Sacrifice

by Andrew Vachss

  Ten–thirty in the morning, most of the citizens already at work. A man and a woman came up the path, wearing matching shorts and jogging jerseys. Even had the same numbers on the back. Cute. Pansy sat next to me as I lit a cigarette. The woman grimaced disapproval as they pranced by.

  A white stretch limo purred past, the back windows blacked out. "Very subtle, Carlos," I thought to myself, dragging on the cigarette, watching like I'd been taught. By now, I knew what was in the limo. One of the Prof's pack worked in the detailing shop where Carlos' driver brought the car in every week for sweetening. Cellular phone, color TV with VCR, fax machine, hand–rubbed teak bar with cut–crystal decanters, cashmere throw rugs on the blue leather seats, a pullout mirror so el jefe's girlfriends could check their makeup before they hit the clubs. A hidden compartment in a hollowed–out door panel. Not for drugs: Carlos didn't touch the extra–strength dreamdust he peddled. No tiny rocks of crack for this boy—he dealt in weight. You want to cut it yourself, step on it, bake it, fry it, that's up to you.

  It always worked the same way. The limo would glide to a stop—a man on a bike would pedal up alongside, a nylon gym bag slung over his left shoulder. The window would whisper down as the biker held the bag open. Something would drop in and off he'd go.

  By now, we knew where the transfer–man went. Steaming along the bicycle path like he was leading the Tour de Chump, he'd leave the park and merge with the street traffic. A car would pull up alongside him. Sometimes a sedan, sometimes a wagon. Once it was a panel truck. A hand would reach out from the passenger side, pluck the bag from his shoulder.

  Once we had it down just right, it would be our hand reaching for the cash.

  The Prof was somewhere in the park, his pack scattered around. Hard–souled homeboys, paying their tuition to the master, OJT on the highwire. One slip and it's Attica.

  I patted Pansy's sleek head, sitting next to her on the grass, back to myself.

  73

  What kind of dog is that?"

  She was a chunky, freckle–faced woman, reddish–brown hair bursting in all directions from under the sweatband around her head, wearing a plain gray sweatshirt over blue bicycle pants, slate–colored running shoes. Little pug nose, china–blue eyes.

  "A Neapolitan mastiff," I said.

  "I never saw one before. Are they rare?"

  "She is. The world's finest dog, aren't you, girl?" Pansy grinned happily, probably thinking of a marrow bone, how they cracked in her jaws before she got to the sweet center.

  "What're you doing here?"

  I looked hard into her innocent eyes, wondering how old she was.

  "Exercising my dog—she needs room to run."

  "You let that big dog off the leash?"

  "Meaning I don't look like I run with her?"

  "You're not dressed for it." She chuckled.

  "I'm on my way to work."

  "What do you do?" Hands on hips, tip of her tongue just poking past her lips.

  I looked up at her, face flat. "What do you do?"

  "I'm a hit–woman," smile slashing across her broad face. "Trying to kill this cellulite." Smacking the back of one thigh.

  "I hope you don't overdo it."

  "Why?"

  "Women do that. You all have a mass psychosis about weight."

  "If we do, it's men who gave it to us."

  "Not guilty," I said, trying a smile.

  "That's what they all say," she shot back, pulling her sweatshirt over her head, tying it around her waist. Her breasts flared under a white T–shirt as she arched her back.

  I lit a cigarette. Her nose didn't wrinkle.

  "Could I pat your dog?" she asked.

  "Only if she likes you," I told her.

  "How would I know?"

  "If she likes you, she'll…Wow! Look at that," I said, marveling at how Pansy lay down in response to my hand signal.

  "That means she likes me?"

  "Sure."

  She dropped to her knees on the grass, stroking Pansy expertly, talking to her.

  "You have a dog?"

  "I had a dog. Blackie. When I was a kid. I still miss him."

  Pansy's slab of a tongue lolled from her wide mouth, enjoying the attention.

  "Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "I'm Belinda Roberts."

  I held out my hand for her to shake, told her one of my names.

