Andrew Vachss - Flood

I’m sorry you can’t come

And people in the crowd who knew what he meant chuckled in agreement.

I got a long way to travel, honey,

I’m sorry you can’t come.

You are all used up, babe,

And I have just begun.

Like a lot of the blues, sex got mixed up with everything else. The kid grabbed a breath:

I got a long way to go, babe,

And I know that you don’t care.

I got a long way to go, babe,

And I know that you don’t care… just where

You wouldn’t like it anyway, babe,

They ain’t got no suburbs there.

And the harp barked its challenge to the crowd, wailing out the don’t-mind-dying credo of all bluesmen as the tape finally ran to its end.

That was the first tape in my collection-I’ve added dozens since. I got some early Paul Butterfield, Delbert McClinton, Kinky Friedman (and if you think this guy’s just a quasi-cowboy clown, listen to “Ride ’Em Jewboy” just once), Buddy Guy, Jimmy Cotton-all live. I had a Muddy Waters tape too, but it sounded like he was playing Prom Night in the suburbs someplace, the same way Charley Musselwhite did when I caught him at some college hangout near Boston. I don’t blame either of them, but I erased the tapes. I have some stuff I didn’t record myself too, some Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, stuff like that. I keep the tapes in the Plymouth to help me do the waiting-I’ve got more sense than to listen to them inside a closed room.

About an hour later I saw a black Lincoln Town Coupe pull up under the elevated portion of the West Side Highway, the part they’re never going to finish building. Saw a flash of nylons as a woman climbed out of the front seat, working before she hit the ground. She disappeared into the shadows and the Lincoln pulled away. I thought I recognized the woman, but it was long distance and I didn’t have time to put the monocular to my eye. I turned off the tape, set the system up to record instead, lit a smoke, and waited.

I was right. Margot approached from the far right. She must have crossed the street under the El, doubled back to the side, and walked along the river’s edge by the piers. She was swinging her purse like she was planning to do business. It might have fooled the pimp in the Lincoln if he was watching her, but it wouldn’t have fooled anyone who’d seen me sitting there for a couple of hours.

As Margot got closer, I saw she was wearing giant sunglasses that covered half her face. I slowly rolled down the window in time with her approach so that she arrived as the glass disappeared.

“Waiting for me, Burke?”

“I don’t know, Margot, am I?”

“Listen, I think he’s watching me, okay? Let me in the car-I’ll get on the floor like I’m giving you head and talk to you.”

“No good. I’ve been here too long. Other people have seen me-they know I’m not waiting this long just to get off.”

“I got to talk to you.”

“Go back where you were, okay? I’ll meet you-”

“No. Forget it-no, wait. Let me get in the car and just drive away. They’ll think you were waiting for me, right? A hotel job.”

“What’s the rate for that?”

Margot lifted up the sunglasses so I could see her face. One eye was swollen shut and there were traces of dried blood over a plucked eyebrow. She spoke in a flat, deliberate voice. “It used to be fifty, but now Dandy says I’m a full-fledged three-way girl so it costs a yard.” I just looked at her face-her eyes were dead. Her voice didn’t change. “And he says if I don’t make a success of myself going three-way I can try the Square and do some chain jobs. He gets two yards a night or I get worse-get it?”

We had already talked too long, in front of too big an audience.

“Get in the car,” I told her, and fired up the Plymouth. Pulling out of my slot, we rolled onto the highway, heading south toward the World Trade Center, hooked a deep U-turn, and rolled back north toward uptown. Nobody following.

I motored around for another twenty minutes to make sure. Still nothing. So I drove over to a basement poolroom with the dirty neon sign that said Rooms over the entrance and got out. Told Margot to come with me and keep her mouth shut no matter who said what to her. I handed her an empty attache case I keep in the back seat and said to hang on to it like it was full of money.

We went down the short steps to the basement and stopped by the wire cage, where an old man was watching a small-screen color TV with his back to us. To the right of the cage was a flight of steps leading upstairs, to the left was the basement with the pool tables. I rapped my knuckles on the counter. The old man didn’t even turn around from the TV. “No vacancies, pal.”

“It’s me, Pop,” I said, and he turned around, looked at me, saw Margot, and raised one eyebrow. “It’s business.” I pointed at the attache case. The old man reached under the counter, took out a key with the number 2 on the attached paper tag, and I handed him two fifties. He turned his back to us and went back to the TV set. I motioned Margot upstairs in front of me and we climbed in silence.

Pop only rents rooms to certain people and only for business. The key says #2, but it really means the whole second floor. When you’re finished you leave the key on the hook by the door, leave the door unlocked, and go down the fire escape. The rate is a hundred bucks until the next morning, no matter when you check in. And nobody stays past the next morning, no matter what they want to pay-house rules. Pop uses Max the Silent for evictions, but they don’t happen often.

When we got to the first-floor landing we saw the steel door with no doorknob. I told Margot to wait, and in a few seconds it buzzed and popped open. I pulled it closed from the other side, knowing there was no way to go back through it. If anyone else tried to come through the door legit, Pop would buzz once like he just did and they’d get through. But if someone was forcing him to do it he’d hit the buzzer a few times rapidly. That wouldn’t open the door, but it would seem like he was trying to-anyone in the building would know it was time to split. Even if the law hit the door with the usual fireaxes and battering rams you’d have at least fifteen minutes to get out. More than enough. Pop didn’t allow any dope-dealing in the place, but anything else went, and guys sometimes went up and down these stairs with enough explosives to put the whole block into orbit.

I used the key to open the first door on the second floor, and Margot and I went inside. Large, barely furnished suite of rooms, two bathrooms, convertible couch, empty refrigerator. If you wanted it, you had to bring it. I found an ashtray and lit up. Margot let out what sounded like a groan and sat down on the couch. I looked over at her. “So?”

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“I don’t need a job, Margot. I need to talk to Michelle.”

“I already talked to her. I’ve got a message for you.”

“Which is?”

“First I want to talk about the job.”

“Hey, what is this crap? Just tell me what Michelle said.”

She took off her glasses again, gave me a dead smile to go with her eyes. “Don’t be tough, Burke-don’t be a hard guy. Don’t threaten me. I’ve had everything that can be done to a person done to me except killing and I don’t care about that. Don’t threaten me, just listen to me, okay?”

I said nothing, smoking. Margot lit one of her own.

“Something has to be done about Dandy.”

“Your pimp?”

“My pimp.”

“I don’t know him, never heard of him.”

“He’s from Boston. He just came down here.”

“What has to be done?”

“Murder.”

“You’re talking to the wrong man. That’s not me.”