The Weight

by Andrew Vachss

  “That’s a good one,” he said, like I just told a great joke.

  I didn’t try and find out what I’d said that was so funny; I was just happy that a guy like Eddie thought I could tell a good joke.

  Anyway, when Reno kind of strolls over one day, Eddie heads him off: “Sir, you do realize you are entering New York’s most exclusive men’s club? Membership is restricted to those bearing a personal invitation from the Governor.”

  Reno gave him a look. Then he decided Eddie was joking around, so he laughed along with the rest of us.

  Then him and Eddie took a little walk. Not far, but enough so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The way they said goodbye, Eddie tapped his own chest, right over his heart, and Reno did the same.

  “No ink, kid. Understand me? No ink, not ever. You don’t go along with that, you could get me killed.”

  “I don’t have any—”

  “Yeah,” he cut me off. “I know. That’s what I used to pull that fool’s chain.”

  “But you’ve got … I mean …” I felt so bad. I knew Eddie was trying to look out for me, but I was too fucking stupid to even figure out how he was doing it. Eddie’s whole body was so covered with tattoos that it looked like he was wearing a shirt even when he wasn’t.

  “Look close,” Eddie said. He touched his chest with one finger.

  “I don’t see—”

  “I said close, bro.”

  It was like trying to read one of those walls when one gang overtags another, and then the first one comes back. After a while, it just looks like a mess. But I kept trying. And then I saw it. One of those Nazi crosses, only it was made out of lightning bolts and arrows. You couldn’t see all of it—a lot of it was buried under other tats. But it was there.

  “Get it now?” Eddie asked me. “If they need to check, the AB can see they got my heart. You can see it yourself, right where it should be. Only, I had to get it covered up. Like camouflage, see?”

  “So nobody could see—”

  “So the fucking cops can’t see it. That’s what they do now: they read a man’s ink, and it goes in their book. But they look at me, they just see this big mess. I got every kind of ink you could think of, so I get put down as a tattoo-freak.”

  “What’s so good—?”

  “What’d I just tell you, kid? Okay, one more time, real slow. That fool who came over before, what I told him was that the Brotherhood needs men who can slip under the radar. We don’t go to meetings, we don’t be going all ‘Heil Hitler!’ on the yard, nothing like that. The law’s got undercovers; why shouldn’t we?”

  “But you told me to never get one.”

  “Ain’t that undercover, too, bro?”

  “That’s why you said never get any ink at all.”

  “And that still goes. I just told that sucker I was getting you ready for this big mission. Feeding you one spoon at a time. So you can’t be seen hanging with the Double-Eights.”

  “He bought that?”

  Eddie grinned. “You know what he’s in for? Cooking up some crank. And guess who he sold it to?”

  It was like Eddie’s smile made me smarter. I know that’s crazy, but that’s how it felt, me hitting the right answer on the nose. “An undercover cop?”

  “Oh yeah!” Eddie said, holding up his palm for me to slap, laughing.

  Eddie, he was welcome all over the place. So I was glad he was there that day—you couldn’t want a better guy to ask.

  “You know what azúcar means, Eddie?”

  He was on the last rep of the set he was doing. I thought he’d let the bar down first, but he kept the weight up and answered me between nose-breaths. “Sure.” “Means.” “Sugar.”

  Soon as he said that, I turned around and looked over at the PRs, trying to find the one that had said that word. I let them see me staring. That way, whoever said that about me, he’d have to step out.

  Eddie put the weight down so quick it was a good thing the spotters saw it coming. He hopped off the bench and stood next to me.

