Andrew Vachss - Footsteps of the Hawk

"Said he was gonna fuck me up. " Frankie grinned.

"What'd you tell him?"

"Told him he was too late."

I watched the fighter's face. Caught the fineness of his bone structure, the slightly off–center Roman nose, the blue eyes with their little deep dots of banked fire.

Fuck, I thought to myself, maybe the kid could make it happen.

I was at the corner of Canal and Mulberry by four–fifteen in the morning, the Plymouth safely docked, me alone in the front seat, a cellular phone at my side. I always hated the damn things— they work off radio waves and too many geeks stay up nights in their rooms, monitoring the phone traffic the way they used to eavesdrop on CB radios. But the Mole told me he had the whole thing wired so they all worked off the same encryption device. If your unit wasn't keyed to the encoding, all you got was static when you tried to listen in. We had four of the phones, passed them around on an as–needed basis. We didn't worry about the billing either. All you need is the serial number of a legit phone— any phone, it doesn't matter. Then you can reprogram the chip in your own phone to match that serial number…and some chump gets a bill he can't begin to explain. The Mole does it all the time, switching them every few weeks. There's a guy who works in an electronics store in Times Square. What he does, he checks the numbers on the new phones, before they're even sold. Takes him a few minutes, and he gets fifty bucks for each one. Pretty stupid to be an armed robber these days— there's so many easier ways to steal.

Canal and Mulberry is a border crossing— Chinatown to one side, Little Italy to the other. The border is constantly shifting, with the Orientals taking more and more territory every year. It was still a bit early for the Chinatown merchants to open up, but I knew they were busy behind the closed doors.

Time and people passed, at about the same speed. I know about that— in my life, I've killed some of both. I learned something too— killing time is harder.

The cellular phone purred. I picked it up, said "What?" in a neutral voice.

"Here she comes," the Prof said. "Walkin', not talkin'."

The Prof was stationed on the northeast corner of Broadway and Canal. If you looked close, all you'd see would be another soldier in the homeless horde of discharged mental patients that blanket the street in the early–morning hours, grabbing those last few minutes of peace before they had to go to work. Some of them vacuum garbage, looking for return–deposit bottles. Some beg for money Some threaten for it. There's still guys who try and clean your windshield with dirty rags. And there's those who don't know where they are. Or why.

Belinda was a few blocks away. On foot. And alone, far as the Prof could tell. Okay.

I spotted her before she saw me. A medium–sized woman who looked shorter than she was because of her chunky build. Wearing a baggy pink sweatshirt over a pair of dark jeans, white running shoes on her feet, a white canvas purse on a sling over one shoulder. She walked with a beat cop's "I can handle it" strut, hands swinging loose and free at her sides, chestnut hair tied behind her with a white ribbon.

I slipped out of the Plymouth, closed the door quietly, the cellular phone in my jacket pocket. Then I crossed the street to intersect her path. She saw me coming, waved a hand in greeting.

I closed the gap between us, eyes only on Belinda, as if I didn't even consider the possibility she wouldn't be alone.

"Hello, stranger," she said, flashing a smile.

"We can walk it from here," I replied.

A puzzled expression flitted over her face. Then she shrugged, holding out one hand. I took it— a soft, chubby hand, the pad of her palm a deep, meaty slab.

We walked along in silence for a minute, not in a hurry. Couple of lovers coming home after a late–night downtown party, it might look like.

The question was: who was looking? If the cellular phone in my pocket rang, I'd know we had company— maybe Max can't talk, but he can punch numbers on a keypad. And in this part of town, he was even more invisible than the Prof.

"I tried— " she said.

"Later," I told her, tugging just a slight bit on her hand. She came along, not resisting.

The loft was on the third story of the building on Mott Street. I know Mama owned the whole building— that story about renting it as a crash pad for visitors was just her way of maintaining the façade. You ask Mama, she'd tell you she was poor, didn't know what the hell she was going to do in her old age. I used the key she lent me to open the downstairs door, made a sweeping gesture with my left hand to show Belinda she should go up the stairs ahead of me. She put a lot into the effort— hard not to admire those fine flesh–gears meshing. A woman who can't look good climbing a flight of stairs doesn't have a chance on level ground.

At the second–floor landing, I made the same gesture…and watched the same way. The stairwells were lit with low–wattage bulbs in little wire cages— just enough to see by.

On the third floor, we came to an orange steel door with some Chinese characters painted in black in a narrow band down the left side. I used the downstairs key to open the door, ushered her inside.

"Good morning," a lyrical voice greeted us. Oriental, with a faint trace of a French accent. Immaculata was calmly seated in a straight chair of black lacquered wood standing between a matched set of end tables of the same material. She was dressed in her Suzie Wong outfit: red silk sheath with a Mandarin collar, slit all the way up to mid–thigh, dragon–claw fake fingernails in a matching shade, heavy stage makeup. If Belinda was like most Europeans, she'd never recognize Mac's face if she ever saw it again.

"Good morning," I greeted her, bowing slightly.

If Belinda was taken aback, she gave no sign, standing silently to one side.

"Come with me," I told the lady cop, walking across the gleaming hardwood floor to a closed door. I opened that door, and Belinda followed me inside.

"Have a seat," I told her, gesturing toward a black leather easy chair. She sat down. So did I, in a matching chair a few feet away Nobody ever really slept here. Mama had designed the negotiation suite herself— no one could gain status by claiming a certain piece of furniture— every piece had its twin.

"The reason I— " she began.

"Don't say anything yet," I stopped her. "Just listen, okay? Don't waste my time. This isn't about a date. I may not know who you are, but I know what you do. For a living, I mean. And I know this much too: you're a woman. A prideful woman. This was about a date, you would have stopped calling a long time ago."

"It was, at first. Then I— "

"Let me finish, tell you what the rules are down here. I don't do auditions for the police, understand? You want to talk, I got to know you're the only one I'm talking to."

She made a face, tossed her canvas purse over to me, and crossed her arms into a good imitation of a push–up bra. I stood up, walked over to a flat table in the corner. The table was covered with black felt. A telescoping wand held a white quartz bulb. Mama's guests used it to examine jewelry— it would work just as well for this.

I took a pair of thin white cotton gloves from a flat drawer inside the examining table and slipped them onto my hands. Then I emptied the purse onto the table and flicked on the observation lamp.

First, a chrome cylinder of lipstick— Rose Dawn, it said on the bottom. I uncapped it, cranked the soft pink tube all the way out, shook it to see if it rattled. No.

Next, a dark–brown leather folding wallet. Inside, an NYPD gold shield— a detective's badge. The photo ID confirmed it.