Sacrifice

by Andrew Vachss

  "Luke didn't kill those babies," I told her. "Those people, his parents and the others, they did it. Sure as if they'd held the knife."

  "They'd never go down for homicide on the facts we have," she said. "But it doesn't matter. We've got no death penalty in this state. And they're looking at forever–to–life for what we can prove." She turned to Teresa. "Is he going to be able to testify?"

  "We're working on bringing his personalities back together. Fusing them so there's no splits. The core, Luke, is very strong. Maybe someday. But…if he's pressured too much, too early…he could go back over."

  Wolfe's eyes glowed in the white room, shining like Strega's had when she told me her truth. "There'll be something else, somewhere. The films…could Luke maybe tell you where it happened? Not on the stand…just tell you?"

  "Yes, I think so. He's a brilliant child. All the memory is there. Just…fragmented."

  Wolfe ground out her cigarette. "Okay." Turning to me. "Let's go."

  "We have to wait here a little bit, okay? Until the driver comes back."

  She settled back into her chair. Teresa said goodbye, said she was going to talk to Luke. She'd tell Max it was time to take off.

  I lit a smoke of my own. "That racehorse, it said on the photo it was owned by something called the Syndicate. Is that just the corporate name you use?"

  "The Flame isn't just mine. We all bought her together."

  "Who?"

  "My…sisters. We're like a family, all together. We thought it would be fun."

  "Your sisters?"

  "She means us, Lily said, stepping into the room, Immaculata right behind her."

  136

  It was like someone hit the Mute button on the TV. They all looked at each other, frozen in place, too much playing over their faces for me to read it.

  Lily muttered something in Italian, grabbed Wolfe in a fierce hug, tears flying as Wolfe squeezed her back, Immaculata shouldering in between them, their so differently beautiful faces pushed against one another, makeup melting as they merged.

  I stood away from them, an outsider, feeling the void inside me like a brick in my chest. Turned my face to the window. A filthy city wall returned my blank stare, undeceived.

  137

  It took them a while, the warrior women rebonding, speaking in tribal–talk. I wasn't in the room for them.

  Finally, Teresa came back in. Pulled Lily aside, said something to her.

  Lily caught my eye, held a clenched fist at her waist. Thanks. Immaculata bowed. Teresa stepped out with them.

  "Ready to take me back?" Wolfe asked.

  I wrapped the blindfold around her eyes, guided her carefully down the stairs, into the back of the cab.

  Max had it rolling as soon as I slammed the door.

  138

  My watch said it was three–thirty. Wolfe sat to my left, her back against door, turning so she was almost facing me. She lit a cigarette. "Are you going to look for them?"

  "Who?"

  She waved her hand at me, trailing smoke, elegantly impatient.

  "Luke's parents."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "That's what I said. It's not my job."

  "You mean nobody's paying you?"

  "Yeah, that's what I mean."

  "Who paid you for Bonnie Browne?"

  "I wasn't paid for her—I was paid to find a photograph." Paid by Strega, forever ago.

  "And her husband?" The freak in the clown suit. The cops found him at the bottom of the stairs, his neck broken.

  "The way I heard it, it was an accident."

  "You don't trust me."

  "With what?"

  "I just don't want us to get in each other's way with this."

  "There is no 'this,' okay? You want something, spell it out."

  She ground out her smoke, opened her purse, took out a mirror, balanced it on her knees as she ran a comb through her hair. Put on fresh lipstick. A bit of it smeared as the cab hit a bump. She dabbed at it with a piece of tissue. Crossed her legs, looked back over at me.

  "Vigilante. That's real popular now. People lose confidence in law enforcement, they start using self–help. But you…It's like your profession. What you get paid for."

  "That's not me," I told her. Thinking: Who's a citizen in all this? Lily, Storm, Immaculata…even Wolfe, they were all over the line. I lived on the other side, they crossed over when they needed to…what was the difference?

