Dead and Gone

by Andrew Vachss

  He said he was sorry. He’d just assumed it was me who fingered his son. He said he’d make it right.

  I told him he’d never see it coming.

  Lying on the hotel bed in the Chicago night, I told myself the truth. The people who’d tried to hit me, they were pros. No question about it. Just a job. The ones I wanted were the string-pullers, not the puppets.

  But the puppets had killed Pansy.

  I thought about the setup I’d had for her, back at my place. The huge stainless-steel bowl anchored in a chunk of cement so it could withstand her onslaughts, the inverted water-cooler bottle, the dry dog food she could get for herself if I wasn’t around, the tarpapered roof where I’d take her so she could dump her loads without my having to walk her on the street. The giant rawhide bone that she adored so much she’d never annihilated it the way she had every other toy I’d gotten her, the heavy velour bathrobe she used as a blanket, the sheepskin she slept on …

  Training her with reverse commands, so that “Sit!” meant attack. Poison-proofing her so she wouldn’t take food unless she heard the key word. Working with a long pole and a series of hired agitators until she’d learned to hit thigh-high, not leave her feet and make herself vulnerable.

  Playing with her in the park. Coming home to her and never being alone when I did.

  Looking out at the dark, my hand on her neck, together against whatever might be out there.

  The vet telling me her arthritis just meant she was getting old. Telling me she didn’t have forever; at seventeen, Pansy was way past the limit for her breed.

  Knowing that I might prolong her life with a special diet, but that she’d rather go out earlier and keep getting the treats she loved so much. The only change I’d made was that I never let her near chocolate anymore. The vet told me chocolate was toxic to dogs, could even be fatal. So I’d switched her to honey-vanilla ice cream.

  Glad I had made that decision now.

  But so fucking sad that, some nights, I was afraid to sleep.

  I was getting used to my reflection in the mirror. Michelle had made all the cosmetology decisions. “Your hair changed color, baby. I was going to touch it back to black for you. But you know what? I think steel’s your color. And keep it very short—that’s so very severe.” I never got it together enough to ask her what the hell that meant.

  I was going to grow a beard, just to let it cover the bullet-scar. But it was a failure. The damn thing grew in black, streaked with red and white—called a lot more attention to my face than the scar would.

  Michelle fixed that, too. She gave me some stuff that came in a tube like lipstick, but once on, it blended with my complexion. “One girl’s scar is another’s beauty mark,” she had explained. I never asked her what that meant, either. I’d heard enough when she said that I was lucky to have lost an eyebrow to the surgeon’s pre-op razor because it would grow back in neat and clean and men never pay attention to their eyebrows and they’re what set off the eyes and …

  The outside sky was dark. Couldn’t get a clue about the weather. Checked my watch, the white-gold Rolex now. “It’s not ultra-ultra, like Patek Philippe or Piquet,” Michelle had counseled, “but it goes with the look. Yellow gold would be tacky, and stainless would be too down-market. This is perfect.”

  I didn’t feel perfect, but it was time to go.

  Clancy was in the lobby when I came down, chatting with the girl at the front desk. He took out a small notebook, wrote something down. I didn’t think it was a license number.

  He strolled over to where I was standing, said, “You got a coat with you?”

  “Just what you saw yesterday. It wouldn’t go with this.”

  “Traveling light, huh?”

  “Yep,” I said. Thinking of the twin to the Python that had totaled Dmitri, now taped inside the toilet tank in its waterproof wrap.

  “Well, it’s no big deal. We’ll be indoors.”

  I followed him outside, where he handed something to a guy in a hotel uniform. Whatever he handed him was wrapped in green.

  The Lexus SUV that rolled up to where we were standing was green, too. At least, I’d call it green—Lexus probably calls it something like Rainforest Morning Mist Emerald. Clancy walked around to the driver’s side. I climbed into the front bucket seat.

  “You’ve got a valid driver’s license?” he asked, as he pulled onto an eight-lane divided highway and hit the gas.

  “New York,” I told him. Thinking how the photo wouldn’t exactly be a perfect match now.

  “Good enough. This is the car you’re borrowing. I have to teach a class today. Turns out it’s right in Winnetka. You come along, get a chance to scope out the area, right?”

  “Sure. What’s the tariff on the car?”

  “There isn’t any. It’s a police impound, seized in a drug bust. It’s already been vacuumed and tagged. The plan is to use it as an undercover vehicle in a few weeks. The plates will trace right back to my department, so, if you get in a jackpot, tell the arresting officer to call up and ask for me. They’ll make you for a CI.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Well, you can’t cruise around the neighborhood you want in a Chevy. This one, nobody’ll notice.”

  I made a sound to indicate I understood. He drove in silence for a bit, then said: “We’re on Lake Shore Drive. That’s Lake Michigan out there. When it’s on your right, you’re heading north.”

  “I thought you were a Chicago cop,” I said.

  “I am.”

  “But you’re teaching a class in Winnetka?”

  “Believe it or not, Winnetka’s still part of Cook County. We wouldn’t patrol there, of course, but it’s inside our jurisdiction for the classes.”

  “What kind of classes?”

