Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

Took me almost a month, but I found the kid. On her knees in an alley, waiting for the next trick, not even bothering to get up while her pimp negotiated price with me. I paid the pimp what he was due, brought the kid to Lily. After a while, I took her up to see Sophie, like Doc wanted.

At first, Sophie didn't seem to know her. Then her eyes snapped open. She lunged at me, screaming. Doc had the hypo ready.

"It was worth a try," he said, later.

The little girl's okay now. Maybe she'll see her mother again. On Visiting Day.

Some of the little girls don't make it. Louisa looked up at me from her hospital bed. Sixteen, she was. Huge eyes in what was left of her face. The lost child had turned one too many car tricks. Bad skin and weak bones, held together with scabs and scores. Dying now, and she knew it.

"Anything I can do?" I asked her. "Anything you want?"

She turned her skeleton's face to me, no-soul eyes on the medical chart clipped to her bed. Where her death sentence was spelled out. AIDS. "I'd like my father to fuck me. Just one more time."

She died before she could say his name.

64

The train came in, only about ten minutes late. I took Luke's hand. If he bolted in that place, I'd never catch him. I wished Michelle was with us.

Doc had a dark blue Lands' End canvas bag slung over one shoulder, nothing else. He wasn't planning to stay. We shook hands.

"Doc, this is my friend Luke. Luke, this is Doc."

The boy stuck out his hand, clasped his left hand over Doc's right as they shook. The way I'd done.

The Bronx Zoo is nice and quiet during the weekday. Luke loved it all: the bears, the monorail that ran through a replica of an Asian forest, the jungle cats. I filled Doc in while the kid happily took a camel ride.

"Luke's video-phobic, went rigid when he saw a camera. Don't know much about his parents— a black-market adoption. He killed his baby brother, stabbed him to death. His eyes roll up sometimes. He loses time. In a foster home, he strangled a baby. Doesn't know anything about it. Or the stabbing, either. Genius IQ. Yesterday, he was a baby girl for a while. Doesn't remember that either. The DA knows, wants him to come in. We've only got a little time."

"Who's the DA? Maybe I can talk to him."

"Wolfe. From City-Wide."

"Forget it. Her crew accounts for half the rapist population in my joints."

"I know. I'm not looking for a play from her."

"What do you need me for? You know what's wrong with the kid as well as I do."

"I told you, Doc. The girasol."

Luke climbed off the camel, beaming. We took him to the reptile house. "Think he'll like the chameleons?" Doc asked.

"He doesn't know," I said.

"Don't be so sure," Doc said, watching the boy.

65

The Plymouth poked its way through Hunts Point, heading for the Mole's junkyard.

"Remember Elroy?" I asked Doc.

"Sure. Who could forget him? A rich fantasy life don't make you crazy, but Elroy flirted with it pretty good."

"He's writing a book."

"Why not, hoss? Probably make him rich."

Luke sat between us on the front seat, his hands on the padded dashboard. "You like dogs?" I asked him.

"Some dogs," he said, wary.

"These are wonderful dogs," I promised him. "You'll see."

I stopped the Plymouth at the gate. Waited while Terry came to open it. Pulled inside. The pack swirled around the car. Simba leaped lightly onto the hood, peering in at us through the windshield.

"Is he a wolf?" Luke asked.

"I don't know what he is. But he's the best at it."

Terry came around to the window. He'd been pulled loose from a kiddie pimp in Times Square by Michelle. A war-zone adoption, and Terry was her child. Hers and the Mole's.

"The Mole says to take you back in the shuttle," he said, pointing to an old Jeep, cut down so it had a flatbed rear. We climbed out. Followed Terry through the pack, climbed aboard.

He drove expertly, negotiating the minefield like it was a post-apocalypse gymkhana. Luke's eyes widened— this was wilder than the safari ride at the zoo. We pulled up in a clearing next to the Mole's bunker. The resident lunatic was nowhere in sight. I looked a question at Terry. "Mole won't be around unless you need him, okay?" he answered. "You can work downstairs."

66

Luke's eyes swept the area. The dog pack had reassembled, sitting patiently. Abandoned cars, interwoven with huge pieces of machinery, had rusted into a permanent necklace, blocking any view of the outside. Behind the necklace, a chain link fence topped with razor wire. Dots of firelight on the surrounding flatlands, sounds of diesels chugging past, a siren cut through, faded. The tip of the world. Junkyard or graveyard. The boy took it all in, observing and calm. Interested, not curious.

I started toward the bunker. "Come on, Luke. Let's go downstairs, so we can talk."

The boy stiffened. His little face went rigid, skull showing under the soft skin.

"Basement?" he said, like he didn't have enough air. "Basement?"

"Oh shit," Doc said, moving back to give the boy room.

Terry stepped forward. "It's not a basement, pal. Who said that? We don't have basements here. It's safe here, Luke. Burke's going to. the cave. A real cave, like in the jungle. It's where we go when there's trouble. They can never find you there."

"Cave?"

"Sure. It's fun. We have all kinds of neat stuff there. Want me to show you?"

"I…don't know."

"Well, you don't have to go. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Not here. This is my house, see? And you're my friend."

"Friend?"

"Sure, my friend. Like I said. I protect my friends, and they protect me. We protect each other. If bad people come around here, we know how to fix them. Fix them real good, I promise."

"Fix them?"

"Sure," Terry said, kneeling next to the boy, not touching him. "Simba!" he called.

The tawny monster bounded into the clearing, ears tipped forward, bushy tail curling up over his back. Terry made a circle gesture with his hand, and the beast whirled in his tracks, facing me and Doc, standing between Terry and Luke.

"Who's in charge here?" he asked Luke. "Me or Burke?"

"Burke is the man," Luke said, more life in his voice now, reasonable.

"And I'm the kid, right?"

Luke nodded.

"Simba, watch!" Terry snapped.

A low warning growl from the beast. He backed up until his tail was brushing Terry, magnificent head swiveling on a narrow arc. Me to Doc, Doc to me.

I took a tentative step forward. Simba lunged at me, blood-ugly snarl from deep inside him. I stepped back. The other dogs made pack-noises behind me— I didn't turn around.

"Simba's my dog. Mine and the Mole's. He loves us. Nobody hurts us here. Nobody."

"Would he hurt Burke?"

"He'd kill him," Terry said, matter-of-fact, patting the dog on his shoulder. "Or anybody else."

Luke's little hand reached out, touched the dog. Simba watched us.

I knew better than to say anything.

67

"Come on, Simba," Terry said. He walked to the bunker, Luke right next to him. All three of them disappeared inside.

I walked over to where they'd been standing. Sat on one of the cut-down oil drums the Mole uses for outdoor furniture. Doc took a seat next to me. I lit a smoke.

"Got another one of those?"

"I thought you quit."

"This is one of those times, hoss."

I handed over my pack, cracked a wooden match for him.

"We almost blew it, partner."

"I know."

"Damn! How'd that kid…Terry…how'd he know what to say?"

"It's what his mother said to him— when she brought him here. His real mother, not the bitch who birthed him. He was a sex rental when he was younger. They can smell it on each other."