Andrew Vachss

by Blue Belle

  It's all right, Belle. Smooth as silk. I'll meet this Mortay at ten-thirty, I'll be in one of the cars by eleven. That's when the Ghost Van goes. I'll be with you soon . . .

  And you'll never leave.

  And I'll never leave.

  I lit a smoke, watching her dress.

  Burke?

  You're going, Belle.

  I know. I will, promise. Remember when you came back to me? After you met that man?

  Yeah.

  I want you inside me. To keep with me until I see you again. I want my smell on you when you kill him.

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  170

  I carried two of the suitcases out to the back. Tossed in the scattergun. Closed the trunk. I held her next to me.

  Belle . . .

  Don't you say it! Whatever you're going to say, don't say it. Tell me tonight.

  I kissed her. There was blood in my heart. When she drove away, I was alone.

  CONTENTS

  171

  In the back room, I put it all together. Cut two fingertips off the black gloves. Buried the plastic bottle in the cart, pistol handle sticking up, wrapped in black tape. I put on the black pants, the black sweatshirt. Worked the blond wig over my hair, stuck on the mustache. The blue golf cap was a tight fit. The black pants had cargo pockets - I put a grenade in each one. The two-inch pistol in my belt.

  Pain plucked at me. Fear. I climbed down into my center. Stayed there, feeling the calm.

  Mortay wanted what was mine.

  If you can't stand to read the weight, you don't climb on the scales.

  Ten o'clock. I pulled on the gloves, ran the two razor-tipped nails through the poison paste.

  It was a struggle getting the shopping cart down the stairs.

  Then I was in the street. All my people safe behind me. Whatever happened.

  I reached down, deep as I could go. Telling myself it would be over soon. I'd be Home Free.

  But I knew. Knew why I was pushing a shopping cart filled with homicide through Times Square. No home is free.

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  172

  I pushed my shopping cart along, smoking a cigarette, mumbling to myself. The clock in the package store on 43 rd said ten-twenty. I slowed my pace.

  Three kids came up the street toward me, wearing matching red silk jackets. I watched their eyes, praying they wouldn't think it was funny to tip over my cart. They went on by.

  I turned the corner. Moving slow, checking doorways for bottles, picking one up, tossing it into my cart.

  The Times clock was a round light in the distance. I pushed the cart ahead of me, one hand on the pistol.

  He was standing under the clock. A long white vertical ribbon in the dark doorway. The clock said ten-twenty-eight. I kept rolling.

  A hundred feet away. Mortay saw me. A used-up bum, collecting empties.

  Fifty feet. I saw his hands hanging loose in front of him. Head turning, scanning the street. Almost home.

  I looked him full in the face. Pushed my cart into his life. Felt the chill. His eyes flicked past me, over my shoulder. I pulled the gun loose, snapped off a shot at his chest, the bottle popping off the front of the pistol. A piece of his coat flew as he spun to the side, moving right at me. I kicked the cart toward him, fired again. The gun cracked alive. Missed. Mortay spun in his tracks, shoulder-rolled against the wall. I leveled the gun. He took off, running the other way.

  I jumped past the cart and took off after him. Four shots left. Humans jumped off the sidewalk. He wasn't used to running - all his speed was short-range. I was forty feet behind him at the corner of 43 rd and Eighth. Mortay glanced west, gave it up, charged across 44 th for the Playbill Bar. I was right behind him, the long-barreled pistol looking for his back. He chopped through people, heading for the side door. I fired another shot to clear the way, coming through. The street was clogged. He couldn't lose me.

  A cop was on the corner of Eighth and 46 th . Mortay took him out with one chop. I jumped over the body, holding the pistol high to clear the street, locked on him.

  At 48 th I was close enough. He felt it, dodging behind cars, weaving through humans. He was running out of gas. When he turned . . .

  Construction site at 49 th , high chain-link fence. Mortay ripped his way over the top, white coat flying as I missed another shot.

  Couldn't follow him. I raced along Eighth until I found an opening, stepped through, gun up.

  I dropped about five feet - they must have started the excavation. No lights. Street noises over my head. Quiet. No sirens.

  I was safe there. Scared to be safe. He couldn't come up on me without getting blown away. But if he got out . . .

