Andrew Vachss - Blossom

Acclaim for A N D R E W V A C H S S

"Burke is an unlikely combination of Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, and Rambo, operating outside the law as he rights wrongs….Vachss has obviously seen just how unable the law is to protect children. And so, while Burke may be a vigilante, Vachss's stories don't feature pointless bloodshed. Instead, they burn with righteous rage and transfer a degree of that rage to the reader."

— Washington Post Book World

"Taking Burke off his home turf to deal with a Midwestern kind of seediness was a brilliant move. Vachss's characters are, as always, carefully sketched, the dialogue is sharp, and the driven Burke is a creature you can't spend enough time with. Many writers are trying to cover the same ground as Vachss. A handful are good. None are better. For anyone interested in this kind of fiction, Andrew Vachss, sculpting pieces of art out of the scummiest wastes of humanity, must be read."

— People

"Compelling…powerful.…Vachss is America's dark scribe of the 1990s….His protagonist Burke is our new dark knight, a cold-eyed crusader."

— James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor

"The best detective fiction being written….Add a stinging social commentary…a Célinesque journey into darkness, and we have an Andrew Vachss, one of our most important writers."

— Martha Grimes

"Move over, Hammett and Chandler, you've got company….Andrew Vachss has become a cult favorite, and for good reason."

— Cosmopolitan

"A sleuth who lives not just on society's edge, but on its underbelly….Strong, gritty, gut-bucket stuff, so unsparing and vivid that it makes you wince. Vachss knows the turf and writes with a sneering bravado….Burke prowls the city with a seething, angry, almost psychotic voice appropriate to the devils he deals with….Vachss is good, his Burke books first-rate."

— Chicago Tribune

"Vachss seems bottomlessly knowledgeable about the depth and variety of human twistedness."

— The New York Times

Andrew Vachss

Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for youthful offenders. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, poetry, graphic novels, and a "children's book for adults." His books have been translated into twenty different languages and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, The New York Times, and numerous other forums. He lives and works in New York City and the Pacific Northwest.

The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com

BOOKS BY

Andrew Vachss

Flood

Strega

Blue Belle

Hard Candy

Blossom

Sacrifice

Shella

Down in the Zero

Born Bad

Footsteps of the Hawk

False Allegations

Safe House

Choice of Evil

Everybody Pays

Dead and Gone

Pain Management

BLOSSOM

A N D R E W

V A C H S S

FOR ANDREW MITCHELL

born: October 19, 1985

unearthed: September 6, 1989

you never had a good day on this earth

sleep now, child

BLOSSOM

1

THE SUN dropped on the far side of the Hudson River like it knew what was coming.

I turned off the West Side Highway at Thirtieth Street, cruising east toward Tenth Avenue. Glanced at the photograph taped to my dashboard. Marilyn, her name was. Fourteen years old, her father said. Chubby, round-faced little girl, smiling at the camera, standing next to a Bon Jovi poster in her pink ruffled bedroom.

Marilyn ran away from home. Ran herself straight to Hell. I didn't know what she was before she caught the bus that dropped her into Port Authority, but I knew what she was now.

Raw meat on the streets. A pimp's prey as soon as her feet hit the sidewalk.

She'd be out here somewhere, chasing money.

Me too.

Marilyn wouldn't be working the commuters heading home through the Lincoln Tunnel. The hard-core tunnel bunnies would take her the way a Cuisinart took vegetables. A girl that young should be working indoors, but she hadn't turned up. Only one place left.

I fluttered my hand in a "get down" gesture but Max the Silent was way ahead of me, puddling himself into a pool of shadow in the back seat.

You can't make more than a couple of passes at any one block. The working girls know all about comparison shoppers. I stopped for a light on Twelfth. The Prof was at his post, his tiny body in a wheelchair, a Styrofoam begging cup jingling coins in his hand. He caught my eye. Nodded his head. Pointed up the block with a finger held at his waist.

You couldn't miss her. Babyfat spilling out all around the borders of the red hot pants, nervously plucking at her white halter top. Face unreadable behind the thick makeup. Hair piled on top of her head to make her look taller. Wobbling on spike heels in the heat waves the retreating sun left behind on the pavement. She was leaning against a long low building with some other girls. Cattle waiting for the prod.

My eyes flicked to the I-beam girder on the corner. Something moving in the shadows. Her pimp? No, one of the triple-threat street skells: clean your windshield, sell you a vial of crack, or slash at your face while another snatched at your wallet. Whatever pays.

I slowed the Plymouth to a crawl. Empty parking lot to my right. A black girl detached herself from the lineup, cut diagonally across the block toward me, streetlights glinting off her high cheekbones, crack-lust in her dead eyes.

"Want to give me a ride, honey? Change your luck?"

"Not tonight," I said, my eyes over her shoulder.

"She underage, man. Jailbait, big time."

I lit a cigarette. Shook my head. The black girl stepped aside. Walked away, switching her hips out of habit. Her other habit. AIDS and crack— racing to see which would take her down first.

Marilyn came over. Tentative. "You want to party?" Watching my face. Wanting me to say no. Not wanting me to. Lost.

"How much?" I asked, so she wouldn't spook.

"Fifty for me, ten for the room."

"What do I get for the fifty?"

Her eyes were somewhere else. "You get me. For a half hour. Okay?"

"Okay."

She walked around the front of the car, her head down. Resigned.

She got in the car knees first, the way a young girl does. Closed the door. "Take a left at the corner," she said, fumbling in her purse for a cigarette. I knew where she wanted me to go— one of the shadowy deserted parking lots on West Twenty-fifth. In case I wanted to save the ten bucks for the room. She looked up as I drove through the green light, heading for Ninth. "Hey…I said…"

"Forget it, Marilyn." Using her name so she wouldn't think I had violence on my mind. Her pimp would have warned her about men who wanted to hurt her for fun. He'd tell her this was all about business. Beat it into her if she didn't understand. Beat her again to make sure.

"Who're you?" Everything in her voice running together in a sad-scared baby-blend.

"It's not important. Your father said you ran away, so…"

"You're taking me back there."

"Yeah."

She snatched at the door handle. Jiggled it. Hard. No go. Looked at my face. She knew. Started to cry.

She didn't look up until I pulled in behind Lily's joint. Max flowed out of the back seat. I lit a smoke, waiting.