Andrew Vachss - Hard Candy

"Lipstick, yeah," I told her. "Not bubble gum."

"I'm old enough."

"Not for me.

The car was quiet for a couple of minutes. "I'm done talking," she said, her voice soft and flat.

She didn't say another word until I pulled up outside Candy's apartment building.

"This is it," I said.

"I know."

"DOES THE DOORMAN know you?" I asked her.

"Sure."

He waved us in as soon as he saw her face. Never looked at mine. She was quiet in the elevator.

The door swung open before I had the button depressed enough to ring the bell. Candy.

"Come in here," she said to the girl, not looking at me.

Elvira walked past her to the couch, dropping her bag on the floor like the maid would get it in the morning.

Candy walked over to me, reached up and put her hands on my shoulders. "Thanks, baby," she stage-whispered. The girl was sitting on the couch, watching her mother's back. Waiting for the truth.

I gave it to her. "Where's the money?"

Her fingers bit into the top of my shoulders, eyes lashed at me. I waited.

She whirled, heels tapping on the parquet floor. Elvira put her fingers to her chin, like she was considering something important. Her mother came back into the living room, stopped two feet in front of me. Handed me an envelope. I put it into my coat.

I heard the door click closed behind me.

I GOT BACK into the Plymouth, started the engine. Lit a smoke. The door opened and Max slid inside. I handed him Candy's envelope, pulled out into traffic.

He tapped my shoulder. Holding a slab of cash in each hand. Nodded. All there. He put one hand in his pocket, the other in mine. We'd split the front money too.

I spun my finger in a circle, tapped the back of my neck. Anybody follow us?

The blunt-faced Mongol tapped one eye. Shook his head no. But then he shuddered his shoulders like he got a chill. Something. Something you couldn't see.

I checked the rearview mirror, moving through traffic. Max didn't spook at shadows. I pointed north. He nodded. Anyone following us to the junkyard would stick out like a beer drinker at a Jim Jones picnic.

We crossed the Triboro, turned into the jungle. Nothing behind us. I whipped the Plymouth into a tight U-turn, pointed back the way we came. Max lit a smoke for himself, one for me.

Half an hour later it was still quiet. The cops don't have that much patience. I took another route back downtown, dropped Max off near the warehouse, and headed back to the office.

Pansy was glad to see me.

I FELT BETTER when I got up the next morning. Not good enough to bet on a horse, but like something bad was over. It was still early enough to risk using the phone in my office. My phone is just an extension run from the collection of deservedly unknown artists who live downstairs. They don't know about it- neither does Ma Bell. They probably wouldn't care if they did know- they don't pay their own bills.

"Any calls, Mama?"

"No calls. You come in today, okay?"

"Anything wrong?"

"Someone leave note for you."

"So?"

"Talk later," she said, hanging up.

I took a quarter-pound slab of cream cheese out of the refrigerator, dropped it in the bottom of Pansy's bowl, covered it with her dry dog food. "I'll bring you something good from Mama's," I promised her.

MAMA WAS at the table almost before I sat down. She handed me a cheap white business envelope, the top neatly slit open. The note was typed:

Burke: Be by your phone at 11:00 tonight. Don't have anybody take a message. Be there yourself. Wesley

I drew a narrow breath through my nose. Let it out. Again. Feeling the fear-jolts dart around inside my chest, looking for a place to land. I lit a cigarette, holding the note against the match flame, watching it turn to ash. Wishing I'd never seen it.

"You see him?"

"A boy. Street boy. Around five o'clock this morning."

"He say anything?"

"Not see me. Push this under the front door, run away."

"You opened it?"

She bowed. It was okay. I knew why she told me to come in. She never met Wesley, but she knew the name. Every outlaw in the city did.

"Burke? What you do?"

"Answer the phone when it rings," I told her.

I SAT THERE quietly while Mama went to call Immaculata. To tell Max the devil was loose. Wesley never threatened. He was terror. Cold as a heat-seeking missile. He took your money, you got a body. Years ago my compadre Pablo told me about a contract Wesley had on a Puerto Rican dope dealer uptown. The dealer knew the contract was out. He went to a Santeria priestess, begging for voodoo heat against the glacier coming for him. The priestess took the dealer's money, told him Chango, the warrior-god, would protect him. She was an evil old demon, feared throughout the barrio. Her crew was all Marielitos. Zombie-driven murderers. They set fires to watch the flames. Ate the charred flesh. Tattoos on their hands to tell you their specialty. Weapons, drugs, extortion, homicide. The executioner's tattoo was an upside-down heart with an arrow through it. Cupid as a hit man.

The priestess called on her gods. Killed chickens and goats. Sprinkled virgin's blood on a knife. Loosed her death-dogs into the street looking for Wesley.

The dealer hid in her house. Safe.

Blazing summer, but the kids stayed off the streets. Winter always comes.

A UPS driver pulled up outside the apartment house where the priestess kept her temple. Her Marielitos slammed him against his truck, pulling at his clothes. Eyes watched from beneath slitted shades. They took a small box from the driver, laughing when he said someone had to sign for it.

They held the box under an opened fire hydrant, soaking the paper off. One of the Marielitos held the box to his ear, shaking it. Another pulled a butterfly knife from his pocket, flashed it open in the street, grinning. They squatted, watching as the box was slit open. Looked inside. They stopped laughing.

They took the box inside to the priestess. A few minutes later, the dope dealer was thrown into the street, hands cuffed behind his back, duct tape sealing his mouth. He ran from the block.

They whispered about it. In the bodegas, in the after-hours joints, on the streets. They said the priestess found the hand of her executioner inside the box, the tattoo mocking her. Chango was angry. So she found a better sacrifice than a chicken.

The cops found the dealer a few blocks away, a tight group of four slugs in his chest, another neat hole in his forehead. Nobody heard shots.

MAX CAME Into the restaurant. Sat across from me. Made the same gesture of getting a chill through his back he'd made when I'd asked him about being followed. Now we knew. Gold tones shot through his bronze skin- the warrior's blood was up. He showed me a fist, stabbed his heart with his thumb. I wasn't dealing him out of this one. Max tapped my wristwatch. Shrugged. I knew what he meant: why wait? I shook my head, held an imaginary telephone receiver up to my ear. If Wesley wanted to come for me, he wouldn't play games. It had to be something else.

Max folded his arms across his chest. I wanted to wait, he was waiting with me.

I told Mama I'd be back before the call came through, catching Max's eyes. No games- I'd be there.

PANSY TORE into the gallon of meat and vegetables Mama had put together for her. No MSG. I closed my eyes and lay back on the couch. Watching the smoke drift toward the ceiling. Wondering how long it would be before the office got back to its usual filthy state. The way it had been for years until Belle hit it like dirt was her personal enemy.