Sacrifice

by Andrew Vachss

  I looked at Max. He grabbed Luke's belt, hauled him out of the seat like a briefcase. The kid's laughter trailed through the restaurant as Max carried him to the back.

  186

  We got in the Plymouth. Max made the sign for the Mole. Late afternoon. We slogged our way north on the FDR, Luke sitting between us, eyes bright with the prospect of seeing his pal.

  Terry let us in the gate. He and Luke ran off together, Simba circling them, yapping like a pup. Max pulled me ahead.

  The Mole was a good distance from his bunker, hunched over a U–shaped metal bracket maybe twelve feet wide. It was anchored to what looked like metal rods, running at forty–five degree angles from halfway up the bracket arms to the ground.

  "What's this, Mole?"

  He ignored me, looping a thick ribbon of rubber over one end of the bracket, then the other. It looked like a giant slingshot. From the bottom of the U–bracket, he unfolded a pair of metal tubes, about three feet apart. Placed them against the back of the rubber band. Then he pulled on a lever. Ratcheting noise with each pull. The rubber stretched. Stretched some more. He nodded at Max. The Mongolian picked up two sacks of dry cement mix lashed back to back, placed them in the notch formed by the rubber. The Mole pulled the switch and the cement sacks blasted off like the Space Shuttle, flying in a high arc, smashing against the top of a wrecked car maybe two hundred feet away.

  "You're fucking insane," I told the Mole. He bowed. Max grinned.

  "It's impossible," I said. "Max'll get killed."

  "It's not impossible," the Mole said. "It's just a ratio. Thrust to weight, height to distance. It's got way too much power now. All we need is an arc, Max can float down."

  "Float? You're a maniac. And he's a bigger one.

  Max was pulling black silk out of a duffel bag when Luke and Terry walked over to us.

  "What's Max doing?" the kid asked.

  "Making a fool of himself."

  "Max wouldn't do that…Can I see?"

  The warrior climbed into his costume. He was encased in silk: a hood fit tightly over his head, Velcro closures at his wrists and ankles. Standard night–stalker stuff—I'd seen it before. Then he spread his arms in a crucifixion gesture and he sprouted wings—ribbed silk billowed from his wrists to his ankles.

  "It's wonderful!" Luke clapped his little hands, delighted at the game.

  "Jesus!" Terry said.

  I didn't say anything.

  187

  The Mole carried his launch device in one hand. "Aluminum," he said when I looked a question at him.

  "Why don't you just shoot him out of a cannon?"

  "He's not going that far. The drop is about forty–five feet roof to roof. The launch building is much higher than the target."

  Ask a lunatic a question…

  We walked over to where junked cars were piled into a mountain about twenty feet high. The Mole slowly made his way to the top, set up his launcher. He climbed down, paced off a distance, took a can of spray paint from his jumpsuit, made a white X on the hard ground.

  "About four clicks," he said. Climbed back to the top. It took a while.

  Max went up the mountain like it was a ramp. Leaned back into the notch, nodded once. The Mole pulled on the lever.

  "Max is gonna fly!" Luke said.

  I held my breath.

  A sproong! sound and Max was airborne. He shot straight up, jack–knifed his body like a diver, popped open his wings with a loud snap. His body went up like he'd caught a gust, righted itself, and floated to the ground like a butterfly landing on a flower. Right on the damn X.

  Max wasn't breathing hard. The Mole cut open his knee stumbling down from the mountain of cars.

  188

  "For the last fucking time, Prof, there's no money in this."

  "Even you not fool enough to Rambo a house for nothing, schoolboy. I'll pay the fare, take my share."

  I didn't try and talk him out of it—he knew the truth.

  We all had our reasons.

  I knew I wouldn't find any answers in that house. I was so lonely. Missing my old pal, Fear. I'd see him soon enough.

  189

  Two in the morning, the lights were still on in the front windows. Two downstairs, one on the second floor. The third story was dark.

  I checked my watch. In a couple of minutes, calls would start flying into 911: Hispanic, black, white, Oriental voices. Gunfight at 138th and the Concourse, fire at a social club, man with a machete running down Walton Avenue, woman holding a baby on the top floor of the Projects, threatening to jump, bodega robbery, cop down on Hoe Avenue.

  Clarence was behind the wheel of the pale blue slab–sided van, the name of some phony butcher shop painted on the sides in maroon script.

  Cops see it moving through the South Bronx, they'd figure it was on its way to the meat market in Hunts Point.

  "You ready?" I asked Clarence, adjusting the shoulder strap for the shotgun over my chest. I had the semi–auto, the Prof always worked with a side–by–side.

  "Yes, mahn."

  "We go first, okay? Nothing starts until we do. Don't be blasting away just to be doing it—they don't make a move on me, you take off for the spot soon as the front door goes. Listen, Clarence, listen good. Everybody's coming out the back, okay? The Mole'll get to the van first. He'll be okay. He can't see worth shit, but he can drive good enough, he has to. And he knows where to go. I come out first, I'm waiting for Max. He comes first, he'll wait for me. Don't waste your time trying to move him—he won't go. Anybody gets hit, we got the medical kit in the back. Let the Mole do the doctoring, you drive, it comes to that. Anybody comes out after me and Max, blow them away."

