Andrew Vachss: Safe House

“Trying to guess?” she asked me. Her voice was husky, cigarette-burnished. Musical, but not Top Forty.

“Yeah, I was,” I admitted.

“I’m half Inuit, half Irish.”

“Whatever the mix, it worked great.”

“Thank you,” she said, flashing a smile. Her teeth were so white, tiny and square they looked fake, like a mouthful of miniature Chiclets.

“You, uh, want something done?” I said.

“What are you?” she asked suddenly.

“Me? I’m just a guy who—”

“No. I mean, what are you. I told you what I was.”

“Oh. Truth is, I don’t know.”

“You were adopted?”

“Abandoned,” I told her, watching her face.

Her almond eyes darkened. “But somebody had to raise you. Didn’t they . . . ?”

“The State raised me,” I told her. Telling it all, if she knew anything.

“What’s your name?”

“Burke,” I told her. If she was a cop, she already knew. And even if she wasn’t, those almond eyes had photographed me good enough to guide a police sketch artist’s hand right to my mug shot anyway.

“Mine’s Crystal Beth.”

“Your parents were bikers?” I laughed.

“No,” she said, smiling. “Hippies. At least my father was. He met my mother up north, and they came back to Oregon together. Where I was raised.”

Rollo’s wasn’t a singles bar. And I didn’t even know for sure if she was the same woman who’d hired Porkpie. I was there on business. But I felt the current pulling me and I went with it.

“In a commune?” I asked her.

“Yes. It was a lovely place, but it’s all gone now. All the old ways, gone.” She might have been a Plains Indian talking about another century for all the sadness in her voice.

“You want something to drink?” I asked her. Once someone in a booth attracted a visitor, the waitress would stay away unless you signaled her over.

“You drink the stuff they serve here?” she asked. A slight smile played around her lips, but the corners of her mouth stayed turned down. Genetics, then, not an expression.

“I got a strong stomach,” I assured her.

“Umm. Then maybe you’d like a job . . . ?”

“I might. What have you got in mind?”

“My . . .” She hesitated just a heartbeat, but I caught it. “. . . cousin’s having trouble. With her boyfriend. Her ex -boyfriend. Only he doesn’t think so. Do you . . . ?”

“Sure. Some guys don’t get the message the first time.”

“And sometimes it depends on the messenger.”

“Yeah. You need a messenger?”

“That’s exactly what I need.”

“Uh-huh. You know this guy?”

“I don’t know him, I know about him, okay?”

“Just what you’ve been told?”

“No. I mean, I met him. Once. But . . .”

“. . . you have all the information about him?”

“Yes.”

“And you just want the problem solved, right? Not the details?”

“Yes. I thought it best to leave that to . . . professionals.”

“Professionals get paid,” I reminded her.

“I grok that. I don’t ask strangers for favors. And I’m guessing you don’t work on a sliding scale either.”

“Right. I don’t. But I’m sure I can fix whatever your . . . cousin’s problem is.”

“Yes? And how much would it cost to do that?”

“Depends on how . . . permanently you want the problem solved.”

“You mean . . . what?”

“I mean, for some people, it’s personal, you know? They get it into their heads that a certain person belongs to them, and they won’t let go unless . . . Other people, they’re just bullies.”

“Bullies are easier?” she asked, leaning closer to me across the table.

“Bullies are very easy,” I said, holding her eyes. Or maybe hers were holding mine.

“The bigger they are . . .”

“. . . the more they cost to fix,” I finished for her.

She looked at the pack of cigarettes I’d left on the tabletop, raised her eyebrows in a question. I lifted it up, held it out to her. She took one. I fired a wooden match. She didn’t bring her face down to the flame like I’d expected. Just sat there watching my hand from under her long dark lashes. The flame burned, slow and steady in the musty joint’s dead air. I stayed on her eyes, feeling the increasing heat against my fingers. She leaned forward and blew out the flame, her breath so gentle it barely got the job done.

“Your hand is very steady,” she said.

“A jeweler needs good eyesight.” I shrugged. “You changed your mind about the cigarette?”

“Sometimes, if I really want something, I make myself wait. Then it’s sweeter when I finally have it. You understand?”

“I understand the waiting part.”

“You’re good at waiting?”

“I’m the best,” I told her. “It’s my specialty.”

“You’re not like . . . the others.” It was a flat statement. Her judgment, not a question.

“The others?”

“I’ve talked to a . . . number of people. About my cousin. You’re different from them.”

“You try any of them?” I asked.

“Try?”

“On your cousin’s problem?”

“No. Not yet. It’s a delicate thing. My cousin wants it to be over, that’s true. But she wants magic, you know? Wants it all to . . . disappear. And that’s hard.”

“That’s real hard. Real expensive too.”

“How expensive?”

“Depends.”

She glanced at her wristwatch: big black-and-white dial on a thick black rubber band. “This is taking longer than I thought,” she said. “I have to meet somebody. But I want to . . . talk to you again. Is there a way . . . ?”

“Sure,” I told her. “I could give you a number to call.”

“That would be great,” she said, flashing another quick smile.

I gave her a number in Brooklyn. It’s on permanent bounce—the only place it would ring aloud would be one of the pay phones at Mama’s. The woman didn’t write it down, repeating it a couple of times just under her breath. The dark streak at her jawline moved along with her lips. She nodded, like she was agreeing with herself, and started to get up. I didn’t move. She sat down again, put her hands flat on the table. “Can I do something with you? Just an old hippie thing. It would make me feel better . . . even if you laugh.”

“What?”

“Can I read your palm?”

I put my hands on the table between us, palms up. “I don’t know. Can you?”

“Watch,” she said softly, taking my right hand in both of hers, bending her face forward to study.

I let my hand go limp as she turned it in hers. A couple of minutes passed. “Can you strike a match with one hand?” she asked, holding on to my right hand, making the message clear.

I took out a wooden match with my left hand, snapped it along my jaw. It flared right up. When I was a kid, that used to impress girls. That was a long time ago—on both counts. “Hold it close,” she said.

I held the match just over my open palm, lighting her way. It only took her another couple of seconds after that. She blew the match out for me, closed my palm into a fist, squeezed it quick and then let go. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll call you.”

Igave her a good thirty-minute start, just in case she was hanging around outside, planning on the same thing I was. When I finally walked through the exit, the sky was clear and the air was sharp. But the ground was wet, like there’d been a light rainfall during the past couple of hours.

Clarence’s Rover was missing. So was the Prof. I cranked the Plymouth over and pulled out of the pitch-black parking lot, heading for Mama’s. On the drive over, I used the vibrating pager to call Max back in.