Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [107]
When I pulled the Plymouth around Flood’s corner I caught a flash of white near her door and then she was moving toward me. The white was a pair of vinyl boots, skin-tight, calf-length with about four-inch heels. The bottle-green stretch pants flowed out of the boots, topped by a V-neck jersey in some sort of lemon-lime color. Flood’s pale blonde hair was in two thick braids, tied with green ribbons near the ends. I slowed the car, letting her walk to me. I watched all that fine female flesh bounce around and a thought raced across my mind, something about the Prophet and a goat staked out to catch a lion, and then I heard the screech of brakes and I snapped out of it—some poor chump had wrecked his car watching those bottle-green stretch pants swish down the block.
I rolled the Plymouth over to Flood, shoved open the door, and got moving before she attracted any more attention. I didn’t turn to look at her until I was moving out of a U-turn to get crosstown to where the Mole would have left the car for me. Even the Plymouth’s gentle movement was making Flood bounce around inside the jersey top, but at least she’d left the Eau de Whorehouse at home—she smelled like soap.
Flood looked about eighteen with her hair pulled back like it was, and her face glistened like she’d just stepped out of the shower. We stopped at a long light and my eyes traveled from the tips of the white boots up the length of the stretch pants, across the expanse of her jersey, and stopped dead at her throat—she had a dark green velvet ribbon around her neck. I looked again, just to make sure my mind wasn’t still dancing on me. “Flood, could I ask you a question?” I said sweetly.
“Sure.” She smiled.
“Are you completely fucking crazy?”
“Why?”
“What’s the ribbon for? I told you about the videotape and you put on a fucking ribbon. What’s wrong with you?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“That would be a fucking first.”
“Burke, you were right, okay? This is a disguise—I walked around for a couple of hours before you came and it really works. If you asked anyone who saw me what I looked like they would never get above my neck. Don’t you think these pants make me look slimmer?”
“The only thing you come off as is dim, Flood, not slim.”
“Look, I thought about it and—”
“And nothing—you drew your usual total blank. The woman in the videotape wasn’t wearing that ribbon, you dummy—it was part of Goldor’s sicko trip. He probably has a drawer full of them—keeps them next to his fucking executioner’s mask or something.”
“I know that. And when he sees this, he’ll think of her.”
“And that’s your idea of smart?”
“You’ll see.”
“No I won’t—because you’re taking it off, right now.”
“Listen, Burke—I know men, I know about them. This will really help. You’ll see.”
“Take it off, Flood.”
“Maybe later,” she said, and tried to smile, but I wasn’t buying any of that. We had a staring contest and I won. She put her hands to her throat, unsnapped something, and it came off in her hand. With characteristic maturity, she immediately sank into a heavy pout.
We drove toward the parking garage in silence. Finally I said “Flood, on this trip I am the captain and you are the crew—period. You want to sit there and bounce those D-cup extravaganzas in this freak’s face until he can’t see straight, that’s okay. But don’t do any thinking, understand?”
Silence from Flood.
“You want to sit there and pout like a goddamned brat, or do you want to hear the plan?”
“I want to hear the plan, oh mighty captain.” Now it was my turn to be silent.
“Okay, Burke. We’ll do it your way—what’s the plan?”
“The plan is we go and pick up another car. Actually, I pick up the car and you wait in this one. Then we drive