Andrew Vachss - Blossom

"SODDI?" I asked him. Some Other Dude Did it.

"That's what he says," Davidson growled.

"It's true," the kid said. "Haynes was in New Hampshire when it happened. At a flea market. He was buying stock for his store. A dozen people saw him. There's no way he could have driven back in time to commit the rape."

"So what d'you need me for?"

The young lawyer tilted his head at Davidson. "He says you know these people…child molesters and all. I thought…maybe you could ask around…maybe there's one of them working that area."

I shrugged.

"He's got priors," Davidson said.

"For what?" I asked the young lawyer.

"The same thing. But that was years ago. He did his time. He's even off parole. And he's been discharged from therapy."

"Cured, huh?"

"Yeah, cured. You think it's impossible? Would you want to be arrested every time the cops had a hijacking case open?"

Davidson chuckled. "He's got you, Burke."

"He's got a baby-raper."

"You mean you won't help?"

"What do I give a flying fuck if some skinner falls for something he didn't do? Probably didn't pull enough time on his first bit anyway."

Davidson lit his cigar. "It wouldn't shake me up if he went down either. But if he didn't do this one, it means the guy who did, he's got a free pass."

I thought it through. "You got any money?" I asked the young lawyer.

"I could go five hundred."

"For that, I'll talk to your guy. You walk me in there, tell them I'm your assistant or something. I'll talk to him. He's telling the truth, I'll look around for you."

"How will you know?"

"I'll know," I assured him.

He looked at Davidson. The husky man nodded.

"Okay," the kid said. "When can you go?"

"When can you pay?"

"I'll write you a check right now."

Davidson thought that was almost as funny as I did.

29

I LOOKED MORE like a lawyer than the kid did when I met him the next morning on the steps of the Brooklyn House of Detention. The guards let us pass without a question. Getting into jail is always easy.

They brought him down to the Attorneys' Conference Room. He was medium height, nice-looking in an undistinctive way. Powerfully built, well-defined upper body in a white T-shirt. Shook hands firmly, looked me deep in the eye, moving his lips to make sure he got my name right.

"Rodriguez, huh?" He smiled. "You don't look Puerto Rican."

"You don't look like a baby-raper," I said, lighting a cigarette, flicking a glance at his face over my hands cupped around the wooden match.

His expression didn't change, no color flashed on his cheeks. Calm inside himself. He was used to this— a therapy veteran.

The young lawyer pulled his chair away from the table, sat back in a corner, his yellow legal pad open on his lap. My play.

I worked the perimeter, tapping softly at the corners. The way you crack a pane of glass during a burglary— the quieter you go in, the easier you go out.

"You were up in New Hampshire when it happened?"

"Yes. Buying stock for my store at the flea markets."

"What kind of store do you have?"

"I call it Inexplik. Not really antiques, anything people collect. Glass bottles, baseball cards, first editions, dolls, knives, Hummel figurines, commemorative plates, proof sets…like that."

"You have anything special in mind you were looking for when you were up there?"

"Well, there's always things you look for. I mean, I know what my regular customers want and all. Like Barbie dolls…you can always sell them. But you have to keep your eyes open, spot hot items before people know what they're worth. Like those plastic compacts women used to carry around in the '50s. The kind with mirrors on the inside? They come in all shapes and colors. Right now, you can get them for a song, but they're going to be very, very collectible soon."

He folded his hands in front of him on the desk. The nails were bitten to the quick, ragged skin around the sides. He saw where I was looking, folded his hands across his chest.

"Can you still buy handguns up there?" I asked.

"I guess so. I mean, they have them right on the tables. But they're against the law in New York. I wouldn't mess with them. Besides, gun collectors are just a different breed from the people I deal with."

He was emphasizing the wrong words, arching an eyebrow when he did— a squid throwing out ink.

"You're not gay." My voice was flat— it wasn't a question.

His mouth smiled like it was a separate part of his face. Not answering like that was the answer.

"Homosexuals don't rape little girls," I said, my voice flat.

"No, they don't," he agreed.

"They don't rape little boys either."

"Huh?"

"Didn't they tell you what you were when you had all that therapy?"

His right hand squeezed his left wrist, hard. Muscles twitched along his forearm. "What I was ."

"Say it."

His eyes were a soft, brooding brown, muddy around the rim where they bled into the white, hard in the tiny circles around the pupils. "A pedophile, that's what they said."

"But you're all better now?"

"I still have feelings…but I have something else now. Control. Feelings don't hurt anyone."

"No. They don't, Roger. When you got busted for this, the cops search your house?"

"Yes! They tore the place apart ."

"Come up empty?"

"Yes, they did. I don't even know what they were looking for."

I lit another smoke, patient. When you work freaks, you don't feel yourself getting warm. The closer you get to the center, the more you feel the chill. "They search your store too?"

"Yes."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"How about if I take a look myself?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "What for?"

"Oh, I think I could find something. Maybe something that would crack this case."

"Like what?"

"You deal with collectors, right?"

He nodded, watching.

"And you got a computer somewhere around…keep track of the merchandise?"

"Yes."

"Got it crash-coded?"

"How come you…?"

"I got a friend. Real genius with those things. She knows how to get inside, past the crash-codes…"

"No!"

"Sure, Roger. You're not making any money selling that flea-market crap, are you? Not real money. Like you said, you have to know what your customers want."

He turned to the young lawyer. "Can he do this?"

The young lawyer shrugged. "We're just trying to help."

"This is all privileged, right?"

"All privileged," the kid assured him.

"If I did…uh, share with other collectors, that wouldn't prove anything."

"Nothing at all," I told him. "In fact, it would explain a lot of things. Like how you really make a living. And how come you can make it through the night. We both know you guys never stop. Like you said, feelings don't hurt. Looking at pictures, that don't hurt either."

"That's right. The pictures, they're an… outlet, you understand? A release valve. Those therapists, they don't understand the need. The drive. I'm my own therapist now. I can look at the pictures, fantasize in my mind." Watching my face. "And get off when I have to, when the drive pressures me. In the institution, they tried to take that away from us. Control our thoughts. Fascists. We had to look at the pictures and then they'd shock us. Blast us with electricity. It hurt.

After a while, I couldn't even get a hard-on when I saw beautiful little pictures."

He was crying, face in his hands. They taught him how to do that inside the walls too. I waited for it to stop.

"It doesn't matter, Roger," I told him, voice low, soft-cored. "The rape went down at four forty-five in the afternoon. You were spotted just before two at the flea market. It's almost two hundred and fifty miles from there to Brooklyn. No way it could have been you."