Flood

by Andrew Vachss

  The Mole gave me a set of keys to the car, kept one for himself, and said he could drop it off by late afternoon near the Twenty-third Street parking garage I use for alibi operations. I gave the Mole five hundred bucks and we had a contract. I was as sure of the car being there and Goldor’s communications system not being there as I was of anything in this world.

  The Mole went back underground or wherever he goes and Simba-witz walked me back to my car. In twenty minutes I was climbing over the Triboro to the East Side heading for my office to give Pansy the good news.

  39

  AS SOON AS I got back in the office I checked for hippies and dialed Flood. I told her to be ready to move out at around four that afternoon and hung up on her questions. When Pansy came down from the roof I told her I didn’t have a lot of time to screw around just then, but I had lined up a date with the famous Simba-witz for her, to take place on his suburban estate sometime later in the year. She gave me a lot of crap about blind dates but she finally said it was okay so long as I didn’t plan to leave her there.

  The four corners of time were coming in hard, cramming me into a narrow box. I needed space to think it all out—how to approach Goldor, what it would take to pry his information loose, how dangerous he was, would Flood distract him? If I waited too long Pablo’s people could roll up on him and then he wouldn’t be talking to anyone. Or this Wilson, the Cobra, could actually turn up something for the D.A. and they would haul him in. A guy like Goldor had to have some major enemies. I couldn’t bring Max in on this, and I would have to keep the gunrunners on hold because there was just the ghost of a chance that they could lead me to buried treasure if they were better at scamming other people than they were me.

  I finally decided—just a straight frontal approach, offer the maggot some serious money or maybe if that didn’t work let it leak that I could square the snuff-film beef with the federales if I was paid enough. I would have to improvise on the spot, so I didn’t pack any weapons at all except for the usual stuff in my overcoat. I put on a set of G.I. fatigues over a red T-shirt, some soft old boots, a tired felt fedora. I slipped a pair of thin suede gloves and some tinted glasses into the coat pockets, gave Pansy some food, and went back down to the garage.

  I didn’t have much time, so I used it trying to add another layer of protection—but a quick run down to the docks came up empty, and the Prophet wasn’t in any of his usual spots. You can’t always find a Prophet in New York. I drove over to Mama’s, had something to eat, and got the first part of my alibi established. I sat down at my table and wrote out everything I knew about Goldor to leave for Max, just in case. Besides survival I don’t believe in much, but I have a soft spot in my heart for revenge.

  Mama knew something was up, but she just took the paper I left for Max and put it someplace safe. If things went wrong, Max would go to the office, put Pansy in the Plymouth and deliver her to Simba-witz—he would keep the car. I hadn’t bothered to tell him where I stashed any of the emergency money he didn’t already know about, and I knew he would strip the office without me telling him. Not much of a will, but then I don’t have much of an estate to worry about.

  As I turned the key in the ignition in Mama’s back alley I got hit with a fear attack. I get them sometimes—everything starts to break up inside of me and I want to find a hole to crawl into. I never get one when I’m in a situation, just sometimes before and sometimes after. I knew what to do, so I let the fear wash through me and fly around my nerve endings until it finally went out my fingertips. I held my hands in front of my face and I could almost see the fear-bolts jump from my fingers. You have to breathe very shallow, no movement. The fear would never really go away, but sooner or later it would move to someplace where I was more comfortable with it. As always, when it finally moved out my brain felt like it was washed clean and sensory perceptions flooded in—the texture of the leather cover on the Plymouth’s steering wheel, the tiny imperfections in the windshield glass, the muted sounds of a Chinese argument several doors down from me. When I finally turned the key I could feel the bicep muscles send a message to my wrist, and I actually heard the exact moment of ignition before the Plymouth rumbled into life. I pulled out of the alley with less concern than usual for the narrow opening—even my depth perception was enhanced. My brain started to flicker in and out and around the edges of ideas—warming-up exercises before it was to be tested in combat. I kept it flickering, not wanting to focus until I hit something solid. I just let it flit around in the open spaces until it hit on something—no pressure, no suggestions from my so-called intellect to screw things up.

  Max once told me that there is a martial arts style of fighting that closely resembles my way of dealing with fear. It’s called the Drunken Monkey, and the object is to have the fighter so completely dehumanized that he operates purely on instinct. Max told me this style is not the best for doing damage to an opponent—it’s not efficient. But it’s almost impossible to defend against because it’s completely unpredictable—you can’t telegraph what you don’t know. Once my brain goes into full fear-response mode it’s a lot like the Drunken Monkey, I guess. I may not come up with any good ideas, but if you tried to read my mind all you’d get would be vertigo.

  When I pulled the Plymouth around Flood’s corner I caught a flash of white near her door and then she was moving toward me. The white was a pair of vinyl boots, skin-tight, calf-length with about four-inch heels. The bottle-green stretch pants flowed out of the boots, topped by a V-neck jersey in some sort of lemon-lime color. Flood’s pale blonde hair was in two thick braids, tied with green ribbons near the ends. I slowed the car, letting her walk to me. I watched all that fine female flesh bounce around and a thought raced across my mind, something about the Prophet and a goat staked out to catch a lion, and then I heard the screech of brakes and I snapped out of it—some poor chump had wrecked his car watching those bottle-green stretch pants swish down the block.

