Andrew Vachss - Blossom

"Burke…"

"Shut up, little girl. Close your eyes. I'll be back before you open them."

119

THE CHEVY PULLED UP outside Blossom's, headlights off. I climbed in next to Virgil. Saw Lloyd in the back seat.

"What's he doing here?"

"Caught me sneaking out."

"He knows?"

"You know how we are, brother. One of us got something on his plate, we all got it. Sometimes it ain't gravy."

"Lloyd," I told the boy, "you wait in the car. You wait until we come out, understand? A cop comes by, you stay there. You don't panic, don't run. Worst that happens, they'll take you in. Got it?"

"I got it," he said, voice steady. Streetlights picked up the slash of honor across the bridge of his nose.

"Any luck with the Nazi?" I asked Virgil.

"Reba tracked him right to his house. Lives over in Lake Station. Little nothing of a house, he got. Chain link fence, chest high. Got him a dog, though. Big German shepherd, Reba said. Saw him in the yard."

"Let's see if he wants to talk first."

120

THE BUILDING was dark. Virgil pulled around the back into a narrow alley, climbed out with me. Lloyd slid behind the wheel. Virgil opened the trunk, shouldered the duffel bag.

The lock on the back door was a dead bolt. I couldn't see alarm wires anywhere. I felt crude, clumsy. Wished for the Mole.

"Only one way," I whispered to Virgil. "I'm going to smash a window. Then we wait."

If he was disappointed in his master-criminal brother from New York, it didn't reach his face. He nodded okay, walked back toward the car. I found a good-sized chunk of concrete block. Walked over to a ground-floor window and tossed it through.

Nothing.

Back in the car, I told Lloyd to drive slowly across the street, turn off the engine, and wait.

We gave it half an hour, Lloyd fidgeting behind the wheel, Virgil smoking. Watching.

Still nothing.

"I didn't hear a sound when I broke the glass. If there was a silent alarm, the rollers would have been on the scene long ago. Let's do it."

121

I REACHED MY gloved hands inside the window frame through the broken glass, found the latch. Shoved it open. Virgil followed me inside.

The third floor had several computer terminals scattered about. Virgil hooked army blankets over the windows. I used my pencil beam, turned it on one of the terminals. The screen flickered into life.

I took a deep breath. If the machine asked for a password, I was finished.

No.

I followed the prompts, remembering what Blossom had been shown. Found the index for Reported Cases by Year. Figured my target for somewhere between fifteen and thirty years old just to play it safe. Typed 1960— and pressed the Return key.

The screen said Select Sub-Index. I scrolled the cursor down. Stopped at Indicated. Hit the Return again.

A new menu: Outcomes.

I selected: Petition Filed.

New menu. Selected: Adjudicated.

I entered, scanned the new list of choices. Found the one I wanted: Family Reunified— Closed.

I typed quickly through the next series of screens. Used the Sort key. Race = White. Sex = Male. Family Composition = One Child.

Entered. Screen Message: Data Prior to 1972 Not Downloaded. See Central File.

I tapped the Return key again to bypass the message. Hit the Print key.

Nothing.

Hit it again.

Nothing.

Selected Printer Menu. Blinking Message: Printer Is Not Connected.

I turned to see if Virgil was watching. His back was to me, facing the door.

I hit the On switch for the printer. Watched the lights blink as it warmed up. The screen asked me for printer speed. I selected the fastest.

"Gonna make some noise now," I warned Virgil.

He nodded, not moving from his post.

The Print key rattled the machine into life. I went to the window, looked down. The Chevy was still there. Alone.

I stood next to Virgil. "You think he's in there?" the mountain man asked.

"Maybe. Wherever he is, he's not far."

"You sure, now?"

I shrugged. Feeling it more than knowing it, not sure why.

The printer ran on like a machine gun in the darkness, spitting chewed-up lives onto paper.

122

VIRGIL PUSHED LLOYD over, took the wheel. I climbed into the back seat, holding a bundle of fan-folded paper as thick as the phone book.

123

THE BACK DOOR was unlocked. I found my way inside. Blossom was in bed, lying on her side, facing the bedroom door.

"You okay?" she asked, wide awake.

"Sure."

I took off the dark prowler's clothes, put everything I'd worn into a pillowcase, tied it closed.

Blossom didn't ask any questions. Patted the bed. Opened her arms.

124

"YOU WANT SOMETHING to eat? Take a break from that?"

I rolled my neck to loosen the cramping feeling. I was in the easy chair in Blossom's living room. The fan-folded stack of printout was on the coffee table next to me, a yellow legal pad to my right. "What time is it?"

"It's almost one in the afternoon, honey. You've been at it for hours."

I stood up. Followed her docilely into the kitchen. Ate a sandwich I couldn't taste.

"There's so many of them, Blossom. Even narrowing it down, taking the big guesses, there's so many."

She was barefoot, in a pair of pink shorts, a T-shirt with balloons on the front. Looked sixteen. "Tell me," she said.

"Two questions, right? Who he is, where he is. I can find who he is, I could get lucky. Point right to where he is. So I played with it. Patterns, like I told you. So I could see him in my mind."

"What d'you see?"

"He's shooting women. The boys who died, they were just in the line of fire. White women, I figure a white shooter."

"Just like that?"

"There's things I can't explain to you. It's not a black man's crime, sex-sniping."

"Like white women don't throw lye?"

"Don't be cute, girl. This isn't a job for the ACLU. There's a way you just know things. Your mother, she knew men, right?"

"She did."

"Could she explain everything to you… how she knew? There's something way past the red-light district, Blossom. A million miles underground. A white-light district maybe. The white light of the video cameras where they make kids perform for freaks."

"You've been there?"

"Yeah. And now, that's where I hunt."

"I'm sorry. Just tell me, okay. I'll keep my big mouth shut."

"Something happened to this kid. Something so ugly the social workers don't have a name for it. Maybe nobody ever found out about it, but I'm betting they did. Maybe through the back door. Maybe he was torturing little animals and a teacher caught him. Maybe a fire-setter. The way I dope it out, somebody caught wise, but they missed the boat. Missed the reasons. And they took him away for a while. Fixed him up. Gave his parents some counseling. And then they sent him home. Where he still is. Those files, they don't get you inside a kid's head. Or his heart. But I feel like this kid's rooted , you know. Like he never went far. Like he's been out there, brewing. Stewing in freakish juices."

"You're giving me the creeps."

"Something you don't know. Virgil brought me out here not to save Lloyd. To find out the truth. Whatever the truth was, he was going to stand up to it. The reason I know Lloyd didn't do it, it has nothing to do with what the cops know. The reason he didn't do it, he's not the person who could do it."

"Burke…if he's in there…if you're so sure he's in there…why do you look so depressed?"

"There's so many…so many. I can't bring it down too tight. I could miss him if I do. These reports are full of busted-up babies. Burned, beaten, crippled. Sexually abused. And every one of these files, they sent the kid home again. Everything all right again."

"And you're sad because you're not sure he's in there."