Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“I didn’t say that. You did. But it’s true, as far as we know.”

“You ever question her about the disappearing hookers?”

“Why? You think she—?”

“No. Whoever’s doing it, they have a partner. And she doesn’t seem to,” I said, not mentioning those moving shadows in her car.

“And you know that . . . how?”

“When the night-girl population is already spooked, there’s two ways to approach them. One is to pose as a cop, the way Bianchi did. The other is to come on as a couple, looking for a bi-girl to rent. Sometimes the female half of the team makes the approach alone, pulls the girl, and brings her back to where the guy’s waiting. Sometimes they work it together, depending on how well they can pass for yuppies out for some fun.”

“You think it’s a team?” he asked, looking interested for the first time since I’d sat down.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s the only way they could have taken this many without being caught. The man drives, the woman gets out and makes the deal. Then the woman climbs in the back seat, lets the hooker in front. They’ve got her boxed then. No way out. It could be a gun, could be chloroform, could be a needle . . . there’s a hundred ways. Or, if the girl goes for the fake and comes back to their house, they play a little bondage . . . only the last rope goes around her neck.”

“We’ve been looking for a drifter,” he said quietly.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Respectfully, I think it’s a pair. And working close to home. Brady and Hindley did little kids that way years ago. Bernardo and Homolka worked the same thing, only with teenagers, up in Canada. All those maggots had something else in common, too.”

“What?”

“They made tapes. Brady and Hindley used audio; Bernardo and Homolka, video. But they all take trophies,” I told him, thinking about the word games the oh-so-sophisticated like to play with terms like “snuff films.” No question freaks film people being killed. But if they don’t make them “for commercial purposes,” they don’t qualify, so snuff films remain an “urban legend.” How cute and clever.

“And that’s important, why?” he asked.

“Because it means they’ve got a place to stash them. Not a furnished room or a cheap motel. Probably not even an apartment. A house, my best guess.”

“You think we release serial killers on parole here?”

“I think you do it all the time. You and every other prison system. Only, on the books, you’re not releasing a serial killer. It’s a rapist. Or a rapist that pleaded to burglary. You understand what I’m saying; don’t act like you don’t, Hong. You look close at some of the unsolved pattern-crimes, you’ll see they had a . . . break in the action. That was while the perp was Inside. But dropped for something besides the killings. He does his time. He’s a good inmate. And the Board cuts him loose. Am I wrong?”

“Angkat said you were—”

“Who?” I asked him, knowing the answer, but wanting to see what he said.

“That’s what I call Gem,” he said, eyes challenging me to keep driving down the same road I’d turned onto.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

When he saw I wasn’t going to say anything else, he picked up where he’d dropped it. “She said you were some kind of expert on these things.”

“These things?”

“Predators.”

“I know them,” I acknowledged.

“You know them ? Or you know what they do?”

“Both.”

“You’re a criminologist?”

“About as much as you’re Chinese.”

“I’m half Chinese,” he said, seriously. “My mother is Samoan.”

“Exactly.”

“Where are you going, Mr. . . .?”

“Not where you are, pal. You didn’t forget my name. Not the one I gave you, anyway. And you know a lot more about me than you’re acting.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you and Gem—”

“We’re not—”

“Done. I know.”

“That isn’t what I was going to say. Our . . . whatever was between us, it’s not your business.”

“And my name, that’s not yours. But it didn’t stop you from asking around, right?”

“I didn’t need to ask around to know you’ve done time.”

“Sherlock’s got nothing on you, huh?”

“Relax,” he said, shifting his body posture to match his words. “That was just my way of saying that I think you know what you’re talking about.”

“No. It was your way of saying that you think you’re protecting Gem. Am I getting closer?”

“I don’t think I’m protecting her,” he said, his face tightening. “If anyone hurt her, it would be a mistake.”

“What are we having here, a fucking meaningful moment?” I sneered at him. “You telling me if I break your little girl’s heart you’ll beat me up or something?”

“Angkat’s heart is her own,” he said, softly, not playing around anymore. “I don’t know why you’re here, or what you’re doing. You say you’re looking for a runaway girl. Maybe you are. But I don’t see a man like you being a good Samaritan . . . even for money.”

“A ‘man like me,’ money’s what I work for.”

“So all this information—what you gave me, about the way the hookers could be disappearing, and all you’re promising—that’s for . . . ?”

“Barter. Like I said it was.”

“And what you want, what you want now, is whatever we have on this ‘Ann O. Dyne’ woman?”

“Yeah.”

“You already have it,” he said.

He stubbed out his cigarette and our conversation with the same gesture.

Back at the loft, there was no message from Gem. We hadn’t agreed on that, either. She’d wanted me to sign on to her computer so she could e-mail me. I don’t trust anything I don’t understand—and a lot of things I do—so I’d told her it wouldn’t work for me; she could just ring me on the cellular.

Gem said she didn’t like talking on cell phones: anyone could pluck the conversation out of the air. I told her I didn’t think e-mail was so fucking private, either. And, besides, she didn’t have to say anything that could cause a problem on the phone, right?

She didn’t answer me then. And hadn’t called.

Me, I hadn’t turned on that damn computer, either.

I fingered the poker-chip business card, wishing I had a tip sheet to consult before I placed the bet. Finally, I stuck it in my pocket. I took a look around the loft, decided I didn’t feel like sleeping, and went back into the street.

Nosing the Caddy around corners, I felt overwhelmed by what I didn’t know. I finally had the street grid down pretty good, but not much else.

Wherever I’ve gone, the games are always the same. That part’s easy. Knowing the players, that’s where the investment comes in.

I could feel the whisper-stream burbling out the twin exhaust pipes of the Caddy, building rumor as I trolled. If you work like an anthropologist, it might take you centuries to know a town. But if you profile heavy enough, the knowledge comes to you. Buried knowledge. If you want the full truth out of all the silt people pour over you, you’d better have a very fine strainer and a lot of patience.

Fringe-dwellers do a lot of business in strip clubs; something about the flashing flesh makes them feel safe. Or important. Some of the suckers can’t tell the difference. I’d known of girls younger than Rosebud turned out and siliconed up by club managers who kept them in bondage until they worked off the price of the implants, but I couldn’t see her going that route. I didn’t expect to find her in a biker bar, either. Or an after-hours joint. And a young girl on the Jesus-loves-you flophouse circuit would stick out like a truthful telemarketer.