Andrew Vachss: Safe House

But when I signed that over to Max, his nostrils flared and his face went into a rigid mask of resistance. He wasn’t buying.

We went round and round. The mute Mongolian wouldn’t budge. Finally, he made a complicated series of gestures to Mama. She bowed and went off. When she returned, she had a stalk of green in her hand, some kind of plant I didn’t recognize. Max pulled out a chair, set it in the middle of the restaurant floor, pointed at it for me to sit down.

I did it. Mama licked the back of the green stalk and pasted it to the front of my leather jacket, right over the heart.

I sat there. Max walked up to me. I watched him carefully. Nothing happened.

Max held up the green stalk in his huge hand . . . the hand I’d never seen move. Making his point.

I held out my hand for the stalk. Gave it to Mama. “Put it back on me,” I told her.

She licked the stalk again, slapped it down over my heart.

I motioned for Max to step back. Further. Further still. Until he was at least ten feet distant. Then I made the gesture of rolling up a car window. Sat looking through the imaginary glass. Made a “Now-what?” gesture.

The warrior’s eyes narrowed to dark dots of molten lava, but he couldn’t penetrate the problem. And he knew it. If Max could get close, he was as unstoppable as nerve gas. But if they saw him coming, it was over.

He bowed. Not to me. To the reality we faced.

“We can’t bring no outsiders in on this. Family only,” the Prof said in his on-the-yard voice. “That means we ain’t got but three ways to play. The Mole don’t jam, you got to slam, Schoolboy. Otherwise, Michelle’s gonna—”

“I know that,” I told him.

“You got to be the monster, my brother. Wesley’s gotta be there, you understand?” Telling me there would be no El Cañonero this time—he wasn’t family.

“I won’t miss,” I told him.

“You do, we’re all through,” the little man said, hand on my shoulder.

It was chilly on the roof, but I was colder inside. Sunday morning, three hours past midnight, the sun still a couple of hours short of Show Time. The primitive part of my brain pressured me to check in—howl at the moon just to hear the return cries and assure myself that my pack was close by—but I kept my hands away from the cellular in my coat. No traffic on the street, no traffic over the airwaves—that was the deal.

I made myself relax. Fall into the mission. Slow down. Think of something warm. Last contact with the other world: Crystal Beth, chasing Vyra out of the hotel bedroom with a hard smack to her bottom, giggling at Vyra’s squeal. Then coming over to me.

“It’s time,” she said. “You can do it now. I want you. Before you go, I want you.”

“I—”

“You can do it, darling. Hercules is alive. You know it now. I want . . .”

“What?”

“Your baby. I want your baby. I want your life in me no matter what happens. I swear to you, Burke. Listen to me: This is a holy promise. I will be a wonderful mother. I will protect our baby with my life. Our house will always be safe. Please, honey. Come on. No matter what happens, your child will have your name. You’ll never die.”

“Crystal Beth, you—”

“Two names on the birth certificate. Two. Yours and mine. We are mated. I’m not trying to change your mind. You have your purpose, and I wouldn’t stand in the way. But leave me this, yes? A baby. Your name. And my love.”

“I—”

“Maybe your baby’s already there,” she said softly, patting her slightly rounded belly. “Condoms don’t always—”

“I can’t make babies,” I cut her off. “I had myself fixed. A long time ago.”

A tear dropped from one almond eye down her broad cheek. “But you can still make love,” she whispered. “And that’s where babies are meant to come from, right?”

It was four-forty-five when the cellular throbbed in my chest pocket. I was alone on the roof, but I’d disabled the ring, just in case.

“Got ’em.” The Prof’s voice.

“All of them?”

“Full cylinder,” he said, ringing off.

A full cylinder was six. Where was the detonator man? Where was he? Where was this man who threatened everything sacred to me on this earth? The man who would burn my safe house to the ground? Where was the filthy motherfucking . . . ? Wesley called to me from beyond the grave and I filled in the blank: where was the . . . target?

Dehumanizing the enemy.

Icing up.

It wasn’t a man I had to kill, it was a thing.

A hateful, malignant, evil thing.

Not “him” . . . “it.”

The coyote had spotted the prey—time for the badger to do its part.

In the winter we’d made, food was life.

And only death would harvest it.

Now that he’d called in, the Prof would bail, but he was on foot and he couldn’t get far. Terry was down there someplace too, looking like a teenage boy with spiked hair, stumbling home from one of the clubs. Carrying homicide in the side pocket of his long black coat. No way to stop him from coming. No way to stop him at all if he spotted the creature who would hurt his mother. The Mole had dropped him off a good distance away, but if the kid picked up the scent . . .

Max the Silent was down there too, somewhere in the shadows, raging and lethal. We couldn’t keep him away either. And if he saw the van first . . .

It had to be me. And we only had a few—

“On Hudson, between Jay and Harrison.” The Mole, soft voice throbbing through the phone.

“You sure?”

“Gray Ford Econoline van. Driver only. Says ‘Benny’s Kosher Deli’ in black letters on the sides.”

“Can you jam—?”

But he was already gone.

I hit the speed-dial switch, said “Go!” as soon as it was picked up. I dropped the phone into my pocket and ran across the roof, holding the night-vision scope in both hands, willing Wesley into me.

There it was. Maybe four blocks away. A good spot—Hudson pulled plenty of commercial traffic even that early in the day—nobody would look twice at a van.

The clock high on the steeple corner at Worth and Broadway chimed five times behind me. I swept the area with the scope. No sign of Terry. I knew I’d never see Max even if he was down there. Not much time now . . .

A pearlescent white Bentley coupe came west up Leonard Street, heading for the T-turn on Hudson just north of where the van was parked. The big car moved with slow confidence, a rich rolling ghost. It pulled to the curb and a slim black man climbed out. He was wearing a Zorro hat and a calf-length white fur coat. A woman got out the passenger side. A white woman with long blond hair wearing a transparent plastic raincoat. I could see them talking. Saw the man’s hand flash against the woman’s face. Then he shook her, hard, and wrenched the raincoat off her body. She was standing there in red spike heels and dark stockings, covered only in a tiny white micro-mini and a skimpy black top. She walked a few feet away. A little purse slung over one shoulder banged against her hip. Hooker’s kit: just big enough for a few condoms, some pre-moistened towelettes, a little bottle of cognac, maybe a tiny vial of coke. And the night’s take.

The pimp waited until she looked back over her shoulder, then he pointed his finger warningly and climbed back into his ride, holding the plastic raincoat in one hand. The Bentley took off, making the left onto Hudson and moving right past the van.

The hooker stood on the corner, shivering but hipshot, waiting. A delivery truck passed. She made a “Hi-there!” gesture with one hand. The truck pulled over. She sashayed toward it, waving her hips like a flag. Leaned into the cab of the truck. No Sale. The truck pulled away.