Andrew Vachss - Blossom

"Chandler never got quiet?"

"Got real quiet. Dead quiet." A tear tracked her face. "He got into an argument with another boy in one of the riverfront joints. Chandler asked him to step outside. The other boy had a knife. Chandler didn't. He was twenty-two. I was still in high school then. Thought I'd never stop crying."

I lit another smoke. "Some people, they never get to find their love."

"You ever love a woman, Burke?"

"Two."

"Where are they?"

"One's dead. One's gone."

"The girl's who's gone…why'd she go?"

I dragged on the smoke. "The woman who died, Belle, it was my fault. It didn't have to be. I used to think all the time about the woman who's gone, Flood. Why she left. Now, maybe I know. Maybe she knew what you know. Didn't know what to call it, but she knew."

"Trouble-man," she whispered, coming to me.

103

LIGHT WAS BREAKING across the bedroom window. Blossom lying on top of me, wetness still holding us together below the waist.

"Trouble-man," she said. "Troubled man, you are. What did you go to prison for?"

I looked into the center of her eyes— the way you do with a parole officer. "For something I didn't do."

"And what was that— what was it you didn't do?"

"Get away," I told her.

Her body trembled against me, giggling. "You want a cigarette?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She lit one for me, supporting herself on her elbows, holding it to my mouth.

"Cigarettes are an addiction."

"Bullshit."

"You could stop anytime you wanted?"

"Sure."

"I know how to do a lot of tricks I never actually did myself. Listening to the girls. You want to see?"

"Un-huh."

"Close your eyes."

I put my cigarette in the ashtray, felt her eyelashes flutter on my cheek. "That's a butterfly kiss. You ever have one before?"

"No."

"You like it?"

"Do it some more."

"Keep your eyes closed." A wet slab sliding across my face. I opened my eyes. Blossom was licking her lips, smiling. Licked me again. "That was a cow kiss."

"Ugh! Save that one for the farmers."

"I told you, baby"— her voice play-sexy— "I never tried these tricks before." Her voice turned quiet, little-girl serious. "You could really stop smoking?" Raising herself higher on her elbows, rolling her shoulders so the tips of her breasts brushed my chest.

"That's what I said."

"Why don't you?"

"Why should I?"

"I'll make you a deal, trouble-man. The best deal you ever had in your hard life. You stop smoking for one week. Seven days. You do that, I'll do whatever you want. For one night. Whatever you want to do, whatever you want me to do. Show you some of those tricks I never got to try. Her eyes were wide, mocking. "What d'you say?"

I put the cigarette in my mouth, took a long, deep drag. Ground it out.

104

BLOSSOM WAS all in black and white the next morning. White wool jacket over a black silk blouse, white pleated skirt, plain black pumps. Black pillbox hat, white gloves. She'd worked the makeup expertly around her eyes so she looked older.

"You going to need your car today?"

"Sure."

"Not a car, your car. You could take mine. I figure, the Lincoln, it'd make a better impression if anyone's looking."

"Where?"

"At the hospital. I'm up here for the summer, visiting my relatives. Thinking about doing a paper on medical responses to child abuse emergencies. So I figured, I'd stop by the hospital, make some friends. Get some questions answered. Your questions."

I handed her the keys.

"Is it hard?" she asked, pulling on her gloves.

"You mean still?"

"I mean giving up smoking, you dope," she said over her shoulder, walking out.

105

I WAS IN THE back in the prison yard, walking the perimeter with my eyes, checking the gun towers. The Prof materialized next to me. Like he'd always been there. He didn't have to ask what I was doing.

"First place to look is inside your head, schoolboy. Over the wall don't get it all."

I took out a smoke. Fired a match. Remembered. Blew out the match. Started to look for the sniper. Inside my head.

I've known a few. A nameless Irishman working in Biafra— a big, unsmiling man who got his training on the rooftops of Belfast under the blanket of blood-smog. A desert-burned Israeli, part of a hunter-killer team meeting at the Mole's junkyard. El Cañonero. The FBI said he was a terrorist. And Wesley. Terror itself.

Faceless men, with interchangeable eyes.

Even in wartime, they stood apart from the soldiers.

Wesley once told me, you don't shoot people, you shoot targets.

But the freak who stalked the lovers' lanes— he hunted humans.

106

I TRIED THE Interstate joint. No sign of the Blazer. When I swung past Blossom's house, the Lincoln was out front.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, still in her black-and-white outfit, a bound sheaf of computer printouts in front of her, drinking her coffee.

I stepped behind her, put my hand on her shoulder. She reached up, brought it to her face. Sniffed deeply. "You're not smoking," she said, not looking up. Kissed my hand, put it back on her shoulder.

"What'd you get?"

"This is a sample," she said, all business. "They gave it to me. For my research." Accenting the last word, sneering at someone being naive. Maybe not them. "Here's the way it works, Burke. There's an 800 number. State-wide. Where you call if you have a case of suspected child abuse. Everyone calls the same number: social workers, ER nurses, schoolteachers, next-door neighbors. The call goes to Indianapolis, where they keep the Central Registry. Then the call gets dispatched back out to a local agency. That agency sends someone out to investigate. Then they make a report: it's real or it's not. Either way, the report goes back to Indianapolis. Every report's in their computer."

"How long do they keep the records?"

"Near as I could tell, they never get rid of them. They have records go back a couple of generations anyway. But the computer, it only has data for about the past fifteen, twenty years.

"They break it down by county?"

"Yes. This is Lake County. All the records for the region are in the DPW Building."

"On the computer too?"

"Yes. But all the computer has is the information that's on this form," she said, pushing a dull green piece of paper across to me. It looked like a police pedigree: name, age, date of birth, address, check-places for type of suspected abuse or neglect.

I scanned the paper. I'd seen it before. They all use the same form. "You actually see the computer?"

"The central data-bank's not there. But there's terminals all over the place."

"On-line access? Twenty-four hours a day?" She nodded.

"They segregate the local data?"

Blossom nodded again, watching closely now.

"Okay."

"Okay what?"

"Just okay. See you later tonight?"

"I'll be here."

"Blossom…"

"What?"

"Give me my pistol."

107

THE RAIN STARTED about ten. The building was dark, lights burning on the third floor. Rebecca was at the wheel, me next to her in the front seat, Virgil in the back. They both smoked in silence, waiting for me.

B&E. Back to myself, back to crime. Started to think like myself then. Working with what I knew. Knowing when a woman spreads her legs, it's not the same thing as opening up. Blossom was compartmentalized, and I hadn't looked inside all the boxes.

It was eleven before the lights went off. Almost midnight when we heard the back door open, close. A dark-colored compact came down the driveway, braked, took off slowly to the left.

"Cleaning lady," I said. "She must work six to midnight."

We gave it another two hours. A police cruiser went by in the darkness. Didn't stop. No foot patrols.