Andrew Vachss - The Weight

What I said about a sex jones? A little while back, the Governor lost it all. He started out being the Attorney General-that’s where he made his rep. The guy was no Eliot Ness; he got his name from going after investment bankers, not for racket-busting.

But he was running the biggest racket of them all. Everybody loved it when he made those places cough up zillions. The papers made him out to be this big hero, fighting for the little guy. Most of that money went to the State… and nobody went to jail. Solly told me it was one of the sweetest scams he ever saw.

So this guy had all the momentum behind him when he ran for Governor. Nobody even wanted to run against him. He won in a landslide. Everyone said he’d be the next President.

Then he got caught up in one of those escort deals, and lost it all. That’s why you stay away from a guy with a sex habit. If it’s only a matter of time for them, it’s a sure bet you’ll be doing some yourself.

The gray-cloud man leaned in a little closer. “You wouldn’t have to give up anyone who was in on it with you,” he said. “Nobody on your side at all. Just the owner. He’s the one we want. He’s all we want.”

I just looked at him.

“You pleaded guilty to a crime you didn’t commit. We know why you did that.”

I blank-faced him.

“How would you like to have that rape conviction vacated? Wiped off the books. And full immunity for the jewelry-store robbery.”

“I’d like that fine,” I told him. “The first part, I mean. The other part, I don’t need that.”

“Because you’re going to let the statute run, I know. But a rape charge? A man like you, he wouldn’t want something like that on his record.”

“That’s true, I don’t.”

“What’s the problem, then? You think the locals haven’t already done a KA on you?”

I knew they must have. Too bad for them-I didn’t have any “known associates.” I always wanted to be one of Ken’s, and I was getting pretty close, but I don’t think I ever really made the cut while he was still alive. Now, every fucking punk whose idea of a classy job was a smash-and-grab claimed they’d been with Ken. Me, I would never disrespect him like that.

So I answered the visitor’s question: “What’s the problem? The problem is that I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if the owner was in on the job? You just did it as piecework? Hired labor? Please don’t tell me you weren’t even in on the shares.”

Ex-FBI? I asked myself. This guy knew his way around a pro thief’s mind. At least enough to know I’d take the idea of being hired to carry bags as an insult. Giving me the chance to say something stupid, that was a pro move from his side, I had to give him that.

But “I don’t even know what ‘job’ you’re talking about” is all I said.

“Sure. That’s what I expected. And, between us, I respect you for it. That’s your reputation, Mr. Caine.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. And even if it wasn’t, you’ve only got a couple more years to go, so I won’t waste your time telling you the men who pulled that drill-through left a lot of evidence behind…”

He let his words just kind of hang there, watching my eyes again.

It was too weak to even count as a bluff, and he knew it. So he finished up with: “But you’re a pro, and a pro only plays for money.”

“I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“No? Then let me spell it out for you, very clearly: you tell us what we want to know, you walk right out of here. And if what you have to say stands up in court-we’re talking civil court now, none of this ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ stuff-two hundred and fifty thousand. Cold cash, in your hand.”

“The IRS would love that.”

“If we were to pay a witness a contingency fee for his testimony, that would be a very serious crime, Mr. Caine. One single conviction for that sort of activity would topple even the most reputable company. A huge backlog of cases the company had won could be reopened. Nobody wants that kind of disaster, rest assured. Nobody .”

“Fuck!”

“What?”

“Mr… Johnson,” I said, reading it off the business card he’d handed to me, “this is the first time in my whole life that I wish I had done the crime.”

He looked at me for a long minute. Looked hard. The gray got deeper. Darker.

“We’re not paying off on that jeweler’s policy. He’s got to sue us to get paid, and that case will still be open long after you walk out of here. On the back of the card I gave you is a number. Call it and you’ll reach me. Me, personally. Anytime, day or night.”

Then he got up and walked away.

So I was right-that guy was an insurance investigator, with plenty of clout behind him. I didn’t know if he had enough to pull tax records. On me, I’m talking about. But one thing I was sure of: “Robert Johnson” might not be his real name, but him being the kind of man to take a job all the way, that was real. I was glad it wasn’t me he wanted.

That jewelry-store owner, I wonder if he knew about the gray cloud yet. What I knew for sure was that he had nothing to trade. He wouldn’t have Solly’s name, much less me or Big Matt’s.

Solly was a master storyteller. Like that wild card, Jessop. I didn’t even know if there was any Albie who’d vouched for him. But when I thought about that gray man, I could see a lot more reasons why Solly would want to be sure of this Jessop guy. Even dead sure.

The best time to find what I wanted was mid-afternoon. The best place was outside Manhattan.

The club’s parking lot was nearly empty. Inside, a single dancer phoned it in on the pole. Half a dozen guys were watching, none of them sitting together. The whole joint was about as sexy as a morgue.

When the waitress came over, I told her what I wanted. She answered on autopilot: “Got anybody special in mind, big boy?”

“If I had my choice, it’d be you.”

“For real?”

“You’re the best-looking thing in this place, by far.”

“Once, maybe. But I’m not a dancer, not anymore. We’re not supposed to… Oh, fuck it. What can he do, fire me? But could you go another fifty, hon? If I don’t give the girl who’s up there now something, she’ll tell the boss.”

“A buck and a half?”

“I know,” she said, kind of sad. “For that kind of money, you could get-”

“A bargain,” I told her.

She leaned all over me, whispered, “You won’t be sorry, I swear.”

Then she told me to give her a few minutes, and how to find the room in the back.

They had a guy posted on the other side of the curtains-maybe to make the girls feel safer. Long hair, cowboy mustache, dungaree vest. I guess he was supposed to be some kind of biker. Looked like a guy who threw weights every day when he was Inside, then stopped the minute he got out. From the size of his gut, I figured he must have been out for years.

He eye-fucked me just to play the role, but his heart wasn’t in it-if he still had any left. I figured the girl had tipped him, too. Not to get me past Fatso, just so she could show off a little.

And she was right. I wasn’t sorry at all.

“So? You find everything you needed? At that loft, I’m talking about.”

“Yeah,” I told Solly. “Thanks. You had it set up real slick.”