Sacrifice b-6

by Andrew Vachss

  "Keep your mind on business," I told him. "Hard to talk with your mouth hanging open like that."

  He snapped out of it, refocused his glazed eyes. I ordered another drink.

  "You got the name of her Probation Officer?" I asked him.

  "Wouldn't do you any good, Burke. She skipped out a couple of weeks ago. She's listed as a runaway now.

  I was thinking of another question to ask him when he got up, shook hands goodbye, and went sniffing after the woman in the jeans.

  168

  Lying with my head against some pillows piled up at the end of Bonita's bed, smoking a cigarette, eyes half closed. Bonita on her knees, facing away from me, looking back over her shoulder, admiring the dimples over her heart-shaped butt. Her body still gleamed from oil and sweat.

  A long time ago, I had a girlfriend. A poet, she was. "I can always see the end of everything," she told me. Explaining why she cried when we had sex.

  Things don't end for me, they loop. Same stage, new players. A homing pigeon released from a poisonous coop, hung up in the sky. Waiting for them to open the door again. Watchful for hawks.

  I thought about Blossom. So truly beautiful a woman it was a pleasure just to watch her dress in the morning. How even her sweat was blonde. A flash of pink in the night before a sex-sniper went down. Hard innocence.

  Fresh and new. But only for me. No plastic slipcovers on her soul.

  I thought about promises.

  Down here, innocent doesn't mean naive. It means Not Guilty.

  Bonita was telling me something about moving to another place. A place of her own. Where we'd have more privacy. But money was tight. If she could just swing the first couple of months' rent and security…licking at her lips, like the idea made her hot.

  Knocking at her door, I'd wondered why I'd come. Soon as I had, I wondered again.

  I closed my eyes. Not sleepy. Tired.

  169

  Heat boiled asphalt and tempers, the summer sun fried dreams. Gunfire rattled the windows of high-rise slums from Brooklyn to the Bronx. A teenager shot a boy his own age in Harlem. "It was about a diss," he told the cops.

  Another teenager was stabbed to death on the subway. On his way home from his part-time job. His neck chain and bracelet were taken. "I begged him not to wear his gold on the train," his father told the TV reporter.

  On Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, I came out of a storefront off another cold trail, hit the sidewalk. A white Cadillac at the curb, its flanks scored with gouges from a vandal's key. An old woman walked by, saw me looking, made a sad sound with her lips. "You cain't keep nothin' nice in this city no more," she said, moving on.

  170

  I chased dead trails. Followed a rumor about a safe house for pedophile priests. Where they take them for therapy until the heat's off And put them right back in another parish, never saying a word to the congregation.

  If there's a devil, he's laughing at this new way to recycle garbage. And if there's a God, somebody should sue him for malpractice.

  171

  I took a puddle-jumper plane up to Marcy, the state joint for the criminally insane. Sat in the visiting room listening to a psychopath who'd dissected a kid with an electric knife tell me he knew how to find any devil-worshiper in the country. Just get him out, he'd lead me right to the people I was chasing. I told him I couldn't do that…but maybe I could pull some strings, get some time cut off his sentence. He smirked at me— he wasn't that crazy.

  172

  Showed the mug shots around, asked everyone. Drew blanks at every turn. I rattled every cage I could think of, but all I got back was the snarl of beasts.

  173

  It was eight days before he called. Mama answered, told him I wasn't around. He wouldn't leave a message, just said to make sure I was there, same time tomorrow. Said to have her tell me it was my friend calling.

  He called the next day. Heard my voice, said an address into the phone, hung up.

  174

  That should have wrapped it.

  I waited for Max to show up, got in the car, went over to Lily's. I was going to give her the address, let her deal with Wolfe, stand back.

  But when I got to SAFE, Lily took me into a back room without me saying a word.

  "I got it," I started to tell her.

  "It doesn't matter. Not now."

  "Why?"

  "There's parts I don't know. Wolfe said to meet her. She wants to tell you herself."

  175

  I called Wolfe. Followed instructions. Almost daylight when I pulled into her driveway. She opened the door, already dressed for work, makeup in place.

  "You want coffee?"

  "No, thanks."

  "I'll just finish mine, then, okay?"

  "Sure."

  She sat at a round wood table, sipping from a white china mug. The ashtray next to her had a couple of lipsticked butts in it already, scraps of phone messages at her elbow. The Rottweiler curled at her feet, face on the floor between his paws, looking like a fatalist.

  "I got their address," I told her.

  "I know. I knew you would. It's no go."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I got sold out," she said. "There's no way to prosecute them for what they did to Luke— we try and put him on the stand before he's fused, he's going to split wide open. And if we wait, his story won't fly. What jury is going to go for devil-worship? That's why they use all that…all the trappings."

  "We don't have any of the tapes. They know what they're doing— the camera angles won't have his face. Or theirs. Not theirs, for damn sure. Buyers only care what the victim looks like."

