The Weight

by Andrew Vachss

  “Okay.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty … seven?”

  “I’ve been with Albie, it would have been exactly twenty years next month. What does that tell you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m thirty-nine.”

  “Okay,” I said, flashing on what Margo had told me about that age being the one any woman would lie about.

  “That’s all?”

  “Uh … you know why I’m here, right?”

  I had to ask her like that. Fucking Solly never told me what to expect, so I didn’t know what she was expecting, either.

  “Jessop.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Sure it is,” she said, as she stretched her hands high, like it was some kind of exercise. When she brought them down, she had another cigarette in her hand.

  “You lost me,” I told her.

  “Ssshhh,” she said as she blew out a long stream of smoke. “Go take a shower. Shave. Change your clothes. Call Solly—there’s some throwaway cells in the dresser. Take a nap. Whatever you have to do. I’ll be back here by … eight. We’ll have something to eat, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  We looked at each other for a few minutes. When she blew a smoke ring at the ceiling, I got up.

  I did most of what Rena said. But I didn’t call Solly. I’m scared of cell phones. I know they can do all kinds of things with them. Anyway, Solly might still think I was carrying the one he gave me.

  One good thing about prison, it teaches you what to do when you can’t do anything.

  That little suite was like upscale solitary. I remember wishing solitary could be solitary, but the noise in there never stopped. Never. And the smells, they never changed, either.

  “Wake up.”

  I hadn’t even heard her coming.

  I opened my eyes. She was standing in the doorway. Either she was smart enough never to touch a sleeping convict or she just plain didn’t want to get close to me, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’m not Room Service,” she said.

  “I fell asleep, okay? It’s not like I disrespected you. Save the speeches.”

  “Then—”

  “Then nothing. I’m not playing some guessing game. I came here to do something. You met me at the bus station, brought me here. I appreciate you doing that. But that’s enough.”

  “Enough work on my part, or enough of my big mouth?”

  “Both.”

  She stood there for a few seconds. “You want the food, or what?”

  We ate in that big kitchen, sitting on bar stools, chrome with thick black leather padding, using that slab of granite for a table. I still didn’t know anything about the stove, because my dinner was a big wooden bowl of salad, with slices of onion, radishes, celery sticks, and chunks of white chicken mixed in. There was also a little plate of garlic breadsticks.

  Hers was the same, but her bowl was a lot smaller.

  I had a glass of that enhanced water. She left the bottle on the countertop. Whatever she was drinking was a dark-cherry color. I didn’t think it could be wine, because she really slugged it down.

  “Thank you,” I said when I was done. “It tasted real good.”

  “No big deal; it’s pretty much what I eat all the time. I just cut you a bigger piece off the same loaf.”

  I got up. Put my bowl and glass and the little plate in the sink, the bottle of water in the refrigerator.

  “What about mine?” she said.

  I closed my eyes for a second. Took a couple of quick-and-shallow breaths through my nose. “What’s the game?” I asked her.

  “Which game? There’s always a game. Lots of them. Going on at the same time. Sometimes, one inside another.”

  “That’s cute. You’re cute. This is your house. I get all of that. What I don’t get is why you keep trying to insult me.”

  “Insult you? Like you said, it’s just a game, Wilson.”

  “How about if I don’t like your games? I got to find this Jessop. So just tell me what you’re going to do … what you’re willing to do, okay?”

  “What could I do?”

  “Fair enough. Is it all right if I stay here while I’m looking for him?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Uh-huh. And could I borrow the car you picked me up in?”

  “For what?”

  “I have to look for somebody. I can’t call a cab to do that. That car, it looks like a thousand other ones. If the registration—”

  “It’s in my name. So is this property, matter of fact.”

  “You have a Xerox here?”

  She just nodded.

  “So I make you a copy of my driver’s license. You give me a phone number that the cops can call if I get stopped. That’s all the cover I should need.”

  “You don’t know your way around.”

  “This town’s not that big. I’ll find the kind of places I want easy enough.”

  “What kind of places would those be, strip bars?”

  “That’d be one kind, yeah. I don’t need his picture; I’ll know him when I see him.”

  “And then what?”

  “Whatever Solly told you.”

  “Solly didn’t tell me anything.”

  “There you go.”

  I guess she liked doing stare-downs. Probably practiced on her mirror. I got up and walked out.

  Maybe fifteen minutes later, she stepped into the little suite she’d put me in. I’d noticed before there was no lock on the door—I left it standing open, so she’d know I had.

  I was coming out of the shower, wearing this fluffy white robe I found in the bathroom. She strolled over to the closet. Went through all my stuff in about thirty seconds.

  “None of this is going to work.”

  “Work? For what?”

  “For you not looking like a stranger in town.”

  “What do I care about that?”

