Andrew Vachss - Mask Market

“The woman who answered the door isn’t your girl. Too old. Not that she doesn’t keep herself up—she was all toned-and-tucked, believe me—but she hasn’t seen thirty for a good long time. Has to be the mother.”

“Did you get the sense anyone else was there?”

“Well, there was at least one more,” Toni said. “The baby. More like a toddler…? I don’t know; I’m not good with guessing ages when they’re that small. Young enough for the mother to be carrying her around in one arm, anyway.”

“Did she act like—I’m not sure how to put this—did she act like the baby was her baby? Or a kid she was watching for someone else?”

“Oh, it was her baby. She had that…protective way of standing you see in mothers.”

“Some mothers.”

“Some mothers,” Toni agreed. “But there was more…. She was, like…I don’t know how to say it…. Maybe the way she talked, like the baby was in on the conversation. She didn’t treat her like a baby. Didn’t just make noises at her, she called her by her name. Elysse. That was her baby, Burke. I’d bet a month’s commissions on it.”

“She let you come in?”

“Not exactly. She didn’t tell me to get lost, but—this is all part of the way she was standing; I can’t quite explain it—she wasn’t going to give any ground. She acted like she had all the time in the world. Even took my business card. But she wasn’t offering me a cup of coffee. Not even when I said my client was a seven-figure buyer, all cash.”

“That’s great, Toni. You did a perfect job.”

“Thanks. I would have felt better if she’d let me in, but I didn’t want to push it.” She glanced at the dashboard, said, “If you’re not going back to see her today, we can still make your train.”

“Let’s get that train,” I told her.

“When you spend your life going in and out of houses, you get a feel for them,” she said. “That place was big, but it was empty, too. I got the distinct impression that she lives there by herself. Her and the baby, I mean.”

“Well, it was long odds.”

“She might have a cat. Everyone says cats are so curious, but some of them couldn’t be bothered to get up just because someone’s at the door.”

“But a dog…”

“That’s right,” she said, “a dog is different. My Samson—he’s a Jack Russell terrier—if you let a mosquito in the door, he’d have to go and see for himself.”

“Jack Russells are all lunatics.”

“That’s true!” she said, laughing. “But there was no dog in that woman’s house at all. I could just tell.”

I didn’t say anything, watching the scenery change as we got back inside the D.C. limits.

“Maybe she doesn’t think she needs a dog,” Toni said, as she pulled up to the station. “Just inside the front door, there’s a blue box on the wall. Some of my clients have the same one. It’s a central-station system. If that alarm goes off, it doesn’t ring some clown who’s supposed to dial 911 for you; it rings right inside the cop shop.”

T he next morning, the newscaster said Amtrak was taking the Acela out of service for a few months. Something about the brakes not being trustworthy.

Another man might have taken that for an omen.

T he restaurant was Japanese, not far from the old tennis stadium in Forest Hills. The hostess had a treacherously demure smile, too much rouge, and glossy black agate eyes. She showed me over to a corner booth shielded from the rest of the place by rice-paper screens.

Charlie saw me coming, stood up, shook hands like we were business friends.

“Hello,” the dark-haired woman next to him said. Polite smile, wary eyes.

“John, I’d like you to meet my wife,” he said. “Galina, this is John Smith.”

She reached up and extended her hand. It wasn’t so much cold as neutral. Inanimate.

I sat down across from them, noting that Charlie had set it up so that I was facing the entrance, my back to the wall.

“Do you know my husband a long time?” Galina asked, as the waiter placed bowls of miso soup in front of us.

“More years than I care to remember,” I told her, smiling to show I wasn’t being hostile, just regretting my age.

All the way through the meal, we talked about everything except what I’d come for. A New York conversation, ranging from superficial to fraudulent. Taxes, real estate, crime.

“Dessert?” the waiter asked.

“Let us think about that,” Charlie told him, handing over some folded bills.

“He won’t come back until I call him,” he said to me.

That was my cue. Turning to face Galina, I said, “When I came by your house the other day, you told your husband I was there, then you went back inside. While you were there, you made a phone call.”

Her face was a mask of polite interest.

“Your husband promised you would explain that to me,” I went on. “I’m sure he told you how important…how very important this is.”

“Yes.”

“Then, please…”

She looked over at Charlie. He nodded.

“I am Ashkenazi,” she said. “You know what this is?”

“Jews born in Eastern Europe?”

A quick flash of surprise registered in her dark eyes, opening them to a new depth. “It is more complicated than that, but yes. I was born in Russia. My family, too. And their family. My ancestors fought the Nazis. In the Red Army. Many died. Those who lived, maybe they thought things would be different for them when the war was over. But it was not.

“To be a Jew in Russia was always dangerous. And so it is today. More than ever, maybe. The skinhead gangs, they say they are targeting immigrants, but their alliances are with their brothers in Poland. In Croatia, too. The fascists are there in strength.

“The way we survive is the way we have always survived—we do not look to the government for protection; we look to each other.”

My eyes never left her face. A faint flush rose in her cheeks.

“You do not believe me?”

“About what you just said? Sure I do. But I guess I don’t understand what all that has to do with the phone call you made.”

“Because you are not a threat, so why should we need protection from you?”

“You don’t need protection from me. I didn’t even know you existed until a few days ago. You made that phone call because you already knew whoever you called wanted to talk to me.”

“So?” she said, raising her chin as if I was the butler, defying the mistress of the manor.

“That’s it?” I said to Charlie.

“No,” he said quickly. “Just have a little patience, all right?”

I sat back, waiting. He looked at his wife.

“The people I called are my family,” Galina said. “They ask; I do. This is always.”

I didn’t move. She looked at her husband.

“Yes, I knew they wanted to talk with you,” she finally said. “They are…crazy people. But they are my people. By blood. So if they want something from me…”

“They want a lot more than phone calls from you, Mrs. Siegel,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Remember I said I didn’t even know you existed until recently? Well, your people knew I existed before that. They knew I went to a meeting. A meeting with a client. Nobody knew about that meeting but me and the client. Your people might have been following the client. Maybe that’s how they spotted me.”

Her dark eyes never left my one good one.

“But I don’t think so,” I went on. “I think they knew my client had a meeting. I think they were listening in on his calls. And there’s only one way they get his number to do that.”