  “Hey! Don’t chump yourself off, kid. You want to be like every other paranoid peckerwood in this joint? Just ’cause guys’re talking a different language don’t mean they’re talking about you.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Take a deep breath; you’re gonna feel like a blockhead in about a minute. Listen: You know there’s still Spanish guys in here for blowing up buildings and stuff, years ago? Older guys. Not gang-bangers—like political prisoners, okay? Los Macheteros, they call themselves. That comes from slaves who had to spend all day in the cane fields. What they wanted was to cut Puerto Rico loose from America, be its own country.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I’m pretty tight with some of them,” Eddie kept going, like he never heard me. “Good men, you get to know them. Smart as hell, and stand-up, too. You with me? Okay, now, some of them were watching that day you got jumped by those Muslims. The way they told it, you went through those fools like you was working in the cane fields. Chopping ’em down like you had a machete.”

  “I still don’t see—”

  “That’s your last name, right? Caine?”

  “Yeah …”

  “I know you spell it different, but it sounds the same. Cane fields, they’re talking about sugarcane, get it?

  “Nobody was downing you, kid. Azúcar, it’s all in how you say it. Like when people say a boxer’s ‘pretty,’ you heard that, right? ‘Pretty’ don’t mean he’s a punk; it means he’s slick and smooth.”

  Eddie reached up high, then brought his hand down into a fist. Held it in front of his mouth, like it was a microphone.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, and those who have yet to decide,” he boomed out. “Tonight we bring you fifteen rounds of boxing for the heavyweight championship of the world! In this corner, weighing in at a ready two hundred and eighty pounds, sporting a perfect record of twenty-six wins, twenty-four by knockout, two by fix … the challenger: Timmy ‘Sugar’ Caaaiinne!”

  Everybody standing around the weight stack clapped, like I really was going to go against someone. One guy even yelled out that he had major money on me.

  “You like it now, kid?”

  I sure did. Beat the hell out of people calling me “Tiny.” You know, “Tiny Tim.” Big fucking joke.

  After a while, everybody started calling me Sugar. When I gated, I took it with me.

  That was a long time ago. I hadn’t taken a felony fall since I wrapped up that first bit. Seven arrests, one misdemeanor conviction. The other cases all got dropped, one way or another.

  My fall partners on that first one, the two older guys, they never did anything for me while I was Inside. Well, maybe one thing: they got the word around. I was taking the weight, like you’re supposed to. If I’d “cooperated”—I don’t know why I fucking hate that word, but I do—the Legal Aid had told me, I could probably get probation.

  What was I going to do with probation, go to college?

  But being known as stand-up so young, that gave me a head start. I was only on the bricks for a few weeks when a guy I didn’t know asked me if I was interested in doing a job. A job with him and a few other men.

  I didn’t know that guy, but I’d sure heard of him. I felt proud he asked me.

  I wished Eddie could have seen me then. But I knew he’d see the money orders I got this girl to send him. Not the money orders themselves, but he’d see the jumps in his account. I had the girl write him one time, to tell him money would be coming. It was a short letter, but starting it off with “Hey, Sugar!” would be all he needed to make the connect.

  It wasn’t really a girl sending the money. What I did, I picked a name. Conchita. Then I got about a hundred sheets of notepaper, and I paid this hooker a buck a page for her to sign at the bottom. All different ways, like:

  Love, Conchita

  Always yours, Conchita

  I love you forever, Conchita

  Except for those words at the bottom, t
he notes were all typed. I did that. The envelopes, too. After a while, I got pretty good at it.

  I kept sending the money orders every few months or so for about ten years. Then the girl got a letter at the PO box I was using. One of those form letters. It was a whole page, but all I remember is: “Inmate Deceased.”

  In my head, I could see Eddie. Back to the wall, facing slicers and stabbers with his bare hands. Grinning like it was all a big joke.

  I learned a lot. Every job, I learned more.

  It’s no different from those guys who work high steel. They know they could fall, but the more time they spend up there, the less they expect to. Still, they never forget it could happen.

  Even though I didn’t expect to take this fall, I knew how to take it. So, when they put me in a double, I knew what that was all about.

