Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [96]
“I understand. You’ll tell me where to find Goldor?”
“Oh, yes—and we will do better than that. We have a dossier, complete. It will be handed to you when you get out of the cab later on. And then there is no more from us, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“We are not in a race, Burke. We will not interfere with your work. But you must move quickly—we are almost ready.”
“Understood.”
“In return you will tell us anything you may learn. That is all we ask.”
“Agreed.”
There was nothing more to say. We shook hands, the overhead light went off, and I followed Pablo out the door into the corridor. Another man took me up the stairs to the front door where the lobos still prowled. I started to walk through them as I had done before, and found myself held in place. I didn’t resist, just stayed within the group until I heard a car come down the block. The gypsy cab again.
The pack parted and I climbed in the back. The driver didn’t ask me where I was going and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t open my eyes until I felt the cab crossing the Third Avenue Bridge into Manhattan. The driver took the East Side Drive to Twenty-third Street, turned over to Park Avenue South, spotted an all-night cab stand, and pulled over to the curb. As I got out, he handed me a legal-sized envelope and drove off.
I walked over to the cab stand, checked the first cab. I gave him an address within half a dozen blocks of Flood’s studio.
I tried to close my eyes during the ride, but the videotape kept replaying inside my eyelids.
36
THE LEGAL ENVELOPE full of Goldor information had disappeared into the side flap of my jacket by the time I got out of the cab. The pay phone was right where I remembered it, and Flood answered on the first ring.
“It’s me, Flood, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Come downstairs and let me in.”
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you—just do it,” I said, and hung up.
I looked at my watch to avoid thinking about what Flood had heard in my voice—it was past three in the morning.
I walked right up to Flood’s door like I had a key, reached for the handle and it opened. I was so distracted that I didn’t bother to ring for the elevator, just let Flood walk up the steps ahead of me—but I snapped out of it and stopped her halfway up the first flight and motioned her to be quiet. It stayed quiet. We were alone.
We walked through the studio to Flood’s place without talking. I found a place to sit down and lit a smoke, trusting Flood to find an ashtray for me someplace. I took out the Goldor file and stared at the cover—I didn’t want to open it just yet. Flood sat down across from me on the floor. “Burke, tell me what’s wrong.”
My hands were all right by then but I guess my face wasn’t. I didn’t say anything and Flood just let me smoke the cigarette in peace. She moved closer and just leaned her body weight against me without saying anything. I felt her warmth and strength next to me and the calmness that came with it. After a few minutes I handed her the cover of the file.
“Everything about Goldor’s in here,” I told her.
“Isn’t that good? Isn’t that what you went to find?”
“Yeah, but I found something else too. I think he’s our man, the man with the lead to Wilson.”
Flood looked questions at me, gave me her soft smile. “Don’t smile, Flood. He’s not someone we can make a deal with.”
She said, “Tell me,” and I did the best I could. She sat there not moving a muscle while I took her all the way through that videotape. She didn’t ask me how I got to see it—she could see it wasn’t important anymore, if it ever had been. She absorbed the story like a good boxer taking a body punch—she moved into it to get something she could understand, something that would make sense. “The woman knew she was going to die.” It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know.”
“She did. She died with honor. You must have seen that, Burke.”
“If she did what the freak wanted, would she have lived?”
“Would she have wanted to?”
“We’ll never know, right? She