Andrew Vachss - Flood

I reached for a cigarette as they pushed the videotape monitor back into the shadows, but my hands wouldn’t work. Pablo came back to the table, looked across at me.

“Lucecita?” I asked.

“Si, hermano. Comprende?”

“He sells this?”

“He sells this, and more like it. We are told he has some in color and some even with sound.”

“How does he get people to film this? It’s a cold-blooded homicide, not some sex rap.”

“He does it himself, compadre -that was Goldor in the mask,”

“Then he’s bought himself a life sentence.”

“How? We cannot prove a thing. We can prove that it was our Lucecita who died, but how to prove that it was Goldor himself? Besides, a life sentence is insufficient.”

“So is a death sentence.”

“I agree, we all agree. We have discussed this and there was debate. But we will not imitate our oppressors. We are Puerto Ricans, not Iranians.”

“I understand. You’ll tell me where to find Goldor?”

“Oh, yes-and we will do better than that. We have a dossier, complete. It will be handed to you when you get out of the cab later on. And then there is no more from us, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“We are not in a race, Burke. We will not interfere with your work. But you must move quickly-we are almost ready.”

“Understood.”

“In return you will tell us anything you may learn. That is all we ask.”

“Agreed.”

There was nothing more to say. We shook hands, the overhead light went off, and I followed Pablo out the door into the corridor. Another man took me up the stairs to the front door where the lobos still prowled. I started to walk through them as I had done before, and found myself held in place. I didn’t resist, just stayed within the group until I heard a car come down the block. The gypsy cab again.

The pack parted and I climbed in the back. The driver didn’t ask me where I was going and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t open my eyes until I felt the cab crossing the Third Avenue Bridge into Manhattan. The driver took the East Side Drive to Twenty-third Street, turned over to Park Avenue South, spotted an all-night cab stand, and pulled over to the curb. As I got out, he handed me a legal-sized envelope and drove off.

I walked over to the cab stand, checked the first cab. I gave him an address within half a dozen blocks of Flood’s studio.

I tried to close my eyes during the ride, but the videotape kept replaying inside my eyelids.

THE LEGAL ENVELOPE full of Goldor information had disappeared into the side flap of my jacket by the time I got out of the cab. The pay phone was right where I remembered it, and Flood answered on the first ring.

“It’s me, Flood, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Come downstairs and let me in.”

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you-just do it,” I said, and hung up.

I looked at my watch to avoid thinking about what Flood had heard in my voice-it was past three in the morning.

I walked right up to Flood’s door like I had a key, reached for the handle and it opened. I was so distracted that I didn’t bother to ring for the elevator, just let Flood walk up the steps ahead of me-but I snapped out of it and stopped her halfway up the first flight and motioned her to be quiet. It stayed quiet. We were alone.

We walked through the studio to Flood’s place without talking. I found a place to sit down and lit a smoke, trusting Flood to find an ashtray for me someplace. I took out the Goldor file and stared at the cover-I didn’t want to open it just yet. Flood sat down across from me on the floor. “Burke, tell me what’s wrong.”

My hands were all right by then but I guess my face wasn’t. I didn’t say anything and Flood just let me smoke the cigarette in peace. She moved closer and just leaned her body weight against me without saying anything. I felt her warmth and strength next to me and the calmness that came with it. After a few minutes I handed her the cover of the file.

“Everything about Goldor’s in here,” I told her.

“Isn’t that good? Isn’t that what you went to find?”

“Yeah, but I found something else too. I think he’s our man, the man with the lead to Wilson.”

Flood looked questions at me, gave me her soft smile. “Don’t smile, Flood. He’s not someone we can make a deal with.”

She said, “Tell me,” and I did the best I could. She sat there not moving a muscle while I took her all the way through that videotape. She didn’t ask me how I got to see it-she could see it wasn’t important anymore, if it ever had been. She absorbed the story like a good boxer taking a body punch-she moved into it to get something she could understand, something that would make sense. “The woman knew she was going to die.” It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t know.”

“She did. She died with honor. You must have seen that, Burke.”

“If she did what the freak wanted, would she have lived?”

“Would she have wanted to?”

“We’ll never know, right? She has people-she won’t have to worry about resting in peace wherever she is. That’s why we don’t have a lot of time. Goldor is on the spot-he’s marked. If this city had vultures, they would be hovering over his house right now, you understand?”

“Yes,” said Flood, “but does he understand?”

“I’m told not-I’m told he doesn’t believe anything can get to him. Everything about him is supposed to be in this file. We’ll see.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to make it like I never heard of this freak,” I told her. “And I want to cancel his ticket-watch him die, have him understand that he is going to die just like that girl did-find the field his tree grew in and dig up the roots and pour salt in the ground.”

“It’s not wrong to be afraid,” Flood said, thinking she understood.

“Flood, for chrissakes, I know that-I probably know that better than anyone you’ll ever meet. You ever watch a pro football game-ever see how those guys come over to the sidelines and take a hit off an oxygen bottle so they can go back and do their work? That’s what I do with fear. It makes me smart-it’s the fuel I run on. You don’t understand-you didn’t see the tape.”

“I don’t want to see it.”

“That won’t help. Damn it, Flood-I didn’t want to see it either, but even if we never saw it it would still be-it will always be, even if this maggot is dead and gone.”

“Like Zen?”

“If a tree falls in the forest… maybe so-I don’t know.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” she said, “he’s just a man.”

“Flood, there is just no place for people like you where I live. Good for you, you’re not afraid-you going to protect me?”

“I can.”

“Not from this-it’s inside of me, it’s inside all of us. What he did-people do it. Rich people pay for it with money and poor people just do it and pay the freight in some mental hospital or prison. People do it-not animals, not birds-people. If you’re not scared of it, it just means you can’t see yourself there. It doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“Maybe it’s because he’s so rich-there’s so much strength when you have money…”

“It’s not money, Flood, it’s power. When I was in Africa once, in Angola before they kicked out the Portuguese-I was near the airport in Luanda and the rebels were getting closer and it was time to get out. The soldiers were all over the place and they were searching luggage, you know, to find contraband-ivory carvings, diamonds, hard currency. Two of them opened my bags on the ground. Nothing in there, but they found the malaria pills I had with me. One of them opened the bottles and just poured them out on the ground, right in front of me, smiling in my face all the time. There was nothing I could do except act stupid and confused. That made them happy-I would get malaria and I wouldn’t even understand how it happened. That was enough for them, that much power-for some people, it’s not enough. There’s a line you cross-and once you cross it you never get back. Then you’re not human anymore.”