  "I'll write down my number. Do you have a piece of paper?"

  "I'll remember it," I told her.

  She pulled my eyes with hers, seeking the truth. Finally nodded.

  "Okay," she said.

  Got to her feet, tied the sweatshirt around her neck, jogged off. Very fine.

  74

  The white limo whispered by again. Empty now.

  Done for the day, I got to my feet, unsnapped Pansy's lead, told her to heel. She took the point on my left side, shoulder against my thigh.

  I cut through the trees to where I'd parked. A black man in a black suit sitting on a tree stump stood up as I approached, a dull silver automatic in his hand.

  "Just stand still, mahn."

  I stopped, Pansy next to me.

  "I don't have any money," I said, letting fear snake its way into my voice to settle him down.

  "This is no robbery, mahn. Just come along with me. Somebody wants to talk with you."

  "Who?"

  "Don't be stalling now, mahn. Just come along, take a nice ride."

  "I'm not going anywhere, pal."

  "Yes, you're coming, Mr. Burke. See, we know you. Don't be stupid, now."

  "You won't hurt me?"

  "No, mahn, we don't hurt you."

  "What about my dog?…I can't leave her here."

  "Just tie her to a tree, mahn. You be back very soon. Nobody take a big dog like that."

  "But…"

  "Last chance, mahn."

  "Okay, okay," I said, reassuring him, reaching over to snap the leash on my dog, talking to her. Just as I was about to fasten the leash, I said, "Pansy, sit!," watching the gunman almost imperceptibly relax at the words just as Pansy launched herself without a sound, clamping her vise–grip jaws on his arm. I picked his gun off the grass, snapped "Out!" at Pansy, and she backed off. The gunman was down, moaning, left hand gripping his right forearm, blood bubbling between his fingers.

  "My arm! She crushed the bone, mahn! It's all water in there."

  "Who wants me?" I asked him, bending close, patting his body, looking for another gun—came up empty. "You need a doctor, need one bad," I said. "Tell me and you can go."

  Creamy dots on his dark–skinned face, pain in his eyes.

  "You want the dog again?" I asked.

  His eyes shot around the clearing. It was empty, nobody around. I felt ice in my spine—was Clarence in on this?

  "Thana," he muttered.

  "What?"

  "Queen Esther Thana, mahn. The Mamaloi." His eyes sweeping the area again, looking for something.

  "You know my name. Tell her to call me. On the phone, understand?"

  He grunted something, sounded like yes. The gunman could walk himself into the Emergency Room. Where the triage nurse would ask him if he had Blue Cross.

  I turned away, pocketed his gun, slapped my thigh for Pansy to come along.

  Clarence was sitting on a bench near my car. "Better let me hold the gun, mahn," he said.

  I palmed it to him.

  "There was another one with him," Clarence said. "They have a car waiting for you. One block down," indicating with his eyes. "Better come with me."

  He got up and started in the other direction. I walked next to him, Pansy right alongside.

  "What happened to the other one?" I asked him.

  The cobalt eyes were calm. "He's still there," Clarence said.

  75

  Clarence opened the back door of his Rover. I gave the signal and Pansy clambered inside. Clarence threw a smooth U–turn on CPW, heading back
downtown.

  "Where shall I drop you, mahn?"

  "How come you were around today, Clarence?"

  He shrugged his slim shoulders, face expressionless. "I'm just a soldier, mahn."

  "Then take me to the general," I told him.

  76

  Clarence turned east on Fifty–seventh, working his way to the FDR, then south to the Brooklyn Bridge.

  "That's some dog you got, mahn. Never saw something so big move so fast."

  "She's the best," I said, reaching back to pat my pal.

  "Pretty woman you got there too, mahn."

  "Pretty woman?"

  "Yes, mahn. In the park. Pretty woman. Nice big butt on her. Never trust a woman with one of those little–boy butts, it's a sure sign."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Everybody knows, mahn. Big butt, big heart."

