Safe House b-10

by Andrew Vachss

  “Oh, that’s quick, Slick,” the Prof snarled. “What’s that maniac gonna do if something jumps off, blow the place up?”

  “Mole’s smart,” I defended him.

  “Smart? Man’s a motherfucking genius!” the Prof shot back. “Did I say no? But he ain’t smart like people, you understand? I don’t want none of his science shit around my boy, see? We be right outside, laying in the cut. One tap on the cellular and we Rambo the joint, we have to, okay? Ain’t no need to go nuclear.”

  “I was just—”

  “Nix that,” the Prof cut me off, any concern for Clarence’s safety quickly overridden by even the slightest implication that the kid wasn’t competent to handle the job. “Clarence walks point, we cover the joint. Our dice, loaded nice—it’s all on ice.”

  But our dice didn’t make one good pass all night. A five-hour investment drew nothing but blanks. “I didn’t see no Chinese woman, mahn,” Clarence said during debriefing. “And never this Porkpie guy either.”

  “It worked like I said? With the booth?”

  “Yeah, mahn. Just like that. Only two nibbles on the pieces, though.”

  “Sound legit?” I asked him, leaning close. In our world, when we’re dealing guns, “legit” means criminal. And “crooked” means the goddamned ATF.

  “I think so,” Clarence said. “Hard to tell with those boys. We just . . . talked around it, like. He want to know what I got. I want to know what he want. You know. . . .”

  “Yeah. You said two, right?”

  “Oh, the second guy, mahn, he was nothing. A kid. One of those European guys from the Bronx, maybe. I could not tell for sure. He wanted a pistol. Just one pistol. It felt like personal, not professional. I blew him off.”

  A European guy from the Bronx was Clarence-speak for Armenian. There’s supposed to be a whole tribe of them up there, gunfighters, every one. “He cop an attitude?” I asked.

  “Nah, mahn. Nothing like that. I told him bulk only, and he didn’t push. He had his boys with him, over to the side. I think he was just profiling, maybe. Young stupid boy. Probably throw the piece away when the clip get empty.”

  If that was so, the kid sure wasn’t Armenian, I thought. “You up for another round?” I asked Clarence.

  “I go the distance, mahn.”

  The next night was the same. “Place is nasty, brother,” Clarence said afterwards, a disgusted look on his face. “I keep this up, I have a big dry-cleaning bill for sure.” He grimaced, examining the sleeve of his plum-colored worsted sport coat as though it contained the answer to some important question.

  “The buyer come back?” I asked.

  “I didn’t see him, mahn. But I told him next week, right? He was gonna speak to some people, you know how that go.”

  “Yeah.”

  I gave it some thought, turned to the Prof. “You think we need a different player? Porkpie, he’d take a booth and just open up shop. He’s a middleman. Whatever you want, he could find it for you. Maybe that’s the kind of guy we need. Clarence set himself up as an arms dealer. This Chinese woman, she’s only looking for muscle, maybe?”

  “Or maybe she already found it,” the little man replied. “And she’s not coming back, Jack.”

  I wasn’t ready to let go of it. “One more time,” I said. Clarence nodded.

  From our vantage point deep in the parking lot, we watched from the front seat of the Plymouth as cars came and went all night long. No way to tell who was inside. Sometimes the cars parked, sometimes they just dropped someone off. The weather was too cold and ugly to make a solid ID, everyone wearing coats, all bundled up. A lot of them had hats too. With the lousy light and the slanted sight-lines, I couldn’t tell Chinese from Swedish. But I’d know Porkpie—and he didn’t show.

  The Prof and I talked each new sighting over anyway, just to keep the time moving. It was bone-deep cold in the car. Still, we didn’t want to run the heater. Nobody was cruising the lot peering into car windows, but a plume of smoke from the exhaust would mark us even from a distance.

  The cell phone in my pocket buzzed once. Twice. I didn’t touch it. In about ten seconds, it did the same thing again.

  “He’s got her,” I said to the Prof. It was one buzz for Porkpie, two for the Chinese woman, three for both. “Check to be sure.”

