Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“Yes. How could he do that? How could he be a . . . traitor?”

“And that, if it works,” I said, ignoring her questions, “you understand you’ll never see him a—?”

“Yes! I have to do this. Daisy needs me. Jenn . . . ?”

“Yes,” Jenn said. Adding her vote.

“You take Rose back,” Joel told his daughter. “Mr. Hazard and I will go see Kevin. It will all be over soon.”

“You’re not going with me,” I told him on the drive back.

“The hell I’m not.”

“Listen to me, doc. You got no idea how much respect I have for you. I see the way your kids look at you; I feel so jealous, I can’t put it into words. You’re a standup man. But I have to do this one alone.”

“Why?”

“Because I made the girl a promise. And I’m going to keep it.”

“I’m not follow—”

“How much more do you want me to say? If Kevin goes for the deal, Rosebud will never see him again, right?”

“Right.”

“But if he doesn’t go for the deal, she still won’t,” I said; soft and slow, so he’d understand what I was telling him. “You want to be in on that?”

“I’ve got her,” I told Kevin on the phone.

“Oh God, that’s great! When can you—?”

“Tomorrow morning, maybe. If you can guarantee your wife and Daisy are out of the—”

“No problem! She’s going to drop Daisy at camp and then she’ll be—”

“—gone by seven-thirty?”

“Absolutely!”

“See you then. Leave your garage door open. We’ll come to your office.”

“Okay, okay, sure. Do I have to—?”

I hung up on him.

“What are you going to do?” Gem asked me that night. “Now that you know you were correct about him.”

“Depends on him.”

“Does that mean . . . ?”

“Yeah.”

“Burke . . .”

“I’m doing it, Gem.”

“Can you not trust me anymore?”

“Trust? Sure. Hell, I trust everyone. If I have to do it, I’ll be using this,” I said, taking out the pistol Hong had left me. “And if your boyfriend Pearl Harbored me, if this piece is hot, I’m fucked.” I didn’t bother to mention that I’d test-fired it, just to make sure Hong hadn’t given me a bunch of blanks.

She got to her feet, the anger gone from her face. “He is not my . . . boyfriend. I said you were my husband long ago. I meant that.”

“But the past can become the future.”

“Yes. You understand. But it was not a threat. And it was not about Henry. It was about you. Your past. Your future. I know how you hate it here.”

“I don’t hate it here. It’s kind of nice, actually. Portland’s, what, a tenth the size of New York? But it’s got more blues bars, and . . .”

“But even that. It is not really your music, is it?”

“The blues? Honeygirl, I was born to the—”

“No. I don’t mean the . . . feeling. Remember the music you told me all about. Doo-wop, yes?”

“That’s right. The Brooklyn Blues, sure.”

“New York music.”

“I . . . guess it is. When I think of blues, I think of Chicago. Or Detroit. Or even the Delta. But I grew up with a capella sounds in the subway tunnels, on the street corners, in the shower rooms of the institutions—it was everywhere.”

“And it is not here.”

“Ah, it’s not much of anywhere, anymore. And the weather’s better here. The people are the same, but I’d have to change planets to fix that.”

“So it is your family.”

“That’s it, Gem. My family. I . . . I need to be there with them. Not next door or anything. I don’t have to see them every day. But I’ve got no . . . life here. I’m not a dentist or a lawyer. I can’t get an Oregon license for what I do.”

“I know all this.”

“When I finish with Kevin, I’m going back home,” I said.

“I know that, too. I have known for a while. And I shall go with—”

“No. No, Gem. Not yet. I don’t know how it’s going to be, a man who’s supposed to be dead, coming back.”

“It does not—”

“It matters to me. And that’s not the whole of it. I . . . I don’t know if I want to be with . . . anyone.”

“I see.”

“And I think there are things you need to—”

“Don’t put any of this on me, Burke.”

“Fair enough.”

“I will not wait for you forever. There is always another border for me to cross.”

“I don’t want you to wait at all.”

“Yes, you do,” she said.

There was no way to tap Kevin’s phone. And even if I could, he had access to too many of them. But I was in his neighborhood at four-thirty the next morning. As I drove by, I spotted Clipper’s red Durango and pulled next to it.

“We’ve been in place since you called last night,” he said. “Rotating shifts. Nobody’s been to the house. No cars, no cabs, nobody on foot. Nothing.”

“Thanks.”

“We’re all with Rose,” Big A said.

“I’ve got it from here,” I told them. “Don’t come back.”

I was behind the house before five. If anyone else showed up, I’d know. And I’d had Clipper’s crew in place half an hour before I’d called Kevin. Not perfect, but the best I could manage.

In Portland, anyway.

I watched the mother’s Mercedes sedan pull out at seven-twenty. Good enough. I made my move through the backyards, quick and flitty, now that it was light. Found the Subaru where I’d left it, got in. I made a couple of quick passes before I pulled up just past the driveway and reversed my way into the garage.

He was standing in the open door, one hand on the jamb. I couldn’t see that close, but I knew his knuckles would be white.

I got out just as he sent the garage door down. I went behind the Subaru and came toward him.

“Where’s—?”

“I’ve got what you really want,” I told him, holding up the leather-bound notebook Rosebud had given me.

He went into shock. More than enough time for me to get the Browning pointed at him. That worked better than smelling salts.

“No!” he shouted. “I can—”

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “This is just in case you’ve got any friends with you.”

“I told you. I’m alone.”

“Let’s go into your office.”

He turned and started up the stairs, glancing back over his shoulder. Not at the pistol, at the notebook. I could have walked him through the house at gunpoint, made sure he really was alone. But the risk was too great that I’d get jumped from behind if I did that. I’d rather keep the high ground, let them come through Kevin if they wanted me.

“Sit down,” I told him, pointing to a chair with its back to one side of the door. I took a seat, too, facing the opening.

“Look, whatever you—”

“I’ll tell you what I want. And it’ll be very simple for you, Kevin. A man like you, you already made all your choices. A long time ago.”

He looked down at the floor. “How did you . . . ?”

“You weren’t careful about the money, Kevin. You figured you were working for Uncle Sam, who was going to bother you about unreported income, right?”

“They said—”

“They’ll say anything, Kevin. You should know that, better than most.”

“But they promised—”

“Sure. Your daughter went missing. And not for any of the usual reasons. You wanted her back. Bad. You wouldn’t have come to a man like me if you much cared how it got done, either. But I misjudged you, Kevin. I thought it was all about . . . something else.”

“I don’t—”

“I thought you’d been fucking your own daughter, Kevin. And that Daisy was next.”