Andrew Vachss - Down in the Zero

"Is that going to happen to me, Burke?"

"It already is."

The scenery swept by the windows of the low–flying car, a green blur. Fancy was quiet, playing with the band of the cowboy hat in her lap.

"You promise?" she asked.

"Promise what?"

"That I'm changing…getting to be me."

"Yes."

We neared the turnoff for her street. Fancy put the cowboy hat back on her head, reclined her seat until she was lying almost flat, looked up from under the brim.

"Can we go back to your place?"

"It's not a good idea."

"How come?"

"People could be…listening, like I told you before. I'm not sure or anything, but I want to play it safe."

"Is that why you took me…outside that first time?"

"I guess it was."

"I…liked it there. Outside. Could we…?"

"After it gets dark," I told her.

The parking lot at Rector's was empty, as deserted as yesterday's hot restaurant. I nosed the Lexus through a full circuit, checking, Fancy following in the NSX.

"I don't see why we have to take two cars," she'd complained, hands on hips in her living room.

"If someone…a member, say, just happened to pass by, it wouldn't spook them to see your car, right?"

"Of course not. I told you."

"Yeah, okay. But if they thought you were with a…client, they wouldn't expect just one car, would they?"

"I…didn't think of that. Are you always so careful?"

"That's the real me," I told her.

The back door was thick, with enough steel plate to do credit to a crack house. Fancy opened a metal box, pushed some buttons, waited.

Then she inserted her key. I heard heavy tumblers click as the deadbolt snapped open.

We walked inside. The front room was what you'd expect from a private club for rich people: heavy dark red velvet drapes, a long, plain wooden bench directly across from a checkroom with waist–high Dutch doors. The place was musty with that perfume–smoke–sweat smell…reeking of Last Night.

Fancy's heels tapped on the varnished hardwood. "What do you want to see first?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Okay, this is…what's that?" she yelped, looking at my right hand.

"It's a gun, Fancy."

"I can see that. What's it for?"

"For whatever."

"I don't like guns."

"I don't like them either. Come on, let's just do it, all right?"

She gave me a sad–puzzled look for a second, then turned on her heel and played tour guide. Some of the rooms were spare, almost Oriental in furnishings, others were lush, Victorian. One even had a fireplace. The dungeon was garden–variety B&D— racks and restraints, even a metal bar set into the floor, with hooks for the ankle cuffs. I couldn't see a closet anywhere— no place to store what I was looking for.

"Does she have an office here? A private office?"

"Who?"

"Cherry."

"Just a little one. We're not supposed to go in there," she said.

"Show me."

"Burke…"

"Bitch, I'm done playing. Any kind of playing, understand? Where is it?"

The door was behind a set of floor–to–ceiling royal purple drapes. The knob was tiny, a delicate piece of faceted crystal with a keyhole in the center. The lock was a joke. I loided it with one of Juan Rodriguez numerous credit cards— the only thing he ever used them for. Fancy stayed outside. It was just as well— the room was a small, windowless box, the walls lined with thick acoustic tile. The ceiling was covered with the same tile, the carpet industrial dark gray.

The only furniture was a slab of butcher block held up by sawhorses at each end and a simple swivel office chair. On the butcher block: a plain–paper fax machine, a three–line phone, a calculator, some kind of ionizer to keep the air clean. Another one of those dual–zone clocks, set the same way. And a laptop computer. Underneath it all, an anti–static plastic mat.

I sat down, pulled on a pair of surgeon's gloves, opened the laptop, turned it on, smoothing out the cheat–sheet the Mole had given me with one hand. The screen ran through a whole bunch of nonsense I couldn't understand, finally settled down into a menu.

WP

Optimize

AntiVirus

Park

I followed the Mole's road map, used the arrow keys, highlighted WP, hit the return. The computer cycled, and I got a blank screen. I hit F5. The screen listed one directory: DATA. No documents listed. I tried the C: prompt. All I got was:

AUTOEXEC.BAT 20 02/03/91 6:31AM

CONFIG.SYS 11 02/03/91 6:35AM

COMMAND.COM 29851 05/06/90 1:00PM

DOS

02/03/91 5:44AM

WP5I

02/03/91 6:47AM

NORTON

03/03/91 7:04AM

I checked all the directories— they were all legit, no subdirectories, hidden or otherwise. The thing was empty— probably vacuumed before Cherry took off. I tried the other menu items in order, but they just performed as advertised. I finally hit Park, heard a couple of electronic beeps. The screen said: HEADS PARKED ON ALL DRIVES. POWER OFF THE SYSTEM NOW. I turned it off.

"Are you done yet?" Fancy asked from outside the door, tapping her foot.

"I'll tell you when I'm done— just keep quiet."

The fax machine was empty of incoming. There was a row of direct–dial buttons on its face, sixteen of them. I took out a piece of paper, tapped the keys one at a time, writing down the numbers as they appeared in the liquid crystal display, then hitting the Stop button before the call could go through. They all started with 011— international calls.

The phone didn't have a display— I left it alone. Nothing taped under the butcher block. No loose tiles. The carpet was all of a piece, tacked down tight at the corners.

"Is there another place?" I asked Fancy. "What do you mean?"

"Another private place. Like this one."

"No."

I walked through again anyway, Fancy trailing behind, more at ease now that I wasn't looking anyplace she hadn't been. In a back corner, I spotted a circular staircase, black wrought iron.

"Where does that go?"

"It's just a room I…use sometimes."

"Lets see."

"It's just a room, Burke. A trick room, okay?"

"Get up there!" I said, pushing her toward the staircase, punctuating the order with a smack on her butt. I followed close behind. The room stood on a small landing, built–out walls along the sides, nothing else there. She opened the door without a key, and stepped over the threshold.

It was the white room— the room I'd seen in the video I took from Cherry's safe.

I stood in the doorway, sweeping with my eyes. The foot of the bed was a few feet from a pure white wall, the seamlessness broken only by a shadow box, black glass in a white wood frame.

"How does this work?" I asked her.

"It's like a light show," she said, flicking a toggle switch at the side of the box. The black screen sparkled at the center, a burst of red–centered yellow. Then the colors flowed into a series of comet trails, mostly shades of blue and purple. Soundless explosions burst new colors into the box, waves of different colors swept them away.

"I don't get it."

"I…make them watch it, sometimes. It helps them get out. Let go."

"You always turn it on? When you…?"

"No. Some of them like it, some don't."

So the camera worked right through it. It wouldn't matter if she turned it on or not— if she was telling the truth.

Time to find out.

"Turn that off," I said. "And come over here."

She did it. Walked over obediently enough. I slapped her hard enough to make her sway on her high heels. Her hands flew to her face. "What…?"

"Shut up, bitch. Put your hands down. Put them behind your back."

Her gray eyes widened. I slapped her again, harder. "It's about time you learned the truth about yourself," I told her, my voice flat and hard. "Are you going to do as you're told?"