Dead and Gone

by Andrew Vachss

  “Possibly. It’s all on digital, and we’ve got programs that can work miracles with the pixels. But there’s a better option. I creeped their truck while they were inside the house. Got some really excellent lifts. Too many, in fact. So it will take a while, run all the elims. But if they’re in the computer banks, we should be able to pull them up.”

  “That was slick,” I complimented him.

  “Brick is James-fucking-Bond,” Byron said proudly. “They’ll never know anyone was there, either.”

  “Why would skinheads—?” Gem asked.

  “There’s all kinds of skinheads,” I told her. “We won’t know until …”

  “… some of the lines tighten,” Byron finished for me.

  When the Chrysler pulled out of the garage on Brick’s signal,

  I was at the wheel, Gem sitting next to me. Byron stayed with Brick, saying they both had work to do.

  “Makes me feel … useless,” I told Gem.

  “Because you cannot go with them?”

  “Not go with them, go somewhere. Do something, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her, turning left onto Burnside, thinking how Portland’s street grid was pretty easy to navigate.

  “I have work to do.”

  “Oh. You mean you have to go back to—”

  “No. Work to do here. As I told you from the beginning. But I have … neglected it, somewhat. And I must devote myself to it for … a while now.”

  “No problem.”

  “You are not … concerned?”

  “I don’t know how you mean the word, little girl. Worried about you, what you’re into? Or nosy about stuff that’s none of my business?”

  “The first.”

  “You speak, what, a half-dozen damn languages? You know at least that many ways to kill a man. Your IQ’s off the charts. You survived what a couple of million people didn’t … and that was when you were a little kid. It would be … I don’t know … disrespectful to worry about you.”

  “But you call me ‘little girl.’ How does that square with what you just said?”

  “It’s just a … Did I insult you? If I did, I’m sorry. For me, it’s a term of affection. Like … ‘honey’ or something.”

  “My language skills are not as complete as you appear to believe, Burke. But it does not seem the same.”

  “The same as … what?”

  “ ‘Honey’ might be what you call a waitress.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “I do not believe you would. I expressed it incorrectly. Let me try it from the other end. ‘Little girl.’ If it was in my language, and I had to translate it into English, it would come out as … ‘cherished.’ Does that make sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you …?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just an expression.”

  “It is not just an expression,” she said, gravely. “And you do know.”

  When we got back to the hotel, Gem ate one of her megameals, then announced she needed a nap.

  The message light was flashing on the phone. The voice-mail system told me I had one message. When I retrieved it, all I got was the sound of fingers snapping, once.

  From Max. Call Mama.

  I switched fresh batteries into the cellular, put the old ones on recharge, then used the hotel phone to start the relay.

  Nothing to do but wait, so I lay back on the couch and watched CNN with the sound off, reading the pop-up screens and practicing my lip-reading when one of the anchors came on.

  The buzzing of the cellular brought me around—must have drifted off.

  “Cop come,” Mama said.

  “One cop?”

  “Yes. You know him. Come here, many times.”

  That wasn’t as clear as it sounded. A whole lot of professions fit “cop” in Mama’s vocabulary.

  “Spanish guy? Cheap suit? Small eyes? Hard man?” I asked, not wanting to say a name on the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Thumbprint.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Want your thumbprint. Come back tonight.”

  “But the cops’ve got all the—”

  “From … surface. Say want to ‘lift’ …”

  “He say why?”

  “No.”

  “Mama, you have …?”

  “Sure. Have your old—”

  “Okay. Do it.”

  “You want Max?”

  “Not yet. I don’t know anything yet.”

  “But soon, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  It was dark by the time Gem came out of her room. She was wearing a black silk sheath with a mandarin collar, the black spikes with ankle straps over sheer stockings, hair flowing loose, carrying a small black patent-leather clutch bag. Not a trace of color besides black, except her skin.

  “I cannot be certain when I will return,” she said, bending at the waist to kiss me softly on my neck.

  “You have the cell number …?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I’m not doing anything now. Just waiting around. I could come along—”

  “No, thank you,” she said, formally.

  “I wouldn’t cramp your style or anything. Couldn’t I just be the … driver, or something?”

  “It would be a mistake. Fear is a mistake.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You do not understand. Either the … people I must meet might think I was afraid of them. Or worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “Or they would be afraid of you,” she said.

  I watched daylight break the next morning. I used to do that a lot, before. Different now. No Hudson River off in the distance. No cigarette in my hand. No … Pansy next to me. The window in my head opened. And the sky behind it was splattered with red.

  I closed my eyes so hard the corners hurt. Impaled on my own truth. Wishing I’d bought some of the religion one of the foster homes had tried so viciously to beat into me. I tried to see my Pansy in some dog heaven. Lying on her sheepskin rug, gnawing on a rawhide bone, watching a boxing match on TV with me. Safe and happy. Doing her job. Loved.

  But all I could see was Pansy snarling her last war cry as the bullets took her off this earth.

