Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“Yes, quite well. You are saying, if I don’t give you information you want, you will kill me.”

“That’s cute. You got enough for your tape recorder now? I’m not threatening you. Not with anything. I’m just trying to tell you something. And you should listen. Listen good. Maybe you don’t want this on tape.”

He steepled his long fingers, regarding me over the top of the spire. I counted to twenty in my head before he moved a muscle. He got to his feet languidly, tapped the computer keys again. Then he sat down, waiting .

“This is the truth, okay?” I told him. “You don’t have friends in high places. Not true friends. What you are is an asset, something of value. Everybody protects what they value. You know that good as anyone. Let’s say you have this valuable painting. Somebody steals it, you try and buy it back. But if there’s a fire, and it gets burned to ashes, all you can do is collect on the insurance. The Israelis can only protect you from the federales. They got no reach with the locals. What I have for you, it’s another barrier. Another layer of protection. Something you can’t get from your other friends.”

He raised his eyebrows, didn’t say a word .

I reached in my pocket, handed him an orange piece of pasteboard, about the size of a business card. He turned it over, held it up: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“It’s not a joke. You got a lawyer, right? Probably got a few of them. Have your lawyer go over to City-Wide, speak to Wolfe—you know who she is?”

“Yes.”

“See if I’m telling the truth, then.”

“I would get …?”

“Immunity. Kiddie porn’s the only way you’re ever going down, right? The only real risk you take. You’re not going to get stung by Customs. And you don’t deal with strangers. So the only way it could ever happen is somebody drops a dime to save their own ass, and City-Wide does the search.”

“There is nothing here.”

I pitched my voice low, let him hear how deep the commitment really was: “You’re looking at the big picture, pal. And that’s a mistake. What you should be looking at is the frame, see?”

He took a breath. Small, cold eyes on mine. “You couldn’t deliver,” he said quietly. “We know about Wolfe. People have … talked to her before. She’s not amenable to … whatever you propose.”

“Have your lawyer talk to her again. Do it first, before you do anything for me, okay? I’ll tell you what I want, tell you right now, in this room. Just listen—I guarantee you it won’t be against you or your people. Give me a couple of days, have your lawyer go see her, all right? Nothing’s changed, you don’t have to do a thing. You decide, okay?”

He steepled his fingers again. I counted in my head. “Tell me what you want,” he said .

I lit a smoke, centering. I’d only get one shot. “We both know how it works, you and me. Child molesters …”

His thin lips parted. I held up my hand in a “Stop!” gesture, going on before he could speak. “I’m not talking about your people now. There are people who molest children, right? I’m talking about rape. Sodomy. Hard, stick-it sex. It happens. Don’t go weak on me, now. I know what you do—I know what you told me. I could play it back for you, word for word. The kids you’re involved with, it’s love, right? There’s always true consent—you wouldn’t do a thing without it. I remember what you said. You’re a mentor, not a rapist. Listen good. I’m separating you now. Those people who say child sexual abuse is a myth—we know better, you and me. I’m not saying you do it—I’m saying it gets done. People do it, right?”

“Savages do it.”

“Right. Fathers rape their daughters, that’s no fantasy. Humans torture kids, make films of it, it’s not a myth.”

“And you think we’re all the same, you think—”

“No,” I said, eyes open and clear, calling on a childhood of treachery for the effortless lying that they made second nature to me before I was eight. “What you do, people could argue about it, but I know you love children. Maybe I don’t agree with it, but I’m not a cop. It’s not my job. It’s the baby-rapers who make your life hell, isn’t that true? You love children. You’d be as angry about torturing them as anybody else would. Even if the laws changed, even if they eliminated the age thing, made it so a kid could consent to sex, then they’d be like adults, right? And rape is rape.”

“Society calls it rape when—”

“I’m not talking about statutory rape, here. Listen close. Stand up to it now. I’m talking about black-glove, hand-over-the-mouth, knifepoint rape. Blood, not Vaseline. Pain. Screaming, life-scarring pain. A little boy ripped open, maybe one of your little boys … you like that picture?”

“Stop it! Stop it, you—”

I dragged deep on my cigarette, staying inside. “That’s what I want to do—stop it. That’s what you’ve got to do. Help me.”

“I …”

“You know. You know it happens. They did it to my client. A little boy. They split him open like a ripe melon. He’s a basket case. And they videotaped it. A group. An organized group. Satanists, they call themselves, but we know what that’s about, don’t we?”

“I don’t deal with …” His voice faded away, sweat streaking his high forehead, tendons cabling his hands, veins like wires along his throat .

“I know you don’t,” I finished for him. “You wouldn’t do anything like that. Or your people. I know.” I spooled velvet over him, a cop telling a rapist he understands.… Those dirty cunts, displaying themselves, wiggling like a bitch in heat, fucking begging for it, right? Men like us, we understand each other. “But freaks like that, they have to be stopped. They bring heat, and heat brings light, you know what I’m saying? You know what I do. But it’s been years, and I’ve never made trouble for you, right? So help me now. ”

“How could I—?”

“The computer. They raped that little boy to make a commercial product. Not like your icons—not to remember a boy as he was—pictures to sell. The kid was a product, and they need a market. They’ll be on the board somewhere. You could find them. Your friends could find them. That’s all I want.”

“And …”

“And, one day, if you should happen to slip yourself, Wolfe will make sure you don’t fall.”

He searched the pockets of his robe. Found a black silk handkerchief, patted his face dry, deciding. I waited, watching the dice tumble across the green felt in my mind .

Finally, he looked up. “Tell me what you have so far.”

“Leave him alone!” Gem’s voice. From somewhere outside … me.

I shook my head. It wouldn’t clear. My eyes wouldn’t open, or I’d gone blind. But then my mind started to clear, and I realized my body would catch up—I’d been down there before. I concentrated on staying quiet, letting the air in my lungs bring me to the surface.

They were all standing around me in a loose semicircle. Only Lune hadn’t moved.

I took deep breaths through my nose, coming the rest of the way back.

Everyone watching could see it happening. Maybe they knew what they were seeing, maybe not. Maybe some of them had been there, too.