Andrew Vachss - Down Here

“Not work, Mama,” I said. “Trouble.”

“Trouble for you?”

“Not for me. Not for any of us. It’s Wolfe. She just got arrested.”

“Police girl?” Mama said, raising a sculpted eyebrow.

“Yeah. I don’t have any real facts yet. She’s supposed to have shot some guy.”

“Not kill?”

“Not . . . yet, anyway. He’s in a coma; they don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

“So how talk?”

“Supposedly, he talked before he went out, Mama. And he named Wolfe as the shooter.”

“You say not work.”

“ Not work, right. Nobody hired me. There’s no money in this.”

“You and police girl . . . ?”

“It’s not that, either, Mama. Look, there’s no money in this,” I repeated. “Probably end up costing money, okay? Only, I’m doing it. And it doesn’t matter why.”

“Not to me, matter,” she said, shrugging to add emphasis to her lie. “You have more soup, okay?”

“ I’ve got to split,” I told Mama a short while later. “Over to the courthouse. When Max—”

“Max wait here for you?”

“No,” I said. Then I told her what I wanted him to do.

“Okay, sure,” she said. “Come when you . . . ?”

“When I light a cigarette. Now, listen, Mama. The Prof and Clarence will be here, too. I’m not sure when. They don’t have to actually stick around, just leave numbers with you where I can reach them later tonight, okay?”

“ Sure okay. What you think?”

“Sorry, Mama. I’m just . . . edgy. See you later.”

Night Court never changes. Years ago, when I was trying to make a living as an off-the-books investigator, I sometimes worked the corridors. I was a hovering hawk, searching for marks to steer over to one of the lawyers I had a fee-splitting arrangement with.

First I’d convince the wife or the mother or the girlfriend—90 percent of the crowd was always women—that the guy being arraigned would fare much better with a “private” lawyer than Legal Aid. Not a hard sell. Then I’d find out how much cash they were carrying—none of the lawyers I shilled for would touch a check—and make the connection.

Whatever lawyer I was working with that night would stand up on the case, make a bail argument or a quick deal, then move on. None of that breed ever actually tried cases. Most of them didn’t even have an office, just a business card and a mail drop.

Anytime you have a steady stream of people being arraigned, you’ll find lawyers like that . . . and men like me trolling for prospects. In the Bronx, some of the fishermen speak Spanish. I heard, over in Queens, there’s one who’s fluent in Korean, and Brooklyn even has a guy who does it in Russian. All working for two-bit grifters with law licenses.

Those “arraignment only” lawyers take some of the caseload off Legal Aid’s back. And the judges like them fine too, because they never make trouble. Even most of the people who hire them go home happy, convinced they did the right thing by their loved ones. Another piece of the “system” you’ll never see on Law and Order.

I moved through the crowd, looking for Davidson. Most of the people milling around had the dull, slightly anxious faces of cattle being herded down a chute, toward the sound of evenly spaced gunshots.

Davidson wasn’t in the hall. I pushed open the doors and walked into the courtroom. It was about half full; people sat distanced from one another, like they do in porno theaters. I didn’t recognize the judge on the bench, a dark-brown man with close-cropped gray hair.

I moved down the left side of the courtroom, looking for an aisle seat so I could scan without calling attention to myself.

A clot of gangbangers sat down front, eye-fucking everyone who looked their way. A young court officer, his short-sleeved white shirt tailored to show off impressive biceps, deliberately strolled by their area, playing his role.

A pair of whore lawyers were just over to my right. Those permanent-retainer lackeys spent every night pleading working girls to time served—usually two, three days—and paying their fines. They did volume business, representing the interests of a few pimps with good-sized stables of street girls. Higher-class hookers didn’t often get pinched. And when they did, whoever was running them would put real legal talent into the game.

A Spanish woman who looked like she’d just gotten off work— hard work—fingered a rosary. Waiting for them to bring her son out, I figured. A skinny, pasty-faced girl with barbell studs piercing her nose, eyebrow, and the top of one ear stared straight ahead, her face as bleak as her prospects.

A woman with a prominent black eye and swollen lip sat with her hands in her lap. Waiting to post bail for the guy who had beaten her up, my best guess.

A fat, sleekly dressed Chinese man was bracketed by two marble-eyed young guns, their leather fingertip jackets marking them as clearly as the tattoos under them.

A heavyset, weary-looking black woman held a sleeping baby on her lap.

A pair of guys in their thirties, dressed costly-casual, sprawled back in their seats, still glazed. I figured the one they were waiting for had been the driver.

I spotted a few press guys, sitting together. Way too many for a typical night arraignment. I was looking around for Hauser when Davidson came from the back, where the pens are, and headed for the door. I slipped out behind him.

Davidson moved through the crowd outside the courtroom with the assurance of an all-pro halfback in an open field. I thought he might be heading for the pay phones, but he passed them by and went out the door.

By the time I spotted him, he was leaning against one of the railings, firing up a cigar.

I walked over, moving deliberately slow.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

He took a long, deep puff on his cigar, gave me a professional appraiser’s look, not trying to hide what he was doing.

“Say a few more words,” he said, finally.

“You’ve got two little girls. Born the exact same day, only three years apart. The big one’s about twelve now. Natural leader, smarter than you ever imagined. Loves to read, an ace at archery. The little one’s going to be a gymnast. Or a sky-diver—she was still making up her mind the last time we talked. In your office. Where you have their pictures on your desk at an angle, so everyone who sits down has to see how beautiful they are.”

“Say more,” he said, not changing expression.

“A few years ago, a coalition of gay activists hired you to do some very specialized work. You brought me in to help with the investigative end of it,” I told him, not mentioning a significant fee that the IRS never heard about.

“The voice is the exact same,” he said. “But I never would have recognized you. Word is that you were—”

“I wasn’t. And I’m showing you a lot of trust, saying that, right?”

“If anyone’s looking for you, you are.”

“Someone’s always looking for me,” I said.

“Fair enough,” Davidson said, holding out his hand for me to shake. “But I’ve got a problem.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“You sound exactly like a . . . man I used to know. And somebody did call me about this case, or I wouldn’t be here tonight. But when I mentioned your name to my client, back in the pens, my client expressed some, shall we say, concern about your involvement.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Meaning, she didn’t tell anyone to bring you into this. So she wants an explanation. And some proof that you’re . . . who you say you are.”

“The explanation is easy. Just repeat that Pepper came to see me. With Bruiser—she’ll know what that means. Pepper didn’t know what else to do, and Wolfe didn’t give her anything to work with. I think she was going to just pro se it when they called her name tonight.”