  I breathed deep through my nose, expanding my stomach, taking the air down past my belly into my groin, holding it until it gathered the poison inside me into a little ball. Then I expelled it in a long, harsh stream, toxic yellow-green as it left. Lose the poison, keep the pain. I needed the pain the way a man who survives a bad car crash needs to feel his legs—to know they still work.

  “They never killed you, sweetheart,” I promised Pansy. “You’re always with me.”

  My eyes flooded. I bit my lip. But my last promise gave me the grip I needed. “And you’ll be there when we take them out, honeygirl.”

  For us, from where we come from, that’s all the heaven we ever get.

  You think it’s sentimental stupidity, that’s your business. But when we’re keeping our promises, don’t ever get in our way.

  “What?” I answered the cellular.

  “We’re breaking it off for now.” Byron’s voice. “No action last night. Can’t be in two places at once. Some of the stuff that has to be checked, it’s going to take the personal touch.”

  “How’re you fixed for—?”

  “Plenty left, don’t worry. My … partner doesn’t work domestic, but he thinks there may be some interest in the visitors by his people, you with me?”

  “All the way. You want me to—?”

  “Hang, bro. I checked with the studio. It’s a blank slate for the next week, easy.”

  “All right.”

  “Later.”

  “May I have your clothes, please?” Gem asked me the next morning.

  “What?”

  “We have been here a while; it is time to do our laundry.”

  “The hotel has—”

>   “Maids gossip,” she said, with the air of one who knew from personal experience.

  “There’s no labels in my … All right, let’s go do it.”

  “Do you know how to do it?”

  “Laundry? Hell, yes. You think I don’t know how to take care of myself?”

  “Do you cook?”

  “Well … no.”

  “And you ‘take care of’ your laundry by … what? Taking it somewhere, yes?”

  “Yeah. Fine, I get your point. But—”

  “Just put it all in the pillowcases,” she said. “I will return later.”

  “Why are all your tops the same?” she asked me, later that afternoon. She was refolding all the freshly done laundry on the bed in my room.

  “The same? They’re not—”

  “They all have raglan sleeves. Is that a fashion preference?”

  “Oh, now I see what you mean. No, miss, it’s not about fashion. If there’s no shoulder seam, your arms can move faster. Probably gets you an extra tenth of a second or so.”

  “And that is important?”

  “Almost never. But for when it is …”

  “I understand,” she said, thoughtfully. “I must go out for a while. I will return when I can.”

  Hours later, I heard the door handle click, and I stepped quickly outside to the terrace. I’d already checked—if it came down to it, I could go across the roof to one of the other suites, smash my way into the glass patio door if they’d left it locked. Tear through the suite and out its front door into the hallway. If the suite I picked was occupied, it wouldn’t slow me down much.

  I stood with my back against the outer wall, twisting my neck to peer through the glass into my suite. When I saw it was Gem, alone, I pocketed my pistol and stepped back inside. She looked as fresh as when she’d left, regarding me solemnly with her hands on her hips.

  “You prefer it outside?” she asked.

  “Just cautious.”

  “Why not put the chain on the door, then?”

  “I didn’t want to slow you down. If you needed to get back inside in a hurry …”

  “Oh.”

  I didn’t say anything. I wanted to strip off her dress, check her for bruises. But I settled for watching her eyes.

  “That was very considerate,” she finally said.

  I didn’t like everything I could see in her eyes, but I didn’t want to ask about it. So I tried another question: “You want something to eat?”

  “Yes!” she said, smile flashing. “I have to take a bath, first. Can you order …?”

  “Sure,” I promised. And reached for the phone.

  It took about half an hour for the food to arrive. Another few minutes for the sharply dressed room-service waiter to set everything up. I scrawled something on the bill for the signature, added 20 percent for the tip. Took the guy another couple of minutes to say thanks.

  Soon as he was gone, I tapped lightly on the door to Gem’s room. Nothing. It was closed, but not shut, so my next taps opened it.

  The door to her bathroom was ajar. “Gem?” I called out, softly. No answer. Something skipped in my chest. I stepped over to the bathroom door, pushed it all the way open. Gem was lying in the tub, her head on a couple of rolled-up towels, eyes closed. I touched the water. Still warm. Realized I was deliberately avoiding looking at her wrists. I put my hand behind her neck, pulled her toward me. Her eyes blinked open. “Burke.…”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Yes. I am fine. I was just so … tired, I guess.”

  She reached up, slipped both hands behind my neck. I stood up slowly, pulling her along with me.

  “I got you all wet,” she said, her face buried.

  “Ssshh,” I said, slapping her bottom lightly.

  She made a noise I didn’t understand.

  I walked her over to where the towels were racked. Found a big white fluffy one and wrapped it around her. Then I scooped her up and carried her over to the bed.

  “You can eat when you wake up.”

  “Little girl.”

  “Huh?”

  “ ‘You can eat when you wake up, little girl,’ that was the entire sentence, yes?”

  “I—”

  “I know what it means now. All right?”

  “Yes,” I said, patting her dry.

  She was asleep before I finished.

  It was a little past nine when Gem came into the living room. And started in on the food like it had been served a minute ago.

