Andrew Vachss - Flood

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Then you heard wrong.”

“How much?”

“Forget it. You’re a fucking dummy-you don’t want this creep, get on a bus and split.”

“I can’t leave.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit-first he has to die.”

“Don’t even tell me about it.”

“Would five thousand do the job?”

I got up from the couch and walked over to the window. Layers of filth made it impossible to look through, even in the daylight. I still needed that message from Michelle, so I gave Margot some free advice. She listened like it was worth what I was charging. “Look, dummy. You pay a man five G’s to knock off some halfass pimp and he takes your money and says thank you and never does it. Then what the fuck do you do?”

“I earn some more money and now I have a list of two people.”

“At that rate you’ll be on social security before you find someone who’s for real, and he’ll want a million dollars for your whole list.”

“I can make a million dollars if I have to-I got my money-maker right here,” Margot said, slapping herself on the rump and smiling her dead smile. We were getting nowhere.

“Look, I don’t do that kind of work. Just leave him and be done with it.”

“He has to be dead first.”

“Because he’ll come after you or what?”

“The first.”

“If I could-and I’m not saying I can-arrange it so he never comes near you again in life, would that do it?”

“You don’t know him.”

“Yes I do.”

“I thought you said you’d never heard of him.”

I blew an attempt at a smoke ring at the ceiling, went back over to the couch and motioned her to come over and sit next to me. Margot hesitated, biting her swollen lower lip. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” I asked her. “You come into a strange place with a strange man, you ask him to kill someone, and now you’re afraid of a couch?”

It didn’t even get a smile out of her, but she did walk over and sit next to me. And listened.

“Look, let’s say a man works in a maggot factory. You know, where they dig up maggots from under rocks and put them into little containers for people who need maggots, like fishermen and scientists and abstract artists or whatever. Okay, he works in this factory for twenty years, right? He watches maggots work, he watches them play, he watches them breed. He sees them individually and in groups. He observes their every fucking characteristic, all right? Now you find a man like this and you ask him if he knows your personal maggot. And he says no. But he knows maggots, you understand? And one maggot’s not a hell of a lot different from the other maggots? Okay?”

“Yes.”

“So I never heard of this Dandy.”

“I got it.”

“Okay, now what’s the message from Michelle?”

“Wait. You’ll do something with Dandy?”

“For five thousand dollars. But I won’t kill him-and you’ll have to participate.”

“Why? How?”

“The why is so you don’t end up testifying against me and my people. The how I don’t know yet.”

“This is straight?”

“You tell me.”

Margot looked into my face like there was something she could learn. There wasn’t, but she was satisfied, I guess. She nodded okay.

“Now…”

“This is the message from Michelle, word for word. She said, ‘Tell Burke that the man who knows the Cobra made a movie star out of a corpse.’ That’s all.”

“That’s the whole thing-that’s all she said?”

“That’s it. She made me say it twenty times until I got it down perfect.”

“What’s she think I am, Sherlock-fucking-Holmes?”

“Burke, I don’t know. That’s what she said. Not like it was a riddle but like you’d understand.”

“Okay.” I told her I’d drop her off wherever she wanted.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to be off the streets for a few hours. I’ll tell Dandy I turned a freak trick for two bills. That’s what he wants anyway. He says that’s where the money is.”

“So?”

“So can I stay here and have you got the two bills?”

“You must be crazy. You go through all this to offer me five grand and you haven’t got two hundred?”

“I got it, Burke. I just don’t have it here. I couldn’t carry it around with me, could I?”

“I already laid out a yard for this place.”

“I’ll have your money tomorrow-meet you here at noon?”

I just looked at her, her eyes were still dead. But Michelle must have trusted her if she gave her that message to pass on. “Burke, if you do this, I swear you’ll never regret it.”

“I already regret it.”

“I got nothing here to give you, nothing except my body-and I’m sure you don’t want that.” And suddenly, damn her, her dead eyes got wet and she started to cry.

And so Burke the great scam artist, the never-suckered city poacher, sat on a couch and held a crying whore for almost three hours and then gave her two hundred dollars and drove her back to the streets. Before I went into that room, Dandy was a maggot. Now he was a maggot who owed me money.

AFTER I DROPPED off Margot I kept thinking about how her eyes didn’t look dead anymore. Maybe they were alive with hope, maybe with the joy of ripping off another sucker. There was only one sure way to find out, and that meant I had to find the Prof and Michelle both. There was only one place in the whole city where I might hit that exacta, a midtown joint called The Very Idea. So I stashed the Plymouth back at the office, walked a few blocks, and caught a cab uptown.

The Very Idea isn’t exactly closed to the public, but it’s not the kind of place where a citizen would stay very long. It’s supposed to be just for transsexuals and their friends-no transvestites, drag queens, fag hags, or hustlers-and most especially no tourists. It’s over near First Avenue, just a snort away from some of the heaviest singles bars. I heard that the folks in The Very Idea used to get together and practice their routines on each other before they tried them out on the citizens. They’re all supposed to do this while they get the hormone injections-Michelle told me you have to cross-dress for a year, stay in therapy, and get a clean bill of psychiatric health before they let you have the sex-change surgery. But the citizens are too easy to fool, and it’s not a good test. The club was the idea of a few of them, a private subscription deal. They didn’t expect to make money, just to have a place to hang out in peace. But somehow the joint caught on and now it does a good business. It’s not frantic like a gay bar, and I can see why folks like to just drop in to spend a few bucks and enjoy the quiet. But, like I said, most people aren’t welcome there.

I had the cab let me off a few blocks away, walked over to the river, and doubled back to the club. There was a middle-sized lunch crowd already in place and it looked more like Schrafft’s than a gay bar. Well, like Michelle said, it wasn’t a gay bar.

I didn’t see Michelle so I headed for the long counter. As usual, Ricardo was in place. He serves as sort of a maitre d’ and bartender at the same time, selected more for his courtly manners than anything else, I suppose. I know for damn sure they don’t need a bouncer in that joint. One time some jerkoff sailors found their way inside and started some trouble with Ricardo. He didn’t participate personally-just watched while his customers made short work of the sailors. I don’t know if the Shore Patrol declared the place off-limits after that or what, but I do know the sailors’ threats to return and demolish the place never came to anything. “Ah, Mr. Burke,” Ricardo greeted me, “a pleasure to see you again, sir. Will you have the usual?”