Dead and Gone

by Andrew Vachss

  “Yes?” she said, just above a whisper.

  I stood up. She turned and walked down the hall, a willow in a gentle breeze.

  She sat with her back against the bedboard, hands clasped around her knees, watching me take my clothes off. When I came closer, she made a click-click sound with her tongue.

  The only light was spillover from the living room, but it didn’t matter—I was too close to her for my eye to focus anyway.

  Her hands were exploratory. Unpracticed. I took a handful of her lustrous hair, pulled her face toward mine. She moved so that her face was in my neck, made some sound I’d never heard before.

  Her skin was velvety, faintly coated with moisturizer. I slowly traced the inside curve of her thigh toward its apex. Halfway up, my hand snagged on a spot of raised, gnarled flesh. I moved past it. As soon as I did, Gem made another noise. I moved my hand back down to the scarred patch of flesh, put my thumb on it lightly, and rubbed it in little circles. She twisted her hips, slid one leg over me.

  “Yes?” she said again.

  I put my hands on her waist, moved her more upright, so she was straddling me. I could feel her wet heat, and I slipped inside like a fox into a thicket. A fox with the hounds close and coming.

  She grunted, thrust her hips against me, opening, taking me in so deep that our pelvic bones hit.

  I fell into a gentle rhythm, no urgency. She threw back her head, the cords on her neck standing out.

  I reached back to her small, tight bottom and pulled her even closer. It was as smooth and languid as underwater swimming. She …

  … was on her knees next to me, bending all the way forward, her lips against my face. “What did you see in your window?” she whispered.

  I shook my head. Hard. To clear it. The last thing I remembered, I was inside her. What had—?

  “I don’t …”

  “A window opened, yes?”

  I didn’t say anything, trying to go back—what? A minute? Ten minutes? To when I’d lost … I was underwater with … with the shark. The shark coming for me again.

  “What’s a window?” I asked her.

  “An intrusive image. Unbidden. Sometimes, when a person concentrates very hard on something, the brain’s safeguards slip. And … other things come in.”

  “But …”

  “It happens to me, too,” she said. “My mind is like a computer screen—I see whatever is happening before me, in real time. But, sometimes, a little window opens inside that screen. A window of memory. It widens and widens until it is the whole screen.”

  “What do you do, then?”

  “I used to scream. Now I just let it come. Because I know it will go if I … let it. The window’s power comes from resistance. I do not resist.”

  “But I wasn’t seeing … anything. Just you.”

  “And then it opened up, yes? Tell me.”

  I closed my eyes. The window was gone. I reached for her. She came close, cheek against my chest. I held her there while I told her about the shark. And how I still keep seeing Pansy cut down. Again and again.

  It was a long time before we fell asleep. My cock stayed small and soft. But it didn’t feel useless, nestled in her cupped hand. I drifted away to an unbroken black screen.

  Gem was gone when I woke on Friday. I heard the shower running. Then it stopped. She opened the door to her bathroom, looked at me in her bed, and said, “Did your room come with a bathrobe?”

  “It did. But I … It’s not clean—I used it last night.”

  “Good,” she said, walking past me, dripping, her hair wrapped in a turban of towel.

  I ordered a pair of three-egg omelettes—ham, cheese, mushrooms, and onions—with sides of sausage links, home fries, and three large glasses of apple juice.

  Ordered something for myself, too.

  “Is Gem the way your name is pronounced?”

  She smiled. “You mean, not how it is spelled, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “If I had to write your name …”

  “Oh. Do you not use e-mail?”

  “No. I don’t even have a computer.”

  “Oh,” she said. And went back to her food.

  She never did get dressed, shucking my bathrobe when the place got warm enough for her. All she had on her body was a thick black PVC band on her wrist, one of those ultra-chic new watches, I guessed.

  Nude, she was about as self-conscious as a politician stealing. I just watched her, the sunlight coming through the windows playing against her gentle curves.

  Gem took out a small, flat leather case and unzipped it. I could see the gleam of highly polished metal inside. She removed an assortment of what looked like dental picks, a vial of murky fluid, tiny circles of white gauze. Then she unsnapped something from the underside of that thick rubber watchband. It was a beautifully machined piece of blued steel tubing. As soon as she flicked what looked like a mechanical pencil and a long rod came out the front, I knew what she was holding.

  “What caliber?” I asked her.

  “This one is chambered for twenty-fives.”

  “More than one?”

  “Two, yes.”

  “Not much of an impact with—”

  “But very, very small,” she said, tapping the underside of her wrist. “And subsonic ammunition. Very quiet.”

  “You have to be—”

  “Close. Yes.”

  She cleaned the mini-Derringer with practiced movements, her square-cut nails clicking on the metal every so often. When she was done, she came to where I was sitting. Bent down and kissed the side of my neck, her dark-nippled bleached-earth breasts against my face, fresh-harvest hair all around us both.

  “Yes?” is all she said.

  It didn’t work any better than it had the last time.

