Aftershock

by Andrew Vachss

  “He might have run from enemies he made here, too,” I said.

  Patrice gave me a long look. “You don’t miss much, do you, now? A man stupid enough to say ‘kaffir’ around Idrissa isn’t cured of his disease. Why else would he leave a country that hates the blacks as much as he does unless they wouldn’t tolerate the dirty little pederast?”

  That was true enough. Idrissa was Senegalese. His English wasn’t as good as his French, but he knew what “kaffir” meant. He was a fearless giant who often charged the enemy armed with nothing but the long blade he always carried. He could use it hard or soft. His sentry-kill was a two-handed stroke; his night-kill of sleeping soldiers was a single surgical slice through the larynx, his other dark hand stifling the death rattle.

  The night-kills were especially admired, because they were so valuable to all of us. Waking up to find that the man next to you had been dead for hours would plant fear so deep into the enemy that he’d be no good in combat after that.

  I hadn’t lied to Patrice. I ran away from that hospital in Belgium, where they were trying to fix me. Or cure me. Or … I don’t know.

  They told me I had “l’amnésie rétrograde.” I didn’t understand much French then, but most of the doctors spoke English. Still, “retrograde amnesia” didn’t mean anything to me.

  But I knew someone had to be paying the bills. It was such a nice, clean place, and the people there were really trying to help. All of that wouldn’t have come cheap.

  I guess they never expected a little boy to run away. There were no guards or anything. The fence around the grounds was for privacy, not control.

  After that, I don’t know what would have happened if Luc hadn’t found me.

  “Qu’est-ce que tu fais, tu bouffes les restes?”

  By then, I knew enough French to say what I always did: “Laissez-moi tranquille!”

  “Ça fait combien de temps que tu traînes tout seul dans le coin? C’est dangereux, tu sais.”

  The only word I understood was “dangereux.” And an Arab kid who was a little older than me had warned me about old men who are kind to runaway little boys.

  So why did I go with Luc? I was cold; I was always cold. I was hungry—I was always hungry. And Luc wasn’t just old, he was frail. If he turned out to be one of those men I’d been warned about, I was pretty sure I could deal with it. I’d never had a fight in the hospital, but I’d had plenty since I left.

  Luc lived in a tiny little dump in the Belleville section, more like a cave with two small windows at street level. And those windows were so blackened with soot that they might as well have been part of the wall itself.

  But it was warm, once you got a fire going. And cooking over that fire worked fine.

  Luc only went out after dark. I always went with him. He was like a tour guide, pointing out the car-hailing whores, the circling pimps, the hashish dealers, the doors to places I should never go into, the alley gamblers.… All the night people were making a living, but none would ever have a job.

  I didn’t start stealing until Luc was sure I was ready. “Faire les poubelles, c’est bon pour les animaux. Mais faire les poches ou les serrures, ça, c’est la marque d’un homme qui a reçu de l’éducation.”

  By then, I had learned enough to understand what he was saying: “Picking up garbage is for animals. But picking a pocket, or picking a lock, that is work for a man, an educated man.”

  That’s when my “education” started. The war was long over. What the Nazis left behind was a sewer-rat culture, with the criminal class as its rulers.

  Membership in La Résistance was a badge of honor, but far more claimed it than deserved it. The old man didn’t have to claim it—he hated les collaborateurs so fiercely that it was assumed.

  I knew he had been a jeweler before the war, and a smuggler during it. He knew that people fleeing the Gestapo had to travel light, and he could pull apart any kind of jewelry so that only the most valuable parts were left.

  Luc went underground just before the Nazis came in and took everything that had been in his shop. He was an old man even then—past seventy. His wife had died a few years before. He had nothing to do except work as he always had. La Résistance had many uses for a man with a jeweler’s eyes and hands, be it building bombs or opening safes. But when the war was over, no one had any use for a jeweler without jewels.

  Paris was ruled by crime. The old man fit into crime as if born to it. He was careful to live small. Small but proud. “Une maison, pourquoi faire? Les gens se débrouillent toujours pour te prendre ce que tu posssèdes. Mais qui va venir emmerder un vieux clochard? Ceux que je vais dépouiller, ils me donnent la pièce quand je fais la manche et m’occupe de surveiller leurs maisons.”

  I translated in my head, feeling the guile and hate under what was meant to sound like philosophic acceptance of his fate: “What do I need with a house? Whatever people know you have, they will try to take from you. But who bothers with an old beggar? Some of those I plan to steal from put a little coin in my cap as I sit on the sidewalk and watch their houses.”

  Even then, I knew there was no wisdom to be found in the cafés. Always this pretentious garbage, like “Le concept de la liberté individuelle chez l’homme est une illusion absolue.”

  I didn’t need the self-named intellectuals to tell me that individual human freedom was an illusion. For me, I had been free since the moment the old man plucked me from the gutter. To him, I would always listen. And always be obedient.