  "You knew this going in. What about the…?"

  "Prosecuting for homicide? Yes, that was the trump card. I could get a grand jury to go for it, I'm sure. It makes logical sense. We could get in all the psychiatric testimony that way too. Then we'd have a club over their heads…split them up, get one to roll over, talk to us, make a statement. At least we'd have a chance."

  "So? What's wrong with…?"

  "What's wrong is that the office won't let me go after the indictment. I heard more crap these past few days about defendants' rights than I hear from Legal Aid in a year."

  "You think somebody's bent?"

  "No, I think they're cowards. An indictment like we'd want, it's not a sure thing. It'd go up and down on appeal for years. They're scared…they're scared of all those 'false allegations' freaks…you know, the ones who talk about the 'myth' of ritual abuse." She lit another smoke, blew out a puff angrily, sipped at her coffee. "You want to know what's funny? They may be right, those people. I'm not sure Satanists are doing anything to children…you know how they say the devil can quote the Scriptures? Well, anyone can quote the devil. This stuff is the flip side…child molesters can put on the costumes, and all of a sudden, it's 'Satanic.' It's like a scam inside a scam…we find the kids, they tell us what happened, and we get lost in prosecuting the devil. The office doesn't want any part of it— they won't authorize the presentation. And even if I snuck in the indictment, they'd move to dismiss it themselves. They've done it to me before."

  I lit a smoke of my own, buying time. "Did that guy ever send his lawyer around?"

  Her smile showed up, low wattage. "Oh yes. His lawyer is a partner in one of our most respected Wall Street firms. Doesn't know a lot about criminal law, though. We made our deal."

  "You gonna keep it?"

  "Sure. He gets flat immunity for anything we drop him for. Limited to nonviolent offenses, of course. That's the way he presented his client— we just went along. And he throws in truthful testimony about any others involved."

  "That'd get him dead."

  "Yes." She made a clicking sound with her tongue. The Rottweiler sat up. Wolfe held the coffee mug steady as he lowered his snout and slurped. "It's decaf," she said, like I was accusing her of dog abuse.

  "We'll take them in. Throw a bunch of charges at them, see if one'll crack even without the homicide
hammer. It depends how many of them there are, how well organized, who's representing them. You know how it works."

  "Yeah. Discovery motions'll get them Luke's statements. He ends up hospitalized too. And they walk away."

  "Maybe next time," she said, looking right into my face. "What's the address?"

  I ground out my cigarette, getting up to leave. "I didn't bring it with me," I said.

  She didn't say another word. I let myself out.

  176

  I spent that day drifting. The building where they were holed up was freestanding, but it hadn't been designed that way— rubble from the wrecker's ball still on either side. In the South Bronx, just over the Willis Avenue Bridge. Pioneer-yuppie territory. When real estate prices went out of control in Manhattan, every square inch of land turned gold. Yuppies charged out of the center like maggots exposed to light:

  Long Island City, Flatbush, Harlem, anywhere you could find dwelling space. If you could get in first, you could get in cheap. Staking out the frontier. You held the land against the natives, you could turn it over for cash, big time. The people who'd been living there first, they got the '8os equivalent of smallpox-treated blankets. Then God died on October 19 and the real estate market crashed. Some of the pioneers were cut off from the supply lines. Too late for the natives to make a comeback, though— they got tickets in the Projects lottery, sleeping on the streets while they waited their turn.

  The next-nearest building was maybe twenty-five feet to the right. Six stories, abandoned. No windows in its eyeless corpse. Chain link fence all around the occupied property, glimpse of cars parked around the side. Satellite dish on the roof, all the ground-floor windows barred. A meter-reading scam wouldn't get me inside.

  It was just an address— still couldn't be sure it was them. The vampire may have gotten it wrong. Or gotten me right.

  177

  I was still drifting when it got dark. I let it happen. Found myself on the BQE to Queens. Thought I was heading to Wolfe's when I felt the amulet around my neck. A hot spot— the kind you get from fever.

  Pulled up outside the house. Turned off the engine, giving them plenty of time to notice me. Started it up again, pulled into the driveway, around to the back.

  The messenger didn't seem surprised to see me.

  She was downstairs, two young women with her. They stepped aside as I approached, bowed to her, and moved away. It was so dark, I couldn't tell if they were still in the room with us.

  "You are troubled," she said.

  "Yes."

  "Ask your questions."

  "I found the people I was looking for. But they're beyond the law."

  "As you are."

  A soft light glowed to my left— looked like flame floating in water.

  "I'm not beyond the law," I told her. "They could bring me down like swatting a fly."

  "Do you seek justice?"

  "No."

  "What, then?"

  "Revenge."

  "Yes, truth does not change with names. You are afraid?"

  "Not of them. Not now."

