Andrew Vachss: Pain Management

She walked across the wood-planking floor of the loft, tossing her purse onto the futon, unbuttoning her blouse.

“I thought you were going shopping,” I said, looking at her empty hands.

“I did. For many hours.”

“They were—what—all out or something?”

“Ah,” she said, doing something to the waist of her skirt. It fell to the floor. She stepped out of it, came closer to me. “The word is different for men and women.”

“What word?”

“Shopping. When you say ‘shopping,’ you mean to go out to buy something. A specific thing, yes?”

“Sure.”

“When I say ‘shopping,’ I mean to go and look.”

“You mean for bargains and stuff?”

“No. I like the looking. I like to know I could buy things. I do not have to buy them.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, you are so very interested in this, Burke.”

“What difference?”

“I do not understand,” she said, kneeling next to where I was sitting.

I ran my hand through her thick black hair. “What would it matter if I faked like I was interested?”

“You asked me the question.”

“I did. I was just . . . I don’t know . . . maybe being polite. You’re right. That’s not me. I won’t do it again.”

“Huh!” she said, bending forward and nipping at the web of flesh between my thumb and forefinger. Harder than she usually does.

While I was waiting, I looked around for a score. There’s a couple of casinos south of Portland. I borrowed a black Corvette from Flacco and Gordo—Gem’s partners—got into some halfass-flash clothes, kept my sunglasses on inside, playing a two-bit high roller, dropped some random cash. Every con who came up when I did dreamed of knocking over a racetrack or a casino. All that absolutely untraceable cash. I owed it to them to scope it out.

But it turned out to be like most convict’s dreams. Right there . . . but out of reach. I’d been hearing that “It’s not for you” song my whole life.

When I graduated from gunpoint hijacking to stinging and scamming, I realized you need the same things to be successful in either game—a complicated mix of anonymity and rep. In Portland, I was even farther under the radar than I’d been in New York—I didn’t exist. And my name on the street wasn’t worth the quarter any skell would drop in a pay-phone slot if he thought I was worth something to the cops.

I didn’t have Max the Silent at my back. I didn’t have the Prof and Clarence by my side. I didn’t have the Mole mixing his potions in his underground bunker. I didn’t have Michelle, didn’t have Mama.

But even if I risked it and went back to them, I wouldn’t have Wolfe.

And I wouldn’t have Pansy, ever again.

When you’re away—Inside, I mean—your people don’t visit you. Not if they all have priors. That’s not how it’s done. I took a fall for Max and the Mole a long time ago. Well, not in place of them—I was going down anyway. But I held off the other side until they could get gone.

It had been a perfect hijacking. A big fat stash of dope, quick and clean. We didn’t want the dope; we wanted to sell it back to the same mob family we stole it from. Everybody wins. Nobody gets hurt.

I set up the meet in an abandoned subway tunnel. Only, instead of silk suits, the men who showed up were all dressed in blue.

No, the cops hadn’t cracked the case. The mob had sold me to a few of their friends, that was all. Maybe they thought they could get their heroin back from the police evidence locker. Wouldn’t have been the first time.

A bouncing grenade with the pin still in it was enough to convince the law that a frontal assault was out of the question. They knew they had a heavily armed lunatic on their hands, so they decided to do the smart thing and negotiate.

But they only had one end of the tunnel blocked, and the longer we talked, the safer my people got. Everybody made it out. Everybody but me.

I did the time without visitors. But never without backup. Between people on the street who would do anything— anything —for me, and a steady stream of money on the books, I was golden.

Besides, I was young then. Going back to prison was like an alumni reunion. If it was some college, I guess they’d be checking the parking lot, see what kind of car you drove up in. Inside, you got your status from the crime that brought you there. That, and from coming back by yourself.

That was me, back then. I wanted to be a con’s con. High-status. Good crime, good time.

I remembered some of those good times. The manic rush of high-risk scheming for a little more territory, the gambling coups, making home-brew, handball, story-swapping, boxing, lie-telling, concocting elaborate escape plots that you were never going to try . . .

When you start getting nostalgic for prison, you’re never far from going back.

“I can’t stay here,” I told Gem the next morning.

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you—?”

She gave me one of her eloquent shrugs.

I expected her to say she’d follow me anywhere, like she had before. Tried to beat her to the punch by telling her I’d send for her when I found a place that was safe.

“No,” she said, soft but flat. “There is no place for me where you are going.”

“Not yet, maybe. But when I’m—”

“Ah, you will never be at peace, Burke. You’re not just restless and bored, you are depressed.”

“Sad. Not depressed. Sad.”

“As you say.”

“Gem . . . I just can’t . . . work here.”

“You did those . . . jobs I found for you.”

“There isn’t enough of it. I need a score. A big one. And I couldn’t even put a string together here. I don’t know anyone.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but I put two fingers across her lips, said: “No, I couldn’t bring my own people out here. They’d be as lost as I am.”

“A bank is a bank,” she said, a deep vein of stubbornness inside her precise voice.

“A bank? Little girl, bank jobs are for dope fiends and morons. There’s no money in them anymore. Not in the tellers’ drawers, anyway. Anything else takes an inside man. And out here, I could never—”

“You went down to the casino . . .”

“And crapped out. There is no way you could hit a place like that. It’s way out in the sticks. It’d have to be a goddamn commando raid—helicopter on the roof, a dozen men, all that. Cost a fortune just to put it together, and the take wouldn’t be worth it. It’s a nice little operation, but it’s not carrying the kind of action worth that investment.”

“Where is the money, then?”

“Armored cars are the best, if you’re talking pure rough-off. But the deal with them is, you’ve got to be ready to kill a couple of people, minimum.”

“Oh,” is all Gem said. But I knew what she was thinking.

“Not for nothing,” I told her.

She just nodded.

“What I’ve got to do is put together a scam. A big one. Or go back to grifting, a little piece at a time.”

“You could do that here.”

“I could. Maybe. What’s wrong with that little-piece-at-a-time thing is that you’re going to be dropped, sooner or later. I’m a two-time loser, both for what they call ‘armed-violent’ felonies today. I get tapped for even some little nonsense, I’d pull the same time I’d get for homicide. They’d bitch me for sure.”

“Bitch you?”

“Ha bitch ual offender. That’s a life-top in most states. Even without that, it’s double figures, guaranteed. Time I got out, I’d be ready for Social Security—”

“—only you are not eligible,” she finished for me.

She didn’t drop it easy. Never thought she would; that’s not Gem.