Another Life

314 Pages·2008·1.17 MB·English

by  Vachss Andrew

Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Another Life
About the Author
Also by Andrew Vachss
Copyright
for Pam
R
evenge is like any other religion: There’s always a lot more preaching than
there is practicing. And most of that preaching is about what not to practice.
“Vengeance is mine” translates to: “It’s not yours.” The karma-peddlers will
tell you how doing nothing is doing the right thing, reciting, “What goes around
comes around” in that heavy-gravity tone reserved for the kind of ancient
wisdom you always find in comic books.
Every TV “counselor,” every self-help expert, every latte-slurping guru . . .
they all chant some version of the same mantra: “Revenge never solves
anything.”
Their favorite psalm is Forgiveness. And their hymn books are always open to
the same page.
Get it? When you crawl away, you’re not being a punk; you’re just letting the
cosmos handle your business. Whoever hurt you, they’ll get theirs, don’t worry.
Just have a little faith.
Down here, we see it different. We don’t count on karma. But you can count
on this: hurt one of us, we’re all coming for you.

A
low-level maggot once got a little taste of power and overdosed on it. He
murdered a thirteen-year-old girl after three privileged little weasels ran to him
for help.
The boys hadn’t meant to kill her; they were good kids who just got a little
carried away. All they wanted was to gangrape the little cock-teaser, take some
pictures . . . teach her what it cost to humiliate people of their status. But when
the girl suddenly stopped moving, their freakish plan tumbled out of control.
Terrified, they offered the maggot anything he wanted if he’d dump the body
for them.
But when he arrived at the abandoned house where they’d left the girl, he
discovered she wasn’t actually dead—passed out from the pain, but still
breathing, leaking blood. He touched her throat, found a good, strong pulse. If
he’d taken her to the ER, she would have made it.
Instead, he went to work on her. His kind of work.
That little girl lasted a few more minutes. Alive in terror and praying for
death.
More than thirty years later, the maggot and the three grownup weasels were
blown away. They went out together—never saw it coming.
We got paid to do that.
Now we’re paying.

