The Weight

by Andrew Vachss

  “Where’re we going?”

  “Tampa. It’s, I don’t know exactly, maybe three, four hours from here.”

  “Okay.”

  “ ‘Okay’? That’s it, ‘Okay’?”

  “What do you want me to say? I figure you’ll tell me whatever you want to, sooner or later.”

  She kept on driving. She looked like she hadn’t been to sleep at all, but I didn’t offer to take over. I could see she was locked on, concentrating.

  We went through little clots of traffic, but it was mostly trucks. Rena was a good driver, smooth with the wheel. I felt my body easing. If she didn’t want to talk, maybe I’d just …

  “This isn’t fair,” she said.

  “What isn’t?”

  “What I’m doing. There’s no reason you have to go where I’m going. They’ve got bus stations in Tampa if you don’t want to get on a plane.”

  “I want—”

  “Yeah. I know what you want. I’m sitting on it.”

  I felt bad when she said that. Not that she was wrong, but she wasn’t exactly right, either. I don’t know why I felt bad, but I knew for sure that I did.

  I looked out my window. There was nothing to see.

  A long time passed. I kept looking out the window.

  “I’m sorry, Sugar.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’m sorry. What I said, you took it wrong. But that’s not your fault; it’s mine. I’ve been playing a role so long that I don’t pay attention anymore. That’s over now. All over. Everything. It’s over.”

  “I don’t get what you—”

  She shifted in her seat, twisted herself below the waist so I could see the right cheek of her butt. Her jeans were so tight that I could see the outline of something in the back pocket.

  “I can’t keep driving like this. Just take it, okay?”

  I didn’t even try and get my fingers inside the pocket of her jeans. I could see the only way I could get it out was to push it up. It came out slow. But as soon as I saw the top of it, I knew what it was. I got my finger and thumb around it and pulled it free.

  The twin to Solly’s book.

  “What you came for, right?” she said, staring through that windshield.

  “Half of it, anyway.”

  “What else do you—?”

  “This Jessop guy, remember?”

  She made a funny sound, like laughing and spitting something out at the same time. Then she went back to staring out the windshield.

  I opened the little blue book. It was all in the same kind of Jewish writing that I saw on that bag Albie had hidden in that desk.

  “Nothing in English, right?” she said.

  “No,” I said. But I knew it was the right one for sure—the old bloody thumbprint was right where Solly said it would be. I looked a little closer. There was some English—that thumbprint was stamped over “Goliath, 22/7/46,” whatever that was supposed to mean.

  “Yeah? Well, this is,” she said, reaching inside her shirt and pulling a folded-up piece of paper out of her bra. “Be careful with it, Sugar.”

  I unfolded it the same way I had seen her unwrap that prayer-bag thing. I knew by then that she wasn’t just being careful, she was showing respect. So that’s what I did, too.

  The paper wasn’t any bigger than a dollar bill. The writing was so small, I had to move my hands a little away from my eyes to make it out.

  My Rena, if you are reading this, it means I am gone and Solly has told you he is holding my will. To prove this, he would read you the part that led you to my desk. You must listen to me now. Listen and obey.

  GET OUT OF THE HOUSE. GO NOW. NEVER COME BACK. They will come soon. They will be afraid an old man babbles in his sleep. They will never believe you know nothing. I told you this time would come. You know where to go. Go now! Do not call Solly. For you, there is no will. Disappear, Rena. You can do that. With me, you started your life over. Now you must do that again.

  Know this, child: my life began anew when you came into it, but also know that my life had already been pledged. I apologize for nothing. What I did, I did. I never told you of these things, because knowing would be dangerous for you. I was always true, my Rena. To you, and to the oath I swore many years before your birth. I could never allow a conflict between my oath and you, because my oath was given to a greater thing than any person could ever be.

