Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [0]
Flood
Strega
Blue Belle
Hard Candy
Blossom
Sacrifice
Shella
Born Bad
Down in the Zero
Footsteps of the Hawk
False Allegations
Safe House
Choice of Evil
Everybody Pays
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2000 by Andrew Vachss
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publishing Data
Vachss, Andrew H.
Dead and gone / Andrew Vachss. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-375-41361-2
1. Burke (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private
investigators—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.
3. Missing children—Fiction. 4. New York
(N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3572.A33 D42 2000
813′.54—dc21 00-040565
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
v3.1
for Alicia Jimenez:
jibara, abused child, migrant laborer, garment-district worker, defender of her family, protector of her neighborhood, savior of damaged creatures, nurturer of a revolution, mother to my brother … heroine.
all your days on this earth were without rest. always you waited for it to be your time. always waited in vain.
and now you wait for us.
en nuestros corazones nada ha cambiado. serás adorada y respetada para siempre. trabajaremos sin descanso para que te sientas orgullosa de nosotros.
espera pacientemente, Mamá. pronto será como antes fue, todos juntos.
pero sin dolor.
Technical assistance:
Lieutenant Paul Nolin Berthelotte, USN
Professor James Colbert, UNM, USMC (1970–1971)
Sergeant Mike McNamara, Licensed for Life
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
First Page
About the Author
You know what it takes to sit across the table from a man, listen to him talk, look into his eyes … and then blow his brains all over the wallpaper?
Nothing.
And the more of that you have, the easier it is.
“You pick a spot yet?” The voice on the cell phone was trying to come across as bored with the whole thing, but I could pick up little worms crawling around its edges. Impatience? Nervousness? No way to know for sure.
“No,” I told him. “And if I can’t find one in a few minutes, we’ll have to do it next time.”
“Hey, pal, fuck you, all right? There don’t have to be a next time.”
“Up to you.”
“Hard guy, huh? I guess that’s right—it’s not your kid.”
“Not yours, either,” I said, my voice level and unthreatening, sending my calmness out to him. “We’re both professionals—how about we just keep it like that? This is a trade. You know how trades work. Soon as I find a safe spot, I’ll pull in, just like we agreed, okay? We’ll hook up, do our business, and everybody gets paid.”
“You don’t find a spot soon, nobody gets paid.”
“I’ll get back to you,” I said, and killed the connection.
It had taken weeks to get this close. A missing kid. Too young to be a runaway, but there’d been no ransom note. Just a … vanishing. That was almost ten years ago. It wasn’t a media story anymore. The cops told the parents they were still looking. Maybe they were.
The parents were the kind of people the cops would put out for, that was for sure. She was a gynecologist; he did something in biochemistry. But they were also first-generation Americans; Russians. So, when they got a call from a man who spoke their language, a man who said he ran a “recovery service” on commission, they took their hopes and their fears to Odessa Beach. Not the one on the Black Sea, the one in Brooklyn.
In the Russian mob, even the grunts have a hierarchy. You can read their rank right