Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“I don’t know who you spoke to, but I’m the man who—”

“The man from New York?” she asked, her eyes deliberately glancing down to my right hand, where the fat emerald on my pinky finger sparkled in the sun. Mama’s ID.

“Yes.”

“You need someone who speaks Russian?”

“And writes it. Like a native.”

“Yes. For how long?”

“I don’t … Oh, right—you mean, how long will I need your services?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t say, exactly. I want you to write a letter. Then I want you to meet the people you are writing the letter to. And talk with them.”

“Where would this be?”

“Vancouver. Near—”

“I know where it is. You came from there?”

“Yes.”

“I would go back with you, is that correct?” Her voice was precise, unaccented. Soft.

“You don’t have to. The letter you write, it will say you will meet them in Portland … so there would be at least a week between the letter and the time you go into action. You could write the letter here—I brought everything you would need with me—and come up to Portland on whatever date we pick.”

“A week would be all right. I have business in Portland. You will cover my lodging and meals while I’m there, is that fair enough?”

“Sure.”

“You must have a car …?”

“Right over there,” I told her, pointing to the Subaru.

She took a long, slow look at the car, making it clear she saw Byron in the driver’s seat.

“Perhaps you should tell me a little more, first.”

“Like what?”

“Who told you where to find me?”

“Look, the only person I dealt with is Mama. I don’t know who she—”

“Mrs. Wong is your mother?”

“Not my biological mother. It’s a term of respect. Everyone … close to her calls her that.”

“Ah. I do not know her, not personally. But the people I deal with, the people who I get my jobs from, they know her.”

“Since they know her, why don’t you—?”

“Yes. All right. Give me twenty minutes, please.”

“She’s a pro,” Byron said to me as the woman approached the Subaru, pulling one of those airline-size suitcases on wheels behind her.

“Why do you say?”

“No way a girl like her packs in fifteen minutes. She had the suitcase stashed somewhere, ready to roll.”

I got out of the car, opened the little trunk. She retracted the pulling handle, picked up the suitcase with one hand and gave it to me. It was twice the weight I expected.

I closed the trunk, opened the passenger door, and started to climb in the back seat.

“May I ride back there, please?” she said. “I will fit much better than you would.”

“That’s okay.”

“I insist,” she said, not smiling.

I found the ratchet on the side of the seat, slid the backrest forward, and stood aside for her to climb in. She studied the back seat for a few seconds, then spun around gracefully and dropped down without a glance or a handhold.

“This is Byron,” I told her. “Byron, this is Gem.”

They each made polite noises. Byron started the engine, shoved the gearshift forward, and we were off.

The Subaru was loud—the combination of a high-stress engine and soundproofing sacrificed for lighter weight. After a while, it felt like being inside a small plane.

“You can stay at the—” I began, turning as I spoke so I could engage her, start a little connect between us.

She was curled up in the back, asleep.

“Do you live in Portland now?” she asked, startling me out of wherever I’d gone in my mind.

She was sitting up in the back seat, hands in her lap, leaning forward so her face was close to mine. She smelled of jade and ocean.

“No,” I said, rotating my head on my neck, hearing the sharp little cracks as the adhesions blew out. “We’re just in town for this … assignment.”

“You have hotel rooms, then?”

“Yes.”

“Together?”

“No.”

“I would prefer not to be registered anywhere,” she said, shifting her focus to Byron. “May I stay in your room?”

“I’m going to have company tonight,” Byron told her. “At least, I sure hope I will. Burke’s got a whole suite. Two bedrooms.”

“Would that be all right with you?” she asked.

“It would be fine,” I said, wondering why she’d asked Byron first. Keeping the question to myself.

Byron dropped us off at the back entrance on Eleventh Street.

We took an elevator to the top floor without having to go anywhere near the front desk.

“This is it,” I said, opening the door to the suite. I gave her one of the plastic slot-cards most hotels use instead of keys now. “This will get you in and out whenever you want.”

“Thank you.”

“That one’s empty,” I said, pointing toward the second bedroom. “Do you want me to—?”

“I will be fine,” she said, taking the suitcase from me and walking into the bedroom.

I went into my own bedroom, closed the door, undressed, and took a long, hot shower. After putting on fresh clothes, I went out to the living room. Gem was seated delicately on the couch, a laptop computer open at her side.

“If you want to tell me about it, I can tailor my work more properly,” she said.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You want a note written in Russian, is that not correct?”

“Yes.”

“There are several translation programs,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of the laptop. “They are technically adequate, but they have no feel for the idiom. Anyone with high language skills or native fluency could detect the use of software. So, if you need authenticity, especially if you require a certain persona—an elderly lady, a young man, a business person, a …” She looked directly into my face, her eyes so dark I couldn’t see a separate pupil. “… a soldier—the programs would be inadequate. Certain kinds of … messages would never be in a person’s handwriting. In such cases, a mechanical device of some kind would always be used.”

“I understand,” I said, wondering how many ransom notes she’d typed in her young life.

“Yes? Then you must decide how much you wish to tell me.”

“I have to make a call first.”

“Of course,” she said, curling her sleek legs under her and pulling the computer into her lap.

It took a few hours for the cell-phone relay to connect. Finally, I got Mama on the line.

“Mama, I need to know: how far can I trust this woman? You said you didn’t know her.”

“Not know her. She know me.”

Meaning: Gem knew her by more than mere reputation—she knew people who knew Mama personally. And what Mama was capable of.

“Is that enough?”

“She make call, earlier. Ask about you, why you call me ‘Mama.’ ”

“She called you?”

“No. Call friend. Pao.”

“She’s Cambodian, then?”

“Yes, Cambodian. All same with Pao. This girl, Gem, Pao call her ‘Angkat.’ Girl easy to find. Anytime. No problem. What you tell girl, she not tell anyone, okay?”

“Okay, Mama. Thanks.”

“Watch everyone,” she said. And hung up.

Pao was a Cambodian woman who ran a network like Mama’s. I’d only met her once, at the restaurant. I couldn’t begin to guess her age, any more than I could Mama’s, but I knew they went way back. Mama had told me “easy to find.” Meaning, if Gem double-crossed me, there’d be no place for her to hide … and she’d know it.

When I went back into the living room, she was still on the couch, as if I’d been gone minutes instead of hours. I sat down in the armchair and said, “Do you want to hear the story?”

She got up without using her hands, like smoke rising from a cigarette. She took a couple of steps toward me, then dropped to her knees, clasped her hands, looked up at me expectantly.