  You have my love, forever and always. It would be no betrayal for you to be with another now. In truth, it would be my wish. But, whatever you do, you tell Solly NOTHING. If you must speak with him, lie. Once you are gone from him, STAY gone. Never contact Solly again. I write this with a prayer that someday you will be reading it. If you never read this, it means you have already rejoined me. If any other person is reading this, I have been betrayed.

  So to whoever is reading this, I say: YOU MUST SHOW THIS MESSAGE TO ARI! Show this to Ari BEFORE you act.

  Ari, this woman knows nothing of our business. Now you have the proof you sought. SOLLY IS THE TRAITOR. This girl does not know my book exists. Solly has my book. He will deny this, but I sent it to him months ago, when the doctors told me I had little time left. When Solly says he does not have my book, you will know the truth. Ari, if you hurt this girl, you will learn nothing. Worse, you will dishonor your own father and the cause for which we both pledged our lives. Go see Solly. And finish this.

  Then there was some Jewish writing. Maybe it was more words, but I could only read the English part. I did that, over and over again.

  I shook my head, like maybe that would change the writing. I’d probably still be staring at that paper if Rena hadn’t stabbed me in the side of my neck with a long fingernail.

  “What the—?”

  “There’s nothing else to say, is there? You got what you came for.”

  “Except for—”

  “Just stop, okay? I don’t care anymore. I’m going to obey my husband. You want to run back to Solly, do it. You want to talk to Jessop so bad, I can tell you where to find him too.”

  “How could you do that?”

  “Easy,” she said, like there was a foul taste in her mouth. “On paper, he’s my husband.”

  Rena pulled the Caddy into a marked-off slot right in front of one of those little up-and-down houses. She had the key for the front door.

  The place was like brand-new clean, but it had a musty smell. Like Solly’s unit, I thought. Only his smelled good, because Grace came in every week.

  I got all our stuff inside. Rena went around turning things on. “Don’t open the blinds,” she said. “I want to get the car into the garage. It’s out back. We have two slots. One’s large enough for an RV. That’s a big thing in time-shares.”

  Then she was gone. At least, this time, there weren’t any of those damn bugs to keep me company.

  “What’s a time-share?” I asked, as soon as she sat down. She looked like she didn’t have much left in her, and I wanted to be sure I knew what the deal was. “Time-share” didn’t sound good to me.

  “The owner is a corporation,” she said, between puffs of her smoke. “You buy shares that entitle you to use the place one month out of every year. Summertime, the shares are pretty cheap. In the winter, they go for a lot.”

  “So you own one of those shares?”

  “I own them all. One corporation, twelve shareholders. But they’re all me, just different names. The corporation has a bank account. The mortgage company gets a check every month from that account. Automatically, I mean—they just go in there and take it out. Same for the condo association. You have to pay them fees, on top of the mortgage. Also the cable TV.

  “There’s no phone. The account for the corporation always has enough in it to carry the place for a few years, even if no new deposits show up.

  “I handle all the deposits into the corporate account. I just made one last April. Nobody’s going to be asking any questions for a long time. And I’ll be gone a much longer time by then. That’s the way Albie set i
t up.

  “The same for the car. I own it. In the same name I use for my driver’s license and insurance. Down here, a white Caddy’s like a palm tree—anyplace you look, you see them.”

  “Are you going to—?”

  I stopped when I saw she was already asleep. Just passed out on the couch. I snubbed out her smoke in the ashtray, then I kicked back in the recliner.

  But I didn’t go to sleep.

  It was way past midnight when she came around. At first, she looked scared, like she woke up in the middle of a bad dream. Then she shook her head hard, put her nose under her armpit, made a face.

  That’s when she saw me there.

  “I need a shower, Sugar. Then you can sleep, okay?”

  I didn’t say anything. Just kept sitting there, with her pistol in my lap.

  She made it quick. I guess she knew I was running on fumes. I don’t even remember going out.

  When I opened my eyes, I was in a bed. Rena was next to me. She must have taken off my shirt and shoes and socks. She smelled fresh and sweet. I didn’t.

