Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“Recognize it?” Byron asked, banking low over a string-of-jewels city.

“No.”

“Seattle.”

“Not Portland?”

“You come up from L.A., you come down from Seattle, see?”

“But how far is …?”

“Couple of hours. Don’t worry, I got you covered.”

“These things hard to drive?” I asked Byron.

“Not really, so long as you know the limitations. A stretch limo’s just a regular sedan with a reinforced section let into the chassis. You’re adding a ton—no exaggeration—to the unsprung weight, so you’ve got a major inertia problem. A car like this, it won’t pull a lot of g’s on a skidpad, and the stopping distances are much longer than normal. But you stay within its envelope, it’s no problem.”

“This belong to the studio, too?”

“Yep. Seattle was the closest place to Portland where the studio has a presence.”

“You’re fobbing it off, but I know you’ve got to be risking your job, Byron.”

“For borrowing their toys? I’ve been with the studio a long time. Piloted the planes, drove the cars. I’ve seen a lot, and never said a word. No, I wouldn’t guess they’d try to move me out.”

“You ever borrow their stuff before?”

“All the time. I was deeply involved with a man in Denver for a long while. Flew up to see him a lot.”

“It still has to be a risk. I appreciate it.”

“Burke, listen to me, okay? I’ve got a good memory. I’m a man. I pay my debts.”

“Fair enough.”

“You think they hired a black queer just because he could fly a plane?”

“Yeah, I did. The way I figured, it’s just like it was over there: anyone who didn’t want to fly with a certain pilot, they didn’t like his color or his … anything, they could stay on the fucking ground.”

“They were going to leave me on that fucking ground, Burke.”

“Not because of anything about you. They were in a panic, trying to be hard guys, cut their losses.”

“Maybe you’re right. But it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead. If I hadn’t gotten on that plane, it would have been a slow death on the ground.”

“Yeah, well …”

“Anyway,” he said, expertly sliding the huge limo around a slow-moving pickup truck, “you never answered my question, so I’ll answer it for you. They hired me for what is euphemistically called ‘executive protection.’ You understand what I’m telling you?”

“You’re a bodyguard, too?”

“Licensed to carry,” he said, pulling the lapel away from his jacket with his left hand to show me the shoulder holster. “And to clean up the messes they make.”

“So they’re not going to fire you.”

“They’re not going to fire me,” he confirmed, voice soft. “I know where the bodies are buried.” Meaning: he’d buried some of them himself.

“I got it,” I told him.

“And I figure,” he went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “whatever it is you’re doing, you can tell me as much about it as you want. Or nothing, if that’s what you want. But if what you want is cover, I can’t think of a better one than this. Anyone runs these plates, they come right back to the studio. You look … I don’t have the words for it, exactly. Not exactly cool or hip or anything like that, but edgy enough so it’d work, no problem. Truth is, all you have to say is that you’re in the business, with a studio connect, and doors will open. Legs, too. Anything you want. This whole country is psycho for the movies. What do you say?”

“I was going to low-profile it.”

“Look, Burke, just stop me if I’m over the line here, okay? Michelle didn’t tell me much. If you’re here to do some work on someone, I’m your man.”

“It’s not that. The people I’m looking for, they have information I need.”

“Information about whoever tried to make you dead?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Let’s see how it plays.”

“Didn’t we just pass the exit for Vancouver?” I asked.

“We did. But unless you’re planning to make your move at three in the morning, our move is to keep going, take the bridge to Portland, hole up for a few hours.”

“You have a place there?”

“Not me. But—”

“—the studio?”

“Right. The Governor. Best hotel in town. And they got suites built on the roof now; every one’s got a patio.”

“With an awning?”

“Don’t believe that stuff about it raining all the time up here. I mean, it does rain, but it’s not a steady downpour or anything.”

“What about the check-in?”

“This is the studio , partner. They don’t even have to see you, you don’t want. And I can sign you in as Mr. X, they won’t even blink. I assume you’ve got a change of clothes in that bag.”

“Yep.”

“Carrying anything else?”

“In my bag,” I said.

“Works for me,” he said, guiding the limo over the bridge to Portland.

An hour past sunup, we went back the way we’d come. It only took us a few minutes to get across the bridge and back into Vancouver. Byron had a street map. It was easy to locate the address. But as soon as I saw the block, I knew I’d used up my luck for the day. The address was for one of those commercial mailbox joints. The “suite” number I’d taken from the labels was just a rental box.

“Fuck!” I said, softly.

“Let me scope out the place,” Byron said. He didn’t wait for my response.

I watched him cross the street and open the door to the mailbox place. Then I shifted position so I could scan the area, and settled down to wait.

It wasn’t long. “It’s a real small operation,” he said, getting back behind the wheel. “Maybe four hundred boxes, all against the left-hand wall as you walk in. No windows in the boxes. Everyone has their own key. I figure the way they make their money is taking FedEx, UPS, stuff like that. Tack a couple of bucks onto the regular price, save the customer a lot of running around.”

“No way to lurk, right?”

“No way at all. I asked the woman behind the counter about prices and stuff, like I wanted to rent a box. There was only one guy in there, getting his mail. It’s empty—no chairs, just a flat table like they have in the post office. You don’t have business in there, they’d spot you in a second.”

“Damn.”

Byron didn’t need a translator. “You want to try some cash?” he asked.

“No. It’d be like putting all your money on a real long shot. If whoever we try to juice dimes us, the targets might spook and run.”

“You got pictures?”

“No. Just names.”

“Hmmm … We need something like the bang-dye the banks put in money bags when they’re being robbed.”

I didn’t say anything, accepting that Byron had dealt himself in, letting my mind drift over the problem. A dozen different people went in and out in the next fifteen minutes. A lot of traffic, but no surprise. The Post Office will rent you a box, but they won’t sign for FedEx, and you can’t give them a call and ask if a certain letter came in for you. A lot of small businesses use these places as their regular address.

“Let’s go,” I finally told him. “This limo might be just the thing at a nightclub, but it sticks out here big-time.”

“Okay. What’s our next move?”

“I think I’ve got a way to put that bang-dye in their bag.”

“You know someone who speaks Russian, Mama?”

“Sure. Plenty people speak.”

“You know somebody out here?”

“West Coast?”

“Yeah. Portland area would be best.”

“Find out, okay? I call tomorrow, same time, okay?”

“Okay.”

I stayed in the hotel all day, curtains drawn over the windows,