Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“Not ‘we,’ partner. Me. I have a … friend. A very close friend. One that I can trust. All he knows is we’re going to do a box tail.”

“Does he know how to—?”

“Better than me,” Byron said, pride in his voice. “He’s a spook.”

CIA? Did they have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” like the Army? And did anyone actually believe that bullshit? I let it go. A man who could hide from his own employers could certainly handle his end of a box tail.

“They’re going to be edgy,” I warned them both.

“Then we shall be calm,” Gem replied.

“You’re going to have to improv,” I said to her. “It really doesn’t matter so much what you say. You’re only there to give information. Sent by a friend. A friend you never met—a friend of theirs , see? You’re just the messenger.”

“Yes.”

“Whatever you do, no matter what kind of opening they give you, don’t ask any questions. They’ll be looking for that.”

“I understand.”

“Something else is happening. Something besides me. These people disappeared a while ago. Put some very complicated systems in place, must have been planning it for a while. And they can’t be earning money legit; not in their professions, anyway. I saw their setup in Chicago. Expensive. Real expensive to maintain, the way they’re doing it. Heavy front, heavy cost. It’s a tightrope. We have to make them nervous enough to contact whoever set me up. But not panic them into running.”

“What good will that do?” Byron asked. “There’s a million ways for them to contact their principal, if that’s what this is. Phone, fax, e-mail, telegram, FedEx, UPS, carrier pigeon … you name it. No way we can put a trap on all that.”

“All this money, all this planning … Whoever wanted me dead isn’t someone they can just call on the phone. They’ve got other things going. So they’ll have cutouts in place.”

“So you figure … the Russians reach out, it takes a while for whoever it is to get back to them.”

“Yep.”

“And we’ll be waiting, right?”

“Watching.”

“For what?” Byron asked.

“Fear is a communicable disease,” I told them both. “Whatever makes them afraid, they’re going to run to the people who put them in the jackpot, looking for answers. But, see, whoever put them there, they’ll have to wonder, too. The wheels come off, you know the car’s going to crash … but you don’t know where it’s going to hit.”

“So you believe these … people, whoever they are, they will come to reassure the Russians?” Gem asked.

“Or to reassure themselves.”

“You think …?” Byron lifted an eyebrow.

“This was about murder, going in,” I reminded him.

“So if they come to cut their losses …”

I nodded. Saw Gem out of the corner of my eye, doing the same.

It was raining when we got up the next morning, but the sun made its move before noon, and pressed its advantage once it got the upper hand. By one o’clock, it was almost seventy degrees on the street.

I’d been in the plaza for a couple of hours, making sure I had the bench I wanted. Byron was in position somewhere on the side opposite where I was, aimed the right way to exit quickly. I couldn’t see the car he’d gotten for the job, but I knew it would be something bland. Maybe not as anonymous as his friend—the one whose name he hadn’t yet mentioned—but close.

Gem would be walking toward the meet from somewhere within a half-mile radius, taking her time, the red coat neatly folded into her backpack.

I wasn’t wearing a watch—it wouldn’t have worked with my ensemble: Basic American Homeless. Stretched out on one of the benches, newspapers for a mattress, all my belongings in a rusty shopping cart, a big garbage bag full of recyclable plastic bottles next to me—the sorry harvest I’d turn into cash when the twisted wiring inside my mush brain told me to.

The clock on a nearby building read 1:54. If the Russians had come early, they were masters of disguise.

Gem strolled into the plaza, found herself an empty bench at an angle to where I was stretched out. She took out her red coat and shrugged into it before she sat down. Then she pulled out a thick paperback with a white cover and purple lettering. I’d seen it in her room: The Thief , some heavy Russian novel. She put a notebook to her left and cracked the novel open on her lap. She looked like a college girl, settling down for a long haul on her assignment.

I watched her through slitted eyes under the brim of a once-green John Deere gimme cap. She never looked up from the book. Three skinheads entered the plaza and draped themselves on the sitting-steps, clearing out the section they occupied as if their very presence was a natural repellent. Jeans, stomping boots, white sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off. Too far for me to read the tattoos, but I figured it was the usual Nazi mulch. They looked everyplace but at Gem.

Not good.

A man approached Gem. He was medium-height, with pepper-and-salt hair. Impossible to tell his build under the black topcoat he wore. They exchanged some words, and he sat down on her right. I was so focused in on them that I didn’t pick up the woman until she was only a few feet away. She plucked Gem’s notebook from the bench, handed it to her, and sat down in its place. Good technique—whenever Gem had to speak or listen to one of them, her back would be to the other.

I shifted my gaze to the skinheads. They were quiet, content to glare at anyone passing by, not talking among themselves.

The male Russian was talking and gesturing at the same time, intense. The female was still.

I couldn’t see Byron. Couldn’t tell if he’d scoped the skinheads.

Gem spread her hands in an “It beats me!” gesture. The Russian male pointed a finger at her face. She spread her hands again.

Suddenly, both Russians got up and walked away. Gem didn’t look in their direction, just opened her book again, eyes down.

The skinheads slowly got to their feet, spread out, and started for Gem, their boots scraping on the concrete.

She stood up quickly, dropping the book.

I yelled “Hey!” and staggered off the bench, cutting them off.

They whirled toward me. Kids. Seeing another homeless man, probably wishing they had their squeeze bottles of gasoline with them. Veterans of a hundred street-stompings of color-coded victims. They were lazy and confident—a pack of garbage-dump bears, their predatory skills lost to Welfare. The leader swept a brass-knuckled backhand at my face. I slipped it, snapped my wrist. The heavy bicycle chain I had up my sleeve popped out. I went with its momentum, whipping the links across his knees. He went down, screaming something. The guy next to him spun to face me, thumbing the blade on his knife open, shouting, “Get the lemon nigger!” to the one still standing.

I backed off, engaging, pulling him to me, away from Gem. He made a couple of underhanded swipes with the blade, but never got within three feet, nervous about the chain.

“Fuck!” I heard the third one shout, but I didn’t look over there. The guy with the knife did, turning his head just enough for me to get in with the chain. The knife clattered on the ground. The first one got to his feet, favoring one leg. I turned quickly. The guy who’d run over to Gem was sitting on the ground, holding his shoulder. The red coat was gone.

I took off, flying. Ran three blocks, dodging traffic. When I felt my breath get short, I stopped, turned to face them while I still had something left.

But they were nowhere in sight.

I shed the heavy overcoat in an alley Dumpster, along with the John Deere cap. And the chain. Then I wandered through two bookstores, a coffee shop, and a Native American crafts store, pumping some time into the mixture in case they had phone contact with others in the area.