Andrew Vachss - Hard Candy

"Breeding her. Like a brood mare. She told me she was 'mated' to one of the young men in the cult. When she has her baby, Train's going to sell it. You know the going rate for a healthy white baby with a solid medical history, educated parents, the whole works?"

"Fifty K and up."

"Yes."

"Doesn't she want the baby?"

"She doesn't want any baby. She expects to have a baby a year for a few years. So Train will love her. He takes the best of care of her. A special diet, exercise, regular visits to a doctor."

"The boys… he can't use them all for breeding."

"She's so cold about it, it's frightening. She says boys are worth more than girls. They can earn money even when they're old…she means like eighteen, nineteen. They go on the circuit too. The boy she mated with, he was in Amsterdam for a few years, then he came back here to work."

"She told you a lot."

"Don't you get it? She doesn't see anything wrong with it! You know what the words mean. She's not a child in her soul. Hasn't been for a long time. It's all okay. Train saved her. He saved all of them."

"She tell you about Danielle?"

"Yes. And she told me you brought Danielle back to her father. Don't blame yourself."

"You think it's true, then?"

"Oh yes. All true."

Wesley's voice in my mind: "They didn't pay me." Somebody owed me too. "Isn't she afraid Train will do something to her when he finds out she talked?"

"She's not afraid. She thinks you're a criminal. She says Train knows you. He's in control. Two of the young men, they're his bodyguards. She says they took one of the girls out of there when the girl went crazy. She wouldn't answer my questions about it- she just assumes the girl is dead. And she says her mother knows you too."

"So she thinks…"

"I don't know what's going on in that damaged brain of hers. She thinks you and her mother want to blackmail Train, or that you're going to work for Train, or you have your own organization like Train's…or God knows what. It's a simple world to her: the big fish eat the smaller fish. They eat enough little fish, they grow into big fish themselves. Here's what she said: 'Everybody gets used. The way to keep from getting used up is to learn to be use ful .'"

"That's not her line."

"No. But she recites it like a fundamentalist quoting the Bible."

"You said she was bonded to Train…sounds more like bondage than bonding."

"It isn't. The bonding is real. Train is real to her. He saved her. Remember that. She's a bright girl. She knows her life was short on the streets. Drugs, a trick with a razor, a sadistic pimp…it doesn't take much to snuff out a candle in a hurricane."

Homicide danced in my mind. "Rescue me." My blue Belle. That was all she'd asked. I took her off the runway and into the ground. Like I took Danielle from her pimp. I ground out my smoke with the tip of my boot. Lily was too focused to even frown at me.

"What happens to her if Train goes down?"

She shrugged. "Elvira would find another."

"There's no place for her?"

"A psychiatric hospital. A prison, maybe. No place good."

"What should I do?"

Lily's hands went to her hips, titanium threads in her soft voice. "You brought her to me for a reason. To find out some things. Are your questions answered?"

"Yeah. Are you making any calls?" Lily was best pals with Wolfe, the head of the City-Wide Special Victims Unit. Wolfe was part of the tribe of warrior-women in the city. I'd met a few of them over the years. Catherine, the beautiful social worker in City-Wide's office who specialized in elderly victims. Storm, the brand-new head of the hospital's Rape Crisis Unit. Queenie, an investment banker who left her lizard briefcase and upscale outfits at home when she volunteered at Lily's joint on weekends. All of them not taking prisoners, slugging it out aboveground. Where it's legal. Where the light doesn't shine for men like me. Wolfe had crossed the line with me once. Just for a minute in time. Then she dropped my hand and went back to her life. I wouldn't ask her again.

"Should I?" she asked.

"Can you stay quiet for a bit?"

"I'm a mandated reporter. The law requires that I report every case of suspected child abuse that comes before me in my professional capacity."

"You just did."

"I'm calling it into the Hot Line. But I don't know her full name or her address."

"Okay."

"I will know, Burke. And then I have to call Wolfe."

"Okay."

" When will I know."

"Ten days, two weeks."

I lit another smoke, waiting for her answer. So much for me to carry. Dead weight. Unreasonable anger flared in me. Lily, she could do the right thing, sleep easy. She walked the line. Part of me wanted to pull her over it.

"Lily, can I consult you in your professional capacity? As a client?"

"Sure." Absentminded, still thinking about waiting to call the Hot Line.

"I have a problem that's affecting my mental state."

"What?" Impatiently.

"I'm going to kill someone."

She got it. Never flinched. "Ten days, Burke. It's too late for Elvira, but not for the others…not for all of them."

But for my love.

ELVIRA was quiet, sitting between Max and me on the way back.

"Your friend Lily… she was nice."

"But you know it was all game, right?"

She flashed the no-soul smile of a little girl who learned to do tricks too soon. I pulled up outside Train's place. Max stepped out, holding the door for Elvira like a chauffeur.

"Tell Train I'll be around to see him soon," I told the girl. "I won't be taking you back. Just one last talk. I want to part friends. Tell him, he'll know what I mean."

She turned to face me. "Did my mother kiss you goodbye the last time you saw her?"

"No."

She slid off the seat without a word. I didn't look back.

MAX DIDN'T react when I passed by Mama's. Didn't change expression when I cruised by his warehouse. I knew the look on his face. Whatever. It. Takes.

I backed the Plymouth into the last slot in the loading bay of what had been a factory years ago. When the landlord rented it out for lofts, he left the last piece to use as a private garage. When I explained to the landlord that his son's identity was safe with me, he gave me a hell of a break on the rent. Free. Threw in the garage too.

We took the back stairs to my office. Max stood well aside as I opened the door. I threw Pansy the signal- she waited patiently to see what I'd brought her. The beast watched Max with her homicide eyes, a soft growl just inside her teeth. Talking about him the way he had talked about Wesley.

Anytime. Anytime you want.

They'd known each other for years. Max never patted her. She never bothered him. He bowed to Pansy, no expression on his face. Pansy watched.

I got her some liverwurst out of the refrigerator, gave her the magic word, watched it vanish. She stretched out in a corner by the couch, bored. I crossed over to my desk, cleared a place so I had a flat, blank table. Gestured for Max to sit in the chair I use for clients.

He made a gesture like he was dealing cards. I shook my head. Our life-sentence gin game wasn't going to be continued tonight.

What was the truth? My promise to Immaculata? Or could Max really know? Why didn't it hurt me more…like it should have? How come? Bad pun.

How to explain it? I lit a smoke. Put it on the lip of the ashtray, folding my hands behind my head, looking at the cracked cement ceiling. Max reached over, put the cigarette to his lips, took a deep drag. Smoke fired out his flat nose in two broad jets.

I pointed at myself Put my hands under the desk, tried to lift it off the floor. Strained. Gave it up. Too much weight for me to lift.