The Weight

by Andrew Vachss

  “I couldn’t even guess.”

  “You don’t want to know, trust me. Don’t you think it would be a wonderful surprise if I could squeeze myself into one of the outfits I wore back then? I’d probably give Charley a heart attack, I did that.”

  “You couldn’t do that.”

  “What?! Why would you say such an awful—?”

  “No, no. I don’t mean you couldn’t train to whatever shape you wanted. I just meant, something like that, it’s gradual. So it wouldn’t be a surprise, see?”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not like you could wake up one morning and be all changed. That’s the hardest thing for people to swallow, patience. They want to work out for a month and turn into something different.”

  “Well … it kind of depends on the person, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m not exactly an elephant, right?”

  “Of course not. But if you want to do it correctly, it always takes time to—”

  “Fair enough. But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, it depends on how much you get noticed, right? For it to be a surprise, I mean.”

  “Like if someone hadn’t seen you in a couple of years?”

  “Or if someone hadn’t looked at you in a couple of years.”

  “I … guess that’s right.”

  She stood up. “I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. If you ever need—”

  “No problem,” I said. That’s what people say when they want to get rid of you.

  She walked over to the staircase. It was only a couple of seconds, but I could see she didn’t walk like a woman who thinks she’s too fat.

  There were a few places I could walk in and some people there would know me. Buy me a drink, slap me on the back, tell me the last stretch must have been sweet, since I was looking so good.

  Places I knew I couldn’t go near. Maybe Solly thought I was already down in Florida. He gave me a list of all these people who Albie might talk to, but I knew that was a shuck—no way Solly hadn’t already talked to those guys himself.

  So, I could go down there, play a hunch that Jessop was a local.

  But what I couldn’t do was lie to Solly. If he ran across me still here, I could always tell him the truth about me hiring the PI through that lawyer. But it would be better if it didn’t come to that.

  The story Solly told me, on the surface it made sense. If he wanted Jessop canceled, he would have called Big Matt, like he said. I worked with Big Matt twice before. He was an angry guy. I don’t mean he had a temper or anything like that. But he was so angry, you could feel it standing next to him. He walked around like that. I guess maybe he wasn’t angry anymore, not with all Solly told me. But if Big Matt thought anyone might knock his new train off the rails, he’d kill them. Not a doubt in my mind.

  I didn’t know any way to reach him. I never did; that isn’t the way it works. Guys like Solly, they’re all over the country. They’re the ones with the numbers. And even those numbers, they’re just message drops.

  So I was thinking two things: Big Matt had closed down his contact number. He was out of the business, what did he need it for? I was also thinking about that responsibility thing Solly went on and on about. If Jessop could give up Big Matt, why couldn’t I? The way Solly put it, I had that statute-of-limitations thing going for me, so Big Matt wouldn’t worry about me. Just Jessop.

  I had to concentrate. That’s a lot harder than pushing weight. When I concentrate, really, really hard, I can feel my brain—it burns just like muscles do when you work them to their limit.

  But I did it. Some guys, they say it helps to write stuff down. Draw lines, make things connect. I could never do that—it always made me think of other things, instead of what I was trying to figure out.

  If I’m Big Matt, I know there’s a bunch of people who can put me in on that jewelry job. And not just Jessop. That statute-of-limitations thing, it was just … a misdirection. The kind of trick you pull on purpose. Like training yourself to drop your left shoulder and throw the right hand over at the same time. A guy sees your left shoulder drop, he thinks the hook is coming from that side. All you have to do is distract him for a little piece of a second.

  The way Solly told it, if Jessop got caught, he was dead meat, because he couldn’t use the statute-of-limitations thing. Okay, so that meant Big Matt wasn’t safe, either. But Big Matt’s not going to work anymore, so there’s no chance he’ll get dropped pulling a job. Jessop, why would he retire? Me, why would I?

