Andrew Vachss - Flood

Then I felt a breeze on the back of my neck and heard Pablo’s voice behind me saying, “This way, Burke,” and I turned and entered the door behind me, my back now to the man with the Uzi. By the time anyone broke down the blanketed door and confronted the guard, the people in the room I was stepping into would have been long gone.

The big room was as anonymous as a cell block-a round table in the center, several couches and old stuffed chairs scattered around, concrete floor, plasterboard walls. A light fixture dangled from someplace in the blacked-out ceiling, hanging so low it was almost touching the table-no windows that I could see. There was a large TV set in one corner on a metal stand with a videotape deck hooked up below it. The rest of the room was in shadow. The chairs and the couches were occupied but I couldn’t see anything except shapes.

I didn’t need anyone to tell me where I was to sit. As I approached the table I noticed a large ashtray on top and a green plastic garbage bag sitting underneath. When we all left this room, it would be as if nobody had ever been there. Fine with me.

I sat down. Pablo sat directly opposite me. He gave me the two-handed handshake he always uses. He made no motion that I could see, but the shadows moved closer as he spoke, especially those behind me. “I’m going to say some things in Spanish to my people now. After I finish I’ll talk with you in English, okay?”

“Good.”

Pablo launched into rapid-fire Spanish, only some of which I understood. I caught “amigo mio,” not “amigo de nostros.” He was saying this man is a friend of mine, not a friend of ours. He would be vouching for my character, not my politics. Most of the rest got past me but I caught compadre more than once and couldn’t tell if he was referring to me or someone else in the room. When he’d finished he looked around. Someone asked a soft-voiced question-Pablo appeared to be giving the matter some thought, then said “No!” in a flat voice. No more questions. Pablo turned to face me, and the shadows moved even closer.

“I told them it would not be necessary to search you, that you were not of the federales. I told them you were not with the police, and that you would be here for your own reasons. I told them that you have helped me in the past and that you would help me again in the future. And I told them that we would help you if it did not conflict with our purpose. Okay?”

“Sure. Okay to smoke?”

Pablo nodded and I slowly, carefully took out the cigarettes, left the pack on the table, reached for the wooden matches, and lit up. I heard one of the watchers in the shadows mutter something and I reached out for the cigarette pack, tore it open and laid out the smokes one by one. I tore the wrapping paper into small bits and put the whole mess into the garbage bag. I heard “Bueno” from one of them, a short laugh from another. Pablo took it up. “My friend, you said that it was necessary for us to meet. So?”

I picked my words and the pace of my speech carefully, trying for a show of dignity they would respect and that would show my respect for them. You have to talk a lot of different ways in my business. You don’t throw in a lot of references to Allah when you’re talking to a Black Muslim, but you don’t offer him a ham sandwich either.

“There is a man named Goldor”-the room went dead quiet so suddenly that my voice sounded like it was echoing-“that I need to speak with. He knows something I need to know. I understand that he is a person with whom you have a dispute. He is not the target of my inquiries, but he is not my friend and I would not protect him. I come here for two reasons. First, I must talk to him and I do not want you to believe that this talk means we are doing business-I would not do business with someone you dislike. Second, if you dislike him you must have good reason. If you have good reason, you have good information-and if you have good information, you can perhaps assist me in getting an audience with him. That’s all.”

No one spoke, but the tension level had tripled since I said Goldor’s name. It stayed quiet until Pablo spoke again. “How do you know we dislike Goldor?”

“This is something I heard from a good source.”

“A source you trust?”

“As to reliability of information, yes. That is all.”

“So your source is in law enforcement?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been told if Goldor has any protection?”

“I have been told that he does not take street rumors seriously, and that he does not believe himself to be in any danger.”

Pablo smiled. “Good. Do your inquiries about Goldor involve a woman?” Nothing showed in my face, but it felt like a punch to the heart-did that goddamned Flood ever stop making trouble? “In some ways, yes,” I told him, “but I am not looking for a woman. I am looking for a man, and Goldor may know where he is.”

“This man is a friend of Goldor?”

“Possibly. It is also possible that he may be an enemy.”

“An informant, then?”

“He may be.”

“If you find this man, will it help Goldor?”

“No.”

“Will it hurt him?”

“Most likely not.”

Pablo paused for a moment, looking at me. Then he got up from the table, disappeared back into the shadows-they blended around him until I was alone in a pool of light. I couldn’t make out a single word of what they said this time, but it didn’t sound like an argument. After few minutes Pablo came back to the table and the shadows followed him again. “For me to tell you what we know about Goldor it is necessary to tell you some other things, some things that otherwise you would not know. But first I tell you this, and I tell you out of friendship only. Goldor is dead. His body is still moving above the ground but his death is certain. If you go and speak with him it may be that later el porko will want to speak with you, understand? You must be able to say another reason to have spoken with him. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

Pablo took another deep breath, reached over and took the cigarette from my hand, put it to his lips, took a deep drag. “Goldor is not a human being. You have no word for him in English, nor do we in Spanish. The closest we could come is gusaniento, you comprende?”

“Like rotten-full of maggots?”

“Something like that, yes. He is the head of an industry which sells the bodies of human beings for the pleasure of others. But not like a whoremaster or a common pimp. No, Goldor is special-he sells children in bondage. If you buy a boy or a girl from Goldor’s people, that child is yours to keep-to torture, to kill, whatever you want. Goldor is above the street. He is like a broker of degeneracy-you tell him what you want and he finds it and delivers it to you. Goldor is not human, as I told you. He is a demon, a thing who worships el dolor, the pain of others. He believes in pain, my friend. Where he finds women who share his beliefs we do not know, but we do know that many of his victims are volunteers. The police know of him but he cannot be touched. To the authorities, his hands are not dirty.”

“He’s not alone in this.”

“Compadre, you come right to the point. Why would we want to deal with such a man when there are so many others like him? I will tell you. On the Lower East Side you know we have a community. It is a bad place to live but survival is possible-you know about survival. We have many operations down there, as we do in the Bronx. We hear many stories about young Puerto Rican boys who just disappear, but with no complaints to the police. So we look for ourselves. We see that some of those boys are in foster care-but not foster care like with the city. Some kind of informal arrangement, we are told. Some of the mothers believe that their children will have a better way of life, more opportunities-at least they say so to us. But some-and we know this for certain-they have just sold their children. We look, we ask questions, we spend some money until we are sure. It is Goldor doing this. Not personally, but it is him.