Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [118]
“Have your lawyer talk to her again. Do it first, before you do anything for me, okay? I’ll tell you what I want, tell you right now, in this room. Just listen—I guarantee you it won’t be against you or your people. Give me a couple of days, have your lawyer go see her, all right? Nothing’s changed, you don’t have to do a thing. You decide, okay?”
He steepled his fingers again. I counted in my head. “Tell me what you want,” he said.
I lit a smoke, centering. I’d only get one shot. “We both know how it works, you and me. Child molesters …”
His thin lips parted. I held up my hand in a “Stop!” gesture, going on before he could speak. “I’m not talking about your people now. There are people who molest children, right? I’m talking about rape. Sodomy. Hard, stick-it sex. It happens. Don’t go weak on me, now. I know what you do—I know what you told me. I could play it back for you, word for word. The kids you’re involved with, it’s love, right? There’s always true consent—you wouldn’t do a thing without it. I remember what you said. You’re a mentor, not a rapist. Listen good. I’m separating you now. Those people who say child sexual abuse is a myth—we know better, you and me. I’m not saying you do it—I’m saying it gets done. People do it, right?”
“Savages do it.”
“Right. Fathers rape their daughters, that’s no fantasy. Humans torture kids, make films of it, it’s not a myth.”
“And you think we’re all the same, you think—”
“No,” I said, eyes open and clear, calling on a childhood of treachery for the effortless lying that they made second nature to me before I was eight. “What you do, people could argue about it, but I know you love children. Maybe I don’t agree with it, but I’m not a cop. It’s not my job. It’s the baby-rapers who make your life hell, isn’t that true? You love children. You’d be as angry about torturing them as anybody else would. Even if the laws changed, even if they eliminated the age thing, made it so a kid could consent to sex, then they’d be like adults, right? And rape is rape.”
“Society calls it rape when—”
“I’m not talking about statutory rape, here. Listen close. Stand up to it now. I’m talking about black-glove, hand-over-the-mouth, knifepoint rape. Blood, not Vaseline. Pain. Screaming, life-scarring pain. A little boy ripped open, maybe one of your little boys … you like that picture?”
“Stop it! Stop it, you—”
I dragged deep on my cigarette, staying inside. “That’s what I want to do—stop it. That’s what you’ve got to do. Help me.”
“I …”
“You know. You know it happens. They did it to my client. A little boy. They split him open like a ripe melon. He’s a basket case. And they videotaped it. A group. An organized group. Satanists, they call themselves, but we know what that’s about, don’t we?”
“I don’t deal with …” His voice faded away, sweat streaking his high forehead, tendons cabling his hands, veins like wires along his throat.
“I know you don’t,” I finished for him. “You wouldn’t do anything like that. Or your people. I know.” I spooled velvet over him, a cop telling a rapist he understands.… Those dirty cunts, displaying themselves, wiggling like a bitch in heat, fucking begging for it, right? Men like us, we understand each other. “But freaks like that, they have to be stopped. They bring heat, and heat brings light, you know what I’m saying? You know what I do. But it’s been years, and I’ve never made trouble for you, right? So help me now. ”
“How could I—?”
“The computer. They raped that little boy to make a commercial product. Not like your icons—not to remember a boy as he was—pictures to sell. The kid was a product, and they need a market. They’ll be on the board somewhere. You could find them. Your friends could find them. That’s all I want.”
“And …”
“And, one day, if you should happen to slip yourself, Wolfe will make sure you don’t fall.”
He searched the pockets of his robe. Found a black silk handkerchief, patted