Dead and Gone

by Andrew Vachss

  We never even heard a siren.

  I carefully removed the clear plastic shrouding from my fingernails, one by one. Then I started soaking my right hand in a jar of kerosene—revolvers really spread their powder residue around. The dismembered pistol was already on its way to an acid bath.

  I felt like a man who’d just worked a long shift at a lousy job. The same job that would be waiting on me tomorrow.

  I went back to being dead. Stayed deep underground. Spent every day working out, harder and harder. It was nearing Christmas by the time I heard from the Mossad man.

  “His name is Anton.”

  “The new boss?”

  “Yes. But not easily, not without bloodshed. Some of Dmitri’s old crew have moved on. The new organization is smaller.”

  “And this Anton, he’s not ex-military?”

  “No,” the Mossad man replied. “He’s an ex-convict. A career criminal.”

  Like me, flickered in my thoughts before it blinked out. “Thank you,” is all I said.

  “Who is this?” The voice on the phone was hard and weaselish at the same time.

  “My name doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’m the one who sent you that present … the one wrapped in green paper with a red ribbon.”

  “Ah!” he grunted. “What is it that you want?”

  “You got the present. The ten grand was in exchange for a piece of information.”

  “What information?” he asked, suspicion dominating. “Nothing about you. Or your crew. Dmitri dealt with some people a few months ago. I know he kept records. I know you have those records. All I want is their name and address.”

  “How would I know which—?”

  “They were a married couple. Russians. Not in the business. She was a doctor, he was a scientist. Their child had been kidnapped.”

  “How much is this information worth to you?”

  “Ten thousand dollars, Anton. And I already paid you.”

  “I think it is maybe worth more.”

  So he already knew. “Maybe it is worth twice that,” I came back, surprising him.

  He paused, then responded, “Agreed.”

  “Okay. You already have half in front from me. A good-faith payment. To show my respect. I will get the other half to you when you give me the information.”

  “How could I be sure of this?”

  “Remember the rest of the present I sent you?”

  “The piece of chalk?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is the purpose of that?”

  “For your people to draw the outline around your body. You know, like the cops did around Dmitri. When he was on the floor, dead. I gave him the same choice I’m giving you. He picked wrong. So now I deal with you. If you pick wrong, I deal with whoever follows you, understand?”

  “You threaten me?”

  “Threaten? I am making you the same offer I made Dmitri, that’s all.”

  “Dmitri was a fool. He thought that the most important thing was to be some … soldier,” he said, spitting on the last word.

  “You and me, we’re alike,” I told him. “We’re not soldiers, we’re businessmen. A soldier’s mistake is different from a businessman’s mistake. Greed, that is a businessman’s mistake. Not one you want to make. Twenty thousand dollars for the information, that’s enough.”

  “Call back here in twenty-four hours,” he said. And hung up.

  I pushed the “off” button on the cell phone. Then I used a hammer and a blowtorch to turn it into a puddle of untraceable plastic.

  “A soldier is nothing but an armed bureaucrat,” he said the next night. “And Dmitri proves it. Everything, he wrote down. Everything. An idiot.”

  “Government is government,” I agreed.

  He grunted in self-satisfaction. Then he slowly gave me a name, address, and phone number as if he was reading the info off an index card.

  “Chicago?”

  “Everything that is here, I just tell you.”

  “All right. I believe you.”

  “The rest of the money …?”

  “Is yours as soon as I check out the information.”

  “You said that you—”

  “I said I believed you. Dmitri, that remains to be seen.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I offered you two choices. If the information is true, then you have earned the money.”

  “If it is not? If Dmitri …?”

  “Then that’s it,” I lied. “You keep what you have, and we’ll be square.”

  I hung up on whatever he was in the middle of saying.

  “Chi-Town?” the Prof asked me, puzzled.

  “That part is legit,” I told him. “Dmitri said the snatch took place in Chicago. What happened was, it made the Chicago papers, but they lived in Winnetka—it’s like a suburb. A rich suburb. Anyway, that’s where they lived then. And I figured they’d moved here after it happened. But maybe not …”

  “Never change phone,” Mama said.

  I looked across the table at her. The first time I’d been in the restaurant since before … since before it happened. Mama hadn’t reacted to my new face, just snapped her fingers for the tureen of hot-and-sour soup as if nothing had changed.

  “Right,” is all I said, acknowledging the truth. Your child gets kidnapped, the one thing you never change is your phone number. Just in case. Even after years and years. But phone calls could be forwarded. Maybe they carried a cellular everywhere they went, never used it for anything else, waiting—an amulet against the unthinkable.

  “That chance can’t dance,” the Prof snapped. “Remember what that Dmitri motherfucker said, Schoolboy—they said it had to be you. You got the street-brand here, no question. Too much of it, you ask me. But Chicago? Son, your star don’t shine that far.”

  “So they were living here, then? And the Chicago address is a dud?”

  “Maybe Cossacks all lie,” Mama said darkly, the memory of some obscure Sino-Soviet conflict igniting behind the emotionless mask of her face.

