Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“I can authenticate—”

“That’s the only way I want to do it. Look, I’ll leave you my number, you reach out, find out if it’s okay with her. It is, you give me a call. It’s not, no harm done.”

He was dubious, but he took my number. When I left, the place was still as empty as a senator’s conscience.

It didn’t take him long. My cellular buzzed the next afternoon.

“What?”

“Uh, this is Smilin’ Jack, man. From Turbocomix. Remember, you wanted to buy—”

“Sure, I remember. Madison going to sign them for me?”

“Well, man, here’s the thing. She’s willing to sign them, sure; but—I got to tell you—Madison, she’s a real nice person, we all like her a lot.”

“So?”

“So I told her you don’t look like no comics collector to me, man. And I think I might have made her nervous.”

“So tell her to bring a few friends.”

“Well, she wants to do it a little different, man.”

“Tell me.”

“She wants to meet you at the federal courthouse. Outside, on the steps.”

“Okay.”

“Just like that? You know that address, man?”

“Sure,” I lied, figuring it couldn’t be that hard to find.

“Always a lot of cops around there,” he said, obliquely. “But so what, right? I mean, it’s only going to take a couple of minutes for her to sign your books.”

“Sure. Fair enough.”

“You don’t care?”

“No. I figure, she’s an artist, right? They’re all weird.”

“Tomorrow.” He chuckled. “Eleven a.m.”

I could have sent Gem, but I figured this Madison would be less likely to spook if the person waiting for her matched the comic-shop guy’s description. At 10:52, I strolled up Southwest Third Avenue to the courthouse. I was wearing a charcoal suit with a faint chalk stripe over a white shirt and port-wine tie, carrying a black belting-leather briefcase. Lawyer-look; corporate, not criminal . . . although, if the Portland cops were anything like their New York brothers, they wouldn’t acknowledge a difference.

The courthouse was nothing like the Roman Colosseum monster they have in Manhattan. It was simple and kind of elegant, with a short flight of steps flanked on the left by a slab of black marble, complete with the obligatory quote from some historically significant person. I leaned against the marble slab, put the briefcase between my feet. Then I opened my copy of Cuckoo and scanned it like it was a court decision.

People streamed by on the sidewalk. Hard to imagine a more public spot. Whoever this Madison was, she knew something about self-defense.

Directly across the street was a small public park—just wide enough for a few trees, a couple of benches, and a statue. I saw a guy with long dark hair sitting on a bench, a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Bird-watchers can be some pretty dedicated people, but I’d never heard of one interested in pigeons.

She approached from my left, moving slowly . . . wary and alert, a bright-colored comic book in her right hand. A slender woman with long, wild white-blond hair, scarlet lipstick harsh against a never-seen-sun complexion. She wore black pants, a black thigh-length jacket, and a white blouse, with a big red purse on a strap over one shoulder. I tucked my comic under my arm, spread my hands a little, caught her eye. I knew better than to try a smile.

“Are you—?”

“Yes. I’m the man who wants to buy a complete set of your series,” I finished her sentence for her. “Signed,” I said, to keep it consistent.

“I . . . have them right here,” she said. “There have been only fifteen issues so far. . . .”

“Fair enough,” I told her. “Is there something special you sign comics with? I mean, the covers are so slick, it looks like ink would just slide off.”

“We use these,” she said, taking a gold-colored tube from the breast pocket of her jacket. “It’s called a paint pen. Only thing is, you have to be sure to let each one dry before you bag them.”

“Bag them?”

“You don’t . . . ? Well, it doesn’t matter; I already have them set up.”

“Great,” I said, deliberately turning my back on her and walking up the steps. I pointed to the top of the black marble slab. “How’s this? For signing them, I mean?”

“It should be fine. . . .”

“Oh yeah. I’m sorry,” I told her, reaching into my inside pocket. I brought out ten new fifty-dollar bills, handed them to her.

“This is a lot of money for the comics,” she said earnestly. “You understand that there’s no guarantee they’ll ever be worth so much, don’t you?”

“I’m a gambler,” I told her.

“Well . . . all right, then.” She opened her purse, took out a stack of comics, each one inside a clear plastic sleeve with white cardboard backing. She opened the first bag, carefully slid out the comic, positioned it until she was satisfied, then shook the paint pen vigorously and tested it on her thumb. She nodded to herself, then signed her name with a sharp, fluid motion. “It’s good it’s not raining today,” she said, setting the signed comic on the flat surface to dry. She opened another bag. Her movements were practiced, professional. Maybe she wasn’t used to scoring five hundred bucks for a single deal, but she’d signed a lot of comics before.

While she was concentrating, I said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she answered, her tone a lot more guarded than the word.

“I was looking through the one issue I already had. People write you letters, right?”

“Sure,” she said again. I could hear the barriers dropping into place.

“You can’t print all of them that you get . . . ?”

“Well, I don’t get that many.”

“But more with each issue, isn’t that so?”

“Yes. But how would you—?”

“It just makes sense. As the series gets more popular, picks up word-of-mouth, more people get to read it. So there’s a bigger pool of people who might write to you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway, I was thinking, you couldn’t possibly print all the letters. Besides, there are probably some you wouldn’t want to print.”

“I don’t understand. You mean the idiots who—”

“No, I didn’t mean anything negative. I was thinking . . . people might write to you because they’d know you’d understand what they were going through. So maybe they’d want advice or whatever. And you’d keep their names confidential if they asked, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s right,” she said, her voice as pointed as the pen she was using.

“I’m trying to help someone,” I said abruptly, sensing she wasn’t going to hang around after she finished signing her books. “And I was hoping maybe you could help me do that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “And I’m looking for a girl who’s run away from her home. Or, at least, people think she has. It’s my job to make sure she’s okay.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, I know she was a big fan of yours.”

“And how do you know that?”

“She had a whole stack of Cuckoo in her room. And those were the only comics she had.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Ms. Clell, I’m not saying it means anything. I just thought that maybe, maybe, she wrote to you. If she did, then it might be possible that you could—”

“I don’t know you,” the woman said. “And I’m not telling you—”

“I don’t want you to tell me anything,” I said softly. “Her name is Rosebud. Some people call her Rose, others call her Buddy. If she wrote to you, and if she left an address where you could write back, I think you would have done that.”