Down in the Zero (14 page)

Proverbs 13:24(!)

Next time your kid has a good one coming, make a full–size cassette of the chastisement and send it to me. I pay $50 for fifteen minutes, more for longer. Good sound quality a must. I travel frequently, with my own equipment. Write to make arrangements.

Only a P.O. box was listed, no name. A new kind of kiddie porn, legal too—I'd never heard of it before. Freaks carefully recording their own children getting whipped. To entertain other maggots. For money. I felt ice–picks of fire in my chest.

"Why did you show me this?" I asked her, my voice flat and level.

"Cherry told me. A long time ago. She said that's what you do."

"
That
?"

"No. She said you…hunt people like that. She knew you a long time ago, that's what she said. And she ran across you a few times. Not in person. Your name, what you do. She said she had your number, but I was always afraid to call. When you walked in the kitchen, I knew it was you. Even before you said your name. I thought you'd be…bigger."

"Why?"

"Cherry always said if Randy got in trouble, she'd call you," she finished, ignoring my question.

"You think Randy's in trouble?"

"I think
he
thinks he is. He's a cowardly little kid, always scared of something. All those suicides, I know they made him afraid—he told me once.

"So what's this whole show about? Where do you think I fit in?"

She turned away from me, walked back over to the couch. "I hate them," she whispered, almost choking on the words.

"Who?"

"People who hurt kids. Especially their own kids. I know all about this stuff. Spanking. I'm an expert on it. It's not for discipline, it's for sex. Some people get turned on by it, some people get off on it. A good submissive, she can come just from getting spanked. There's men like that too. They whip their kids for fun. Their own fun. And it
hurts
the children. Because they
know
. They know why they're getting it. It's a sex game. And it stays with them. I know a woman, she's over thirty and her father still spanks her. What's that for?"

"You know what it's for."

"That's right, I do. And I hate them. I thought if you knew about it .

"You want to hire me? Is that it?"

"Hire you? You mean, you do it for money?"

"I do some things for money."

"I thought…I mean, Cherry said…you did that. She told me. About that mercenary who raped kids. He wanted to go to South Africa. And you…made him disappear."

A thin, cold fluid ran up my spine right into my brain, freezing my face into show–nothing survival.

Cherry had my number. Had it all this time.

Cherry. South Africa. Diamonds. Sure. She wasn't getting rich with hanky–spanky blackmail, that wasn't her game. But how much would a man pay for a tape of him confessing to homicide?

I could
feel
the tape recorders. Voice–activated, reel–to–reel with overlapping backup, microphones planted all around. Felt the fever–spike of fear whip through me and land in my gut, screaming
Stay safe!
I turned to Fancy and chuckled. "Yeah, sure. That's me all right. Burke, the masked avenger."

"But…"

"Hey, give me a break," I said, laughing harder now. "I'm not saying I never did anything wrong in my life. I'm a hustler. A thief. But
kill
somebody…forget it. That's not my speed. Cherry was just pulling your chain. I haven't seen her in a hundred years, but even then she was a world–class bullshit artist."

Her face was white under the artificial tan, hands shaking. "I thought…"

"What? That I was some kind of vigilante for kids? Because fucking
Cherry
told you?"

"Yes!" she sobbed, her face in her hands. I watched her cry for a minute, her body shaking under the blue T–shirt.

"Cut it out," I told her. "That's a fairy story. You're too old to think there's a Santa Claus."

She leaned her head against my chest, still crying. I put my hand on her shoulder, pulled her into me. Held her while she cried.

The outfit Michelle bought for me would look good in the movie the blackmailers were making, but even a Grand Jury of cops wouldn't indict Ice–T on the contents of the audio track.

T
he light was on in the kid's bedroom—I could see it as I turned into the garage. Maybe he was scared of the dark.

I took off the camouflage clothing. It was about two–thirty in the morning. I wasn't sleepy—too much to sort out.

What Fancy told me was true. It takes a player to know the game. Even the child molesters who call what they do "intergenerational sex" know what "domestic discipline" is all about. But why would Cherry tell Fancy about what I do? What I did. How much did she know? Or was it all a bunch of guesses, needing my own words to drop me for the count.