  I found the shower easy enough. Draped over the hamper, all the fresh clothes I’d need, except for my shoes.

  I just kept going, like I knew what I was doing. But I didn’t even know what day it was. Didn’t know the time until I went back into the living room. It had those tiny little blinds, the kind you open and close by twisting a rod. I pushed one up with my finger. Daylight.

  The kitchen was nothing like the one in Rena’s house, but it was still all high-end. Looked new. I opened the refrigerator. Bottles of water were all I saw. But there was a whole mess of my power bars on the little round table.

  I was still eating when I felt her behind me. I started to turn, but she put her hand on my face and pushed it back to where it was.

  “Finish first, then we’ll talk,” she said.

  In the reflection from the hood over the stove, I could see she wasn’t wearing anything.

  When I went into the front room, she was waiting. Dressed in a set of baggy gray sweats, barefoot. Her hair was down, looked wet, like she’d just walked out of the shower.

  With the blinds drawn and only a little lamp going in the corner, the room was all dark and smoky. Like an after-hours joint, except for the quiet.

  “You’ll have to cut this later,” she said, pulling at her hair. “I can dye it myself. I’ll pick up what we need when I buy some real suitcases.”

  “You’re going to, what, disappear?”

  “I already have. Rena Rosenberg is gone. I’m Lynda Leigh. On this unit, on the car, on my license. Even on my birth certificate. Which you need to get a passport. And Lynda Leigh has a credit history, too.”

  “You’ve been ready for this to happen, huh?”

  “For a long time. Albie knew it would come someday, and he never let me forget it. You know something else? I made all this ID myself. Me. Albie taught me. Perfect ID isn’t just copying a photo on a license, like I did when you took the Lincoln. It takes research, equipment, and technique. That last one, I don’t know if I can explain it. But Albie said I was a natural.

  “I learned from the best. Albie told me that the fatal flaw in buying ID is, you’re giving the person you bought it from more than just the money; you’re giving him something he can sell. But when you learn to make your own, you never have to trust anyone, ever.”

  “And this Jessop …?”

  She lit another cigarette. “I lied,” she said.

  “You lied about what?”

  “Everything. I’m not thirty-nine; I’m thirty-five. I married Jessop in 1989. That was to keep him from going to prison. He paid my mother to sign some paper so we could get married.”

  That’s what the lawyer told me about Jessop, I thought. He got married to some girl who was fourteen. She wasn’t lying about that, anyway.

  “I’d already been with him for almost two years then,” Rena said. “I’d probably still be with him except he once brought me along to a meeting with Albie.”

  “At that big house?”

  “No,” she said, like only an idiot would even think that. “In a restaurant. I already had the first implants by then, and Jessop, I think he wanted to show off. Show me off, I mean. I was all slutted up: four-inch heels, raccoon eyes, a little skirt I had to fight to fit into.

  “Albie had two men with him. The same men who are coming for his book now. Not them, necessarily, men just like them, I mean.

  “They started talking about some job. Right in front of me, like I was a piece of furniture. All of sudden, Albie says to Jessop, ‘This is the way you work? You bring a little girl along, let her listen to everything?’

  “ ‘She’s dumb as a fucking rock,’ Jessop says. ‘By the time we get back home, she won’t even remember she’s been here. How old do you think she is—twenty-two, maybe? Well, she’s fifteen, and she’s been stripping for a couple of years already. You got nothing to worry about.’

  “Albie just looks at Jessop. ‘I drove a long way for this,’ he says. ‘Did I say you could bring anyone?’

  “ ‘No,’ Jessop tells him. ‘But what’s the—?’

  “That’s when Albie cut him off. ‘You take any risk you want. But you don’t make me take them with you. So this girl, she stays with me until it’s over.’

  “The way Albie said it, you could see he wasn’t asking. I’d never seen Jessop like that before. Scared, I mean.”

  “He left you there?”

