Andrew Vachss - The Weight

“Albie’s ledgers. It’s all in there.”

“You can read them?”

“Every word.”

“I didn’t see any addresses. Some phone numbers, maybe, but…”

“We have to unpack anyway,” she said. Not icy anymore. More like bored. “When we find the ledgers, I’ll show you.”

By the time we dug out the ledgers, it was late. “It’s not like you need this stuff tonight,” she said. “I’m tired and I’m hungry. I know every take-out spot around here-there’s a lot of them. You probably don’t know how to… ah, never mind, what do I know? Just tell me what you want. Asian, Indian, Mexican? Hamburgers? What?”

“I’ll eat whatever you bring back.”

“Thai, then?”

“Sure.”

“Wake up.” Rena, kneeling on the carpet so she could whisper in my ear.

Damn! is all I remember thinking. Nobody should be able to sneak up on me, specially if they had to open a door to do it.

The food was good. Crisp and clean. She brought so much that there were leftovers, even though we both ate like pigs.

“We have to let the food settle first,” Rena said. Sitting back in the living room, lighting a cigarette.

“Sure,” I said, although I didn’t know what she was talking about.

A few minutes later, she said, “Go take a shower, Sugar.”

I was standing under the steam when the idea that she might be calling Jessop right that minute hit me.

I was still thinking about that when she got into the shower with me.

“Don’t be rough with me,” she said in the bedroom. “It’s been a long, long time.”

That made me mad, like she had to warn me. “Can’t you do any damn thing without making it some kind of deal?” I said.

She raised her hand to slap me. I didn’t move.

Then she was crying and kissing me at the same time. I don’t even know how I ended up inside her.

“I said don’t be rough, not play dead!” she hissed in my ear. But I could tell she wasn’t mad at all.

The first time she woke me up that night, she was a little rough herself. The second time, she was just right.

I don’t mean she was good, like an expert or anything. She was just… right, is the only way I can say it.

“This is my breakfast specialty.” She was standing in the kitchen, talking over her shoulder at me. “Warmed-over Thai.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Trust, remember?”

“I do,” I told her. She was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, the ledgers in her lap.

“I’m not going to ask you why you want to find Jessop.”

“If you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

“That isn’t what I meant by trust, Sugar. He doesn’t live in Tallahassee. Or Tampa, either. It’s way east of here, damn near in the middle of the state.”

“So?”

“The middle of this state, it’s another world from the coasts. Plus, where he lives, it’s a tiny little town. They probably pay attention to anyone who even stops for gas.”

“Were you ever there?”

“Not there, exactly. But in that part of the state? Sure. That’s where I was born.”

“So you met-?”

“I was a runaway, Sugar. I hitched a ride and I was gone. I didn’t meet Jessop until I’d been on my own for a few weeks. And that wasn’t so far from here. Tampa’s where he took me.

“If he hadn’t gotten busted for underage… I didn’t have any fake ID, and I wasn’t even… developed yet, not really. This was before I got the implants. The way the cops explained it to me, if we got married, they’d drop the charges on Jessop. But I’d need my mother’s permission. I never even went back myself. Jessop went over there, paid her the money, and she signed. Like he was buying a used car.”

The address she got from Albie’s ledger wasn’t the same one the lawyer told me. I figured Albie paid closer attention than any parole officer would. The Law might know where Jessop got his mail, but Albie would know where he lived.

A lot of good that did me. If Jessop had any sense, he’d stay close to his home base between jobs.

“He’d see me coming a mile away.”

“You are difficult to hide,” she said, kind of smiling at me. That’s when I realized I must have said it out loud, instead of just thinking it.

“So far, nobody’s seen me here, though. Do you think you could go out and get some more food? Enough we don’t have to go out for every meal?”

“Sure,” she said. I could see from her face that she knew why I wanted her out of there.

“Wait. Come here for a minute, Rena.”

“Lynda.”

“I’ll get it.”

She came over and dropped into my lap. “You have to get it, Sugar. Before I was Rena, I was someone else. Jessop never put a hand on Rena. And you never have, either. Understand?”

“Lynda,” I said. And kissed her hair.

She snuggled against me. I kept thinking about trust. “Do you know this town?” I asked her.

“I used to know it. Now all I know is what I told you: take-out joints, pharmacies, one mini-mall. I looked them up before we came down here. I even have a little map. But that’s about it.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“I thought maybe there was a way to get this Jessop here. Not here , here. In Tampa someplace, I meant.”

“Oh.”

“Can you sit here and listen?” I said.

“Of course I can.”

“No smoking.”

“Sugar…”

“You want to smoke, sit over where you were. I still want you to listen.”

She wiggled in my lap. Not like she was teasing, like she was making up her mind. Then she kind of settled in.

“Why didn’t you take off the minute Albie was gone?” I asked.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to do that. I called Solly, and he sent you down empty. Without any will, I mean. How come?”

“Because he read it.”

“Oh.”

“And he wanted Albie’s book.”

“And he didn’t care if I… Yeah, I get it. I get it now.”

“I’m supposed to be down here looking for this Jessop. But, really, I’m supposed to get that book.”

“That was the deal?”

“That was it. Only, Solly, he didn’t know what was in that partners desk. He probably thought it was a stash of gold. That’s something Solly always was a fanatic about, gold. ‘Jewish Traveler’s Checks’ is what he called it.”

“How does this help us?”

“You have to help me first, Lynda. I don’t mean a trade or anything like that. I mean, you and me, we have to help each other. You’re smarter than me about some things; I’m smarter than you about other things. We have to put that together.”

“That’s what Albie always told me.”

“I don’t-”

“Add everything up. Always add everything up. If you do that right, whatever’s missing, that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Okay, but-”

“Sugar, just sit here for a couple of hours. You can think while you’re sitting; I can think while I’m running around stocking us up. When I come back, that’s when we can sit down and do the adding up. Together, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. I was a little disappointed she hadn’t noticed me calling her Lynda. But then I thought maybe that meant she didn’t think I was dumb.

I didn’t want to disappoint her , so I really did try and think over everything we had. But all I could really think of was what we didn’t.