Andrew Vachss - Hard Candy

"But you think the judgment was wrong."

"It was just an ego thing, yes? It's hard to believe this man would have killed our baby just to make Max fight him."

I looked up. Her eyes were veiled under the long lashes but it didn't help. She couldn't make it stick.

"I have to stand with Max," she said.

I bowed, empty. Her eyes were pleading with me. "You still have your baby," I said.

She put her hand over mine. "You still have your brother."

The pay phone rang in the back. Mama walked past, the baby balanced on one hip.

She came back in a minute. Handed the baby to Immaculata, slid in next to her.

"Call for you. Woman say old friend."

A honeycomb of tiny bubbles in my chest. Flood. How could she have known now was the time?

It must have shown in my face. Mama's voice was soft. "No" is all she said.

I lit a cigarette, biting into the filter. The little bubbles in my chest popped- a tiny string of explosions, like baby firecrackers.

"Woman say old friend. Need to talk to you. Very important."

I looked at Mama. Her lips curled, short of a sneer. "Always important. Woman say to tell you Little Candy from Hudson Street. You know her?" Mama asked, handing me a slip of paper with a telephone number.

I nodded. It didn't matter.

MAX WENT everywhere I went. Behind me, not with me. Guarding my back. Protecting me from a ghost. His warrior s soul screaming for combat to make it right. Too late for the battle.

We were on a pier near the Yacht Basin, waiting for a buyer to show up. The buyer had advertised over an electronic bulletin board, using the modem on his personal computer. He wanted a little girl. No older than ten. White. Someone he could love. He'd have ten grand with him. To prove his love.

Max took a restaurant napkin out of his pocket, a felt-tip pen from mine. Drew a rising sun, touched his heart gently. Pointed at me, turned the finger around to include himself. We could go to Japan. Find Flood. Bring her home.

I shook my head. She was home. So was I.

The headlights of the buyer's car flashed. Once, twice. Max merged into the shadow next to my Plymouth. I walked over to the buyer's car, a beige Taurus station wagon. The driver's window whispered down, air-conditioned breeze on my face. It didn't make sense for that time of the year until I saw the fat man inside. Ice-cream suit, straw hat, sweating.

"Mr. Smith?" he asked in a pulpy voice.

"That's me," I assured him.

"She's with you?"

"In the car," I said, tilting my head to show him the direction.

I stepped aside to let him out. The light went on inside the station wagon when the door opened. Empty. He took a black attaché case off the seat next to him.

"She's still a little dopey," I said, walking beside him.

"No problem."

I lit a cigarette, the cheap lighter flaring a signal to Max.

"She's inside," I told the fat man, patting the Plymouth 's trunk.

"Let's see."

"Let's see the money."

He popped open the briefcase on the trunk lid. Clean-looking bills, nicely banded. And a small plastic bottle with a spray top, some white handkerchiefs, plastic wristbands- the kind they give you in the hospital.

"Got everything you need, huh?"

"Hey, look, pal. This kid isn't for me , okay? I'm a businessman, just like you. In fact, you got any more where this kid came from, you just let me know. I got customers waiting."

His fat body slammed into the back of the Plymouth as Max took him from behind- a paralyzing shot just below the ribs, a lightning chop to the exposed neck as he went down. Vomit sprayed onto the Plymouth.

I ripped open his shirt. No wire. Pulled his wallet from an inside pocket, stripped off his watch, passed up the rings, snatched the brief-case. And left him where he was.

It didn't make the morning papers.

THE GILT LETTERS on the pebbled-glass door said "Simon J. Rosnak- Attorney at Law." Max and I stepped inside. The girl at the front desk was a cunty brunette with sparkle-dust for mascara and the kind of mouth that would make you throw out the postage meter so you could watch her lick the stamps.

"Can I help you?"

"I want to see Rosnak."

"You have an appointment?"

"No."

"Well, Mr. Rosnak isn't in yet. If you'll leave your name and number…"

"He's in. I don't have time." I glanced down at the console on her desk. None of the lights were lit.

"You can't…"

I walked past her. "Call a cop," I advised her, leaving Max behind to keep her company.

I found a carpeted hall, followed it to the end. Rosnak was sitting at an old wooden desk, reading some kind of ledger. He looked up when he saw me, a tired-looking man in his forties.

"What?"

"I need to talk some business with you."

"I don't know you. Speak to Mona. I'm busy."

I sat down across from him. Lit a smoke. There was no ashtray on his desk. "I need to speak with you," I said, calm and relaxed.

"Look, buddy, this isn't a supermarket. I don't know who sent you here, but…"

"You represent Johnny Sostre?"

"That's not your business."

"Attorney-client privilege, huh?"

"You got it."

"Only one problem. You're not an attorney."

His eyes tracked me. Camera shutters. Waiting.

"You're not an attorney," I said again. "You went to law school, but you dropped out in your last year. You never took the Bar. You've been running a sweet hustle, representing wiseguys. They know you're not a lawyer. You try the case, do the best you can. You win, they walk. You lose, they wait a couple of years, then they discover the truth, right? You get exposed. They file an appeal. And the court lets them walk. Ineffective assistance of counsel, they call it. Never fails. Josephs did the same thing a few years ago."

He watched me, waiting.

I tapped cigarette ash onto his desk. "Only problem is, you got to have perfect timing. This scam works just one time, no repeats. You got…what? Ten, fifteen clients now? Got half a dozen guys already upstate doing time. You get exposed at the right time, all the convictions get reversed. And it's a few years later. Witnesses disappear, memory gets soft, people forget, evidence gets misplaced…you know how it works. But you move too soon, it's all for nothing. The DA still has everything he needs, and they just try the cases again. Besides, you're in the middle of a bunch of new cases. They discover the truth now, and you're out of business."

He leaned forward. "The people I represent… you know who they are?"

"Yeah."

"You know they wouldn't like this kind of thing."

"Don't tell them."

I ground out my smoke, waiting.

He raised his eyebrows.

"One time," I told him. "One time only. Fifty large, and I'm gone."

"You're crazy."

"But not bluffing."

He fumbled with some papers on his desk. "I need some time."

"This is Tuesday. Friday, you get the cash. I'll call, tell you how to drop it off."

I got up to go. Looked down at him. "I'll save you some phone calls. Burke."

"Who's Burke?"

"Me."

Friday, the juicy brunette took a cab to Chinatown at lunchtime. She got out, and the crowd swallowed her up. When she caught another cab, she didn't have her pocketbook with her.

I WAS AT Mama's when a call came in. Julio. I called the old gangster back at the social club he uses for headquarters. His dry snakeskin voice sounded like a cancer ward.

"You did me a service once, I don't forget. So this is a favor, Burke. You stung Rosnak. He went crying to the boys. I squared it, okay? There's no comeback on this one. But give it a rest- stay out of our business."

I let him feel my silence. The phone line hummed.