Andrew Vachss: Sacrifice

"Sure." Melancholy sarcasm.

"Put your hand in my coat pocket. Your left hand."

"Wow! You got some roll in there."

"It's mostly singles, two twenties on the inside. Take one…Tell him you asked for half up front."

She glanced over her shoulder, hip-shot, leaned close to me. "I tell him that and he'll be waiting for you later…when you go home."

"I know. Tell him the roll was a couple a hundred, it's okay."

"But…"

"Just do it, Debbie. You live with him?"

"Yeah…"

"You can go home tonight. Away from here."

"How…?"

"Take the money, go do your work. Tell him what I told you."

"Mister…"

"Reach in, pull out the roll. Shield it with your body. Take the bill, put the rest back. Pat my dog. Then take off. Tonight, you go home, you understand? Stay out of the bus station— take a train. It'll be okay, Debbie."

She reached in my pocket, knelt down.

"Sheba, it's okay, girl," I said.

The dog made a sweet little noise as Debbie patted her. She straightened up, looked into the lenses of my glasses. "You're sure?"

"Dead sure."

I listened to her heels tap off on the sidewalk. A different rhythm now.

3

It was almost two o'clock before he showed. I recognized him easily by now. In his thirties, close-cropped brown hair, matching mustache, trimmed neat. Wearing a blue windbreaker, jeans, white basketball shoes. Youth worker from one of the Homeless Shelters. Last time he stuffed a dollar bill into my cup. I remember saying, "God bless you."

Watching his smile.

This time he wasn't alone. The kid with him was maybe eight years old. Skinny kid, wearing a brand-new sweatshirt with some cartoon character on the front, munching a hot dog. Having a great time. Probably spent a bunch of quarters in the video arcades first.

They turned into the electronics store a few doors in front of where I was standing— the same place he'd gone into the last time. When he'd come up behind me and put the money in my cup. The same place he always went.

He was inside almost an hour. When he came out, he was alone.

4

He walked past me. Stuffed another dollar in my cup. "May the Lord follow you always," I thanked him. He smiled his smile.

The Prof strolled up to me. A tiny black man, wearing a floor-length raincoat, scuffling along.

"You got him?" I asked.

"Slime can slide, but it can't hide."

"Call McGowan first," I told him, holding his eyes to be sure he got it. McGowan's a cop— he knows what I do, but kids are his beat, not hijackers. "Tell him the freak made a live delivery this time. Tell him to go in the back way— Max is there on the watch."

"I hear what you say— today's the day?"

"The bust will go down soon— they're ready, warrants and all. You find out where the freak goes, where he holes up. They'll take him tomorrow, at work. Then we take our piece out of his apartment. Just the cash— the cops can have the rest."

The Prof took off, disappearing into the crowd. The freak would never see him coming.

5

Time to go. I gently pulled on the harness and Sheba came to her feet. I folded the blanket, wrapped it around my neck, and let the dog pull me forward. I turned the corner, headed down the alley where Max would be waiting.

I spotted Debbie's owner lounging against the alley wall. Tall, slim brownskin man wearing a long black leather coat and a Zorro hat.

Stocky white kid next to him, heavily muscled in a red tank top. A pimp: he needed reinforcements to mug a blind man.

I plodded on ahead, oblivious to them, closing the gap.

The pimp pushed himself languidly off the wall to face me. The muscleman loomed up on the side.

"Hold up, man."

I stopped, pulling on the harness, squeezing the button on the handle that unsnapped the whole apparatus from the dog.

"Wha…?" Fear in my voice.

"Give up the money, man. No point in getting yourself all fucked up, right?"

"I don't have any money," I whined.

I saw the slap coming. Didn't move. Let it rock me to my knees, pulling the harness off as I fell.

"Sheba! Hit him!" I yelled, and the dog sprang forward, burying her wolf's teeth deep into the pimp's thigh. He shrieked something in a high octave just as the muscleman took a step toward me. I heard a crack and the muscleman was down, his head lolling at a chiropractic angle.

Max the Silent stepped into view, his Mongol face expressionless, nostrils flared, eyes on the target. Hands at his side: one fisted to smash, the other knife-edged to chop.

"Sheba! Out!"

The dog backed off, cheated, but acting like a pro. The pimp was holding his thigh, moaning a plea to someone he didn't know.

I squatted next him, patted him down. Found the little two-shot derringer in his belt, popped it open. Loaded. No point warning this dirtbag— he wouldn't be a good listener. I held my hand parallel to the ground, made a flicking motion like I was brushing crumbs off a table. I heard a pop, like cloth snapped open in a gust of wind. The pimp slammed into the wall, eyes glazed. Blood bubbled on his lips. I stuck the derringer back into his belt— it was all the ID he'd need at the hospital.

He wouldn't come home tonight. The rest was up to Debbie.

A putty-colored sedan lumbered into the alley at the far end, bouncing on a bad set of shocks. The cops. Max merged with the shadows. I put on my dark glasses, snapped Sheba's harness, and made my slow way out to the street.

6

The E train let me out at Chambers Street, the downtown end of the line. I found my Plymouth parked at the curb near the World Trade Center. Unlocked the back door, unsnapped Sheba's harness. She leaped lightly to the seat.

I took off the dark glasses and climbed behind the wheel. None of the watching citizens blinked at the miraculous transformation.

7

I turned the Plymouth toward the West Side Highway, slipped through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, tossed a token in the Exact Change lane, and cruised along the Belt Parkway just ahead of the rush-hour traffic.

Taking Sheba home the back way.

I pulled over to a quiet spot the other side of the Brooklyn Aquarium. Exchanged the running shoes for a pair of boots, the sweatshirt for a turtleneck jersey, the raincoat for a leather jacket. Threw the blind man's props into the trunk.

The Plymouth purred past JFK Airport, its overtorqued engine muted, well within itself. Sheba slept peacefully on the back seat, profoundly uninterested in where we were going. Just doing her job.

Like me.

I turned off the Van Wyck Expressway onto Queens Boulevard. A short hop to the City-Wide Special Victims Bureau, sitting in the shadow of the House of Detention. I found a parking place, snapped Sheba's harness back on.

The entrance to the Bureau is blocked by a steel gate, guard's desk to one side, two-passenger elevator to the left of a narrow corridor. An Oriental woman was at the desk. Pretty face, calmly suspicious eyes.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Ms. Wolfe."

She handed me a sign-in sheet on a clipboard with a cheap ballpoint pen attached by a string, but her eyes never left my face. "Your name?" she asked. The way cops ask.

Sheba jumped up so her front paws were resting on the desk, her ears up and alert.

"Hi, Sheba!" the Oriental woman said. "I know I've got a treat for you around here someplace. Let me see…" She rummaged in her desk drawer, came out with a dog biscuit in her left hand. Tossed it at Sheba while she showed me the pistol in her right.

"Where did you get our dog?" she asked, still calm, much colder.

I moved my hands away from my body. "Ask Wolfe," I told her.

She must have kicked some button under the desk. Wolfe came around the corner, a cigarette in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other.