Andrew Vachss - Blossom

I know you're leaving

And I'll miss your loving touch

But won't you listen just one more time?

Woman, don't you owe me that much?

I drank and I gambled

But you always let me come home

Yes, I drank and I gambled

But you always let me come home

You always forgave me

Till you heard that little girl on the phone

A woman in the crowd screamed something up at the stage. The singer bowed in her direction and went back to work.

I lost my job, even went to jail

And you always stayed by my side

When I lost my job, and I went to jail

You always stood up, right by my side

But you saw me with that other woman

You swore your love had died

First you said you'd kill her

And then you changed your mind

Yeah, you said you'd take her young life

But then you changed your mind

You threw my clothes in the street

And told me to stay with my own kind

He hit us with verse after verse, telling his story. Telling the truth. When he got to the end of the road, he had us with him.

I need you for my woman

I need you for my wife

You know I need you, woman

Lord knows I need my wife

But if you won't send an answer

I guess I don't need my life

He finished the set with a razor-wire version of "She's Nineteen Years Old." In case there were any tourists in the audience.

The crowd wouldn't let him off the stage. A woman in an electric-blue dress stood up, holding a beer glass in one hand, shouted something at him I couldn't hear.

The bandleader's voice came back at her through the mike. "Maybe I can't run the hundred-yard dash, darlin', but I'm still a sixty-minute man."

He owned the crowd. "One more," he said. And meant it. The drummer switched to brushes. Virgil intro'ed off the bass keys. A piano doesn't have special notes inside it like a guitar, but Virgil played them special. The slide guitar stayed low with him.

"God Bless the Child."

The band held the fort as the singer slowly moved himself off the stage. Then it went dark.

75

A TAP ON MY shoulder. Virgil. I got up, followed him through the darkness to the bar. "Wait here. I'll be back for you in a minute."

I ordered a whiskey from the bartender, left it sitting on the counter. A white man was making noise at the end of the bar, drunk, whining to his friends.

"Why can't I sing the blues?" he demanded. "Because I'm white?"

A factory man's dark voice answered his call. "'Cause you can't sing, sucker!"

Virgil took me into a back room. The massive blues shouter was sitting in an armchair big enough for a meeting. "Doc, I want you to meet my brother. Burke," Virgil said, bringing me over.

He held out his hand. I took it, felt a palm leathered from years of holding crutches. "You're the best I ever heard," I told him.

"Thank you, brother."

The harp man was talking on the phone, intensely. The slide-guitar man was smoking a joint. Nobody else around. Virgil moved his head a couple of inches. I followed him to another door.

Inside, an old chrome-and-Formica kitchen table. Four chairs. One of them occupied by a featureless man in a white shirt, balding, bifocals perched on top of his head.

"Arnold, this is my brother. The guy I told you about."

"How ya doin'?" he piped up, in a thin voice younger than his face.

I sat down. Lit a smoke. Bowed my head slightly to greet him. Waiting.

"Virgil said you needed some stuff?"

"A pistol."

"A pistol? What's that supposed to mean, pistol? I got more kinds of pistols than you've had birthdays. Give me the specs. Or give me the job, I'll pick one out for you."

"Revolver. No more than three-inch. Thirty-eight or .357. Blue. Something decent, a Colt or a Smith. Ice-cold."

"You want this for…?"

"Protection. Protection I can carry around with me."

"Look, man, you're talking Stone Age stuff. Take a look at this little piece of perfection." He opened one of the suitcases on the floor next to him. Came out with a dull gray automatic. "This here's a Glock, ever hear of it? Designed by an Austrian. The guy's a genius, not a gunsmith. Started with a blank piece of paper. Plastic undercarriage, metal frame. Takes nine-millimeter ammo. Any nine-millimeter, see?" He held up a bullet, black-tipped. "You know what this is?"

"Uzi."

"Right you are, my friend. You put high-pressure submachine slugs like this in a regular semi-auto, you blow it up in your hand. But not the Glock. Holds sixteen rounds, fast as you can pull them off."

"Automatics jam."

"Bullshit. Some automatics jam. I do all the work myself. Custom. You got my personal guarantee."

I didn't waste time explaining to him how I'd have trouble getting my money back if his toy jammed. "I'm not going to be in a gunfight," I told him.

His eyes shifted but his expression didn't change. "Okay, I understand. I recommend you take the Glock, plus this Wilson suppressor I just happen to have machined for it. Instead of the Uzi ammo, we switch to subsonics. Makes a little pop, that's all. Never draw a crowd."

"I appreciate it, but I got to use what I'm familiar with, okay? You got any revolvers in that case?"

"Three-inch max?"

"Yeah."

He rummaged around. "How about this? Ruger Speed-Six. I modified the trigger pull myself. It's so smooth you won't feel it go home even in double-action."

I took the piece from him. Black rubber handgrips, blue steel. Looked new.

"This been around?"

"Virgil, you tell your brother anything about me or what? The pieces of this weapon, they've been around, you understand what I'm saying to you? This little unit has been hand-assembled from a wide range of similar units. Made it myself, from parts. You finish with this one, you mail it to the ATF, they won't be able to do nothing with it."

"How much?"

"A piece like this, new, maybe four hundred retail."

"But you don't sell retail."

"Sure, I sell retail. I got me an FFL and everything. But over the counter, you know, there's a lot of paperwork. Besides, I got a lot of custom labor in this piece, like I told you."

"So?"

"Seven-fifty. And I'll throw in a box of Plus P, hundred and fifty-eight grain. That's about all you want to load in this baby."

I dragged on my cigarette. Some dealers like the bargaining part. This guy wasn't that kind— all you could do was wait him out.

"Or maybe you'd rather have an assortment. I got a few hand-loaded thirty-eights here. Mercury tips, hollow points, full metal jacket…"

"Got some wad cutters?"

"You got to be very close for those."

"I understand."

"We got a deal?"

I ground out my smoke. "Tell you what. Why don't we make it an even grand. For the pistol, some ammo, and some advice."

"I like it."

I handed over the money in hundreds. He eye-counted it, passed me the pistol, sorted through his collection of shells, filled a box.

I lit another smoke. "You hear anything about those sniper killings over in Indiana? The Lovers' Lane Killer, the papers call him?"

"Yeah." Waiting.

"Let's say, just for a minute, that we know something about the guy who did it, all right? Let's say he's a Rambo freak. Lives at home, don't get out much. Likes to play dress-up in camo gear, that kind of thing. He's not military, not a cop. Not a merc either. Probably no training, no contacts, okay?"

"I'm with you."

"So he's probably buying mail-order. He wouldn't have the cash for a really quality piece. What would he have?"