Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“This is Brick,” Byron said to us.

“My name is Gem,” she said, holding out her hand.

He shook it.

“Burke,” I told him. And he did the same. His grip was soft and dry. Contact, not pressure—no transmissions. I couldn’t make out all his features, but he had a high forehead and a squarish jaw.

He took some photographs out of a manila envelope I hadn’t noticed in his hand. “These two surfaced at oh-six-twenty-two,” he said. “Just before first light. They came in a pickup, a Ford F150 with California tags.” He read the license number to Byron.

“There goes the budget,” Byron said.

“Shouldn’t take as long as you might think,” Brick replied. “Their truck was one of those ‘Lightning’ jobs—couldn’t miss it, even from a distance. They were real limited production. Can’t be that many of them running around.”

He handed the photos to me, together with a pocket flash. “These are from a digital camera, downloaded and printed. The detail is very good, but you’ll need to blow them up anyway.”

“Try this,” Byron said, taking the flash from me and handing over a rectangular magnifying glass. He trained the light where I was looking. Skinheads. In jackets—one leather, the other denim—and T-shirts. The photos showed them standing next to their truck; walking toward the Russians’ house; returning. The last two shots were close-ups. Even under the low-light conditions, the clarity was better than the average mug shot—I’d know either of them again. And they weren’t from the same crew as the plaza. These two were a decade, if not a generation, older.

I handed the photographs to Gem. Brick took the flash from Byron and held it for her while she checked for herself.

“These men were not the ones who—”

“They’re not,” I agreed with her. Then I asked Brick, “Are they known to—?”

“Have to wait on positive IDs for that.”

“Can you do it from these photos?”

“Possibly. It’s all on digital, and we’ve got programs that can work miracles with the pixels. But there’s a better option. I creeped their truck while they were inside the house. Got some really excellent lifts. Too many, in fact. So it will take a while, run all the elims. But if they’re in the computer banks, we should be able to pull them up.”

“That was slick,” I complimented him.

“Brick is James-fucking-Bond,” Byron said proudly. “They’ll never know anyone was there, either.”

“Why would skinheads—?” Gem asked.

“There’s all kinds of skinheads,” I told her. “We won’t know until …”

“… some of the lines tighten,” Byron finished for me.

When the Chrysler pulled out of the garage on Brick’s signal,

I was at the wheel, Gem sitting next to me. Byron stayed with Brick, saying they both had work to do.

“Makes me feel … useless,” I told Gem.

“Because you cannot go with them?”

“Not go with them, go somewhere . Do something , you know?”

“Yes.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, turning left onto Burnside, thinking how Portland’s street grid was pretty easy to navigate.

“I have work to do.”

“Oh. You mean you have to go back to—”

“No. Work to do here. As I told you from the beginning. But I have … neglected it, somewhat. And I must devote myself to it for … a while now.”

“No problem.”

“You are not … concerned?”

“I don’t know how you mean the word, little girl. Worried about you, what you’re into? Or nosy about stuff that’s none of my business?”

“The first.”

“You speak, what, a half-dozen damn languages? You know at least that many ways to kill a man. Your IQ’s off the charts. You survived what a couple of million people didn’t … and that was when you were a little kid. It would be … I don’t know … disrespectful to worry about you.”

“But you call me ‘little girl.’ How does that square with what you just said?”

“It’s just a … Did I insult you? If I did, I’m sorry. For me, it’s a term of affection. Like … ‘honey’ or something.”

“My language skills are not as complete as you appear to believe, Burke. But it does not seem the same.”

“The same as … what?”

“ ‘Honey’ might be what you call a waitress.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I do not believe you would. I expressed it incorrectly. Let me try it from the other end. ‘Little girl.’ If it was in my language, and I had to translate it into English, it would come out as … ‘cherished.’ Does that make sense?”

“Yes.”

“So you …?”

“I don’t know. It’s just an expression.”

“It is not just an expression,” she said, gravely. “And you do know.”

When we got back to the hotel, Gem ate one of her megameals, then announced she needed a nap.

The message light was flashing on the phone. The voice-mail system told me I had one message. When I retrieved it, all I got was the sound of fingers snapping, once.

From Max. Call Mama.

I switched fresh batteries into the cellular, put the old ones on recharge, then used the hotel phone to start the relay.

Nothing to do but wait, so I lay back on the couch and watched CNN with the sound off, reading the pop-up screens and practicing my lip-reading when one of the anchors came on.

The buzzing of the cellular brought me around—must have drifted off.

“Cop come,” Mama said.

“One cop?”

“Yes. You know him. Come here, many times.”

That wasn’t as clear as it sounded. A whole lot of professions fit “cop” in Mama’s vocabulary.

“Spanish guy? Cheap suit? Small eyes? Hard man?” I asked, not wanting to say a name on the phone.

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“Thumbprint.”

“I don’t—”

“Want your thumbprint. Come back tonight.”

“But the cops’ve got all the—”

“From … surface. Say want to ‘lift’ …”

“He say why?”

“No.”

“Mama, you have …?”

“Sure. Have your old—”

“Okay. Do it.”

“You want Max?”

“Not yet. I don’t know anything yet.”

“But soon, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

It was dark by the time Gem came out of her room. She was wearing a black silk sheath with a mandarin collar, the black spikes with ankle straps over sheer stockings, hair flowing loose, carrying a small black patent-leather clutch bag. Not a trace of color besides black, except her skin.

“I cannot be certain when I will return,” she said, bending at the waist to kiss me softly on my neck.

“You have the cell number …?”

“Yes.”

“Look, I’m not doing anything now. Just waiting around. I could come along—”

“No, thank you,” she said, formally.

“I wouldn’t cramp your style or anything. Couldn’t I just be the … driver, or something?”

“It would be a mistake. Fear is a mistake.”

“I’m not—”

“You do not understand. Either the … people I must meet might think I was afraid of them. Or worse.”

“Worse?”

“Or they would be afraid of you,” she said.

I watched daylight break the next morning. I used to do that a lot, before. Different now. No Hudson River off in the distance. No cigarette in my hand. No … Pansy next to me. The window in my head opened. And the sky behind it was splattered with red.

I closed my eyes so hard the corners hurt. Impaled on my own truth. Wishing I’d bought some of the religion one of the foster homes had tried so viciously to beat into me. I tried to see my Pansy in some dog heaven. Lying on her sheepskin rug, gnawing on a rawhide bone, watching a boxing match on TV with me. Safe and happy. Doing her job. Loved.