Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

"Okay. I get it."

"No, you don't get it. Not the whole thing. This Satanic child abuse thing, it's just a criminal conspiracy. Set up so they can't lose. The kid buys into the insanity, he grows up to become one of them. Recruits others. Puts on the hood himself, works the cameras, chops up the bodies if they make any. And if you guys find out, if the kid tells you the truth, he fucking sounds nuts, right? You want to take a victim before a jury, have him tell about some devil-worshiping cult? That's for Geraldo, not the real world." I bit the inside of my cheek, tasting acid. "It's all a hustle— like kids committing suicide because they heard subliminal messages on heavy-metal music. Some lawyer's idea, right? Next thing you know, some fuck's gonna shoot up a bank, say he read the Bible backward, got a new message."

"It's true," Teresa put in. "Almost like they know what they're doing. You can deliberately introduce dissociation. Splitting. All it takes is inescapable pressure. Stylized sadism. One shock to the psyche after another. Even in a concentration camp, the prisoner knows he's not alone. There's a reason for him to be there…even if it's an evil reason. But a child like Luke— he was all by himself until he split off."

Wolfe lit another smoke, using a lighter from her purse. "We've had cases like this before. Not the multiple-personality thing. Not even with cameras. But kids being sexually abused by a group. Devil-signs, black hoods. We don't even mention it to the jury…just try it like what it is. Rape. The defense wants to bring it up, that's their problem. They can't even cross-examine the victim on it without telling the jury they knew about it. And where would they know except from their slimy clients?"

"Luke didn't kill those babies," I told her. "Those people, his parents and the others, they did it. Sure as if they'd held the knife."

"They'd never go down for homicide on the facts we have," she said. "But it doesn't matter. We've got no death penalty in this state. And they're looking at forever-to-life for what we can prove." She turned to Teresa. "Is he going to be able to testify?"

"We're working on bringing his personalities back together. Fusing them so there's no splits. The core, Luke, is very strong. Maybe someday. But…if he's pressured too much, too early…he could go back over."

Wolfe's eyes glowed in the white room, shining like Strega's had when she told me her truth. "There'll be something else, somewhere. The films…could Luke maybe tell you where it happened? Not on the stand…just tell you? "

"Yes, I think so. He's a brilliant child. All the memory is there. Just…fragmented."

Wolfe ground out her cigarette. "Okay." Turning to me. "Let's go."

"We have to wait here a little bit, okay? Until the driver comes back."

She settled back into her chair. Teresa said goodbye, said she was going to talk to Luke. She'd tell Max it was time to take off.

I lit a smoke of my own. "That racehorse, it said on the photo it was owned by something called the Syndicate. Is that just the corporate name you use?"

"The Flame isn't just mine. We all bought her together."

"Who?"

"My…sisters. We're like a family, all together. We thought it would be fun."

"Your sisters?"

"She means us, Lily said, stepping into the room, Immaculata right behind her."

136

It was like someone hit the Mute button on the TV. They all looked at each other, frozen in place, too much playing over their faces for me to read it.

Lily muttered something in Italian, grabbed Wolfe in a fierce hug, tears flying as Wolfe squeezed her back, Immaculata shouldering in between them, their so differently beautiful faces pushed against one another, makeup melting as they merged.

I stood away from them, an outsider, feeling the void inside me like a brick in my chest. Turned my face to the window. A filthy city wall returned my blank stare, undeceived.

137

It took them a while, the warrior women rebonding, speaking in tribal-talk. I wasn't in the room for them.

Finally, Teresa came back in. Pulled Lily aside, said something to her.

Lily caught my eye, held a clenched fist at her waist. Thanks. Immaculata bowed. Teresa stepped out with them.

"Ready to take me back?" Wolfe asked.

I wrapped the blindfold around her eyes, guided her carefully down the stairs, into the back of the cab.

Max had it rolling as soon as I slammed the door.

138

My watch said it was three-thirty. Wolfe sat to my left, her back against door, turning so she was almost facing me. She lit a cigarette. "Are you going to look for them?"

"Who?"

She waved her hand at me, trailing smoke, elegantly impatient.

"Luke's parents."

"No."

"No?"

"That's what I said. It's not my job."

"You mean nobody's paying you?"

"Yeah, that's what I mean."

"Who paid you for Bonnie Browne?"

"I wasn't paid for her— I was paid to find a photograph." Paid by Strega, forever ago.

"And her husband?" The freak in the clown suit. The cops found him at the bottom of the stairs, his neck broken.

"The way I heard it, it was an accident."

"You don't trust me."

"With what?"

"I just don't want us to get in each other's way with this."

"There is no 'this,' okay? You want something, spell it out."

She ground out her smoke, opened her purse, took out a mirror, balanced it on her knees as she ran a comb through her hair. Put on fresh lipstick. A bit of it smeared as the cab hit a bump. She dabbed at it with a piece of tissue. Crossed her legs, looked back over at me.

"Vigilante. That's real popular now. People lose confidence in law enforcement, they start using self-help. But you…It's like your profession. What you get paid for."

"That's not me," I told her. Thinking: Who's a citizen in all this? Lily, Storm, Immaculata…even Wolfe, they were all over the line. I lived on the other side, they crossed over when they needed to…what was the difference?

"I think it is," she said. "You're known to half a dozen law enforcement agencies, and they all say the same thing. There's not enough to charge you with anything, but there's homicides going back to the last time you were in prison. And they all have one thing in common."

"Dead people do."

"It was always about children, that's the thread."

"It doesn't tie to me, whatever it is. If I went around snuffing baby-rapers, I'd be on overtime— the city's full of them."

"What're you saying?"

"You really want to know? A vigilante, he straps down, goes hunting. It's not personal. Me, you leave me alone, that's the end of it. I'm not a hunter. The newspapers, they got this vigilante thing all screwed up. A woman gets grabbed in an alley, pulls out a knife and stabs the guy trying to rape her, the press says she's a vigilante. She's not. Just someone defending herself."

"And that's what you do?"

"I don't do anything. I have my own people. That's what I have. All I have."

She leaned forward, pale eyes not merging with the darkness in the back of the cab— a light of their own. "I'm trying to tell you something, you want to listen," she said. "Lily doesn't have what you want— the CWA reports, the pedigree on the parents, last known address, associates, DMV, IRS. All that. She doesn't have it. I do."

"So?"

"Usually, we'd share. My crew and Lily's. But…the way things started out with Luke, we didn't…"

"She shared with you now."

"I know. But Lily's no investigator. I mean… she investigates inside children's heads, you understand? My people, we work outside. Like you."

"Your people worked like me, I'd never get hired."