Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“Maybe he’s got a different carrier for—”

“Not unless he is paying that bill in cash,” she said. “And, given the way he conducts his affairs, that seems highly unlikely.”

“But . . . wait a minute, Gem. His little accounting program wouldn’t show bills he’s not paying, right?”

“This is true.”

“So how do you know how many lines go into—?”

“My friend has access to more than just this man’s computer.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. But that is not what I found to be most interesting. Look at these figures,” she said, pointing with a French-tipped nail.

“What does that mean?” I asked, looking at a piece of paper with .10 6written at the top.

“It’s just shorthand for more than a million,” she said, impatiently. “But it is not the totals that are important. Look: see where he shows deposits. . . .”

What I saw was a long string of numbers, none less than five grand, a lot of them in the mid-five-figures.

“So?”

“So, first of all, these deposits are separate from his paycheck at the architectural firm. I don’t mean they are deposited separately—he seems to habitually commingle all his deposits without the slightest concern—I mean they represent an entirely different source of income.”

“Maybe he was consulting out. Or even working a few jobs off the books.”

“This would be some consulting job, Burke. The income stream goes back at least twenty years.”

“Christ. Who was writing the checks?”

“The checks?”

“The ones he deposited.”

“I don’t think I’ve been clear enough yet.” She chuckled. “A number of the checks are drawn on fictitious corporations—”

“Your computer pal again?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged, then went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “but the majority of the deposits were in cash.”

“Even the ones . . . ?”

“Over ten thousand dollars, yes.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“It’s not possible he’s that fucking stupid,” I told Gem later. “Even a low-grade moron knows IRS would be on him like Jesse Jackson on a photo op with those kind of money drops. The banks have to report every single one. Unless he’s—”

“Everything’s with a local bank. Same branch for years. If he’s got an offshore account, it’s not on the computer you . . . looked at.”

“Why didn’t he just break them up?” I said, half aloud. “Anything under ten large, the banks don’t have to notify the federales. ”

“Seemingly he did not care,” Gem said. “Most of the money came right out again.”

“For what?”

“For . . . everything. He has over a dozen mutual-fund accounts. He owns about half a million dollars’ worth of Oregon municipal bonds. His personal car apparently requires specialized upkeep, quite frequently. His wife’s vehicle is brand-new, purchased outright. And she has had very extensive plastic surgery, on several occasions. There is no mortgage on his home. On vacations, they travel first-class. In summary, his entire family lives well beyond the means of his salary.”

“So that’s another way they’d know.”

“Who do you mean?”

“IRS. Even without the cash deposits, he has to declare the income from the mutual funds. Hell, they declare it for him. Nobody’s that nuts.”

“Burke. Burke!”

“What?” I asked, shaking my head to clear it.

“You’ve been . . . that place you go . . . for a long time. Almost three hours. I cannot watch you any longer.”

“Was I—?”

“You weren’t doing anything,” she said, anger clear in her voice. “But I was afraid you’d . . . fall or something. And hurt yourself. I have been sitting here, watching you. But I am so tired, I am afraid I would fall asleep myself and you would . . . I don’t know . . .”

“I’m okay, Gem. Go to sleep.”

“Are you very tired yourself?”

“I . . . don’t think so. Not now.”

“Then would you carry me?” she said, soft-voiced.

In my life, I’ve slept next to a lot of women who’d been through hardcore trauma when they were kids. Some of them when I was just a kid myself—when you’re on the run, you look for the closest thing to a litter you can find. And I had sex with some of those women, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. One thing you get used to, sleeping with a woman who’s been through a lot, is how they startle so easy. The ones who don’t dope themselves up so they can sleep at all.

But Gem always amazed me. When she was a child, every time she closed her eyes there was the chance of waking up to death—if the class-cleansers Pol Pot had unleashed were merciful enough to make it quick. But she always slept as deep and as trusting as if she’d been raised by wolves.

She’d tried to explain it to me, once. Something about casting her lot and . . . whatever happens. Not quite fatalism. Something about choices. Even if you’re on the roof of a burning building, it’s still up to you to decide which direction to jump off.

Gem had never been anything but good to me. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t feel guilty about Ann.

Once, that was what I wanted. No conscience. How I envied the sociopaths around me. Without moral and ethical baggage weighing them down, without the boundaries that restrain the rest of the world, they’re the most efficient human beings on earth. You can kill them, but you can’t hurt them.

I was a kid then. What I wanted more than anything was not to be afraid all the time. So I tried to go in the other direction—not to be afraid ever.

I never got there. Wesley did. And what he got was dead. By his own hand, when there was nothing left to play for.

I still remember what he told me about fear. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he said back then. “And it’s not worth it.”

What happened to me was I . . . split. There’s a part of me that would pass every test for “sociopath.” I meet all the criteria . . . when it comes to strangers. I can watch people die and not give a damn. I can make them dead, if it comes to that. Nothing goes off inside me—I don’t feel a thing.

Stealing, lying, cheating . . . it’s not just something I can do, it’s what I do. I’m a man for hire. And, with a few exceptions, there isn’t much you can’t pay me to do.

But there’s another piece of me. The part that’s with my family. The family I chose; the family that chose me. I feel everything that hurts them, or makes them sad. I wouldn’t just kill for them; I’d die for them. They’re all I have. They’re everything I have. And what they give me is . . . that piece of myself that’s clean.

Not the part that worships revenge; I came stock from the factory with that.

I mean the part that told Joel the truth when I said I’d never give Rosebud up.

I looked at Gem sleeping next to me. Wondering if she’d already let me go.

“What shall you do now?” Gem asked me the next morning.

“I have to go to the library.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because, when I was . . . thinking last night, I got an answer. Maybe not the right one, but . . . something I have to check out, anyway.”

“In the library?”

“A newspaper morgue would be better. Or even the AP wire. I’m looking for a—”

“—pattern?” Gem asked, maybe remembering my search for the humans who had tried to kill me. A search that took me all the way back to my childhood stretch in an institution for the insane. To a crazy, god-faced genius who makes a living finding patterns in chaos. And spends his life in a futile quest for the answer all Children of the Secret seek: Why did they do that to me?