Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [119]
"I don't know."
"I'll take the pictures once they get in there. The Mole has the stuff. When does it happen?"
"Friday night we start. McGowan will put the word out. Sadie's Sexsational is the spot, you want to beat up a girl. It'll get around. We got two weeks tops. I'll be staying there. Once I go in, I can't go out. Can't take a chance of getting spotted. You bring food in with you every day. I'll be there until it's over."
"What if the freak doesn't bite?"
I shrugged. "I'm not thinking that way."
"Okay."
"We're playing for everything on the table, Michelle."
"I know. What if we need some operating cash?"
"Take it out of my share of the last score."
She dragged on her cigarette. "You worked with the Mole….You see my boy?"
"He's fine," I assured her.
"A real doll," Belle chipped in.
Michelle smiled. Gave me a kiss. Kissed Belle. "I'll get a cab," she said.
147
"TAKE EVERYTHING you're going to need," I told Belle. We were back in her cottage, two in the morning. She bustled around, filling two big suitcases.
"What about my car?"
"You follow me back to the city with it when we go in for the last time. Day after tomorrow. I'll stash the Pontiac on the street. We'll keep your car in the garage."
She was on her hands and knees, poking around in a corner near her bed. She came up with two handfuls of cash. "I've got about fifteen thousand here," she said.
"I'll show you where to hide it."
"You want…?"
"No."
I walked out onto the deck, lighting a smoke. I felt Belle behind me. "How's this?"
I turned around. She was wearing a flimsy red wrapper, tied at the waist with a thin ribbon. Her breasts were barely veiled, slash of white skin down the middle.
"You'll freeze out here."
She moved into my arms. She was warm, soft. Her hips trembled against me. My hand slid to her butt.
"Doesn't this thing come with pants?"
"I'd just have to take them off," she said. "Come on."
148
IN THE car heading back, Belle fiddled with the radio. Full–throated, late–night blues. "I'm a stranger, and afraid"—the singer well within himself, coming to grips, looking it in the eye.
"He's telling the truth," Belle whispered. "I've been both all my life."
I found her hand in the darkness.
The disc jockey broke in. "That was Johnny Adams, out of New Orleans. Singing a new Doc Pomus tune, 'A World I Never Made.' You all remember Doc Pomus, the man who gave us 'Save the Last Dance for Me,' 'Little Sister,' and so many other monster hits. Doc's one of the world's great bluesmen. Now here's the flip side. Down and dirty. Like they don't do anymore."
Rattling soft piano, sinuous spiking guitar notes dancing on the top, teasing. Johnny Adams, making his promises, bragging his brag. "I'm your body and fender man, let me pound out your dents." In case anyone listening had maple syrup for brains, he spelled it out:
I don't care if your body's brand new
Or it's been knocked around…
I swear they're all the same, babe,
When you turn them upside down.
"He's off the mark there," Belle said.
"No, he's right. There's no such thing as a golden snapper—the difference is in here," I said, tapping my chest.
"Here," she said, pulling my hand to her breast.
I lit a smoke. Doc Pomus on the radio again. Like that night I left my basement. Full circle.
149
THE PONTIAC slipped into the garage. I showed Belle the circuit–breaker panel in the back corner. "You know what this is?"
"Sure. Like a fuse box."
"Watch." I punched the switch marked Hall. Then Lobby. Then Second Floor. The box popped open, flat plate inside. I used a thumb–nail to open the setscrews. Behind it was a deep, lead–lined box. A revolver rested on a neat stack of bills. "Put your money in there."
"That's neat. It has wires running from it and everything."
"The wires run to the house current. Electromagnetic switches. Like a combination lock. You remember?"
"Hall, lobby, second floor."
I patted her butt. "Good girl."
"If I tell you again, will you pat me some more?"
"Upstairs."
150
"YOU READY to go over it again?"
"Honey, I got it down pat."
"One