Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“You like her?” she asked me, making a little gesture with her head in the direction of the singer.

“She’s no Judy Henske.”

“Who is ?”

“You know her?” I said, surprised. Judy’s river runs real deep, but it doesn’t run wide.

“I know her work. I caught her in L.A. Twice. She’s . . . amazing. What’s your favorite?”

“ ‘Till the Real Thing Comes Along,’ “ I told her.

“Amen,” Ann said, holding up her glass.

The girl in the blue dress finished her set, walked off with a wave, glowing in the applause.

“Pretty slick, huh?” Ann said.

“What is?”

“That girl, she’s one of Kruger’s.”

“A hooker?”

“A ‘performer’ is what he’d say. All his girls are stars. They want to be actresses, Kruger gets a video made, sends it on the rounds of studios. They want to be singers, he’s got a place for them to perform. And he’s got an agent, a legit one, handles their careers.”

“It’s a scam, though, right?”

“It is and it isn’t. That’s the secret of how he stays on top. Is that girl who just got off the stage going to get a recording contract? I don’t think so. But this town is loaded with great musicians who never get studio time, just work the clubs, building a following. And everybody knows that, so . . . is it really a scam? She is working.”

“And the movie girls? Where do they end up? In porno?”

“Some do,” she said, seriously. “There’s all kinds of porn, some of it real high-end. Kruger wouldn’t go near the ugly stuff. Wouldn’t let any of his girls do it, either.”

“You sound as if you admire him.”

“I admire anyone who knows how to work a system. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“With the pain-management thing?”

“Yes. But now’s not the time to talk about it.” She turned to the hovering waitress, handed over one of her poker-chip business cards and a folded bill. “Would you please tell Kruger that my man would like to buy him a drink?” she said, smiling sweetly.

The girl in the blue dress was just starting another set when the waitress came over, bent down, and whispered something in Ann’s ear.

“Let’s go,” she said to me.

I followed her as she made her way between tables, heading for a horseshoe-shaped booth in the far corner. When she stopped, we were standing before a man seated at the apex of the booth, a line of girls stretching out on either side. He was a mixed-breed of some kind. Small head, dark-complected face with fine features and very thin lips under a narrow, perfectly etched mustache. Dark hair worn very close to his scalp, tightly waved. He was draped in several shades of off-white silk: sports coat, shirt, and tie. A two-finger ring on his right hand held a diamond too big to be fake.

“Well, Miss Ann,” he said, just a trace of Louisiana in his voice.

One of the black girls on his left laughed at the crack. I kept my face flat, as if I hadn’t gotten it.

“Kruger,” is all Ann said.

He made a little gesture with his diamond. Every woman to his right stood up and walked away.

Ann slid in first. I had to look past her shoulder to see Kruger, who turned his back on the girls to his left and squared up to face us.

“So?” he said, smiling just enough to show a razor-slash of white.

“This is Mr. Hazard,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Why didn’t you simply come yourself?” he asked me.

“You don’t know me,” I said. “I’m nobody. You’re an important man. It wouldn’t be respectful to just roll up on you, unannounced.”

He measured my eyes to see if I was juking him.

“What is it that you do, Mr. Hazard?”

“I find people.”

“Yes. Well, you found me. And . . . ?”

“I’m looking for a girl. A teenage girl. Runaway. She’s—”

“Oh, Miss Ann here will tell you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with—”

“I know,” I cut him off. “The thing is, I’m not the only one who’s looking. A couple of the other people looking, they came to you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. And it’s them I’m interested in.”

He shifted his small head slightly. Said, “I didn’t think you liked men, Miss Ann.”

“Some men,” she answered him, levelly.

“You’ve got game,” he said. Approvingly, as if he was complimenting a kid on the basketball court.

“I’m straight-edge,” she told him.

“I don’t think so, Miss Ann. You’re all curves, girl.”

Ann twisted her mouth enough to acknowledge the barbed stroke, said, “Something for something.”

“What have you got?” he asked me.

“I wouldn’t insult you with money. . . .” I let my voice trail away, in case he wanted to disabuse me of that notion, but he just sat there, waiting. “I’m out and about. A lot. I hear things. I could run across something that might be valuable to you. If I did, I’d just bring it. No bargaining, no back-and-forth, I’d just turn it over.”

“You must be . . . an unusual man, I’ll grant you that. I’ve never seen Miss Ann here with a man before. Are you and she close?”

“Is that what we can trade for? The rundown?”

“Hah!” he snorted delicately. “That was just idle curiosity, Mr. Hazard. What is your first name?”

“B.B.,” I said.

“As in King?”

“No relation.”

“Maybe it stands for Big Boy,” a blonde on his left said, giggling.

Kruger turned slightly in her direction. He didn’t say anything. The other girls got up.

“I . . .” the blonde girl appealed.

Dead silence.

She slid out of the booth and walked away.

Kruger leaned forward slightly. “It’s always difficult to determine what something is worth to someone else. A man like you, if a fly landed on the table, you’d probably ignore it. But if someone paid you, you’d slap your hand on that same table and crush it. The fly isn’t worth anything, do you follow me? But your time is.”

“Sure.”

“My time is valuable as well. And right now I’m afraid I can’t spare any of it. I’ve been quite preoccupied with this problem I’ve been having.”

“Yeah?”

“I am unsure as to the . . . dimensions of this problem, to be frank. But one aspect of it stands out rather clearly. He calls himself Blaze,” Kruger said, shifting his glance to Ann.

She nodded at Kruger. Dropped her hand to the inside of my thigh, squeezed hard enough to get my attention, said, “Some other time, then,” and twitched her hip against me to tell me to get up.

I held out my hand. Kruger made a “Why not?” face and shook it.

Flacco and Gordo dropped us off on a quiet block in the Northwest. The Cigarette purred off into the night. We got into Ann’s Subaru.

“I’ve got to go change,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it there.”

She hung the burnt-orange sheath carefully on a padded hanger, put the black wig on a Styrofoam head, and sat across from me. She crossed her legs as casually as if she’d been fully dressed.

“You can smoke, if you want,” she said.

I made a “Thank you” expression, fired one up, and put it in a heavy crystal ashtray.

The smoke rose between us.

“You’re not an impatient man,” she finally said.

“It never changes anything.”

“Yes, it does!” she whispered harshly. “Me, I’m impatient. Tired of waiting for the government to do the right thing. You know my name. Do you know what it means?”

“Yeah, I know what ‘anodyne’ means,” I said. “I just look stupid.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I don’t think you could. We’re just talking about a different kind of patience. You ever been on a flight where the take-off’s been delayed? You know, you sit out on the tarmac for an hour or two, you know damn well you’re going to miss your connection, and the pilot comes on the PA system in that fake down-home accent they all use and says, ‘Thank you for your patience.’