  The Prof pulled his own cell phone, punched in a speed-dial number, let it ring a few times, then cut the connection. I lit a cigarette, waiting. The Prof’s phone buzzed, then went dead. Same again. One more time.

  Max was on Porkpie. We’d had the little ferret on full-shadow ever since we started this piece. Max can’t hear, but the Mole had fixed him up with a vibrating pager set to go off if we dialed a certain number. The instant callback meant he had Porkpie in his sights. And a single ring meant the weasel was nowhere near Rollo’s.

  Like they say in the S&M clubs . . . time to role-play.

  I opened the door to Rollo’s and walked in. Caught Clarence’s eye. He climbed out of his booth and went toward the bathroom in the back. The only way out is through the kitchen, and that isn’t open to customers. He’d stay back there for a few minutes, checking for traps while I set mine.

  I was wearing an old leather jacket over a heavy black sweatshirt, jeans and steel-toed work boots. They kept the joint hot enough to make a nun work topless, steam hissing from the industrial radiators lining the windowless walls. I took off my jacket, sat there a few minutes, getting my eyes adjusted to the haze from the low-lying smog. Clarence walked past me to my left, heading for the door. I got up and took an empty booth, jacket over one shoulder.

  The place looked like a Southern juke joint, only bigger and without the music. Ramshackle, thrown-together furniture, a big red-and-white Coke sign behind the wood plank bar, yellowing posters on the walls—looked like they’d been swiped from a Medicaid dentist’s office. The low ceiling trapped a heavy, multi-tone hum of voices, keeping the heat close to the floor. Somebody had nailed a THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign to the side wall. The floor was a giant ashtray.

  I eye-swept the big room, watching the criminal food chain draped over the landscape, everything from bottom-feeders to land sharks. I scanned quickly, looking for familiar faces. Nothing.

  At one of the tables a teenager with an Arabic face watched intently as an older man from a similar tribe demonstrated some three-card-monte moves, doing it slow enough so the kid could follow, talking a blue streak in a low voice. Teacher and student.

  Right across from them, a skinny blonde woman was getting histrionic with three heavy-bodied, stoic-faced men with identical slicked-back black hair. They looked enough alike to be brothers—Greeks, I thought. All watching quietly as the skinny blonde waved her hands around, contorting her face to make a point.

  An old man with a thick shock of graying hair sat alone at a table, a heavy gold watch on each of his broad wrists. People stopped by his table, bent over and said something in his ear. Nobody sat down. Odessa Beach godfather, maybe.

  In one corner sat a smooth-bodied man with plain round glasses, dark hair cut right to the scalp. He was big, six six at least, had to weigh in over two fifty. He had a bemused expression on his face, a drawing tablet open before him, right hand sculpting. One of the Greeks spotted what he was doing, started to stand up. The big guy didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off the drawing tablet. An island of quiet popped up out of the ocean of noise. The old Russian got up, walked over to the big guy’s table, put his hand on the big guy’s shoulder as he looked closely at the drawing. A giant diamond on his hand sparkled—the real thing. The old Russian nodded approval, went back to his table. One of the Greek’s brothers whispered something to him—I didn’t need a translator: “Sit still!” The ocean swallowed the island again. Maybe the Greeks were really Russians. Or just guys who knew the score. Whoever the big guy with the drawing tablet was, he was nobody tofuck with.

  The waitress strolled over, a stone-faced woman in her forties. “What’ll it be?” Her voice made he
r face look inviting.

  “Mimi around?” I asked.

  “I’ll check,” she said, and walked off.

  I cracked a wooden match into flame, but I didn’t even have it to the tip of my cigarette when she materialized at the booth.

  “You looking for me?” Mimi asked, a friendly smile on her classic Aztec face. Her skin had a lovely pale-bronze glow. Highlights glinted in her long raven hair. But her eyes were as flat as a cadaver’s heart monitor.

  “Actually,” I said, “I was looking for some work.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “Body work,” I told her, softly.

  Her obsidian eyes ran over my torso appraisingly. “You work with your hands?” she asked, showing me hers. Her fingernails were long black-lacquered talons.

