Andrew Vachss - The Weight

Know this, child: my life began anew when you came into it, but also know that my life had already been pledged. I apologize for nothing. What I did, I did. I never told you of these things, because knowing would be dangerous for you. I was always true, my Rena. To you, and to the oath I swore many years before your birth. I could never allow a conflict between my oath and you, because my oath was given to a greater thing than any person could ever be .

You have my love, forever and always. It would be no betrayal for you to be with another now. In truth, it would be my wish. But, whatever you do, you tell Solly NOTHING. If you must speak with him, lie. Once you are gone from him, STAY gone. Never contact Solly again. I write this with a prayer that someday you will be reading it. If you never read this, it means you have already rejoined me. If any other person is reading this, I have been betrayed .

So to whoever is reading this, I say: YOU MUST SHOW THIS MESSAGE TO ARI! Show this to Ari BEFORE you act .

Ari, this woman knows nothing of our business. Now you have the proof you sought. SOLLY IS THE TRAITOR. This girl does not know my book exists. Solly has my book. He will deny this, but I sent it to him months ago, when the doctors told me I had little time left. When Solly says he does not have my book, you will know the truth. Ari, if you hurt this girl, you will learn nothing. Worse, you will dishonor your own father and the cause for which we both pledged our lives. Go see Solly. And finish this .

Then there was some Jewish writing. Maybe it was more words, but I could only read the English part. I did that, over and over again.

I shook my head, like maybe that would change the writing. I’d probably still be staring at that paper if Rena hadn’t stabbed me in the side of my neck with a long fingernail.

“What the-?”

“There’s nothing else to say, is there? You got what you came for.”

“Except for-”

“Just stop, okay? I don’t care anymore. I’m going to obey my husband. You want to run back to Solly, do it. You want to talk to Jessop so bad, I can tell you where to find him too.”

“How could you do that?”

“Easy,” she said, like there was a foul taste in her mouth. “On paper, he’s my husband.”

Rena pulled the Caddy into a marked-off slot right in front of one of those little up-and-down houses. She had the key for the front door.

The place was like brand-new clean, but it had a musty smell. Like Solly’s unit , I thought. Only his smelled good, because Grace came in every week .

I got all our stuff inside. Rena went around turning things on. “Don’t open the blinds,” she said. “I want to get the car into the garage. It’s out back. We have two slots. One’s large enough for an RV. That’s a big thing in time-shares.”

Then she was gone. At least, this time, there weren’t any of those damn bugs to keep me company.

“What’s a time-share?” I asked, as soon as she sat down. She looked like she didn’t have much left in her, and I wanted to be sure I knew what the deal was. “Time-share” didn’t sound good to me.

“The owner is a corporation,” she said, between puffs of her smoke. “You buy shares that entitle you to use the place one month out of every year. Summertime, the shares are pretty cheap. In the winter, they go for a lot.”

“So you own one of those shares?”

“I own them all. One corporation, twelve shareholders. But they’re all me, just different names. The corporation has a bank account. The mortgage company gets a check every month from that account. Automatically, I mean-they just go in there and take it out. Same for the condo association. You have to pay them fees, on top of the mortgage. Also the cable TV.

“There’s no phone. The account for the corporation always has enough in it to carry the place for a few years, even if no new deposits show up.

“I handle all the deposits into the corporate account. I just made one last April. Nobody’s going to be asking any questions for a long time. And I’ll be gone a much longer time by then. That’s the way Albie set it up.

“The same for the car. I own it. In the same name I use for my driver’s license and insurance. Down here, a white Caddy’s like a palm tree-anyplace you look, you see them.”

“Are you going to-?”

I stopped when I saw she was already asleep. Just passed out on the couch. I snubbed out her smoke in the ashtray, then I kicked back in the recliner.

But I didn’t go to sleep.

It was way past midnight when she came around. At first, she looked scared, like she woke up in the middle of a bad dream. Then she shook her head hard, put her nose under her armpit, made a face.

That’s when she saw me there.

“I need a shower, Sugar. Then you can sleep, okay?”

I didn’t say anything. Just kept sitting there, with her pistol in my lap.

She made it quick. I guess she knew I was running on fumes. I don’t even remember going out.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a bed. Rena was next to me. She must have taken off my shirt and shoes and socks. She smelled fresh and sweet. I didn’t.

I found the shower easy enough. Draped over the hamper, all the fresh clothes I’d need, except for my shoes.

I just kept going, like I knew what I was doing. But I didn’t even know what day it was. Didn’t know the time until I went back into the living room. It had those tiny little blinds, the kind you open and close by twisting a rod. I pushed one up with my finger. Daylight.

The kitchen was nothing like the one in Rena’s house, but it was still all high-end. Looked new. I opened the refrigerator. Bottles of water were all I saw. But there was a whole mess of my power bars on the little round table.

I was still eating when I felt her behind me. I started to turn, but she put her hand on my face and pushed it back to where it was.

“Finish first, then we’ll talk,” she said.

In the reflection from the hood over the stove, I could see she wasn’t wearing anything.

When I went into the front room, she was waiting. Dressed in a set of baggy gray sweats, barefoot. Her hair was down, looked wet, like she’d just walked out of the shower.

With the blinds drawn and only a little lamp going in the corner, the room was all dark and smoky. Like an after-hours joint, except for the quiet.

“You’ll have to cut this later,” she said, pulling at her hair. “I can dye it myself. I’ll pick up what we need when I buy some real suitcases.”

“You’re going to, what, disappear?”

“I already have. Rena Rosenberg is gone. I’m Lynda Leigh. On this unit, on the car, on my license. Even on my birth certificate. Which you need to get a passport. And Lynda Leigh has a credit history, too.”

“You’ve been ready for this to happen, huh?”

“For a long time. Albie knew it would come someday, and he never let me forget it. You know something else? I made all this ID myself. Me. Albie taught me. Perfect ID isn’t just copying a photo on a license, like I did when you took the Lincoln. It takes research, equipment, and technique. That last one, I don’t know if I can explain it. But Albie said I was a natural.

“I learned from the best. Albie told me that the fatal flaw in buying ID is, you’re giving the person you bought it from more than just the money; you’re giving him something he can sell. But when you learn to make your own, you never have to trust anyone, ever.”