Andrew Vachss - Safe House

“Yes,” she said, annoyed now, and showing it.

“So you’re gonna do it the way I say, right?”

“All right. ”

“Let me tell you something about players,” I said. “They think everybody else is playing. A pro would, anyway. My name wasn’t in this. You brought it in. I gave you the okay to do that, I’m not complaining. But if this doesn’t work out, if I walk away, this guy Pryce, he’s not gonna buy that. For him, I’m still in it, no matter what, understand?”

“That you’re at risk?”

“Yeah. That I’m at risk. So what I get to do is minimize that risk. And that means you do what I tell you.”

She swallowed that a lot harder than she had the espresso, but she seemed to keep it down. She went quiet then. I went back to watching “The Dating Game.”

“What does it mean?” she asked sullenly. “Do what you say?”

“I don’t know this guy. I don’t know if he’s alone, if he’s got a crew, if he’s working free-lance, if he’s with the government . . . nothing. But he has my name. And if he’s connected, he’ll have stuff to go with that, I don’t know how much. He’s gonna know, for me to be in it, it’s either money or blood. Depending on how it goes down, maybe it’s better if he thinks it’s personal instead.”

“Personal?”

“That I’m your man.”

“Oh.”

“You can do that, right? Maybe you can sit on my lap when we talk.”

Her face burned. One corner of her wide mouth twitched. “You think—?”

“Me, I don’t think anything. Just guesses. You talked it over with your pal Vyra. She told you sex wouldn’t make it happen—I only work for money. But you thought maybe you’d prove her wrong. . . .”

“So I’m a whore?” she said quietly, tendrils of rage webbing her voice.

“I wouldn’t know that,” I said calmly. “Only you know.”

“Didn’t you ever make a split-second decision? Just to . . . trust someone?”

“I’m going to tell you the truth,” I told her. “You know those silent whistles, the ones only dogs can hear? People got them too. Certain people. You hear it, you know it.”

“You heard that from me? That you could trust me?”

“Mine doesn’t work like that,” I told her. “It works the opposite. Like a burglar alarm. I know when someone’s trying to break in.”

“And you think I was?”

“Yeah. The only thing I don’t know is what you wanted—to look around, or to take something.”

The back seat of Clarence’s beloved Rover is small, just a pair of black leather buckets separated by a center armrest. He pulled smoothly away from the downtown curb, heading for First Avenue.

Crystal Beth reached over and took my hand. I looked at her.

“Just practicing,” she said.

I pulled my hand away, grasped her wrist, moved it around. Showed her the difference between connection and control. She didn’t resist. “Practice that, ” I told her.

Clarence let us off four blocks from the meet—three streets and one avenue. The afternoon sun was a sociopath’s smile, brilliant without warmth. I put Crystal Beth’s right hand on my left forearm, stuffed my left hand into my pocket and started to walk.

“I’ve never—”

“Don’t talk,” I told her. “Don’t say anything. If he asks you anything, just look over at me, understand?”

“Yes, master.”

I stopped walking suddenly. She lurched a step ahead, stopped and turned to face me. “This isn’t about politics,” I told her, letting her hear the tension in my voice. “You hired a guide. Like you’re on a jungle safari, okay? I know the trails. You don’t, and you could get lost. I know the animals. You don’t, and you could get hurt. You don’t want to listen to me, you don’t want to do what I say, you can have your deposit back, lady. Just go on in there and tell the man I changed my mind.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping close to me, putting her hand back on my forearm.

I searched her face for more sarcasm. Couldn’t find any. And I couldn’t read her almond eyes.

“That’s him,” she whispered as soon as we walked in the door. He was seated at a café-style table, alone. The table was alone too, standing isolated between two rows of booths against the windows, an island in empty space. I’d been in the joint before. And the Prof had visited yesterday too. No way that table was part of the usual decor—midtown space is way too expensive to set up a restaurant like that. Either he was connected deep or he paid heavy.

Not good news.

Four chairs at the little round table. He was occupying one, a colorless human in a G-man suit. A khaki raincoat with a dark brown zip-in liner was draped over one of the chairs.

We walked over. I took Crystal Beth’s coat off her shoulders, tossed it on top of his. Held out a chair for her. I took my own coat off, carefully draped it over Crystal Beth’s and sat down.

His face was bony and angular, but the flesh around his eyes was pouchy, dark half-moons under each one. His mouth was so thin you had to look twice to see it. Indoor skin. Or a night worker’s.

“You have something for me?” he said to Crystal Beth, somewhere between a question and a command.

“That’s why I’m here,” I told him.

He shifted his head a few micrometers. The pupils of his eyes were a muddy brown, running at the edges like imperfect yolks. “Mr. Burke,” he said.

“And you are . . . ?”

“Mr. Pryce.”

Nobody’s hands moved.

“She,” I said, nodding my head in Crystal Beth’s direction without dropping my eyes, “says you have a problem with something she wants to do.”

“Something she can’t do,” Pryce said, nothing in his voice.

“Because . . . ?”

“We’ve been through this,” he said. “If you’re here for muscle, you’re wasting your time.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked him. “I’m not muscle. That’s not what I do. There’s a problem. I thought maybe I could . . . add some perspective.”

“Yes?”

“She has a client who needs to do something about your . . . client?”

“Not my client,” he said, voice still empty.

“But someone you need to protect?”

“Not that either.”

“I’m not following you,” I said.

“Do you know why I picked this place?” he asked.

“It wasn’t for the service,” I said. Telling him I’d noticed that the waiter was giving the little table a wide berth.

“No. It was for the view. I don’t know your relationship to this . . . situation. You talked about a problem. I understand that I’m that problem to . . . her,” he said, nodding at Crystal Beth the same way I’d done. “And I wanted to be sure you weren’t hired to solve that problem.”

“I wasn’t hired,” I told him. “She’s in it, I’m in it.”

“If you say so,” he said indifferently. “But the problem could still get solved the same way.”

“Which is?”

He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. I noticed the fingers were all flesh-webbed—deep, right up to the first set of knuckles. A muscle twitched under his right eye. “Do you want me to talk in front of her?” he asked.

I could feel the heat from Crystal Beth next to me, but she didn’t move. “Sure,” I said, noncommittal.

He mimed opening a notebook, read from its imaginary pages. “Baby Boy Burke,” he said softly. “That’s what the birth certificate reads. Father unknown. Mother was sixteen at the time of your birth. Or so she told the hospital. A working prostitute . . .” He paused, but I didn’t react. Calling my mother a whore was nothing to me. I’d never met her.