Hard Candy (8 page)

44

B
ACK AT the restaurant, I explained what had gone down to Max. His face didn't change, but I could feel the sadness. Wishing Train had refused me the girl. I made the sign of a rifleman on the roof, watching Train through a sniperscope. Max pointed his finger at me, questioning. I shook my head. I left the symbol of the rifleman in place with my left hand, walked the fingers of my right hand up behind it. Knife–edged the right hand, chopped at the symbol, flattened my left hand. Max pointed at me again. Did Train want us to do the job? No.

I didn't know what he wanted. We'd pick up the girl tomorrow and it would be over.

45

I
FOUND THE PROF working the Living Room—what the army of homeless humans who live in the tunnels and work the corridors call the arena–sized waiting room at Grand Central. He was propped against the wall by the gourmet bakery, a thick blanket beneath his legs, single wooden crutch standing next to him, a paper plate half full of coins in front of him. I bought him a large cardboard cup of black coffee. Hunkered down next to him, back to the wall. Street people stopped by the Prof's station, talking their talk, dealing their deals. Cops strolled past, eyes working from the ground up. Drugs moved in and out faster than the trains. It felt like being back on the yard in prison.

"You know a guy named Train? Over in Brooklyn."

He sipped his coffee, buried inside a winter overcoat that tented around his shoulders, running it through his memory bank. "It doesn't scan, man."

"He's got some kind of thing going. Like a cult, only…I don't know. Woman asked me to bring her kid home from there."

"Runaway?"

"I don't think so. The deal was, I just
ask
him, okay?"

"Ask him hard?"

"No. And just once.

"If it's like you say, what's the play?"

"He asked
me
the questions."

"Show me a piece."

"Mostly about his security system…did I think it was good enough."

"For what?"

"To protect him, I guess. I thought he was trying to hire a body–guard at first, but he never really asked."

"He want a favor? Don't he know you only play for pay?"

I lit a cigarette. Told the little man about the lie detector Train used, the karate–man he had at the door, the layout of the house.

I wasn't watching his face but I could feel him nod. The words came out of the side of his mouth. "I ain't read the book, but I'll take a look."

I left him at his post.

46

I
CALLED CANDY from a pay phone in the station.

"He said okay."

"You have my girl?"

"Tomorrow night. I'll bring her to you."

"See? I told you…"

I hung up.

47

A
DOLL–FACED young girl was working the exit ramp to the subway at Forty–second Street. Soft brown hair in pigtails down the sides of her face, body buried in a quilted baby–blue jacket.

"Mister? Can you help me? I'm trying to get together enough money to go home."

"Where's home?"

"In Syosset—on Long Island."

"That's where I'm going. Come on, I'll give you a ride." She bit her lower lip. "Twenty bucks."

"What?"

"Twenty bucks. And you can ride me wherever you want, okay?" Before I lost Belle, I would have taken her with me. Called McGowan.

I walked out into the street.

48

T
HE NEXT DAY it was dark enough by seven, but we gave the night a couple of hours to settle in. I went to Train's place alone. A different guy let me in. I followed him upstairs. Took my seat. Waited.

The door opened and they all walked in. Train was with them. The woman who said I had told the truth came in last, leading a girl by the hand. A short, slender little girl wearing faded jeans with a rip above one knee. A pale green T–shirt with "Zzzzap!" across the chest, plastic strap of an airline bag across one shoulder, denim jacket in one hand.

"Do you know this man?" Train asked the girl. She shook her head no.

The lie detector opened her robe. She was naked beneath it. Took the girl inside, hugging her close, looked over her shoulder at Train. Nodded.

"This is who you asked for," Train said to me.

"If you say so."

"You don't know her?"

"No."

"But you've seen a photograph… had her described to you?"

"Sure."

"And?"

"I can't tell." The girl's yellow cat's eyes watched me.

"Do you want to ask her any questions?"

"No." I lit a cigarette. "If she's not the right girl, I'll bring her back."

His lower lip twisted. Hands went to his temples. The lie detector opened her robe. The girl walked over. Stood in front of me. "Let's go," she said, slipping one arm into her jacket.

I stood up. Nobody moved. She followed me to the door. The new guard stepped aside. We walked down the stairs by ourselves. Opened the front door and stepped outside. She didn't look back.

49

S
HE WALKED beside me to the Plymouth. I unlocked the passenger door for her. As she swung her hips into the front seat I slipped the airline bag off her shoulder. She didn't react. I closed the door behind her, walked around behind the car, unzipping the bag, rooting through it with my hand. Nothing in there that could hurt you unless you swallowed it.

I climbed inside, handed her the bag. She put it on the floor, groped inside, came out with a cigarette.

