Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“I didn’t… realize. It was just so…”

“What?” Tussy demanded.

“It was so peaceful,” Dett said, quietly. “Like when you come back in off the line-”

“You mean, in the war?”

“Yeah,” he said, quickly. “For days before, you can’t sleep. Not really sleep, I mean. You’re… tensed up, like there’s little jolts running through you. Guys talk, at night. Some do it just to pass the time, but mostly so you don’t think about what’s out there, waiting for you. They say, ‘Soon as I get back, I’m going to… get drunk, or get a woman, or…’ You know what I mean. But what happens is, when you finally do get back, it’s like someone slipped you a Mickey Finn. You go out like a light. Sleep for days, sometimes.”

“Like someone turned off your electricity?”

“Just like that,” Dett said. “And, here with you, it was like I… I don’t know what it was, Tussy.”

“Well, I’m not mad now,” she said, making a face. “But I know what would make me feel even better.”

“What? Just tell me and I’ll-”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Tussy murmured, her lips against his ear.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 22:47

Sherman entered Ruth as gently as a man defusing a bomb. She opened delicately, a dewy blossom, offering the secret purity she had defended against the rapists of her childhood.

Like a key in a lock, radiated through Sherman’s mind. Only it’s me who’s opening.

Ruth whispered words no customer could ever have paid her to say. Then shuddered to an orgasm she didn’t believe could exist.

Sherman followed right after her, as they mated for life.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:12

“You think this’ll do the trick, Gar?” Rufus said to a bespectacled man standing at a workbench.

“It should,” the man said, cautiously. “It’s just physics. What we’re after is dissipation of force. We can’t build a thick enough wall, so we get the same effect with layers. Each one absorbs some of the energy, so, by the time you get to the last one, it holds.”

“How much is that thing going to weigh, brother?” Kendall asked, skeptically. “Remember, the boy got to walk in it.”

“He’s a strong young man,” Moses said. “And he won’t have to walk far.”

“Far enough,” Rufus said. “The Kings’ clubhouse is way over on-”

“We can drive him over,” Moses said. “Drop him off at the side.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Kendall said. “I was a gang fighter, in Detroit. Years ago, before I got… conscious. The leader has to lead. He’s got to walk at the head, all the way down to wherever the meet is.”

“If that boy’s got a strong enough rep-and my guess is that he does-he tells his men this is strategy, him coming in at the last minute-and they’ll buy it,” Rufus said.

“Long as he first across,” Kendall cautioned.

“I think it’s ready,” Garfield said, pointing to what looked like a thick blanket attached to heavy canvas straps.

“Let’s find out,” Darryl said, pulling a pistol from his coat.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:49

“Can you… can you do that thing you did before?” Tussy asked, as they approached her house.

“What thing?”

“You know. Go away and come back.”

“Yes.”

“Walker, I swear, how clear a picture do I have to paint for you?”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:57

“Is this how you imagined it?” Ruth asked. She was lying in Sherman’s arms, nude, the black lace teddy she had brought with her still in the trunk of her car-in a makeup case that also contained a pair of handcuffs and a black blindfold.

“I didn’t imagine it, I dreamed it.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I… never thought it could really happen.”

“I never thought a lot of things could happen. Good things, I mean. Bad things, those you can count on.”

“Not anymore,” Sherman said, grimly.

“What do you mean, Sherman?”

“You’ll see.”

“Sherman, don’t frighten me. Please.”

“Christ, I’m sorry, Ruth. I just meant from now on bad things aren’t going to happen to you.”

“Not when I’m with you, anyway.”

“More than just then,” the big detective said, his voice lush with love and menace.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 00:54

Another man entering the back door to Tussy’s house would have seen only darkness. Dett’s nightman eyes quickly registered the vague shapes and outlines, and his memory supplied a map of the living room.

Tussy sat on the edge of the couch, knees together primly, hands in her lap. She was wearing a soft pink nightgown.

“Walker,” was all she said.

Dett approached the couch. He dropped to his knees next to her.

“I told you I was chubby,” Tussy said, throatily. “Do you still think you could pick me up and carry me?”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 00:59

“Does it make you happy, putting criminals away?” Ruth asked.

“Happy? Not really. It’s a good thing to do, but it doesn’t mean much.”

“Why doesn’t it?” Ruth said, turning so she could watch Sherman’s eyes.

“Because fighting criminals isn’t the same as fighting crime, Ruth. It’s like… a garden, okay? If you have weeds, what do you do?”

“Pull them out.”

“Yeah. Pull them out. Not chop them off, because that wouldn’t do any good, right? They’d just grow back.”

Sherman rolled onto his back, then shifted position so that he was sitting up, his back against the headboard of the bed. Ruth spun onto her knees, facing him.

“You know what people say about Dobermans?” Sherman asked.

“That they turn on you?”

“Yeah, that. It’s a lie.”

“Why would people make up lies about a dog?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Sherman said, eyes glinting with unforgiveness. “A man gets a Doberman puppy. Now, he’s heard that Dobermans are really tough dogs, and he’s going to make sure this one knows who’s boss. So he beats the dog, that puppy. Until the dog does everything he wants it to.

“This goes on and on. But, one day, the dog realizes he’s not a puppy anymore. And when the man picks up the stick to beat him that day, the dog nails him. You know what the guy he bit is going to say? He’ll say, ‘My dog turned on me.’ You see what I’m telling you, Ruth? The dog didn’t turn on him. The dog was never with him. He was just biding his time, waiting for his chance.”

“Oh.”

“But if he had been good to that dog, from the beginning, I mean, the dog would never have done that.”

“And you think people are like that, too?” she said.

“No. People aren’t as good as dogs-some will turn on you. I see it happen in my job, every day. And there’s men I’ve known, they had every chance in life, but they were criminals in their hearts. Like rich kids who steal just for the thrill of it.

“But the thing is, the one sure thing is, the truly… sick ones, like the rapists and the child molesters, they all were like those Dobermans, once. Only once they got stronger, instead of turning on whoever hurt them, they went looking for weak people to hurt themselves. Like, once they learned how to do it, they got to love it.”

“Some people are just born mean,” Ruth said.

“That might be so,” Sherman said, “but I don’t believe anyone’s born to murder a whole bunch of people for the hell of it. You don’t get to be Charlie Starkweather from reading comic books, no matter what those idiot professors say.”

“I remember that. Everybody’s still talking about… what he did. You’re not saying a man like that, he didn’t deserve to die?”

“He deserved to die a dozen times over, Ruth. I’m just saying, well, he didn’t get that way overnight.”