Andrew Vachss - Down Here

Back inside, I sat down in my booth. I felt . . . depleted. Like I’d fought ten rounds, to a decision that wasn’t going to go my way.

Mama came over and sat across from me. “All for police girl?” Mama said, accusingly.

“There’s money in this,” I said, stubbornly.

I closed my eyes, felt Michelle slide in next to me, ready to defend her big brother. Mama had known about Wolfe for years. “Police girl” said it all. Our family is outlaws; we don’t believe in mixed marriages.

“If Burke says there’s money, there’s money,” Michelle said, loyally.

“Maybe. But not for money,” Mama replied.

“So?” Michelle challenged her.

“So no . . . focus,” Mama said, pointing at Max to emphasize what she meant. For all his skills, the ki radiating from Max the Silent was all about focus. Without it, he’d just be another tough guy.

“I’m feeling my way,” I admitted. “But Wychek’s got something. Even Max says so.”

“Something for police, maybe.”

“Wolfe’s not on their side anymore,” Michelle said. “She went into her own business a long time ago.”

“Still police girl here,” Mama said, patting her chest. Case fucking closed.

It was just past seven that same night when I test-slipped the Mole’s clone card into the slot for Laura’s garage, my other hand on the genuine one Laura had given me, just in case.

The gate went up.

I walked up the back stairs, carrying the stainless-steel cylinder by its handle.

I rapped lightly on the door to her apartment. The door opened immediately. I hadn’t heard the sound of a deadbolt retracting, and the chain wasn’t in place.

“Hi!” she said, giving me a quick kiss as I crossed the threshold.

She was wearing another kimono—white, with gold and black dragon embroidery.

“I didn’t know where we were going, so I didn’t want to get dressed until . . .” she said, blushing a little.

“You’re perfect,” I said, holding up the gleaming cylinder.

“ Oh my God, this is the best Chinese food I ever had in my life,” she said, about forty-five minutes later.

I had opened the complex series of interlocking pots, each with its own dish inside. A few quick blasts with the microwave, and we had a five-course dinner that money, literally, couldn’t buy.

“I told you it would be a surprise,” I said.

“Where did you get it? I’m going to order from them for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, it’s not from a restaurant,” I said. “I know this old Chinese woman who makes special meals to order. She used to serve them in her house—”

“Oh, I heard about those kind of setups. You don’t get a menu or anything, and you have to book, like, months in advance, right?”

“Exactly. Only she’s not up to having people in her home anymore. She’s like a hundred years old,” I said, involuntarily tensing my neck muscles against a psychic slap from Mama. “I called her, gave her a few hours’ notice—that was what took so long—and she said she’d do it.”

“Wow. She really put herself out. It must have cost a—”

“Money wouldn’t make her do anything, not at her age. I told her it was very special, very important to me.”

“I . . . I wish I knew how to do things like that.”

“I guess I don’t, either. I never did it before. I was just thinking . . . about you, about going out to eat, how things . . . happened. Then I remembered this old lady, and . . .”

“Did you use to eat there a lot?”

“A lot? I ate there once. About, let me see, six, seven years ago? I was doing a profile on a big Chinese businessman. A puff piece, really, but I can’t support myself doing nothing but investigative stuff. He was the one who took me there.”

“Did you mention it in your article?”

“I wasn’t going to. It isn’t that kind of place, you could see that. But it wouldn’t have mattered. The piece got spiked, and I had to settle for the kill fee.”

“What’s a kill fee?”

“Say a magazine commissions a piece for five thousand. Then, after they see it, they decide not to go with it. If there’s a decent contract, they have to pay the writer some percentage of the fee, agreed on in front.”

“Why would they do that? Commission an article and then not use it?”

“There’s a hundred reasons.” I shrugged. “They decide they need the space for something else that month. Or the subject isn’t hot anymore. Or maybe they just don’t like the job you did on it.”

“But if they did that, you could just turn around and sell it to someone else?”

“If you can, sure. It doesn’t happen often. Every magazine is a different market, even when they’re competing with each other. What’s good for one isn’t always good for another.”

“ You don’t have to do that,” I said, later.

“You weren’t planning to return all the cookware without washing it?” she said, incredulous.

“No. I just meant, I could take it home, throw it in the dishwasher myself.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, dubiously. “I mean, not everything can go in the dishwasher. It’s easy enough to wash them by hand; I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Do you want to go out somewhere. Or just . . . ?”

“How about we go for a drive?”

“To . . . where? Oh. I guess that’s the point, right?”

“Sure is.”

“ Is this still Queens?”

“Yep. That’s Flushing Bay we’re looking at. You can’t see it from here, but La Guardia’s over to the left. The Bronx is on the other side of the water.”

“I was born, what, maybe forty-five minutes from here? And I never even knew it existed.”

“It’s a nice little community,” I said. “You got everything from working stiffs to big-time gangsters, with house prices to match.”

“With those other cars around, it’s like a drive-in movie, almost.”

“People come here for the same reason they go to drive-ins, true enough.”

“Did you know that in Singapore young couples go to drive-ins because the culture frowns on public displays of affection?”

“I didn’t have a clue. You know a lot about Singapore?”

“I’m hardly an expert. But everyone in the money game knows something about Singapore.”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No. You?”

“Yeah, I was there, once.”

“What’s it like?”

“Very clean, very efficient. And very scary.”

“Scary?”

“I can’t explain it, exactly. Felt like everybody was so . . . anxious. Like something could descend on them any minute.”

“Were you there for a story?”

“No. I was on my way to Australia. But something happened with the connecting flight, and I ended up having to lay over.”

“I wonder why people would be so anxious there. It’s supposed to have a very low crime rate.”

“Maybe it was a misimpression,” I said. “I was only there for a short while. I wouldn’t ever write what I told you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m old-school,” I told her, trying to be Hauser in my mind. “I don’t like this ‘personal journalism’ stuff. Never did. What I told you, that was my own feelings, not facts. Private, not public.”

“That’s what this place feels like,” she said, snapping her cigarette out the open window and sliding in close to me.

Twenty minutes later, she moved back toward her side of the front seat. Rolled down her window, lit a cigarette.

“I never did that before,” she said.

“In a car?”