  Gem took a very long time to put on her makeup. She was sitting lotus-positioned, working by sunlight before a large portable mirror she’d set up in the living room. Looking over her shoulder, I could see her face in the mirror. But I couldn’t see where all the makeup went.

  She took a long time in her room, too. When she came out, she was wearing a green plaid pleated skirt and a green wool blazer with a school crest on the left breast pocket. Plain black loafers and white knee-highs. She slipped on her backpack, bowed her head slightly to me. She looked about sixteen.

  “I will be back in a few hours,” is all she said.

  Most people would have a hard time with all the waiting I had to do. Most people weren’t raised in places where patience was one of the few ways you could resist what they were doing to you. But, sitting there, thinking it through, I got some of the windowing again. As if, when I pushed hard enough with my mind, I cracked some membrane and the memories flowed like lava, unstoppable.

  It was dark by the time Gem came back. She slipped her backpack off her shoulders, let it fall to the floor, then walked over to me, an expression on her face I couldn’t read.

  She sat delicately in my lap. Unfastened the top two buttons of the white oxford-cloth shirt she had on under the blazer.

  “Would you like me to leave this on?” she asked, shyly, her face buried against me—I could feel the heat.

  “No.”

  She shivered.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “You’re ice now.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I am sorry. What I said … it was wrong.”

  I tugged on her thin shoulder so that she was facing me. “It wasn’t wrong,” I said quietly. “It was sweet. You were trying to … help me … with what’s wrong.”

  “I insulted you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. I did not mean it as you believe.”

  “How do you know what I believe?”

  “The ice. It does not lie. But I am a grown woman, not a child. For today, for what I had to do, it was a disguise. But an outfit, when you know the truth, is not the same as—”

 
“No. You’re right. But it’s too … close.”

  “Close?”

  “To the line. A grown woman wants to dress up as a schoolgirl, it can be cute and sexy. But only if it’s real obvious she’s grown, understand? The way you’re made up, you look too real.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don’t need a window for that,” I told her.

  “I understand.”

  “Do you, girl? There’s … lines, okay? All kinds of things turn people on. As long as there’s two—hell, two or more—players and they’re grown, it’s nobody’s business. Some people get excited by feet. That’s fine. But there’s freaks who get excited by kids’ feet. That’s … not.”

  “Why is that … not?”

  “Because kids don’t agree to play. They can’t agree. It’s not in them, to make those decisions. Like the maggots who spank their kids for entertainment.”

  “To spank a child is wrong?” she asked, gravely.

  “A smack on the rear end if a little kid runs out into the street or something? I’m not going to say that. What do I know? I don’t have kids. Never will. But … you go on-line, dial up any newsgroup that’s into spanking. You understand what I’m saying, right? Spanking as erotic. You’ll see adults looking for other adults, fair enough. But you’ll also see people who talk about ‘disciplining’ kids. How come they go to a sex board if it’s about parenting? Think about it for a second. They’re nothing but child molesters. And they get a pass from the law—it’s not illegal to spank your own kid, even if you’re doing it only to get your rocks off.”

  “You have so much hate.”

  “You think so? You don’t have any idea.”

  “Did someone … when you were a …?”

  “Lots of people,” I said. “Lot of places. Lots of times.”

  The tears running down her face ate through the heavy makeup, the girl-child vanishing, a woman taking her place.

  “It will take a long time,” she said that evening, looking at me through the mirror before her to where I was lying on the bed.

  “What will?”

  “For me to get dressed.”

  “Sure. What difference does it—?”

  “Do you want to watch me?”

  “Watch you get dressed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I—”

  “That is where the secrets are,” she said. “When a woman undresses, men think she is revealed. But it is as a woman dresses herself that the truth of her is shown.”

  “And you don’t want me to—”

  “I do want you to. I have been … unfair.”

  “Gem, I told you, it isn’t your—”

  “Not about the … outfit. I mean … when you … retained me, you knew … what about me?”

  “That you were fluent in Russian. That people who my people trusted vouched for you.”

  “And …?” she asked, covering her face and neck with cold cream.

  “That’s all,” I told her, truthfully.

  “The woman you call Mother—”

  “Mama.”

  “Is that not the same—”

  “No,” I said, crimping that wire before it sparked.

  “She is well known. To the people from whom I get my … assignments. Very respected.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yes. And … I made some inquiries. You understand, it is good to know the people with whom you work,” she said. I didn’t say anything, not sure if she was insulting my own professionalism for not getting more info on her, or rolling out the carpet to a door she was about to open. I shifted my posture to tell her I heard what she said … and was waiting for the rest of it.

  She started to remove the cream. Gently, patting it off with a washcloth. “There are many … rumors about you, Burke.”

  “Sure.”

  “They cannot all be false.”

  “Is that some mathematical certainty? Some law of nature?”

  “In a way, it is,” she said, seriously. “Some rumors must have a factual basis, if they are to stay alive long enough.”

  “Or they have enough people continuing to come forward and say, ‘Yeah, I was abducted by aliens, too.’ ”

  “You may have your jokes,” she said, calmly, doing something around her eyes with a makeup pencil.