  She was still chewing away when the phone rang.

  “What?” I answered.

  “Cop come. Same one. Say, find bone hand.”

  “Whose hand?”

  “Not hand, bone of hand. Chop off at wrist. With ax, maybe.”

  “The hand was chopped off with an ax?”

  “Maybe. Look like, he say.”

  “Whose hand, Mama?” I asked again.

  “Cop say your hand. No flesh on hand. Just bones. But same place, find pistol, too. With thumbprint. Yours. Cop say, you leave hospital, people find you, kill you, cut off head, cut off hands, nobody trace. But cops find hand and pistol in big garbage can in Brooklyn. Way at bottom. Cop say, probably, they miss it when come to collect, stay there long time.”

  “Big garbage can” was Mama’s term for a Dumpster. “Is it going to be official?” I asked her.

  “Cop say you dead now. On record.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Meaning: Tell him thanks. If she ever saw him again. Morales had owed me—big-time and long-time. And he’d just squared the debt.

  I went to my bedroom a little after midnight. Gem said “Good night, Burke,” absently, absorbed in some footage of Russia’s pitiful invasion of Chechnya.

  I took a long shower. Used some of the fancy shampoo the hotel supplied. Shaved slowly. Nothing worked. I stayed tired, but not sleepy. I had to let it come when it would.

  The sound of a wooden match cracking into fire woke me. I was on my back—must have finally drifted off. The room was dark except for the candle Gem had just lit, a stubby thing in a little glass holder. It smelled like citrus and blood.

  “You must own the images, or the images will own you,” she said softly, standing next to the bed, looking down at me.

  I didn’t say anything.

  She walked out of the room. Came back in a minute with the wooden straight chair that had been next to the writing desk in the living room. She placed it ceremoniously between the bed and the candle, so it was backlit. Then she stepped to the side and gestured, as if parting a curtain to a display.

  “Do you see this?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you see?”

  “A chair. What are you—?”

  “Watch!” she whispered. Then she sat down on the chair, facing me, knees together, hands in her lap. That’s when I saw she was wearing the schoolgirl outfit. “When you think of the chair, you will see me, yes?”

  “I … guess so.”

  “Hmmm … but what will you see, Burke? A girl, or …” She stood up, hiked up her skirt, turned, and sat, her legs straddling the chair this time, body facing away from me, looking back over her shoulder. “… a woman?” she asked, silk-voiced.

  “A woman,” I told her.

  “Ah. A woman with too many clothes on, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  She stripped right there on the chair, never taking her eyes off me, wiggling and squirming to slip her underpants down to her thighs.

  Then she stood up, still facing away from me, pulled the panties all the way off, spun around, and sat back down in the same pose she’d used at first.

  “It is not the same chair anymore, is it?” she said. Shifting her hips slightly to underline every word.

  “No.”

  She came over to the bed. Bent at the waist and untied the drawstring of my pajama pants. Then she nipped at my thigh until I reached up and grabbed a fistful of her night-gleaming hair and pulled her closer to where I wanted her.

&n
bsp; “A little bit now,” she whispered against me. “Next time some more. And, some sweet night, Burke, the window that opens will be the one you wish.”

  I was afraid she’d want to talk about it the next morning, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a demand for breakfast.

  Fair enough. I left her still half asleep, face buried in a pillow, and went into the living room to order from room service. When I saw the wooden chair standing by itself against the back window, I realized Gem had gotten up during the night.

  And when I looked at the chair, I could see … that she was right.

  Gem wanted to return to the poolroom and practice some more. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, thinking the same two clowns might be there, but she quickly pointed out that there were lots of places to choose from … and we weren’t in a hurry, anyway.

  That last was true. I couldn’t make a move until I heard from Byron. And we had the cell phone, so …

  We took a ride, just meandering, looking to stumble across the right place. South of Portland, I saw a sign that said we were entering Milwaukie. Wondered if it was a misspelling. A candy-apple-red Honda Accord coupe with mirrored checkerboard graphics angling across its flanks rolled up next to us at a light. It squatted on huge chrome wheels, with tires that looked like rubber bands, the sidewalls were so thin. It was major-league slammed, lowered so radically that I couldn’t see an inch of ground clearance. The driver had a knife-edged buzz cut, set off by wraparound orange-lensed sunglasses. He blipped the throttle, letting me hear his turbo kick in, cocked his head in an invitation.

  I was going to ignore him, but Gem pounded both little fists on the dash. “Yes, yes, yes!” she yelped.

  The road was clear ahead as far as I could see … but that wasn’t very far. I didn’t know how the Subaru would do off the line, but the Honda looked more like a canyon-racer than a dragster anyway. I returned the guy’s nod, switched my attention to the light, and gave the knurled knob next to the gearshift a quick twist to the right.

  We both launched an eyeblink before the green, but it was no contest—the Subaru’s tractor heritage showed as it out-torqued the Honda with a two-length leave. By the time the Honda got up on its cams and its turbo started to whine, I was already backing off in third gear, letting the engine brake me for the next light.