Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Technical Assistance
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153
Chapter 154
Chapter 155
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159
Chapter 160
Chapter 161
Chapter 162
Chapter 163
Chapter 164
Chapter 165
Chapter 166
Chapter 167
Chapter 168
Chapter 169
Chapter 170
Chapter 171
Chapter 172
Chapter 173
Chapter 174
Chapter 175
Chapter 176
Chapter 177
Acclaim for Andrew Vachss
About the Author
Books by Andrew Vachss
Copyright
For Abe, who I never met but have always known.
And for Nathan, who I knew.
Two pieces of the root.
Watching me from someplace above the junkyard.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE:
R. Winslow Dennis
Dr. Loretta French
Dr. Richard Pitz
Jeffi Rochelle Powell
Larry Smyj
Dr. Walter Stewart
Roosevelt 10X Yamamoto
Anne T. Zaroff.
1
SPRING COMES hard down here.
The switchman was in the lotus position—serenely posed on an army blanket he had neatly folded into quarters before he assembled his tools and took up his post for the day. A black man with glowing bronze skin, hair falling straight and glossy down either side of his head like a helmet, framing a face that was mostly skull.
He held a thick pad of graph paper open on his lap, carefully filling a page with finely shaded symbols—a covert calligraphy all his own. He didn't bother to hide his work from passing citizens. His half–smile said it all—the simple slugs thought him insane; they could never understand the difference between the messenger and the message.
A pale–blue quilt covered his shoulders. He placed three identical blue china bowls on the blanket around him. To his right, the bowl sported a generous supply of fine–point felt–tip pens in different colors. The bowl on his left held a heavy Zippo cigarette lighter and some loose cigarettes—various brands. Directly in front was a bowl with some coins, encouraging the passing citizens to make a contribution to his mystical cause.
He had long tapering fingers, clean and smooth, the nails manicured and covered with clear polish. I got a good look at his hands yesterday when I stopped to look over his shoulder and watch him work. He filled a quarter of the page with symbols, never using the same one twice, working in five separate colors, not acknowledging my presence. I helped myself to one of his cigarettes, lit it with his lighter. He never moved. I tossed some coins into his china bowl and moved on, smoking his cigarette. It tasted like it was about my age.
I didn't need the polished nails to tell me he was the switchman. The neighborhood is full of halfway houses for discharged mental patients—they disgorge their cargo into the streets each morning, but this guy wasn't part of that herd. He wasn't talking to himself and he hadn't tried to tell me his story. And he didn't look afraid.
The little piece of winter chill still hanging around in April didn't seem to bother him. He worked the same post every day—starting around eleven in the morning and staying on the job until about three. The switchman had a choice spot, always setting up his shop at the edge of a tiny triangle of dirt on West Broadw
ay, between Reade and Chambers. The slab of dirt had a couple of broken backless benches and a runty tree that had been bonsai'ed by years of attention from pigeons, dogs, squirrels, and winos. An alley without walls. Down in this part of the city, they call it a park.
At eleven, he would still be in shadow, but the sun would make its move from the East River over to the Hudson past noon, and things would warm up. The switchman never took the quilt from his shoulders.
His patch of dirt was a border town: Wall Street was expanding its way up from the tip of Manhattan, on a collision course with the loft–dwelling yuppies from SoHo. Every square inch of space was worth something to somebody—and more to somebody else a few months later. The small factories were all being converted into co–ops. Even the river was disappearing as land–greed took builders farther and farther offshore; Battery Park City was spreading its branches into the void left when they tore down the overpass for the West Side Highway. Riverfront joints surrendered to nouvelle–cuisine bistros. The electronics stores that would sell you what you needed to build your own ham radio or tap your neighbor's phone gave way to sushi bars. Antique shops and storefront–sized art galleries shouldered in next to places that would sell you some vitamins or rent you a videotape.
People have always lived down here. The neighborhood used to be a goddamned art colony—it produced more pottery than the whole Navajo nation. The hippies and the artists thought the winos added just the right touch of realism to their lives. But the new occupants are the kind who get preorgasmic when you whisper "investment banking," and they didn't much care for local color. Locksmiths were riding the crest of a growth industry.