  My cellie turned out to be a white guy; skinny, eyes still yellow from whatever he’d been using before they snapped him up. He was probably around my age, but he looked way older than me. Covered in cheap tats, kind of a hillbilly sound in his voice.

  “You got a preference?” he said. “To me, they’re all the same.”

  He meant the bunks. Me, I always like the top one. Figured the guy was saving face by claiming he didn’t care.

  He was good at the game. Pretty much kept to himself. Told me his name was Sandy, touching his hair when he said it, to tell me where the name came from. “Farin,” I said, like I was giving my name, too.

  “Like Faron Young? Damn, you don’t look like—”

  “I’m not. Born and raised right here. It’s ‘Farin,’ ” I said, spelling it for him.

  “Never heard that one before.”

  “It’s a nickname. Short for ‘Warfarin.’ ”

  “Viking name?” he said, pretending he was asking if I was a White Power guy. But he’d already seen me with my shirt off, so I was even surer I was right about him.

  “No. See, warfarin is a chemical. They use it in rat poison.”

  I’d been waiting over ten years to use that line, ever since I first heard Eddie tell the story. Now I could tell it, too.

  He tried to bluster up. “You trying to tell me something?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I know why they put you in here. Take as much time as you think you can get away with; that’s fine with me. But you’re not cutting a deal for yourself off anything I tell you … because I’m not telling you nothing. And I don’t talk in my sleep.”

  “You got me all—”

  “Try and work me, you won’t like what happens next,” I cut him short. “No matter where they put you.”

  I learn from my mistakes. I got it down to such a science, I could be one of those counselors’ wet dreams. Learning from your bad choices, they love that stuff.

  That’s why I never showed anyone my new shank. I know—I know now, I mean—that you never show a guy who might be a problem for you that you’ve got something for him. If he’s not bluffing, that won’t back him off, just make him bring something himself for next time. And if he was bluffing, showing him steel might just turn him serious. You can buy anything Inside. Even guys to do your work for you.

  Whoever wants you, if he knows you’re carrying, he’s going to come in careful. Maybe even bring along some backup. And you never want that.

  A guy who’s gunning for you should never know you’re carrying steel, until he feels it go in.

  After a few weeks, I started to get steady mail from a woman. The letters sounded like we’d been together for a long time. And she always put in a little note, telling me she’d just put more money on the books for me.

  This woman, she was always promising to wait for me, no matter how long that turned out to be. Solly, paying the premiums on his insurance policy.

  I knew that much just from the woman’s name. Marcy. That’s what they call the loony bin—where they put you if they decide you’re “criminally insane.” Solly telling me, maybe I wanted to go the NGI route, say I got hit on the head and I couldn’t remember anything, crap like that.

  He was just reminding me that I could take a plea to the rape, and nobody would think it was for real. Wouldn’t hurt my rep when I got out.

  You pull off a job, every man gets his share. The planner, he’s supposed to take care of anyone who gets caught, make sure they stay quiet. That’s one of the reasons he gets half of the whole haul.

  So, yeah, I got the messages. Both of them. I was being railroaded on the rape charge, but there was no point in me taking passengers along on the ride. And my money would still be there when I finally got off the train.

  I wondered when that would be.

  It took over a month for that slick Puerto Rican lawyer to come by and answer my question. Under his charcoal suit, he was wearing a dark-purple shirt with a white collar and cuffs, silk tie same color as the shirt. On the left cuff, “HSR,” embroidered in thread the same color as the shirt, too. Some woman was dressing him, all right.

  “If they max you on the rape, you’re looking at half of twenty-five before you even see the Board.”

  The first time up’s an automatic hit, so I had to figure on at least thirteen and a half. That’s a tattoo you see a lot on old-time cons: “13½.” Means twelve jurors, one judge, half a chance.

  I shook my head. Not saying no, just … tired, I guess.

  “I don’t want to take this to trial,” the lawyer said.

  “I’m not gonna—”

  “I know,” he said. “But here’s something else I know—they don’t want to try it, either.”

