Andrew Vachss: Down in the Zero

She stood close to me, wrapping her arms around me like a referee with a beaten fighter, whispering the same words. "You can always do it, honey," she crooned. "Tonight's not your night."

Not this one, anyway.

I stayed to myself. In my office. My cell. Did a lot of reading, the way I did when they had me locked down. Built up all this vocabulary I had no place to use.

I didn't have the heart for any of my usual scams. I waited to save it for the pain.

More than a year passed, and they never came around. Maybe they knew and just didn't care.

It could be. I knew, and I didn't care.

I twisted the ignition key and the cab's engine kicked over. I put it in gear and pulled away from the curb on Franklin Street, circling the block, canceling the rooftop OFF DUTY sign with a flick of my thumb. When I came back around, the redhead was still striding along. She hailed my cab and I pulled over.

She climbed in the back seat, keeping one hand on a big black leather pocketbook.

"Where to?" I asked her.

"Central Park West and Seventy–seventh," she said in a hard, measured voice. "You know where that is?" she challenged, glancing at my hack license framed on the dash. Maybe she thought Juan Rodriguez didn't speak English.

"Yes ma'am," I told her. "West Side Highway to Tenth okay?"

"Isn't straight up Sixth shorter?" she asked, a hostile overtone to her throaty voice.

"Lots of traffic now, ma'am. It's quicker the way I said…but anything you say, that's okay."

"Oh, go your way," she snapped, lighting a cigarette, blowing a jet–stream at the yellow decal I had plastered on the partition between the front and back seats. The one that said No Smoking Please— Driver Allergic in bold black letters.

When I pulled over on CP West, she tipped me two bucks— I guess she liked docile drivers.

I watched her go into the high–rise. The doorman smiled as if he'd seen her before.

I parked the cab at a hack stand, pulled my gym bag off the front seat and walked along until I found a bar that didn't have ferns in the window.

"Absolut rocks," I told the bartender. "Water on the side."

The place was nearly empty. I left the change from my twenty on the bar, waited until the bartender was down at the other end, drank most of the water, poured some of the vodka into the water glass. I picked up my gym bag and carried it into the Men's Room. It was empty.

I took off my leather jacket, pulled the sweatshirt over my head, took off the oversize chino pants. Underneath, I had on a pair of dark gray wool slacks and a light gray silk shirt. I took an unstructured navy blue linen jacket from the gym bag, shrugged into it, checked for fit. Then I peeled off the phony mustache, squeezed some gel into the palm of my hand, ran it through my hair. When my hair got heavy and greasy enough, I combed it straight back, secured the little ponytail with a rubber band. I put the cabdriver clothes in the gym bag, walked out of the Men's Room and out the front door of the bar.

The doorman was still at his post, dressed like a lieutenant in some banana republic, standing with his hands behind his back.

I closed up the space between us, hands open at my sides, palms down.

"How you doing?" I asked him.

"Okay, man. What's up?"

"I'm looking for a little information. Lightweight stuff. Thought maybe you could help me out…

"You the po–leece?"

"The police this polite?" I asked him, holding out my hand to shake.

He did it, palmed the three twenties I had folded up.

"Woman came in maybe twenty minutes ago. Tall redhead. You smiled at her— she's been in before?"

"I'm not sure, man."

"Yeah, you're sure. You didn't know her, you'd have to play the role," I said, glancing at the sign posted at the door: ALL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED.

"I don't know her name, just…"

"I know her name, pal. Which apartment does she go to?"

He tilted his head back, looked into my eyes.

I looked back.

He took his hand out of his pocket, looked over the money I'd passed him.

"It's enough," I told him.

"She goes to twenty–seven–G, man. Every time."

"Who's there?"

He looked back at the money in his hand.

"Fair enough," I told him. "I got a couple more, make it a flat yard, okay?"

He nodded. I handed him two more twenties.

"Miss Kraus," he said.

"Just her?"

"Yeah, she lives alone, man. Suzanne Kraus. She does something in advertising, I think."

"Yeah. She a good tipper?"

"Not as good as you, man.

The redhead came back twice more in the next five days. There's a nice bench across the street on CP West— you can sit there for hours, your back to the park, taking the sun. Nobody pays much attention.

I met the brunette in a Village tearoom on a Friday afternoon. Her eyes were a blissful blue this time. I went over every place the redhead had been in the past few days. When I got to the CP West address, her mouth went into a flat line.

"Suzanne," is all she said.

"Twenty–seven–G."

"Yes, I know."

I sat there, waiting. Finally, she leaned over, dropped her voice. "I need something else done," she said.

"I don't do that kind of work," I told her.

What happened?" Michelle asked me that night.

"She wanted me to take the redhead out," I told her.

"Burke, you didn't…?

"No."

"I'm getting a place, honey. I've got to go back to work. On the phones."

I didn't say anything. Got up and walked outside to the rusty old fire escape. Climbed to the roof. Pansy used to dump her loads up there every day, but she'd been gone for a while and the hard chemical rains had done the job— the smell was almost gone. I leaned over the railing, looking down.

"What is it, Burke? You've been up here for hours." Michelle… I hadn't heard her come up behind me.

"Nothing."

"What nothing?"

" Nothing nothing. I'm just looking into the Zero."

"What's this 'zero,' honey? You said it before…I don't get it."

"Nothing. Zero is nothing. That's what's down there. Nothing. After you're done. Nothing. It's not good— it's not bad. Just…zero, see? Maybe there's people there, I don't know."

"Who knows? Who knows those things? What do you care? It's not for you."

"You ever think about dying?" I asked her.

Moonlight bounced on her cheekbones, never touching her big, dark eyes. "I have," she whispered.

"Me too. I thought about it a lot. I always thought, I had a fatal disease or something, knew it was gonna do me soon, I was gonna take a whole lot of motherfuckers along for the ride, you know? There's places I could go. Like Wesley. Walk into the room strapped to a

satchel of dynamite. Let 'em see what was gonna happen first."

"Wesley was crazy."

"What am I, Michelle? Dead already, I think. I don't even have that dream anymore. Like it's too much trouble. I could just go into the Zero, be done with it."

"Nobody's there, baby. Nobody's waiting."

How could she know? The last time I went hunting, I killed that kid. But I'd never made a promise to him before he died. I never knew his name. There was nothing to do.

I flipped my cigarette over the railing. Watched the little red dot spiral into the Zero.

What I really miss is fear. It used to be my friend, fear. Been with me ever since I could remember. It kept me smart, kept me safe. I worked the angles on the edges of the corners. Lived on the perimeter, striking from cover, sneaking back over the border. A guerrilla without an army. A wolf without a pack. Tried to take my piece out of the middle. Walked the underbelly without a flashlight, fear coming off me like sonar, keeping me from stepping on the third rail.

I was always scared. They taught me that. I think maybe it was the first thing anybody taught me.