  It was like being back in Biafra. Focus on the sounds, separate the jungle-noises from the man-noises. Breathe shallow. Don't fight the fear.

  I heard him, moving west, toward Ninth Avenue. Machine-gun thoughts ripping at me. Did he know how to do this?

  Something moved - flash of white in the night. I fired at the sound. The gun barked - the bullet whined close to the ground, disappointed. I heard him move again.

  I got to my feet, running right at the sounds he made, cracking off another shot. One left.

  Quiet now. I cocked the pistol. Man-sounds to my right.

  I'm still here, pussy. Snake voice hissing out of the night. He wasn't in a hurry.

  I dropped to my knees, crawling forward toward the voice. Another flash of white. I fired. Another crack.

  Then a dry, audible click! I pulled the trigger again. Notliing.

  I felt my guts lock. Fuck! Letting him smell my fear, throwing the empty pistol as hard as I could in the directlon of the noise.

  My turn! he screamed, coming for me.

  I ran for my life, pulling the little backup pistol from my belt. I dived for the ground, rolled onto my back, pushed myself backward by driving my legs into the dirt. Making panic sounds. Leaving a blood-spoor.

  Begging him to come in my mind.

  He flew out of the darkness in a twisting, spinning series of kick-thrusts, a ghost target if I had a knife. I came to my knees, holding the pistol in both hands. He saw the gun, threw himself flat, already tucking his shoulde'r under to kick upward when the hollow-point slug caught him in the chest, pinning him to the ground.

  The noise from the tiny gun was deafening; the dirt bowl we were in made it sound like a cannon. The street noises all seemed to stop at once. I walked slowly toward Mortay. He was choking on his own blood - the slug must have caught a lung.

  I stood over him, legs shaking. His eyes were ice-pick dots under the shelf of bone, holding me the way the slug held him.

  You can't kill me, he whispered. Stone-carved ice. Death can't die.

  You still want Max? I asked, cocking the gun.

  He launched himself off the ground, the knife edge of his hand extended. I fired twice more, blowing him off his feet.

  I heard a siren in the distance. Mortay was on his side. I dropped to my knees next to him. Blood bubbled from his mouth, killing his last words. I pumped two more shots into his chest. His body jumped. I turned him over with my foot. His eyes were open. I fired again, right into the ridge of bone that covered his eyebrows. His eyes wouldn't close.

  The sirens were closer. More than one now. I pocketed the gun, pulled the pin from one of the grenades, holding it tightly in my hand. I slammed the metal ball hard into his face, cracking past his teeth, holding it there. With my other hand, I folded his hands so they were on either side of his face.

  I let go of the lever and ran toward Ninth Avenue. Passed a white coat, swinging gently from a steel girder. The target Mortay had left while he moved in on me. I was almost to the fence on 50 th when I heard the explosion. I hit the fence, sirens screaming to my right. Dropped over the top, feeling the breath burst out of my lungs. I popped the pin on the last grenade, side-armed it back over the fence, crouching in the dark. The sirens shrieked at each other - wolfpack sounds, telling each other the prey was dangerous. The
grenade exploded, buying me a little time.

  I ran up 50 th , the pistol in my hand, driving my knees up to my chest, trying for a burst of speed that wouldn't come. I crossed Ninth, heading for the river, still blocks away from any of the cars we had stashed. Tires shrieked behind me. Cops? I dropped to one knee, leveling the gun. Back over the line - me or them. Belle's Camaro smoked to a stop.

  Come on, brother! The Prof.

  I ran for the car, diving headfirst into the window. Belle stomped the gas, charging for the river. She shot through red lights, standing on the brakes to make the car squat at Twelfth, nailed it again, power-sliding around the corner. She pulled off at 45 th , right behind the black Cadillac the Mole had left for me. I jumped out, scooping up the Prof. His legs were still bolted together in casts, the scattergun steady in his hands. I unlocked the door, threw him in the back.

  Blue lights flashed on 45 th , couple of blocks away and moving in.

  I started the engine. Looked over my shoulder. Where was she? Belle! Let's go! I yelled at her.

  The Camaro's engine roared an answer as she peeled out. Right up 45 th .

