Andrew Vachss: Down in the Zero

"Did what?" I asked him.

"Died," the kid said. The way you explain something simple to someone simpler.

"They got done?"

"Huh?"

"Somebody killed them?"

"No. I mean…yes. I don't know. Suicide, that's what they called it. In the papers. Suicide."

"And you think it wasn't?"

"It was…I guess. I mean…they did it to themselves and all. But I think, maybe, they had to do it. And I will too."

"I don't get it, kid. People kill themselves. Kids kill themselves. They go in groups. Couple of kids, they're so sad, they play around with the idea, push themselves over the edge. The next kid sees all the weeping and wailing and special funeral services and how everyone knows the dead kids' names for the TV coverage. He doesn't focus on how they won't be around to bask in the light. He puts himself in that place…like he could have the funeral and be there too. And then goes to join them. It's a chain reaction— they call it cluster suicide. It's okay to be scared— that's a natural thing. But you don't need a man like me, okay? What you need, you need someone to talk to, like…"

"That's how it started !" the kid blurted out. "In Crystal Cove."

The Prof threw me the high–sign. I got up, left the two of them alone.

Clarence followed me out the back door. I stood there, watching the alley. It was empty except for my Plymouth and Clarence's gleaming British Racing Green Rover TC, both moored under a NO PARKING sign. The sign didn't have any effect on the community, but the graffiti did. You looked close, you'd see the spray–painted scrawls were really Chinese characters. Max the Silent, marking his territory with his chop.

I lit a smoke, thinking about Cherry. I left it alone— I'd play the tapes later.

"That is one weak sissy whiteboy, mahn," Clarence said, the Island roots showing strong in his young man's voice.

"He's just scared, Clarence. It happens."

"Yes, it happens to us all. Fear is a devil, for sure. But that boy, he is on his knees to it."

"It's not my problem," I said.

"Whatever it is, my father will find out. No man can hide the truth from him."

I glanced sideways at Clarence. I knew how he felt about the Prof, heard the pride in his voice. But I'd never heard him give it a title before.

"Yeah, the Prof is a magician."

"A magician, yes, but with the heart of a lion. He sees it all, but he never fall."

I started to tell this young man that I had come up with the Prof. He was the closest thing to a father I ever had, too. Made the jailhouse into my school, turned me from gunfighter to hustler. Saved my life. But Clarence, he knew all that. He was another savage cub whose heart the Prof found.

He'd been a pro even then— a young gun, working muscle for Jacques, the Brooklyn outlaw arms dealer. Up from the Islands he was, but he dropped straight into the pits, where the money was. The only thread that bound him to the straight side of the street died when his mother did. He was a quiet, reserved young man— his gun was much faster than his tongue. Jacques had him marked for big things, but Clarence got caught up in my war.

Clarence was there— waiting for me when I came out of that house of killing. He lay in the weeds, a few feet from the body of a cult–crazed young woman who would have taken him out with her long knife but for the Prof's snake–quick shotgun. Lay there in the quiet, lay there after the explosion, lay there during the gunfire. He asked the little man then, what do they do? Wait, the Prof said. Wait for me. And if I don't come out? Wait for the cops, the Prof told him. And die right there— die like a man.

After that night, the Prof had his heart. They bonded tighter than any accident of birth, flash–frozen together forever.

Me, I had a body. A baby's body.

I smoked through a couple more cigarettes in silence. A slope–shouldered Chinese stepped out the back, jerked his thumb over his shoulder. We went back inside.

The Prof was sitting next to the kid, holding an earless teacup in both hands. The kid had one too.

I took my seat. The Prof made a flicking gesture with his hand. Clarence walked over, put a slim, immaculately manicured hand on the kid's shoulder.

"You come with me, mahn," he said softly.

The kid got up. Clarence made an ushering gesture with his hand, and the kid started off to the back, Clarence shadowing. They'd be heading to the basement.

The Prof watched them go. Then he turned his milk chocolate eyes on me. I waited to hear what he'd pulled out of the kid, but he wasn't having any.

"Tell me what you know, nice and slow," the little man said.

"Already told you."

"Not about the boy, about his momma. You really go back with her?"

"Yeah. I guess. Maybe. There was a girl. Cherry. A long time ago. In London. Just before I went over to Biafra."

"She didn't have a kid then?"

"I don't know. Wouldn't be this kid, anyway…he's in high school, right?"

"Yeah. Just finished in fact. He's got a weak rap, but it's not no trap. The fear is real, bro."

"Lots of people scared."

"His nightmares could be gold, partner. Could be cream in those dreams. Tell me the rest."

"She was a waitress, or whatever they call those girls work in the clubs."

"Runway dancer?"

"No. It wasn't a nightclub, one of those Playboy–type restaurant things. Everybody dressed up, fancy…but Vegas–glitz, not real class, you know what I mean? All matching little outfits for the girls…not topless, but just about…little black things, laced up the back, fishnet stockings, spikes, look–but–don't–touch, you got it?"

"That fluff–stuff won't play today."

I nodded my head in agreement, thinking of Peter, that poor sorry bastard, saving up his lunch money for weeks to buy a few minutes of delusion.

"Yeah. I was in this cheap hotel, staying low, waiting. We had to fly out of Lisbon, something about the Portuguese government backing the rebels…I never did understand it all. Anyway, I knew the man who was supposed to come for me…the same guy I'd met over here, right? But two guys knock on the door, call me by name, ask if they can come in. I figure, it's a new passport or something, but they were outsiders. They knew all about the Biafra thing, but that wasn't their play. What they had, what they said they had, was a whole bunch of diamonds. Handfuls, they said. Right out of the mines in South Africa. They gave me a whole lot of stuff about some mercs who wanted to pipeline it back to the States, how I could hook up with them on the island before we jumped in."

"What island?"

"São Tomé. Little tiny island, just off the coast of Nigeria. Biafra was landlocked by then, it was…you sure you want to hear this?"

"Play it out till it shouts, son."

"All right. They asked me to have a meet. At this club. Where Cherry worked, only I didn't know her then. I went every afternoon, for about ten days. One guy was always there, this guy Rex."

"Rex Grass, the kid said."

"Grass, that's just the way Limeys say 'rat,' Prof," I said, glad for once to be telling my teacher something he didn't know. "That wasn't the name he gave me."

"Motherfuckers talk some strange shit, don't they?"

"I guess. We had this corner table, like regulars. It was always this Rex, but one day there was a couple of Chinese guys, from Macao. Another day it was an Indian…like from India. Rex was the middleman, putting it all together."

"The guys who sent you over, you didn't tell them anything about this?"

"There wasn't any way to tell them, even if I wanted to. They gave me the cash in the U.S., the passport, told me they'd make contact at the hotel. That was it."

"Ice, huh?"

"That's what they said. I was just listening. I was a kid myself, right? But I was trying to do it right."