Strega - Andrew H. Vachss [44]
I took the door–handle key out and twisted it hard to the left before I turned it to the right to make it open. I heard a low rumbling from Pansy as I stepped inside. "It's me, stupid," I told her as I stepped over the threshold. If I hadn't twisted the key to the left first, a whole bar of lights aimed at the door would blast off, and whoever entered would get a few thousand watts in their face and Pansy at their groin. She wasn't supposed to move unless the lights went on or if I came into the office with my hands up, but I didn't want to get careless with her—like I seemed to be with everyone else lately.
Pansy goes through personality splits whenever I walk into the office alone. She's glad to see me, but she's disappointed that there's nobody to bite. She followed me through to the back of the office. There's a door back there that would open out to the fire escape if this building still had one. The metal stairs go up to the roof. Pansy knew the way—she'd been dumping her loads up there for years, and I guess she still had room to spare. I keep telling myself that one day I'm going to go up there and clean up the whole damn mess. One day I'm going to get a pardon from the governor too.
The office is small and dark, but it never makes me depressed. It's safe there. A lot of guys I know, when they get out of jail after a long time, the first thing they do is find themselves some kind of studio apartment—anything with one room, so it feels like what they're used to. I did that too when I first hit the bricks, but that was because even one room was a strain on my budget. I was on parole at first, so my income was limited.
The office looks like it has two rooms, with a secretary's office on the left as you walk in. But there's nothing there—it's just a tapestry on the wall, cut so it looks like there's a way through. That's okay—there's no secretary either. Michelle made me up a bunch of tapes so I can have her voice buzz someone in from downstairs if I have to. I can even have her voice come over the phony intercom on my desk in case some client has to be reassured that I run a professional operation. To the right, it looks like a flat wall, but there's a door to another little room with a stall shower, a toilet, and a cot. Just like jail, except for the shower. It was supposed to be for when I had a big case running and I'd have to spend a lot of time in the office. I stopped kidding myself about stuff like that when Flood left. I stopped kidding myself about a lot of things—it's dangerous to lie to yourself, especially when you're as good at it as I am. I live in the office. I have a good relationship with the hippies who live downstairs. I don't know what they do for a living, and they don't know I use their phone.
The whole floor is covered in Astroturf. It's easy to keep clean, and the price was right. I can lock the front door with a switch on the desk in case I want to keep someone from leaving too quick. And the steel grate on the window makes it real tough for anyone to just drop in unless they bring along a cutting torch. Michelle always says it reminds her of a prison cell, but she's never been in prison. It's not a prison when you have the keys.
I left the back door open so Pansy could let herself back in when she finished on the roof. She lumbered over to me, growling expectantly. She was just looking for a handout, but it sounded like a death threat. Neapolitans were never meant to be pets. I checked the tiny refrigerator: I still had a thick slab of top round and a few slices of Swiss cheese. There's only a hot plate—I can't cook anything except soup. I cut a few strips from the steak, wrapped each one in a slice of cheese, and snapped my fingers for Pansy to come. She sat next to me like a stone lion—her cold gray eyes never blinked, but the drool flowed in rivers through her pendulous jowls. She wouldn't take the food until she heard the magic word from me—I didn't want some freak