  "I got it, mahn. I won't let you down."

  "I know. Your mother raised a hell of a man."

  His tight smile flashed in the dark. I watched the target house. Held my hands in front of me, palms down, fingers spread. Delicate fingers, they looked to me now. X–ray eyes, seeing the bones. Cold bones, icicles—they'd shatter like glass if I hit something.

  I tapped the side of the plastic bottle of talc, rubbed it all over my hands. Slipped on the surgeon's gloves, warming my hands.

  Then I pulled the Velcro band tight around my right wrist, checked for flex. I'd have to fire the scattergun with one hand.

  I felt my heart pound, breathed until it settled down into a smooth idle. Inside, they weren't the ones. But they'd do.

  On the top of the abandoned building, a tiny red light blinked. Time.

  I held out my hand. Clarence took it, squeezed.

  I stepped onto the street. Hands full. Started my walk.

  The headlights on the van flashed into life. Blinked off. Flashed again. The signal to the Mole. In the target house, the lights in the windows went dark, electricity dead. The bolt cutters took the gate in one chomp. I walked up to the door, shotgun in my right hand. No sounds from inside—they probably figured it for a blown fuse. Flattened myself against the wall next to the door, molded the plastique all around the seams. Pulled the string and ran to the side of the house, rolling into a ball, soles of my boots pointed at the door. It blew off with a muffled thump, mini–mushroom of plaster dust billowing out.

  I was up and running back to the entrance, crouching as I slid through the doorway, a human trip–wire, on the kill. Movement to my right—I squeezed off a blast from the scattergun. Voices screaming above me. Downstairs was empty except for a couple of couches, big television set. And a body dressed in jeans and a splattered white T–shirt, blood from waist to face.

  Center staircase. I started up, crab–style, stomach flat against the left wall, leading with my right hand. A shape peered around the corner ahead of me. I fired, scrambled up behind the blast as a body tumbled down the stairs toward me, swung the shotgun around the corner, cranked off three more rounds, sweeping. I dropped the shotgun, whipped the automatic free of the shoulder rig.

  "This is the police!" I yelled, concussion still ringing in my ears. "Come out with yo
ur hands up!"

  Two of them staggered into the hall. Man in white boxer shorts, woman in a red nightgown, hands up, trying to say something.

  I moved down the corridor. "Where's the rest?" I asked, leveling the pistol between them.

  "Downstairs," the man said.

  "How many?"

  "Seven. We're the Nine. I

  "Turn around, grab the wall. You move, you're dead."

  They braced themselves like they'd done it before. I pulled a flare from my jacket, cracked it open. It glowed cold green fire at the end of the hall near the staircase. Enough light to see Max as he flowed down the stairs, a shadow of power. Something crackled like cellophane in my chest, suppressed fear released—he'd made it to the roof. I pointed ahead, stood guard as he went into the other rooms.

  Three rooms and a bath on the floor, doors standing open. The man and woman had come from the one on the end. Max stepped back into the corridor, made an "all clear" signal to me. Pointed a finger upstairs, grabbed the finger with his other hand, bent it in half. One of them had been upstairs.

  Time running down. "Where's the rest?" I asked them, reasonable and calm.

  "We told you," the woman said. "Downstairs."

  It hit me then—where it had all started for Luke. I stepped close to them, pulled the trigger again and again, squeezing them off the count. Charged down the stairs, flying now, feeling Max behind me.

  The basement door was locked—felt like steel. I stepped aside. Max's leg shot out like a pile driver, rapid–fire hammering all around the knob. A final kick took it off the hinges. Gunfire answered, bullets whined up at us. I dropped to my belly, unhooked the baseball–sized grenade from my belt, pulled the pin with my teeth, tossed it in. A white flash just ahead of the bang. I crawled inside, flying blind.

  Lights on—they must have had a generator. A bullet chipped the wall near my face. I emptied the Glock, sweeping in a Z–pattern, hosing them down, slithered back outside, snapped in a new clip.

  All–dead silence now. I crept down the stairs. The far wall was cracked open from the grenade—I could see clear out to the night. Pair of heavy videocams on tripods, cross–firing at a black–skirted platform standing in front of an inverted cross. Foot–high numbers sprayed in red on the wall above: 666. The platform stood untouched by the explosion, waiting for the show to start. I walked over, looked down. The surface was gleaming hardwood, an upside–down pentagram carved deep into its face, like a butcher's drain. The pentagram stared back at me, a leering goat's head.

  Two bodies down there. One wearing a black hood, peaked at the top, some weird symbols on it in white, a .45 in its hand. The other was a woman, black hair, heavy white makeup, black lipstick. They were both stitched with bullets from the Glock. I spun around to go when I saw it…in the corner. I made myself look. A little boy. Handcuffed behind his back, tape across his mouth, naked. Bullet holes along his spine. I turned him over with my hand, gently too late. The exit wound had taken off his face.

