Andrew Vachss - The Weight

It looked professional, that tattoo. He had outdoor skin, too. If he’d ever been Inside, it was a while ago.

Dark-brown hair, cut pretty short, like a businessman. Dark eyes. Kind of a big nose, but nothing that’d make you look twice. The little finger on his right hand was crooked, like it was broken once and never set right. Long fingers, thin wrists. A rip scar on his left forearm-the kind you get from blocking a blade.

If I had to guess, I’d say he was somewhere around my age. No way this was his first job: he knew how to use tools, and he lifted with his back. Never tried to pick up something he didn’t think he could handle.

Didn’t talk much, but none of us did, so I didn’t know if he was naturally closemouthed or just being a pro.

He wasn’t from New York, that was for sure. I don’t know how people talk in Florida-that was where Albie lived-so he could be from there, maybe.

He was the kind of guy, you walk in a poolroom, he’s waiting for you. When I tried to picture what he did when he wasn’t working, I could see him doing that. He didn’t look like a gambler.

“Would this person know you?” the lawyer asked me.

“Yeah.”

“Even in your new glasses?”

Showing off? I didn’t know. I just said “Yeah,” again. I figured that was smarter than telling him a story like I told the girl who owned the house I was staying in. On this slickster, it would never fly.

“So you’d know him ?”

“No question.”

“Say we could get a picture…?”

“That would do it. For me, I mean.”

“If he’s got a record-and I’m thinking he probably does-shouldn’t be that hard to find. Okay, so this person gets… located. What then?”

“Well, if your guy could find out some other stuff, that would be good, too.”

“Such as?”

“Like you said, if he had a record. Or if he was a drunk. Or a junkie. Things like that.”

The lawyer touched that pencil mustache of his. “Anything that might make him, should we say… unreliable?”

“Uh-huh.” Damn , I remember thinking, this one’s got a fucking stiletto for a brain .

“Mr… Wilson, is it? Mr. Wilson, is it correct for me to assume that should he be located nothing is going to happen to this individual?”

“Absolutely.”

“No… difficult questions you want to ask him?”

“Not a one.”

“You understand, in such a situation, the investigator would be working for me, but you would be the client, yes?”

“Sure.”

“And you understand there is no way I could claim I haven’t met you before?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And the reason you want this person located?”

“An old friend of mine-I mean old-old, he was like eighty-something-he died. While I was Upstate. This guy, the one I want to find, I heard he and my friend were close. My friend, he wanted to be buried in Arlington. You know, the place where-”

“So he was a veteran, your friend?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re not certain his final wishes have been carried out? And you believe this gentleman might know?”

“Exactly,” I said, trying to say it like Solly would.

“Very good,” the lawyer said. “You understand that you’ve really provided very little by way of information, yes? So this could take a while.”

“And time is money, I know. But this is real important to me.”

I left my new cell-phone number with the lawyer. And ten large in hundreds.

I was in the middle of a workout the next morning when I heard someone coming up the back stairs. Before I could… I can’t say what, exactly, because I wasn’t ready for anyone knowing about the place.

Which makes me stupid.

Then I heard, “It’s just me.” The woman from downstairs.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson,” she said, when she was standing in the front room, where I’d been working out. “I wanted to ask you something, and I thought it would be silly to call, since I could see you were home. I mean, from your car and all.”

I just looked at her.

“I didn’t want to ring the bell, either. In case you were asleep. Or on the phone.”

I put down the weights.

She ran her hands through her hair. Looked like she’d just washed it. She was wearing a white tank top and black stretch pants-I couldn’t see her feet because she was still on the staircase.

“And… well, you know how people are. I wasn’t going to use the outside steps. The old lady who lives right across the street, she’s like Neighborhood Watch. Sits there all day, watching.”

“You wanted to ask me something?”

She took that as inviting her to come the rest of the way up. I saw where her shoulder came to on the wall above the railing-she was maybe five two, at the most.

“More like a professional opinion,” she said. “Now, I know , this must happen to you all the time. Like at parties: people find out a man’s a doctor, they start asking him all their medical questions. I apologize if… if I’m doing that.”

I stepped back, making it like I did that so I could sit on the couch, get some distance.

But she came closer.

“Could I ask you a personal question?”

“Uh… okay.”

“How old are you?”

“Forty.”

“Well, what it says on your license, you’re only thirty-nine. I mean, you were born in 1970. December. This is still only July, so you’re not forty yet , right?”

“On my next birthday.”

“I know. I was just… I mean, I didn’t believe you were that old when I first met you. But I guess, being a personal trainer and all…”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t trying to stare her down, or even make her uncomfortable, but I didn’t want her coming up here all the time. I was glad I had the glasses on.

“I’ll bet, if you asked a hundred people who were about to turn forty how old they were, ninety-nine of them would say thirty-nine. Maybe all one hundred.”

I shrugged. That’s what I do when I can’t see where someone’s going.

“It’s not the age you are, it’s the age you look , isn’t that true?”

“On the outside, maybe.”

“Well, I bet for the people you train that’s what’s important to them.”

“Oh sure,” I told her. I was a lot more comfortable now that I could see where she was going. “Yes, it would be. But there’s a lot more to it than losing weight. Like cardio. And eating right. I guess it’s more about being healthy than looking… younger, or whatever.”

“Could you tell by just looking at a client what they’d need for a… a program, right? Isn’t that what you call it?”

“Yes. A program, I mean. But you can’t tell anything by looking at someone. You need a body-mass index for that,” I told her.

I could feel the confidence in me, now that I knew she wasn’t asking her questions to check my credentials. The more a person is paying attention to themselves, the less they pay to you.

“Are you saying you can’t tell if someone is too fat?”

“That wouldn’t be my decision.”

“I don’t understand.” She walked over to where I was sitting, hesitated a second, then sat down in the armchair to my right. She crossed her legs. I could tell she was pressing down hard over her knee, because her thigh pulsed. She was barefoot. Small feet, high arch. Shoulders back, spine straight.

Posing.

If I didn’t say anything, she’d think I was going along, looking her over. So I told her:

“If someone thinks they’re too fat, that’s what counts. Or too skinny. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; if someone’s… dissatisfied with themselves, that’s enough. But nobody should go into training because of what other people think.”