"Can I have a light?" Her voice was soft, like she was asking me for something else.

I fired a wooden match, held it out to her. She wrapped both hands around mine, lit the smoke, eyes on me. "Your hand feels strong."

I wheeled the car down Flatbush Avenue, heading for the Manhattan Bridge. Turned right on the Bowery, heading uptown.

"My mother sent you?"

"That's right, Elvira."

"Nobody calls me that."

"What do they call you?"

"Juice," she said, flashing a smile. "You think that's dumb?"

"Kids have funny names."

"I'm not a kid."

"Fifteen, your mother said."

"My mother is a liar. She always lies."

I shrugged.

"What if I don't want to go back?"

"Talk to her about it."

"I'm talking to you."

"You're talking to yourself."

I pulled up at a red light on First Avenue. She snapped her lighted cigarette at me and ripped at the door handle, shoving her shoulder against the passenger door. It didn't budge. I picked her cigarette off the seat, tossed it out my window. She pushed her back against the car door, watching me, breathing hard through her mouth.

"You think you're smart—you're not so smart."

"Just relax."

"Will you
talk
to me?"

"About what?"

"Just talk to me. I'm not a package. Not something you just deliver."

"Yeah you are."

"Look, you can keep me in this car, okay? But you have to bring me in the house too."

"I can do that."

"Oh yes. You're a hard man. Momma only likes hard men."

"It's just a job."

Streets passed. Her breathing got calm again. "Can I have another smoke?"

"Sure." I handed her the little box of wooden matches.

"You don't trust me?"

"Why would I?"

"Because I'm not like my mother. I
never
lie. Never, ever. If I tell you I'll do something, I'll do it."

"And so you're telling me what?"

She drew on the smoke. "I'm telling you I want to talk to you. Just for a couple of minutes. Pull the car over…anyplace you want…just talk to me. Then when we get to my mother's, I'll walk in with you just like I was supposed to. No trouble, no screaming, nothing. Okay?"

I made a right turn on Twenty–third, found an empty slot facing the river under the East Side Drive. An abandoned car, stripped to its shell, was on my right, empty space on the left. I slid down my window, killed the ignition. Lit a smoke. "Let's talk," I said to the girl.

Her smile flashed again, knocking the pout off her face. "What's your name?"

"Burke."

"Are you my mother's man?"

"No."

She shrugged out of the denim jacket, arching her back so her breasts poked at the T–shirt. "Is this what you do?"

"What?"

"Deliver packages."

"Sometimes."

"You like it?"

"It's work."

"But do you
like
it?"

"If I liked it, people wouldn't have to pay me to do it."

"Sometimes you get paid for what you like to do. Like a whore who loves to fuck."

I shrugged. I had never met one.

She took a drag on her cigarette. Handed it to me. I tossed it out my window.

"It's real dark here."

"You're all done talking, we can leave."

"You want me to shut up?"

"It doesn't matter. We have a deal, right? We talk, then I take you home."

"You mean you take me to my mother's."

"Whatever."

"If you wanted me to shut up, you know the best way to do it?"

"No."

"You put something in my mouth. You want to put something in my mouth?" Her voice was bad–little–girl teasing. She knew how to do it.

"No."

"Yes you do. I can feel it." Her hand snaked toward my lap in the darkness.

I grabbed her wrist.

"All done talking?"

"What's the matter, Mr. Burke? You never went back to your girlfriend with lipstick on your cock before?"

"Lipstick, yeah," I told her. "Not bubble gum."

"I'm old enough."

"Not for me.

The car was quiet for a couple of minutes. "I'm done talking," she said, her voice soft and flat.

She didn't say another word until I pulled up outside Candy's apartment building.

"This is it," I said.

"I know."

50

"D
OES THE DOORMAN know you?" I asked her.

"Sure."

He waved us in as soon as he saw her face. Never looked at mine. She was quiet in the elevator.

The door swung open before I had the button depressed enough to ring the bell. Candy.

"Come in here," she said to the girl, not looking at me.

Elvira walked past her to the couch, dropping her bag on the floor like the maid would get it in the morning.

Candy walked over to me, reached up and put her hands on my shoulders. "Thanks, baby," she stage–whispered. The girl was sitting on the couch, watching her mother's back. Waiting for the truth.

I gave it to her. "Where's the money?"

Her fingers bit into the top of my shoulders, eyes lashed at me. I waited.

She whirled, heels tapping on the parquet floor. Elvira put her fingers to her chin, like she was considering something important. Her mother came back into the living room, stopped two feet in front of me. Handed me an envelope. I put it into my coat.

I heard the door click closed behind me.

