Andrew Vachss - Down Here

“I’m in,” he said, as if the cup were a poker chip.

“Where’s Clarence?” I asked.

“He’s with Terry, over at your place, cooking on those computers.”

“But that’s just around the—”

“You want the Mole on the set, letting him drive ain’t the bet, bro. They have to go and haul him over.”

“Fair enough,” I said, just as Michelle swept into the joint.

“This had better be important,” she said.

She didn’t bother to wait for anyone to pull out a chair for her—Clarence is the only one who ever does. And I didn’t bother to assure her the meet was important—she was just being herself.

“So? What’s up, pup?” the Prof asked.

“Let’s wait until everyone’s here,” I said. “I don’t want to tell it twice.”

“Righteous,” he said, lighting a smoke.

“You did get to be with that girl?” Michelle demanded.

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you are going to talk about that?”

“Yes, Michelle.”

“Not in front of my son, you’re not,” she said, in a tone of utter finality.

“Honey, he’s old enough to—”

“Don’t you say a word!” she warned me.

“Terry’s been teaching Clarence some boss stuff,” the Prof slipped in. “Boy’s talking about going to school, for real.”

“I’m sure,” Michelle said, not mollified. “And I’m glad, Prof,” she added, quickly. “But if you think I’m going to have Terry sit here and listen to the gory details of—”

“There won’t be any details, honey,” I promised.

“How can I know if my . . . expertise is needed without specifics?” she said, exasperated.

“I can tell you that part right now,” I said. “Before they get here. Fair enough?”

“Sold,” she said.

“ It was a Seimens,” I told the Mole, almost an hour later. “One of those jobs that work as a regular phone and as a cordless, too. The main one is in the kitchen. She’s got three of those pod-things in different rooms. You just lift the cordless unit out of them and talk. It’s a two-line job. Probably uses the second one for the fax. Or maybe the Internet.”

The Mole shook his head. “That is a difficult one to plant a device in,” he said. “You don’t have the . . . knowledge. It would be better at the junction. In the basement.”

“You see security cams?” the Prof asked.

“Not in the garage. I don’t know where they’d go to; I didn’t see a monitor in her apartment.”

“Just a voice system, like they got in regular apartment buildings?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I haven’t gone in the front door.”

“But you’re going back this evening, yes?” Michelle said. “So then we’ll know if—”

“No,” I told her, holding up the plastic card Laura had given to me. “She gave me hers, for the garage. Said she wouldn’t be using her car all day, so . . .”

The Mole took the card from my hand, studied it for a few seconds. He nodded, asked: “It doesn’t have to look the same?”

“As long as it works,” I told him.

“You can test it later,” the Mole said, pocketing the card.

“I don’t see a play except the phone,” I said. “We don’t have the personnel to shadow her—”

“Not in that neighborhood, for sure,” the Prof said, sourly.

“—but the house phone’s not enough,” I told them. “What if he contacts her on her cell? Or even at work? Hell, what if he drops her a goddamned postcard?”

“What makes you so sure they’re going to meet at all?” Michelle asked.

“They met once,” I said. “Or planned to meet, anyway. If the story we got is true, the sister shows up, he’s already down from the shots. Whatever he wanted to tell her, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do it on the phone. And he didn’t just want to meet her in a public place. He went to a lot of trouble to set the whole thing up.”

“You think he wanted to give her something, mahn?” Clarence asked.

“If he had it with him, whoever shot him got it,” I said. “But Wychek’s still running scared. Big scared. He’s got— still got—something good enough to convince the cops to keep him on ice. But, whatever it is, it has to be something . . . physical. Not just info he could carry around in his head. Otherwise, he would have already cut the deal he wanted. And there’d be no need to keep the charges running against Wolfe.”

“Maybe he’s still trying to work that one out,” the Prof said. “How he can turn loose of what he’s got, and still keep himself protected?”

“Even if that was so, why keep the charges alive?”

“They don’t want to tip off whoever shot him? That he’s ratting them out?”

“No,” I said. “Doesn’t work for me. Wychek’s dirt. If all he could do for the cops is dime out the guy who shot him, what’s that worth? Not the DA’s Office cooperating in a bogus charge against Wolfe. Too much potential downside for them, especially with all the press attention.

“He’s got something,” I went on, filling in the blanks with guesses. “And either he needs the sister to get it for him, or he needs her signature on a safe-deposit box, or . . . something like that. Whatever he has, he’s had it for a long time. Since before he went into the joint.”

“Because . . . ?” Michelle said.

“Because he was protected in there. Off a contract. Somebody paid real money for that. And for the fancy appellate lawyer, too.”

“So why’d he wait?” the Prof demanded.

“He . . . Damn, Prof! It isn’t just that he waited so long to hire Greuchel. He never even made bail on the charge Wolfe dropped him on. And he wouldn’t have needed PC at Rikers if the Brotherhood was protecting him there. So, whatever he found out, it must have happened while he was at Rikers.”

“Yeah?” the Prof snorted. “You think someone in there sent him a kite, made him see the light?”

Nobody said anything. Whatever they were thinking, I don’t know. Me, I was wondering if Wychek had ever asked his sister for bail money.

Suddenly, Max tapped a knuckle against the tabletop, drawing all our eyes. The Mongol looked up at the ceiling, dropped his gaze to eye level, let his eyes wander around aimlessly. He glanced at the floor. Picked some imaginary object up, gave it a quick, examining look, shrugged, and put it in his pocket.

Max got to his feet. Walked over to one of those promotional calendars, mostly a large poster, with a little pad of months you can tear off one at a time on the bottom. The one on Mama’s wall featured a Chinese woman, elegantly dressed, having a cocktail. The writing on the poster was all in Chinese, and the calendar pad was for 1961.

Max turned the pages of the calendar, indicating the passage of time. Then he snapped his fingers, made an “I’ve got it!” face, and reached into his pocket. He brought out the imaginary object in one hand, and used the fingers of the other to turn it, as if examining it from all sides.

He nodded a “Yes!,” then went over to Mama’s cash register and patted it, like it was a good dog.

I stood up, bowed deeply. “You nailed it, brother,” I said, making a gesture to match the words. “He got it before he went down, but he didn’t figure out it was worth anything until later.”

“Adds up,” the Prof said.

“Very logical,” the Mole agreed.

“And I think I know where he got it now,” I said. “So I’m going to Iowa.”

Iwalked out to the back alley with Clarence and Terry, the Mole stumbling in our wake. I pulled Clarence aside, asked him a quick question, got the answer I expected.