Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

88

"How's it going?" I asked Lily.

"He's coming along. It's not something you can do in a week."

"I know. Not in ten days, either."

Lily put her elbows on the desk, nestling her chin in the V of her fists. "What are you saying?"

"I got an idea. Or the beginning of one, anyway."

"Before you play around with any ideas, you should look at this stuff," indicating a handful of paper covered with typing.

I looked a question at her.

"Treatment reports," she said. "From Teresa."

89

I let Pansy out to her roof, made us each some supper while she took her pre-dump stroll. Then I sat down to read the reports. Had to hold the pages almost at arm's length to make out the words. I'd need reading glasses soon.

Hair fell into my eyes. I combed it back with my fingers. Seemed like they were sliding through easier than they used to these days.

The report was a war-zone dispatch— no overheated adjectives, no proposal writer's lies…cold truth. They were at the stage where they could call up the individual personalities, speak to them like they were different people in the room. I used the stuff I learned from the library like a Rosetta Stone, read it through.

Individualized Reactions to Psychotropics:

The core personality (Luke) was administered a single dose (1 1/4mg) Valium, PO. Within 45 minutes, subject was almost comatose, language was fragmented, dream-state, startle-response almost nonexistent, pinprick produced no reaction.

At session #6, subject hooked to IV, simple glucose solution administered. No reaction. Hypnosis brought "Satan's Child" to surface. Subject was in a rage, restrained by flex-straps. In this state, 10 mg Valium administered IV. No reaction: subject remained agitated, angry. When "Satan's Child" personality departed, "Toby" emerged…and promptly fell asleep. IV immediately discontinued.

Conclusion: The varying personalities are physiologically as well as psychologically distinct. The violent personality accesses significantly greater adrenaline flow, exceeding even limbic rage, producing phenomenal strength disproportionate to age and physical structure.

The report went on. More about "core personality" and "fusion goals." But every word sang the same song.

Inside Luke, different children.

One a monster.

90

I nosed the Plymouth east on Houston Street, covering the distance from the West Village to the Lower East Side in minutes. Turned right on Ludlow, right again on Delancey, back the way I'd come.

The car wash is on the corner of Delancey and the Bowery, the supplies stored on the concrete island at the traffic light. I pulled over just past Chrystie Street, watching the action. Cars pulled up to the light, two black men detached themselves from the island, dipping their squeegees in a big white plastic bucket, swinging them briskly to throw off the excess water. They walked the line of cars, looking for customers. One tried persuasion— you could read his gestures from a block away. The other just went to work, ready to demand money when he finished. Some drivers turned on their windshield wipers, others waved their hands signaling "No!" Some just sat rigid behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.

I watched for a while. Cabdrivers never went for the windshield wash. Not truckers either. The washers were lucky to score one paying job every four, five lights. A bad time to work, early in the morning, dealing with commuters. Nobody was where they wanted to be.

Seven o'clock. I pushed off from the curb, watching for a gap in traffic. Rolled to a stop right at the light. The Prof was perched on an abandoned car seat, smoking a cigarette like he was on the deck of a cruise ship. He flicked the smoke aside, majestically got to his feet, moved to my car as one of the washers ceremoniously slapped a squeegee into his hand.

"Watch how it's done, son," the Prof sang out.

I hit the switch, sliding down the driver's window.

"Good morning, my man. Here's the plan: pay a buck and change your luck. Do something right and you see the light."

I handed him a bill. The Prof did the windshield in a half dozen expert swipes, bowed deeply, tossed the squeegee to one of the washers, and resumed his seat. I took off, straight ahead onto Kenmare, turned left at Crosby, and waited.

Halfway through my second smoke, the Prof slid into the passenger seat.

"Where to?" I asked.

"Head over to Allen, find a place to park."

91

I found a spot just off Hester, pulled in behind a red Acura Legend sedan. A man in his thirties crossed the street, oiled muscles gleaming under a cut-down T-shirt, baggy shorts, baseball cap and sunglasses, zinc ointment covered his nose. Surf's up, somewhere. A battered pale green Cougar pulled to the curb. Two kids got out: teenagers, a boy and a girl, dressed alike in black, sporting matching asymmetrical haircuts. They wobbled down the street together as the Cougar roared off. Home from a night at the clubs? A dark sedan stopped at the light, overflowing with Vietnamese. The guy riding shotgun swiveled his head to look at me-I could feel homicidal eyes behind the sunglasses, measuring. Up close, he'd stink of cordite.

"What's up?" I asked the Prof.

"Queen Thana, schoolboy. Word is, you've been dancing with the devil."

"What word?"

"The drums hum, bro'. Stay close to the ground, you can hear the sound."

"And…?"

"And stay away, don't play, okay?"

"I'm not playing."

The little man's deep brown eyes turned to me. "I can't keep squaring your beefs, chief. You wanted to go play gunfighter games out in Hillbilly Harlem, I tried to make you see some sense, but I didn't press too hard, right?"

I nodded.

"This ain't the same, lame. The Queen is mean, Jack. She got people who want to die, that's no lie."

"I'm not in anything with them— I don't even know who they are."

"Don't be slick with the man who taught you the trick, schoolboy. Got to be, you holding something they want."

I lit a smoke, thinking it through.

"You talked to them," I said.

"We rapped across the gap, exchanged some ideas, like the UN."

"They lean on you?"

"That's not the way they do— I thought you knew. Just asked me to talk to you."

"Come on, Prof."

"You took something of theirs. They say, maybe you didn't know whose it was, okay? They want it back. Said to bring it with you when you come."

"Come where?"

"Man said they'll tell the dealer. Jacques. But you got to have it with you, understand?"

"Yeah." Thinking of Wolfe. How to get it back.

"I'll call, every day. Once in the morning, once at night. You get it, leave word. I'll set up the meet. Better if it comes from us."

"I'll try.

"Try hard, homeboy."

92

It was still early. I rolled by Central Park, telling myself I was scanning Carlos. Practicing my lies. But the woman who said her name was Belinda didn't come by.

93

The white dragon was still on guard in the window. Always a dragon there— white for clear, blue for cops, red for danger. I drove around the back. The guys in the kitchen looked me over like they'd never seen me before.

I found my booth, waited. Mama wasn't at her register. No waiter came by.

A copy of the Daily News was in my booth. Five kids murdered so far this week. Separate incidents. Gunned down— cross-fire killings. The city's loaded with homicidal punks, and not a marksman among them.

If you wrote a book about it, the critics would say it was full of gratuitous violence.

Letter to the editor from some cop, arguing with a citizen who complained the police don't ticket off-duty cars parked near the precinct house. The cop said he put his life on the line every day— he was entitled to park on the house.