Andrew Vachss - Sacrifice

"Call for you. Island man."

I picked up the pay phone, one of several standing in a bank between the dining room and the kitchen.

"Yeah?"

"Greetings, mahn. I have some work for you."

It was Jacques, a sunny-voiced gun dealer who worked the border between Queens and Brooklyn. Firepower to go, wholesale lots, cash and carry.

"I got plenty of work now."

"This is your work, mahn."

"I don't do deliveries anymore."

"Your true work, mahn. Everybody knows. Come see about me."

"In a couple of hours," I told him, and hung up.

25

My true work. Wesley said it was a bull's-eye painted on my back. But he was gone, hunting the devil, not even leaving the cops a scrap of flesh to put under their microscopes. Wesley, the stalking sociopath. The perfect hunter-killer. We'd come up together, practiced the same religion when we were kids. But the ice-god had come into his soul until he wasn't human anymore.

In the dark part of the streets, people whispered he wasn't really dead.

The sun dropped behind me as I drove along Atlantic Avenue toward deeper pockets of darkness. Turned into a narrow driveway, flashed my high beams twice.

A barge-sized old Chrysler rolled slowly across my field of vision in the rearview mirror. It came to a stop, blocking my Plymouth from the street. I looked straight ahead, waiting. Heard the icy dry sound of a pistol being cocked.

"Come on out of your car, nice and slow. Leave the keys." West Indian voice, not Jacques's.

I did what the voice said. He was a slim young man, hair cropped close, prominent cheekbones dominating a pretty face, tiny, lobeless ears pinned flat to his skull, big eyes with a bluish cast in the night light, long lashes shadowing. Reddish highlights dominating mahogany skin. Wearing a dark green Ban-Lon long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the neck over dark slacks. Looked like the kind of kid the wolves would jump on as soon as he hit the prison yard. They wouldn't know what they were dealing with until the guards came. With the body bags.

He stepped to one side, the gun tracking me, waist high. I walked straight ahead. A door opened. I heard the Plymouth's engine kick over.

Down a flight of metal steps. Felt the young man behind me, heard the door close, bolts snap home.

Horseshoe-shaped table, the midpoint against the wall. Jacques in the center, an old woman on his left. One man sat on each wing. I stepped into the open space, waiting.

"So you came, my friend." A faint light glinted on Jacques's high cheekbones.

"Like you asked."

Another man stepped out of the shadows. Patted me down, neck to ankles. I stood still for it— every church has its own ceremonies.

The man stepped back. Returned with a straight-backed chair. I sat down.

"Anything you want, mahn? A drink, maybe? Some fine rum we have here."

"A cigarette?"

"You don't have any?"

"I came empty."

A smile bloomed on the Islander's noble face. I'd shown him respect by walking in with empty pockets. He knew what you could fit in a pack of cigarettes— he was in the business. Jacques nodded at one of the men on the table's wing. "Get my friend cigarettes."

The man got up, extended a pack to me.

Jacques's voice was soft. "Mahn, that is not what you do. My friend does not want your cigarettes, he wants his own."

"How I know what he smokes?" the man said sullenly.

Jacques's voice went chilly. "You ask him, mahn. Ask him nicely. Then you go out and you get what he wants. A fresh, new pack. Is that so hard, now?"

"What you smoke?" he asked me.

I told him. He walked away.

Jacques shrugged his shoulders. "Young boys, Burke. All hot blood. Better they learn from a gentle man like me, huh?"

"Yeah."

"This lady has a problem, my friend. I would like for her to tell you. All right?"

"Sure."

He turned to the old lady. "You tell the man now, missus."

"He look like the police to me," the woman said.

Jacques chuckled. "Don't let that ugly white face fool you, lady. This is a very bad man."

"He gonna help me?"

"We will see. First, you tell him what you tell me. Come on now.

The old lady gathered herself, her face turned toward me, her eyes somewhere else.

"I got a grandson. Derrick. My daughter's child. He almost four years old. My daughter on the Welfare, lives in that hotel out by the airport. Her man is a vicious beast. Beat her all the time, take her check. He beat my grandson too. For nothin'. Right in front of my eyes. I go to stop him once, an' he punch me right in my face. Broke this bone, right here." Touching her face, eyes focusing on me now.

"Monday my daughter calls me. Says her baby run away. I tell her, how could that be?— he too small to run away. She cryin' and all, says the police there. Ain't nobody seen her man. My Derrick is gone."

A tap on my shoulder. Jacques's man, handing me a pack of cigarettes. I slit the cellophane, took one out. The man handed me a paper packet of matches— I fired one up.

Jacques leaned forward. "We found the man, Burke. Talked to him. He say he knows nothing. Okay. We talk to the girl too. Same story. It is a story, mahn. Finally, she tells us the man took the baby out of there, said he's going to give the child to another woman of his."

I dragged deep on the smoke. Still waiting.

"What we need is a man to look, Burke. Look around."

"Why me?"

"It's what you do, mahn. Your work, like I said. People know, word on the street— Burke looks for runaways, yes?"

"The baby didn't run away."

"I know. This good lady here, she is one of us. Like a mother, always to help, that is the way she is. She wants her grandson back."

"Why don't you ask the man? Ask him again."

"He has vanished, mahn. We are looking for him, but…for now, until we find him…"

"It's a long shot."

"I know, mahn, but…"

"Obeah," the old woman said. Like it explained everything.

"Why do you say that, ma'am?" I asked her.

"That is what I heard, white man. You know them?"

"No."

"Her man, Emerson, that is his name. He is with those people. I think that is where he take my grandson. To be with them too."

"You take a look, mahn?" A soft undertone in Jacques's voice, the sun banked.

"A quick look," I warned him.

"Clarence will go with you," he said, nodding at the young man who met me in the parking lot. "In case there is a problem with any of our people, yes?"

"So long as he listens."

"Clarence, for this work, Burke is your boss, you understand? Like it was me talking. I told you about this guy. You listen, and you learn."

The slim young man nodded agreement.

"We have anything else to discuss?" he asked. Meaning: how much?

"We'll settle at the end," I told him. "No guarantees. Clarence has all the information?"

"I have it all." Clarence's voice, gentle and calm.

"Let's do it, then," I said.

26

"We'll take my ride," Clarence said, standing in the parking lot.

"I'm not hitting Queens in a posse car, son."

"Posse? No, mahn, we will go in my car. A true West Indian car. Wait here."

He pulled up in an immaculate Rover 2000 TC, British Racing Green. I climbed inside. The black leather smelled new, the walnut trim gleamed. Clean and spare, letting the craftsmanship show.

"Very fine," I congratulated him.

"This is my baby," he said, flashing a quick smile.

27

On the way over, I read through the contents of a thick manila envelope Clarence handed me. All the police reports, a complete package, even the SSC records. SSC, Special Services for Children, the agency that investigates child abuse. It used to be called BCW, Bureau of Child Welfare. Now they call it CWA, the Child Welfare Agency. That's a politician's idea of social change— change the names. You can tell when someone first got stuck in the net by the name they call it. Same way you can tell how long a man's been in jail by his prison number. I didn't ask where Jacques got the records.