  I never questioned Luc about why he had taken me home with him. And I didn’t question him when he told me it was time for me to go. He spoke in English, to make sure I never forgot a word.

  “La Légion Étrangère is the only way for you, my son. Listen very carefully, now. You know where their recruiting office is, that place I showed you. I don’t know how old you are, and they won’t, either. You are a good size, you shave, you tell them you are eighteen, they will not argue.

  “But they will ask questions, and you must know the answers. So! Why do you want to enlist? Because you want to be a professional soldier. ‘Parlez-vous francais?’ You answer en anglais: ‘Only a little bit.’ Where are your parents? You are an orphan. And you didn’t want to stay with the caravan. They will understand from this that you are at least part gitan, a Gypsy. Probably a runaway, but that will not concern them.

  “Then they will test you. How far can you run before you collapse? Will you get up and run some more if they order it? Physical pain will be your daily diet.

  “But the hardest test will be the strength of your mind. That, they will test again and again. You will go without sleep for days at a time. For them, ‘adaptability’ is all. When they see how easily you can accomplish this, they will not ask where you learned, or who taught you—a stolen knife cuts as sharply as any you buy in a store.

  “Whatever name you give them cannot be the truth. For you, this is natural—you don’t know your real name. But this you must never admit. So, to the recruiter, your name is Luca Adrian. It is the only version of my name that I can give to you—mine might still call in the hounds.

  “If they accept you, they will let you pick a new name. Your nom de guerre. When you finish five years, you will be able to claim French citizenship. If you try to leave before that, they will either let you go or not, as they choose. You must never put them to that choice.

  “The policy of anonymat is a century old, but still in place. Perhaps not as it was originally, but for you good enough. Because this much is still true: no matter who asks about you, no matter their status or their reason, La Légion will ask your permission to disclose. If you do not give it, they will consider the matter closed.

  “You come in as a blank slate. So whatever they write on that slate, it will be your truth for five years. After that, then you have a choice: stay or go.

  “La Légion exists to fight—if they bring peace to one area, they will be sent to another. The officers will all be French, but those who tra
in with you will not. You will learn all kinds of war, from mountains to deserts to jungles. That may be valuable to you later in your life. Or it may not. But what is beyond value is that any legionnaire may construct his own past.

  “I know what is in your mind, my son. You are thinking, after five years you will come back. To this place. To me. But only this place will be here—I will not. It is time for us both to go, you understand? To different destinations. And never again to meet.”

  I picked up the ragged knapsack that contained all my possessions and climbed up the stone stairs to the street.

  I didn’t look back. I wanted the last sight the old man had of me to be my complete respect and trust.

  I continued to reach for my life before that time with the old man for many more years. I finally just gave up. I accepted that I would never know. Maybe I was never going back to a place where I would be welcomed, but by then I knew I hadn’t come from any such place, either.

  I got out of the Lexus and walked over to the Evo. I crossed the windshield to let them get a good look, then I stood by the passenger-side front window, hands open at my sides.

  The window zipped down. “Do we know you?” a voice said. Young man’s voice, trying too hard to sound hard.

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m a collector. I thought I might be able to add to my collection.”

  “Who told you to come here to do that?”

  “That’s a joke, right?”

  The voice waited a solid minute. Then it said, “Get in the back.”

  The back seat held a man sitting behind the driver. Nothing else.

  I got in, sat down.

  “A collector?” A man’s voice. A full-grown man, in his forties.

  “That’s me.”

  “You mind a little light pat-down, Mr. Collector?”

  “Yeah, I do. I carry. No surprise, right? Anyway, you’ve got a transmitter-detector running.”

  “You saw that?”

  “No. But if I’ve come to the right place, you’d have one around somewhere.”

  “Huh! You collect what?”

  “Actually, I collect collections.”

  “Personal collections.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re talking what?”

  “Minimum of fifty full-autos, one-man carry pieces. No MAC-10 conversions, no TEC-9 garbage. And no wire-stock Uzis, either. AK-style, no plastic.”

  “Hard to find a collection that big.”

  “That’s what I was told. So I came here.”

  “You’re talking about a hundred large.”

  “No, I’m not. Seventy-five, that’s realistic. And a nice markup.”

  “Not nice enough for the risk.”

  “I can go eighty. Or I can just go.”

  “I think you should just go. But tomorrow night—say, two a.m.—you bring the money to an address I’m going to tell you. You wait there while the money gets tested. Checks out okay, you get your stuff.”

  “Or I get stuck.”

  “So how do you want to make it work?”

  “I come where you say. I bring what you say. I wait like you say. Only you wait with me.”

  I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel him nod. Not saying yes, thinking it over.

  “No reason for the money to leave, right? You’re testing it right there.”

  “So?”

  “So you’re just renting for the night, so you don’t have to worry about me coming back. And I don’t have to worry about someone going south with my cash.”

