Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

Her father beamed at her.

“That means more than one person, right, Jennifer?”

“I’m not sure I understand. . . .”

“A collective state of mind. Rosa, she’d have to find others who felt the same way she did, to make that work.”

“Yes,” the girl said, more confident now. “She said she knew they were out there. I think she had an idea where she’d be going. Not to any one place, exactly. Or even with particular people. But . . . kind of where she’d find them, do you see?”

“I think so,” I told her. “You said this was making you scared . . . ?”

“Rosa wasn’t looking for a place. Or even for people. She was looking for some answers.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said, her voice too full of truth to doubt. “She would never talk about it. But it was something big. Something very important.”

“She wasn’t . . . pregnant, maybe?” I asked, taking a stab.

“No,” she said, almost snorting the word.

“You’d know?” I probed gently.

“Yes. I would know. Maida and Zia, just like you said. She told me everything. Except . . .”

Another hour’s conversation didn’t get me any closer. The father walked me out to my car. “What’s your take on Kevin?” he asked me, way too casual.

“I don’t know the words you do,” I said, stalling.

“I get the impression that you do. But say it however you want.”

“He’s a wrong number. A fucking three-dollar bill.”

“What makes you—?”

“Just instinct.”

He gave me a long, slow look. “I don’t think so,” he said.

I shrugged.

He shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders slightly, like he was getting ready to try a standing takedown. But he didn’t say anything.

My move. “If you didn’t think so, you wouldn’t let your daughter talk to me,” I told him.

Then it was his turn to shrug. After a few seconds, a grin popped out on his face. “Jenn knows what she’s doing.”

“And she doesn’t trust—”

“Don’t go there,” he warned. “You’ve got your reasons. I’ve got mine. I’d like to protect Rose, but my own is where I draw the line, you with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s be sure,” he said, softly. “I like Rose. I really do. But I’d cut her loose in a second if I thought she was going to cause harm to Jenn.”

“I get it.”

“And you,” he said, moving very close to me, “if I thought you were going to hurt my child . . .”

I had a little information, a few possible promises . . . and not much else. My watch said it wasn’t even eleven. I didn’t want to go back to Gem’s. Didn’t feel like patrolling, either. Wherever Rosebud was, she wasn’t on the street—by then, I was pretty sure of that.

I decided to go see if Hong was at the joint where he hung out. Maybe he knew something about Ann he hadn’t told me.

Gem had pointed out Hong’s car the first time we’d met: a candy-apple Acura, slammed, with big tires and checkerboard graphics along the flanks. It was sitting in the parking lot.

I went through the door, poked my nose around the corner, spotted him in his booth. A girl was with him. They were sitting close together, side by side. Gem.

“You were asleep when I got in last night,” Gem said the next morning. “I was surprised—usually you are out so late. I did not want to wake you.”

“Thanks.”

“We must go away again. Soon.”

I knew she didn’t mean me. Gem, Flacco, and Gordo, they were professional border-crossers. I don’t know what they ran, but I know they were good at it. I met them through Mama. She didn’t know them personally, but an old friend, a Cambodian woman who ran a network similar to hers, had vouched heavy, her own rep on the line.

“All right,” is all I said.

“Before we leave, I will try to get you the information you want.”

“About Rosebud?” I asked her, surprised.

“No. But the . . . person who gave you the equipment to get into her father’s computer, he should have results for me soon.”

“Ah.”

“You do not sound enthusiastic, Burke.”

“It was a long shot.”

“What is not?” she said, sadness in her voice.

I did the math. The kind you do all the time in prison. Not counting the days—that’s okay for a county-time slap, but it’ll make you crazy if you’ve got years to go on a felony bit. The balancing math. Like when you’re short—getting out soon. What you want to do is stay down, out of the way, not do anything that would mess up your go-home. But word gets around the tier like flash fire. And some guys who wouldn’t have tried you when you still had heavy time to serve suddenly get brave. So you have to dance. Stay hard enough to keep the wolves off you, but not do the same kinds of things you did to send that message when you first came in.

Inside, if you’re with people, everything’s easier. Same out here. That was part of the math. I didn’t have people in Portland. Flacco and Gordo were good hands, but they were pros; bringing them into anything without money at the end wasn’t something you could do. Besides, they were with Gem, not with me.

I missed my own.

Ann’s whole ante was promises. Sure, she’d made the Borderland connect for me, but I would have stumbled across it anyway, sooner or later. Especially with . . .

Yeah, I had a lot more cards in my hand. Higher ones, too. Jennifer would help, now that her father had okayed it. She was the lifeline between Rosebud and Daisy, and the older sister wasn’t going to walk away from that. Maybe I couldn’t get inside Rosebud’s head, but I knew her well enough to put my chips on that number.

I had other things working. Bobby Ray. Clipper and Big A. Maybe even Madison. To some extent, I think they all bought it that I wasn’t Rosebud’s enemy. If they crossed paths with her, I was pretty sure they’d at least tell her how to find me.

I had money working for me, too. Talked to a lot of people like Odom, made it clear there was a bounty. Any of them stumbled over her, they’d call, quick.

As I learned Portland, the town got smaller. Maybe I was years away from the web of contacts and connections Ann had put together, and maybe I’d never have the credibility her mission brought her, but all that added up to was . . . she might have a chance to find the girl. And she wanted a lot in return.

I totaled it up. Not worth the risk.

I was in an upscale poolroom, watching Big A work a sucker. The kid was using a custom cue this time, but handling it like it was a status symbol, not a tool. Beautiful.

Clipper was giving me a rundown on the game when the phone in my jacket vibrated. I stepped off a few paces, opened it up, said, “Hazard.”

“It’s me.” Ann’s voice, some undercurrent to it I couldn’t catch.

I held back—no point telling her I wasn’t going for her deal if she was about to give me a locate. Said, “So?”

“Just tell me where you are now. I’ll come there.”

Not on the phone? Maybe she had . . . I told her the name of the poolroom. I was in the middle of giving her the address when the connection went dead.

She didn’t need anyone to announce her; the change in audio-pitch and the craned necks took care of that. She was wearing a black skirt about the size of a big handkerchief, and a red tank top that didn’t even make a pretense of containing her breasts. Red spike heels with little black anklets. And a flowing mass of blond curls. By the time she’d reached where I was standing, she’d paralyzed every man in the joint.