  “I’m not making fun of you. Just of people who take rumors to the bank.”

  “You have been in prison.”

  “That’s no secret.”

  “Some say you have killed,” she said, no emotion in her voice, all her focus on the dark-red lipstick she was carefully applying.

  “See? There’s the difference between facts and rumors.”

  “And some say you are insane.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “A very selective insanity,” she said, eyes very wide in the mirror, working on her lashes. “It is said that when children are hurt you go blind with rage.”

  “Is that right? Who says that?”

  “Some of the same people who say you have killed.”

  “Naturally.”

  “No,” she said. “Many say you have killed. Some say you kill for money, a professional. Different people speak of your rage. A professional has no rage.”

  “You’d know that,” I said, flat-voiced.

  “Yes,” glancing at me in the mirror. Her eyes were heavily shadowed by then, a bluish-green color.

  “Is this another disguise?” I asked. Meaning all the makeup she was piling on.

  “Not yet. Be patient,” she said, now painting her fingernails the same shade as her lips.

  “All right.”

  “I want to go out later. Is that okay?”

  “You don’t have to ask me if—”

  “No. I don’t mean I am going alone. I want you to take me.”

  “To eat, right?”

  “No.” She giggled. “I am aware that you consider me a sow. Where I … live now, there is a little bar. It has a pool table. I always watch, never play. I would like to play. I understand it takes practice to play well. But I need to know the rudiments of the game before I can practice. And I hoped you would teach me.”

  “What makes you think I—?”

  “Am I incorrect?” she asked, gravely.

  “No.”

  “Ah.” She smiled, waiting.

  “I don’t know a poolroom around here,” I lied, smoothly.

  “There is one very close by. And there is another, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes away by car. Probably that would be best …” she said, thoughtfully.

  “Because …?”

  “Be patient,” she said, again, combing out her midnight-thick hair.

  I lay back on the bed, slitted my eyes, watched as she climbed into a micro-pair of near-transparent panties, then sheathed her legs in sheer stockings with seams down the back. She turned to face me, looked over her shoulder at the mirror, snapped the elastic tops of her stockings experimentally, checked the seams. Then she put on a pair of gleaming black spike heels with ankle straps. Checked herself again. A piece of red jersey the same shade as her lipstick expanded from its tube shape to cover her bottom … and not much else. She slipped a black silk tank top over her shoulders. It fell short of the skirt’s waistband. A necklace of tiny beads the same shade as the lipstick and the skirt went over her head, then around her neck.

  She leaned against the wall, extended one perfect leg just a little, shot her hip. “What do I look like now?” she asked.

  “I’m not a fashion consultant,” I told her, seeing the trap surrounding the cheese.

  “But not a little girl?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “Well, will you teach me to play?”

  “I … Looks to me like you already know how.”

  “You know what I mean, Burke.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” I said. “The way you climbed into all that … stuff, it can’t be for the first time. If your point is that you’re not a little girl, I got it. I wasn’t confused about that bef
ore, Gem.”

  “Yes. But … you said … lines. There are always lines. Some people are drawn to them. As if there was a mystical place near the border, where the lines are drawn. But you … you don’t want to go near such places.”

  “No.”

  “Because you once did and …?”

  “There’s a difference between venturing close to the rim and being thrown there.”

  “The … choices, again, you mean?”

  “When you’re a kid, there are no choices. That’s the biggest fucking lie they ever tell. Like sticking a pistol in your face, cocking it, and asking for a loan.”

  “Yes. It was that way for us, too. The choice—to be a soldier in the Khmer Rouge—it was no choice at all.”

  “Adults have—”

  “Stop it! I respect your pain. But it is not all the pain that the world knows, Burke. There could be no ‘resistance’ in my country. The people outside the cities, they never had weapons. They never had communications. The Khmer Rouge came with weapons. And with orders. If you did not join the killing, you were one of ‘them’: those who should be killed. You could try to flee. Many did. But how could you fight? Moral choices are for those with power. You can judge the monsters, not the victims. We were all children, then. Without power, without recourse. With no one listening for so long. So we did whatever we could to survive.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “We were all children,” she said again.

  Then the schoolgirl who had cried for what had hurt me a million years ago came over to me. I held her against me while the woman in the hooker’s outfit cried for her lost and ravaged people.

  I couldn’t comfort Gem. Couldn’t make it stop. So I did the only thing I could—stayed the course. She cried herself to sleep. Silently, the way she must have learned in the jungle.

  She was so taut, she vibrated. I pulled the bedspread up so it covered her shoulders, kept my arm around her, waited. Her body didn’t so much relax as unstiffen. Slowly, in sections. She was breathing regularly, in measured little gulps, but so shallow that her rib cage hardly flickered. Gradually, her right knee came up, rested on my thigh. Her hand explored my chest. Finally, she tucked the tips of her fingers into my armpit and shuddered slightly, and her body went soft with deeper sleep.