Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [84]
I couldn’t work that part out. I guess, when Gem made decisions, she didn’t just make them quick, she made them alone.
Gem got The Oregonian on Sundays, and always picked up Willamette Week, too, an alternative paper that covered a different beat. I spent a lot of time reading them, trying to feel my way into the territory.
One day, I came across a piece about a con who stabbed another inmate. Turns out, in Oregon, you shank another guy Inside, you have to attend mandatory “anger management” classes.
I almost fell off my chair laughing. Prison stabbings have about as much to do with anger as rape does with sex. Knifings are always about a debt, or revenge, or self-defense against a rape. Or territory. Or a new guy blooding into a gang. Thing is, unless the joint is race-war tense, nobody carries all the time—it’s a sure ticket to the hole. You want to stick somebody Inside, you plan it carefully. Even though the favorite target is the back—that spot between the bottom of the ribs and the pelvis, so bone doesn’t turn the blade—you still need cover if you’re going to get away with it. And a place to toss the blade as soon as you’re done.
I’ve known prison assassins with a dozen kills and no busts. Wesley was the master. Nobody ever saw him mad. Nobody ever saw him coming, either.
The Oregonian handled straight news real well. Good combination of local and wire-service copy, although most of the coverage was about Portland, and the weather got a lot more attention than it would in New York. The Willamette Week was more about culture, and it told me one thing I filed away—Portland was a blues town, for serious.
But nothing in the personals of either one looked even remotely promising.
I went back to working the phones.
I was on the line with a guy in Detroit who said he knew a guy who knew a guy and—if I had the money—he might be able to bridge a connect for me … when one of the other cellulars buzzed. I hung up on the hustler, said:
“What?”
“Call for you, okay? Say you go Al-blue-quirk-key.”
“Albuquerque?”
“Yes. What I say. You go Thursday. Go to airport. Two o’clock afternoon, walk outside to parking lot. See big car with stripes like tiger. You wait there. Okay?”
“This Thursday, the next one coming?”
“Say, ‘You go Thursday.’ ”
“The person who called, what did he—?”
“Not man, woman. I say, ‘Who calling?’ She say: ‘Give message to Winston.’ Then say what I just say now, okay?”
“Okay, Mama. Thanks.”
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes for a minute. Maybe it was longer. When I opened them, Gem was standing in front of me. “Can that computer of yours do airline schedules?” I asked … before she could ask me anything.
Less than half an hour later, she was kneeling on the floor next to my chair, scraps of paper spread out before her.
“There are many choices,” she said. “Several different carriers, all going at different times of the day.”
“Any of them get in with plenty of margin before two in the afternoon?”
“Oh yes. All leaving from Portland. Let me see.…” She crawled around on all fours from scrap to scrap, oblivious to the sweet show she was putting on. Or not—I know less about women than I do about stamp collecting. “Ah! You have … one, two, three … at least four separate choices. It just depends on how you want to be routed.”
“Routed?”
“Yes. None of the airlines have direct flights. You can change planes in Phoenix, Oakland, Denver, or Salt Lake City.”
“I don’t care which airline. It’s not like I’ve got frequent-flyer mileage to worry about. All I need is something that gets me in there around noon or earlier.”
Gem took a very close look at one of the scraps on the carpet. A long look. I guess I do know a little more than I do about stamp collecting. “All right, then,” she finally said. “Let us make it Phoenix.”
“Great. Do you have a safe credit card you can use to make the reservation? I’ll pay you in cash.”
“Yes, of course. But you will need a—”
“I’ve got all the documents I’ll need to show them at the airport, girl. That’s not a problem.”
“How many