  “You care because you already look like a bad guy. A big bad guy. A guy who wears sunglasses indoors. You put on that stupid Sopranos stuff of yours, you’ll stick out a lot worse.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Sure, you do. What’s your plan? Visit the kind of places where Jessop might hang out? Think you’ll get lucky and spot him? Or maybe you just want word to get around? Leave your phone number, maybe he’ll call?”

  “You got a better one?”

  “A much better one. I’ve got Albie’s workbooks. His ledger, he called it.”

  “So he’d have this guy’s contact info, right?”

  “Probably. I never opened them.”

  “So why can’t we just—?”

  “Because you and me, we’ve got a problem.”

  “Do we?”

  “How could we not, Wilson? All we know for sure is that Albie and Solly, they trusted each other. We don’t know how much they trusted either of us.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  “Oh, I think it is,” she said, walking over and sitting on the bed. I didn’t see a cigarette in her hand. I guess I’d been expecting one.

  I stood there, waiting.

  “You’d rather try it your way?” she finally asked me.

  “I’d rather look at those books. Only, you don’t seem to want me to.”

  “I didn’t say that. What I was talking about was trust, remember?”

  “I remember. But I got no answers for you. I don’t know how deep Solly trusts me, and I damn sure don’t know how it was between you and Albie.”

  “Albie’s not here.”

  I felt ice under my feet. Thin, slippery ice. I knew if I said the wrong thing I’d either fall down or fall through. But I didn’t know what the right thing was. And if I just waited, I’d freeze to death.

  She smiled like she could see the trap I was in.

  “You trust me?” she said, real soft.

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Now you’re getting the picture, Wilson.�
� She looked at the clock next to the bed, one of those digital ones; 9:19, it said, a little picture of the moon next to it. “You’re not going to find him tonight, anyway. You need new clothes, a clean phone, and—what else?—some protection you can carry around?”

  “No.”

  “Think that last one over. This isn’t New York. I can ID you up without ever leaving this house. Then you just walk into a gun shop and pick out one you like.”

  “They don’t print you for that?”

  “Uh, you think any broad with plastic tits, she’s got to be stupid, is that it?”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “You think I wanted you to walk into a gun shop? All I was saying, that name you’re under, that person would do it. Get printed. And those prints, they’d come up clean as a vultured body after a month in the desert. Your picture, his prints. Jesus!”

  “I don’t know what you know, that means I’m calling you stupid?”

  “Forget it. Maybe I’m just … super-sensitive since Albie’s been gone. Anyway, travel throws your rhythm off. You don’t want to be working unless you’re sharp, yes?”

  “I’m sharp enough.”

  “Just sleep on it, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Just like prison. I couldn’t keep that out of my head. They’re always telling you that you made bad choices. And then they put you in a place where all your choices are bad.

  That digital clock said 11:24, with a little blinking picture of the sun next to it. I’d been sleeping a long time. But except for that little clock, there was no way to tell.

  I took a quick shower, put on clean clothes, and walked down to where the kitchen was.

  She was there. Sitting on one of those padded bar stools, watching another flat-screen. I didn’t know there even was one in there; you had to open a couple of the cabinet doors to see it.

  I took some more of her special water out of the refrigerator, sat down, and drank from the bottle, mixing it with bites of three power bars. Chewing real slow, like you’re supposed to.

  “You people eat special food?”

  “What ‘people’?”

  “You know, like weightlifters or bodybuilders or whatever you are.”

  “I’m not any of those.”

  “That body built itself?” She kind of sneered, as she cupped one of her boobs and jiggled it.

  I closed my eyes. Kept chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing.

  “I hurt your feelings?”

  “No,” I told her. “But you’re a bad listener.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you answer your own questions.”

  “That’s what happens when nobody else will.”

  “You actually want to know? You really give a rat’s ass about me not being a weightlifter or a bodybuilder?”

  “I always want to know things. New things, I mean.”

  More fucking word games, I thought. But I figured, if I want to ever get a look at Albie’s books, see if the one Solly wants is in there, I have to go along. So I told her: “A weightlifter, he’s trying for the most he can lift. He don’t care how he looks. Could have a belly on him like a wrecking ball, it wouldn’t matter. Power-lifters, they’re pretty much the same, only they do different kinds of lifts. It’s all about how much weight you can rack up, not how many times you can do it. But bodybuilders, all they care about is how they look. Weightlifters, they talk about leverage, position, driving the bar. Bodybuilders, it’s all about definition. The look. How you’re cut. Vascularity.”

  “What?”

  “The more the veins pop out, the better. That’s why they shave.”

  “Everywhere? Like … girls do?”

  “Everyplace that shows. They put tan on, too. Not in the booths—that’s bad for you—like a lotion.”

  “Are they all fags?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s the same everywhere. Some are, some aren’t.”

  “But you’re not either?”

  “What are you—? Wait, you mean, how come I’m not a weightlifter or a bodybuilder, right?”

  “Sure,” she said, flashing a big smile. She had perfect teeth.

  “They’re both all about … competition, I guess. It’s not about lifting weight; it’s about who can lift the most weight. The bodybuilders, they have contests, too. Those are about how they look. Like beauty contests.”