The Superior Hotel entrance was around the corner on Chambers Street, with rooms extending all along West Broadway. Mine was on the top floor, facing out over the park. Seventy–five bucks a week bought me a swaybacked single bed on an iron frame, a ratty old easy chair worn down to the cotton padding on the arms, and a metal closet standing against the wall. The room was painted in some neutral–colored stuff that was about half disinfectant. A heavy length of vinyl–wrapped chain stood against the wall, anchored at one end to U–bolts driven into the floor. The other end stood open, padlocked to nothing, waiting patiently. I hadn't gone for the optional TV at only two bucks a day.
Someone who had never lived in one might say the room looked like a prison cell. It didn't come close.
Almost one in the afternoon. Into my third hour of watching, I shifted position in the chair, scanning the street with the wide–angle binoculars, watching the human traffic flow around the switchman. A young woman strolled by with her boyfriend. Her hair was dyed four different colors, standing up in stiff spikes, stabbing the air every time she moved her head. Her hand was in the back pocket of her boyfriend's jeans. He looked straight ahead, not saying a word. A biker rolled up to a tobacco–colored Mercedes parked at the corner. The car's window slid down and the biker put his head and hands inside. He wasn't there long. The Mercedes and the biker went their separate ways. A young woman about the same age as the one with the spiked hair tapped her business–length heel impatiently on the curb, holding a leather briefcase that doubled as a purse, wearing a pin–striped skirt and jacket over a white blouse with a dark–red bow for a tie. Winos stretched out in the sun, sprawled across the benches—passengers on a cruise ship in permanent drydock. A diesel dyke cruised into view, her arm braced around the neck of a slender, long–haired girl, her bicep flexed to display a bold tattoo. I was too far away to read it, but I knew what it said: hard to the core.
Still no sign of the target. I had followed him for three weeks straight, charting every step of his lunchtime route. The calligrapher on the blanket had to be the switchman—it was the only stop the target always made. I rotated my head gently on the column of my neck, working out the stiffness, keeping my eyes on the street. Invisible inside the shadows of my room, I lit another cigarette, cupping the wooden match to hide the flare, and went back to waiting. It's what I do best.
2
I WAS working in a dead–end hotel, but I'd gotten the job in the back seat of a limousine. The customer was a Wall Street lawyer. He dressed the part to perfection, but he didn't have enough mileage on his clock to make it seem like sitting in a hundred–thousand–dollar taxi was an everyday thing for him.
"It took quite a while for you to get back to me, Mr. Burke," he said, trying for a tone that would tell me he wasn't a man used to waiting for what he wanted. "I reached out for you yesterday morning."
I didn't say anything. I'm not in the phone book. You have to have a phone of your own to qualify for that. The lawyer had called one of the pay phones in the back of Mama Wong's restaurant. Mama always answers the same way: "Mr. Burke not here, okay? You leave message, okay?" If the caller says anything else, asks more questions—whatever—Mama just runs through the same cycle. She says it enough times, the caller gets the message: If it's not okay with you, it's too fucking bad.
The lawyer tried another ice–breaker. "My firm has a problem, Mr. Burke, and I was told you might be the ideal individual to assist us."
I shrugged my shoulders slightly, telling him to get on with it. He wasn't in a hurry—that's the problem with paying guys by the hour.
"Is there any particular reason why we had to meet out here?" he wanted to know, gesturing toward the Hudson River with an impatient sweep of his hand. He had a nice watch. Pretty cuff links.
"Who gave you my number?" I asked, stepping on his question.
The lawyer swallowed his annoyance, reminding himself he wasn't speaking with an equal. Time to put me in my place. "Do I have to say anything more than 'Mr. C.'?" he asked, smiling.
"Yes," I said.
He looked honestly puzzled. Since he was a lawyer, only part of that could be accurate. "I thought that would be enough. I was given to understand that a recommendation from Mr. C. would be all that you would require."
