Andrew Vachss - Strega

"My friend took him to a kids' party at the mall-where all the stores have clowns and singers and storytellers and all that, you know? Scott was having a great time until one of the clowns came up to him. All of a sudden he starts to scream and he runs away. His mother has to run and catch him. He won't tell her anything-he just wants to go home.

"He seems okay after that-like he just had a bad day or something. But a couple of weeks later, one of his father's friends comes over to the house. He has a Polaroid camera with him and he's taking pictures. When Scott comes downstairs, he sees the camera, and he goes rigid…like catatonic…he just freezes up. They take him upstairs and soon he's like okay again, but by then my friend figures something's really wrong and she takes him to a therapist.

"But he won't talk to the therapist. I mean, he won't talk about what's wrong. It's like he's himself most of the time, but something's really eating at him. He doesn't want to do things like he did before-he doesn't want to play, doesn't want to watch TV nothing. The poor little guy is so sad.

"Anyway, my friend brings him over. She figures…he just adores my little Miamaybe he'll play with her. But he doesn't want to do that either. And now Mia gets all upset too. 'Fix it, Mommy,' she says to me. What was I supposed to do? Mia…I had to fix it."

The redhead turns her face, gives me an absent-minded kiss like she's telling me "Don't move." She walks back around to the front of the bench and climbs into my lap-snuggles in to me like she's cold. Like I'm a piece of furniture. Her face is against my chest but I can still hear her when she talks.

"I tell my friend to stay in my house and I take Mia and we go out and buy a Polaroid. I come back to the house and I get this big hammer from the garage. I bring everything out to the patio and then I take Scott by the hand and bring him outside with me. I open the box and show him the camera and he starts to pull away from me. Then I take the hammer and pound that fucking camera until it's just a bunch of little parts all over the patio. I must have gone crazy for a minute…I'm screaming something at the camera I don't even know what. And little Scott…he comes over to me. I give him the hammer and he smashes the camera too. And then he starts to cry-like he's never going to stop. I hold him and Mia too-all together.

"Finally he stops. I ask him, 'Is it all okay now, baby?," and he says, 'Zia Peppina, they still have the picture !,' and he cries until I tell him I'll get the picture for him. I promise . him. I swear to him on my daughter. On Mia, I swear to him I'll get this picture for him.

"And then he stops. He smiles at me. The little guy's got heart for days-he knows that if I swear that, it's done-it's done. He has trust in me."

She was quiet against my chest. I reached in my pocket, took out a smoke for myself, and lit it. She pushed her face between my hand and my mouth, took a drag from my hand. Waited.

"You know what's in the picture?" I asked her.

"Yeah. I know," she said.

"Because he told you or?"

"I just know."

"You did something to find out, right?"

She nodded against my chest.

"What?" I asked her.

"He used to go to this day-care center. Out in Fresh Meadows. One day they took him someplace-he says out in the country-in the school-bus they use. There was a guy dressed in a clown suit and some other stuff. He can't tell me. He had to take his clothes off and do something-he won't tell me that either. And someone took pictures of him."

"Where was this place?" I asked her.

"I don't know !" she said, fighting not to start crying, biting her lower lip like a kid.

I patted her back in a careful rhythm, waiting until it matched her breathing. "What else did you find out?"

"A woman came there. An old woman, he said. She had two men with her. Big, scary men. One had a little bag-like a doctor's bag? With money in it. The old woman took the pictures and the clown got some of the money.

"And?" I prompted her.

"Scott couldn't tell me what the men looked like, but he saw the hands of the man who carried the little bag. There was a dark-blue mark on one of them. Scott drew it for me." She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. It was covered with all kinds of crosses and lines, drawn in crayon like a kid did it. Down in one corner was something in blue, with a red circle around it. I held the match closer. It was a swastika.

"This was on the man's hand?" I asked her.

"Yes."

"Back of his hand?"

"Yes."

"What did you do?" I asked her.

The redhead took a breath. "I showed the drawing to Julio. He took one look and said, 'Jailhouse tattoo.' I asked him if there were Nazis in prison. He said he really didn't know too much about it. I pressured him-I made him tell me. And that's when I got your name-he said you knew them."

IT WAS cold out there by the water, especially along my spine. We had a deal-I had listened to her story and now I could walk away. But I wanted to buy some insurance-make her understand that I wasn't the man for the job anyway.

"Julio's full of shit," I told her in a flat voice.

"I know," she said, quiet and soft.

"I mean about the Nazis. I don't know them-they were in prison with all of us-nobody knows them-they keep to themselves, you understand?"

The redhead twisted in my lap until she was facing me. She grabbed the lower half of my face like I had done to her. I could smell the perfume on her hand. She put her little face right up against me, grabbing my eyes with hers.

"You're lying to me," she whispered. "I know all about men-I know more about men than you'll ever know. I know when a man is lying to me."

I met her stare with no problem, even though the moon was dancing in her crazy eyes.

"I'm telling you the truth," I said.

She leaned against me, shoving her lips hard against mine. I could feel her teeth. Then her tongue. She stayed like that for a solid minute, her hands somewhere on my chest. "Please?" she whispered.

She pulled her face away. "No," I said. I started to get up but she was still sitting on my lap. She put her face against me again, opened her mouth, and bit into my lower lip with all her strength. The pain-jolt shot through me like electricity-I stiffened two fingers and a thumb and drove them into her ribs. She grunted and pulled away from me, blood on her mouth.

The redhead rolled off my lap and bent double at the waist. I thought she was going to throw up, but she got herself under control. Her head came up. She was chewing on something-a piece of my lip.

"Mmmmm," she said, "it's so good ." I watched her swallow a part of me. Her smile had red in it, like smeared lipstick.

I got up from the bench and walked back to the Plymouth, leaving her where she was. She didn't move until she heard the engine kick over. Then she walked to the car, taking her time.

She got in the passenger side, opened her window, and looked out-away from me. She didn't say another word until we pulled up next to her BMW.

METROPOLITAN Avenue was quiet. The BMW was sitting there undisturbed. It was that kind of neighborhood.

The redhead turned to me. "Can I say one thing to you before you go?"

I just nodded, tensing my right arm in case she decided she was still hungry.

"One hundred thousand dollars. In cash. For you."

She had my attention, but I didn't say anything.

"One hundred thousand dollars," she said again, like she was promising me the most erotic thing in the world. Maybe she was.

"Where?" I asked her.

"I have it," she said. "And it's yours if you find me that picture."