  I rolled the Plymouth over to Flood, shoved open the door, and got moving before she attracted any more attention. I didn’t turn to look at her until I was moving out of a U-turn to get crosstown to where the Mole would have left the car for me. Even the Plymouth’s gentle movement was making Flood bounce around inside the jersey top, but at least she’d left the Eau de Whorehouse at home—she smelled like soap.

  Flood looked about eighteen with her hair pulled back like it was, and her face glistened like she’d just stepped out of the shower. We stopped at a long light and my eyes traveled from the tips of the white boots up the length of the stretch pants, across the expanse of her jersey, and stopped dead at her throat—she had a dark green velvet ribbon around her neck. I looked again, just to make sure my mind wasn’t still dancing on me. “Flood, could I ask you a question?” I said sweetly.

  “Sure.” She smiled.

  “Are you completely fucking crazy?”

  “Why?”

  “What’s the ribbon for? I told you about the videotape and you put on a fucking ribbon. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “That would be a fucking first.”

  “Burke, you were right, okay? This is a disguise—I walked around for a couple of hours before you came and it really works. If you asked anyone who saw me what I looked like they would never get above my neck. Don’t you think these pants make me look slimmer?”

  “The only thing you come off as is dim, Flood, not slim.”

  “Look, I thought about it and—”

  “And nothing—you drew your usual total blank. The woman in the videotape wasn’t wearing that ribbon, you dummy—it was part of Goldor’s sicko trip. He probably has a drawer full of them—keeps them next to his fucking executioner’s mask or something.”

  “I know that. And when he sees this, he’ll think of her.”

  “And that’s your idea of smart?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “No I won’t—because you’re taking it off, right now.” />
  “Listen, Burke—I know men, I know about them. This will really help. You’ll see.”

  “Take it off, Flood.”

  “Maybe later,” she said, and tried to smile, but I wasn’t buying any of that. We had a staring contest and I won. She put her hands to her throat, unsnapped something, and it came off in her hand. With characteristic maturity, she immediately sank into a heavy pout.

  We drove toward the parking garage in silence. Finally I said “Flood, on this trip I am the captain and you are the crew—period. You want to sit there and bounce those D-cup extravaganzas in this freak’s face until he can’t see straight, that’s okay. But don’t do any thinking, understand?”

  Silence from Flood.

  “You want to sit there and pout like a goddamned brat, or do you want to hear the plan?”

  “I want to hear the plan, oh mighty captain.” Now it was my turn to be silent.

  “Okay, Burke. We’ll do it your way—what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is we go and pick up another car. Actually, I pick up the car and you wait in this one. Then we drive out to Goldor’s house and we walk up and knock on the door, right? Then after he invites us in, you sit there and be quiet and I talk him into giving up Wilson.”

  “That’s the plan?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit too elaborate?” She even curled her lip when she said it.

  “Maybe you’re right. Okay, let’s do it this way—I stop the car at the next corner, Miss Smartass gets out and wiggles her way home, and I go out to Scarsdale by myself.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “Why not? You couldn’t find your way home?”

  “Don’t be so wise, Burke. We have to have a way to make this Goldor tell us about Wilson.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Don’t you think we should work it out first?”

  “Flood,” I said, looking at her, “there is no time.” And she listened to my voice and looked at my face and believed me.

  When we got near the garage I pulled the Plymouth over near the wall and told Flood to get out. She looked at me suspiciously. “You can’t wait in the other car,” I told her. “I’m not even sure where it is and you have no papers for it. I have to leave this one inside and the man there doesn’t get to see you, okay?”

  She just looked at me. “Flood, if I wanted to cut you out of this deal I wouldn’t have picked you up in the first place. Now just get out—stand over where I showed you and be quiet.”

  She switched away, holding her jacket in one hand. I opened the window on her side and called out to her. “Put that damn jacket on, will you?” and she must have understood because, for once, she just did like I said without a big argument.

  I rolled the Plymouth into the underground garage and pulled it over to the side to make sure Mario had seen me come in. In a few minutes he came over to my window, said, “Same as always?” and I nodded. Mario motioned for me to get out, leave the key, and come with him. I followed him back to the cubicle he called his office and we conducted our business.

  “What time on the stub?” he asked.

  “Anytime between eight-forty-five and nine this evening.”

  “Pick it up when?”

  “Late tonight, early tomorrow,” I said, trying to sound indifferent.

  “It’s still fifty plus the parking charges, right?”

  “Right.”

  We then walked over to the time clock where all the entering cars are punched in. Mario reached halfway down into the pile of fresh tickets, pulled one out, tore off my stub and put the other piece in his pocket. He would clock me in at the right time later that night. The number on my stub would match the check-in time—that’s what cost me the fifty bucks. I pocketed the stub, slipped Mario the fifty, and walked out into the afternoon.