"Give the understanding back, pal. And tell me who gave you my number."
"I told you."
"You saying Mr. C. spoke to you?" I asked him, watching his face.
"The number came from him," he said, answering questions the way a lawyer does.
"Have a nice day," I said, reaching behind me for the door handle.
"Wait a minute!" he snapped, putting his hand on my sleeve.
"You don't want to do that," I told him.
He jerked his hand away, sliding into his speech. "I can explain whatever is necessary, Mr. Burke. Please don't be impatient." He shifted position on the soft gray leather seat, pushed a button, and watched proudly as the padded wall between us and the driver opened to reveal a well–stocked bar. "Can I get you a drink?"
"No," I told him, taking a single cigarette from my jacket. I put it in my mouth, reached the same hand back inside for a match. I kept the other hand in my pocket, where it had been since I climbed in the limo. The gesture was wasted on him.
"Would you mind opening the window if you're going to smoke?… I'm allergic."
I pushed the switch and the window whispered down, letting in the traffic noise from the West Side Highway. We were parked in the pocket between Vestry Street and where the highway forks near 14th. Cars went by, but not people. The limo had picked me up on Wall Street; I told the lawyer where I wanted to go, and he told the driver.
I lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, watching the lawyer.
"Those things will kill you," he said. A concerned citizen.
"No, they won't," I promised.
He shrugged, using the gesture to say that some people are beyond educating. He was right, but not about me. He tried one more time. "Mr. C. is a client of our firm. In the course of discussing…uh…other matters, he indicated that you might be better suited to our immediate purposes than a more…traditional private investigator." He glanced at my face, waiting for a reaction. When he realized he'd have a long time to wait, he shifted gears and rolled ahead. "Mr. C. gave us certain…uh…assurances concerning your
sense of discretion, Mr. Burke." His tone of voice made it into a question.
I drew on my cigarette. The breeze from the open window at my back pushed the smoke toward his allergic face.
The lawyer slid a leather portfolio onto his lap, deftly opened it into a mini–desk, tapped a yellow legal pad with the tip of a gold ballpoint to get my attention. "Why don't I write a figure down, Mr. Burke. You take a quick look, tell me if you're interested." Without waiting for an answer, he slowly wrote "10,000" in large numbers. Reverently, like he was engraving a stone tablet. He raised his eyebrows in another question.
"For what?" I asked him.
"Our firm has a.…uh…confidentiality problem, Mr. Burke. We occupy a rather unique position, interfacing, as we say, between the business, financial, and legal arenas. Necessarily, information crosses our desk, so to speak. Information that has a short but exceedingly valuable life. Are you following me?"
I nodded, but the lawyer wasn't going to take my word for it. "You're certain?"
"Yeah," I replied, bored with this. Yuppies didn't invent insider trading—information is always worth something to somebody. I was scamming along the tightrope between prison and the emergency ward while this guy was still kissing ass to get into law school.
The lawyer stroked his chin. Another gesture. Telling me he was making a decision. The decision never had been his to make, and we both knew it.
"Somebody in our firm has been…profiting from information. Information that has come to us in our fiduciary capacity. Are you following me?"
I just nodded, waiting.
"We know who this person is. And we've retained the very best professionals to look into the matter for us. Specialists in industrial espionage. People who are capable of checking things we wouldn't want to use a subpoena for. Still with me?"
"Sure."
"We know who it is, like I said. But we have been unable to establish a case against him. We don't know how he moves the information. And we don't know to whom he passes it."
"You checked his bank accounts, opened his mail, tapped his phones…all that, right?"
Now it was the lawyer's turn to nod, moving his head a reluctant two inches.
"Telegrams, visitors to the office, carrier pigeons…?"
He nodded again, unsmiling.
"How much time would he have between getting the information and making use of it?"
"Ah, you do understand, Mr. Burke. That's exactly the problem. We deal with extremely sensitive issues. Nothing on paper. In a normal insider–trading situation, a profiteer would have a minimum of several days to make his move. But in our situation, he would have to act within a few hours—no longer than close of business on the same day the information comes in."