Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“Where to?” she asked me.

“You’ve got all kinds of medical stuff, right?”

“Sure.”

“Got sulfuric acid?” I asked.

In the shadows of one of the bridges, just before a steel-gray dawn broke, I poured all that was left of the pistol out of a big glass jar into the Columbia River. We’d kept the news on the radio, but either the kid’s body was still in that vacant lot, or he hadn’t been important enough to crack the airwaves.

I went back to the apartment Ann used as a hideout. She said she wanted a shower. I wanted about four of them, but I told her to go first.

The next thing I remembered was waking up. It was late afternoon. I’d never had that shower, but I was stripped, laying across the bed, a soft, warm blanket across my back.

Ann.

I could say I was half asleep. I could say she started it. I could say I was still heavy-blooded with the killing in that vacant lot. And it would all be true.

But not the truth.

She ended up on her back, her face in my neck, not even trying to match her own counterthrusts with mine, just getting there. It didn’t matter who I was, maybe—she never called my name. When I felt her teeth part on my neck, I slipped my shoulder so she lost her grip. She reached out with one hand, grabbed a pillow, stuffed the end of it into her mouth, and bucked under me until she let go.

By the time I finished, she was already going slack. I felt as if I’d lost a sprint.

“Do you want a smoke?” she asked me, later.

“Huh?”

“A cigarette. Some people like to smoke after . . .”

“You read that in a book?”

“Look,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow, “I’m not a hooker, you already figured that out. But I’m not a virgin, either.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Which?”

“Either.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” I told her. “Not you.”

Later, when I was in the shower, my back to the spray, she parted the curtain and climbed into the tub, facing me. “This is the perfect place,” she said into my ear.

I didn’t say anything.

“I never tried to swallow before. I don’t know if I can. And if I can’t, it’ll all just wash right off. . . .”

When she carefully got down on her knees, I wasn’t half asleep. Turned out she couldn’t swallow it all. And that she was right about it not mattering.

But not the way she meant it.

When I got back to the loft, it was empty. But my note was missing. In its place, a piece of heavy red paper, folded origami-style to make a cradle for a single fortune cookie. Chinese inside Japanese—Gem’s idea of a joke? She once told me how the Vietnamese soldiers finally stopped the Cambodian mass-murderers, who supposedly took their ideology from the Chinese, who still hated the Japanese. . . . I remembered how she laughed bitterly when anyone used terms like “pan-Asian” to her face. I picked up the fortune cookie. It was weightless in my palm. I made a tight fist, crushed it to dust.

A tiny piece of paper was left when I opened my hand. Hand-lettered, in all caps:

It wasn’t like Gem to be cryptic. Mysterious, sure; but not mystical. This read like one of those sayings that took meaning only from interpretation . . . like the Bible. It sounded like a caution. But, for some reason I couldn’t pin down, it felt like a threat.

I stayed around long enough to take another shower, shave, change my clothes. I didn’t know what to do with all the laundry I’d accumulated during the past few days, but somehow I knew, if I handled it myself, that would be the end of everything with Gem.

If it wasn’t already.

Kruger didn’t put us through any elaborate ceremony this time. No sooner had we walked in the club than one of his girls came over and ushered us to his table.

When Ann started to slide into the booth like she had before, Kruger shook his head no. At the same time, he rapped twice on the tabletop with his two-finger ring. All the girls in the booth with him got up as if they’d been jerked by puppeteers.

Kruger rolled his head on his neck, like a fighter getting ready to come out for the first round. But it had nothing to do with getting out the kinks. His eyes swept the place, making sure everyone got the message: we wanted to be alone.

“You do good work,” he said.

“I keep my word,” I answered. Not acknowledging, reminding.

“Names help you, or you just want what they said?”

“Everything for everything.”

“Yes. Only I never asked for ‘everything,’ remember?”

“I don’t remember you asking for anything. ”

He eye-measured me for a few seconds. Nodded to himself, as if confirming his own diagnosis. “G-men. Partners. Longtime, from the way they were with each other, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Chambliss and Underhill. Salt and pepper.”

“Not new boys?”

“Not close. These guys had a lot of miles on their clocks. Very soft-shoe.”

“And they wanted?”

“What you figured. This girl. The runaway. Rosebud Carpin. They had photos. Good ones, recent.”

“And they thought you had her?”

“No, man. Even the feds know I don’t go near that kind of thing. What they wanted was . . . what you wanted. Keep an eye out; pull their coat if I got a line on her.”

“Just that?”

“Well, they sort of implied they’d be real grateful if I could put some . . . personnel on the matter as well.”

“How’d they come on? Muscle or grease?”

“Wasn’t a single threat between the two of them, man. Just how much they’d, you know, appreciate it if I could be of assistance. Like I told you, all soft-shoe. Nice little shuffle. ‘Even the most astute businessman can find himself in delicate situations occasionally, sir, especially with agencies such as the IRS. I am quite confident you would find it to your advantage to have certain, shall we say, references, should such a situation effectuate.’ “

He had a gift for imitation; I felt like I was listening to the G-men themselves. “You took them seriously, right?”

“As a punctured lung,” he said solemnly. “And I’ve got people looking. Okay, that square us?”

“No,” I said, watching his eyes.

“I’m not following you, Mr. Hazard. I already told you everything they—”

“What would square us,” I said, very soft, “is if you were to call me first. Not a lot first, just a little head start, understand? You get information, you sit on it just long enough to call me, then you go ahead and do what you have to do.”

“But if she’s not there when they go looking, how much of a favor did I really do them, then?”

“They’re pros. They’ll know she was wherever you said she was, just jumped out a little before they closed in, that’s all. They’ll be grateful.” I paused a long few seconds. “I’ll be, too. Everybody wins.”

He took a little sip from a tall glass with some colorless liquid and ice in it. Maybe water. Maybe vodka. Couldn’t tell from any expression on his face.

“A little while ago,” he said, “a young man was brought into the ER. Got in some weird accident. Chopped off the tips of a couple of his fingers. Must have happened when he fell down that flight of steps, busted his face all to pieces. He’s never going to walk without a limp, either.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They didn’t buy his story in the ER, especially when they ran a blood tox and found he’d been blasted with some primo horse before he got dropped off. Whoever shot him up knew exactly what they were doing—he was feeling no pain, but he was coherent enough to stay with his story. So the ER called the cops. But this guy, he wasn’t saying anything. Ex-con, you know what they can be like.”