  My mind blanked off the child's body, rejecting the image, a pure white screen with black numbers, counting: Nine, the woman upstairs said. We are the Nine. I'd taken out two with the scattergun before I dropped her and her pal. Max left one coming down from the roof. Two in the basement. The little boy wouldn't count—he wasn't one of them. Two more, somewhere. I held up two fingers to Max. He took the point to the back door. It was standing open, swinging softly in the night air. I snapped my last flare, tossed it outside, rolled out in its wake, Max right behind. We started toward the van, keeping low. I saw a woman's body lying face up in the weeds. We were about fifty feet away when the shots came. I caught one in the shoulder—a hard punch from an ice pick. White wires ripped through my arm, my eyes starbursted with pain as I went down. Max dove on top, covering me with his body. Double blast from the Prof's shotgun, snapping string of killer hornets from Clarence's automatic.

  "The motherfucker's down, bro'! Run for it, we got your back!"

  On my feet now, Max's arm around me bracing, trying to run. Heard the van's engine roar into life, felt myself lifted inside.

  It all went black then.

  190

  I rested up in the junkyard. Hadn't lost much blood with the pressure bandage they'd slapped on. Got lost in the painkillers for a few days.

  I was okay about it, the dead time. Talked to Terry, watched some TV. Max fed Pansy every day, finally went back and brought her over to me. She was in heat. It took me fifteen minutes of one–handed sign language to convince him I wanted him to take the dog to Elroy's for a while.

  Clarence came by, sat next to my cot in the bunker.

  "I saw him take off The Silent One. Like a skate, a devilfish flying. Right after you blew the front door. Seemed like he was up there so long, floating."

  "You stand there gawking at him?"

  "Oh, that is what the Prof said, mahn, I finally get around to the back door with him. I didn't even see the first one come out. It was the Prof who took her—a young girl. She was almost on me with that long knife, screaming like a mad witch, when I hear the shotgun speak. Cut her right down. I would not have thought the little man could do like that."

  "Yeah. He's a fucking wonder."

  "He's a man. Like I never knew. Quiet, after that. Then we hear shots from inside. And the explosion. I ask him, how long we gonna wait? He says, until you come out. I ask him, what if you don't come out? You know what he says to me, mahn? He says, then the cops find us when they come. And we die right there. Die like men. I wish my mother knew a man like that."

  "Me too."

  The bullet never touched bone. The bandage was a few inches from the Queen's amulet, still around my neck. I was healing, waiting my time. Staying inside, icing up.

  When they brought Luke to see me, I started crying.

  He was gone by the time I stopped.

  191

  In Wolfe's backyard, dark out.

  "They identified the bodies," she said. "No tapes. They must have just gotten started when it happened."

  "I guess.

  "Storm had her baby. A girl. They named her Sunny."

  "That's nice."

  "And we arrested Emerson. Took him down yesterday. Hanging around outside the Welfare Center. He's on the Rock. And this is one indictment that'll stick."

  "Yeah."

  She threw away her cigarette. "Burke…"

  "Yeah?"

  She stood close to me, held my hand. Her kiss was soft. "You and me, it's not going to be."

  "I know."

  192

  I stood alone on my rooftop, looking down into the zero. I never knew the name of the last sacrifice—didn't know who I was crying for anymore.

  Thought about what I didn't have until the list got too long.

  Clarence's voice, from long ago. "What would be justice, mahn? So the baby may sleep in peace?"

  He was older now.

  I can't make babies. Can't fake love. I finished with my tears. Back to what I had left.

  193

  At Mama's, in the back booth, drinking my soup, making my plans.

  "You had call," Mama said. "Yesterday."

  "He leave a name?"

  "Not a man. Woman. Said to tell you Belinda called. She say you have her number."

  194

  They brought Silver to the attorney's conference room at Rikers. We shook hands. I felt the power of his grip all the way through my wounded shoulder.

  He leaned forward, jailhouse whisper. "Helene told me. I owe you, brother."

  I reached in my attaché case. Showed him the picture of Emerson, ran my thumb along the razor–sliced edge. Said the baby–killer's name softly. He'd be in the same joint as Silver, awaiting trial—Rikers holds city–wide.

  Silver stared at the photo for a long minute, nodded, handed it back.

  195

  I'm here now. Waiting for my spirit to walk.

  Andrew Vachss

  Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually
transmitted diseases, a social caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for youthful offenders. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, poetry, graphic novels, and a "children's book for adults." His books have been translated into twenty different languages and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, The New York Times, and numerous other forums. He lives and works in New York City and the Pacific Northwest.

  The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com

  BOOKS BY ANDREW VACHSS

  Flood

  Strega

  Blue Belle

  Hard Candy

  Blossom

  Sacrifice

  Shella

  Down in the Zero

  Born Bad

  Footsteps of the Hawk

  False Allegations

  Safe House

  Choice of Evil

  Everybody Pays

  Dead and Gone

  Pain Management

  Copyright ©1991 by Andrew Vachss

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1991, and in trade paperback by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1996.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

  LC 90-53582

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/