Andrew Vachss - Footsteps of the Hawk

"Thank you, Mama," Immaculata said. "Max and I are very grateful for what you teach our daughter."

"My daughter too," Mama said. "Granddaughter, yes?" It wasn't a question— she didn't expect an answer.

"Max teaches you too?" I asked Flower.

"Yes. My father is a wonderful teacher," she said, quickly glancing sideways at Mama to see if she'd accidentally offended the dragon lady— it was easy enough to do.

"He teaches you to fight?" I asked her.

"Everybody fights," Immaculata put in. "Max is teaching her one way to do it. Understand?"

"Yes," I said, nodding my head. I'd never been a champ at talking to women, but three generations in one sitting was making me blunder even more than usual.

"Flower teaches too," Immaculata said. "She taught Max some signs."

"How could— ?" I started to say.

"When she was just a little baby," Immaculata went on as if I hadn't spoken, "when she would cry to be picked up, she would always wave her little hands. I thought it was just random movement, but, one day, she moved her hands when she wasn't crying. And Max went right over and picked her up. She knew. He did too. She has all kinds of signs now. Signs of her own. Only she and her father use them. I am very proud," Immaculata said formally, her eyes wet.

Flower reached across and held her mother's hand— it wasn't just Max's signs she could read.

I spent the rest of that Saturday in my office, hunting in my head. No matter how I spun it out, I came up empty.

When I looked up, it was dark. I split whatever was left in the refrigerator with Pansy, smoked a cigarette to settle my stomach and lay back on the couch, eyes closed.

There's a few light–years' distance between fantasy and replay— the distance between imagination and imagery. Doc once told me about a guy he had in the max–max loony bin Upstate. A big black guy named Norman. This Norman, he stabbed a lot of people— that was his thing. They put a half–dozen diagnoses on him, with medication to match— nothing worked. So Doc detoxed him— brought him off the chemicals slow so he wouldn't crash.

And without the drugs, Norman was a real sweetheart— just kicked back in his cell all day long, a gentle smile on his face. It had all the shrinks puzzled. So Doc asks him, What's going on in there?

Norman tells Doc he goes to this planet every day. Time–travels inside his head. This planet, Ludar, he called it, it's a beautiful, peaceful place. The sky is rose–colored, and the grass is white, pure white, like snow. Everybody does something on Ludar. Norman, he was a farmer— he raised gold— it grows out of the ground on Ludar. Norman has a wife there. Some kids too. It's a perfect, holy place. Nobody starves, nobody's homeless. Nobody even gets mad.

So Norman's not really in his cell, see. He's on Ludar. He only eats twice a day. For fuel, so he can go back to where he wants to be.

Doc told me Norman really went there. He had so much detail that it had to be real. In his head, real. Doc told me he asked Norman, it sounded so perfect, could he go there too? Norman got real sad behind that. He really liked Doc, and he wished he could have given him better news…but most people couldn't go to Ludar— that's just the way it was.

So Doc started to trace it back, find out where Norman got his flight plan to Ludar. They had Norman when he was a kid, the same way they had so many of us. In one of the places they put him, Norman picked up a knife and started stabbing. That was to protect himself— even the guards knew that. Some of those kiddie camps, it comes down to the same two choices as prison.

So they started him on medication then— to gentle him down, keep him quiet. But it never worked. Sooner or later, Norman would start stabbing again.

Doc didn't bother too much with those paper–and–pencil tests— he just asked Norman flat–out: How come you stab so many people? Norman said they were keeping him from going to Ludar. They had no right to do that— he wasn't hurting anybody going there. That's when Doc put it all together. It wasn't people keeping Norman off Ludar, it was the medication. When the dose got too strong, Norman couldn't teleport himself off this lousy planet. So he started slicing and dicing. Then they'd switch his medication, and, for a while, he could go home. Doc wrote NO MEDS! on Norman's chart. And Norman, he never stabbed anyone again. He never got out of prison either, but it didn't matter. Norman was off medication. And on Ludar.

Fantasy is something you wish would happen. Flashbacks are something you wish never had. I didn't need an imagination to be somewhere else— I'd been there. All I had to do was remember, play the images out on my own screen.

I went there, stayed a long time. When I opened my eyes, it was early Sunday morning. I had nothing to show for my trip inside my head. And my back felt as cold as the killer's trail.

I went out to resupply. Came back with a pint of ice cream, a bag full of warm bagels, a thick wedge of cream cheese, and a quarter–pound of Nova lox. Pansy loves the stuff. Maybe she's West Indian in her heart and Jewish in her soul…although Mama insists she's a giant Shar–Pei.

I stepped out on the fire escape, standing well back in the building's shadow, invisible from the ground at that hour. When I finished the last bagel, I punched Mama's number into the cellular phone.

"It's me," I said.

"Two calls," she answered. "One man say his name J.P. The other was that woman."

"Either one say it was important?"

"Both say."

"Thanks, Mama. I'll call later."

"Watch the sky," she said, hanging up.

On the street, I looked around for a pay phone before I tried Belinda.

"What's up?" I asked her when she answered on the first ring.

"You don't know?"

"No. I don't fucking know. You wanna tell me?"

"Oh Jesus. Not on the phone. Can you meet me— ?"

"I don't have a car anymore," I told her.

"That's all right," she said. "I have one. You know…Wait! Are you on a safe phone?"

"In the street," I said.

"Yeah…okay. You know Benson Street? The alley behind the— ?"

"I know it," I told her. "What time?"

"Midnight, okay?"

"Okay."

I rode the underground to Midtown, got off a few blocks from Hauser's office. I tried a pay phone on him too.

"It's me."

"Where the hell have you been?" he barked, an urgent undertone in his voice. "Can you meet me— ?"

"Say where and when."

"My office," he replied. "ASAP."

The door to his office was slightly ajar. I pushed it open the rest of the way and crossed the threshold, rapping gently on the door at the same time. Hauser's eyes were on some papers on his desk— he jerked his head up sharply. "What'd you do, fly?" he asked.

"I was in the neighborhood," I told him. "What have you got?"

"Sit down," Hauser said, standing up himself. "This could take a while."

I took the seat he offered, lit a smoke, settled in. Hauser was pacing back and forth behind his desk. "Go," I told him.

"Those psych reports— the ones on this cop, Morales. You read them carefully?"

"Carefully as I could," I said, wary now.

"He's a Catholic. Did you see that?"

"Yeah, So what? There's all kinds of Catholics."

"Hispanic Catholics, they generally don't stray as far from the church as others."

"Nobody generally slaughters women either," I said. "Is that your idea of a connection?"

"You see where he doesn't have any kids?" Hauser went on like I hadn't spoken.

"Yeah. And if you're gonna tell me maybe he's gay and can't deal with it, I'm already on that trail."

"He's not gay," Hauser said, a dead certainty in his voice. "Did you look at the cross–references on the report?"