Andrew Vachss - Blossom

"My friend. Not my brother, not my partner, okay? We've done some things together over the years."

"Want to know what he said about you?"

"Up to you."

"He said you got felony arrests for everything from hijacking to attempted murder."

"Not everything."

"Okay, he was clear about that. No rapes, no sex cases."

"No narcotics, no kids."

"Right."

"So now you know."

"He said you may have been a firearms dealer at one time. There's an FBI file on you for that. You took a federal fall for interstate transport, but it was only a couple of handguns. That's where you met your man Virgil, right?"

I nodded. That was back when the state joints were using the federales as a dumping ground, transferring cons all over the country. Bus therapy, they called it. They moved the Prof for preaching— race war is more to prison authorities' taste than brotherhood. I never did find out why Virgil came down as well.

"And a CIA file too— still open. Suspected mercenary."

"I was in Biafra," I said, watching him closely, "not Rhodesia."

"He told me. Said you cleaned up a real mess for them a while back."

I dragged on my smoke.

"He said you make a living working the edge of the line. Finding missing kids, stinging kiddie-porn dealers, roughing off pimps."

"Any of those on your protected list?"

"No."

"So?"

"So you're a criminal. Not just an ex-con like your pal Virgil. A working criminal."

"McGowan tell you I know anything about freaks?"

"He said you know more than anyone he's ever met."

"You think Lloyd did the snipings?"

"Do you?"

"I know he didn't."

"Which means…?"

"Which means someone else did."

"Maybe."

"You got 'Exceptional Clearance' in this state?" I asked, challenging him. Sometimes the cops arrest a guy who didn't do the crime and mark it closed. Sometimes they know who did it but they can't make an arrest. Then they call it "Exceptional Clearance." The same tag they use when a baby-raper turns out to hold some political markers.

I flashed back on standing next to an old black woman in a cemetery. Watched as they put the little casket in the ground. Her grandson. Tortured to death. Scanning the crowd. Hoping the freak would want one last look at his work. The kid's mother was in jail. Crack. The old woman was bent over slightly at the waist from a hundred years of cleaning other people's houses. Her eyes were clear and hard. She'd offered me the money she'd put aside for the boy's college fund to find the killer. "The money was for Alexander, and the Lord knows he doesn't need it now."

Dirt rattled on the coffin. Her hand tightened on mine, holding herself rigid. "If God was going to make life so filthy, seems like he didn't have to make us dirty when we die."

My file was open.

Sherwood met my eyes. "Not for homicides. Not on my beat. I asked around, got the word about you. Do the same before you make your charges."

"I got it. I figured you hadn't closed the books on this one…that you're still looking. That's true, I want you to know I'm looking too. I don't want to step on your trail, give you the wrong idea."

"McGowan told me, some of the people you look for, they might not get found."

I tossed my cigarette out the window.

"Not around here," he said. Making it clear.

I nodded. "Will you show me what you got?" I asked him.

"The forensics?"

"Everything."

"Why not? It's not much."

"You got a profile?"

"Profile? One of those FBI things? Tell me the killer probably had an unhappy childhood or something? No, thanks."

"I got one."

"Where?"

"In here." I tapped the side of my head. "You've got this guy pegged as a loner, right?"

He nodded.

"He's alone inside himself. Where only freaks like him can go. But he may reach out, understand? Find people he can relate to."

"Like who?"

"Gun freaks. Survivalists. Like that. You got Nazis around here?"

"Like in the Klan?"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"There'll be a connection. These freaks, they're all quasi-cops in their heads. Like to play soldier. Wear the clothes. Handle the toys."

"Quasi-cops?"

"You got cop buffs here, right? Got police scanners in the houses, join the auxiliary force, work as security guards…you know?"

"Yeah. We always look through that file when we got filth— a hooker killing. Or a kid raped."

"If this freak's looking for a group, that's where he'll look."

"Okay."

"You got a friend in the postal service?"

"What if I did?"

"Then I'd write out this list of magazines. And you'd ask your friend who gets them delivered."

He gazed out his window for a minute. Down into the ravine where they found the bodies. "Write out the list," he said.

It only took me a minute. Then I started the engine, backed out.

As we drove along Lake Street, Sherwood turned to me. "You carrying?"

"No."

I pulled over outside the precinct house at Broadway and Thirteenth to let him out. The big man nodded like he'd made up his mind about something. "Burke, that's your name, right? Burke, you're not the only one looking for this guy."

"I know."

"I don't mean me. Someone else came around, asking questions. Spoke to me."

"Who?"

"We're not there yet, you and me."

He closed the door with a snap of his wrist as he exited the car.

63

THE NEXT MORNING, I picked up Virgil and Lloyd. Dropped Virgil off at the plant, said we'd pick him up at lunchtime.

Lloyd and I drove around for a few hours. I had him show me the high school, the woods, the dunes, lovers' lane. Questioned him about every kid he knew, trying to listen with his mind. Straining to hear the music, pick out the false notes.

If Lloyd had run across the sniper, he hadn't seen the shadow.

64

I PULLED THE LINCOLN into the diner parking lot. Walked in, Virgil and Lloyd close behind me. Virgil was back to himself, the worry-lines off his eyes. Like he was in the joint— not asking questions, waiting and ready. Virgil slid in first, right across from me, leaving Lloyd on the corner.

Cyndi flounced up to the booth. "Hi, Mitch! These your friends?"

"My brother Virgil, and his nephew Lloyd."

"Pleased to meet you. Mitch, if Virgil is your brother…and Lloyd is his nephew, what's that make him to you?"

"Close enough," I said. Virgil laughed.

I had tuna. Virgil had burgers, fries, and a beer. Lloyd ordered exactly what Virgil did.

The jukebox came on. Jim Reeves. "He'll Have to Go."

A voice from a booth behind us. "Hey, get your ass over here! We ain't got all day."

Blossom walked past us, order pad in her hand. I turned. Her booth was full of greasy humans in biker-drag. Big fat slob on the end, wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut out over a T-shirt. Weaselly little guy in the middle. Two drones on the end.

I couldn't hear what they said. Blossom came past us again, two bright red dots on her cheeks.

Bonnie Tyler on the juke. "It's a Heartbreak."

Cyndi came back with the food. Leaned over. "See those slobs in the back booth? I told Blossom to watch out for them. Offered to take the table for her. Those boys are trouble."

Virgil peered over. "They don't look like trouble to me," he said.

Blossom came by, a tray in each hand.

I chewed the tuna slowly, thinking about my target.

A crash from the booth behind us. "Get your hands off me!" Blossom. I turned. The fat one had his hand under Blossom's skirt, laughing as she pounded at his face, warding her off easily with one hand.

Lloyd was out of the booth like he'd kicked in an afterburner. "Let her go!" Voice cracking and squeaky. Fatso flung Blossom aside with one hand, stood up just as Lloyd charged into him, face against the bigger man's chest, hands pumping like pistons on nitromethane. I whirled out of the booth, feeling Virgil on my back.