  “It’s called Licensed for Life,” he said, a deep, rich vein of pride in his voice. “The idea is to give kids interactive information about drunk driving, try to save a few lives.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Well, I can tell you this, we taught thirteen hundred classes last year, all by request. And from the feedback we get from the kids, we believe they’re really taking it in. There’s no way to give you statistics, not yet. The program is too new. But there’s no question that tons of kids have contacted us after the classes, telling us about situations where they took action to avoid becoming a statistic. We don’t give grades, we’re not part of the faculty, so there’s no point in brown-nosing us. And, besides, all these years in the business, I can tell when somebody’s hosing me. They’re not.”

  The highway narrowed a lane or two. Still heading north, near as I could tell, but I couldn’t see the lake anymore to orient myself.

  “We’re on Sheridan now,” Clancy said. “Ahead of schedule.”

  I restrained myself from saying that, the way he drove, we’d be ahead of any damn schedule.

  “First class isn’t till eight,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I know a place where we can get some coffee.”

  “Who pays for the classes?” I asked him, sipping my hot chocolate.

  “That’s a good question,” he said, chuckling ruefully. “We live on small grants. Sometimes they come in, sometimes they don’t. It takes a long time to train an officer to give the classes. They get paid for every one they teach, but it doesn’t even cover their travel expenses—sometimes you have to drive a three-hour round trip to teach a one-hour class. Everyone who’s observed the program, everybody who’s checked it out, they all love it. If we had a way to turn promises into dollars, we’d have the endowment we need. But, for now, we just scramble and hope.”

  “How come the insurance companies don’t fund you? It sounds like a great investment for them. One drunk driver alone can cost them millions.”

  “We get a little from them. Not enough. Not near enough. We can’t take tax money to do it—no way to get that past the city council. What we need is a commitment,” he said, his tone saying he had already made one himself. “Some foundation to p
romise they’re going to give us support for maybe ten years. Long enough for them to do their double-blind studies, prove on paper what we already know from actually doing it.”

  “You fancy your chances?”

  “I’m Irish.” He grinned.

  The guard at the school entrance smiled and waved us in … once he made sure I was with Clancy. The teacher greeted us outside the classroom. He was a middle-aged, middle-sized man who looked tired. “Detective Clancy,” he said, “thanks for coming.”

  “My pleasure,” Clancy replied. “Let me introduce Mr. Askew. He’s going to be working with us for a few days.”

  “Are you a police officer, too?” the teacher asked.

  “I’m a filmmaker,” I said quickly, before Clancy could respond. “We’re interested in the possibilities of making a docudrama about Licensed for Life.”

  “Well, that’s a wonderful idea!” the teacher said, enthusiastically. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about it.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, my tone implying that I’d need to make that decision for myself.

  “You think I’m standing up here as a joke?” Clancy barked at the class, reacting to some giggling over in one corner. “You think all cops care about is taking bribes and eating donuts? You need to pay attention to this. Close attention, understand? This is serious business.”

  He reached in his breast pocket, took out a large white napkin that said DUNKIN’ DONUTS in big red and orange letters. He began to clean his glasses with it as he glared at the students. The first student to spot it cracked up. In a minute, the whole class was laughing.

  Somehow, Clancy took them from there through a series of anecdotes about drunk drivers that started out funny and ended ugly. By the time he got to a story about a “two-car, five-body” crash he was called out to investigate … and found his fifteen-year-old daughter in the back of a squad car, not badly injured herself, but assaulted by the image of her best friend’s face splattered against the windshield … they were rapt, totally focused.

  He backed off then, playing them expertly, like a professional angler giving a fish some line. He asked them questions they should have known the answers to—the penalties for driving under the influence, for instance—then provided the answers when they dropped the ball.

  The finale was a pair of goggles he called “Fatal Vision.” He told the class the glasses would show them what the world looked like through a drunk’s eyes. One kid volunteered to try them out. Clancy walked him through the whole routine—fingertips to nose, walking a straight line—and the kid flopped like a fish on a pier. Then he asked the kid some simple problems—counting backwards, naming the last four presidents—and you could see the kid struggling before he came up with the responses. “Easier with your eyes closed, right?” Clancy asked him.

  “Right!” the kid agreed.

  “Some drunks try to drive that way,” he said, harshly, offering the kid a high-five. The kid missed by three feet and would have fallen on his face if Clancy hadn’t caught him. The class roared.

  Clancy finished strong, telling them one truth after another. Some of them were going to drink. This wasn’t about preaching abstinence—this was about survival. When he stopped talking, the class was dead silent. “Scared Sober,” I thought, sarcastically. But then they broke out into spontaneous applause, their faces serious, some teary.

  The teacher’s face was a study in surprise—these kids were way too cool to clap, especially for a cop.

  The bell rang for the next class. Clancy was surrounded by students, all trying to tell him something. Or ask him something.

  The teacher just watched, his mouth gaping.

  “Does it always go like that?” I asked Clancy, watching as we drove through a neighborhood so lush it seemed to bloom in the dead of winter.

  “Pretty much,” he said, smiling. “It’s more art than science, and there’s horses for courses. Some of the guys, they can work anywhere. Others, you have to pick their spots. But I’ve never done a class where I didn’t get some response. Some … engagement.”

