Blossom - Andrew H. Vachss [83]
"There's no paper on this?"
"No. I got me an old thirty–ought–six too. The one I was gonna have Lloyd use."
I lit a smoke.
"You started up again?"
I ignored him. "Lloyd, you sure you want to do this? This isn't some bar fight now."
"Yessir."
"'Cause of all the trouble this guy caused you?"
The boy's fists were clenched, voice vibrating, working for control. "Not him. The other one. The one who…"
"I know," I told him.
154
BLOSSOM WAS IN the kitchen with Rebecca, Virginia monopolizing conversation, Junior sitting quiet.
I thought about all Virgil had. Watching him polish the cut–down barrels of a twelve–gauge with emery paper.
"You could walk away from this," I told him.
"Why didn't you?"
I didn't answer him.
Wesley knew.
"He knows I'm coming," I told my brother.
The mountain man jacked a shell into the chamber of his carbine. It made a sharp, clean sound in the living room. His face was set in lines of bone.
"The bear can't leave the woods just 'cause he knows it's hunting season."
155
LATE THAT NIGHT, in bed.
"Do you know why they do it?"
"They?"
"Perverts, freaks, degenerates…whatever you want to call them." Her face was soft, little–girl questions in her eyes. But I felt the long muscles tense in her thigh, testing. Pushing the buttons, watching the screen.
"What'd your mother call them?" Testing back.
"If they liked to play dress–up, harmless stuff like that…she called them customers. Clients. Somebody wanted to really whale on a woman, really hurt her, he'd know better than to come to my mother's house."
I lit a smoke, buying time. "One way you can tell a country's gone real evil…when the doctors are working the torture chambers. Telling the sadists how much a prisoner can take before he checks out completely. You know what a snuff film is?"
"I heard of them. Just rumors."
"They're no rumors. And they didn't start a couple of years ago. A guy I met in Aftrica told me the Shah of Iran had video cameras in his torture chambers. Idi Amin too. Why do you think Hitler's freaks kept the cameras rolling? There's always been people who get off on pain. Other people's pain. And people who like to watch."
"Everybody has that in them?"
"No. Hell, no. But some do. And we keep breeding them. Monsters."
"Not criminals?"
"Past criminals. I'm a criminal, Blossom. My buddy Pablo, he's a doctor too. A psychiatrist. I asked him once, what I was. He said I'm a contrabandista. An outlaw, you understand?"
She sat up, hands clasping her knees. "Not like them. And not like us either, huh?"
I thought of Virgil, his family. Who's "us" anymore?
"Right on the borderline," I told her.
156
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, on my way to Virgil's, the car phone made its noise.
"What?"
"Place your bets, I'm on the set."
"Prof?"
"No, fool, it's Jesse Jackson."
"Is the thing ready?"
"Have no fear, your ride is here."
"Here?"
"Time to jump, chump. Boston Street, northbound from Thirty–ninth. Cruise it slow, lights down low. When the honeybees swarm, you found the farm. Ask for Cherry."
157
VIRGIL SAT NEXT to me in the Lincoln, Lloyd in the back seat. "He's really here?"
"Must be. Said to take Boston Street, northbound from Thirty–ninth."
"Boston Street? There's no Boston Street anywhere around here."
"He said to see a hooker. Cherry."
"He's holed up in Cal City maybe?"
"On the stroll, Virgil. A street girl. Where'd they be, close by?"
"Off Broadway, I guess." He dragged on his cigarette, thinking. "Ah, he has to mean Massachusetts Street. Over in Glen Park. Make a left up there."
The sun didn't reach all the way to street level on Massachusetts. Three–story frame houses leaned against each other for comfort. A slow–moving line of cars worked its way up the block. I drifted over to the curb. A flock of girls descended: spandex pants, tube tops, high heels. Working.
I pushed the power window switch, letting them know I was the man to talk to. Ebony woman with long straight hair, lipstick slashed carelessly across her