T
he sniper who had pinned my father to the ground as we were making our
getaway is gone, too. An on-target warhead from an RPG had turned the stone-
shielded corner he’d been firing from into an incinerator big enough for him and
the rest of the hired guns up there with him.
So many died that day. Every time my heart pumps, regret pulses through my
bloodstream.
That’s the worst thing about killing certain humans: you can only do it once.
“W
hat more can we do, mahn? My father is somewhere between this world
and the next. He must stay—his body must stay—with those people until he
comes back to us. If he were only in a real hospital . . .”
“We’ve been through this,” I told Clarence. “A thousand times, ever since it
happened. You think we can, what, call a city ambulance? The Prof’s prints
would fall like a cinderblock on an egg. They’d handcuff him to the bed and turn
the whole place into a goddamn PBA convention.”
“I could—”
“You can’t do anything!” I snapped at him, as sharply as his father would
have.
“When you were shot—”
“Your father—my father, too, remember?—he made the call then. And he
made the right one. This one isn’t the same; the minute we unhook the Prof from
those machines, he’s done. This call was on me to make, and I made it. Now we
have to play it out.”
“If any of those doctors—”
Max pulled at the sleeve of Clarence’s jacket, the same dove-gray cashmere
he’d been wearing the night we dropped the Prof off—now it was almost black,
darkened with fear. When Clarence looked up, the mute Mongolian made the
universal gesture of pointing his finger like a pistol and dropping his thumb like
a hammer. Then tapped his temple, and made a facial expression that spoke
louder than words.
“You think those medical boys don’t fucking know that?” I echoed. “They’re
not worried about some malpractice claim. They’re running an outlaw operation,
and they get paid a fortune to take care of people from our world. That’s what
we’re paying so much for: not just the care, the risk—they’re putting a lot more
than their licenses on the line, understand? That’s why you never threaten people
like them—they’ve heard it all before. It won’t make them work harder. But it
might scare them into doing something stupid.”
“But . . . for what they are charging, even with all the money we took from
that last . . . thing, we will run out by—”
“I know,” I said soothingly. “But don’t worry about it, Clarence. We found a
new way to keep earning.”
“Nobody told me—”
“You had no role to play in this one, son,” I said, channeling the Prof. “Not up
till now, anyway.”
“Listen to me, sweetheart.” Michelle spoke just above a whisper, her voice the
same mystery-blend as her perfume. “Trust me, the word’s out: the Prof’s in the
consultant business now. Any serious thief playing for a retirement score would
want the Master to check over the plans, make sure there’s no flaw. But they
wouldn’t expect a face-to-face. So the Prof’s got a front man for that. Get it?”
“Yes,” the Islander said, looking over at me and nodding. “But how is that
going to bring in the kind of money we—?”
“It already is,” I cut him off. “Got more business than we can handle. We’re
even ready to have you start working backup, too. If you want.”
Clarence opened his mouth to say something, but Max just shook his head.
Mama crossed the distance from her register at the front to my booth in the
back. Looked us all over. Held Clarence with her eyes. Said, “Movie business
very good. Those kind of people, spend money like drunks.”
Clarence opened his mouth again, but this time it was Michelle who shut him
up. “We’ve got a doctor too, baby. A script doctor. Best in the business. The
only one who gets his quote and a percentage of the gross. Let’s you and me go
over there and sit down, okay? Buy your baby sister a drink, and I’ll explain it
all to you.”
T
he apartment was spacious by New York standards. Three bedrooms, two
baths. And on a decent West Side block, too.
But this was no luxury co-op. No awning over the front door. No doorman,
never mind a concierge. No central air. The elevator only went down—all the
way down. From a uniformed operator, to push-your-own-damn-buttons, to
permanent “Out of Service.”
Even the super was part-time. His one qualification was that he’d done time,
and his real job was handling complaints with a “you don’t want to go too far
with this” look.
Thirty-six units, but only five of them still occupied. The building owner was
warehousing the rest, playing stare-down with the remaining owners. No real-
estate broker had any of the empty units listed.
Some of the holdouts had been stupid enough to try bribing the super. He
introduced them to the Sucker Two-Step. Step one, he takes your money. Step
two comes when you run into him again—a blank look, like he’s never seen you
before.
When it comes to bribery, citizens are out of their league. Even in this
everything-for-sale pesthole of a city, you can’t run to the cops when the guy
you greased doesn’t do what you paid him for—that would be like a loan shark
suing you for missing a payment.
We paid the super for access to the apartment. Not a bribe: payment for a
service. He didn’t try his look on us—it’s our kind he learned it from. He wasn’t
a genius, but he was smart enough not to confuse us with citizens.
The cell phone in the right-hand pocket of my jacket vibrated. My clients were
on their way up . . . up the stairs. I nodded to Max. He opened the door just as
they were about to push the disconnected buzzer.
The doctor was in.
T
here were three of them. Nice business suits, nothing too flashy. I knew the
headman by rep only. He may have looked like a pita pocket overstuffed with
suet, but if crime was a dance, he had the moves of a tango star.
The other two could have been his partners. Or crew members, or undercover
cops. The way we had it set up, it didn’t make any difference. Any tape they
walked away with would be about as useful as a Vietnam body count.
My worktable was a rough-hewn slab of wood with fold-up legs. I gestured
for them to sit wherever they wanted. Canvas director’s chairs were the only
option.
Nobody offered to shake hands. As I leaned back, Michelle swiveled over. All
they saw was a blonde in a red latex derma-sheath skirt and a padded bra
threatening a stretchy top—if they even looked high enough up to see the blonde
part. She held out a tray of plain glass ashtrays. The guy to the left of the
headman took one, placed it carefully in front of him.
Michelle snake-hipped her way out of the room, making it clear that they’d
already experienced the full extent of our hospitality. No minibar in this hotel,
and the only room service you could order was already in the room.
The headman opened a document case, took out some paper and a chrome
pen. He cleared his throat, said:
“Now, the way we’ve got this scripted, the wealthy guy’s seen all the movies,
so he wouldn’t rely on any motion-sensor system. He thinks you can blow
talcum powder into the room, make all the laser beams show up.” His smile was
room-temperature.
I consulted the graph-paper pad in front of me. It was covered in tiny, autistic
symbols. “So he’s afraid some gymnast in a leotard—”
“You got it,” the raisin-eyed pile of dough seated across from me agreed.
“We’re looking for realism here. Remember, this is an indie production; we