Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“And the reason he doesn’t,” she went on, “is because he thinks he’s found what he’s looking for.”

“Is that right?” Clipper asked me.

“Some of it. I never did want to ‘help out.’ It was supposed to be a trade. You know what I was looking for. If Ann turned it up, then that would have been different.”

“That ‘it’ you’re talking about is a human being.”

“Hey, that’s a good one. Very sensitive. You ever been a guest on Oprah ?”

Big A started to get up. Clipper put out a hand to restrain him even as Ann started to step between us.

“You think she’s coming back soon?” Clipper asked.

“What I think is that she’s going to meet with me. Coming back, that’s her decision. All I ever wanted was the meet.”

“When do you think it’s going to happen?”

“Any day now.”

“I don’t think so. More than a week. Maybe even two.”

“And you’d know that . . . how?”

“Because she’s with us,” Big A said, pride strong in his voice. “She’s been with us all along.”

“Sure.”

“I kind of thought you might react like that,” Clipper said. “So I did something I hate doing. But I didn’t see any other way.”

“You ever just talk straight out?” I asked him.

“Sometimes,” he said, nodding as if he was agreeing with something.

“Want to take a walk, cutie?” Ann asked Big A.

“I’m staying here with—”

“Go ahead, Big A,” Clipper said to him. “I don’t want Ann to hear what I’ve got to say . . . and I don’t want her wandering around back there alone, okay?”

“Okay,” the kid said, accepting the wisdom.

We watched them walk away. When they were out of sight, Clipper reached in his pocket. “Recognize this?” he asked me. “It’s a micro-cassette recorder. The fidelity’s pretty good. Just touch the button right . . . there.”

I did that, then put the little machine down on the tailgate, so I’d have both hands free.

The voices came out of the tiny speaker thin and metallic, but clear enough so there wasn’t any doubt.

“Jenn, are you sure ?”

“Yes,” Jennifer said, her voice patient and gentle. “But I wouldn’t want you to trust only that. Daddy talked to him. A lot. And he found out some things about him, too.”

“Like what?”

“Daddy wouldn’t say, Rosa. But Daddy said he’d never make you go back if you didn’t want to go.”

“Does he know what I really—?”

“Pretty much. Not everything, but almost. Daddy thinks, maybe, he could even help you get . . . the rest of it, too.”

“For real?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, Jenn! That would be so . . . I can’t believe it.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what your—?”

“No! I can’t talk about that.”

“All right,” Jenn soothed her. “That’s all right.” A long pause, then, “I saw Daisy.”

“How is she?”

“A little fireball, like always.”

“She is. ” Rosebud chuckled. “She’s always been like that.”

“I know.”

“Jenn?”

“What?”

“You’ll never know. You’ll never know what it means to me that you’re so . . . so loyal. So loyal and true.”

“You’d do the same for—”

“That’s not the point!” Rosebud said, harshness in her tone. “Plenty of people are good and loyal. But that’s not always a two-way street.”

“Do you want to—?”

“You’re just like your father,” Rosebud laughed. “No, Jenn. I do not want to talk about it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Jenn, you know what?”

“What, Rosa?”

“I’m . . . still not sure. And I don’t want to meet with this . . . man until I am. I need more time.”

“How much more?”

“A week. Maybe a little more. I have to . . . check some things. Then I’ll be ready.”

“Okay. You know where to—”

“Yes. I love you, Jenn.”

Then the sound of a phone being hung up.

“Voice-activated,” Clipper said.

“Uh-huh. This a wiretap?”

“No. On my line. In my house. Or where I’m staying now, anyway.”

“With Rosebud?”

“That’s right.”

“And what you’re saying is, if I do this . . . project, you’ll bring me to her, even if she decides she doesn’t want to go through with it?”

“Yes.”

“You’d sell her just like that?”

Clipper stood up so suddenly we almost bumped. His voice was low and hard, urgent. “Look, I don’t need lectures on ethics from mercenaries. One, it’s all about the greater good. And, two, she can’t stay like she is. I don’t know what’s wrong. Not exactly, anyway. But she can’t keep this up. I was going to call her friend Jenn myself, if Rose didn’t decide to come in on her own. And since you seem to have passed muster with her . . .”

“I get it.”

“Yeah? Well, if you want it, now you know what you have to do.”

The rich lady’s penthouse looked like it had all been redecorated since the last time we’d been there. Probably one of her hobbies. I walked over to the huge aquarium. About half the fish were missing now. And the little sharks looked bigger.

“Nice joint you’re running here,” I said.

“That’s the way of the world,” she shot back, sounding annoyed. “In microcosm. Don’t you agree?”

“Sure. People with money put things in cages. Then they watch them eat each other up.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re one of the good people.”

“B.B.!” Ann hissed at me.

“Hey, fuck the two of you,” I said. “You know why I’m doing this, okay? You want a good attitude thrown in, you’re out of luck.”

The rich woman stood up. Walked over close to me. “I like you,” she said, huskily. “What do you think about that?”

“What I think is that I don’t like you.”

“Because of an . . . aquarium ?”

“That’s right.”

She turned and walked away. “You picked yourself a real beauty,” she said to Ann.

“Were you deliberately trying to get her to drop out?” she asked in the elevator on our way down.

“She’d never drop out,” I told her. “It’s like her . . . thing, right?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re purity personified. You and Clipper and everyone helping you. Me, I’m just a hijacker who’s getting hijacked himself.”

“Everyone’s got a handle, B.B. I told you where mine was. Why are you so angry I found yours?”

“I have a lot of data for you,” Gem said that night. “But it’s raw. And it could take you a lot of time to sort it. Can you narrow down the criteria for me, just a little bit?”

“Sure.”

“Burke, what is wrong? You sound so . . . angry.”

“Not at you.”

“At who, then?”

“At me, little girl. Wesley warned me. A long time ago.”

“What did he—?”

“He told me,” I said, cutting her off, “that anyone who knows how I am about . . . some things, it’s like a bull’s-eye painted on my back.”

“You mean . . . children?”

“It’s not about kids. I don’t even like kids. It’s those fucking freaks who feed on them. . . .”

“Burke, stop!”

“What?”

“When you start to talk like that, it frightens me.”

“Why? I haven’t even raised my voice. I’m in control.”

“It is so cold in here now,” Gem said, shuddering. “And you, you are . . . not in control. Not at all.”

“You sure you can do it?” I asked SueEllen. “You’re the key. He doesn’t come along, we can’t—”