Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [7]
I watched him scan the passing streets with his eyes, not moving his head.
I was in Biafra during the war. It got bad near the end. Staying alive was all there was. No food, landlocked, soldiers pinching all four corners, planes spitting death—low enough in the sky to hit with a rifle. If you had a rifle. Too many ways to die. Some screamed, some ran. Nobody won. I saw kids lying like litter all through the jungle, their faces already dead, waiting. I had a 9mm pistol with three bullets left in the clip, half a pack of cigarettes, a pocketful of diamonds, and almost a hundred grand in Swiss francs. I left a sack of Biafran pounds back in the jungle. About a million face value, if Biafra won the war. It wasn't going to, and carrying a sack of money from a defeated country while you're running for your life is what they mean by "dead weight." I didn't even bury it—I wasn't coming back. Another big score gone to dirt. The gunfire stopped, and the jungle got dead quiet. Waiting. A young woman ran past me on my right, wearing only a pair of tattered men's shorts way too big for her, every breath a moan. I heard a grunting sound and hit the ground, the pistol up in front of me. A wounded soldier? If he had a rifle, maybe I could trade up. It was a little boy, about three years old, a tiny head on a stick body, his belly already swollen, naked. Alone. Past being scared. The woman never broke stride; she scooped the baby up on the run, shoving him up toward her slender neck, holding him with one hand. If she made it, the baby would have a new mother.
That's what Michelle did with Terry.
6
I PARKED a couple of blocks away. Terry and I walked over to Lily's, not talking. The black guy at the front desk was reading a thick book through horn–rimmed glasses.
"Hey, Terry!"
"Hey, Sidney!" the kid greeted him. "Sidney's going to law school," he told me.
Somehow I didn't think Sidney would end up making deals with guys like me in the back of limos. "Is this your father?" he asked Terry. "The one who teaches you all that electronic stuff?"
That cracked the kid up. "Burke?" It was the Mole's thought, but the laugh was Michelle's. It's not just chromosomes that make blood.
Sidney waved us past. We walked down a long corridor to the back offices. The right–hand wall was all glass. On the other side, groups of kids were running, jumping, screaming their lungs out. Everything from disciplined martial–arts classes in one corner to some crazy game with kids taking turns trying to dive over a mound of pillows. Business as usual.
Immaculata burst out of one of the back offices, her long glossy hair flying behind her, a clipboard in one hand.
"Lily!" she yelled out.
"We're all back here," echoed a voice.
Immaculata saw us and spun in a graceful arc, her long nails flowing together as she pyramided her hands at the waist. She bowed gently to us.
"Burke. Terry."
"Mac." I bowed back.
Terry tried to bow too, but he was too excited to get it right. "Is Max here?"
"Max is working, honey."
"But is he coming? Maybe later?"
Immaculata's smile ignited the highlights in her eyes. "Who knows?"
"Max is the strongest man in the world!" the kid said, not inviting a dispute.
Immaculata bowed again. "Is strength so important? Do you remember what you have been taught?"
"Yes. Strength of character. Strength of spirit."
"Very good," the beautiful woman proclaimed, bending at the waist to give Terry a kiss. "And so… is Michelle strong?"
"She's so brave."
"And the Mole?"
"Michelle says he's the smartest man on the earth. That's what she says."
"And Burke?"
The kid looked doubtful, waiting.
"Burke is not strong like Max?"
The kid shook his head.
"Or brave like Michelle? Smart like the Mole?"
"No…" Terry said, reaching for it.
"So how does he survive?"
The kid knew all about survival. "He has strength too, right?"
"Right!" said Immaculata, giving him another kiss.
The kid was in heaven. Maybe he'd never see the inside of a prep school unless he went along on a burglary, but how many kids get to work