  Big Matt knew I could have dealt him on the jewelry job, and he’d know I hadn’t done that. Jessop, he’d know that, too. But I was still just as dangerous to either of them if I ever got caught again. It was like I held this trump card, and I could play it anytime.

  I’m not a killer. But when you do my kind of work, it can happen. Like with Ken. I’m still a pretty young guy. Looking at another bit wouldn’t change my mind about who I was. Jessop, he was around my age. At least, I think he was.

  But for Solly, even a nickel would be a death sentence. You can buy protection Inside. Buy almost anything you could imagine, if you’ve got the money. And Solly had the money. But, no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy a decent hospital. Get serious-sick in prison, chances are you won’t get better. Throw in Solly being such an old man, you know he’d never finish out the bit.

  Solly knew me. He knew Big Matt. He knew neither of us would ever go outside the rules. Jessop, he didn’t know. But Jessop, what did he know? Maybe, if he was close to Albie, he knew a lot.

  Solly told me if he wanted Jessop gone he could have just hired a shooter. I went along like that made sense, but all the time, I was thinking, That story Solly told me about this guy Rico, the contract man. Maybe he made that up?

  Why I thought that was I didn’t believe Solly could find a shooter without going outside his safe zone. He put jobs together. Jobs, not hits.

  If I started nosing around, this Jessop would know I was coming way before I got to him. How was that supposed to help Solly? He knew I was good at some stuff, but I wasn’t any secret agent. Chances are, I go down to Florida, where this Albie used to live, Jessop makes me disappear.

  Yeah. That was Solly, down pat. Let other guys bet on fights, Solly wouldn’t care who won; he’d be the guy keeping the vig. Maybe Jessop fucks up. Gets me done, but not so smooth. A murder, he couldn’t really say it was self-defense without bringing up the jewelry job. That’d probably only make it worse for him. Florida, it’s not like New York. We got the death penalty, too, but down there, they use it.

  Anyway, the only one Jessop could give up was me, and what could that be worth? He never laid eyes on Solly; and Albie was dead.

  How come, all of a sudden, Solly was going to a lot of trouble to make sure I knew stuff? Much more than he ever did before. Was he trusting me or setting me up?

  I remembered one thing Solly said to me, a long time ago. “It’s not how much you take, kid, it’s where you take it from. Me, I always take my half out of the middle.”

  Even with my head hurting, one thing came through clear: I go down to Florida looking for Jessop, the only sure winner would be Solly.

  It was so cute: I find Jessop, only one of us walks away. Wouldn’t matter which one; Solly could always find Big Matt. Tell him a story about whichever one of us was still alive.

  Somewhere, way in the back of my mind, I thought Solly would be proud of me. For not trusting him, I mean.

  Even without Solly’s game, I had a stronger reason for not going to Florida right away.

  “Woods,” is the way he answered when he picked up the extension. I don’t know how cops usually answer the phone, but that didn’t sound like it.

  “You were straight with me once,” I said into the mouthpiece. “I never forgot that. And I figure now, maybe you and me, we want the same thing.”

  “Who the—? Wait! Are we talking about someone who went down for something he didn’t do, and skated on one he did?”

  “Jus
t the first part is right,” I said—who admits something over the phone? “I want the guy whose time I did. And you want him, too.”

  “You got that right,” Woods said. Cold and serious.

  “I’m not coming in,” I told him.

  “Say where and when.”

  “Now. There’s a vitamin shop, northwest corner of Eighty-first and Broadway.”

  “I’m rolling.”

  I didn’t bother telling the cop not to bring backup or wear a wire or any of that crap. I wasn’t a wanted man. And Woods, he hadn’t told me to call the Sex Crimes Unit. Which meant they’d never caught the real rapist. Probably never even looked for him.

  Woods must have circled the block a couple of times, because I spotted him on the other side of Broadway, getting ready to cross at the light. I liked that. He didn’t badge some guy to let him park at the curb, or leave his unmarked at a fireplug. He did what a regular person would do.