51

I
GOT BACK into the Plymouth, started the engine. Lit a smoke. The door opened and Max slid inside. I handed him Candy's envelope, pulled out into traffic.

He tapped my shoulder. Holding a slab of cash in each hand. Nodded. All there. He put one hand in his pocket, the other in mine. We'd split the front money too.

I spun my finger in a circle, tapped the back of my neck. Anybody follow us?

The blunt–faced Mongol tapped one eye. Shook his head no. But then he shuddered his shoulders like he got a chill. Something. Something you couldn't see.

I checked the rearview mirror, moving through traffic. Max didn't spook at shadows. I pointed north. He nodded. Anyone following us to the junkyard would stick out like a beer drinker at a Jim Jones picnic.

We crossed the Triboro, turned into the jungle. Nothing behind us. I whipped the Plymouth into a tight U–turn, pointed back the way we came. Max lit a smoke for himself, one for me.

Half an hour later it was still quiet. The cops don't have that much patience. I took another route back downtown, dropped Max off near the warehouse, and headed back to the office.

Pansy was glad to see me.

52

I
FELT BETTER when I got up the next morning. Not good enough to bet on a horse, but like something bad was over. It was still early enough to risk using the phone in my office. My phone is just an extension run from the collection of deservedly unknown artists who live downstairs. They don't know about it—neither does Ma Bell. They probably wouldn't care if they did know—they don't pay their own bills.

"Any calls, Mama?"

"No calls. You come in today, okay?"

"Anything wrong?"

"Someone leave note for you."

"So?"

"Talk later," she said, hanging up.

I took a quarter–pound slab of cream cheese out of the refrigerator, dropped it in the bottom of Pansy's bowl, covered it with her dry dog food. "I'll bring you something good from Mama's," I promised her.

53

M
AMA WAS at the table almost before I sat down. She handed me a cheap white business envelope, the top neatly slit open. The note was typed:

Burke: Be by your phone at 11:00 tonight. Don't have anybody take a message. Be there yourself. Wesley

I drew a narrow breath through my nose. Let it out. Again. Feeling the fear–jolts dart around inside my chest, looking for a place to land. I lit a cigarette, holding the note against the match flame, watching it turn to ash. Wishing I'd never seen it.

"You see him?"

"A boy. Street boy. Around five o'clock this morning."

"He say anything?"

"Not see me. Push this under the front door, run away."

"You opened it?"

She bowed. It was okay. I knew why she told me to come in. She never met Wesley, but she knew the name. Every outlaw in the city did.

"Burke? What you do?"

"Answer the phone when it rings," I told her.

54

I
SAT THERE quietly while Mama went to call Immaculata. To tell Max the devil was loose. Wesley never threatened. He
was
terror. Cold as a heat–seeking missile. He took your money, you got a body. Years ago my compadre Pablo told me about a contract Wesley had on a Puerto Rican dope dealer uptown. The dealer knew the contract was out. He went to a Santeria priestess, begging for voodoo heat against the glacier coming for him. The priestess took the dealer's money, told him Chango, the warrior–god, would protect him. She was an evil old demon, feared throughout the barrio. Her crew was all Marielitos. Zombie–driven murderers. They set fires to watch the flames. Ate the charred flesh. Tattoos on their hands to tell you their specialty. Weapons, drugs, extortion, homicide. The executioner's tattoo was an upside–down heart with an arrow through it. Cupid as a hit man.

The priestess called on her gods. Killed chickens and goats. Sprinkled virgin's blood on a knife. Loosed her death–dogs into the street looking for Wesley.

The dealer hid in her house. Safe.

Blazing summer, but the kids stayed off the streets. Winter always comes.

A UPS driver pulled up outside the apartment house where the priestess kept her temple. Her Marielitos slammed him against his truck, pulling at his clothes. Eyes watched from beneath slitted shades. They took a small box from the driver, laughing when he said someone had to sign for it.

They held the box under an opened fire hydrant, soaking the paper off. One of the Marielitos held the box to his ear, shaking it. Another pulled a butterfly knife from his pocket, flashed it open in the street, grinning. They squatted, watching as the box was slit open. Looked inside. They stopped laughing.

They took the box inside to the priestess. A few minutes later, the dope dealer was thrown into the street, hands cuffed behind his back, duct tape sealing his mouth. He ran from the block.

They whispered about it. In the bodegas, in the after–hours joints, on the streets. They said the priestess found the hand of her executioner inside the box, the tattoo mocking her. Chango was angry. So she found a better sacrifice than a chicken.

The cops found the dealer a few blocks away, a tight group of four slugs in his chest, another neat hole in his forehead. Nobody heard shots.