  “I do heavy work,” I said, meeting her gaze.

  I didn’t know where Mimi had been raised, but she recognized the jailhouse stare quick enough. “We don’t vouch for anyone here,” she said. There wasn’t a trace of accent in her voice. Just a warning.

  “I got it,” I told her. Handed her a hundred-dollar bill. It disappeared—she had fast hands.

  “You want something while you’re waiting?”

  “Rye and ginger. Don’t mix them, okay?”

  The waitress brought me the shot glass of what they said was rye and a taller glass with a small bottle of off-brand ginger ale. “Seven-fifty,” was all she said. I gave her a ten. She took it and walked away again. Rollo’s ran like city buses: Exact Change, No Refunds.

  Moved just about as fast too. I sat there by myself for a good while. Poured ginger ale into the tall glass and drank most of it off. Then I dumped in the shot and let it sit there melting into the ice cubes until the glass was a quarter full. The waitress came over, asked me if I wanted another one. I told her “Sure,” nodding at the tall glass. She took it away, brought me the same setup, pocketed another ten.

  I couldn’t spot the Chinese woman, but the cell phone in my pocket hadn’t gone off, so she hadn’t left. If she was the right one, we had her boxed.

  An argument broke out at one of the little round tables. Man and a woman. He grabbed her hair and slapped her a couple of times. Back and forth. Slow. Showing her how things were between them. I couldn’t hear what he was saying to her, but he was talking all the time he was slapping her. The bouncer—the one they call T.B.—glided over, hands empty at his sides. He spread his arms wide, saying something peaceful. The guy dropped the woman’s hair and jumped to his feet. T.B. stepped back. Encouraged, the guy came out with a knife, flicking it open with his thumb as he went into a crouch. A grin split T.B.’s face, twisting the scar under his left eye. I didn’t see his foot move, but the guy’s knee went out. T.B. hit him once, just under the heart, as he was falling. The guy stayed where he was. The girl was on her feet then, but Mimi was behind her, hands on the girl’s wrists, locking her in. The girl said something I couldn’t make out.

  “As if!” Mimi laughed, letting the girl go, giving her the shot if she wanted to take it.

  The girl kept her hands down. Eyes too.

  T.B. put his finger to his lips. The girl helped the guy up. They went out together—she was walking, he was leaning on her. T.B. went back someplace into the shadows. Mimi pulled a rag out of her waistband and started swabbing up the table.

  Then the Chinese woman sat down in my booth.

  Only she wasn’t Chinese. Her face was too square, especially around the jawline. And her complexion was a dusky rose, with a gold underbase. Her eyes were a pale-almond color, and they lacked the Oriental fold at the corners. Her hair was a red so dark that the color kept shifting in the reflected light, with a distinct curl as it fell to her shoulders. Her mouth was wide and full, slightly turned down at the corners. A faint spray of freckles broke across her wide flat nose. Along the L-line on her right jaw was a dark undulating streak, as though an artist had inked it in for emphasis.

  “Trying to guess?” she asked me. Her voice was husky, cigarette-burnished. Musical, but not Top Forty.

  “Yeah, I was,” I admitted.

  “I’m half Inuit, half Irish.”

  “Whatever the mix, it worked great.”

  “Thank you,” she said, flashing a smile. Her teeth were so white, tiny and square they looked fake, like a mouthful of miniature Chiclets.

  “You, uh, want something done?” I said.

  “What are you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Me? I’m just a guy who—”

  “No. I mean, what are you. I told you what I was.”

  “Oh. Truth is, I don’t know.”

  “You were adopted?”

  “Abandoned,” I told her, watching her face.

  Her almond eyes darkened. “But somebody had to raise you. Didn’t they . . . ?”

  “The State raised me,” I told her. Telling it all, if she knew anything.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Burke,” I told her. If she was a cop, she already knew. And even if she wasn’t, those almond eyes had photographed me good enough to guide a police sketch artist’s hand right to my mug shot anyway.

  “Mine’s Crystal Beth.”

  “Your parents were bikers?” I laughed.