  Hard for a guy as big as him to be low-key. Last thing he’d want, call attention to himself. And if you saw him once, you’d remember him.

  “Did every day of it, huh?” was what he said. No “hello” or nothing. But he had his hand out, and I shook it.

  “Let’s take a walk,” I said. “Riverside’s not far, and it’s a beautiful day.”

  He knew what I meant. We walked side by side a few blocks west until we came to Riverside, found an empty bench.

  “Is it okay if I make sure of a couple of things, before I say anything?”

  The cop opened his coat. “Got an ankle piece, too,” he said, like that was what I wanted, check him for weapons. I couldn’t figure out why he was playing it like that, but I let it go.

  “You know I didn’t rape that girl.”

  “Yeah. And you know why—”

  “No, I mean, that was the question. Are you just going along, in case I got something else for you on that other thing, or are you saying you believe me?”

  “I believe you,” the cop said. “I did from the beginning.”

  “But she was raped?”

  “No question.”

  “So, if she picked me out of a lineup, whoever did it, he must look something like me, right?”

  “You’d think so,” the cop said, leaning back and lighting a smoke. He didn’t offer me one. That was a good sign.

  “A lot of guys could look like me. That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

  “Big guy, white … sure, that covers a lot of ground. Hair is something you can change easy enough. Beard, mustache … takes only a few minutes, make them go away. Except for this”—he touched his own right eyebrow—“nothing makes you stand out except your size.” He gave me a close look, not making any secret out of what he was doing.

  I stayed still.

  “Your eyes. Your eyes, that’d set you off. That’s what those glasses are about, huh?”

  “Why are you playing me? I haven’t done anything for you to treat me like this. You know damn well, anyone gets a look at my eyes, they’d remember.”

  “They would. And, yeah, I did.”

  “But she didn’t?”

  “Where’s all this going, Caine?”

  No more “Sugar.” No more “have one on me” cigarette. Good. If he’d acted like we were pals, I wouldn’t have bought it.

  And he’d know that. So maybe it wasn’t as good a sign as I thought.

  Fuck it. I’m no good at this sideways stuff. I just went for it.

  “You think I got off cheap, don’t you?”

  “Five years? Far as I’m concerned, you lucked out when that girl ID’ed you. Wasn’t for that, you’d still be where you belong.”

  “Lucked out? Right. If that girl had never ID’ed me, you’d still have been waiting when I came back to my place, that’s what you’re selling?”

  “One man’s luck is another man’s loss. And I still say you got off cheap.”

  “Let’s say I did. But if the sex-crimes cops hadn’t gotten her to ID me, you wouldn’t be saying what you just said. That’s true, too.”

  “Okay. But I’m still waiting for the punch line.”

  “I want to get off the RSO list.”

  “So you can sue the city? It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?”

  “Five years—”

  “I’m not a lawyer,” the cop said, like he was proud of it. “If some shyster told you there was money in this, you’re brain-dead, Caine. You pleaded guilty. I don’t care if they found enough of some other guy’s DNA to fill every test tube in Quantico, it wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer. I’m not going to sue anybody. You know why I took that plea.”

  “So? What, then?”

  “So that DNA, it would do me some good. A lot of good.”

  “You brought up the RSO, not me.”

  “Right. You know what that means, being a Registered Sex Offender? I maxed out, but I still got to keep an address, let them know when I move, stuff like that.”

  “Cramps your style, does it?”

  “No, that’s not it. They don’t actually do anything. It’s just a stupid Web site. And you know who uses it the most?”

  “Uses what the most?”

  “This ‘registry’ thing. The people who use it most are those … ‘pedophiles,’ they call them. See, what they do, when they’re trying to worm their way in someplace, like with a single mother who’s living with her little daughter, they tell her to check them out. On this Web site, I mean. When that comes up empty, it’s like the government is saying, ‘This guy, he’s all right,’ see?”