  "I think it is," she said. "You're known to half a dozen law enforcement agencies, and they all say the same thing. There's not enough to charge you with anything, but there's homicides going back to the last time you were in prison. And they all have one thing in common."

  "Dead people do."

  "It was always about children, that's the thread."

  "It doesn't tie to me, whatever it is. If I went around snuffing baby–rapers, I'd be on overtime—the city's full of them."

  "What're you saying?"

  "You really want to know? A vigilante, he straps down, goes hunting. It's not personal. Me, you leave me alone, that's the end of it. I'm not a hunter. The newspapers, they got this vigilante thing all screwed up. A woman gets grabbed in an alley, pulls out a knife and stabs the guy trying to rape her, the press says she's a vigilante. She's not. Just someone defending herself."

  "And that's what you do?"

  "I don't do anything. I have my own people. That's what I have. All I have."

  She leaned forward, pale eyes not merging with the darkness in the back of the cab—a light of their own. "I'm trying to tell you something, you want to listen," she said. "Lily doesn't have what you want—the CWA reports, the pedigree on the parents, last known address, associates, DMV, IRS. All that. She doesn't have it. I do."

  "So?"

  "Usually, we'd share. My crew and Lily's. But…the way things started out with Luke, we didn't…"

  "She shared with you now."

  "I know. But Lily's no investigator. I mean… she investigates inside children's heads, you understand? My people, we work outside. Like you."

  "Your people worked like me, I'd never get hired."

  "You're saying you're better at it than we are?"

  "I'm saying…you can't use your kind of stuff with freaks. Especially when they run in packs. You can't use undercovers—they have an acid test. Like a day–care center where they're doing the kids. You suspect it, right? So you get somebody hired. Know what they do? They leave your guy alone in a back room with a kid. Wait to see what happens. Your guy doesn't start groping the kid, they know he's not one of them. Simple, right? You can have undercovers shoot up, snort some coke, help out in a heist, even turn a trick, that's what it takes. But you haven't got anybody who'd fuck a kid just for a credential."

  Thinking about what the Queen called me. When I hunted, it wasn't for evidence.

  "Proof isn't what we need here," she said. "There's enough proof. They get brought in, I can get them indicted."

  I lit a cigarette, catching it for the first time. "You've been looking for them all along, haven't you?"

  She nodded.

  "And come up empty?"

  Another nod.

  "So you want me to take a shot?"

  Her generous mouth wrinkled at one corner. "Was that a pun?"

  She was quiet for a while. I felt the grid beneath the tires on the Fifty–ninth Street Bridge. Max was going straight up Queens Boulevard to the courthouse.

  "You think people really worship the devil?" Wolfe asked. "Sure. It's the perfect religion—you fuck up, you go to heaven." Her rich laugh filled the cab.

  139

  The rolling blindfold slowed to a stop. Max rapped twice on the barrier to let us know we'd arrived. Wolfe gathered her purse. The back door opened on my side. Her hand touched my forearm.

  "Don't take this the wrong way, okay? All this…the way you are…did you ever see a psychiatrist?"

  "Yeah. One of them owed a guy I know some money once. Her smile came. "
Don't take this the wrong way either," she whispered. Kissed me softly on the cheek.

  She didn't look back.

  140

  Max drove us to the junkyard. The Mole wasn't around. Terry gave me back my Plymouth. I told him Luke loved the puppy, told him her new name.

  Max didn't communicate all the way back. Inside himself. I dropped him off at the warehouse. He stood there in the shadows, holding me with his eyes. Finally, he gestured like he was shuffling a pack of cards. Dealt them out around an imaginary table. Pointed at himself, face set an concrete lines.

  I nodded.

  He bowed, sealing the pact.

  141

  Still early, but I went back to the office. I could make a call, see if the Central Park lady wanted to have dinner. Or take a drive, pick up Bonita, bend her over the convertible couch in her living room, try and get lost in it. Come and go.

  Thought about getting lost in it. What I'd lose if I did.