  I thought of my Blue Belle, gone now. The fire–scar on Flood's rump. Blossom walking away. Maybe it was true.

  I rolled down my window, lit a smoke. "You saw the woman in the park?"

  "Yes, mahn. Like I said. Good age on her too. Not like some of those flighty young girls. Just right for an old man like you."

  "Yeah. You were there a long time, huh?"

  "All the time, mahn. Ever since you call Jacques."

  "How'd you pick me up?"

  "Easy enough, mahn. Your car, the places you go, all like that."

  "Where else?"

  "The shelter–place. The one for kids. The restaurant. I'm a shadow, mahn. Thin and dark. Nobody sees."

  "I appreciate what you did, Clarence."

  "You have been our friend, mahn. Jacques said."

  "Here's some friendly advice for you, Clarence. Don't go into that restaurant."

  "I know, mahn."

  "Who told you…Jacques?"

  "Everybody knows, mahn."

  77

  Jacques was at his table in the basement. He didn't blink at Pansy. Pansy didn't blink back.

  Clarence handed him the pistol I'd taken from the man in the park. Jacques released the clip, pulling it from the butt, worked the slide.

  "Empty, mahn. Nothing in the chamber. Safety was on too."

  I nodded. The gunman was what he said he was—not a shooter.

  Jacques turned the gun over in his hands, put one polished thumbnail inside the chamber, sighted down the barrel. "Hasn't been cleaned in a year, mahn. A piece of junk. Iron Curtain stuff, not even military." Jacques's fine–boned nose curled into a faint sneer. "Whoever had this, mahn, he was not a professional."

  "There was another one," Clarence told him.

  Jacques raised his eyebrows, waiting for the rest.

  "He had no gun, nothing. And he never saw me coming," Clarence said, a leather–covered sap in his hand, showing Jacques what had happened to the watcher.

  "You talked to the man with the gun?"

  "He said he just wanted to take me someplace. To see someone named Thana. Queen Thana."

  Jacques's eyes didn't change but his cheeks went hollow.

  "You know her?" I asked.

  "Everybody knows of her, mahn. I have not met her. And I do not want to. Obeah. Very powerful obeah. A voodoo priestess. Her followers are all from the Islands. People say she can make a man do what she wants. That she can kill you with a thought. Reach across the sea, back across time."

  "She's in business?"

  "Not our business, mahn. Not for money. But she is no love goddess, that one. A warrior priestess. They say her soldiers are the dead come back to life."

  "What does she want from me?"

  "I do not know, mahn. But if she wants you, she will find you."

  "You can reach out to her?"

  "No, mahn. Not with the phone. But I know…some things. I can, maybe, get a message through."

  "The bag…the juju bag," Clarence whispered.

  "What?"

  "That was hers, maybe. Swinging from that tree in the moonlight. Evil. She knows."

  "Knows what?"

  "I went back. Later, I went back. In the daylight. And the bag, it was gone."

  I lit a smoke, hands steadying with the answer. She hadn't taken the bag, but her watchers knew who did.

  "Tell her I'll come and talk to her," I told Jacques, and walked out of the basement.

  78

  In prison, I used to lift weights. Just to be doing something—I was never any good at it. Bench presses. Some days they put too much weight on the bar—I couldn't get it up off my chest.

  I felt like that now. Put a cardiogram on my life, you'd get a readout: sharp spikes, deep valleys.

  I drew a red dot on a piece of mirror. Drew it with some lipstick Belle had left behind. I'd been meaning to throw it out for a long time now, that lipstick. I went into a halfass lotus position, looking into the dot. Until it got bigger and bigger, deeper. I went down inside, clearing my mind.

  There's always a pattern. Any crazy thing makes sense to somebody at the other end. I didn't know anything about smuggling until I went to prison. You can get whatever you want inside the walls if you can pay the freight. Guards smuggled in guns, but they never crossed the color line: you wanted a pistol, you asked a guard of your own race. Drugs they'd sell to anyone.

  In prison, there's lead pipes just lying around. If you hold them just right, you can still feel them vibrate with the skulls they've crushed.