  "But once, yes?"

  "Yes. When I was a kid."

  "These are not the same people who hurt you."

  "Yes, they are. You said it yourself. Only their names have changed."

  "So it is not for the child you seek them?"

  "Maybe. I don't know. That's the truth— I don't know."

  "That is your sacrifice. To tell me the truth. A truth you have told no other, yes?"

  "Nobody knows."

  "You have it on you, hunter. You will never be free. Not until you cross over. Do not fear, treasure your sadness. This earth will not hold happiness for you, but your spirit will return. Clean and fresh."

  "Without hate?"

  "It is your spirit to hate, hunter. Your true path is to hate righteously. Guard the health of your spirit— do not endanger your soul."

  "I'm going to…"

  "I know. Any man can break the circle, but no man can prevent it from closing again. That man, the one who came to us with the baby's body. For the sacrifice. There is one who loved the baby. She still lives."

  "The mother…"

  "She is not the one. She was never the one. The mother is with child now. She will not survive the new infant— she will die in childbirth. And she who loved the baby who died will have a new child to love."

  "How…?"

  She put her hands behind her head, arched her back like a cat, stretched. Her smile was the secret of sex. "In the Islands, in the jungles just outside the cities, people whisper. No man lives without food. Even the spirits must eat. They must mate too. I know. It is that to be Queen. Listen now: some say baby snake eggs hatch in the stomachs of those who have offended. The babies hatch, their poison kills. Then you must cut open the body to let the spirit-snake free. The inside of a bamboo stalk is many tiny little hairs, like baby snakes. In your food, the hairs cause great sickness. Some die. The spirits are surgeons, not butchers. The mother will die, the baby will live. We will make our sacrifice— I will give myself— they will come into me. It will happen."

  "Give yourself?"

  "The myths are true, hunter. As I told you. I can raise the dead. As you were dead, once. Tell me this is true."

  I saw Candy in my mind. Bound and gagged. And deadly. Later, on her stairwell, skirt hiked to her waist, losing my impotence inside her, paying the price.

  Raise the dead— for the first time, I knew what it meant.

  "It's true," I said. "Do I…?"

  "You too, hunter. You will not find what you seek with your own sacrifice, but it is your spirit's destiny to seek. Remember what I have told you."

  I stood up. Bowed. She stood too, moved close to me. She was much shorter than I'd thought. Hands reached up around my neck, pulled my face down. Her tongue was fire in my mouth. "When you come back, it will be yours," she whispered, raising the dead.

  178

  The gypsy cab rolled past their house, me driving, Mole in the passenger seat, Max in the back.

  "You see any way in?" I asked.

  The Mole ignored me, scribbling something on a notepad strapped to his thigh.

  Back in the junkyard, he looked up from a drafting table. "My friends told me you visited that…person. Off Fifth Avenue."

  "I didn't hurt him."

  "You should have told me."

  "Your friends, they ask you if you knew about it?"

  "Yes."

  "Nice to be able to tell your friends the truth, isn't it?" The Mole took off his Coke-bottle glasses, rubbed them on his greasy jumpsuit, said nothing.

  179

  Later that night, Max slipped out of the gypsy cab, all in black. We were half a block away from the target, on a side street facing the back of their house.

  Nothing to do but wait.

  We sat in silence, Mole checking the windshield, me the back window. No smoking, a .38 held against my leg, pointed at the floor. It wasn't Max I was worried about— in this neighborhood, they strip cars with the passengers still in them.

  Max moved like a squid in ink— didn't see him until he was almost on top of us.

  Back in the bunker, Max made the sign of opening a door, held up two fingers. Two doors, front and back. Held up one finger, pushed forward, made a sign like turning a doorknob, put a fist to one eye, like looking through a telescope. Held up two fingers, pulled back, flattened his palm like it was gliding over a smooth surface.

  The Mole sketched quickly, showed Max the house: front view, a door between two barred windows, peephole about face level, doorknob to the left. Max nodded yes. Then the back view: the door just a slab of flat metal, no peephole, no doorknob, arrows showing it opened out. Another nod of agreement. The Mole sketched a fire escape along the back of the building, running from window to window. Max shook his head, made the flat-palm gesture again. The Mole used his eraser, showed us a pure slab, windows bricked over.

  "Only way in is the front," I said. "Have you got…?" />
  "We'll look again," the Mole said.

  180

  I found the Prof on Wall Street the next day, working his shoeshine rag like a virtuoso. Clarence was his customer, sporting alligator loafers to go with his pearl-gray suit. I waited my turn.

  "How about riding shotgun tonight, Prof?"

  "Go slow, bro'. Put another quarter in, give me one more spin."

  "We got to check out a building. In the Bronx. Me, Max, and the Mole. Can't leave the car alone in that neighborhood. Just a watcher's job— scare anyone away, they come by."