Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“She took off in her own ride. The Subaru,” Gordo told me. “I asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital, but she told me she had it under control. I didn’t know what to—”

“You handled it perfect, Gordo. Let’s get out of here.”

“You have to do the motherfucker?”

I unwrapped the black handkerchief, showed Gordo the two index fingers.

“Should have taken his fucking cojones. He cut that girl for no—”

“He didn’t have any to take. Besides, the other one’s still out there.”

“Yeah? You think that gusano could describe you?”

“Not a chance,” I said confidently. “His eyes were closed.” But even as I spoke, I knew he’d gotten a real good look at Ann. And if I was right about the black guy being the jockey . . .

“Where you want to toss the fingers, hombre ?” Gordo asked.

“Anyplace there’s rats,” I told him.

“Never in all my life been no place where there ain’t,” he said, pointing the Corvette toward the waterfront.

“You okay?” I said into the cell phone, relieved that she’d answered at all.

“Fine. It was a clean cut. Shallow. He was just like any other trick, doing whatever he has to do to get off.”

“Look, knife wounds can be—”

“It’s fine, okay? I swabbed it out, put on some antibiotic paste, gave myself a tetanus shot, and butterflied it closed. It was strictly subcue, didn’t get near the muscle. I’ll be fine.”

“You did that all yourself? You didn’t go to the—?”

“Don’t be dense,” she said curtly. “And don’t talk so much on the phone.”

“Okay. When do we get to see—?”

“Meet me at my . . . at the place I use.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Can you drop me at—?”

“No, hombre. Here’s what’s up. I call Flacco, he comes to where we park, we leave you the ’Vette. You come back whenever you come back.”

“Why not just—?”

“Don’t be putting us in a cross, amigo, ” he said, his voice full of that special sadness that works best in Spanish. “Gem asks us—and—you know what?—I don’t think she’s gonna ask us, but, if she does—we tell her the truth, understand? We don’t want to know where you meet anybody. Especially that woman.”

“It’s just a—”

“Don’t matter what it is. What you think it is, anyway. We had your back tonight, yes?”

“Yes. And I’m—”

“You don’t got to be nothing, man. Like we told you; it’s for Gem, bottom line. Get it?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Gordo.”

“De nada.”

As I guided the Corvette to where Ann said she’d be, I turned to one of the blues programs you can find on KBOO at odd hours. Slim Harpo’s “What’s Going On?” growled its way out of the speakers. The way I was going, I might make that one my Portland theme song.

The radio kept it going. Butterfield’s “Our Love Is Drifting.” Then Bo Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me.” As if the DJ knew I was listening.

But before I could call Hong the other mule, what I had to figure out was . . . if it was really my stall.

Ann was waiting on me, her left biceps wrapped in a startlingly white bandage.

“Pretty sexy-looking, huh?” she greeted me.

Considering the bandage was all she was wearing, I decided not to guess what game she was playing and just nodded.

“What happened?” she asked, following me to the armchair.

“I took your signal, shadowed him back to where he was holed up. He went for his knife,” I lied, planting my self-defense seed just in case. “He ended up getting hurt.”

“Bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Dead?”

“No.”

“Think he’ll go to the cops?”

“Not a chance.”

“And he’s done putting the muscle on the girls?”

“He’s done with muscle, period.”

“So we can go to Kruger now.”

“We’d better give it a few days. No reason Kruger should take anyone’s word for anything. Besides,” I said, watching her closely, “that other one—the black guy—he’s still out there.”

“But he never cut—”

“Listen to me, Ann. I was there, okay?”

“So was I.”

“Not the same way I was. And you don’t come from the same place I do. The white guy, he liked doing what he did. But, the way I see it, the black guy, the whole shakedown thing was his idea. And he had a bigger plan in mind than these penny-ante payoffs.”

“What are you saying?”

“That it may not be over. And if it’s not, we’ve got nothing to trade to Kruger.”

“Damn! All this for . . .”

“Maybe not. But for the next few days, I think we have to play it out.”

“How?”

“You go back on the stroll. Or at least be visible. And I’ll be right with you. Only not.”

“Not . . . what?”

“Visible.”

“Like my bodyguard?”

“Not like tonight. If I even see him, I’m going to drop him.”

“But you don’t know what he looks like. And neither do I. Those descriptions, they aren’t worth the . . .”

“If it’s like I think, it won’t matter,” I told her, keeping my voice level.

“I don’t—”

I reached over, grabbed the fleshy pad at the inside of her thigh, squeezed it hard, pulling her closer to me.

“You’re—”

“I know I am,” I said. “But you are going to listen. And you are going to fucking ‘care,’ understand?”

“Yes! Now let me—”

I released my grip.

“You want to kiss it and make it better?” she half-snarled, flexing her thigh.

“You really are a stupid bitch, aren’t you? Fuck you, listen or don’t. The way I see it, the black guy can’t let this one go. He’s got a lot invested. Plus, he has to show his punk he’s stronger, understand?”

“No.”

“Stop pouting and pay attention. The black guy wasn’t the lackey; he was the leader. He’s been watching the street for a while. He probably knows you’re no hooker. He probably knows your car. And he’s probably going to try to take you out.”

“Kill me?”

“At the very least, hurt you. Real, real bad.”

She dropped into my lap. A bruise was blossoming on the inside of her thigh. It took me a minute to realize she was crying.

Gem wasn’t around when I got back to the loft. I realized how I felt about that when I let out the breath I was holding.

It didn’t take me long to throw everything I needed into my duffel. I found one of her cross-ruled pads; wrote:

I spent a minute trying to think of how to close it. Came up with nothing. So that’s how I signed it, too.

The penthouse topped a high-rise in downtown Portland. The woman who let us in looked to be in her early forties—impossible to tell when they’ve got unlimited money and are willing to spend it on their looks. The living room was overpowered by a condo-sized aquarium, densely packed with brilliantly colored fish. I didn’t recognize anything inside it except for what looked like a pair of miniature gray sharks near the bottom.

“It probably started with gays smuggling AZT,” the woman said. “That wasn’t even for pain, necessarily. But the pain of knowing there’s something out there that could maybe save you—or give you more of your life—and you can’t have it, that’s . . .”

“You’re sure about the Ultracept?” Ann interrupted.