Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“That’s not a short list,” I said.

“Might be a real short list, we can get alone with those Russians for a few minutes.”

“I don’t think Anton—the guy who took over from Dmitri—I don’t think he was lying.”

“These people must be registered,” Clarence said, suddenly.

“What?”

“Immigration, mahn. I know about this. I do not know how much truth there is in what you were told, but, if they were from another country, they would not be citizens so easily. They could move, but they would have to notify …”

I exchanged a look with Mama. She nodded.

I thought about it later, watching alone as the gray dawn drove off the black night. I knew the best info-trafficker in the City. And what I had to do.

“A public place is the safest,” Wolfe said over the phone, unaware she was echoing me from … before it happened.

“Safer for who?” I asked her, trying to reach across the barrier I’d built between us.

“Me,” she said, flat.

“You think that …? You think I’d ever …?”

“What’re you saying to me?” she challenged. “That I know better, right? That I know you?”

“I thought you did.”

“So did I,” she told me.

After so many years of wanting to be with her, I’d finally … had a chance, is the best way I could put it.

When you come to a fork in the road, you’re supposed to stop and consider your choices. Me, I never even checked for oncoming traffic.

I’d had a chance. A real one, not some convict’s fantasy. Whenever there’s a choice, there’s a chance. You know how men are always fearing they’re getting past it, that they won’t be able to do the things they once did? Not me. I wish I had been past it. Wish I’d changed.

But I’d gone right back to my old ways with that Albanian arms deal. Then blood came up. Pansy’s blood. And it filled my eyes until I went blind.

I might have gotten Wolfe to listen about the guns. Maybe. Plenty of citizens here thought we should have been arming the Kosovars. But it was just a matter of time before her wires dipped deep enough into the whisper-stream to pick up on who did Dmitri right in his own joint.

When I’d killed Dmitri, I’d done the same thing to my chance with Wolfe.

It’s harder to spot tags in bad weather. You see a guy behind you wearing a ski mask in July, you don’t have to be a CIA agent to know something’s off. But with the sleet coming down New York–style—cold, dirty, and crooked—everybody was bundled up.

I docked the yellow cab, watchfully. The cab stand was empty—weather like this, every hackster in the city was out there scoring. I rent a cab whenever I need to move around invisibly. For years, I had a deal with a dispatcher for a fleet. He’d pull a cab out of service, let me use it for a shift. I’d pay him for the use of the cab, and give him whatever I put on the meter, too. It would go on the books like he was driving himself that day, and we were both happy.

But the fleets are just about gone now. What you have is individual owners or mini-fleets—two cabs and up. TLC medallions are limited, and they go for a fortune when they’re auctioned off. The only way to buy one is to finance it through a broker, and the new owners have to keep their cabs in motion around the clock to make the payments. So what they usually do is drive one shift themselves, then rent their cab out for the others. It’s called a horse-hire. The renter pays a flat fee, keeps whatever he pulls in.

It’s a gamble, especially since the renter pays for his own gas, too. Some of them cut the odds with removable meter chips—reprogrammed to click off extra mileage—but most of them work seven days, never stopping, urinating into plastic soda-bottles, eating while driving, saving every dime … so they can buy one of those precious medallions for themselves. Midtown Manhattan is cab-clogged all the time. But try to find one in Brooklyn, or get one to take you to Queens. Even if you’re white.

But I never have a problem getting one of the horse-hire guys to take two fifty cash for a shift. He wouldn’t book that much profit on his own, and he can have a day off with pay. I’ve got a valid hack license—the only thing fake about the plastic dash-placard is the name. And Clarence had picked up cabs for me before, so the guy I was renting from wouldn’t have to get all nervous at my new face.

It was four blocks to where I had to meet Wolfe. I had a half-hour to cover the ground. If anyone was following me, they were better than I was.

Wesley taught me there’s no such thing as a dead man. Only bodies go into the ground. If you leave footprints deep enough, you’re still around.

Long after Wesley died, a kidnapper-killer came on the scene. A creature so rational from emotion-stripping that he went lunar from it. He knew the secret. He had Wesley’s ice in him. So deep he thought he could take over. Be Wesley.

I was in the middle of that. And, at the end, the only one left standing.

That was when Wolfe told me I had the choice. I could … maybe … be with her. All I had to do was find out. Was it me I had to change, or just my ways?

It turned out to be me. And I couldn’t do it.

She was sitting in the back corner, at a table by herself. It was one of those places where you order your meal at a counter, then carry it over to any empty spot. I saw she had a mug of something in front of her, so I stopped and got myself a hot chocolate. Then I walked over to her. Slow. Making sure she picked up on my approach.

“It’s me,” I said. Same way I’d introduced myself during our last phone call, relying on her knowing my voice.

“I know,” she replied, motioning with her head for me to sit down.

She looked the same. Long lustrous hair flowing like a mane, red-tinged brunette except for two white wings flaring back from the temples. Pale gunfighter’s eyes. A soft sweet mouth, now drawn flat.

“I know I must look—”

“You look the same to me,” she said. I knew it was the truth. Real women, they don’t see with their eyes, the way men do. Good damn thing, or I’d still be a virgin.

“It didn’t happen the way you heard,” I told her, keeping my voice soft, watching her eyes.

She didn’t look away. “How do you know what I heard?”

“I don’t … exactly. But I know you think I …”

“And you didn’t?”

“That part is true. But it wasn’t like you think.”

“You keep telling me what I heard, what I think.… Why don’t you just say whatever you have to say?”

“I had a job. A kid had been snatched, and the people who had him wanted to return him. For cash. I was supposed to be the transfer-man.”

“What does that have to do with—?”

“Let me finish, all right? You wanted me to say it, I will. This isn’t bullshit; it’s background.”

She nodded slowly. Didn’t say anything more.

“The guy who set the whole thing up was … the guy who got himself killed.”

“And you didn’t—?”

I cut her off with a stare. She held it just long enough to show me she wasn’t intimidated, then nodded again. That’s when I saw Pepper out of the corner of my eye, reading Variety at a table off to the side. Pepper works with Wolfe. Her citizen job is being an actress, but she’s part of the network, has been for a long time. And if Pepper was around, her man, Mick, wouldn’t be far away. Wolfe met me without backup plenty of times. I could see those days were over.

“This … guy, he was the only one I dealt with. I went to the meet wrapped so heavy I could barely walk. It was out in Hunts Point. I had cover, but they had to hang back. The kid—well, a kid, anyway—he stepped out of the car and blasted me. No warning, no conversation. He came out shooting. It wasn’t a swap; it was a hit. And I was the target.”