Andrew Vachss - Flood

I walked out the Cobra’s door into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me just as the pimp walked out of Number 6 across the hall, pushing a little girl out in front of him. I got just a quick flash of them as I stepped forward-a skinny girl, maybe thirteen years old, wearing an ankle-length maxicoat opened to display tiny white hot pants and a red top, thick-soled high heels-her face was closed behind a thick mask of makeup. The pimp wore a maxicoat too, his an imitation leopard. He had a safari hat with a leopard band-I caught the glassy flash of a fake diamond on his hand. The pimp caught my eye and then quickly booked away, but it was too late-by then I was on top of them. The pimp was yelling “Hey, man!” but I had the little cylinder of CN gas in my hand and I blasted him full in the face. I could see the gas turn to liquid on his skin right between his frightened eyes.

“Hey, mister-hey, please. Man, I didn’t know nothin’, man. I thought she was legal age, you know? Hey, man-I didn’t know.” he was screaming and clawing at his face at the same time.

I dropped the gas canister in my pocket and grabbed hold of two fistfuls of the pimp’s cheesy coat, jerking him off his feet and back into his apartment. He tried to stand against the wall, but a knee to the testicles doubled him over. I clubbed him sideways across the face with a forearm as he slid to the ground.

I dropped to one knee, still holding his coat with one hand. “Fuckin’ yom. You know who the fuck this is?” indicating the little girl who was huddled in a corner, watching with wide eyes. “That’s Mr. G.’s daughter, asshole.”

And then he realized this was more than a statutory rape beef-he was on trial for his life and the jury wasn’t too deeply committed to civil rights. He looked for a way out, tried to speak, but nothing came out. I leaned down so I was real close to his face, slipping my hand around a roll of nickels I keep in my coat, my voice a harsh jailhouse-whisper. “Go back to Alabama, nigger. Never let me see you again in life, you understand? I see you again and I got to bring Mr. G. your fucking face in a paper bag. Got it?” punctuating each unanswerable question with a punch to his side until I felt a rib go. I pulled his face right into mine and spat between his eyes. He never moved-he would remember my face-I wanted him to. The closer the better for work like that.

I got to my feet and switched the roll of nickels for the.38. I pulled the hat off my head and wrapped it around the barrel. The pimp knew what was coming next as I knelt next to him, he could hear the pistol cock. “Mister-mister, I’m gone. I swear… I swear to God, man! Please…”

I acted like I was making up my mind, but of course it was no contest. His life wasn’t worth the ninety days in jail it would cost me. The girl was still in the corner, her painted mouth open and slack, but she wasn’t going to scream. I grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the apartment in front of me, half-throwing her down the stairs. A white face stuck itself out of a first-floor apartment as we went past-I showed the.38 to the face and it disappeared behind a slamming door. We hit the sidewalk-me walking fast and pulling the kid along with me. Her arm felt like a twig in my hand. She didn’t say a word.

I found the Plymouth untouched, pushed her inside ahead of me and climbed in behind, punching down the switch so she couldn’t unlock her own door. We were rolling in seconds, heading for the highway.

I pulled into one of the parking areas under the overpass where I know the manager. I told the girl, “Sit fucking still,” locked the car, and walked over to the little booth where the manager sits. I tossed a twenty on his desk and he walked out like he had an appointment someplace. I picked up his phone, dialed the number of NYPD’s Runaway Squad, for my money the only damn cop operation in New York worth the price of a city councilman.

“Runaway Squad, Officer Morales speaking.”

“Detective McGowan around?” I asked.

“Hold on,” said Morales. Then McGowan’s strong Irish voice came over the wire. “This is Detective McGowan.”

“Burke here. I got a package for you-about thirteen. She just left her pimp, okay?”

“Where’s the kid?”

“At a parking lot under the West Side Highway on Thirty-ninth. Can you move now?”

“Be there in ten minutes,” he said, and I knew I could count on it.

In the car waiting for McGowan, I lit a cigarette, looking over at the girl. A real baby-her skinny legs hadn’t even grown calves yet. I couldn’t do McGowan’s job-I’d end up doing life for wasting one of those dirtbag pimps. McGowan has four daughters-twenty-five years on the job and he just made detective last year. I heard the brass was going to close down the whole Runaway Squad too. I guess they need all the cops they can get to protect visiting diplomats. New York’s got an image to protect.

The girl said, “Mister-”

“Just keep your little mouth shut and your eyes down. Don’t look at me-don’t say nothing.” Maybe I should have been a social worker.

She kept quiet until McGowan and his partner, a guy they call Moose for good reason, pulled up. I unlocked and he reached over and opened the girl’s door. He held out his hand and she took it immediately. McGowan put his arm around her shoulders and started crooning to her in that honey-Irish voice and walking her back to his car. By the time they got back to the stationhouse he’d know where she had run away from-and probably why. I put the Plymouth into gear and pulled out. If anyone asked McGowan, he’d say he got an anonymous call and never saw the deliveryman.

But the Cobra was running-and I didn’t know how far he’d gone. I used a pay phone on Fourteenth and called the warehouse number.

“United States Attorney’s office,” came back Michelle’s bubblegum voice.

“I thought I told you to clear out,” I told her.

“I called Mama-she’s going to call me when Max shows.” Did any woman in the world do what I told her?

“Okay, babe-stay there. When Mama calls, tell her to send Max by, okay?”

She blew a kiss into the phone and hung up.

THE PLYMOUTH PURRED its own way back to the warehouse, oblivious to my depression. This case was certainly going to do wonders for my reputation-a bit more of my skillful detective work and I’d be known as Burke the Jerk. Fuck it, I thought (my theme song), no point crying over spilt milk. I had seen babies in Biafra too weak to cry, and mothers with no milk left to nurse them. I had gotten out of that-I could get out of this.

When I let myself into the warehouse Michelle was sitting by the phone box with her legs crossed, reading her book next to an ashtray stuffed with about two packs’ worth of butts. Her eyes flashed a question and my face gave her the answer.

“Thank God you’re back, anyway,” she said. “This place was beginning to smell and I didn’t want to leave the phones.” She picked up the ashtray and headed for the bathroom in the back. I heard the toilet flush, then a rush of air as she opened the ventilation shaft for a minute to clear out the room.

When she came back, patting her face with one of those premoistened towelettes every working girl carries, she asked me, “So?”

“He was there-and now he’s not. Gone. I have to start over.”

“Too bad, baby.”

“Yeah. Well, it wasn’t a total loss. I found another kid for McGowan.”

“McGowan’s a doll. If I was a runaway I’d turn myself in to him in a flash.”

“You were never a runaway?” I asked, surprised.

“Honey, my biological parents packed my bags and bought me the bus ticket.”