Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“You’re going to catch a killer?”

“No. Not my style,” I said.

“What, then?”

“Maybe I could get you some information about how it’s being worked.”

“ ‘It’?”

“The disappearances.”

“Yes? Well, that would be worth . . . something, I’m sure. What is it you’d be looking for in exchange?”

I reached in my jacket, handed him one of the photos of Rosebud I’d been circulating. He took it, nodded.

“And,” I said, quickly, before he got the idea that we had a contract so easy, “the name of that escort service.”

“Which . . . ?”

“The one that runs them underage.”

“What is wrong with you?” Gem snapped, as soon as we got into the Caddy.

“With me ? I was just doing business.”

“You were . . . offensive for no reason.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You do not think you were being offensive? Or you believe you had a reason for being so?”

“You sound like a fucking lawyer.”

“You do not wish to answer me?”

“What I fucking ‘wish’ is that you’d keep your little nose out of where it doesn’t belong.”

“Is that so? Perhaps you believe my nose does not belong in your house, then?”

“It’s your house,” I reminded her.

“Ah,” she said. As if I had finally confessed to something.

For the escort service, I would need a hotel room. The only place I’d ever stayed in Portland was the Governor, when I’d been studio-comped by an old pal. It was an old-fashioned, classy joint, with nice thick walls. And it had a back way in that allowed you to avoid the front desk.

Nobody except the room-service folks had seen me the last time I’d stayed there, and if they remembered me at all, it would be in connection with the studio, so a visiting “escort” wouldn’t exactly shock them.

I checked in around four in the afternoon. Between taking a nap, having something to eat, showering, and shaving, I easily killed time until it got dark. Figuring the escort service would have Caller ID, I made sure I used the hotel phone. Asked for a “reference,” I gave them the name Hong had told me to use.

All that got me was a conversation, kind of like no-touch dancing. I tossed them every hint I could think of—right down to telling them I wanted a girl any father would be proud of; I bit eagerly when they spoke vaguely about “no discipline problems.” After running the valid but untraceable major credit-card number I gave them, they promised me a “perfectly behaved young lady” by eleven.

She was about what I expected—a thin, curveless girl dressed down to look fifteen. She even brought her own silk-lined leather handcuffs and a red lollipop.

It took me about ten minutes of soft talking to convince her that I wasn’t a cop, and another half-hour to sell her on the idea that she could make some serious money if she turned up Rosebud.

The hooker looked at the photo, almost blurted out that she’d never seen the girl I was looking for, then went into a slow shuffle about how maybe she’d seen her around, she just couldn’t be, like, sure, you know.

Sure, I knew.

Maybe the hardest game on the planet is convincing a hooker you’re not a trick.

The girl-looking hooker left early enough for me to go back on the prowl. So I walked a few blocks to where I’d stashed the Caddy and went back to work.

But the only girls who approached me alone were big-time wasted, strung out, and needy. Risking a ride with a serial killer wasn’t much compared with their daily game of sticking dirty needles in collapsed veins. But all they could babble was a mulch of “fuck-suck” and “money-honey.” Not much point in asking them if they’d seen Rosebud—they couldn’t see the end of their own road.

When the sleek Subaru drifted across my path, I had a flash that maybe it was what was spooking all the girls. The wheeled shark sure looked menacing enough. Just the kind of car some halfwit screenwriter who thinks all sociopaths are handsome, charming, and intelligent would write into his fantasy.

But around three I saw it parked. Or stopped anyway, with a couple of girls bent low to get their heads down to the driver’s window, their bottoms poised high, always working. I slid past on the right. The Subaru’s passenger-side window was up. And tinted almost as dark as the body.

I grabbed the license number. Just in case Gem’s friend would do me a little favor. If I ever decided to trust him that much.

“What is it that you want from me, exactly?” Madison’s voice, on my cell phone. I guess Smilin’ Jack did take care of his regulars.

“Just to ask you some questions. About comics . . . I think.”

“You . . . think?”

“I have this picture. I mean, it’s a drawing. But in ink, whatever you call that. I want to show it to you, ask you a couple of questions about it.”

“And this is all because . . . ?”

“Because it’s a clue. To that girl I told you I was looking for.”

“What makes you think I would know anything of value?”

“I think you know a lot of value,” I told her. “I’ve read all the comics now.”

“How nice. But as to this . . . drawing?”

“Oh. Yeah, well . . . I’m not sure.”

“Why me, then? Portland’s full of experts who could take a look at—”

“It’s the connection to you. To your work, I mean.”

“Do you think it was my drawing?”

“No. It obviously isn’t. Not your style at all. But that’s not what I meant. Look, Ms. Clell—”

“Madison.”

“Madison. Rosebud collected your comics. There isn’t a sign that she ever collected anything else. So, the way I figure it, if anyone knows what this drawing means, it’s you, okay?”

I listened to the cellular’s satellite-connect hum for a few long seconds. Then she said, “Okay.”

I’d already run across every street-kid thing from New Age to Wicca to skinhead. Pretty extreme range, but one thing in common—music drove all their cultures. Sometimes it just ran in the background, sometimes it was the sun everything orbited around. But it was always there.

I knew my chances of just bumping into Rosebud at random weren’t worth much, so I concentrated on making friends. Financial friends. Bouncers at clubs, clerks in bookstores, swastika-inked tribalists, buskers, multi-pierced statement-makers, druggies, day-trip runaways.

Bobby Ray was always ready to talk with me, but he never came up with anything. I knew he was testing—pumping for info, back-checking to see if I told the same story twice—but I didn’t know if he was sitting on knowledge or just looking for some.

When you’re hunting, you tell different people different things. Or, at least, you drop different hints, let people draw their own conclusions. The bouncers thought I was looking for the kind of underage runaway that could only make trouble for them if they let her inside. But she could make them some real cash if they lifted the rope, and made a call while they had her boxed.

Other people got the idea Rosebud didn’t know her sister needed a bone-marrow transplant. The skinheads thought I was up to something privately ugly. I made sure they knew she wasn’t Jewish, and that if anyone but me hurt her, I’d hurt them.

One night, I passed by a couple of low-grade humans who thought that wearing stomping boots made them street-fighters. They were busy slapping around a tired old burnt-brain who lived out of garbage cans. I pointed the pistol at them and held the index finger of my left hand to my lips. They moved away quick. I figured, since the burnt-brain spent all his time on the street, he might have seen something. But whatever he saw he couldn’t bring out into words.