Andrew Vachss - Only Child

“You could just lie to them.”

“I’m not a liar,” I lied, putting five hundred dollars in fifties on the kitchen table.

“You know what I’m up to, right?”

“Right,” the kid said.

“And you’re with me, right?”

“All the way, pal.”

“Here’s the deal, then, Ace. If Vonni told you secrets, it’s not ratting for you to tell me. We’re on the same team.”

“Why’d you call me that?”

“What?”

“Ace.”

“Oh. Well, it just fit, somehow. I mean, we’ve all got citizen names, like ‘Hugh,’ okay? But we also got insider names. Like ‘Boo,’ see? And if we’re going to be working together, you need an insider name.”

He was thoughtful for a minute. “Boo likes it,” he said, finally. “I do, too.”

“That’s it, then.”

“What’s yours?”

“My...?”

“Burke is your citizen name, right?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Actually, it’s my middle name. My insider name, that’s B.B.”

“My mom has a friend. Bernice. They call her BeeBee.”

“This is different,” I assured him. “B.B. is initials.”

“What’s it stand for?”

“Big Boy,” I told him, winking to make sure he kept that one between us.

“What kind of secrets?” the kid asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “Anything about Vonni that the cops don’t know, that’s one place they didn’t look, see?”

“Yeah...”

“So, if she had a boyfriend the cops didn’t know about...?”

“Nah. I mean, she had plenty of guys like her,” he said, instantly loyal. “She was real pretty. But none of them was a secret.”

“Any of them ever come around when she was ba...staying with you?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

“But if you were asleep...?”

“Nobody’d ever get past Boo,” the kid said confidently.

“I’m breaking every rule in the book,” Lottie said.

“I know.”

“You know? How could you know? You have any kids?”

“No.”

“Never?” she asked, leaning forward, elbows on knees. “Never been married, either?”

“No.”

“You’re not gay. So you must have had girlfriends. And you’re not exactly a teenager, so that’s a lot of years for you to have been—”

“How do you know?”

“How old you are? I don’t. But either you’ll never see forty again, or you’ve had a real hard life.”

“Not that. How do you know I’m not gay?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Anyway, you think that’s what I’d be worried about, you taking Hugh off to God-knows-where in the middle of the night? That’s a load of crap.”

“I’m not following—”

“That gay men are dangerous to little boys, that crap. The ones who...do things to children, what do you call them, pedophiles? They’re not gay, they’re...”

“Freaks,” I finished for her.

“Yes! That’s exactly what they are. They should be—”

“It sounds like you had to deal with...something about that.”

“Oh, I dealt with it, all right,” she said, snorting. “Some prissy-minded, so-called ‘Christians’ decided one of the teachers at Hugh’s school was gay. And they drew up this petition to get him fired.”

“Because he was a danger to the children?”

“See, that’s what I thought, at first. I mean, I didn’t know anything about it. But if it has to do with my son, you can bet I was going to find out. What it turned out to be was that these people just don’t like homosexuals. They claim the Bible says they should all be killed. It wasn’t about gay schoolteachers; they hate them all . This was just a convenient excuse.”

“What happened?”

“Well...nothing, I guess. They picketed a little bit, and they sent some nasty letters, but Mr. Strethlend kept his job. In the end, all they did was, they took their own kids out of school.”

“Freaks.”

“They are. I was just telling—”

“No. I mean, that’s the word you were looking for, before. ‘Pedophile’ is a fancy word, but it means how people feel, not what they do. People who go after kids, they’re freaks. Understand?”

“Okay...”

“What’s wrong, Lottie?”

“You just looked...scary, for a minute.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right. Probably just a trick of the light.”

“Idon’t know how to do it,” the kid said.

“Neither do I, Ace.”

“Then how am I going to—?”

“Well, I think you’re supposed to walk around it a little bit, kind of get an idea of how it’s laid out. Like you did before.”

“Okay...” the kid said. He put the putter the pro in the golf shop had assured me was the right size for a kid his age and height over his shoulder and walked all around the perfectly manicured green with only the light from my flash to guide him. The Brains of the Outfit sat on his haunches, observing quietly.

“It kind of...slopes,” the kid said. “Right here...See it?”

“Not me. It just looks like a little uphill, that’s all.”

“No, it’s off to the left. You see how it sort of...rolls, I guess.”

“If you say so.”

The boy kept pacing, checking the terrain. Once he sighted down the length of his club.

“Ready to take a shot?” I finally asked him.

“Sure,” he said, taking a stance over one of the three regulation balls I’d bought in that same shop. “Does this look right?”

“Ace, let me tell you, partner; I wouldn’t have a clue. How does it feel?”

“Okay, I guess. It’s hard to see with that flashlight.”

“Just look at the pole.”

The kid nodded, took a breath, let it out, and stroked the ball. It climbed the hill, banked to the left, and disappeared. The dog’s ears perked up at a faint sound.

“What was that?” the kid asked.

“Let’s go see.”

The white ball sat at the bottom of the cup, like a pearl in an oyster.

“Ah, was it really worth it, all that?” Lottie asked me, late that night.

“It wasn’t so much. The club only cost—”

“Not the money, Burke. Breaking into the golf course in the middle of the night just so you could see if Hugh—”

“There’s nothing to break into. It’s just like a big field, with no fence.”

“But it’s still against the law.”

“Probably. But it’d only be trespassing, not a burglary. And they never would have charged Hugh with anything.”

“Yes, I understand that. But why couldn’t you have taken him in the daytime?”

“Well, first of all, I’m not a member,” I told her. Then I gave her a wink, switched to talking out of the side of my mouth, said, “Besides, this way it was a caper, see?”

The next time I came back, The Brains of the Outfit was wearing a red ribbon tied in a bow around his thick neck, thoughtfully chomping on a thick slab of what looked like raw steak.

“It’s Boo’s birthday,” the kid informed me.

I piled them both in the Plymouth, and we hit the pet store. Found a truly outrageous leather collar with chrome studs, and half a dozen chew-toys.

The next morning, I found the two of them under the tree. The Brains of the Outfit was stretched out, nose to the ground, a mournful look on his face.

“He’s sad,” Hugh told me solemnly.

“Why?”

“Because of his birthday. He loves his birthdays. But that was yesterday, and it’s over.”

“Oh...”

“That’s all right,” the kid said, confidently. “I know what to do.” He knelt next to his pal, scratched behind one ear. The way I used to do with my Pansy. “Don’t be sad, Boo,” he said softly. “It’s still your birthday. Okay?”