Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“Waste drugs?”

“Crack. High-octane speed—you know, like dust. I don’t mean he’s anti-drug, just that he’s got his rules. Snow, E, recreational stuff—it’s all part of The Life. And they all want to style. His stuff is always the best, on all levels. It’s a prestige thing to be one of his girls. And he’s okay with anything that lets them keep working.”

“So, as pimps go . . .”

“It’s not like that. We’d have a hell of a time making a case against him. The man is clever. And he’s been at it a long time. Most pimps, they give us something besides a pandering charge to work with—assault, that’s the most common. Kruger, he’s absolutely nonviolent when it comes to the girls.”

“But he’s got muscle working for him?”

“Nothing serious. More like bodyguards than to do any work on anyone, you understand?”

“I do. But, even with all that . . .”

“He’s been . . . helpful, I won’t deny that,” Hong said. “In his business, he hears things. And he’s been known to pass stuff along. Compare that to our chances of ever nailing him on anything big. . . .”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah. The only way Kruger’s exposed is with the IRS. But that’s not us; that’d be the feds.”

“You got anything way upscale?” I asked Gordo the next morning.

“Like a Rolls? In that league?”

“Yeah.”

“We got . . .” he said slowly, looking around the big garage, “I don’t know, hombre. Stuff flashes; don’t mean it costs, right?”

“Right.”

“We got the Cigarette,” Flacco offered.

“The what?” I asked him.

“Cigarette, amigo. Like the boat.”

“That’s flash all right,” I agreed. “But I don’t think, where I’m going, they got a dock.”

“No, no. I don’t mean the boat. I mean the people who make the boat. ‘Cigarette,’ it’s like a brand name. They take certain cars, work them over, then they put their own name on it.”

“Like AMG does with Mercs?”

“ ¡Sí! You got it.”

“What do they work on?”

“Suburbans.”

“Like Chevy Suburbans? Those giant SUVs?”

“ Lots of aftermarket tuners rework the big ones, man,” Flacco said, and ticked off names on his fingers, “Ultrasmith, Becker, Stillen . . . Suburbans, Excursions . . . turn them into mini-limos. Come here, take a look at this baby.”

The Suburban’s black paint was so deep it looked like the whole thing had been dipped in oil. A faint pair of red stripes swept from the front wheel well to the rear quarter panel, where a white oval with a big red “1” in the middle sat proudly. I stepped closer. The beast sat on what had to be twenty-inch star-pattern wheels, the better to display the red Brembo calipers lurking underneath. It squatted low, its air of menace enhanced by the lack of chrome and the xenon headlights.

“Check out the threads,” Gordo said, opening the front door.

The interior was wall-to-wall gray . . . leather everywhere but the floor. The instruments in the dash and on the console were white-faced, with red numerals. It did look a little like the cockpit of a fast boat.

“Got kicker speakers, flat-screen DVD set into the back of the headrests, GPS . . . anything you could want,” Gordo said.

“Can it get out of its own way?” I asked, more to make conversation than anything else. For what I wanted, it could be as fast as an anchored rowboat.

“For damn sure,” Gordo promised. “Sucker’s huffed. Got headers, and a chip, too, I think. Cruise all day at a buck and a quarter.”

“It’d be perfect,” I said.

“Listen, compadre, ” Flacco said, pulling me aside. “Me and Gordo, we’ve been thinking. . . .”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve been borrowing a lot of different rides. . . .”

“I know. And if anyone’s beefed, I can—”

“It’s not about that. None of our business, what you do. You bring the rides back same shape as you took them out, a little mileage on the odometer, nobody’s going to care.”

“Then . . . ?”

“Bullet holes, that’d be another story.”

“I’m not doing that kind of work.”

“You carrying, though.”

“Just a habit.”

“ Bueno. You know what this ride cost?”

“Seventy-five?” I guessed.

“Double that, plus.”

“I’m not bringing it to a gunfight, Gordo.”

“Here’s what I think, man. What I think, Flacco and me, we should be careful about letting rides like this one go out without some insurance, you understand?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Flacco was standing next to his partner by then. He saw the look on my face. “ ¿No comprende, eh? What you think we’re asking for, man?”

“Just a . . . deposit, I guess you’d call it.”

“Nah, you don’t get it. What we’re asking is, how about we come along?”

“Pretty swank,” Ann said, as I walked her toward the Cigarette.

“I even got us a driver for the night,” I told her, so she wouldn’t spook when I opened the back door for her.

“And got all dressed up, too,” she tossed back, making an approval-face at my dove-gray alpaca suit. Michelle had made me buy it before I went hunting for the man who’d changed my face with a bullet. It had cost a fortune, but everything she’d said about it was right. Maybe it didn’t transform my appearance, but it sure answered any questions about my financial standing.

Flacco was behind the wheel, Gordo in the front passenger seat. Neither of them said a word, looking straight ahead. As soon as they heard the door close, they took off, slow and smooth. The big SUV rode like a taut limo.

“Do you think—?” Ann started to ask, before I cut her off with a finger against her lips.

She nodded that she understood. Flacco and Gordo had end-played me perfectly. Anytime a man offers to back your play, you’re cornered. So we went through this whole elaborate game where I’d tell Ann they were just hired for the night and they’d pretend they were really worried about me . . . instead of Gem.

When Gem hadn’t even asked me where I was going, I knew I was right. I didn’t blame them for it. They were with her, not with me. She wouldn’t ask them to spy on me—besides anything else, it would be a real loss of face. But if they decided to ride along on their own, well . . .

Flacco docked the Cigarette like it was a boat, backing it into a narrow slot between two other cars only a few yards from the front door of the joint. Once in, he moved forward so we could open the back door, making it clear that he’d be ready to leave as soon as we were, and that we wouldn’t have to look for him when we came out.

I jumped down, held out a hand for Ann. She wasn’t wearing a streetwalking outfit, but her burnt-orange sheath was slit so deep on one side that it opened almost to her waist as she stepped down. A beret of the same color sat jauntily on top of long straight black hair that fell to her shoulders.

If there was a doorman at the club, he stayed invisible. Two-fifteen in the morning; the place was moderately full, most of the attention on an angular brunette in a classy blue dress. She was singing “Cry Me a River” into a microphone that looked like it was out of the forties. The mike had to be a prop—the sound system was Now and Today all the way, draping itself over and around the crowd without a hint as to speaker location.

The waitresses all wore French-maid uniforms with only a moderate amount of cleavage. This wasn’t a joint for jerkoffs or gawkers—players were expected to bring their own.

I ordered a bourbon-and-branch, told her not to mix them. Ann asked for a glass of white wine.