Safe House

by Andrew Vachss

  “And you can put that together?”

  “I can. But I’m still not—”

  “I got two things that’ll convince you,” I said. “Number one: You get to meet the guy. Face-to-face. Ask him any questions you want. Satisfy yourself. You like it, he goes in. Deal?”

  “You said two things,” he reminded me.

  “You think you know me,” I said, my voice as intimate as a caress. “You parked this big white target of a Taurus out here, all by itself. And then you stood aside, waiting in the shadows. Just in case I decided to lob a bazooka round into it, right? One big bang, you’re gone and the problem’s solved. That’s why you wanted me to get in this car with you. You’re a puppeteer, Pryce. Information is your strings. Before you pull them, you better be sure they’re connected.”

  “Which means what?” he said, only boredom in his voice.

  I tapped the pack of cigarettes to take one out. A tiny black cylinder fell into my hand. “This is a flashlight,” I said in the same gentle tone of voice I’d been using. “If I had taken it out, shined it in your face at any time, we’d be done talking.”

  “Nobody’s that good a shot,” he said. “Even with the window—”

  I touched the flashlight, but I didn’t aim it at his face. A tiny dot of red light showed in the windshield. And then Max the Silent touched the back of his neck.

  “Don’t turn around,” I told him. “Don’t do anything stupid. You’re not gonna get hurt, understand?”

  “Yes,” he said, holding his head rigid.

  “It wouldn’t take a bullet,” I said. “And it wouldn’t have to make any noise. Or it could make a lot of noise. But one thing would always be the same. You know what that would be?”

  “No.”

  “You’d never see it coming,” I told him.

  He sat there without moving for a couple of minutes after Max pulled his hands away and went back into the night.

  “This is a battlefield friendship,” I said quietly. “You and me. Your enemies are my enemies, that makes us friends, right? Or allies, anyway.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to do my piece. Do it right. Like I promised. You too. No more threats. You already did your threats, and you’re gonna get what you want. Don’t do them anymore, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going to have to meet again. You’re going to need to see the man I have. You’re going to have to know some things about him. That’s the only way we can play this, you and me. Together. The way I scan it, you’re a lone wolf. Whatever you know, you’re the only one. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s be clear. You want this cell. Lothar’s a chip. You’re going to ante that chip. I’m going to put up my man. He goes in. Lothar brings him in. You take care of that. I take care of getting you the information. I make sure the information is right. I guarantee you keep getting it even if Lothar turns unreliable. Information, that’s what you get from me. You cash that information when they all go. That about cover it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you get paid, I get paid.”

  That got his attention. He shifted position for the first time since Max took hold of him, his lipless mouth twitching to match the muscle under his eye. “We never discussed that,” he said.

  “Yeah we did. In the restaurant. Only thing we didn’t agree on was the price. How much is ZOG paying for hard-core terrorist cells these days?”

  “It . . . depends. On a number of factors out of my control.”

  “Sure. Look, I know we’re not fifty-fifty on this. All I could do is take a wild guess. And I’m not gonna do that. But I don’t think I’d be much off if I was thinking seven figures. . . .“

  “That’s—”

  “Sure, I know. Let’s just pretend I’m an agent. Your agent. Agents get a cut. Ten percent, right?”

  “You want a hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Done,” he said, no expression on his face.

  I handed the parking ticket to the drone at the gate. He made an impatient gesture, waving his hands in aggravation. A small TV set flicked in his booth.

  “What?” I asked him. Not friendly—people tend to remember anything unusual.

  He pointed at a slot on the outside of the booth. I fed the ticket into the slot. A panel lit up: $4.00. I handed him a five-dollar bill. He managed to overcome his annoyance at me not having exact change long enough to hand me a single. Compared to him, the toll-takers on the bridges were complex mathematicians.

  I exited the airport, taking the highway east toward Long Island. Did the same double-back I’d done coming in and picked Max up where I’d dropped him off.

  On the way back, he made a series of gestures I hadn’t seen before. It took me a few tries before I got what he was telling me.

  In the country, the morning sound of early spring is birds calling. Down here, it’s car alarms screaming their impotence. In either place, only the tourists pay attention.

  The sun was bright and strong when I got up, spring’s promise closer to truth now. The refrigerator was empty, so I trudged over to one of those all-night Korean bodegas that pop up so often down here. They usually close just as quick, soon as they find out all the working people disappear after dark. Even the strip bars do most of their business in daylight.

  I loaded up heavy on provisions, but Pansy scarfed most of it in one sitting.

  When I called in, Mama said, “Girl call. Late.” Meaning earlier that morning.

  “Vyra?”

  “No. Other girl.”

  “Okay. She say what she wanted?”

  “Talk to you.”

  “Did it go all right?” Crystal Beth asked as soon as she heard my voice on the phone.

  “I’ll tell you all about it. Later, okay?”

  “When later?”

  “Tonight. Around . . . nine?”

  “Good. Are you—?”

  “You got room there?”

  “Room?”

  “For a . . . guest. Part of what we’re doing.”

  “Sure. As long as she’s—”

  “See you then,” I said, thumbing the cellular into silence.