  “Sure. Far as he was concerned, this was just a long trick. Like a rental. I think he even expected Albie to throw a bunch of cash at him when the job was finished.”

  “But …?”

  “But Albie brought me to the house, the one you stayed at. He told me I was going to stay there until I was old enough to make intelligent decisions.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Not for a minute. Albie told me to take a shower, scrub all that shmutz—that was the word he used; I still remember—off my face. Put all my clothes in a plastic bag. He didn’t have any women’s clothes, so I had to wear men’s stuff for a couple of weeks, until he brought all kinds of things back. I didn’t know exactly what the stuff was, but I could tell it was good.”

  “He never—?”

  “Don’t you even think it! I had to read all the time. Books, magazines, newspapers. And watch TV; that was okay, too. Anything I didn’t understand, I’d ask Albie. Some things he’d tell me. Sometimes, he’d say I was just being lazy, go look it up. An education, Albie called it. The first time he said, ‘Rena, you are a truly intelligent young woman,’ I thought I would die, I was so happy.

  “All I know is that Albie met with Jessop again. After the job, I mean. I don’t know what they said, and I know they kept doing business, but Jessop never came around the house. None of the people that Albie set up jobs for ever did. Just those other men; the ones I told you about.

  “So, one day, I asked Albie if he’d bought me from Jessop. ’Cause I knew Albie had money, and Jessop loved money.

  “You know what Albie said? He said he told Jessop he’d disposed of me. I knew too much; I’d seen too much. That’s when Jessop wanted to get paid—he must have told Albie he had a lot of money invested in me. But I know Albie told him he wasn’t getting a dime, because it was Jessop’s fault in the first place, for bringing me along.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I know. I … never really believed it, not for a long time. I remember, once, Albie told me to stop being such a little brat. I knew what he wanted then. To spank me, you know what I mean? A lot of guys are into that, especially with a young girl. Only, I was wrong. You know what he wanted?”

  “For you to stop being such a little brat?”

  “Yes!” she said, smiling for the first time since … I didn’t even remember the last one.

  She lit another smoke. “I was with Albie twenty years, that much is true. But I wasn’t his wife until the millennium came. The year 2000, that’s what everybody called it.r />
  “I was Rena for ten years, but only by name. One day, I just marched into his den—that’s where the partners desk was—and I told him I was old enough to make intelligent decisions. And I’d made one.”

  “That’s almost like this old movie I saw once.”

  “If you say Baby Doll, I’ll spit in your face. I saw that movie. We’ve got a satellite dish, with like a million channels, so I know what you mean. And it was nothing like that. Albie wasn’t waiting until I turned legal, and he damn sure knew I was no virgin. And I didn’t walk around shaking it, either.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? You’ve got no idea—”

  “I’m sorry for saying something that hurt your feelings, Rena.”

  “Rena’s gone.”

  “Lynda, right?”

  “Yeah. Albie always told me this day would come. That’s why he replaced the implants.”

  “I don’t under—”

  “After Albie … went, I was supposed to go, too. I always had Albie’s little book. I was supposed to take that with me, and hide it where I could always find it. A life-assurance policy, Albie called it.”

  “Life insurance?”

  “Assurance. Something I could trade for my life if any of … those men found me. And that isn’t all. Anyone can get paper ID. Only the implants, they were like this secret weapon. Plenty of women change their hair, but how many have implants taken out?”

  “I know a girl who did.”

  “A stripper, right? And she went jumbo on them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The size I got, it makes me … stand out, I guess. But they’re not the kind that would herniate my spine.”

  “They don’t … pull on you?”

  “Not a bit. I wasn’t lying about the working out every day.”

  “So, if you got … smaller, you wouldn’t look like yourself?”

  “Depends on where you’re looking.”

  “I get it.”

  “Good,” she said, like she was a little annoyed. “You have any more questions, Sugar?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  She turned a little straighter, facing me like she was making sure I still had the different-colored eyes.