Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [52]
"Who'd hire me?"
"You gonna hook up with a mob—kiss some old asshole's pinky ring?"
"No way."
"That's the true clue. You ain't Italian anyway, right?"
"I don't know."
The Prof's face flashed sad for just a second. "You really don't?"
"No. I did the State Shuffle. Orphanage to foster homes to the gladiator schools. To here."
"And you always knew you were coming."
"I always knew."
"Okay, bro', then know this. You can't score if you don't learn more, got it? One way or another, you got to steal to be real. And I know what's in your schoolboy head: pick up the gun and have some fun. Right?"
I smiled at the little man, thinking about guns. And banks.
He grabbed my arm, hard. I was always surprised at the Prof's powerful grip.
"You got to go on the hustle, schoolboy. There ain't no fame in the gun game—play it tame, the money's the same."
"I'm no hustler. I don't have the rap."
"Man, I'm not talking about no Murphy Man shit. Or pimping off some little girl either. The magic word is 'scam,' my man. Use this time. Study the freaks in here. Watch them close. Learn. How. Things. Work. That's the key to the money tree."
I started reading books just to show the Prof respect. It was his advice—it had to stand for something. I read it all. Everything I could get my hands on. When the prison library ran low, I joined the Book–of–the–Month Club. I scored a couple of dozen books before they threatened to garnishee my salary. I wrote to religious organizations—they sent me books too. I covered hundreds of pages with notes, calculations. Figuring the odds.
When I got out, things didn't work like I planned. It took me another couple of falls to get things down to where I have them now. But I always kept reading, listening. Watching for the crack in the wall.
It was during my second bit that I started reading psychology. I never knew they had sweet words for some of the freakish things people did. The Prof said, if I read the books enough, one day they'd talk to me. I knew what I wanted to be, just not what to call it.
Ice–cold.
Stone–hard.
And I worked at that too.
One day, I was reading a psychology book and a word jumped out at me. "Sociopath." It called to me. I read it over and over. "Sociopath. The essential characteristic of this disorder is a lack of remorse, even for violent or criminal behavior. The sociopath lacks the fundamental quality of empathy."
I ran to the battered old dictionary I kept in my cell. "Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another." I puzzled it out. A sociopath thinks only his own thoughts, walks his own road. Feels only his own pain. Yeah. Wasn't that the right way to live in this junkyard? Do your own time, keep your face flat. Don't let them see your heart.
A couple of weeks later, I watched the hacks carry an informant out on a stretcher, a white towel over his face. A shank was sticking out of his chest. "That's a nice way for a rat to check out of this hotel," I said to the guys around me. They nodded. I knew what they'd say—Burke is a cold dude.
I kept my face flat. I never raised my voice, never argued with anybody. Practiced letting my eyes go slightly out of focus so I could look in a man's face for minutes without turning away.
Sometimes, alone in my cell at night, I'd say the word softly to myself. "Sociopath." Calling on the ice god to come into my soul. Willing to be anything but afraid all the time.
I listened to the freaks. Listened to Lester tell us how he broke in a house, found some woman taking a bath. Put his gun to her head, made her suck him off. Then he plugged in her hair dryer, tossed it in the water. I kept my face flat, walking away.
Lester grabbed a young boy who'd just come in. "Shit on my dick or blood on my knife," he told the kid, smiling his smile. I took him off the count the next night. He never saw me coming. I hooked him underhand