
  “That’s all,” Rhino said, laboriously squeezing out each word. “They won’t make contact again until…”

  “We’ll be there, brother.”

  “You know…she’s right, Cross. What they did to him, that wasn’t right.”

  “It wasn’t. I know….I think I know….”

  “They must have done something like that to her.”

  “Rhino…”

  “She’s pretty; she’s smart; she could have been anything she wanted. But something happened to her when she was…small. I know it.”

  “They’ve probably been…together for years,” Tiger said. “She couldn’t tell anyone about hi
m, so maybe she was hoping, if they ever got that ‘specimen’ the government wanted, she could tell the G what a mind he had, and they’d step in and pull him out.

  “Maybe he was doing all kinds of evil things, but not to be evil. You saw what you just wrote, being him. It was like he was stashing money all over the place for her. So she could run, like he knew she’d have to, one day. It’s insane, but…it’s a love story, Rhino—it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but them.”

  “Could you…both of you…just take a drive somewhere? Please? I want to be by myself for a little while.”

  “We’ll go inside the club, honey,” Tiger said. “I’ve got my phone. Just call when you want us to come back, okay?”

  “Thank you,” the behemoth said. And closed his eyes.

  “YOU DON’T think—?”

  “Not a chance,” Cross assured her. “Rhino’s heart hurts. But he’s never gonna leave Princess on his own. You just sit there in that dark little spot you like. I’ll have a couple of smokes. It won’t be long.

  “How do you—?”

  “I know him,” Cross cut her off. “I’ve known him since before he was…a person. He may not know why he snatched Princess out of that jungle, but I do.”

  “Hey!” a hard-faced woman in a tuxedo suddenly said to Cross. “I think you’re in the wrong place, pal.”

  “No, he’s not, Bella,” Tiger said, leaning forward out of the darkness to face the woman. “Anyone who’s with me, how could they be in the wrong place?”

  “Oh!” the woman said, startled at the Amazon’s appearance. “I didn’t see—”

  “Ah, that’s what we say about them, isn’t it, girl?”

  Bella’s face was instantly transformed by her smile. She turned and walked away without another word.

  “WHAT’RE YOU doing here?”

  “Saving your life, fool.”

  “I don’t need nobody’s help.”

  “Look, bro: you one seriously mean motorscooter, I give you that. But slick ain’t your speed. You left a trail Ray Charles could follow.”

  “Not your problem,” Percy assured Ace.

  “Yeah, it kinda is. You follow orders, right? Me, I follow obligations. And I got one owed to you. Those two you was chasing down, I wanted them more than you did, trust me on that.”