  “You’ve done this before. And the only people who have experience like that are—”

  “That’s what you think, call it off. Now, before I waste any more time. You haven’t said one word that could get you in trouble.”

  “Just one question. Why come to a little place like this for such a big buy?”

  “I only picked up on you from the word going around. But I was told this is real safe.”

  “By who?”

  “And what you’re calling a big buy is nothing but a test run,” I said, ignoring his question.

  “What’s a ‘big’ buy?”

  “Twenty times this. More, if you can get it. And heavier, if you can do that. M4 fifties, armor piercers, surface-to-air, heat-seekers. That kind of load, the farther north you can meet, the better. We’d have to move it all at once. That means one truck, one load. And we don’t want it on the road more than a few hours, max.”

  “So you’re based up north? And maybe a bit to the east?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No. But I think I’m getting the idea now.”

  “I think you might be.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  “Like I said.”

  I climbed out of the back seat and walked over to the Lexus, feeling the eyes on my back. If anyone followed me, I’d know. There was a spot I’d already scouted, less than five miles away. That’s where I’d stop to put the license plates back on the Lexus.

  After I waited awhile.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Where I was dug in, there was no way to follow me without going off-road. They would have known that, so I expected a jacked-up four-wheel-drive truck. But nothing showed up.

  There was another way to leave, and that’s what I did. No way to be sure I was the only one who knew that route—I moved very slow. But it was empty all the way through.

  That left three possibilities: they were just big talkers, they’d gotten an ATF whiff off me and passed on the deal … or they’d been telling the truth.

  Since I wasn’t ever coming back, that spot wouldn’t be worth much to them for months, at minimum; it was already worthless to me.

  The next spot was almost vibrating with danger. Not the kind of danger most teenage girls would pick up on. But for the kind that would, it wouldn’t scare them off; it’d pull them closer. I wasn’t sure how any of this could help MaryLou, but I trusted that those red dots of Dolly’s would lead to something I could use, if I could just put my hands on it.

  I had most of the license plates and car descriptions down when I saw three guys in matching jackets walking over to where I was parked. The jackets were waist-length, black, with dark-red sleeves. As they got closer, I could see some kind of dark-red emblem covering the heart side of each one.

  They walked with the kind of swagger only certain people use. I don’t know what they think it makes them look like. After I left the Legion, I knew what they looked like to me: if I wasn’t being paid, nothing. If I was, targets.

  I let the window on my side slide down.

  “You one of those old guys who like to watch?” their leader said.

  “I’m looking for my daughter,” I said. I knew that the stubborn-stupid voice I was using didn’t match the Lexus, but it was dark and I didn’t think they were looking so much as they were listening. “I need to find out if she’s here. I warned her—”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Linda Sue Dickson,” I said.

  “We know everyone here,” the leader said. He turned to his left, asked one of his boys, “You ever hear of a girl named Linda Sue?”

  “Nah.”

  “She’s not here, Pop. Maybe you better look somewhere else.”

  “This is where her friends said she’d be.”

  All three of them laughed. “That’s a guarantee she’s not,” the leader told me. “Now, why don’t you just move on?”

  “Not until I know for sure.”

  “Look, old man, we’ve been—”

  I don’t know if any of them had ever seen a sawed-off shotgun before. I was pretty sure they hadn’t. Not from the wrong end, anyway. It cut off the leader’s words like a butcher knife through a thin slice of cheese.

  They all wanted to back away. But they didn’t want to move, either. Who knows what a crazy old man might do?

  “My name is Larry Tom Dickson. From Brontville. If you know a better place for me to look, tell m
e. Tell me right now. Or I’m coming back with some of my kin and going down there to look for myself.”

  “Rocky’s,” the leader said, instantly.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a bar. Just outside the city limits. Right off the highway. You can’t miss it—there’s always a lot of motorcycles parked outside.”

  “Uh …” I muttered, like I was thinking about what he said. Then, “I’m going over there.”

  “Sure. Sure, whatever you want.”

  I stomped the gas, and the Lexus squirted away.

  Turned out there was a bar named Rocky’s. Right where that punk had told me it would be. Even had the motorcycles parked out front.

  I took my time getting there, and drove right on past without touching the brakes. I kept going until I found a bridge, then I crossed over and doubled back. As good a way as any to see if I had company.

  No.

  I didn’t expect they’d go driving around Brontville looking for a Larry Tom Dickson, either.

  I had the Lexus inside our garage while it was still dark, but only a few minutes before the sky would start to change.

  “Dell, are you okay?”

  I should have figured that they’d still be up. The two of them, Dolly and Rascal, waiting on me.

  Dolly wanted to be sure I was all right. Rascal wanted his rawhide. You can train a dog with food and patience; you can have a dog’s love if you give yours. But what makes dogs more reliable than people is that there’s no way to make a dog turn traitor.

  “I only got three, four hours to sleep, baby. Then I get to go play dress-up again.”