  I kicked back, lit a cigarette. Watched the smoke drift toward the ceiling. Why had Wolfe mentioned Silver to me? The Prof had sent me to him, a long time ago. When we were all inside.

  "Listen and learn, schoolboy," he said. "Silver knows the play, the old way, see? He's a quality thief—good gunfighter too, way I heard it."

  "A hit–man?"

  "No, fool. I said gunfighter, not gunman."

  "What's the difference?"

  "A gunfighter, the other guy has one too."

  We were talking quietly on the yard, Silver telling me a secret in his hard–sad voice. "I don't mess with the sissies in here. They're like bitches on the street, get you into a knife fight in a minute. My wife's picture's in my house—I jack off to it every night, looking at her. These other guys, they do it to girls in the skin magazines. Those ain't real people—they don't know those girls. Me, I'm making love to my wife. To Helene. Those other guys, they're just playing with themselves."

  Like I was with Bonita.

  Silver did his time, counting the days. Never made trouble for anyone. Someone went in his cell, stole his wife's picture. Anyone could have done it, prison's like that. If it hadn't turned out to be a black guy, Silver might have turned out different himself.

  The Prof tried to ease it down. Told Silver it was just a picture—his wife would send him another one. Told the thief, Horace his name was, a rapist, told Horace he was risking a shank in the back for nothing. Even volunteered to handle the transfer himself

  Horace had a better way, he thought. Got himself an African name, joined some crew.

  I filled out the pass for Horace to report to the psychiatrist. Silver was waiting for him in the corridor. He was only going to cut him, but Horace had a blade too.

  Silver got cut. Horace got dead.

  Blood on the institutional green concrete walls, drying to an abstract painting only a convict could interpret.

  When Horace's crew came after Silver, he went the only place he could.

  A white supremacist, Wolfe called him. An assassin. He was doing better than me. Even locked up, he had his love.

  142

  Things went back to the way they'd been. A few days later, Lily gave me a thick envelope. From Wolfe. Whatever she had was in there. Wasn't much, and her people would already have worked it to death.

  I was in a Manhattan courtroom. One of the motion parts. They were supposed to bring Silver over from the jail, some kind of bullshit bail application. A farce—they wouldn't cut him loose.

  A halfass defense attorney was in front of the bench, babbling something about the Constitution. Roland was his name, a certified dummy. He'd been an ADA once, a stone incompetent Plenty of guilty men walking the streets because of his fuckups. Now he was working the defense side, sending innocent folks to jail. Balancing the scales of justice. In the dog–eat–dog world of the criminal court, Roland was a fire hydrant.

  I caught Blumberg's eye, got to my feet, walked over to him.

  "You're looking good, boychick. How's business?"

  "The same."

  "Silver said he wanted to talk to you—you couldn't visit him in the house?"

  "This is the way he wanted it. I'll just stand next to you at the table. Won't take a minute, okay?"

  "My bail application is complex, my boy. Don't distract the judge's attention."

  "You couldn't wake that weasel up with a flame thrower."

  Blumberg ignored me. The wily old bastard hasn't tried a case in a hundred years, just does arraignments and applications. He knew why Silver hired him.

  They brought him up from the pens in cuffs, but the guards stepped back, let him stand next to Blumberg at the counsel table. I stood on the other side of him, wearing my suit, briefcase in my hand, role–playing.

  Blumberg mumbled something, just clearing his throat before he let loose. One thing he was good for—he could talk nonstop for days. As soon as he got into full stride, Silver bowed his head, talked to me out of the side of his mouth.

  "You do something for me?"

  "What?"

  "Helene. She needs some cash. She wants to move Upstate, be close to me on this bit."

  "You gonna be hit long?"

  "They're going to bitch me, Burke. I'm looking at the book—a quarter–to–forever."

  Twenty–five–to–life. Silver was ten years older than me—he'd never come out.

  "What does she need?"