  “You wanted another chance,” I told him. “This is it.”

  “Be a rat? That’s your fucking idea of another chance?”

  “This isn’t being a rat, Herk. It’s like being a . . .” I searched for the word “. . . spy. Like behind enemy lines, during a war.”

  “Dropping a dime is still—”

  “This isn’t dropping a dime, okay? What we got is a bunch of lunatic motherfuckers planning to blow up some buildings, kill a whole bunch of people. The Man already knows about them. They been penetrated to the max. The Man already has a guy inside. Only thing is, he’s one of them, see?”

  “One of who?” Herk asked. A reasonable question.

  “One of the Nazis. Now, he’s a rat, see what I’m saying? Those are his boys. And he’s gonna dime them, just like you said. You know how it works. The Man’s gonna give him a free pass. New face, new ID, new everything. We play this right, that’s yours. Instead of his, yours.”

  “Oh man, I ain’t doing no Witness Protection—”

  “You’re not gonna be a witness, Herk. This isn’t about testimony. And you’re not gonna be in the Program either. You’re not gonna have a PO, nobody to report to. You get all the new stuff, a little bit of cash to get you started, and then you’re on your own.”

  “What about the guy I—?”

  “Forget that. It’s gonna be covered, all right? The Man won’t be looking for you. Not for Hercules, not for the new guy, whoever that’s gonna be. You, I mean.”

  “Burke, I dunno. . . .”

  “Listen, Herk. This all started with . . . you know. Okay, let’s say you slide on that beef. So what? Where are you? Back where you was, right? Nowhere. This here is what you said you wanted. Another chance. What you got going here that’s so fucking great
?”

  “Nothing, I guess. But . . .”

  “You’re going back to the joint,” I told him. “Sure as hell, that’s where you’re going. You got no job, no trade, a long record. What do you know how to do except fuck people up? And you don’t even like to do that. You go back to the street, the wiseguys are gonna use you until the Man takes you down. You pull this off, you can be a gardener, right? Find yourself a greenhouse somewhere out west maybe. Start fucking over.”

  He paced the little room, listening to me. Then he finally snapped to what he was doing—practicing for his next bit, already boxed up in an eight-by-ten in his mind. When he looked over at me, I said: “It’s a dice-roll, partner. You throw a few naturals, you make your point and catch it, you’re golden. You’re crap out, and it’s over. One way or the other, you go into this, you don’t come out the same.”

  “Those books you gave me? The last time you was here? I gotta, like, memorize all that?”

  “No. Not word for word. But you heard it all before, right?”

  “I guess. . . .”

  “Sure you did,” I encouraged him. “Inside. Plenty of guys were into that.”

  “And I gotta cut my hair?”

  “Why?”

  “Look like one of them skinhead motherfuckers, right?”

  “Nah. You go in the way you are, Herk. You look like a fucking Viking anyway—it’ll be perfect.”

  “You’d be like . . . around?”

  “Not in there with you. But I’d be like your . . . coach, okay? There’s stuff we have to find out first, but we don’t have much time, Herk. If you don’t wanna do it, that’s okay. I got some cash here. Right with me. Say the word and you’re in the wind.”

  “Burke . . .”

  “What?”

  “You’re right, bro. Fuck it, I ain’t goin’ back Inside. Let’s do it.”

  I parked Herk in Mama’s. The Prof was already there. He’d handle the first round of coaching. Pryce was going to call Crystal Beth around midnight, so I fired up the Plymouth and headed over there.

  But I didn’t go straight to the Lower East Side. First I had to stop in the South Bronx. At the Mole’s bunker, where I said the magic words to him—the only words absolutely guaranteed to ring his bell.

  Nazis in the house.

  I rapped on her back door at nine. She opened it immediately, like she’d been waiting.

  “What happened?” she greeted me.

  I just pointed to the staircase, then swept my arm like an usher to indicate she should go first.

  She threw me a look over her shoulder, but she went up the stairs without another word.

  Inside her room, she bent to light the candle. I stood there, watching, unzipped my jacket. She came over to where I was standing, put her arms around my neck. I reached behind her, grabbed her bottom through the loose cotton slacks and pinched with both hands, hard.

  “Ow! What was that for?” she squeaked.

  “I just wanted to see if you were sore,” I told her, leaving my hands where they were.

  “I am now,” she said, pulling her hands down from my neck and trying to rub her bottom. My hands stayed in the way, keeping her from doing it. I pinched her again for emphasis.

  “Burke, stop it!” she yelped, trying to wiggle free. “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought that fat butt of yours might be a bit tender,” I said in her ear. “Riding a motorcycle over that rough terrain in the middle of the night and all.”

  She stopped struggling. “I was just—”

  “Spying,” I said. “Or playing some game I’m not in on. You tell me.”

  “I didn’t think you saw me following you,” she said, no repentance in her voice. “I ran the whole way without lights.”

  “What’s the deal, Crystal Beth? You weren’t close enough to listen.”

  “I wasn’t trying to listen. I was just . . . afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Not of anything. I was afraid for you.”

  “So you were gonna protect me?”

  “Yes!” she said defiantly.

  “With what?”

