Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [21]
So she does phone jobs, suckers letting their credit cards run wild while she talks them over the top. Or she visits her clients indoors.
It was only right that she and Hortense would work a sting together. Walking different sides of the same one–way street.
23
I FELT bad, and I didn't know why. I was some cash ahead, for a change. The last job went down like sweet syrup, and maybe there would be some more of that kind of work down the road. Nobody was looking for me.
I didn't spend time thinking about it. I used to do that. I used to do time. A couple of bad habits.
Pansy ambled over to where I was sitting, put her huge head on my lap. She made a noise that sounded like a growl, but I knew what she wanted.
"Not today, girl," I told her, scratching her head between her eyes. Max and I were training her to stay low when she hit. Most dogs leave their feet when they attack, some deep instinct forcing them to go for the throat. That doesn't work on people: human throats are too far off the ground. We take Pansy over to this vacant lot in Brooklyn. Pay some kid ten bucks and talk him into putting on the agitator's suit—leather covered with padded canvas. I hold Pansy on a snap leash, facing the agitator. Max stands to the side with a long bamboo pole. When I send Pansy, Max brings the pole down. Hard.
If she stays low, about groin–height, she can nail the kid wearing the suit. If she leaves her feet, Max cracks her in the head. Lately she's been getting through most of the time. I call her off as soon as she gets a good bite.
I have to get a different kid each time. The suit feels like it's armor–plated, but Pansy can turn a leg into liquid right through it.
I flipped the channels on the TV until I found a pro wrestling match. Pansy's favorite. I gave her one of the marrow bones and stretched out on the couch, opening the racing sheet. Maybe I'd find a horse I liked. Make my own kind of investment.
The last thing I remember before I fell asleep was Pansy grinding the marrow bone into powder.
24
IT WAS past ten when I woke up. On the TV, a private detective was getting hit over the head with a tire iron. I lit a smoke. Opened the back door for Pansy. When I walked back inside, the private eye was wide awake and looking for clues.
I took a shower. Looked at my face in the mirror. Deep, past the image. Looked into myself, breathing through my nose, expanding my stomach, exhaling as my chest went out.
When I came out of it, I felt clear. Centered. Ready to go to work.
I shaved carefully. Combed my hair. I put on a pair of dark–gray slacks and a white silk shirt. Alligator boots. Custom–made, but they were a pretty good fit on me anyway. I moved aside some shirts in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Looked at a whole pile of rings, watches, bracelets, gold chains. The spoils of war.
I held a smuggler's necklace in my hand. Each link is a one–ounce gold ingot; it comes apart one piece at a time. Too classy for this job. I pawed through the stuff until I found the right combination: a thick gold neck chain, a gold bracelet, and a gold ring set with a blue star sapphire.
Checked myself in the full–length mirror on the door of the closet. Something missing. I found some gel in the bathroom. Ran it through my hair until it looked thicker and a bit greasy. White hair shot through the black just past my temples. It didn't bother me—the only thing I ever posed for was mug shots.
I slopped some cologne all over my face and neck. To throw the dogs off the scent.
A few hundred bucks in my pocket, one of the Mole's butane lighters, a wallet I stripped of bogus credit cards, and I was ready to visit a strip joint.
25
JFK AIRPORT sits at the end of Queens, near the Long Island border, sticking out into the bay. The surrounding swampland is slashed with two–lane side roads running off the expressway. Warehouses, light industry, short–stay motels.
The Highway Department keeps the roads in good shape, but they don't waste any money on streetlights.