Andrew Vachss: Sacrifice

Max wasn't breathing hard. The Mole cut open his knee stumbling down from the mountain of cars.

188

"For the last fucking time, Prof, there's no money in this."

"Even you not fool enough to Rambo a house for nothing, schoolboy. I'll pay the fare, take my share."

I didn't try and talk him out of it— he knew the truth.

We all had our reasons.

I knew I wouldn't find any answers in that house. I was so lonely. Missing my old pal, Fear. I'd see him soon enough.

189

Two in the morning, the lights were still on in the front windows. Two downstairs, one on the second floor. The third story was dark.

I checked my watch. In a couple of minutes, calls would start flying into 911: Hispanic, black, white, Oriental voices. Gunfight at 138th and the Concourse, fire at a social club, man with a machete running down Walton Avenue, woman holding a baby on the top floor of the Projects, threatening to jump, bodega robbery, cop down on Hoe Avenue.

Clarence was behind the wheel of the pale blue slab-sided van, the name of some phony butcher shop painted on the sides in maroon script.

Cops see it moving through the South Bronx, they'd figure it was on its way to the meat market in Hunts Point.

"You ready?" I asked Clarence, adjusting the shoulder strap for the shotgun over my chest. I had the semi-auto, the Prof always worked with a side-by-side.

"Yes, mahn."

"We go first, okay? Nothing starts until we do. Don't be blasting away just to be doing it— they don't make a move on me, you take off for the spot soon as the front door goes. Listen, Clarence, listen good. Everybody's coming out the back, okay? The Mole'll get to the van first. He'll be okay. He can't see worth shit, but he can drive good enough, he has to. And he knows where to go. I come out first, I'm waiting for Max. He comes first, he'll wait for me. Don't waste your time trying to move him— he won't go. Anybody gets hit, we got the medical kit in the back. Let the Mole do the doctoring, you drive, it comes to that. Anybody comes out after me and Max, blow them away."

"I got it, mahn. I won't let you down."

"I know. Your mother raised a hell of a man."

His tight smile flashed in the dark. I watched the target house. Held my hands in front of me, palms down, fingers spread. Delicate fingers, they looked to me now. X-ray eyes, seeing the bones. Cold bones, icicles— they'd shatter like glass if I hit something.

I tapped the side of the plastic bottle of talc, rubbed it all over my hands. Slipped on the surgeon's gloves, warming my hands.

Then I pulled the Velcro band tight around my right wrist, checked for flex. I'd have to fire the scattergun with one hand.

I felt my heart pound, breathed until it settled down into a smooth idle. Inside, they weren't the ones. But they'd do.

On the top of the abandoned building, a tiny red light blinked. Time.

I held out my hand. Clarence took it, squeezed.

I stepped onto the street. Hands full. Started my walk.

The headlights on the van flashed into life. Blinked off. Flashed again. The signal to the Mole. In the target house, the lights in the windows went dark, electricity dead. The bolt cutters took the gate in one chomp. I walked up to the door, shotgun in my right hand. No sounds from inside— they probably figured it for a blown fuse. Flattened myself against the wall next to the door, molded the plastique all around the seams. Pulled the string and ran to the side of the house, rolling into a ball, soles of my boots pointed at the door. It blew off with a muffled thump, mini-mushroom of plaster dust billowing out.

I was up and running back to the entrance, crouching as I slid through the doorway, a human trip-wire, on the kill. Movement to my right— I squeezed off a blast from the scattergun. Voices screaming above me. Downstairs was empty except for a couple of couches, big television set. And a body dressed in jeans and a splattered white T-shirt, blood from waist to face.

Center staircase. I started up, crab-style, stomach flat against the left wall, leading with my right hand. A shape peered around the corner ahead of me. I fired, scrambled up behind the blast as a body tumbled down the stairs toward me, swung the shotgun around the corner, cranked off three more rounds, sweeping. I dropped the shotgun, whipped the automatic free of the shoulder rig.

"This is the police!" I yelled, concussion still ringing in my ears. "Come out with your hands up!"

Two of them staggered into the hall. Man in white boxer shorts, woman in a red nightgown, hands up, trying to say something.

I moved down the corridor. "Where's the rest?" I asked, leveling the pistol between them.

"Downstairs," the man said.

"How many?"

"Seven. We're the Nine. I

"Turn around, grab the wall. You move, you're dead."

They braced themselves like they'd done it before. I pulled a flare from my jacket, cracked it open. It glowed cold green fire at the end of the hall near the staircase. Enough light to see Max as he flowed down the stairs, a shadow of power. Something crackled like cellophane in my chest, suppressed fear released— he'd made it to the roof. I pointed ahead, stood guard as he went into the other rooms.

Three rooms and a bath on the floor, doors standing open. The man and woman had come from the one on the end. Max stepped back into the corridor, made an "all clear" signal to me. Pointed a finger upstairs, grabbed the finger with his other hand, bent it in half. One of them had been upstairs.

Time running down. "Where's the rest?" I asked them, reasonable and calm.

"We told you," the woman said. "Downstairs."

It hit me then— where it had all started for Luke. I stepped close to them, pulled the trigger again and again, squeezing them off the count. Charged down the stairs, flying now, feeling Max behind me.

The basement door was locked— felt like steel. I stepped aside. Max's leg shot out like a pile driver, rapid-fire hammering all around the knob. A final kick took it off the hinges. Gunfire answered, bullets whined up at us. I dropped to my belly, unhooked the baseball-sized grenade from my belt, pulled the pin with my teeth, tossed it in. A white flash just ahead of the bang. I crawled inside, flying blind.

Lights on— they must have had a generator. A bullet chipped the wall near my face. I emptied the Glock, sweeping in a Z-pattern, hosing them down, slithered back outside, snapped in a new clip.

All-dead silence now. I crept down the stairs. The far wall was cracked open from the grenade— I could see clear out to the night. Pair of heavy videocams on tripods, cross-firing at a black-skirted platform standing in front of an inverted cross. Foot-high numbers sprayed in red on the wall above: 666. The platform stood untouched by the explosion, waiting for the show to start. I walked over, looked down. The surface was gleaming hardwood, an upside-down pentagram carved deep into its face, like a butcher's drain. The pentagram stared back at me, a leering goat's head.

Two bodies down there. One wearing a black hood, peaked at the top, some weird symbols on it in white, a .45 in its hand. The other was a woman, black hair, heavy white makeup, black lipstick. They were both stitched with bullets from the Glock. I spun around to go when I saw it…in the corner. I made myself look. A little boy. Handcuffed behind his back, tape across his mouth, naked. Bullet holes along his spine. I turned him over with my hand, gently too late. The exit wound had taken off his face.

My mind blanked off the child's body, rejecting the image, a pure white screen with black numbers, counting: Nine, the woman upstairs said. We are the Nine. I'd taken out two with the scattergun before I dropped her and her pal. Max left one coming down from the roof. Two in the basement. The little boy wouldn't count— he wasn't one of them. Two more, somewhere. I held up two fingers to Max. He took the point to the back door. It was standing open, swinging softly in the night air. I snapped my last flare, tossed it outside, rolled out in its wake, Max right behind. We started toward the van, keeping low. I saw a woman's body lying face up in the weeds. We were about fifty feet away when the shots came. I caught one in the shoulder— a hard punch from an ice pick. White wires ripped through my arm, my eyes starbursted with pain as I went down. Max dove on top, covering me with his body. Double blast from the Prof's shotgun, snapping string of killer hornets from Clarence's automatic.