Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“I—”

“I don’t want the address. All I want is to give you this note,” I told her, handing her an envelope. “It’s unsealed; you can read it for yourself. It explains who I am and why I’m trying to make sure she’s okay. It’s got a phone number she can call. This one right here,” I said, pulling my jacket back to show her the cell phone I carried in a shoulder holster under my left armpit. “I just want to know that she left of her own free will, and that she’s not in any kind of trouble.”

“I’m not—”

“You do what you want,” I said. “I’m playing a hunch, that’s all.”

“A hunch that this girl wrote to me?”

“A hunch that you’ll do the right thing,” I said.

She turned to face me. “What makes you think that?” she asked.

“That one copy of Cuckoo I had,” I told her. “I read it.”

She didn’t say anything. But she didn’t walk away, either.

I put my signed and bagged comics into my briefcase, made my eyes a soldering iron between the woman and the truth of what I’d told her, bowed slightly, and moved off.

“Why do you need all this information about their neighbors?” Gem asked me that night.

“Too many times, a missing kid, you find the body under the bed of some other kid right close by. Or buried in a backyard, rotting in a shed, chopped up in a shower . . .”

“But—”

“Yeah, I know. She’s a little old for that. When a kid’s the perpetrator, you expect the victim to be younger. Smaller and weaker, anyway. Unless there’s a gun involved. But the stealth jobs, it’s usually a little kid that’s targeted.”

“I was not going to say that,” Gem said, tapping her child-sized foot the way she does when she’s impatient. “There was a note.”

“A computer note, remember? Not in her handwriting. Anyone could have written it.”

“Do you believe that is why the parents did not show it to the police?”

“I don’t know what to believe. This whole thing reeks. Gem, listen to me for a second, okay? What exactly did you tell them about me when you pitched the job?”

“I told him nothing specific. Just that you were a man accustomed to difficult, dangerous jobs, and that you expected to be paid well to do them.”

“You tell them I was a—”

“Not ‘them,’ Burke. I never met anyone but the father.”

“Okay, where did you meet him?”

“At the club. The same place where the girl Kitty worked. The one with the boyfriend who—”

“I remember. He was looking there for his kid?”

“Not looking for her. Looking for someone who might help him find her. One of the dancers told him she might know somebody. Then she called me. And then I met him.”

“I should have asked you this before, I’m sorry. Tell me everything you can remember, okay?”

“Yes. He thought I was Vietnamese. I did not disabuse him. He told me he had been against the war. I did not say anything, but I encouraged him to speak more.”

“How could you—?”

“Like this,” she said. She cocked her head slightly, widened her ocean eyes, and oh-so-innocently used the tip of her tongue to part her lips.

“Ah . . . all right, little girl. What did that get you?”

“He . . . implied that he had done many things to stop the war. Illegal, even violent things. I did not press him for details. He also told me he studied what he called ‘the arts’ for many years, and that he did not trust himself to confront those who might have lured his daughter away, because he could very easily kill a man with his hands.”

“ ‘The arts’?”

“That is what he said. He asked me if I had a relationship with you. I told him that I was a businesswoman; I did not associate with those I worked with. He apologized. He said he wasn’t trying to get nosy, that he knew the value of confidentiality. He said he only asked me about my relationship with you because I was a fascinating woman. That he would like to know me better, but he didn’t want to . . . intrude, I believe he said.”

“This is after telling you he’s married?”

“Oh yes. I told him that he, too, was a person I was doing business with, so it was not possible.”

“He bought that?”

“I do not think he did. He is like most Americans you meet in places like that—all their images of Asian women are as sex toys. Between the stories servicemen tell of Vietnamese whores and Bangkok bar babies, the ‘Asian Flower’ services that advertise in the magazines, and the strippers they see in clubs, they find all they care to know. He acted as if we were playing an elaborate game but the outcome was not in doubt.”

“Where did he get the idea I was a mercenary?”

“Well, in the dictionary sense of the word, I suppose I told him. You are a man for hire; that is what I said. But he thought I was referring to war, I am certain.”

“Why?”

“He asked if I was familiar with your résumé—that is the specific word he used. I told him, yes, I was. He asked if you’d ever served in Africa. At first, I felt a little shock—like a warning jolt. I had not told him your name—I still have not—nor did I describe you. But you were in Biafra, and I didn’t see how he could have . . . But he kept talking, and I realized that he was just asking questions out of some movie.”

“You mean, he was a buff?”

“A . . . buff?”

“A . . . fan, sort of. Cops get them all the time. Some people get turned on by the whole police thing. They collect badges, keep a scanner in their house, volunteer to be auxiliaries. They hang out in cop bars, talk like cops. Some cops’re flattered by all that, specially if the buff is a broad. But the more experienced ones, they’re smart enough to keep them at a distance.

“There’s mercenary buffs, too. They buy the magazines, collect the paraphernalia, talk the talk . . . usually on the Internet. The more extreme ones just fake it, spend a lot of time in bars dropping names and places. He come across like that?”

“I . . . am not sure. Every time I did not answer one of his questions about you, he would nod as if I just had. As if we were sharing secrets. It was very strange.”

“I can’t make it fit,” I told her. “But you’ll get me the stuff on the neighbors?”

“I am here to serve you,” Gem said, bringing her hands together and bowing.

When she turned to go, I smacked her bottom hard enough to propel her into the next room. My reward was a very unsubservient giggle.

“Do you have something?” he said, his voice feathery around the edges.

“I’m not sure,” I lied. “I may have found a connect to her. I can’t be sure until I go a little deeper. And I need a couple of things to do that.”

“What?”

“You take a lunch hour?” I asked him.

“Yes. But most of the time, it’s with clients. Lunch is when we get to—”

“Today?”

“I don’t—”

“Are you having lunch with clients today?” I cornered him.

“Well, no.”

“Okay. Tell me where you want to meet. And what time. We’ll finish this then.”

There was cellular silence for half a minute. Then he asked me if I knew my way around the waterfront.

“You said you needed two things,” he greeted me abruptly.

“Yeah. The first is from your lawyer.”

“My . . . lawyer?”

“Sure. You’ve got a lawyer, don’t you?”

“No. Not really. I mean, I know lawyers, of course. But—”

“You’ve got a lawyer you’re close with,” I said confidently. “Doesn’t have to be one you use, okay? Just someone who’d do a little favor for you.”