Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

I watched the crowd. Wondered how many of them shared the Secret.

47

Later, in Bonita's studio apartment on the fringe of the Village.

"My roommate will be back soon," she whispered, sliding the tube skirt down over her hips.

Later, at her kitchen table. "Did you get it?" she asked me.

"Get what?"

"The play. The one we saw tonight. I didn't, the first time he did it. See, the teacher at the school, he was molesting that little boy. And the boy's mother, she trusted him. That's why the machine didn't work…the one the janitor made for him…the monsters weren't all in his head like they thought."

"Yeah, I got it."

"Isn't it disgusting …what some people do?"

"Yeah."

"I wonder where she is, Tawny. I thought she'd be home by now."

"It's okay, I gotta take off myself."

"She's going away next weekend. You could spend the night…"

"If I don't have to work, I'll call you."

"You better ," sitting in my lap now, squirming.

"Bonita, I feel pretty stupid about this, but…"

"What?"

"Well, I wanted to buy you a present…just to show you how much I care and all. A charm for your bracelet…I saw one I really liked…a little gold heart…"

"Un-huh…"

"Yeah, but by the time I got to the store, tonight, it was closed. So, I was wondering…I don't mean to be crude or anything…you know the crazy hours I work…Could I give you the money, let you pick it up for yourself?…I mean…"

"Oh, you're so sweet, honey. I don't mind at all."

I handed her five fifty-dollar bills, folded in half. She put them on the table without looking.

"You have to go right now?" she purred, squirming some more. Maybe she wasn't such a lousy actress.

48

I cut myself shaving the next morning. Took a plump leaf from the aloe plant on the windowsill, punctured it with my thumbnail, smeared it on, watching Pansy sneer at my clumsiness. Thinking of Blossom and her goddamned health advice.

Ate slowly. A rosette of michetta roll, hard crust, hollow inside. Only place you can get them in New York is this Milanese bakery in Brooklyn, on the Bushwick border. Real Italians. I'd been going there for years— never heard them say Mamma Mia once. I smeared cream cheese on each piece as I snapped it off. Drank my ice water, swallowed the beta carotene and vitamin C.

Blossom again.

If I ever went over her back fence one night, I wouldn't need cash. Or lies.

I snapped out of it, looked over to the couch. "Want to go for a ride, girl?"

Pansy's tail thumped happily.

Saturday morning, bright and clear. We took the Willis Avenue Bridge to the Hutch, headed north. All the way to the wilds of Dutchess County, almost a two-hour drive.

Teenage girl hitching by the side of the road. I thought of a maggot who picked up a girl like that in California. Raped her, chopped her hands off so there wouldn't be fingerprints, and dumped her in a culvert. The little girl lived, somehow. The maggot's already been paroled— it's not like he robbed a bank or anything. I read he got arrested again in Florida. For shoplifting. The paper said he stole a hat, but he'd paid for another item he had in a bag. A box of diapers.

I knew I was close when I saw the clapboard shacks standing just off the dirt road. A trio of chopped-down Hogs sat outside one shack, ape-hanger handlebars sprouting like stalks from the chromed engines. One of those prefab metal sheds sat behind the shack. They'd be cranking up the heat inside, making meth, choking on the ether fumes. The bikers figured out the dope business a long time ago— the real problem is getting the stuff across the border, so they cook their own right here.

The last house made the others look like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. Set well back from the road on a winding, narrow approach, it sagged from depression. Tar paper covered most of the windows, missing shingles pockmarked the roof, the whole sorry mess rotting from termites who had long since fled to better pickings. If it burned to the ground, the coroner would call it suicide.

I pulled the Plymouth into the side yard, gunning the engine, sliding on the dirt, letting him know I was there. Turned off the ignition and waited— I wasn't going to jump out too fast.

He came around the side of the house, a tall, rawboned, slope-shouldered man with a doofus mustache. Hair cropped short, wearing tiny round sunglasses. A rifle in one hand, a dog on a chain in the other— a white pit bull with a ring of black fur around one eye and one black ear. The animal didn't look a bit like Spuds McKenzie.

Elroy. He lived back in the woods. Off the land, he said. He'd jack deer by spotlight at night when they came to the salt lick he'd set up. Blow ducks off the water with his shotgun. Anything that had fur, feathers, or scales. He wasn't a hunter, he was an armed consumer.

Even the bikers cut him considerable slack— people said he ate road-kill sandwiches.

I hit the window switch, let him have a good long look.

"Burke!" he boomed out.

"Yeah, it's me. Put the gun down, okay?"

"Sure."

"And tie that animal up."

"Barko wouldn't hurt anyone," he said, sounding insulted.

"I got Pansy in the car," I told him, by way of explanation. I climbed out. The pit bull watched me with only mild interest, but his ears were cocked. He had Pansy's scent, growled a challenge.

We walked around behind the house. Elroy had his own prefab shed too. Maybe they came with the original houses.

"You have the paper?" I asked him.

"What's your hurry?"

"That paper isn't going to move itself, Elroy."

"Come on," he said.

We walked past the shed toward the woods. Two more pit bulls were anchored to metal stakes set in cement. One had an old tire in his alligator jaws, waving it around in triumph as the other watched.

"Aren't they beauties?" Elroy asked.

"They are, for sure. You training them?"

"Yeah! Want to see?"

"Okay."

"Barko's really my best one. Just wait here, I'll get him."

He came back leading the dog. The other two yapped in anticipation, pawing the ground. A low-slung four-wheeled cart stood on a level patch of ground, piled high with solid-concrete blocks. Elroy took an elaborate leather harness from a hook on a nearby tree. It was lined with some spongelike material. As soon as he took up the harness, Barko began running in little circles, overcome with excitement.

"Come on, boy! Time to work!"

Barko trotted over on his stubby legs and Elroy fitted him up. He attached two short leads from the harness directly to a U-bolt on the front of the cart. Barko stood rigid at attention, waiting.

"Okay, baby… pull! " Elroy yelled.

The pit bull surged forward, straining against the harness, fighting for traction. When all four legs locked in, he began to inch forward, dragging the cart behind him, foaming a bit at the mouth, Elroy screaming, "Full Pull, Barko! Full Pull!" Soon the little tank was slogging forward, like a man wading through setting cement. Barko never faltered, chugging ahead until Elroy ran to intercept him, kicking a wooden wedge under the cart's wheels. He unsnapped the harness, held the dog high over his head in both hands.

"The winner… Barrrko! " I swear the dog grinned.

"That's what you're training the dogs for?"

"Sure. You don't think I'm gonna let my dogs fight, do you? This is the latest thing. They get ninety seconds to pull the weight fifteen feet— that's a full pull. Barko's going in the middleweight class this fall."

"Pit bull tractor pulls?"

"Yeah, man! You know how much Barko just lugged across the finish line? One half ton, man. A thousand pounds. And that was on grass— the regulation pulls're on a piece of flat carpet. Better traction, smoother roll."