Andrew Vachss - The Weight

He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “I suppose that could work. But there’s still…”

I could hear Lynda in my head: You think any broad with plastic tits, she’s got to be stupid, is that it? I knew what to say then.

“You think any guy looks like me, he’s got to be stupid, right? Muscles and brains, they, like, cancel each other out. You fucking ‘suppose’ it could work, is that right? Maybe you’re too busy looking down your nose at me to see I might know some things.

“Well, here’s one of those things: You go to any joint in the country, most of the cons will tell you they’re innocent. They were framed, the cops flaked them, their lawyer sold them out-you know. And a lot more than you think would be telling the truth.”

“What does this have to do with-?”

“How about if you just let me finish, okay? Convicts, they got a different way of looking at things. In their minds, crime, that’s a game with rules . You go out and hold up a bank. If they catch you, you lose. If you get away, you win. Get it?”

“It’s not complicated.”

“Yeah? You sure? See, you’re missing what I’m telling you. The joints are loaded with guys doing time for a crime they never committed, all right. But those guys, they actually did enough crimes to box them for life if they had been caught, see?”

“So you think this… scenario would have the ring of truth?”

“For all you know, it might be the truth, that’s what I’m telling you. The guy you want doesn’t even have to be in a New York pen. Could be federal, another state, doesn’t matter. All he needs to qualify is be a big white guy doing a long stretch for rapes, a guy who was out when… it happened to her. Now, tell me you can’t find one guy who fits that frame.”

He looked straight at me for a couple of seconds. Then he said, “You’re right. That would work. She wasn’t raped in her own place, so-”

“Don’t tell me anything about it. I still have that polygraph card. Maybe it don’t mean nothing to you, but it’s precious to me. You never fucking got that, did you?”

“I do now,” he said, as he sat back down.

I felt a weight come off me. “You can tell her something else,” I said to him. “Tell her you spoke with the man who went to prison for raping her. The innocent man who really isn’t so innocent. A bad, dangerous man. That’s me, right? You tell her not only did I do that guy’s time, he hung a sex-fiend jacket on me, too. Tell her, if that scumbag ever crosses my path, he’s dead.”

“That I do believe, Mr. Caine. If she hadn’t been raped, none of this-”

“I don’t care what you believe, Mr. Johnson. All I care about is, she believes it. Can you get that done?”

“I can.”

“Okay. That’s one piece. Remember what you promised?”

“We’ve been all over-”

“No. No, we haven’t. You said you could get me immunity, remember?”

He just nodded.

“I know it’s too late for that. But when you offered it, that was the same as telling me you know some connected people. High-up connected.”

He just stared at me.

“Seeing how long you managed to drag this insurance thing out, I figure you must still know people like that. Permanent people, like. So what I want now, it’s something I know you can do.”

“Which is?” he said. His eyes were half closed, like when you squint to see something better.

“I don’t want to be a sex offender.”

“But that’s all-”

“Fuck if it is. I’ll take your deal, but I’m not letting anyone keep me on a leash.”

“What are you talking about? You’re not on parole. Nobody’s got any ‘leash’ on you.”

“Just make the conviction into something else. Anything else, I don’t care. With that sex-offender tag on me, I have to tell them every time I change my address. I can go back to prison just for moving without doing that. I can’t have that hanging over me.”

“Did you get the notice? The one that tells you-?”

“Yeah. They gave it to me as a going-away present.”

“All right. Have you registered yet?”

“No.”

He nodded, like he was agreeing with himself. Then he said, “Will you settle for the conviction standing? On paper, I mean. But your name never goes in the registry?”

“I can’t.”

“But that’s all you-”

I heard the voice of that writ-writer, cluing me in. It echoed in my head: It’s pure bullshit. “Sealed,” all that means is they can’t put it in the newspapers .

So I told him, “Whoever you can… talk to, they’ll tell you how it really works. There’s all kinds of paper floating around. Paper that says I did a rape. I’ll never really be out from under with that over my head.”

“Even if we could… arrange to go back and erase every trace, it could take years. And finding every single trace might be impossible.”

“You don’t need that,” I told him. “I don’t care about the arrest. Even the charge. Or the indictment. This isn’t some trick for me to slide out from under two priors. In fact, it’d be fine with me if you made it another manslaughter.”

“Another?”

“I’m on paper for one, but I pleaded it out to misdemeanor assault. But any felony assault, that’d be a violent crime. You pick it; I’ll take it, so long as I don’t have to keep checking in, like I was on parole for life or something. I won’t wear that jacket.”

“Just sit here for a few minutes, all right?”

“Sure,” I said.

He got up and walked away. I didn’t even turn my head. If he was going to pull something, I didn’t want to see it coming.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said when he came back. “That misdemeanor you told me about?”

“Yeah?”

He waved his hand like a fly was after his food. “How many times do you think you can slide on serious crimes? You’d think a guy with your record would know better than to go down on a possession charge.”

“Possession? Possession of what?”

“A firearm, of course.”

“For real?”

“It’s already done. Ask your lawyer. One Hector Santiago-Ramirez, I believe? He must have done a hell of a job getting the DA to let you plead down to a possession charge instead of what you deserved, an ex-con carrying around a loaded handgun, like you were.”

He leaned in closer to me. “Understand, you’ve still got two felony convictions. Robbery, age seventeen; criminal possession of a weapon, age thirty-three.”

I took off my glasses. I wanted him to see what I was doing. He didn’t flinch. And he had to know he was swearing on his life.

“Then I’ve got something else for you,” I told him.

“What?”

“I did the jewelry job. You already know that, and you already know I’m not rolling on anyone else who was in on it. Only, now I’ll give you the planner. Solly. Him I’ll give up in a heartbeat. I’ll tell the truth: Solly and the jeweler, they put the plan together. Solly told me that.

“I couldn’t understand why he’d tell a guy at my end that kind of stuff. But now I get it. He was pulling me closer, so it’d be easier to have me hit. And that was his plan all along.”

“You’ll make that statement?”

“Yeah. Right now, if you want. And if I ever get hooked up to that polygraph-”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. Listen for once: If I ever get questioned, the truth will be that I didn’t get a dime from rolling on Solly and that jeweler. Not from you, not from anyone. All I asked was for some protection, and for you to tell that girl I didn’t rape her. All true. What’s that worth to you, pal?”