  “I don’t know,” she almost moaned. “I just . . . He’s a very bad man. I thought, if he had other people there, I could ride up and . . .”

  “What? Have me jump on the bike so we could make a getaway?”

  “All right, I didn’t know. I didn’t have a plan. But I had a . . .”

  “Purpose?”

  “Yes. Go on, mock me. There wasn’t anything I could do . . . here. Just sitting and waiting. I got you into this and . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I said, patting her where I’d pinched. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would you have let me go?”

  “No.”

  “That’s why,” she said, flashing her smile. “I know what men are like.”

  “You don’t have a clue,” I told her.

  “I know what my father was like,” she said. “He never would have let my—”

  “I’m not your father, little girl.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean—”

  “Never mind.”

  “Burke, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll—”

  “I thought we had a deal,” I told her. “You were going to do what I told you.”

  “I did.”

  “Not just in the damn restaurant, Crystal Beth. Until this is done. Until it’s over.”

  “And then?”

  “Then you can do what you want.”

  “Whatever I want?” She smiled.

  “Don’t press your luck,” I said.

  She put her nose in my chest and rubbed like she had before. It worked. I sat in the easy chair and she plopped herself in my lap. Then I told her a pretty close version of my conversation with Pryce. Everything but the money part.

  “Are you really going to . . . put somebody in there? With Lothar?” she asked when I was done.

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “Pryce is going to call here tonight. He’s going to want another meet. I figure he’ll do it the same way. You know, he’ll already be in place. We’ll have to leave right away.”

  “We? You mean you want me to—?”

  “No. I mean me and the guy I’m putting in. He’s going be here later. Around eleven-thirty. And he’s got to stay here until we move him out.”

  “Stay here? A man?”

  “Yeah. Pryce won’t give me time to go and pick him up. And I already moved him out of where we had him staying. It’ll just be for a day or two.”

  “I can’t let him. . . . There’s no men living here.”

  “You got a basement, right?”

  “Yes. But it’s not really set up for living. There’s no—”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s stayed in worse. We can fix it up easy enough. All right?”

  She didn’t say anything, one fingernail idly scratching the back of my neck.

  “All right?” I asked her again.

  “All right,” she agreed.

  She was quiet for a few minutes after that. Then she shifted her weight so her hips were resting on the arm of the easy chair. “I’ll bet I’m bruised,” she said on the wings of a soft breath. “From where you pinched me.”

  “It wasn’t that hard,” I said.

  “Yes it was,” she said. “There’s bruises. Big ones, I’m sure of it. You better take a look.”

  We waited downstairs together. Eleven-thirty sharp, knuckles hit the outside door. I motioned Crystal Beth to one side and opened it. Herk and Clarence stood there. And the Mole, an indistinct blob in his dirt-colored jumpsuit, a toolbox in his right hand.

  I waved them in. “This is Hercules,” I said to Crystal Beth.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand for him to shake.

  “You’re goddamn gorgeous!” Herk said, staring. He can do that—say something like that to women without a trace of a leer or a sneer—I’ve seen him do it before.

/>   Crystal Beth flushed, mumbled something under her breath.

  “And this is Clarence,” I told her.

  “I am honored to meet you,” the West Indian said in his formal voice.

  “The honor is mine,” she replied, on safer ground now.

  “That’s the basement?” I asked, pointing to my left.

  “Yes.”

  The Mole walked past us without a word and disappeared down the dark stairs, Clarence right behind him, trusting the Mole to see in the dark. Crystal Beth gave me a look. I ignored it. “Let’s talk upstairs,” I said.

  She started up the steps. I elbowed Herk out of the way before he could tell her what a beautiful butt she had and fell in right behind her, leaving him to follow.

  In her room, Crystal Beth hit a switch and three separate lamps snapped into light. The place looked different in artificial light. Colder, more efficient.

  “It’s gonna be tonight,” I told Herk. “This guy, Pryce, he’ll call here. And we’ll go to the meet. You’ll stay here until he has it set up.”

  “Here?” Herk asked, smiling at Crystal Beth.

  “In the basement,” I told him. “We’re gonna rig something down there.”

  “There’s a toilet,” Crystal Beth said helpfully. “I think it works. And there’s a sink, and a—”

  “Whatever,” I cut her off. “We’ll make it work. It won’t be for more than a couple of days, max.” Then I turned to Hercules. “You can’t come upstairs,” I told him. “Not for nothing, period. This is supposed to be an all-women’s joint, understand? Nobody else can see you. Got it?”

  “I got it,” he replied, not bitching.

  “We’ll take my car to the meet. Pryce has already seen it. And I’ll bring you back. By then, the guys will have it set up downstairs, okay?”

  “Sure, Burke. Like you said.”

  “You’ve been reading that stuff I left with you?”

  “Yeah. It ain’t all that complicated. Just . . . stupid, like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Jews run everything, right? That’s what the books said. They run the government, the newspapers, the TV, everything, okay?”

  “Okay . . .”

  “And these guys, they fucking hate the Jews, and . . . Ah, excuse me, miss. I didn’t mean to . . . curse, like. I’m an ignorant asshole sometimes.”