Andrew Vachss - Down in the Zero

"I've been up for hours. I feel wonderful."

"Yeah, you do. I'm on my way."

"I'll be outside. Around back. By the greenhouse. Just come around, okay? I might not hear the door."

The grounds looked as deserted as they always seemed to. Fancy's car was in the same place it was last night. I parked the Miata in front of her cottage, walked around to the back.

She was in the greenhouse, wearing a short yellow pleated skirt, with a white button–front blouse, barefoot.

"This is over a hundred years old," she greeted me, pointing to one of the bonsai trees. The tiny trunk was thick, gnarled with age. The branches all went in the same direction, as if in obedience to a strong wind.

"What kind is it?"

"Cypress. That's one of the standards."

"Where'd you learn about this?"

"I took a course. At the college. And I read some too. The thing about bonsai, you have to be in control. Ruthless. You have to keep cutting back, keep the wires tight, stay on it. If you don't watch them close, they grow too big."

"They're beautiful."

"Strong, that's what they are. They live much longer than we do. In Japan, they pass them on from generation to generation."

"What's that one?" I asked, pointing to a hanging pot with a fragile network of stems and leaves.

"That's a bromeliad. They're epiphytic…air plants. They grow without roots."

Something flashed on the screen in my mind. I changed channels quick— I'd already seen the movie.

I watched her for a while. She pruned branches with a tiny scissors, reset the wires she was using to train them to hold a position. She finished with a light mist of water, bending close, using her own breath to distribute the moisture once it settled. When she was finished, she made a little bow in the direction of the bonsai.

"You want to sit outside for a while?" she asked.

"Sure."

She led me over to a small, elaborate deck. The wood was a weathered white, like a beached sailing ship. Flowering plants were set into the corners, in tubs built into the structure. We each took a chair next to a round table with a pebbled glass top.

"I want you to do something for me," I said.

"What? I mean, yes."

I explained what I wanted.

"I'll have to make some calls," she said. "But I can get the perfect thing, I know."

"In time?"

"Oh sure. All that ever costs is money."

"How much?" I asked, sliding my hand toward my pocket.

"Oh, I'll take care of it."

"No you won't. You can front the cash if you want to, but I'll make it up soon as you tell me the toll."

"Is that like an ego thing?"

"Huh?"

"Because you're the man, you have to pay? That's what my tricks think too. The man pays."

"It's not that. I have to pay for this because it has to be from me, understand? And as for your tricks, that's not a man–thing either. When you do women, they pay too, right? That's what lets them call the shots."

"When I'm a domina, I call the shots."

"Do you? Then you'd be the first one I ever met who did. That's all bullshit, Fancy. just a game. Whatever you do, it's what they want…or they'd go someplace else. If money's in the game, you're the one dancing to their tune— they hold the key to their own handcuffs. It's more complicated than you think it is."

"Or less than you do— if you'd just close your eyes, you could see me better."

"Fancy— "

"I don't want to argue," she said, standing up and walking over to the railing, facing away from me. "I want a tattoo," she said, right–angling her body at the waist, standing on her toes so her elbows rested on the railing. She flicked up the yellow skirt in a sassy gesture. I first thought she was nude underneath, but then I saw the black thong barely covering her sex, the string buried deep in her buttocks. "Right here," she said, looking over her shoulder, patting her right cheek. "Can I?"

"Come over here," I told her. She padded over obediently, light dancing in her gray eyes. I pointed at the chair. She sat down, keeping her skirt up so her bare bottom was on the seat, a little pout on her face.

"A tattoo is permanent, Fancy."

"I want one," she said, a stubborn little girl, insisting.

"Okay, I got an idea. How about if…"

We both heard the tap of high heels, coming toward us from inside the house. I turned just as a woman stepped through the back door onto the deck. A willowy woman, in a skimpy pair of tight white shorts, long legs ending in a pair of red spikes worn over little white anklets with a border of red hearts on the cuff. She had on a white bippy top ending just below her breasts, exposing a flat stomach. Her hair was long, worn brushed straight back from her forehead, trailing past her shoulders, dark with reddish highlights from the sun. Her skin was a rose–flushed white. She looked about twenty–five.

"Oh, you've got company," she said to Fancy.

Fancy didn't move, didn't take her eyes off the other woman. "Burke," she said, "meet my sister. Charm."

I got up, held out my hand. She took it, looking straight at me, a knowledge–glint in her china blue eyes, like the glimpse of a shoulder holster under a coat. A slip? Or a warning?

I returned her look. My own eyes were flat, but I had some knowledge of my own— I'd seen this woman before.

Across Fancy's lap, with her skirt up.

It was a long minute before anyone said anything. "I just came over to see if you wanted to go shopping," Charm said to Fancy.

"I'm busy right now," Fancy told her, looking off into the distance.

"I see," Charm said, her eyes glancing down at her sister, taking in the yellow skirt bunched in Fancy's lap, the exposed hips. She stepped behind Fancy, stroked her sister's hair, bent over and gave her a kiss on her cheek. "Sure you won't change your mind?"

"I'm sure," Fancy said, still looking away.

"I thought you guys were twins," I said to Fancy, trying to break the spell.

"We're not monozygotic," Charm answered for her. "In fact, there were originally three of us. If our bitch of a mother had gone for an abortion, it would have been megacide. As it was, only two of us made it out alive."

"So you're fraternal twins?"

"It's not a fraternity," Charm said, her voice deeply veined with something flirting with contempt. "It's a sorority. Sisters, not brothers."

"I get it."

"Right," she said dismissively. "You know him long?" she asked Fancy.

"Long enough," Fancy told her, shifting her shoulders, turning away from Charm's touch.

"He been behaving himself?" Charm smiled. "Your Mr. Burke looks like a bad boy."

"You sure you know the look?" I asked her, holding her eyes.

"You're not from around here," she said, as if that was the answer.

"I work here, now."

"Oh yes? Doing what?"

"This and that."

"Oh, you have secrets, do you?"

"Lots of them."

"I'll just bet," she smiled again. "See you later, sis," she said, bending forward to give Fancy another kiss. She went out the way she came, swaying her hips, not wiggling. A threat, not a promise.

I reached over to the table for a cigarette, caught Fancy in the edge of my vision. She was nibbling at her lower lip, face bathed in sweat.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"She always…thinks she knows. You're very good. I didn't know things were going to be like this. I mean, I knew you'd meet her. That's why I showed you the video. I thought it would be a good trick. On her, for a change. But you didn't show a thing on your face. Didn't you recognize…?"

"Sure I did."

"Oh. Burke? Can we…go somewhere?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Away from here. Could we?"

"Let's go," I said.

She climbed into the front seat of the Miata, strapped herself in without a word. I started the engine, drove off. She held her silence, looking down at her lap. I headed toward town, found a place to park.