Andrew Vachss - Flood

Without a description, I didn’t expect to run into the Cobra on the street, but I knew enough to check certain places first. Once before I was working on a locate and the target was a porno freak, so I dropped into a joint in the Village where I knew the owner. The place was called Leather Pleasure, and the owner was the prime mover in some kind of society where they get together for coffee and consensual torture. I told him my subject was addicted to porn, and the owner told me he ran a specialty house that didn’t cater to the general trade. When I asked him what he was talking about he launched into a long-winded explanation that began somewhere with the Roman Empire, touched on his unique brand of nationalism-“The Germans don’t understand the creativity in pain, they don’t understand that you have to give to get. Only the British genuinely conceptualize human relationships”-and ended up with a generous splat of snobbery. “If you just want porn, you know, like dirty pictures and all that, my friend, you must go to Times Square. Down here, each shop has its own unique character, its own personality, if you will. A client will know he’s in the wrong place in a minute should he come in here without the proper attitude.” Funny place-the owner was this pleasant guy who sounded like a college professor and his merchandise was full of all this violence.

All the porn houses looked about the same from the outside. Only the joints that featured live human beings did any promotion, and they promised anything the mind could dredge up for ten bucks. But the magazine and photo joints just had windows that were painted over or boarded up or were solid-faced storefronts, with the usual menu on the outside-“Bondage, Discipline, Animal Love, Lesbian Love, Latest from Denmark.”

Nothing on the covers of these dumps indicated kiddie porn on the inside. I went into the first door I came to, checked the fat guy sitting at a register by the opening, and saw row after row of sterile-looking aisles. Magazines and books, all in plastic shrink-wrap, were neatly arranged according to topic-a sort of Dewey Decimal System of Dirt. But there was no kiddie stuff. I kept walking up and down the aisles, occasionally taking a magazine off the shelves, glancing at the front and back cover, putting it back. It was a good place to work, actually, since all of the other five customers studiously looked down. No eye contact-big surprise. I made two circuits before I found the back section marked Adults Only. Maybe the boss had a sense of irony-it had nothing but pictures of kids, books about kids, and magazines with kids. Nice stuff-everything from naked kids romping in the sun to a little boy with his hands and legs hog-tied behind him being double-sodomized.

There was just one guy in this section. Nicely dressed, he had a three-piece suit, polished shoes, briefcase. Wandered from shelf to shelf like he was in a daze, not touching anything. Not my man, I could tell. Over to the left, still further back, were some booths with doors on them marked “Private Reading Area. See Attendant for Key.” I knew what the private areas looked like-all plastic and vinyl so the Lysol wouldn’t stick to fabric when they prepared for the next customer.

As I walked past the attendant, I pulled my coat open with both hands to show I wasn’t glomming any of his merchandise. He gave me a quick glance and went back to whatever he was doing. I thought a moment and decided on the direct approach. No use flashing a phony badge down here. Half the quasi-cops (like the Civilian Patrol, or the characters that carry PBA cards like they’re members of a secret society, or the lames who send away to magazines for their International Organization of Private Investigators credentials) in the city hang out down here. I also know there aren’t too many independent operators left in the Pit.

After I loomed over the guy at the desk for a minute or so, he looked up. “I don’t want to waste your time,” I said. “I’m a private investigator looking for a young woman who’s got to be down here. If you can help me, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Look, pal. A lot of women come down here-you’d be surprised. I don’t take no notice. I just do my job.”

“The boss would want you to do this one, friend.”

“Huh?”

“Look, she’s a member of one of those wacko organizations that want to close down these dens of sin, you understand?”

“So? We get them in here all the time too-on tours or something. Don’t mean nothing.”

“This broad means business, my friend. She just got out of Mattawan for throwing a firebomb into one of these places-killed a guy. She said Jesus told her to do it. Remember, it was on Forty-fourth, about two years ago?”

He looked at me, mentally plodding through his file of potential dangers to himself. Balanced the odds. “So?”

“So Carlo gave me this job, told me to find her and take care of her before she blows up one of his joints, right?”

“So?”

“So I was promised cooperation from your boss, you understand?”

“My boss ain’t named Carlo.”

“Look, I’m trying to be reasonable. I thought I was dealing with an intelligent guy.” I imitated his squeaky voice: “My boss ain’t named Carlo!” His head shot up. I said, “You asshole-I mean your fucking boss, not the flunky who tells you when to open this dump-understand now?”

He looked around behind him like something was gaining on him. Then he glanced quickly over at the pay phone in the corner. I played out the string. “Look, pick up the phone, call your boss, and tell him Tony’s here to do a job for Carlo. You think you can maybe do that without getting confused?”

He looked at me again, trying to make up what some uninformed person might call his mind. I said, “Look, go ahead and call, I’ll watch the jerkoff artists for you,” and got his attention again as I pulled the.38 partway out of the underarm holster.

He rubbed the side of his head. “If you’re from downtown, what’s my name?” I looked into his eyes, seeing fear. He looked into mine and saw what he expected. I trotted out my whisper-of-the-grave voice. “Don’t make yourself more important than you are.”

We looked at each other. He blinked, wiped his forehead with a dirty sleeve. I opened the front door slightly as though to throw my cigarette butt into the street, at the same time making a quick gesture with my hand that he cleverly picked up with his sensitive vision. He decided. “You said there was something in it for me?”

“That’s what I said.”

“A cunt came in here maybe an hour ago-short blonde cunt. Asked me a lotta stupid questions about the kiddie shows over on Eighth. I thought she was comin’ on to me, you know? I said something to her and she fucking sapped me-right in the fucking face. I think she broke a tooth or something-hurts like a motherfucker.”

“She hit you with a sap?”

“I didn’t see it, but it must of been a sap. Didn’t even see her fucking hand move.”

“Yeah, she sounds like the one, all right. You did the right thing, not trying to stop her-probably carrying one of those firebombs right in her purse.”

He looked gratefully at me. “Yeah, I figured she was carrying something, you know? What a sicko bitch.”

“You see where she went?”

“No, man. She just zipped out the door.”

“You call downtown?”

“Uh… no, man. I mean, I figured… she was just another sicko, like I said. I didn’t know anyone gave a shit.”

“Yeah, you did right. Okay.”

“You said there was something in it for me?”

“Yeah, I got something for you.” Against my better instincts, I reached in my pocket for a pair of twenties, folded the two bills, and stuffed them in the pocket of his knit shirt. He tried to display some class, but he had his hand in his pocket almost before I was out the door.