Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“If the meet doesn’t go down, and Rosebud isn’t where you say she is, Big A’s going to be an orphan,” I told him.

I drove myself to downtown Portland. Found a legal spot. Walked for a lot of blocks through the Northwest sector, stopping to throw the Neon’s ignition key into a Dumpster.

The streets were crawling with bottom-feeders, looking for carrion. None of them bothered me. Smart fucking move.

I was in bed with my alibi before six.

Sometimes after a job, the fear-jolts that kept me alert while I was working keep dancing around inside me for a while. They have to work their way to the surface, and it looks like I’ve got the shakes, bad.

Didn’t happen this time. I didn’t feel anything.

When I woke up, it was mid-afternoon. Gem was standing over the bed, looking down at me.

“Why did you go to see Henry?” she demanded.

“Not for the same reason you do,” I said.

I didn’t even try to block her slap. In a few minutes, I heard the door slam.

I watched the tapes Gem had made for me. Old movies, off cable. She probably figured I’d seen them before, give me a little edge. I hadn’t, so I watched them close.

Then I waited for night. My time, since I’d been a little kid. A scared little kid, just learning to prey.

I needed another pistol. And I didn’t want to ask Gem to paper me through again.

As I walked into the kitchen to see if there was anything ready-made to eat, I saw several perfectly aligned stacks of paper on the table. Gem’s work. From the computer runs, using the newly narrowed criteria she’d asked me for. I picked up a stack, being careful not to mess up the others, and brought it over to the easy chair.

By the time it was prowler’s-dark out, I knew I’d been right.

“I’m done,” I told Ann, holding the cellular a little bit away from my ear. “I told you where to leave . . . what you owe me.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s not what this is about. There’s something I want to give you.”

“Already had it. Thanks anyway.”

“It won’t work, B.B. That icy act isn’t getting over. And I’m not playing. I have something I know you need. I’m leaving. You can meet me and get what I’ve got before I go, or you can just buzz me off, it’s your choice.”

“I’ll meet you,” I said, playing out the string.

“Good,” she said. And gave me a street corner and a time.

The Subaru glided to the curb. Before I could open the passenger door, Ann bounced out, dressed in a gray sweatshirt that went almost to her knees. “You drive,” she said.

I got behind the wheel. “It’s got real good traction,” she told me. “Hard to spin the tires even in the wet. Try it.”

I mashed the throttle. Even on the slick streets, the Subaru felt solid under me. Ann gave me directions as I drove. The steering was nicely weighted, the brake pedal a little mushy for my taste, but the binders worked really fine.

“I never drove one before,” I told her. “Are they all like this?”

“Almost. This is a ’97, the last year they made them. I had it all redone, to get it looking like I wanted. They changed a few other things—gas shocks, bigger brakes, wheels, and tires. Even ‘freed up’ the engine, whatever that is.”

“I wonder why they didn’t sell a million of these.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the kind of people who buy Subarus didn’t want all the luxury stuff. And the people who buy luxury stuff didn’t want Subarus . . . ?”

“And what do you want?” I finally asked her.

“Just to tell you a few things. Things you need to know.”

“Like what?”

“Like the driver—Hoss—is fine. He woke up in Battleground—that’s in Washington, north of Vancouver. The company doesn’t think he was in on it, not at all. The cops cleared him completely. They figure it was a professional job all right, but that the hijackers thought they were getting something else. Like taking down an armored car and finding it empty. They had a pretty fine laugh over it.”

“Good.”

“It may interest you to know that Hoss described you as a black man.”

“No. I figured he’d turn out to be a class act.”

“Yeah. Only SueEllen isn’t saying the same thing about you.”

“What’s her problem?”

“You know what her problem is, B.B. Did you have to make her . . . do that?”

“I had to do something to make Hoss cooperate without thinking he was going to get murdered at the end of the run. The way I did it, he saw I wasn’t going to be killing people just to keep them quiet. And if SueEllen really had to run around looking for her pants in the dark, that would have given us plenty of time to get in the wind, especially with the back roads you had mapped out. It was simple and quick. Hoss never would have bought it if I told ‘Travis’ to tie her up and leave her somewhere. And it would have scared him a lot more than I wanted him to be.”

“Well, if I was you, I wouldn’t be stopping by SueEllen’s trailer anytime soon.”

“I don’t want to see any of you, ever again.”

“Except Clipper.”

“Not him, either.”

“So that last threat you made to him—”

“That wasn’t a threat. We had a deal. I kept my end. I was just telling him he better keep his.”

“It sure sounded like a threat to me.”

“Cherish the thought,” I told her.

“Here we are,” she said, a few minutes later. “Pull in there.”

I’d recognized the signs for the last few minutes. We were in that same place, on the riverfront in Milwaukie. I backed the Subaru in.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t like it here. Too much foliage. Anyone could just come up on you and—”

“Then let’s get out, talk outside. How’s that?”

“Okay,” I said, wanting to hear the rest of whatever she had.

We climbed out. Ann put both palms on the Subaru’s front fender and hopped up, posing the way she had when we’d first met.

“What else?” I asked her.

“One, the girl is with Clipper and Big A. She’s been there almost from the beginning.”

“If he turns her over like he—”

“B.B., just listen, all right? I think her father did something to her.”

“I know he did.”

“But she still loves him.”

“Sure. I know. That’s not so unusual.”

“You act like you know all about this.”

“It’s no act. What else?”

“This car,” she said, handing me a scrap of paper, “picked up street girls. A bunch of times.”

“So?”

“So . . . I don’t know what your whole game is, B.B. I’m not sure why you want the girl . . . the runaway so bad. I don’t know who you’re really working for, or even what you do. But I know you want . . . something. I saw . . . I mean, I know the way you . . . when that freak cut me. I get this strange idea that maybe you’re looking for a killer. The one picking off all the street girls.”

“Lots of people get ideas. Don’t make more out of me than I am.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, here’s what I have. You don’t want it, throw it away. That piece of paper I gave you? It’s a license number. The car picks up girls. And it’s a woman who does the asking. A man driving, but a woman making the deal; understand?”

“Yes. But all the girls they picked up, they came back, right?”

“Not all of them. One didn’t. She went by Merlot. . . .”

“Like the wine?”

“Yes. And, the way it was figured, she was holding out on her pimp and made a break one night. It happens.”

“So the only thing you have is that it was a man-and-woman team—”