Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [82]
"I heard about that. In Times Square?"
"Yeah. That's what I mean. Seems like everybody's heard about it. Max fights this guy, he's got no win. Probably have cops in the audience."
Pablo looked at me. "Max wouldn't walk away from a challenge."
"So he doesn't get to hear one."
"I see. You want your back covered when you meet this guy…"
"Mortay."
"Muerte?"
"Yeah. I don't know how he spells it, but it means the same thing."
"He's not a problem for us?"
"Not for you. Not now. I'm working on something, and I just bumped him accidentally. How he's tied in—if he's tied in—I don't know for sure."
"You chasing a missing kid?"
"Dead kids. The Ghost Van."
Pablo's round face went hard. His eyes were dark, flat buttons behind his round glasses. "Baby–killers. That van comes into our barrio, we'll make it a ghost."
"It just works off the river, near Times Square. I got a lot of threads, but no cloth."
"This Mortay… he knows?"
"I don't know. I'm not gonna ask him. He lets me walk, I'm gonna promise him I won't come his way again. He wants me off the van, I'm off the van."
"That's what you'll tell him."
"Yeah," I said, lighting a smoke.
"What time is your meet?"
"Midnight tonight. The playground behind the Chelsea Projects."
"How many people do you need?"
"Just one," I told him. "El Cañonero."
Pablo's lips moved. Just a tic. Nothing else showed in his face. "He only does our work."
"I don't want him to take anybody out. Just be around, break a couple of caps if he has to. He can do it from a distance. I figure maybe the roof…"
"He only does our work. He is not for hire. My people are soldiers, not gangsters."
"They do what you say."
"They follow me because they follow the truth. My personal friendship is with you, hermano. I can commit only myself."
I put my hand on his shoulder. "I understand what you say. I respect what you say. But there are two reasons why he should do this."
"Yes?"
"He does only your work. More than once, I have also done your work, this is true?"
"True."
"El Cañonero does this work tonight for UGL, it is UGL I owe. Comprende?"
He nodded. Rubbed the back of his neck like it was stiff. A young Hispanic woman in a blue jogging outfit stopped her slow circuit of the courts and trotted over. He took her aside, speaking in rapid–fire Spanish. She took off, running hard now, heading for the street.
We watched the basketball game. It wasn't in the same league as the semipro action at the court on Sixth Avenue in the Village, but it was intense. I asked him about his kids. Pablo's got a lot of kids—the oldest one's in college, his baby girl's still in diapers. He's never been married. Takes care of all his children. He never seems to make anybody mad with all his tomcat stuff, not even the women who have his babies. Most of them know each other.
I met Pablo in prison. He wasn't doing time—he was doing his residency in psychiatry. His supervisor was a wet–brain who did five–minute interviews with the cons before they saw the Parole Board. And handed out heavyweight tranquilizers any time they shoved the Rx pad under his nose. I was the wet–brain's clerk—a scam artist's dream job. Five crates of cigarettes and you got the prescription of your choice, twenty crates bought you a "fully rehabilitated" write–up for the Board. It only took Pablo a month to read my act, but he never said a word. I was on to him faster than that. He wasn't studying mental illness among convicts—he was recruiting.
The woman in the jogging suit ran back to us, pulled Pablo aside. Pablo turned to me. "You parked close by?"
"Under the overpass," I said, pointing.
"Sit on the hood. Smoke one of your cigarettes. See you in ten minutes."
He walked off with the woman.
98
THREE SMOKES later, a black Lincoln sedan pulled up. Dark windows, M.D. plates. The front door popped open and I stepped inside. The woman was driving. I glanced in the back seat. Pablo. And El Cañonero.
"Vete," Pablo said. The Lincoln moved off.
Pablo's voice came from the back seat. "Turn around, compadre. My hermano