  “How come you know this?” Woods asked me. He was way too casual—I could see he really wanted to know.

  “When I first went in—on the last bit, I mean—they put me in this group for sex offenders. It was supposed to be voluntary, but all of them know, if they don’t go, the Parole Board’s gonna nail them.”

  “And you didn’t want to call attention to yourself, so you played along?”

  “On the nose. I didn’t last long—they threw me out—but that was one of the things they talked about in ‘group.’

  “They talked about this registry a lot. Some of them, they were all … outraged, like. It was a violation of their rights, they were branded for life, blah-blah. But a couple of them said the truth: that was one scam they could never use again, which was a shame because it always worked. That’s how I know about it.”

  Woods went back to looking bored. “So what d’you want, Caine? You think I’m going to sign an affidavit or something?”

  “I think you want the same thing I do.”

  “What? Justice for the victim?” The cop took a drag of his smoke. For a second, I was sorry I quit—he sure made it look like it tasted good.

  “Not for her. For him.”

  “Jesus. You did too many fucking crossword puzzles up there, Caine.”

  “What d’you get out of making fun of me, cop? I know I’m no Einstein, but I don’t need to be one to add this up.”

  “Huh?”

  “The guy who raped that girl, he owes you guys for doing it. But he also owes me, for doing the time.”

  “You want me to help you find him so you can shake him down?”

  “You get a kick out of saying things like that? I thought you were a right guy. You fucking well know what I’m saying, but you’re still just jerking my chain. So how’s this? The guy who raped that girl, his life isn’t worth five years of my time. But I can’t find him without help, so I’ll settle for him going down. And he’d go down hard, no matter where he’s locked.”

  “And I care about that because …?”

  “I’m not asking you to tell me anything. Just listen. No way he was someone the girl knew, or you would have nailed him. He got away with that one, so he probably got away with a lot more. Maybe he still is.”

  “Or maybe he’s already doing time on one of the others.”

  “If you know that, just tell me. What could it hurt? Hurt you, I
mean.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean, pal. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you—I’m not playing bloodhound for a hit man.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You’ve got no rep for that, I know. But for this guy, I’m betting you’d make an exception.”

  “Try me and see.”

  “Can’t,” the cop said. “Far as I know, nobody’s ever been convicted of that rape. Besides you, that is.”

  “But he could be in the system, right? Those sex-crimes guys, they ‘solved’ the case, so they’re all done. But you might get a DNA match off someone who’s still locked up and—”

  “If there was DNA, maybe. I never asked.”

  “There you go. That proves we could help each other. If you want the help, that is.”

  He changed position on the bench. Dropped his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out. “How come you didn’t go to Sex Crimes with this?”

  “How come you knew I didn’t do it?”

  “What do you want, Caine? I’m not asking again.”

  “I want you to tell the girl I didn’t do it. I want the chance to talk to her. I don’t think anybody ever really did. Nobody’s looking for this guy. But me, I’d look for him.”

  “You carrying?”

  “No, sir.” He had to be asking for some reason I didn’t understand. Anything I got caught “carrying” would guarantee me another few years inside a State box.

  “You’d take a polygraph?”

  “Right this minute.”

  “And that’s the only crime you want to talk about?”

  “Come on.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

  “If you catch a terrorist from another country—catch him here, I mean—how come you ship him back where he came from for questioning?”

  The cop didn’t say anything.

  “I could be that other country for you. I find this guy, he’s going to tell me everything. Not just about the rape I did his time for, about every one he’s ever done.”

  “Somehow, I can’t see you wearing a wire.”

  “Wouldn’t need one. On every rape this guy committed, they found something. Maybe he’s got a trophy case. Maybe he takes pictures. Maybe he had a partner. I don’t know. But, whatever I get, add it to what you already got, wouldn’t that be enough to nail him?”