Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [43]
I acted like I was making up my mind, but of course it was no contest. His life wasn’t worth the ninety days in jail it would cost me. The girl was still in the corner, her painted mouth open and slack, but she wasn’t going to scream. I grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the apartment in front of me, half-throwing her down the stairs. A white face stuck itself out of a first-floor apartment as we went past—I showed the .38 to the face and it disappeared behind a slamming door. We hit the sidewalk—me walking fast and pulling the kid along with me. Her arm felt like a twig in my hand. She didn’t say a word.
I found the Plymouth untouched, pushed her inside ahead of me and climbed in behind, punching down the switch so she couldn’t unlock her own door. We were rolling in seconds, heading for the highway.
I pulled into one of the parking areas under the overpass where I know the manager. I told the girl, “Sit fucking still,” locked the car, and walked over to the little booth where the manager sits. I tossed a twenty on his desk and he walked out like he had an appointment someplace. I picked up his phone, dialed the number of NYPD’s Runaway Squad, for my money the only damn cop operation in New York worth the price of a city councilman.
“Runaway Squad, Officer Morales speaking.”
“Detective McGowan around?” I asked.
“Hold on,” said Morales. Then McGowan’s strong Irish voice came over the wire. “This is Detective McGowan.”
“Burke here. I got a package for you—about thirteen. She just left her pimp, okay?”
“Where’s the kid?”
“At a parking lot under the West Side Highway on Thirty-ninth. Can you move now?”
“Be there in ten minutes,” he said, and I knew I could count on it.
In the car waiting for McGowan, I lit a cigarette, looking over at the girl. A real baby—her skinny legs hadn’t even grown calves yet. I couldn’t do McGowan’s job—I’d end up doing life for wasting one of those dirtbag pimps. McGowan has four daughters—twenty-five years on the job and he just made detective last year. I heard the brass was going to close down the whole Runaway Squad too. I guess they need all the cops they can get to protect visiting diplomats. New York’s got an image to protect.
The girl said, “Mister—”
“Just keep your little mouth shut and your eyes down. Don’t look at me—don’t say nothing.” Maybe I should have been a social worker.
She kept quiet until McGowan and his partner, a guy they call Moose for good reason, pulled up. I unlocked and he reached over and opened the girl’s door. He held out his hand and she took it immediately. McGowan put his arm around her shoulders and started crooning to her in that honey-Irish voice and walking her back to his car. By the time they got back to the stationhouse he’d know where she had run away from—and probably why. I put the Plymouth into gear and pulled out. If anyone asked McGowan, he’d say he got an anonymous call and never saw the deliveryman.
But the Cobra was running—and I didn’t know how far he’d gone. I used a pay phone on Fourteenth and called the warehouse number.
“United States Attorney’s office,” came back Michelle’s bubblegum voice.
“I thought I told you to clear out,” I told her.
“I called Mama—she’s going to call me when Max shows.” Did any woman in the world do what I told her?
“Okay, babe—stay there. When Mama calls, tell her to send Max by, okay?”
She blew a kiss into the phone and hung up.
15
THE PLYMOUTH PURRED its own way back to the warehouse, oblivious to my depression. This case was certainly going to do wonders for my reputation—a bit more of my skillful detective work and I’d be known as Burke the Jerk. Fuck it, I thought (my theme song), no point crying over spilt milk. I had seen babies in Biafra too weak to cry, and mothers with no milk left to nurse them. I had gotten out of that—I could get out of this.
When I let myself into the warehouse Michelle was sitting by the phone box with her legs crossed, reading her book next to an ashtray stuffed with about two packs’ worth of butts. Her eyes flashed a question and my face