Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [6]
“Martin Howard Wilson.”
“Any a.k.a.’s?”
“What?”
“Also Known As . . . an alias, you know.”
“Well, he used to be called Marty, if that’s what you mean. And he calls himself the Cobra.”
“The what?”
“The Cobra, like the snake.”
“I know what a cobra is. That’s his name?”
“It’s not his name, it’s what he calls himself.”
“Does anyone else call him that?”
She laughed. “Not hardly,” and she folded her hands across her knees again. I picked up the faint bluish tinge on the knuckles more clearly this time.
“What does this Cobra do?”
“A lot of things. He tells people he’s a Vietnam veteran. He studies what he thinks is karate. He believes he’s a professional soldier. And he rapes children.”
“You seem to know a lot about him.”
“I know everything I need to know about him except where he is.”
“Got a last known address?”
“Yes, he was living in a furnished room on Eighth Avenue just off the northeast corner of Thirty-seventh Street.”
“How long ago did he leave?”
“He left last night.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I just missed him.”
“Didn’t you ask where he’d gone?”
Another short laugh. “The circumstances made that impossible, Mr. Burke.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“I had to be forceful with the superintendent.”
“A bit more specific . . . ?”
“He tried to put his hands on me and I kicked him.”
“So?”
“I don’t mean kick like you would mean it, Mr. Burke. He’ll have to go to the hospital.”
And then I remembered where I’d seen those bluish knuckles before—on the hands of the elderly kung fu instructor who had taught me how to breathe. “What style do you study?”
Her eyes went flat. “I study no style. For the last several years I have been my own teacher. Years before, many different styles. I don’t have a black belt, I don’t break boards, and I don’t fight in gymnasiums.”
Somehow, I already knew that. “You seem like you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself, Miss . . .”
“Flood.”
“Miss Flood. So what do you need me for?”
“Mr. Burke, I did not come to you for protection, but for information. I understand you have sources of information which would be closed to me. I am a person of honor. I need a service, and I am prepared to pay for that service.”
“Look, I don’t get it. No offense meant, okay? But the first time you come in here you talk like an Eighth Avenue hooker, and now you come on like Fu Manchu. I think you know some things you haven’t told me. I think you think I know this Cobra you’re looking for. I don’t.”
“Mr. Burke, I know you don’t. But I know you run a service for fools and misfits who think they want to be mercenaries. I know you know the mercenary scene. This person has to leave the country now that he knows I am looking for him, and it would be right in character for him to try and go down the mercenary pipeline. But he’s not mercenary material—he’s a freak, a psychopath. And a stupid loser. So I thought maybe he’d turn up in one of your recruitment files and then I’d have him.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then I’ve paid for a week of your time to find him out there,” a short sweep of her arm indicating the streets outside.
“It could take a lot longer than that to find a guy like you’re looking for. He could be anywhere.”
Her eyes went cold when she looked at me and said, “I only have a week,” but her mouth tightened just enough to show me the truth.
“You only have the grand, right?”
“You are very perceptive, Mr. Burke. I have only one thousand dollars, which I have already given you. It will take a long time for me to come up with that much money again.”
“How come?”
“It’s not important how come. It’s not your business and it won’t help you find this person for me.”
I looked at her a long moment. Her face went flat again; she wouldn’t make the same mistake with her mouth twice. She had lived someplace where an expressionless face was an asset, maybe the same place I lived when I was a kid. I