Andrew Vachss - Footsteps of the Hawk

"Ah…no, that wouldn't work. I'm working a split shift. And Tuesdays are the best for visits— it's not so crowded then. You know the Zero One? On West Broadway, just this side of— "

"I know it," I said. I never heard of anyone calling the First Precinct the Zero One before— something about this woman, always about a half–note off.

"Can you make it around ten in the morning?" she asked. "From there, it's only a little jump into the Tunnel and we can— "

"I'll be there," I said, cutting the connection.

I waited almost two hours— she didn't come out.

"I can drive," Hauser told me. "It would be better, anyway— I got a lot of stuff I use in there, and— "

"I'll meet you on West Fourth. You know, where the basketball court— "

"What time?" he asked.

"Say about nine–forty–five? Tuesday morning. Okay?"

"Yeah. You found out anything yet?"

"Not yet," I lied. "See you then."

Doc scanned the psych report quickly, not even wasting a minute to comment on the blackout surgery I'd performed to convert every mention of Morales' name to a blank space. He snapped a gooseneck lamp into life and held the report in his lap. Doc never looked up. He grunted once in a while, checked off a couple of spots on the paper with a red marker. I blew smoke rings at the ceiling, not interrupting.

"Okay, hoss," he finally said, looking up. "What do you want to know?"

"Could this guy be a sex killer?" I asked.

Doc rubbed the back of his head, his mouth twisted into a grimace. "That's too big a question," he said. "Bottom line? If psychiatry could predict human behavior, the Parole Board wouldn't make so many mistakes."

"Come on," I said. "Don't you guys do that all the time? What's the standard for locking somebody up in Bellevue? Dangerous to self or others, right? How could that be anything but a guess?"

"Sure," he said. "That's the standard. But it's way too broad for what you're asking. You just want to know if this guy's dangerous , that's an easy one. Yes. Hell yes! He's as tight as a stretched strand of piano wire. He sees the world real clear— black and white, no grays. Violence is part of his personality. It's almost his only means of self–expression, the way an artist paints or a musician plays. He seems to process information differently too."

"What's that mean?"

"The brain's a computer," Doc said. "Data comes in, it gets analyzed— much faster than this," snapping his fingers, "messages go to the body, the body reacts. That's all processing is. This guy," he said, indicating the papers in his lap, "he gets the same data as everybody else, but he comes to different conclusions."

"Meaning he's crazy?"

"Not at all," Doc said, deciding to answer more than I asked, as usual. "Trauma of any kind can cause a processing change, especially if it's early enough. Or severe enough. There's this guy, Bruce Perry, he's down at Baylor, in Texas. He's just starting to publish now, so I can't evaluate his stuff completely yet. But it looks like he can actually document past trauma in current brain patterns…and in a sleep–state, no less. That would revolutionize every treatment modality in the world— there's nothing cultural about brain waves. He pulls that one off— and from what I've seen so far, I'm betting he does— he wins the Nobel Prize, no contest."

"So, what this guy Perry does, it's like a lie detector?" I asked.

"I don't quite follow that, hoss."

"Say somebody is all grown. An adult, okay? Then they all of a sudden remember being abused as a kid. Like a flashback. It happens all the time. And there's the usual crap— How do you prove something like that? What kind of evidence would there be of incest that happened twenty years ago? This guy, Perry? It sounds like he could prove it."

Doc rubbed the back of his head again, thinking. I waited. "You know what, Burke? You might just be right. I mean, it wouldn't be that easy….You could maybe prove past trauma occurred, but not exactly what it was. But it's a start, sure enough."

"Okay, so this guy Perry's a fucking genius— what's that got to do with my man?"

"We already knew some stuff," Doc said, still ignoring my straight questions. "Even after they're grown, abused kids are different. A lot of them stay different too. Hyper–vigilant. Distrustful. The prisons are full of people like that, right?"

"Right," I answered, meeting his eyes, knowing who he was talking about.

"It doesn't mean they can't be good citizens, lead normal lives. Even accomplish great things. It's just that they'll always be…different."

"So, if this Perry guy could hook my man up to one of his machines, he could tell if there was some significant trauma in his background?" I asked, getting Doc off the track he wanted and back onto mine.

"Sure. But that wouldn't necessarily tell you much. This…person, he probably experienced trauma many times in his life. He's a hard man, working in a hard trade. It's not like TV. Most cops, they really can't turn it off and turn it on. They become suspicious. Aggressive, even hostile. It's the best way for them to function on the job. Some of them, they just can't go home, take off the badge and the gun, and turn into Ward Cleaver. The job has so many built–in stressors. What job gives you more broken marriages, more alcoholics? And there's temptations too— it's hard to work for wages when the people you arrest are making millions. There's always easy money lying around if you're a cop. And on top of everything else, you've got Internal Affairs snooping into your life. Dangerous? Hoss, most of them are."

"Doc, I appreciate all that. But…okay, just tell me this: could my man do it?"

"Sex murders? Yeah. Yeah, he could. His definitions of right and wrong, they could be skewed that bad. He doesn't smoke, doesn't drink….I wonder if he uses foul language— "

"Every other word," I told him.

Doc took a short breath, went on like he hadn't heard me. "His kind of rigid, Calvinistic personality structure could easily lead him into a hatred of what he sees as impure women. And if you combine that with impotence— ?"

"What makes you think he— ?"

"I don't. Necessarily. But you'll notice he doesn't seem to have any regular relationship with a woman. He's thirty–eight years old. Never married."

"Plenty of guys never get married," I said.

He gave me a look. I ignored it. "Here's what doesn't fit," Doc said. "There's no iron–clad rule, but when you find a serial killer with this sort of rage against women, they usually target victims who fit their fantasy of 'bad' women, understand? The most likely targets are strippers, topless dancers, prostitutes…like that. And, from what you tell me, none of the victims were in the business."

I smoked another cigarette in silence, tracking it through. "Doc," I said. "What if he's gay? Wouldn't that account for it? I mean, if he's gay and doesn't want to deal with it— can't deal with it? That'd make him all those things it said in the report, right?"

"Ummm," Doc mused. "It could…especially if he believes homosexuality is morally wrong. If he repressed it strongly enough, you'd see the kind of overmacho behavior this guy exhibits. But those types, if they turn to violence, it's almost always against gay men. Still…"

"Thanks, Doc," I said, getting up to leave, holding out my hand. He gave me the psych report. "If there's any way I could talk to him— even for a few minutes— maybe I could…"

"We'll see," I lied.

The basketball court on West Fourth is one of the city's major arenas, almost on a par with Rucker Playground uptown. The freelance guys who work the top courts are as professional as any in the NBA— when it comes to the city game, maybe better. The city game is all about styling and profiling. Flash is the hallmark, but they still count the points at the end…where heavy money always changes hands.