Today, people don't think about working to get rich. Or stealing either. It's all upside down now. People hear someone they know was in a car accident, they envy them…what a great lawsuit. Lawsuits and lottery tickets, that's the way you do it now.

You don't run across straight blackmail much anymore. Why risk doing time when you can make a bigger score from selling secrets to the media? Treason is fashionable today. You have an affair with someone famous, there's a cash market for letters. For tapes, whatever. It helps if you're willing to pose nude later—show the people what the famous man wanted so bad.

The important thing is to do it for the right reasons—because you got this desperate need for the public to know the truth—the media likes its whores better when they dress up.

There's a bounty on famous people. Everybody knows where to go with the tapes.

A celebrity's sister sells her diary to the garbage press. Sells her own sister. A young man writes a book about how some industrialist needed bondage to get off—a private game turned public for cash. A spoiled–stupid little girl pleads guilty to attempted murder of an older woman. She says she was having an affair with the woman's husband, that he told her to do it. He says it never happened, the girl is delusional. She's out on bail before she goes away to prison. She goes to see her boyfriend, another older guy. They talk, play with each other. She says spoiled–stupid stuff, jokes about the shooting, tries so pitiful–hard to be cool, sound tough. The boyfriend has a video going the whole time, sells it to a TV show.

I guess that makes him famous too.

It's not against the law, selling secrets. Why bother with extortion? Threats to expose are a waste of time when you can score more by actually pulling the trigger.

Save those letters. Tape those calls. When I was first coming up, the worst thing you could be was a rat. Now it's a respected profession.

There's a bull market in betrayal.

But the tape I took from Cherry's hidden safe…I didn't recognize the man in the video—whoever he was, he wasn't
that
famous. Private blackmail. Leave the cash in a drop and you'll get the negatives…you don't see that stuff much anymore. There's money in it, sure. But not enough to buy fistfuls of gems.

Unless it was a pyramid. Show some sucker who works for the government the tape. You want the tape back? Maybe we need to talk about being the low bidder on a defense contract. Or a judicial appointment. Or…

No, it didn't add up. You can't be sure your target has any particular fetish. It takes years of work to set something like that up.

So why would Fancy show me her video? Why would she talk about kids?

I didn't have enough. Like trying to cross a fifty–foot chasm over a forty–foot bridge—I could be jumping to conclusions.

If I did that, I didn't want it to be an accident.

T
he kid was outside when I got up the next morning, waiting around downstairs like he had something on his mind.

"I saw your light when I got in last night," I said. "You leave it on when you went to sleep, or what?"

"I was awake. I was going over some stuff I had."

"About race cars?"

"Yeah." He shot me a smile. "I was wondering—"

"Look, I gotta make a run into the city, okay? I won't be long, probably be back before this afternoon. Can we talk about it when I get back?"

"Sure, I was just—"

"Randy, is it important, kid?"

"Not
that
important."

"You get a call? Somebody say something to you?"

"Nothing like that. It can wait, all right?"

"Sure. Keep the phone with you if you go out."

"I will. Uh, Burke…?"

"What?"

"Could you take the Lexus? I thought I'd…"

"You got it," I told him.

T
he Lexus was right at home in the commuter traffic, common enough among humans who worship products. I took my time, not pushing it. When I turned off at Bruckner Boulevard for Hunts Point, the Lexus fit in just as well—they're as popular with the dope boys as Mercedes used to be.

I motored past the deadfall near the filthy water, watching the rapacious gulls circling. Meat–eaters all, they battle with the wild dog packs for the refuse from the nearby meat market, unafraid of earthbound humans who occasionally trespass.

"Nice car, Burke," Terry greeted me, running his palm over the sleek flanks of the Lexus. If the dogs noticed the upgrade in my transport, they didn't let on. I told Terry the Lexus wasn't mine, but I'd be driving it for a while. He nodded, holding his eager kid questions, imitating the Mole's way of doing business. I showed him the pistol. He nodded again, sagely pondering the obvious problem. "I got something that'll work. Wait here, okay?"