  The blue lights came closer. A phalanx of squad cars screaming down the block, at least three deep, spread out to block the way. I wheeled the Cadillac across the highway after her. The Camaro's taillights blazed - she was flying at the cop cars. Head on. I heard her little-girl voice, singing hard-edged in my head. Calling to the cops. Come on!

  The Camaro was a red rocket.

  Hit the brakes! She ain't gonna stop, the Prof yelled. The Camaro shot right down the middle of the street, going the wrong way. The police car in the lead charged to meet her.

  Time stopped. The squad car swerved at the last second. Too late. It fireballed against a row of cars on the left as the Camaro shot past. Gunfire cut through the siren's song, a roadblock of wreckage in its wake.

  They'll never catch that girl, the Prof whispered. A prayer.

  I threw a U-turn and headed for the junkyard.

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  173

  On the West Side Highway I tried to light a cigarette. My hands wouldn't work.

  I can light one for you, bro', but I can't drive the car.

  I straightened the wheel. Reached for the smoke he handed me.

  What happened?

  Girl walks in my hospital room, shotgun in her hand. Comes right in my room. 'What's this?' the doc asks her. 'Jailbreak,' she says. Throws me over one shoulder like a sack of cement, carries me down in the elevator, walks right out the front door. Puts me in that red car. 'Burke needs us,' that's all she said.

  Nothing in the rearview mirror.

  She knew I needed it too, the Prof said, hands on the scattergun. He took something from me. She was giving me a chance to get it back. Said you were going to take out that motherfucker - our job was the cops.

  I dragged on the cigarette, seeing the fireball.

  The Prof read my thoughts. Ain't nothing God or the devil put on this earth gonna catch Belle, brother. She's coming home.

  CONTENTS

  174

  I wheeled the Caddy into the junkyard. The gate swung open. Terry jumped in, steered us through.

  Belle? I asked him.

  Not yet, the kid said, his mouth hard.

  The Mole was waiting. Where's Ramón? I asked him.

  He pointed at the wolf pack. Fighting over what was left.

  I lit a smoke. Carried the Prof out of the Caddy, put him on top of an oil drum. I stood with my people.

  Mortay's dead.

  You make sure? the Prof asked.

  They'll need a microscope for the autopsy. It's over. You blow the basement? I asked the Mole.

  You didn't hear it? Terry said.

  No.

  It'll be on the news, the Mole said.

  I looked at the Prof. She was well away. They weren't looking for her. Why didn't she just run?

  His eyes shone in the fire. Why didn't you?

  I couldn't answer him. Fists clenched so tight my arms ached.

  The little man dragged on his smoke. Her dice, brother. Hers to hold, hers to roll.

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  175

  Tortured rubber screamed on concrete.

  Belle. The back way! the kid shouted, taking off. We ran to the fence. The Camaro shot through, skidding past us. It stopped where the Prof was sitting. Belle didn't get out.

  I ran back to her. Bullet holes stitched the driver's door. I wrenched it open. Belle fell into my arms. The Mole reached past me, unsnapped the seat belt. I carried her to the bunker. Don't talk, I said, lowering her to the ground.

  Her gray sweatshirt was one big dark stain. The Mole cut it away. She was torn to pieces, the blue necklace around her neck. Get the medical kit, he said to Terry.

  I bent close to her. Hold on, Belle. You'll be okay in just a minute.

  Her eyes were closed. They flicked open. Burke?

  You're home now, Belle. It's all right.

  Her voice was soft. My race is run, honey. I'm done.

  Shut up! Save your strength.

  Tell me.

  I love you, Belle.

  I'll be waiting for you, she said. Her eyes closed. The Mole shouldered me out of the way, plunged a needle into her chest, his fingers at her neck. I was on my knees, watching him work, begging in my mind.

  He turned to me. She's gone.

  CONTENTS

  176

  They left me alone with her then.

  I couldn't hold it in me - screaming curses at the night. The dogs went quiet.

  I lay down next to her, wrapping her in my arms. Tears on blood.

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  The sky was getting light when they came back. The Mole. Terry. The Prof, riding a wheelchair.

  I stood next to the little man, my hand on his shoulder. Felt his hand on mine.

  Pull it together, brother. The way she'd want it. She's with the Lord now. And He's one lucky son of a bitch.

  The Mole covered her with a prayer rug.

  I gripped my brother's hand, and said goodbye to my Blue Belle.