Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [81]
"You think I'm… sick."
"No. I think you're hurt. And, one day, we'll fix that."
"I love you."
I bent to kiss her. "I've got to go," I said.
She pressed her head down against me. "Tell me something worse. Tell me something worse than what he did."
"It'd be worse for someone else, baby. Like I told you. Everybody has their own. Good and bad."
She came to her knees next to me. "Tell me the worst thing. The worst thing you know."
I looked in her face, talking quietly. I'd had enough of this crazy game. "People steal babies, Belle. Little tiny babies—they steal them from their parents. And they never bring them back."
"What do they do with them?"
"They sell most of them. Some of the pretty white kids, they sell them to nice rich folks who want a baby of their own. Black–market adoption."
"What about the others?"
"You know what a chop shop is?"
"Where they steal cars, break them down for parts?"
"Yeah. They have them for babies too. They sell the white babies. The other ones, they're not worth too much for adoption, so they cut them up for parts."
"Burke!"
"Rich baby needs a heart transplant, a new kidney, you think they care where the organs come from?"
"I don't believe you!"
"The world I live in, it's a lot deeper underground than any subway. It's a world where you can buy a baby's heart."
I held her against me. "Don't ask questions so much, little girl. I only got ugly answers."
She pulled back from me, dry–eyed. "You saw this? You saw this yourself?"
"Yeah. Guy's kid was in the hospital. Dying. Needed a transplant. It was in the papers, on TV. Looking for a donor. Baby only had a few days to live. He got a call. They promised him a baby's heart. Fresh. All packed and ready for transport to the hospital. Twenty–five thousand, they wanted. He made some calls—a lot of calls. A cop I know sent him to me. I went down the tunnel."
"What happened? Did they have the heart?"
"Just like they promised."
"You took it? The baby was saved?"
"Yeah."
She nodded. "Damn their souls to hell."
"I don't do souls," I told her. "Just bodies."
97
THE HANDBALL court was in the shadows of Metropolitan Hospital, just off 96th Street near the East River. Once the tip of Spanish Harlem, it was now liberated territory—the yuppie land–grab machine wouldn't be satisfied until gentrification ate the South Bronx. I liked it better the old way, when the human beings lived in the tenements and investment bankers lived in the suburbs. Now we got plenty of rehab apartments for tomorrow's leaders. And more people living in the streets than they have in Calcutta.
I parked under the East Side Drive overpass and walked over to the court. Ten minutes to one. I watched people playing: handball, paddleball, basketball. No stickball. People working too. Working the cars. Selling flowers, newspapers, clean windshields. Ninety–sixth Street was the DMZ when I was coming up. North was theirs, South was ours. Now it all belongs to someone else—they just let us play there while they're at work downtown.
"These chumps can't play no basketball." A voice behind me. Pablo. The lack of a single Puerto Rican in the NBA makes him crazy.
He was wearing his white doctor's coat over a black turtleneck, his round face looking the same way it did when he walked out of Harvard fifteen years ago.
"Gracias, compadre," I said, thanking him for coming.
He shook hands the way he always does, using both of his.
"Something bad?" he asked me, standing close.
"I have to meet a man. Tonight. He hurt one of my brothers. He said it was a message. I don't know what's on his mind. I want to walk away—tell him I got no beef with him. But he might not go for it."
"You have Max."
"Can't use him for this, Pablo. It may be Max he wants. He's a karateka. Been going around the city, challenging sensei in their own dojos. Max, I think his name may be in the street over this. You know Lupe? The guy who sets up the cockfights?"
Pablo spat on the ground. "I know him. Mamao. A punk. Tough talk—no cojones."
"He set up a match. Between this guy I have to meet and