  “And you don’t like to compete?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, people compete all the time, don’t they? Women do, anyway. When I walk through the mall, I’ll bet there’s more women checking out my ass than men. Why do you think that is?”

  “Men don’t spend that much time in malls?”

  She walked over to where I was sitting, stood over me, hands on her hips. “That was very sweet.”

  “I wasn’t trying to—”

  “That’s what made it sweet, stupid.”

  I only had a little of the last power bar left. I chewed it, making it last.

  “You need special food?”

  “Not special. Just not certain kinds of stuff.”

  She walked over to the counter, grabbed a pad and a pen, and sat down next to me.

  “Give me a list.”

  “Do they have, like, a GNC store around here?”

  “They’ve got Florida State University, Wilson.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t follow football, huh?”

  “No.”

  “What I’m saying, this town is lousy with athletes. Every kind you can think of. Besides, I’m used to tracking down food. Albie, it had to be glatt kosher. You know what that is?”

  “Jewish food?”

  “Extra-Jewish food, yes. Now, come on, give me that list. I have to go out shopping anyway.”

  “I’ll go with—”

  “Let me show you something first.”

  “This must have cost a fortune,” I told her. The place looked like a Nautilus showroom, a different machine for everything. Plus all kinds of free weights. Jump ropes, pull-up bars. A shower next to a wood-and-stone sauna. Even a lap pool.

  “You’re not so far off. After Albie had his first heart attack, I had this built. Not that I could ever get him to really use it or anything—he’d just sit there and watch me work.”

  “You—”

  “Six days a week, honey. It’s different for women. For us, the competition never stops. You might not always get a medal, but, you come in last too many times, you end up out of the next race.”

  “That doesn’t sound fair.”

  “Aw, poor baby,” she said, in a sad little voice, making sure I knew it was fake.

  “Not fair to Albie, I was saying.”

  “What!”

  “You’re a gorgeous girl. But there’s no way you look the same as you did twenty years ago, right?”

  “Don’t be so sure,” she said, sticking out her chest again, like she was selling implants.

  “The man stayed with you twenty years. He didn’t leave you, he died, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And he had a ton of money.”

  “He did.”

  “So how are you being fair to him, talking about all this competition stuff?”

  She made some sound I couldn’t understand, then just turned around and kind of stomped out.

  The machines were incredible. Better than I’d ever used. Took me only a few minutes, and I had it down. Thirty minutes on, ten off. Three times.

  I wanted to try that sauna, but I didn’t know how it worked.

  Didn’t see a sign of her on my way back to that little suite.

  “Wake up, tough guy. No way I’m carrying that load in here myself.”

  I’d heard her coming this time; so I’d kept my eyes closed, breathing regular, the way you sleep.

  The trunk of the Lincoln was packed. Boxes and boxes. Like she bought out the store. A lot of stores. Took me four trips to get it all into the kitc
hen.

  What’s she think, I’m fucking moving in here? I thought. But I kept it to myself.

  I figured she’d go off somewhere, but when I got back to my own space, I saw a bunch of clothes laid out everywhere, like a store window.

  “I’m taking myself a nice long bath,” I heard her say from behind me somewhere. “Try on this stuff.”

  When I turned around, she was gone.

  Everything fit. Fit real good. Nobody’s got that good an eye, specially for stuff like underwear and socks. She even had the right-size shoes.

  Maybe she’d come in while I was sleeping?

  That didn’t feel right. Unless there was something in that water … but I’d picked it out myself.

  And it was too big a risk for her, pull a stunt like that just to get clothing sizes.

  More games?

  I put on some workout sweats and went back to the gym. Three more sets. That’s when I can think. When I’m pushing weight, my brain goes somewhere else.

  Then I went back to the little suite. Took another shower. The one in the gym was better, but I didn’t want to take a chance on her walking in.

  Seven twenty-one, the clock said. With a little moon.

  I didn’t see her anywhere. And I wasn’t going to test those new clothes until I knew she was out of the house.

  So I went back to the kitchen and made myself a protein shake.

  I wasn’t even surprised to see the mixer, all laid out on the counter.

  “I’m good at that, huh?”

  “Good at what?”

  “Shopping. Got you everything you needed, didn’t I?”

  “I … guess you did.”

  “That’s my role. And I’ve got it down pat.”

  “What’s ‘role’? Like ‘job’? Or like a role in a movie?”

  “The last one. I’m the gold-digger the rich old guy married. I drive my fancy little car around and buy things, see?”

  “Yeah. That’s what you meant before.”

  “What are you—?”

  “You work. But people who see you working, maybe even people who think they know you, they don’t. Playing that role, it’s just part of the job.”

  She reached behind her, laid her palms flat, did a hand-press to lift her butt off the counter, held it a good fifteen, twenty seconds, then let herself down slow. She hadn’t been lying about using that fancy gym.