Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

"Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I'm Belinda Roberts."

I held out my hand for her to shake, told her one of my names.

"I'll write down my number. Do you have a piece of paper?"

"I'll remember it," I told her.

She pulled my eyes with hers, seeking the truth. Finally nodded.

"Okay," she said.

Got to her feet, tied the sweatshirt around her neck, jogged off. Very fine.

74

The white limo whispered by again. Empty now.

Done for the day, I got to my feet, unsnapped Pansy's lead, told her to heel. She took the point on my left side, shoulder against my thigh.

I cut through the trees to where I'd parked. A black man in a black suit sitting on a tree stump stood up as I approached, a dull silver automatic in his hand.

"Just stand still, mahn."

I stopped, Pansy next to me.

"I don't have any money," I said, letting fear snake its way into my voice to settle him down.

"This is no robbery, mahn. Just come along with me. Somebody wants to talk with you."

"Who?"

"Don't be stalling now, mahn. Just come along, take a nice ride."

"I'm not going anywhere, pal."

"Yes, you're coming, Mr. Burke. See, we know you. Don't be stupid, now."

"You won't hurt me?"

"No, mahn, we don't hurt you."

"What about my dog?…I can't leave her here."

"Just tie her to a tree, mahn. You be back very soon. Nobody take a big dog like that."

"But…"

"Last chance, mahn."

"Okay, okay," I said, reassuring him, reaching over to snap the leash on my dog, talking to her. Just as I was about to fasten the leash, I said, "Pansy, sit!," watching the gunman almost imperceptibly relax at the words just as Pansy launched herself without a sound, clamping her vise-grip jaws on his arm. I picked his gun off the grass, snapped "Out!" at Pansy, and she backed off. The gunman was down, moaning, left hand gripping his right forearm, blood bubbling between his fingers.

"My arm! She crushed the bone, mahn! It's all water in there."

"Who wants me?" I asked him, bending close, patting his body, looking for another gun— came up empty. "You need a doctor, need one bad," I said. "Tell me and you can go."

Creamy dots on his dark-skinned face, pain in his eyes.

"You want the dog again?" I asked.

His eyes shot around the clearing. It was empty, nobody around. I felt ice in my spine— was Clarence in on this?

"Thana," he muttered.

"What?"

"Queen Esther Thana, mahn. The Mamaloi." His eyes sweeping the area again, looking for something.

"You know my name. Tell her to call me. On the phone, understand?"

He grunted something, sounded like yes. The gunman could walk himself into the Emergency Room. Where the triage nurse would ask him if he had Blue Cross.

I turned away, pocketed his gun, slapped my thigh for Pansy to come along.

Clarence was sitting on a bench near my car. "Better let me hold the gun, mahn," he said.

I palmed it to him.

"There was another one with him," Clarence said. "They have a car waiting for you. One block down," indicating with his eyes. "Better come with me."

He got up and started in the other direction. I walked next to him, Pansy right alongside.

"What happened to the other one?" I asked him.

The cobalt eyes were calm. "He's still there," Clarence said.

75

Clarence opened the back door of his Rover. I gave the signal and Pansy clambered inside. Clarence threw a smooth U-turn on CPW, heading back downtown.

"Where shall I drop you, mahn?"

"How come you were around today, Clarence?"

He shrugged his slim shoulders, face expressionless. "I'm just a soldier, mahn."

"Then take me to the general," I told him.

76

Clarence turned east on Fifty-seventh, working his way to the FDR, then south to the Brooklyn Bridge.

"That's some dog you got, mahn. Never saw something so big move so fast."

"She's the best," I said, reaching back to pat my pal.

"Pretty woman you got there too, mahn."

"Pretty woman?"

"Yes, mahn. In the park. Pretty woman. Nice big butt on her. Never trust a woman with one of those little-boy butts, it's a sure sign."

"Who told you that?"

"Everybody knows, mahn. Big butt, big heart."

I thought of my Blue Belle, gone now. The fire-scar on Flood's rump. Blossom walking away. Maybe it was true.

I rolled down my window, lit a smoke. "You saw the woman in the park?"

"Yes, mahn. Like I said. Good age on her too. Not like some of those flighty young girls. Just right for an old man like you."

"Yeah. You were there a long time, huh?"

"All the time, mahn. Ever since you call Jacques."

"How'd you pick me up?"

"Easy enough, mahn. Your car, the places you go, all like that."

"Where else?"

"The shelter-place. The one for kids. The restaurant. I'm a shadow, mahn. Thin and dark. Nobody sees."

"I appreciate what you did, Clarence."

"You have been our friend, mahn. Jacques said."

"Here's some friendly advice for you, Clarence. Don't go into that restaurant."

"I know, mahn."

"Who told you…Jacques?"

"Everybody knows, mahn."

77

Jacques was at his table in the basement. He didn't blink at Pansy. Pansy didn't blink back.

Clarence handed him the pistol I'd taken from the man in the park. Jacques released the clip, pulling it from the butt, worked the slide.

"Empty, mahn. Nothing in the chamber. Safety was on too."

I nodded. The gunman was what he said he was— not a shooter.

Jacques turned the gun over in his hands, put one polished thumbnail inside the chamber, sighted down the barrel. "Hasn't been cleaned in a year, mahn. A piece of junk. Iron Curtain stuff, not even military." Jacques's fine-boned nose curled into a faint sneer. "Whoever had this, mahn, he was not a professional."

"There was another one," Clarence told him.

Jacques raised his eyebrows, waiting for the rest.

"He had no gun, nothing. And he never saw me coming," Clarence said, a leather-covered sap in his hand, showing Jacques what had happened to the watcher.

"You talked to the man with the gun?"

"He said he just wanted to take me someplace. To see someone named Thana. Queen Thana."

Jacques's eyes didn't change but his cheeks went hollow.

"You know her?" I asked.

"Everybody knows of her, mahn. I have not met her. And I do not want to. Obeah. Very powerful obeah. A voodoo priestess. Her followers are all from the Islands. People say she can make a man do what she wants. That she can kill you with a thought. Reach across the sea, back across time."

"She's in business?"

"Not our business, mahn. Not for money. But she is no love goddess, that one. A warrior priestess. They say her soldiers are the dead come back to life."

"What does she want from me?"

"I do not know, mahn. But if she wants you, she will find you."

"You can reach out to her?"

"No, mahn. Not with the phone. But I know…some things. I can, maybe, get a message through."

"The bag…the juju bag," Clarence whispered.

"What?"

"That was hers, maybe. Swinging from that tree in the moonlight. Evil. She knows."

"Knows what?"

"I went back. Later, I went back. In the daylight. And the bag, it was gone."

I lit a smoke, hands steadying with the answer. She hadn't taken the bag, but her watchers knew who did.

"Tell her I'll come and talk to her," I told Jacques, and walked out of the basement.

78

In prison, I used to lift weights. Just to be doing something— I was never any good at it. Bench presses. Some days they put too much weight on the bar— I couldn't get it up off my chest.