Andrew Vachss: Pain Management

“That’s not all. The license plate . . .”

“What?”

“It showed up a few times. On different cars.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Maybe that’s nothing by itself, but . . .”

“You’re not wrong, Ann.”

“So it is worth something.”

“It could be, anyway.”

“This certainly is,” she said, holding up an envelope.

“Pretty small envelope for a hundred grand.”

“That’s in the trunk,” she said. “In a Delta Airlines bag. Just like you said: all hundreds, used, random serial numbers. This,” she told me, waving the envelope, “is the title to the Subaru. I signed it over. You can register it any way you want, but it’s yours now.”

“I . . .”

“Take it, B.B. I know you don’t have a car.”

“How could you—?”

“Either you’re fabulously wealthy and you’ve got a whole stable of vehicles . . . which I don’t think so . . . or you borrow cars all the time. Anyway, where I’m going, I won’t be able to use it.”

“Why?” I asked, despite myself.

“I told you. It’s all going to change from here on out. I don’t want anything tying me to Ann O. Dyne. She was always a myth. Now she’s going to disappear.”

“All right.”

“Aren’t you going to check your money?”

“I know it’s there,” I said. And knew I was right even as I spoke.

“You ever think about . . . ?”

“What?”

“Making a change, too. Starting a new life. Starting over.”

“I can’t start over,” I told her. “I’m not a myth. I’m me. Forever.”

“But people can . . .”

“No, they can’t, girl. Not all of them, anyway. Not me, for sure.”

“I’ll know you if I see you again,” she said, getting to her feet. “But you won’t know me. Without these,” she chuckled, reaching down and hauling the sweatshirt up over her head, “probably nobody would.”

“I’d know your eyes,” I told her.

She stepped close. “You probably would. You looked there, often enough. Tell me something, B.B. When you were a kid, when you . . . did it outside, how did you do it?”

I took her shoulders, gently turned her around so she was facing away from me. Then I put my hands on her waist and cranked my thumbs forward until she was bending over, her hands on the fender of the Subaru. “Like this,” I whispered in her ear. “That way, we could keep watch while we were . . .”

Later, she told me to just take off. By myself. Whoever was waiting on her was close by.

She stood on her toes, gave me a goodbye kiss. “You can find your own way back,” she said.

I wondered if that was true.

“What do you want for all this?” Hong asked me, fingering the slip of paper Ann had given me.

“Your throwdown piece,” I told him.

“You think this is New York?”

“I think cops are cops.”

“Well, I don’t carry one,” he said, huffily.

“All right.”

“You have a drop?” he asked.

The next morning, under the loose cinder block in the corner of the garage Gordo and Flacco used, I found a brand-new Browning Hi Power 9-millimeter. The Mark III, with the nonglare finish, still in the original sealed carton. And two boxes of shells.

Not exactly the most powerful man-stopper on the planet, but a beautiful, expensive weapon. And maybe Hong was trying to send me a message by not going with the same caliber of slug the autopsy team would have pulled out of the black guy who’d tried to smoke Ann in that vacant lot.

I night-swept with the Subaru a few times, the tinted windows clouding anyone’s view of who was doing the driving. Maybe it would buy Ann a little more of a head start if people thought she was still around.

I hadn’t changed anything about the Subaru, but I’d done one thing to make it mine. The license-plate number Ann had given me was taped to its dash.

“Now.” Joel’s voice, on the cellular. My watch said it was six-thirty in the morning.

“Where?”

“Just come here. I’ll take you.”

Joel’s car was a green BMW Z3 with a tan canvas top, one of the early ones. He drove aggressively, keeping the little car in its lower gears until the tach asked for mercy. He braked late for corners, occasionally kicking the tail out, but always catching it smoothly. By the time he got to where I recognized a few landmarks, I knew where we were headed.

“She wants the meet where Daisy picks up her letters?”

“Yes. She said you already know about it, but nobody else does. She feels safe there.”

“Is that where she spent the night?”

“She spent the night at my house,” Joel said, in a “Want to make something out of it?” tone. “Jenn drove her over while it was still dark.”

“So Jenn’s with her?”

“Yes.”

“And Daisy?”

“No. Rose was quite adamant that Daisy not be present.”

“She’s calling the shots.”

“Speaking of shots . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I think you better let me hold your gun.”

“Why is that?”

“You’ve made no attempt to conceal that you’re armed. I’m concerned it could frighten Rose.”

“You know how to use a gun?”

“I . . . no.”

“Then I’m keeping it. It’s out in the open because I didn’t want to hide anything from you. But it’s not to scare Rosebud, it’s for her protection.”

“You think it’s that bad?”

“I know it is,” I told him.

Jenn and Rosebud were sitting together on the stone wall. They watched us approach, whispering urgently to each other.

“Maida and Zia,” I said, greeting them.

I was expecting a smile, hoping for a giggle. Got neither.

“What do you want to tell me?” Rosebud asked. “You already know I’m not going back.”

She looked like she was ready to jump off the stone wall and make a run for it any second. And Joel looked ready to try one of his wrestling moves if I made any attempt to stop her. I had to toss one of my aces on the table, quick.

“Rosebud, if I wanted to bring you back, if I didn’t respect what you’re doing, I could have just grabbed you and been done with it.”

“That’s pretty big talk,” she said. “You’ve been looking for me for a long time. Lots of people have.”

“Lots of people, yes. Me, no. I always knew where you were, Rosebud. I just went through the motions so I could keep your father from doing something real stupid.”

“Where was I, then?” she challenged.

“With Clipper and Big A,” I said, quietly. And as I said the words, I finally figured out who’d been making the dead drops for Rosebud.

Her mouth made an O, but no sound came out.

“I know why you went to Madison, too,” I said, closing in. “And I have the answer you want.”

“Madison wouldn’t—”

“She didn’t,” I said. “I put it all together. From the beginning. I know why Kevin is really looking for you, too.”

Rosebud turned to Jenn, a look of pain on her face so deep I didn’t think another human being could ever touch it. But Jenn gathered her in. They rocked together, both of them crying, Jenn saying “I know,” and “Daddy can fix this,” and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t follow.

Joel stood beside me, as still as the stone wall. And less movable.

The two girls finally turned to face me, holding hands. I didn’t bother to ask Rosebud if it was okay to talk in front of the others.

I told her the truth.

When I was done, she looked at Jenn, who nodded agreement.

“It’s right here,” she said, handing it over.

“You understand what I’m going to trade it for, Rosebud?”