Andrew Vachss - Mask Market

“No, you didn’t. You told me just enough. And you showed me a lot more.”

“But I’m not the one you—”

“You are the one,” I said. “Not like you think, but…Look, Loyal, to me you’re a princess. A little princess. And I’ve got a plan for this to have a happy ending.”

“But not a marriage plan, right?”

“Better.”

“What could be—?”

“Just wait,” I said. “Wait a little bit. You wanted to know what I do for a living, remember?”

“Yes. But I don’t—”

“I’m a gambler, little girl. And I’ve got something going now. The dice are already tumbling. If I can throw the hard eight, you’re going to have your happy ending. That’s all I can tell you now. Is that enough?”

Loyal paused in the act of pulling on one of her stockings. “A coral snake is one of the most beautiful things you could ever see. But one bite and you’re all done. Then there’s milk snakes. They’re just as pretty, but they’re harmless. You know how to tell them apart?”

“Red and black, he’s a good jack. Red and yella, kill the fella.”

“Oh!” she said. She raised her chin, looked down at where I was sitting. “You’ve spent some time in the South, haven’t you? I wondered about that, ever since I told you about people saying I looked like Jeannie, remember? And you said I do favor her. That’s not the way people around here talk.”

“I’ve traveled a little bit.”

“Gambling?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re going to win me a happy ending?”

“I’m trying.”

“That would be the sweetest thing a man could give a woman, a happy ending.”

“I—”

“I’m a girl who gives as good as she gets,” Loyal said, turning away from me and bending over the couch. “And you don’t have to wait for yours.”

“T hat’s her?” Clarence asked, pointing at his laptop screen.

“Go through them one more time,” I said.

He trailed his finger over the touchpad, and a new set of thumbnails popped into life. He clicked on them, one by one, and each new image burst into full-screen life.

A woman in a beige parka, so densely quilted that it was impossible to tell if she was a stick or a sumo, walked down a tree-lined street, carrying a large green tote bag with a yellow logo.

The same woman inside a market, the tote draped over the handlebars of a shopping cart. She had pixie-short light blonde hair, bright-red lipstick.

“I can zoom in on that one,” Clarence said.

“Go.”

The woman had china-blue eyes, a beauty mark at the corner of one of them. It looked like one of those tattooed tears gang kids put on their faces, one for each jolt Inside.

“That’s her,” I said.

“Are you sure, mahn? She looks nothing like the girl on that—”

“Her stuff is tough,” the Prof interrupted his son, “but it ain’t close to enough. That’s the same girl Schoolboy and me snatched.”

“You have not seen her for—what?—twenty years?” Clarence said. Not challenging, fascinated.

“She’s still got the look,” the Prof said.

“She does not look afraid to me,” Clarence said, respectful but doubting.

“She never did,” the Prof answered. “Ain’t that right, Schoolboy?”

“O n the move.” Terry’s voice, over my cell. “Walking.”

“Probably a Starbucks run,” I said, glancing at my watch. “Gives us twenty minutes, tops.”

“I can double that for you,” Michelle said. “Drop me off at the next corner.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the Prof. He patted the outside pocket of his ankle-length canvas duster. “I already been in once,” he said. “I left it so’s I can pop that box like I had me the key.”

“Eight-fifteen,” Clarence said. “The tenants have all gone to work.”

“You take the wheel,” I told him.

I heard the sound of a key working the lock. Pointed my finger at Max to warn him.

She walked into the living room, one hand holding a paper cup. A sixteen-ounce double skinny mocha latte, if she hadn’t changed her usual order.

“Hello, Beryl,” I said, from the darkness of the couch.

She was fast, but Max was ready for the move, wrapping her up as she bolted back toward the front door. He held one finger against the buccinator muscle in her right cheek, nerve-blocking the pressure point so she couldn’t scream.

He lifted her off the ground with his left hand, letting her feel the price of resistance. She got the message and sagged, allowing him to deposit her next to me on the couch.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, Beryl,” I said. “Just the opposite. We know people are looking for you; we’re here to fix that.”

“Who are—?”

“You know who we are, child,” the Prof said, as he stepped forward. “We’re the ones who got you back from that pimp when you were just a kid. Remember?”

“You’re…” She paused, looking at Max. “You were there,” she said to the Prof. “And him, too”—nodding at Max. “But who are—?”

“It’s me, Beryl,” I said. “I had some work done on my face, but—”

“It is you! I would never have known your face, but that voice, it’s…it’s the same.”

“You have your father’s gift.”

“My…what?”

“Your father’s gift,” I said again. “He’s real good with voices, too.”

“My father sent you?”

“You mean, like he did before?”

“That wasn’t him,” she said, as if the words were poison in her mouth.

“I know,” I told her. “I didn’t know then, but I do now.”

“You think so?” she said, curling her lip. She shrugged out of her coat, crossed her legs, telling us she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Let’s see,” I said. “You were involved with a man named Daniel Parks. A money manager. He siphoned off money from a hedge fund he was running. A lot of money. He probably knew a lot more about high finance than he did about the people who put their money into his fund. So maybe he figured the most he was risking was a civil suit. Or even a fraud prosecution he could lawyer his way out of. How am I doing so far?”

“You’re talking,” she said, opening a silver box on the coffee table. She took out a prerolled joint, lit up, and pulled a heavy hit of Maryjane into her lungs.

“We don’t know exactly how much Parks stole. Probably take years to figure that out. But we know you ended up with a pile of it. He thought you were his secret bank. But the first time he started talking about making a withdrawal, you disappeared on him. You must have been planning it for a long time. It’s easy when they trust you, huh?”

“He was in love,” Beryl said, her drawl suggesting, “If God didn’t want them sheared…”

“Men aren’t your favorite humans, huh?”

“Good guess, Sherlock. If it weren’t for my mother, I’d be as queer as Ellen and Rosie combined.”

“Got it,” I said, trying to get her train back on the track I wanted. “You figured it for a low-risk play too, and you were right. So Parks gets arrested, so what? So he decides to name names, big deal. Far as you were concerned, he was just a generous lover.”

“Some men are,” she said, smiling ugly and dragging deep on her joint. She didn’t even bother to hold the smoke down—plenty more where that had come from.

“Then he gets himself gunned down, right on the street. Now you know the people he ripped off aren’t going to the Better Business Bureau. And they’re going to be looking for their money.”

“And so are you,” she said, her voice so thick with contempt I could barely make out the words. “Just like you were the last time.”