  “No,” she said, smiling. “Hippies. At least my father was. He met my mother up north, and they came back to Oregon together. Where I was raised.”

  Rollo’s wasn’t a singles bar. And I didn’t even know for sure if she was the same woman who’d hired Porkpie. I was there on business. But I felt the current pulling me and I went with it.

  “In a commune?” I asked her.

  “Yes. It was a lovely place, but it’s all gone now. All the old ways, gone.” She might have been a Plains Indian talking about another century for all the sadness in her voice.

  “You want something to drink?” I asked her. Once someone in a booth attracted a visitor, the waitress would stay away unless you signaled her over.

  “You drink the stuff they serve here?” she asked. A slight smile played around her lips, but the corners of her mouth stayed turned down. Genetics, then, not an expression.

  “I got a strong stomach,” I assured her.

  “Umm. Then maybe you’d like a job . . . ?”

  “I might. What have you got in mind?”

  “My . . .” She hesitated just a heartbeat, but I caught it. “. . . cousin’s having trouble. With her boyfriend. Her ex-boyfriend. Only he doesn’t think so. Do you . . . ?”

  “Sure. Some guys don’t get the message the first time.”

  “And sometimes it depends on the messenger.”

  “Yeah. You need a messenger?”

  “That’s exactly what I need.”

  “Uh-huh. You know this guy?”

  “I don’t know him, I know about him, okay?”

  “Just what you’ve been told?”

  “No. I mean, I met him. Once. But . . .”

  “. . . you have all the information about him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you just want the problem solved, right? Not the details?”

  “Yes. I thought it best to leave that to . . . professionals.”

  “Professionals get paid,” I reminded her.

  “I grok that. I don’t ask strangers for favors. And I’m guessing you don’t work on a sliding scale either.”

  “Right. I don’t. But I’m sure I can fix whatever your . . . cousin’s problem is.”

  “Yes? And how much would it cost to do that?”

  “Depends on how . . . permanently you want the problem solved.”

  “You mean . . . what?”

  “I mean, for some people, it’s personal, you know? They get it into their heads that a certain person belongs to them, and they won’t let go unless . . . Other people, they’re just bullies.”

  “Bullies are easier?” she asked, leaning closer to me across the table.

  “Bullies are very easy,” I said, holding her eyes. Or maybe hers were holding min
e.

  “The bigger they are . . .”

  “. . . the more they cost to fix,” I finished for her.

  She looked at the pack of cigarettes I’d left on the tabletop, raised her eyebrows in a question. I lifted it up, held it out to her. She took one. I fired a wooden match. She didn’t bring her face down to the flame like I’d expected. Just sat there watching my hand from under her long dark lashes. The flame burned, slow and steady in the musty joint’s dead air. I stayed on her eyes, feeling the increasing heat against my fingers. She leaned forward and blew out the flame, her breath so gentle it barely got the job done.

  “Your hand is very steady,” she said.

  “A jeweler needs good eyesight.” I shrugged. “You changed your mind about the cigarette?”

  “Sometimes, if I really want something, I make myself wait. Then it’s sweeter when I finally have it. You understand?”

  “I understand the waiting part.”

  “You’re good at waiting?”

  “I’m the best,” I told her. “It’s my specialty.”

  “You’re not like . . . the others.” It was a flat statement. Her judgment, not a question.

  “The others?”

  “I’ve talked to a . . . number of people. About my cousin. You’re different from them.”

  “You try any of them?” I asked.

  “Try?”

  “On your cousin’s problem?”

  “No. Not yet. It’s a delicate thing. My cousin wants it to be over, that’s true. But she wants magic, you know? Wants it all to . . . disappear. And that’s hard.”

  “That’s real hard. Real expensive too.”

  “How expensive?”

  “Depends.”

  She glanced at her wristwatch: big black-and-white dial on a thick black rubber band. “This is taking longer than I thought,” she said. “I have to meet somebody. But I want to . . . talk to you again. Is there a way . . . ?”

  “Sure,” I told her. “I could give you a number to call.”

  “That would be great,” she said, flashing another quick smile.