  Flood was waiting near the wall. “Any problems?” I asked her.

  “No.”

  I started to walk over to where the Mole was going to leave the Volvo, glancing down at my watch to keep on schedule. Just a couple of minutes shy of six, I would have to call the jerkoffs about the gun deal like I said I would. Flood didn’t need to know any more about my business than she already did, but listening to my half of this conversation wouldn’t do any harm.

  I found a pay phone, watched the second hand of my watch until it was ten seconds short of six, and punched the buttons. James answered on the first ring. “Yes?”

  “I like the deal,” I said, “but I wonder if it couldn’t be upped a notch or two?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Let’s say the deal you proposed is one unit, okay? Now I know some people who want another one-and-a-half units, making two-and-a-half units all told, right? Could your people supply the additional amount? I would be responsible for it.”

  “I’d have to ask.”

  “Do it,” I told him.

  “If it can’t be done—”

  “Then the original is okay, but I would like more if possible.”

  “Same guarantees?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I reach you?”

  “I’ll call same time tomorrow.”

  “Fine. And listen, about that problem my associate had with your—”

  “We had no problem,” I told him.

  “I just wanted to say—”

  “We had no problem,” I repeated in a deliberate voice.

  “Great. Tomorrow, then?”

  “You got it,” I said, and hung up. Dopes.

  I walked away from the pay phone like it was diseased. You never know. Blumberg once told me that the law has to get a specific warrant to tap a phone and then it’s only good for a certain period of time, and even then they can’t be listening to every conversation, just the guy they got the warrant to bug. That’s all bullshit. Blumberg also told me that it’s illegal for a private citizen to tap a phone, but if he does any evidence he gets is admissible in court. What a joke—between the D.E.A. and the Special Narcotics Unit they probably have half the pay phones in this city tapped, but anyone who wants to buy dope can get it by the goddamned carload.

  A gull swept by low over the East River, screeching his anger at the humans who kept snatching pieces of his river to build luxury apartments. I turned the phone conversation with James over in my mind and nothing really computed . . . I didn’t know if I would ever need him and his faggot friend again. My mind was wrestling with dancing images, but Goldor kept cropping up every fifth frame or so. Wearing his mask. I was way past choices.

  I turned away from the river and Flood fell into step beside me, matching me stride for stride. After a block or so she put her hand on my arm, gently. As we walked I slipped my hand around her waist, moved it down and patted her hip. “Behave, okay?” She nodded that she would.

  The Volvo was where the Mole said it would be. My key fit, a clean set of papers was in the glove compartment. I got onto the East Side Drive, getting the feel of the car and heading for the bridge and Route 95. The idea was to drive north of Scarsdale, then drop down back into it. We had plenty of time but I wasn’t anxious for visibility and we couldn’t hit Goldor much before nine if the alibi was to work. I told Flood we would have a picnic first—as soon as we got into Westchester County I changed jackets with her and sent her inside a deli to buy some cold cuts and soda and cigarettes.

  With my jacket covering her, Flood looked like a rich-bitch teenager playing some silly game, the kind you would never notice in the suburbs. When she got back I drove to what was left of an old industrial park in Port Chester and we sat in the front seat and nibbled at the food. We weren’t too hungry. I lit a smoke, leaned back against the seat cushion.

  “Is this our last chance?” Flood wanted to know.

  “No, but it may be our last good chance. Wilson can’t hide forever, but we don’t have forever either.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know.”

  “That I have to go
back . . .”

  “To Japan, am I right?”

  “You know that,” Flood said.

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Burke, do you want—?”

  “Right now—right now I want Wilson.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s enough for now.”

  “I understand,” she said, then asked, “Burke, are you afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I know.” And I did.

  “You know what that means?”

  “It means you’re still a virgin,” I snapped at her.

  And Flood slid over next to me and just held my hand until I saw it was time to go.

  40

  THE VOLVO HAD been the right choice for this run. It was old and dull and anonymous-looking, all right, but it still fit into the neighborhood somehow. Kind of quiet and substantial looking, an appropriate second car for the kind of mouth-breathers who wouldn’t live in the city but still sucked their living from it.

  I knew exactly where to find Goldor’s house—I hadn’t wanted to cruise around the area drawing attention to us so I’d checked with the street maps in the City Planning Office. But the maps hadn’t told me he lived on top of a short hill or that the semicircular driveway in front of the house would be lit up like a Christmas tree. My watch said 8:47, no time to modify anything. The Mole was already in place, getting ready to do his work—now I had to do mine. I’d gone over the thing with Flood a dozen times and I’d just have to rely on her to act right.

  I pulled the Volvo into the drive, rolled just past the front door so it was on the driveway’s downward slope, cut the lights, and killed the ignition. There was no reaction from the house to our approach. I opened the car door, walked around to the passenger side, and held the door for Flood in case someone was watching. The front door was set back inside a small archway with a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s face in the middle and a small button ringed with a halo of light on the right panel. Which one? I opted for the lion’s face. I banged twice—firm but not too insistent. No sound came from behind the door.