Andrew Vachss - Flood

Pansy’s snarl brought me out of it-something was thumping against the back window in the side room, softly but insistently. I could see an indistinct shape against the dark curtains. I got quietly to my feet, reached in the top drawer, took out the flare pistol I keep there, checked to make sure it was primed, and moved over to the window. Pansy was at my side and just ahead, on point and ready. I parted the curtains ever so slightly, leveling the gun.

It was a goddamned pigeon, trapped in the maze of wire I had built around the windowframe. Only one of his feet was caught-his wings were free and they flapped like insanity let out of a bag. If he had a bit more strength he would have triggered the electrical circuit and some wino in the alley below would have had a fried squab dinner.

I went back inside and threw the switch to the Off position-it’s clearly marked On in case some clown got in the front door somehow and decided to leave by the window-then I reached out to spring him. Pigeons are nothing more than rats with wings-I’ve never seen a city or a prison without them-but they know how to survive. I held him firmly in a gloved hand but he didn’t even try to peck at me. He looked okay, so I tossed him into the air and he fell like a stone for a few feet, stuck his wings out experimentally to break his fall and then banked into a river breeze and headed for another roost.

I went back inside, lit myself a cigarette, and praised Pansy for her vigilance. She probably knew it was a miserable pigeon all the time and just wanted to get me out of the trance. It took me a few drags of the smoke before it hit me. I had it worked out all the time-if you’re going fishing, you need worms, right? Now there’s about three good ways to get them: you can buy them from someone who’s selling, you could dig around in the ground and hope you got lucky, or you could wait until it rained and the worms came to the surface and you could take your pick.

That’s how I could find this freak-all three techniques, with the emphasis on the last one. Only I wasn’t going to wait for it to rain.

I went back to the desk and sat down to compose a few ads for the Personals column of some local papers. I couldn’t wait for the nationals, although it was easy enough to figure what kind of reading matter would be on Wilson’s list. It takes three or four months from the time you submit the copy until you see it in print, and he could be long gone by then. I permanently rent a few post office boxes around the city for freelance fundraising, and they would do the job here too.

First, the old reliable “SWF, widowed, young-looking 32, petite and shapely, financially secure, with two lovely daughters, ages 9 and 7. Looking for a strong man with life experience, possibly ex-military or law enforcement, to take charge of her life. Can we meet and talk about it? Letter, with picture ONLY to Box X2744, Sheridan Square Station.”

Then in the Daily News: “COURIER needed. Must be reliable, with prior military experience. Out-of-country work, must have valid passport. High pay and bonus to the right man.” And another box number.

An ad in the Times for a general houseman, good driver, competent with firearms, to serve as chauffeur-bodyguard to two young children on a Westchester estate. With another box number.

A couple of blind drops in the S amp;M rags, looking for “military” or “police” types for “special work” and promising high pay and great opportunities, including European travel, to the right man.

I didn’t know Wilson’s mind completely, so I also prepared some ads for a school-bus driver for a childrens’ camp in the Catskill Mountains and for a director of security for a private daycare center in Greenwich Village. Still another from a freelance writer looking for military vets who wanted to discuss their experiences with foreign child-prostitutes in exchange for a $300 interview fee.

I could have written lots of ads that might have eventually attracted the Cobra, but I wanted him under pressure and looking for a way out, not just hunting for new victims. I put the ads together in separate envelopes, addressed them using the Pantograph I keep for such occasions. The post office supplied me with the money orders I needed, and the ads went out. From past experience, I knew they would surface within a couple of days.

I wheeled the Plymouth toward the docks and started looking for some of my people. I prowled under the West Side Highway, the part that the environmentalists are still fighting about, near the blank sandy slab that’s supposed to be luxury housing someday. Luxury housing in this city is perfect-they fill part of the river with garbage to make a foundation and then they fill the buildings with more garbage, only the new garbage pays rent. Nothing showed. I made the full run up to Fourteenth Street, turned around, and headed back downtown.

As I stopped at a light I saw a working girl sitting on one of the concrete bases that anchor the steel I-beams that hold up the highway. She had short reddish hair, a hard thirtyish face, dark lipstick, a quarter-inch of face powder. A rust-colored sweater bulged out over huge tightly cinched breasts, the ensemble finished off with a thick leather belt, faded jeans, black leather boots almost to the knee. She was smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke toward the river-waiting. Her partner, a skinny black girl wearing a turquoise knit dress and apparently nothing else, was standing by, hands on hips. The black hooker was anxious to get working, jawing with every car that stopped, but the big woman sat like she was part of the concrete.

I pulled up and rolled down the window, giving the big pros a look at my face. She asked, “Want to buy some pussy?” in a half-asleep voice like she didn’t give a damn one way or the other while the black girl ran her tongue around her lips.

“How much?”

“Twenty-five for the pussy, ten for the room.”

“Hey, I want to rent it, not buy it,” I told her, and the black girl giggled.

“I just want to talk to you,” I told the white woman.

She looked at me. “No sale, pal. I’m self-employed.”

“Do I look like a pimp to you?”

“You don’t look like nothing to me,” earning another giggle from her pal.

“You want to talk about it?”

“For twenty-five bucks in your car, thirty-five in the room,” she said in the same monotone.

“Deal,” I said, opening the door for her. She slowly pulled herself off the concrete cushion and walked over to the Plymouth. She was about six feet tall, had to weigh 170 pounds.

As soon as she stood up I knew who she was.

I drove down by one of the abandoned piers, killed the engine, and turned to look at her. She said, “The twenty-five, man,” and I reached in my pocket while she fumbled in her purse, and I had my gun out before she came up with hers.

“Take your hand out of your pocketbook, okay? Nice and slow. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

A resigned light flashed in her eyes for a split-second, but she didn’t move. I cocked the pistol-the sound was harsh in the closed car. She took her hand out of her pocketbook, threw one massive thigh over the other, and put her folded hands on her knees where I could see them.

“You’re not a cop, right?”

“Right.”

“So you want this one on the house… or is this payback?”

“It’s neither one, JoJo. Just be cool. Give me the purse.”

“There’s no money in it.”

“I know what’s in it.”

She tossed the purse at me, right at my face. I didn’t move-my gun didn’t move. The purse slapped against my face and fell into my lap. I snapped it open and found the tiny.25-caliber automatic-I put her piece in my pocket and tossed her purse into the backseat.