  “Let’s just go with what we know,” the Prof said. “Click it off.”

  “All right,” I told them. “It was a hit. I was the target. There were at least four of them. It was a good plan. I’d done that kind of work before—middlemanned a handover—so it made sense they’d pick me. And they knew I’d go for it, the kind of money they were paying. They picked a spot that should have been perfect. Even the kid—that was a sweet touch. I was expecting a kid. Gave them an extra split-second to get off first, before I snapped wise. They might have figured I’d have backup, but they didn’t think anyone could get close enough without tipping them off. They didn’t figure on the Kevlar, though. Or on …”

  My throat stopped up. I couldn’t say any more.

  “She went out the way I want to, son,” the Prof said, reading me like I was forty-point type.

  “Yeah.” I ignored the pain-flash, got back to my summary. “They were cool under fire. At least their leader was. Took the extra time to make sure I was gone, picked up their dead, didn’t leave a trace.”

  “They thought they left you, mahn,” Clarence said.

  “Wouldn’t have mattered,” I told him. “That wasn’t unprofessional of them; it was smart. With my track record, being found dead in Hunts Point—what would it tell the cops? Nothing. Nothing to connect to them, and a ton of possible suspects out there, too.”

  “That’s where we got to look,” the Prof said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Listen up, then. We got to be the detectives now. Whoever tried to ice you, it cost someone serious money. Took a lot of time, involved a lot of people. That’s got to be personal. The people who tried to do the job, I figure them for mercs. Hired hands. But the rest, that was about blood. Someone who hates you enough to do all that planning and spending. And someone who knows you enough to figure you’d go for that kid-exchange thing, too.”

  “That’s not a short list,” I said.

&nbs
p; “Might be a real short list, we can get alone with those Russians for a few minutes.”

  “I don’t think Anton—the guy who took over from Dmitri—I don’t think he was lying.”

  “These people must be registered,” Clarence said, suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Immigration, mahn. I know about this. I do not know how much truth there is in what you were told, but, if they were from another country, they would not be citizens so easily. They could move, but they would have to notify …”

  I exchanged a look with Mama. She nodded.

  I thought about it later, watching alone as the gray dawn drove off the black night. I knew the best info-trafficker in the City. And what I had to do.

  “A public place is the safest,” Wolfe said over the phone, unaware she was echoing me from … before it happened.

  “Safer for who?” I asked her, trying to reach across the barrier I’d built between us.

  “Me,” she said, flat.

  “You think that …? You think I’d ever …?”

  “What’re you saying to me?” she challenged. “That I know better, right? That I know you?”

  “I thought you did.”

  “So did I,” she told me.

  After so many years of wanting to be with her, I’d finally … had a chance, is the best way I could put it.

  When you come to a fork in the road, you’re supposed to stop and consider your choices. Me, I never even checked for oncoming traffic.

  I’d had a chance. A real one, not some convict’s fantasy. Whenever there’s a choice, there’s a chance. You know how men are always fearing they’re getting past it, that they won’t be able to do the things they once did? Not me. I wish I had been past it. Wish I’d changed.

  But I’d gone right back to my old ways with that Albanian arms deal. Then blood came up. Pansy’s blood. And it filled my eyes until I went blind.

  I might have gotten Wolfe to listen about the guns. Maybe. Plenty of citizens here thought we should have been arming the Kosovars. But it was just a matter of time before her wires dipped deep enough into the whisper-stream to pick up on who did Dmitri right in his own joint.

  When I’d killed Dmitri, I’d done the same thing to my chance with Wolfe.

  It’s harder to spot tags in bad weather. You see a guy behind you wearing a ski mask in July, you don’t have to be a CIA agent to know something’s off. But with the sleet coming down New York–style—cold, dirty, and crooked—everybody was bundled up.

  I docked the yellow cab, watchfully. The cab stand was empty—weather like this, every hackster in the city was out there scoring. I rent a cab whenever I need to move around invisibly. For years, I had a deal with a dispatcher for a fleet. He’d pull a cab out of service, let me use it for a shift. I’d pay him for the use of the cab, and give him whatever I put on the meter, too. It would go on the books like he was driving himself that day, and we were both happy.

  But the fleets are just about gone now. What you have is individual owners or mini-fleets—two cabs and up. TLC medallions are limited, and they go for a fortune when they’re auctioned off. The only way to buy one is to finance it through a broker, and the new owners have to keep their cabs in motion around the clock to make the payments. So what they usually do is drive one shift themselves, then rent their cab out for the others. It’s called a horse-hire. The renter pays a flat fee, keeps whatever he pulls in.

  It’s a gamble, especially since the renter pays for his own gas, too. Some of them cut the odds with removable meter chips—reprogrammed to click off extra mileage—but most of them work seven days, never stopping, urinating into plastic soda-bottles, eating while driving, saving every dime … so they can buy one of those precious medallions for themselves. Midtown Manhattan is cab-clogged all the time. But try to find one in Brooklyn, or get one to take you to Queens. Even if you’re white.

