Andrew Vachss - Blossom

The freak's head bobbed up and down. The trunk was lined with army blankets next to the fuel cell. Plenty of room. He climbed in without a word. Max and I got into the front seat and took off.

11

I USED THE Exact Change lane on the Triboro, grabbed the first exit, and ran parallel to Bruckner Boulevard through the South Bronx to Hunts Point. Turned off at Tiffany, motored past the mini-Attica they call a juvenile detention facility at the corner of Spofford, and turned left, heading for the network of juke joints, topless bars, and salvage yards that make up half the economy of the neighborhood. The other half was transacted in abandoned buildings. They stared with windowless eyes above crack houses doing a booming business on the ground floors.

We drove deeper, past even the bombed-out ruins. Past the meat market that supplies all the city's butcher shops and restaurants, past the battered hulks of railway cars rotting on rusty tracks that run to nowhere. Tawny flashes in the night. Wild dogs, hunting.

Finally we came to the deadfall. A narrow slip of land jutting into the East River, bracketed by mounds of gritty sand from the concrete yards and the entrance road to the garbage facility. I wheeled the Plymouth so it was parallel to the river. Max and I climbed out. Rikers Island was just across the filthy water, but you couldn't see it from where we stood. We opened the trunk. Hauled the freak out, ripping the duct tape from his mouth. He was shaking so hard he had to lean against the car.

"Take a look around," I told him.

A giant German shepherd lay on her side a few feet from us. Dead. Her massive snout buried in a large paper McDonald's bag. Her underbelly was a double row of enlarged, blunted nipples. She'd sent many litters to the wild dog packs before her number came up. A seagull the size of an albatross flapped its wings as it cruised to a gentle stop near the dog. Its razor beak ripped at her flesh, tiny eyes glaring us to keep our distance. Some kind of animal screamed. Sounds like a string of tiny firecrackers closer still.

The freak's chest heaved. He snorted a deep breath through his nose. It told him the truth his eyes wanted to deny.

"This is a graveyard," I said, my voice calm and quiet. "They'd never hear the shots. Never find the body. Got it?"

He nodded.

"You bring something with you? Something to prove you know where the kid is?"

He nodded again.

Max reached inside the freak's jacket. A wallet. Inside, a Polaroid snapshot of a kid. Long straight hair fell down either side of a narrow face. The kid in the picture was wearing blue bathing trunks, standing on a dock, smiling at the camera.

"Tell me something…something so I know it's the right kid."

The freak dry-washed his hands. "Monroe found him. A few years ago. In Westchester. He ran away from home."

"I won't ask you again."

"Lucas…that's what we call him…he told us everything. Just ask me…anything…I can…"

"Tell me what his room looked like— his room at home."

"He had bunk beds. His parents always thought they'd have another kid. Lucas, he said that bed was for his brother, when he came. And he had a whole G.I. Joe collection. All the dolls. And the Transformers. He loved the Transformers."

"He have a TV set in his room?"

"No. He was only allowed to watch television on the weekends. In the morning."

"He have a dog, this kid?"

"Rusty. That was the name of his dog. He cried all the time about Rusty until Monroe got him a dog."

Yes.

I lit a cigarette, feeling Max close, waiting. I handed the freak back the money envelope, feeling every muscle in his body soften as he took it.

"Tell me something," I asked him. "How old were you when Monroe found you?"

He didn't waste time playing. "How did you know?"

"How old?"

"Ten."

"And now you re…"

"Seventeen."

"So when you got too old, the only way to stay with Monroe was to bring him someone new, yes?"

His face broke, trembled for control, lost it. I listened to him cry.

"Lucas, he's old enough now, isn't he? And you're out."

He slumped down on the filthy ground near the car, head in his hands. "I could've helped him…find someone else."

"Yeah. But Monroe, he's gonna let Lucas do that. And you, you wanted the money for a new start?"

"He never loved me at all!" the freak sobbed.

I squatted down next to him. "Where is he?"

"I'll tell you everything." He started talking, his voice a hiss that he couldn't stop, spewing pus. When he got to the home address, I left Max standing next to him. Pulled the mobile cellular phone from the front seat. A gift from a nujack whose nine-millimeter automatic wasn't as fast as Max's hands. Punched in the number, hit the Send button. McGowan was right there. I gave him the address. "The kid's not going to want to go," I told him.

He sighed into the phone. I cut the connection to McGowan.

I walked back over to the freak. Looked down and let him hear the truth. "You're square now. Somebody did something to you, you did something to somebody else. It's over, okay? You're gonna need a lot of help now, understand? You got some real decisions to make. You'll find some phone numbers in your pocket later. Those people, they can help you, if you want the help. You don't want the help, that's up to you. There's another number. Wolfe, over at City-Wide. You want to testify against Monroe, she'll handle it. Set you up with anything you need. But this other stuff, it's over. You go back to your old ways, you re coming back here. Understand?"

He nodded, watching me from under long eyelashes, trembling slightly.

"You come back here, you're coming back to stay."

I nodded at Max. He did something to the kid's neck. We put him back into the trunk. He'd wake up later with a bad headache and five hundred bucks in his pocket.

12

I MET MCGOWAN and Morales early the next morning. At the diner where they hang out. They hadn't been to sleep yet.

"You found him?" I asked.

"Yeah." McGowan's voice was dead.

"Get him home?"

"He said he was home. His name is Lucas. A special boy, he told us he was. A special boy. He's a poet. You wanna see his poetry?" He slid a slick magazine across to me.

Boys Who Love it said on the cover. Picture of a kid sitting astride a BMX dirt bike, sun shining behind him.

"Page twenty-nine," McGowan said.

The poem was entitled "Unicorn." All about little buds needing the pure sunlight of love to bring them to full flower.

"You lock the freak up?" I asked.

"Yeah. He's got his story ready, this Monroe. He found the kid wandering around a shopping center. The kid told him he was being sexually abused at home. This Monroe, he saved the boy. Raised him like his own kid. Spent a fortune on him. Private tutors, the whole works."

"And the kid won't testify, right?"

"Right. We took him home. Saw his mother and father. Looked right through them."

"What's next?"

"Lily talked with him. She says he's 'bonded' to that devil. Harder than deprogramming a kid caught up in one of those cults. Gonna take a long time. We ran it by Wolfe at City-Wide. She says she's got enough to indict Monroe even without the kid.

"And Lucas said there was another kid. Older than him. Layne. Wolfe wanted to know, maybe this Layne, he'd testify against Monroe…"

His voice trailed off, making it a question. I shrugged.

"I fucking told you," Morales said.

"And the ten grand's gone too?"

"Yeah."

"Wolfe's the best. She was standing by. Got a telephonic search warrant. There was enough stuff in the house…pictures and all…Monroe goes down for a long time even without the kid's testimony. Wolfe says they can use that DNA fingerprinting, prove this kid is who the parents say he is. She asked if you were in this."