Hard Candy - Andrew Vachss [32]
"I'm not—that's not me."
"I know. You're a hijacker. A sting artist. You got friends." His dead man's voice made the word sound like a perversion.
"What's your problem?"
"Train. You know him."
"Yeah."
"He's on the spot. He has to go down. You've been sniffing around. Either you're working for him or you're looking to take him out."
"No. I had a contract. I pulled a girl out of his joint."
"I saw that."
"That's it. There's no more."
"You know what he does?"
"No."
"Don't find out."
I lit another smoke, watching my hands near the flame. They didn't shake. Wesley took you past fear.
"Wesley, I got no beef with you. You know that. You want to know something, ask me. And let me go."
"You know why I wanted you out here? You're a fucking nut–case yourself, Burke. You got this Jones for kids. I know about the day–care center too. Out in Queens. Why didn't you use the Chinaman on Mortay?"
"He wasn't around."
"Something about a kid, right?"
I just watched him.
"Yeah, you're bent. Remember when we were coming up? Learning the rules? You don't work with drunks, you don't work with dope fiends, you don't work with skinners, right? You don't work with nobody who's off the track. Now it's you—you're off the track."
Tracks. I was a kid again in my mind. In a subway tunnel. Me and Rupert facing each other. Chins on the tracks, bodies spread out behind. The rest of the gang waited off to the side. I heard the rumble of the train, felt the track tremble under my jawbone. Watching Rupert. Last one off the tracks was the winner. Sixteen years old. Don't mind dying. I read my tombstone: Burke Had Heart. Better than flowers. Rupert's face a few feet from mine. He'd offered a knife fight, I bumped the stakes with the train tracks—the tunnel. No matter what happened, I'd have a name. It wouldn't hurt, I told myself. The train roared at us, coming hard, a hundred–ton mindless life–taker. Light washed the black tunnel. Rupert jumped back. Me! My legs wouldn't work. Hands grabbed my ankles, jerked me off the track, cracking my jaw. The train shot past.
That night, on the roof, Candy took my cock in her mouth for the first time.
"I was the last off the track," I reminded him.
"Yeah." A robot's voice. He knew the truth. Even when we were kids, Wesley knew the truth. He'd been there. His hands on my ankles. If he hadn't pulled after Rupert jumped back, I'd still be there. "Train's a dead man. My dead man. You get in the way again, you go with him."
"I'm not in the way."
His face moved closer, watching mine. No psychiatrist could read his eyes—you can't take a census when there's nobody home. I held his gaze, letting him in. See the truth, monster. See it again.
He stepped back. "You're not good enough," he said. Not putting me down, just saying it. "You still do that trick? Where you memorize something without writing it down?"
"Yeah."
He said a number. "You call this number. Anytime. Let it ring three times. Hang up. Do it again. Then you wait by the number I have for you."
"I don't need to call you."
"Yeah you will. I know how things work. You used to know too."
He put his gloved hands together, looking down at the temple they made. "Kids…what fucking difference does it make, Burke?"
Once I thought it did. Prayed to that god in the orphanage, in the foster homes, in reform school. Somebody would come. Be my family. I found my family in prison. Prayed to another god. Belle in my mind. Rescue me. Sure. The first god ignored me. The second came close enough for me to have a good look. "It doesn't make any," I said to him.
"You're a burnt–out case," the monster told me. "You're done."
"Okay." Nothing to argue about.
"Train's safe for a bit. I'll get to him. But first I got a whole lot of Italians to do."
"Do what you have to do—I'm not in it."
His eyes were tombstones. With no date of birth and no epitaph. "I know how things work. You'll get a call, hit man. Then you call me, got it?" The Uzi came into his