  “You really believe in this, don’t you?”

  “It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said, conviction braided through his words. “I took out a second on my house to keep the program going while we wait on the foundations.”

  Wolfe had set this whole thing up like a blind date. I didn’t know what she’d told Clancy about me, but she’d told me a lot about him. A karate expert, he’d once taken down two armed robbers without drawing his gun. He was the man when it came to coaxing confessions, practicing a different martial art there, combining his Irish charm with a cobra’s interior coldness. He’d broken dozens of major cases, earned enough commendations to fill a file cabinet, graduated from the FBI National Academy. Gold medalist at the World Law Enforcement Olympics four straight times. Three kids, all top students.

  “I get it,” I told him. Telling him the truth.

  He gave me a look. Held it. Then nodded as if he was agreeing with a diagnosis. “What do you feel comfortable telling me?” he asked.

  I knew we were done talking about his dreams. “I’m looking for a couple, man and wife. I’ve got an address.”

  “You came all the way here to see if they’d be home?”

  “No. They know something I need to know.”

  “You carrying?” he asked abruptly.

  “No,” I said, limiting my truth to handguns, not mentioning the Scottish sgian dubh—Gaelic for “black knife,” a weapon of last resort—in my boot. The knife was a thing of special beauty; a gift from a brother of mine, a nonviolent aikidoist who knows there are situations where a man needs an edge.

  “What’s your cover?”

  “I’m going to tell them I’m the law,” I said. “Federal. You know their kid was—”

  “Yeah. It’s cold-cased now. But it’s not closed.”

  “Right. Supposedly, the kidnapper made contact with them, told them he’d sell the kid back. They went to this guy in New York—”

  “Why New York, if they live here?” he interrupted.

  “Supposedly,” I said, emphasizing the word again, making it clear that I wasn’t buying any of the story—not anymore, “it was because they’re Russians, and the guy they contacted, he’s a big player in the Russian mob. They wanted a transfer-man.”

  “We’ve got no shortage of Russian gangsters here.”

  “I know. And it gets worse. What I found out—after the wheels came off—is that they came to the guy in New York insisting on me. That was part of the deal—I had to be the transfer-man.”

  “And the guy in New York, he told you …?”

  “Nothing. Made it seem like a regular handover situation, me getting paid to be in the middle. I’ve done it before.”

  “I know,” he said, surprising me a little. I hadn’t put any restrictions on what Wolfe could tell him, but she’s usually real clingy about information.

  “I didn’t know they were from Chicago. The way it was rolled out to me, I figured they were local.”

  “So why not ask the local guy?”

  “He’s dead,” I told him.

  “Natural causes?”

  “Considering his business, I’d say yeah.”

  He didn’t blink. “Why is it so important? I mean, something was fishy, sure. But you’re out of it, whatever it was.”

  “The transfer-money was half a million dollars. Plus another hundred for me to handle it. And whatever else they had to spread around.”

  “And …?”

  “And there was no kid. It wasn’t a handover. I met them where they wanted, and they came out shooting.”

  “Is that where …?” he asked, touching a spot on his own cheek.

  “Yeah. Just a fluke they didn’t total me.”

  “So it was all about you.”

  “Only about me. Whoever wanted me spent heavy cash, took some risks.”

  “But they missed.”

  �
��So?”

  “Yeah. You figure they’ll just try again, right?”

  “I don’t know how deep their connect runs. They can’t be sure I’m not dead. I was down when the hit men took off. And they’d put one in my head before they left. I was on the hospital computer as a John Doe, but the cops knew who I was—they visited me a few times.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That I lost my memory. From the head trauma. I had no idea who I was, much less what happened.”

  “They must have loved that.”

  “No. But the hospital backed me up—the story was plausible. They had nothing to hold me on, anyway. One night, I just walked away.”

  “So there’s no way of knowing what they know.”

  “I guess that’s right. This is a new face for me. And I’ve been underground, even deeper than usual, for months. This happened back in August.”

  “Tell me again why you need to talk to these people out here.”

  “They wanted me done. Or they work for someone who does. Whoever that is, they may not know if I’m dead or alive, but sooner or later, they’ll find out. I want to find them first.”

  “You’re not here to take them out?” he asked, the warning clear in his tone.

  “No. No way. Whoever went to all that trouble, it couldn’t be people I don’t know. I figure the ones out here for branches, not roots. Anything happened to them, my last door would be closed. You want to go back, get your own car? I can find the address myself, no problem.”

  “We’re already here,” Clancy said, pulling into a long driveway between stone columns.

  “How much would a house like this go for around here?” I asked Clancy.

  “Somewhere between three-quarters of a million and one-point-five, depending on the grounds, what they got inside, like that. It’s high-end, but not cream-of-the-crop. Not for this area.”

  “It doesn’t look deserted.”

  “Let’s see,” he said, opening his door.

  The driveway had been shoveled. Professionally, it looked like, the edges squared. The double doors set into the front of the house were massive, bracketed by tall, narrow panels of stained glass. A faint light glowed behind the glass.