Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [13]
“What do you want, kid? I can’t just—”
“Here’s the title. I had my father send it over. I’m gonna sign it over to you. I owe you money anyway. Besides, you’ll use the car, won’t you? I mean, you’ll have it on the street, in your work, right? I don’t want them to sell my car at some lousy auction to pay that motherfucker.”
“Look, you don’t have to do this. You’re a young guy still. You can do the time. I know—I’ve been inside. It’s bad but it’s not impossible. There’s ways, things you can do. And then you can come out and finish the car.”
“The car is finished, Mr. Burke. It’s really been finished a long time, I guess. It never was the money, you understand?”
I do now, but I didn’t then. So the kid signed the car over to me, and I went and got it registered. I even found a guy who would insure me—no problem, just minimum coverage. That car doesn’t need collision insurance.
It wasn’t hard to figure what the kid was going to do. I didn’t say anything to anyone—he was a man and he was entitled to that much respect. Even the guards knew what was coming so they put him in a special cell, suicide-proof. It didn’t stop the kid. After all, he was a mechanical genius, they said. He hung up a couple of days later. I heard his lawyer was asking questions about the car, but they only found another 1970 Plymouth that the kid was cannibalizing for parts. That was a few years ago. I used to think about the kid every time I drove the car. Then no more until tonight, for some reason.
5
I CRUISED SLOWLY over to Mama Wong’s. That Flood broad was going to go about finding her Cobra the wrong way for sure. You can’t find a freak by chasing him. You have to use the herd-spook technique and make him show himself. When I was in Africa, I noticed that a lot of the predators would size up a herd and then do something to make it stampede. They used different ways—wild dogs would charge like they were trying to bring down an antelope, and lions would just deliberately piss on the ground. It had the same effect—the antelopes would run like hell and the predators would just watch and wait. Soon you could see at least one of the antelopes couldn’t run too good. Maybe it was too old, or too sick, or whatever. But after they saw that, the predators would all concentrate on that one beast, and it would be over soon. The best way to find a particular freak is to get them all moving around, out of their caves, so you can spot them easily. But she wouldn’t know that, the dumb broad. She’d probably just go around and ask a lot of fool questions and maybe get herself blown away. Just because she took out some super who was trying to cop a feel from what he thought was a helpless girl didn’t make her any certified freak-fighter in my book. She probably was in the can for a while, but she probably avoided the freaks like the plague, if she could. I didn’t do that—I watched them. She may have been thinking she was going to a better place when she got out of the joint, but I knew better.
When I got to Mama’s, she was at the front cash register like she always is. Like always, she didn’t greet me. I just walked past her to the last booth in the back, ordered some duck and fried rice and waited.
She came back after about a half hour and sat down herself. Then she said something in Chinese to the waiter who had appeared a split-second after her. He left and came right back with a large tureen of hot-and-sour soup and two bowls.
“Burke, you eat some of this soup. Very good. Make you feel better quick.”
“I feel fine, Mama. I don’t want any of that soup.”
“You eat soup, Burke. Too much here for just one. Better for you than duck.” She filled the bowl and passed it to me. “Chinese way, serve man first always.” I smiled at her. She kept stirring soup in the tureen, looked up, smiled back and said, “Not all Chinese ways so good.”
The soup was rich and clean at the same time. I felt my nasal passages opening up just putting it near my face. Mama’s eyes swept the room, better than any electronic