  "Twenty, thirty G's, like that. She's gonna buy a house, get a job. Live like a citizen."

  "Can't…?"

  "The Brotherhood would get her the money, but I don't want her in this, understand? It's a life sentence once you join. She never joined, just me. I got the money, Burke. From when I was stealing. I'm not sure exactly how much is there but…I'll tell you where it is, you pick it up, get it to her."

  "Who…?"

  "It's in a house. Basement of a house. In Gerritsen Beach. You know where it is?"

  "Yeah."

  "In the basement, farthest left–hand corner from the front of the house. Patched in with cement, wrapped in plastic, maybe a foot down."

  "Can't she…?"

  "She can't do nothing. The house, I owned it once. Helene, she sold it. To get bail money for me one time. Years ago. Just forged my signature, sold it. I couldn't tell her—didn't have time. You understand? Some citizen owns it now—you gotta go in the basement."

  "What if it's not there?"

  "Then I played my last card. There's nobody else I can ask—didn't want to take a chance the feds have the jail miked."

  "Tell me the address," I said.

  He told me, gripping my arm so hard it hurt, looking down, trusting.

  143

  Gerritsen Beach is in Brooklyn, just past Sheepshead Bay. Sunday, we drove the Boulevard, Marine Park running swampy to our left, reed grass high, people walking their dogs, Bensonhurst Boys cruising in Mustangs and Camaros, checking out the teenage girls on the promenade, watching other circuit riders for cues. Eyes would meet at a stoplight. Just one word…"What?!"…and they'd be at it. In the trunks of their shiny cars, baseball bats. For a harder game than the one you play on grass.

  We looked for the opening. Turned right, into a tight grid of narrow streets. Some converted cottages, some two–story newer construction, flat–faced. Followed Silver's directions. Dead–ended at a canal, went back one block, located the house. Guy working in the yard, building something. Couple of kids playing catch, wearing Little League uniforms. Houses jammed together, yards deep front to back but no space between them. Neighbors all over the place, windows open, men washing cars, women talking.

  I looked over at the Prof.

  "It's no go, bro'," the little man said.

  I shook my head, giving in to the truth.

  144

  Helene lives in Ridgewood, Queens. Top–floor apartment, walk–up. She let me in when I said the name Silver gave me.

  The living room was all cheap furniture, poison–neat, Silver's picture on the mantelpiece. I wondered if there was
another one in the bedroom.

  She was in her mid–forties, maybe. Hard to tell—no makeup around her wary eyes.

  I gave her a paper bag. Inside was $31,450. Most of what I had left from the score with Elroy's phony paper.

  I get up against it bad enough, I can always go in that basement.

  145

  Done, then. Loose ends all around, but they weren't mine.

  Off cycle, somehow. Pansy wasn't in heat. Michelle wasn't ready to come home. Luke would need more work. Wolfe would find the freaks who built the bomb.

  It would all happen without me.

  I should have been glad to be out of it.

  146

  The next morning, I took Pansy, went back to the park. This time, I had an old army blanket with me, big sketch pad, charcoal pastels. I set myself up in a good spot, halfway up a rise, strong outcropping of rock to my right. Facing west, the sun behind me.

  I propped up the sketch pad, swirled the charcoal over the paper a few times, my eyes sweeping the terrain. Pansy lay on her stomach, face between her paws, wrinkling her nose—the park didn't smell like her roof. Yet. I unzipped the gym bag I'd brought with me. Still–warm loaf of French bread inside, a bottle of water, slab of dark chocolate wrapped in white paper, pack of smokes. And a couple dozen of those little round cheese pieces they wrap in red string.

  The white limo came into my field of vision, making the circuit. I could track it pretty well from where I was—no hurry.

  I opened one of the cheese pieces, put it right in front of Pansy's snout. She ate it with her eyes, not moving. When there was a river of drool rolling down the slope in front of her, I said "Speak!" in a soft voice. She delicately snarfed it up, ripping a divot out of the grass.