Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

"You're saying you're better at it than we are?"

"I'm saying…you can't use your kind of stuff with freaks. Especially when they run in packs. You can't use undercovers— they have an acid test. Like a day-care center where they're doing the kids. You suspect it, right? So you get somebody hired. Know what they do? They leave your guy alone in a back room with a kid. Wait to see what happens. Your guy doesn't start groping the kid, they know he's not one of them. Simple, right? You can have undercovers shoot up, snort some coke, help out in a heist, even turn a trick, that's what it takes. But you haven't got anybody who'd fuck a kid just for a credential."

Thinking about what the Queen called me. When I hunted, it wasn't for evidence.

"Proof isn't what we need here," she said. "There's enough proof. They get brought in, I can get them indicted."

I lit a cigarette, catching it for the first time. "You've been looking for them all along, haven't you?"

She nodded.

"And come up empty?"

Another nod.

"So you want me to take a shot?"

Her generous mouth wrinkled at one corner. "Was that a pun?"

She was quiet for a while. I felt the grid beneath the tires on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Max was going straight up Queens Boulevard to the courthouse.

"You think people really worship the devil?" Wolfe asked. "Sure. It's the perfect religion— you fuck up, you go to heaven." Her rich laugh filled the cab.

139

The rolling blindfold slowed to a stop. Max rapped twice on the barrier to let us know we'd arrived. Wolfe gathered her purse. The back door opened on my side. Her hand touched my forearm.

"Don't take this the wrong way, okay? All this…the way you are…did you ever see a psychiatrist?"

"Yeah. One of them owed a guy I know some money once. Her smile came. "Don't take this the wrong way either," she whispered. Kissed me softly on the cheek.

She didn't look back.

140

Max drove us to the junkyard. The Mole wasn't around. Terry gave me back my Plymouth. I told him Luke loved the puppy, told him her new name.

Max didn't communicate all the way back. Inside himself. I dropped him off at the warehouse. He stood there in the shadows, holding me with his eyes. Finally, he gestured like he was shuffling a pack of cards. Dealt them out around an imaginary table. Pointed at himself, face set an concrete lines.

I nodded.

He bowed, sealing the pact.

141

Still early, but I went back to the office. I could make a call, see if the Central Park lady wanted to have dinner. Or take a drive, pick up Bonita, bend her over the convertible couch in her living room, try and get lost in it. Come and go.

Thought about getting lost in it. What I'd lose if I did.

I kicked back, lit a cigarette. Watched the smoke drift toward the ceiling. Why had Wolfe mentioned Silver to me? The Prof had sent me to him, a long time ago. When we were all inside.

"Listen and learn, schoolboy," he said. "Silver knows the play, the old way, see? He's a quality thief— good gunfighter too, way I heard it."

"A hit-man?"

"No, fool. I said gunfighter, not gunman."

"What's the difference?"

"A gunfighter, the other guy has one too."

We were talking quietly on the yard, Silver telling me a secret in his hard-sad voice. "I don't mess with the sissies in here. They're like bitches on the street, get you into a knife fight in a minute. My wife's picture's in my house— I jack off to it every night, looking at her. These other guys, they do it to girls in the skin magazines. Those ain't real people— they don't know those girls. Me, I'm making love to my wife. To Helene. Those other guys, they're just playing with themselves."

Like I was with Bonita.

Silver did his time, counting the days. Never made trouble for anyone. Someone went in his cell, stole his wife's picture. Anyone could have done it, prison's like that. If it hadn't turned out to be a black guy, Silver might have turned out different himself.

The Prof tried to ease it down. Told Silver it was just a picture— his wife would send him another one. Told the thief, Horace his name was, a rapist, told Horace he was risking a shank in the back for nothing. Even volunteered to handle the transfer himself

Horace had a better way, he thought. Got himself an African name, joined some crew.

I filled out the pass for Horace to report to the psychiatrist. Silver was waiting for him in the corridor. He was only going to cut him, but Horace had a blade too.

Silver got cut. Horace got dead.

Blood on the institutional green concrete walls, drying to an abstract painting only a convict could interpret.

When Horace's crew came after Silver, he went the only place he could.

A white supremacist, Wolfe called him. An assassin. He was doing better than me. Even locked up, he had his love.

142

Things went back to the way they'd been. A few days later, Lily gave me a thick envelope. From Wolfe. Whatever she had was in there. Wasn't much, and her people would already have worked it to death.

I was in a Manhattan courtroom. One of the motion parts. They were supposed to bring Silver over from the jail, some kind of bullshit bail application. A farce— they wouldn't cut him loose.

A halfass defense attorney was in front of the bench, babbling something about the Constitution. Roland was his name, a certified dummy. He'd been an ADA once, a stone incompetent Plenty of guilty men walking the streets because of his fuckups. Now he was working the defense side, sending innocent folks to jail. Balancing the scales of justice. In the dog-eat-dog world of the criminal court, Roland was a fire hydrant.

I caught Blumberg's eye, got to my feet, walked over to him.

"You're looking good, boychick. How's business?"

"The same."

"Silver said he wanted to talk to you— you couldn't visit him in the house?"

"This is the way he wanted it. I'll just stand next to you at the table. Won't take a minute, okay?"

"My bail application is complex, my boy. Don't distract the judge's attention."

"You couldn't wake that weasel up with a flame thrower."

Blumberg ignored me. The wily old bastard hasn't tried a case in a hundred years, just does arraignments and applications. He knew why Silver hired him.

They brought him up from the pens in cuffs, but the guards stepped back, let him stand next to Blumberg at the counsel table. I stood on the other side of him, wearing my suit, briefcase in my hand, role-playing.

Blumberg mumbled something, just clearing his throat before he let loose. One thing he was good for— he could talk nonstop for days. As soon as he got into full stride, Silver bowed his head, talked to me out of the side of his mouth.

"You do something for me?"

"What?"

"Helene. She needs some cash. She wants to move Upstate, be close to me on this bit."

"You gonna be hit long?"

"They're going to bitch me, Burke. I'm looking at the book— a quarter-to-forever."

Twenty-five-to-life. Silver was ten years older than me— he'd never come out.

"What does she need?"

"Twenty, thirty G's, like that. She's gonna buy a house, get a job. Live like a citizen."

"Can't…?"

"The Brotherhood would get her the money, but I don't want her in this, understand? It's a life sentence once you join. She never joined, just me. I got the money, Burke. From when I was stealing. I'm not sure exactly how much is there but…I'll tell you where it is, you pick it up, get it to her."

"Who…?"

"It's in a house. Basement of a house. In Gerritsen Beach. You know where it is?"

"Yeah."

"In the basement, farthest left-hand corner from the front of the house. Patched in with cement, wrapped in plastic, maybe a foot down."