  I pictured a lovely glass ball. As pure as a teardrop, on a polished black marble surface. Pictured it rising from the table, floating gently in the air, hovering. I was holding it up with my will.

  I blinked my eyes and came out of it just before the glass ball splattered on the marble.

  79

  Meetings. Always bullshit meetings. Talk talk talk. And rules. Made by the rulers. In prison, what you want is to get through it. You can't stay by yourself—they won't let you. So you mob up. Get a crew. Someone to watch your back. On the Coast, they call it getting in the car. Going along for the ride. Or the drive–by. If a crew splits up, the other side picks them off one by one, so you stay together. You change sides, nobody trusts you. The first choice is the only one you get.

  I wished I could explain it to Wolfe and Lily.

  80

  I stayed out of the loop for a while. Prairie dog careful—just barely peeking out of my hole in the ground, ready to spook if I saw a strange shadow. Wolfe's time limit pushed me back up to ground level.

  Max opened the back door to SAFE, held it while I slipped inside. I don't know how he does that—he can't hear my knock. He pointed toward the back office, made a "be careful" gesture, and went back to the gym.

  Lily was standing with her back to me, hands on hips, arguing about something with a calmly seated Storm. I tapped lightly on the doorjamb. Lily whirled, not missing a beat.

  "What is it, Burke? We're busy here."

  "I needed to talk with you," I said mildly.

  "Your telephone's broken?"

  "I didn't know who'd be listening."

  "Who'd be…" Lily sneered.

  "Wolfe," Storm cut in.

  "She wouldn't…"

  "Sure she would," Storm told her. "What's wrong with you, girl? You know how she is."

  "I thought I knew."

  "That's what she's saying to herself right about now," I replied, even–toned, "saying it about you. You're doing what you're doing to protect a kid…so's she. Just different kids."

  "She doesn't know Luke," Lily said. "All she knows is crimes—that's all she cares about."

  "Stop it, Lily," Storm said, lighting her one cigarette of the day. "The doctor says stress is bad for my baby."

  Lily fought a giggle. "Sure."

  I lit a smoke of my own. "I got an idea," I told her.

  Storm silenced Lily with a look. I went on like I hadn't seen it.

  "Wolfe doesn't know Luke, that's what you said, right? That's the idea. How about if they meet?"

  "Sure. What's a kidnapping on top of everything else?"

  "Not a k
idnapping, Lily. I'll make a deal with her."

  Storm tapped her fingers on the desk, thinking. Lily brushed some of her thick glossy hair away from her face, waiting.

  "She won't break her word," I said.

  "It's true," Storm added.

  "She's clever, though." Lily came back, stubborn–sulky.

  "And you're glad enough for that, most of the time," I told her. "What's happening, you're all convinced you're right. You know what Wolfe wants…what she really wants?"

  "She wants the killing to stop," Storm said.

  "And she wants someone to pay," Lily put in. "That's Wolfe—someone always has to pay."

  I sat on a corner of the desk, where I could see both of them. "Once I was involved in this case. Guy killed his mother. Pointed a magnum at her face, blew out the back of her head. The defense attorney put him on a polygraph. Asked him: Did you kill your mother? Answer: No. And the machine said: No Deception Indicated—Truthful. That's when the lawyer called me in. Figured, bad as it looked, it must be that someone else had done it, understand?"

  They both nodded. Storm interested, Lily suspicious.

  "So I talked to the man, where they had him locked up. I'd seen guys like him before, when I was inside. Anyway, I went back to the lawyer, asked him to try the polygraph again, only this time ask my questions. So they asked him again: Did you kill your mother? No. Then: Did the gun kill your mother? Yes. Were you holding the gun when it killed your mother? Yes."

  "What's your point?" Lily wanted to know. "That you have to ask the right questions?"

  "What if the guy was telling the truth?" I fired back.

  "Huh?"

  "What if he was telling the truth? What if it was the gun who killed his mother? Not him, the gun."