Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [56]
“Flood,” I said, “you know how to fight an attack dog?”
“I never have.”
“There’s just one secret, okay? When he bites you—and he is going to bite you—you have to ram whatever he bites back into his mouth as deep and as hard as you can.”
“And then?”
“And then you use whatever you have left to cancel his ticket.”
“So?”
“So the dog expects you to do just one thing—pull away as hard as you can. He’s a hunter and that’s what his prey is supposed to do. Panic and run.”
“So?”
“So there’s no such thing as a fair fight with a dog.”
“Wilson’s not a dog.”
“You know what he is, Flood?”
“No.”
“Well, I do. So you do it my way—you listen to me.”
Flood’s eyes narrowed, then relaxed with a calmness that reflected through her body as she spoke. “There’s a right way, a correct way to do anything.”
“There’s a right way to rape little kids?”
“Burke! You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean—and you’re out of luck, kid. The only way to do anything is to do it so you walk away from it.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“Then you walk into it alone.”
Flood’s eyes bored into my face, looking for an opening. There was none. I didn’t know why I’d even come this far, but I wasn’t going past my own limits. The only game I play is where winning means you keep playing. She smiled. “You’re not so tough, Burke.”
“Endurance beats strength. Didn’t they teach you that over in Japan?”
She thought about it for a minute, then flashed a lovely, perfect smile. “You think they make these kind of pants in some stretch material?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you check it out early tomorrow morning before you go to court?”
“We’re going to court?”
“Not me, just you. I have something to do on my own and besides, I don’t like to go to court in the daytime.”
I lay down on the floor, put my arms behind my head, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Flood leaned on one elbow and rubbed the side of my face with her knuckles while I told her how you look up a docket number in the Criminal Court Building. It was quiet and peaceful there, but I had to make that call around six. I kissed Flood good-bye, got my stuff, then climbed the stairs to the roof, where I checked the street. Nothing. I rang for the elevator and hit the stairs down as soon as I heard it move.
The car was just as I’d left it. Must be a pretty crime-free neighborhood—this was two times running.
It was almost evening and I wanted everything secure before I called this James character, so I stopped at a pay phone on Fourteenth Street to reserve a ride for the night. I have this arrangement with the dispatcher—I call him, he gives me a cab for the night shift, and I don’t have to return it until morning. I keep whatever I earn for the evening on the meter and he gets a flat hundred bucks. I also keep a hack license for Juan Rodriguez (the same guy who makes his living working in that Corona junkyard) behind the false wall at the rear of the Plymouth’s glove compartment.
You have to be fingerprinted to get a hack license in New York. It costs you an extra fifty to bring your own fingerprint card already made out for the inspectors. I have a couple of dozen cards stashed, already fingerprinted, but with no names or other information on them. I don’t know the real names of any of the guys who would match those prints, but I know the cops would have a hell of a time interviewing any of them.
The old man who works as a night watchman in the city morgue told me how the cops sometimes fingerprint a dead body while it’s still fresh so they can make an identification. He showed me how it was done. I got the blank cards easily enough, waited a few weeks, and the old man let me make a few dozen prints from a corpse that came in on the meat wagon one night. Nasty car accident—the guy was headless, but his fingers were in perfect shape.
Driving a cab in New York is the next best thing to being invisible. You can circle the same block a dozen times and even the local street-slime