Andrew Vachss - Only Child

“Will you be coming, too, Mr....?”

“Just him,” he said.

“Iwas afraid you were going to lose him,” Cyn said. “Why didn’t you tell him you’d actually seen his ‘work’?”

“Way too risky,” I told her. “Next thing, he asks me which of the tapes I’ve seen. And, in his mind, he’s wondering how I got them. Besides, it would make sense to him that the ‘word’s out’ without anyone actually seeing product.”

“You’ve got him hooked, honey,” Michelle assured me.

“I would have felt better if he’d let us send that car for him,” I said.

“Iknow why Vonni had those tapes now. This Vision—he gave them to her. Let her in on his high-concept idea. Because he knew he had her.”

“She wanted it,” the Prof agreed.

“Wanted what, then?” Clarence.

“Wanted to be a star,” Michelle put in. “Or maybe that’s not fair to her. Wanted to be in the movies, anyway. Remember, she was in the drama club....”

“And she left that morning, she told the little boy she was going to be famous,” Cyn put in.

“That tape? The one of her running into nowhere?” I said to them all. “I know what it was now. A rehearsal. Vision wanted her to prove she could act frightened to death. That was her role.”

Nobody said anything.

“That was her role,” I went on. “And right up to the end, she thought she was playing it.”

Iwas connected to Vision as close as if we shared an artery. Desire and fear warring in both of us, pumping our blood. I could feel him. He wanted it to be true, a Hollywood production company discovering him, making him rich and famous. Power, spreading long sweet shapely legs for him.

But had they really heard of him? And what had they heard?

Come or run?

And me? What if he didn’t show? What if I’d spooked him, given him a head start? How much money did a guy like that have? Did he already have a backup plan, a place to run to?

The door opened. Cyn. Dressed in a black sheath. And Rejji. Nude.

“We couldn’t sleep, either,” Cyn said.

“No!”

“It’ll be subtle,” Giovanni promised me. “I’ve been in plenty of places like this before. The guys who work the desk, they’re used to a little grease.”

“Forget it.”

“You say we don’t know what he looks like...and that’s right. But he doesn’t know us, either. We’ll be in the lobby, just hanging. We scoped it out. The registration desk’s way over to one side; he won’t even look where we’ll be, okay? The desk man gives us the high sign, and...”

“And what? You jump him right there, in front of fifty witnesses, minimum?”

“Come on! I just want to—”

“You just want to fuck this up,” I said, very quiet and calm. “One, he could send someone else. Like a point man, see if this whole thing’s for real. So we have to talk to him, see if he is, understand? Two, you pay a man for a service, doesn’t mean someone else can’t pay him, later, to talk about it. You get all anxious now, you’re going to blow it up.”

“I’ve got to be there,” he said, adamant.

“So you can lose it? Again? You’re putting me in a cross, Giovanni. We needed a public place to meet, the ritzier the better. You see how the joint’s laid out, how many people we’re going to need to make it work. You think you can bang a guy out in a hotel lobby in that neighborhood, and just fade?”

“I’m not going to—”

“You’re not going to be there, period. You said I was driving the car, remember?”

“Burke, listen to me,” he said urgently. “He’s the one. Not the feds, him. I was blind insane to ever think it could be...but who could have ever...I...Burke, he fucking made a movie of my...”

“The only way we’re going to know for sure is if he talks. That’s what I do. What I’m good at. You’re not. You only know the one way,” I said.

“So?” he demanded. “You think he could—?”

“Who are you talking to, Giovanni? Some Godfather fan? You stick a gun in a guy’s mouth, cock the trigger, maybe he spills, that’s right. And maybe he panics. Goes catatonic. Has a heart attack. Who knows? Thing is, you don’t. Nobody does.

“And you can’t ever trust what someone says, a situation like that. He’s going to say whatever he thinks you want him to say. A nine-millimeter’s not a lie detector.

“If all you want to do is take him off the count, you do it away from me. Far away. But you can’t even do that until you know he’s the right guy, because if you do the wrong guy this time you’ll never get another chance.”

Giovanni bowed his head, clasped his hands, as if asking for strength. When he opened his eyes, they were clear and calm. “You be the lie detector, Burke,” he said. “Soon as you know for sure, you just ring me. I’ll be right downstairs.”

“I’ve been with you on this?” I put it to him. “Right down the line?”

“You have,” he said, no hesitation.

“Then listen to me now,” I told him. “Because I’ve got a better idea.”

“Always it is the black man who is the chauffeur,” Clarence mock-complained. Trying to lighten the fear we all shared.

“So who should drive?” I asked him, playing along. “The Mole ?”

“Schoolboy’s telling it true,” the Prof added. “I was still doing banks, I’d rather have Ray Charles for a wheelman.”

“Any of us could have been seen,” I said. “During all those ‘interviews’ we did. And maybe he’s got a pipeline—maybe more than a couple of those kids we spoke to were in one of his little movies. But I don’t think they were looking at anything besides the camera.”

“Without the patch, you look very different, honey,” Michelle assured me. “And once I add those streaks to your hair, and you put on a suit...”

“I’ve got a dynamite maid’s uniform,” Rejji said, grinning.

“I don’t want to overload it,” I said. “The way this suite’s laid out, we can keep him isolated. And if we do have to go to Plan B, the credit card we put it all on won’t tell them anything.”

They all nodded silently. Plan B was the Mole. In another room. On a higher floor. If he went into action, nobody was going to pay any attention to our two suites. Not with a fire raging through the hotel.

“Do I look all right?” Michelle asked. For maybe the tenth time in the last hour.

“You look gorgeous, ” Rejji told her. “So in control. I love it.”

“You slut.” Michelle laughed.

I refused to look at my watch.

The phone rang.

Michelle started to fly across the room, stopped, smoothed her skirt over her hips, walked over, and picked it up just past the second ring.

“Yes, please?”

...

“Please tell the party that someone will be down to collect him directly. Thank you.”

She hung up.

“Oh God,” Rejji said.

“Keep it together, now, bitch,” Michelle said. “You’re up next.”

“Do you think it’s really going to be—?”

“No more,” I told Rejji, holding my finger to my lips.

Asoft double rap at the door.

“Danielle!” I called out.

Rejji practically trotted over to the door. She stepped to the side as she held it open, one hand gently waving an invitation.

He was older than I thought he’d be, from the vague descriptions we’d gathered. Late twenties, early thirties. A bit taller than medium height, light-brown hair, cut into a neat sculpture. His face was narrow, with fleshy lips over the perfect teeth the NHB girl had remembered, large dark eyes the most prominent feature. Wearing a safari jacket, with a briefcase-sized red nylon bag on a strap over his shoulder.