  But I never have a problem getting one of the horse-hire guys to take two fifty cash for a shift. He wouldn’t book that much profit on his own, and he can have a day off with pay. I’ve got a valid hack license—the only thing fake about the plastic dash-placard is the name. And Clarence had picked up cabs for me before, so the guy I was renting from wouldn’t have to get all nervous at my new face.

  It was four blocks to where I had to meet Wolfe. I had a half-hour to cover the ground. If anyone was following me, they were better than I was.

  Wesley taught me there’s no such thing as a dead man. Only bodies go into the ground. If you leave footprints deep enough, you’re still around.

  Long after Wesley died, a kidnapper-killer came on the scene. A creature so rational from emotion-stripping that he went lunar from it. He knew the secret. He had Wesley’s ice in him. So deep he thought he could take over. Be Wesley.

  I was in the middle of that. And, at the end, the only one left standing.

  That was when Wolfe told me I had the choice. I could … maybe … be with her. All I had to do was find out. Was it me I had to change, or just my ways?

  It turned out to be me. And I couldn’t do it.

  She was sitting in the back corner, at a table by herself. It was one of those places where you order your meal at a counter, then carry it over to any empty spot. I saw she had a mug of something in front of her, so I stopped and got myself a hot chocolate. Then I walked over to her. Slow. Making sure she picked up on my approach.

  “It’s me,” I said. Same way I’d introduced myself during our last phone call, relying on her knowing my voice.

  “I know,” she replied, motioning with her head for me to sit down.

  She looked the same. Long lustrous hair flowing like a mane, red-tinged brunette except for two white wings flaring back from the temples. Pale gunfighter’s eyes. A soft sweet mouth, now drawn flat.

  “I know I must look—”

  “You look the same to me,” she said. I knew it was the truth. Real women, they don’t see with their eyes, the way men do. Good damn thing, or I’d still be a virgin.

  “It didn’t happen the way you heard,” I told her, keeping my voice soft, watching her eyes.

  She didn’t look away. “How do you know what I heard?”

  “I don’t … exactly. But I know you think I …”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “That part is true. But it wasn’t like you think.”

  “You keep telling me what I heard, what I think.… Why don’t you just say whatever you have to say?”

  “I had a job. A kid had been snatched, and the people who had him wanted to return him. For cash. I was supposed to be the transfer-man.”

  “What does that have to do with—?”

  “Let me finish, all right? You wanted me to say it, I will. This isn’t bullshit; it’s background.”

  She nodded slowly. Didn’t say anything more.

  “The guy who set the whole thing up was … the guy who got himself killed.”

  “And you didn’t—?”

  I cut her off with a stare. She held it just long enough to show me she wasn’t intimidated, then nodded again. That’s when I saw Pepper out of the corner of my eye, reading Variety at a table off to the side. Pepper works with Wolfe. Her citizen job is being an actress, but she’s part of the network, has been for a long time. And if Pepper was around, her man, Mick, wouldn’t be far away. Wolfe met me without backup plenty of times. I could see those days were over.

  “This … guy, he was the only one I dealt with. I went to the meet wrapped so heavy I could barely walk. It was out in Hunts Point. I had cover, but they had to hang back. The kid—well, a kid, anyway—he stepped out of the car and blasted me. No warning, no conversation. He came out shooting. It wasn’t a swap; it was a hit. And I was the target.”

  “How could they know it would be you?” Wolfe asked, her years as a prosecutor overriding anything she was feeling. Or not feeling.

  “Not what you’re thinking,” I said. “The … dead guy … he didn’t pick me. The people whose kid got k
idnapped, they picked me. That was one of their conditions, I found out later: it had to be me to deliver the money.”

  “You checked the—?”

  “There was a kidnapping. It was in the papers. And the transfer-money was all there. Every dime.”

  “How many were on the set?”

  “At least four, counting the kid. If he was a kid. I think he was. But it was dark, and I wasn’t that close.”

  “Just you. And four of them. And still you …?”

  “When the kid popped me, I took the rounds in the Kevlar … and whatever that stuff was that the Mole wove over it. I dropped. Pansy charged out of the car. She went for the kid. The guy behind me, the one picking up the money, he shot at her, but he missed. Pansy got the kid. Brought him down. Two others came out of their truck. My people opened up. The leader—the guy with the money in his hand—he told them to clear out. But to finish me first. That’s when I got … this,” I said, touching the right side of my face.

  “So they John Doe’ed you at the hospital?”

  “Yeah. Only this happened in Hunts Point, right? But I was transferred. When I came to, I was in Manhattan.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did your people drop any of them?”

  “Pansy got one,” I said, my voice strangling on pride and pain. “She got the kid. They … killed her. Right there. Right in front of me. They killed her and there was nothing I could …”

  My face was leaking. Just on the right side. I wiped it away with my palm, hard.

  “Another one of them got it, too. But they took their dead with them. And my people took Pansy. There’s nothing left there but blood in the ground.”