Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

"You think the baby's in that bag?" Wolfe.

"Maybe some pieces of him, but I doubt it. I think he's in the water. You can get divers without a warrant, right?"

"Yes. But it's a long shot. Unless he weighted it down, it could be anywhere."

"Worth a try."

"Sure."

"I'll put the bag in your trunk. The coroner will tell you the rest."

"And how did we come by the bag?"

"I figure, maybe Rocco and Floyd were doing some investigating, ran across it, cut it down. Tagged it in an evidence sack, all the right stuff."

"When would they have done this?"

"Why don't you ask them," I said, flicking a glance to my left.

Wolfe spotted them. "Get over here!" she shouted. Lola giggled. They walked over, looking everyplace but at Wolfe.

"One of you two clowns put this in my trunk," Wolfe said, pointing at the bag.

"What is it?" Rocco.

"We don't know yet. You and Floyd found it last night."

"Huh?"

"Shut up and do it. I'll talk to you two when we get back to the office."

"We just thought we'd…" Floyd.

He caught a warning look from Lola, cut it short.

Rocco took the bag in his hands. An ugly low snarl came from Bruiser.

"No!" Wolfe barked back at him.

"I'll call you," I said to Wolfe.

She stepped close to me. The breeze ruffled her hair. Orchid perfume. "Give me a number. I'll call you."

I gave her Mama's number. She didn't write it down.

"I'm not there much. Leave a message.

"I know," she said.

They were all still standing in the parking lot as I pulled out.

45

I made my rounds the next few days. Patternless, like always, in case anybody was interested. Somebody left a message for me at the poolroom. Wanted to buy guns. A lot of guns, full-auto only. Probably the ATF, checking to see if I was still in business.

Dropped by the clinic in Brooklyn where they buy blood. I buy in small lots, but I outbid the Red Cross every time. The blood goes into small clear plastic packets. The way it works is this: The team hits a bank. One guy vaults the counter to grab the money while the others hold everyone down at gunpoint. The counter-vaulter cuts his hand going over, curses real loud, like it hurt. When the cops come, they send the lab for the spot where the blood spilled. DNA fingerprinting. They ever catch the robbers, the blood sample won't match. That's why rapists are the only humans you can count on to wear condoms in this town.

I collect matchbooks too. From restaurants I've never visited. They make good souvenirs to leave behind at a crime scene.

I never supply ideas, just equipment. Not a middleman, never in the middle.

There's also good money in body parts. Any part. I once saw an ad for a kidney. One hundred grand cash, jump right over that long waiting list. Sometimes, people are poor enough and cold enough to pop out a kid's eye, make him a more pitiful sight. A better beggar. Predatory anthropologists figured it out— offered the same service but with full hospitalization for the kid. Even threw in a few bucks. And they sell the eyes over here. Everybody wins. Fetal tissue is the perfect transplant material— it'll bond to anything and the body won't reject it. I wonder if the "pro-life" mob knows an abortion could save more lives than the mother's.

46

Some women have beautiful eyes. Their girlfriends tell them it's their best feature. So they wear a ton of eyeliner, mascara…like that.

Bonita bent over a lot.

She works in a joint that serves food and wine, little stage in the back, performances every night. Stand-up comics, singers, short dramatic pieces.

Bonita's an actress. Between jobs just now.

I found a table against the side wall. Smoking section. I wonder if they have them in prison now.

"Hello, stranger."

"Hi, Bonita." She was all in black: a tube skirt over a body stocking, spike heels.

"I called you a couple of times. Didn't that Chinese woman give you the message?"

"Here I am."

"Why didn't you call?"

"I did. Got your answering machine."

"So why didn't you leave a message?"

"What's the point? You already have my number."

"But then I'd know you called, honey."

The girl couldn't act but she could read an audience. Just as I was asking myself why I came, she switched away to get me some ice water, shaking it hard enough to blow out the candles on the tables.

"I'm on my break soon," she said when she came back. "We can watch the show together."

"What show?" I asked her, barely controlling my enthusiasm.

"Oh, it's so good. It's like a play, or something. Just wait. That's why it's so full tonight."

I crunched a flaky croissant between my teeth, sipped the ice water. She left the little glass bottle on the table. I wondered if trendoid B-girls drank tap water when they hustled salad-bar customers for drinks.

Bonita came back. Sat down just as the lights dimmed. I could see a couple of men setting up the stage. The lights came up. Tall, big-shouldered man was facing the audience, a Doberman lying at his feet. Looked like one of those Pacific Northwest lumberjacks, long brown hair, ropy muscle all along his forearms. He had a power drill in his hands.

"I know how things work," he told the audience, mouth a thin line. "When they get broke, I fix them."

The big man had a straight-ahead stare. Empty and flat, not challenging, not backing off either. Talking like it was coming from inside his head.

He lived in the basement, he told the audience. Janitor. Lived in a lot of places, some of them not so nice. And he did some things in those places, not nice things. Now he just wants to live in his basement, fix whatever's broke. The crowd was quiet, listening to his story.

The dog didn't bark, he told us. Some freak had carved him up when he was a puppy, cut into his throat. "But he still works," the man said. His voice had life in it, but subdued, an undertone of Wesley's dead-robot sound.

There was a kid who lived in his building. Slow in the head, but a sweet boy. He was scared of monsters coming for him in the night, so the man made him a machine. Just a bunch of flashing lights on a box with a toggle switch. The kid liked the machine. Slept good for the first time.

The kid went to a special school. His teacher, Dr. English, told the mother that the machine was a placebo. A fake, but one the kid believed in.

One night, the kid started screaming and he didn't stop. An ambulance took him away. The man visited him in the hospital. The kid told him the machine wasn't any good anymore.

The man said he was sorry— he'd build him a better one.

The man said he knew how things worked. Did some checking. Seems this Dr. English used to work at another school up North. The school had been closed behind some sex abuse scandal. Some teachers indicted, Dr. English resigned. The man called the kid's school. Dr. English was out. Broke his arm in a ski accident. Funny, the lady on the phone said, Dr. English only came to their school from his old job because he hated the cold weather.

The boy lived on the second floor. There was a fire escape leading to the ground.

We watched, listened as the man put it all together. Watched as he painstakingly drilled holes through the center of two hard rubber balls, strung a loop of piano wire between them. Tested it by snapping it in his hands.

The man was getting dressed. Dark jacket, pair of gloves, a black watch cap on his head. When he pulled it down, it turned into a ski mask. "Tonight, when it gets dark, I'm going to show this Dr. English a machine that works."

The stage went dark. Somebody gasped in the audience. Then the applause started. Built to a peak. Stayed there.

The man came back out. The announcer took the mike, called his name. David Joe Wirth, A pretty girl at a front table stood up, waved a fist at him, her dark ponytail bouncing. He smiled. They left the front together.