  “You said the lineup—”

  “I also said the lineup was all they had,” he said, tapping a yellow legal pad with a fancy-looking pen—black enamel, with a touch of gold around the point. “And that’s weak as water.”

  “But it’s still a dice roll, right?”

  “Right. And they don’t like playing unless it’s their dice.”

  “That much I know. But I got nothing to trade. And I wouldn’t if I did. Only thing is …”

  “What?”

  “How come you don’t like it?” I asked him. Not only did I know 18-B lawyers get paid by the hour, I could tell this guy wasn’t scared of trials.

  He waited until he was sure he had my eyes. Then he said, “There’s one kind of client no defense attorney ever wants. You know what kind that is?”

  “The kind that can’t pay the freight.”

  “Sure,” he said. Meaning, What else?

  “I give up,” I told him.

  “An innocent one. That’s every defense attorney’s nightmare.”

  “So you believe me, too?”

  “I talked to the cops who interrogated you. One of them, he as much as said it, flat out. You wouldn’t even need that polygraph.”

  “The older guy, right?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see the other one. Detective Woods, that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Yeah. Well, if he told you he knows I didn’t do that rape, he must’ve also told you why, too.”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “So what’s the difference? Time is time. Maybe I can’t beat the rape case, but it’s no slam dunk for them, either. I don’t know why that girl picked me out of the lineup, but—”

  “She’s already been in the Grand Jury,” the lawyer said, making sure I understood what he was telling me. Which was, if anything happened to her before the trial, the prosecutor could use her Grand Jury testimony … and that would be a lot worse for me. The jury might do the math, figure I had the woman hit. And even if they didn’t, how was my lawyer going to cross-examine a transcript?

  “I get it,” I said. “I was just saying, maybe when she sees me in the courtroom, looks at me real close, she’ll see something she didn’t see when … it happened to her.

  “Just any little thing, I don’t know. She ID’ed me off a photo—at first, I mean—but she’d already told them something. And my eyes, they would have been in the book.

  “Only what if she
never saw the guy’s eyes? Any little thing could do it. Maybe she just said the guy was big because he was like … large, you know. A fat guy, even. At least it’s a chance.”

  “That’s a double-edged razor, that chance,” he said. “Could even be worth taking … if it wasn’t for the gun.”

  “That’s a pound, tops. I could do that stand—”

  “Sure. Unless the judge decides you’re a menace to society, and consecs you. Not taking a plea deal, that’s enough to turn you into that kind of menace real quick. And they’ve got leverage on their deal, too. That gun again. If they were to call in the federales …”

  He just let those words trail off, like making me look down into this pit so deep I couldn’t even see the bottom.

  “You came all the way out here just to tell me I’m fucked? Next time, send a postcard,” I told him.

  “They put an offer on the table. Not a bargaining chip. One time only. You want to hear it?”

  “Sure,” I said. What else?

  “Five years on the rape charge. They knock it down to some kind of sex assault, make it a D felony. You’re a predicate, so you’re looking at two-and-a-half to five. And they forget about the gun. They never found one.”

  “Why couldn’t they give me the five on the gun, and forget about the—?”

  “And have picket lines all around the DA’s Office? Sure, that miserable relic’s finally stepping down, but he wants to name his own successor. Preserve his ‘legacy.’ Get a building named after him before he checks out. So anyone who wants to move up in that office has to be aces at getting the victim to go along with a deal—make her afraid of being cross-examined, you know how it works. Remember, the Mayor and the old DA, they weren’t exactly pals, so there’s serious pressure to keep getting those convictions, be tough on crime for the media. You do the math.”

  “If I take the rape—”

  “Everything else goes away.”

  “Not everything,” I reminded him.

  “What do you want, immunity? Look, that’s the deal. Take it or leave it. But if you take it, and one of your crime partners gets nabbed for something else …”