I fired up a smoke, watching the dogs work their way across the junkyard in the studied Z–pattern of the predator pack. They were like the Mole too—they were used to humans, but didn't like many of them.

The kid came back with a flat piece of black metal. It had a pair of black rubber grippers bonded to the back, two heavy suction cups on the front. He walked around the Lexus, finally found the place he wanted under the fender—he showed me the exact spot. I fitted the metal piece into the spot, pushed down. Nothing.

"Push real hard, Burke," he said.

I locked my forearm, shoved with all my strength. I felt it pop home, lock in place.

"You want to take it off, you have to push this little button on the side…see?" He guided my hand to the spot. I pushed, and the metal bar dropped into my hand. I put it back in place, shoved the gun's barrel between the rubber grips. It held like it was welded.

"Can I get the gun out without taking the whole thing off?" I asked him.

"Sure. Just grab the handle and pull in the direction of the barrel— it works like a fulcrum, see?" He pulled it out as easy as drawing from a holster.

"Pretty slick, Terry."

He blushed like a kid with a perfect report card. It was another minute or so before I realized he wasn't going to say anything. Waiting the way his father always did.

"Mole around?" I finally asked.

"He's got…someone with him."

I looked a "Who?" question at him. The kid shrugged. Whoever it was, it wasn't Michelle.

"Should I…wait, or what?"

"I'll see," Terry told me, moving off.

He was back quickly, mouth working so he'd get the message just right. "Mole says, the man with him is someone he works with. Not your business. You can trust him. Come down if you want."

I knew the only kind of people the Mole worked with. Knew where his priorities were. But I was just curious enough, just enough in a hurry.

"Let's go," I said.

Walking over, I handed Terry the key to the Lexus. "Can you make a copy?" I asked him.

He gave me another one of those "Are you kidding?" looks teenagers do so well.

The Mole was in his bunker, his pasty white skin shining like a mushroom in a cellar. His workbench was littered with printouts from the computer. A pad at his elbow was covered in his tiny, crabby handwriting, mostly with numbers and symbols I didn't recognize. A short, wiry man was standing next to him, dressed in a simple khaki summer suit. He was dark–skinned with thick, curly black hair and a mustache, dark brown eyes regarding me neutrally.

I greeted the underground genius—he grunted an acknowledgment, absorbed in another list of symbols scrolling down the screen.

I took the pad from his desk, puzzling over the Mole's strange writing.

"It doesn't print graphics," the Mole said, glancing over his shoulder at the printer.

"Ah, Mole…"

He turned to look at me. "This is Zvi," he said. "My cousin."

The dark–skinned man stepped forward, extending his hand. "Cousin" told me the whole story—Zvi was an Israeli, an operative in one of the dozen agencies they had working all around the world. High–placed too—if he knew where to find the Mole. Zvi was the Mole's
landsman
—of his blood, not of our family. Even his grip was neutral, promising nothing.

"Did you…?" I began.

"I showed the disks to Zvi," Mole said, his eyes ready for a challenge. I didn't react—he'd told me the rules a long time ago. If his country could use something, he'd turn it over no matter what.

"One set of data is my area," Zvi said, his voice neutral as his handshake. "The other is not."

"Which is yours?" I asked.

"This one," he replied, holding up the red disk. "Look at the printout."

I picked it up. A fan–folded sheet with rachet–feed perforations along each side. It ran to dozens of pages all told. Looked like ID information: names, addresses, height, weight, hair and eye color…couple of hundred names, at least.

"What is this?" I asked.

"It's a before–and–after," Zvi said. "See this man," he said, indicating with a pointing finger.

I looked. R21\ANDERSON, ROBERT M.\669 EAST 79\33–C\ NYC\74\190\BRNXBLU\SMT=CAT2. Height in inches, weight in pounds, color of hair and eyes. More numbers followed: a pair of nine–digit sequences, one separated by dashes, the other solid. Social Security and passport, sure.

"What's this SMT CAT2 thing?" I asked him.

"Scars, Marks and Tattoos. I don't know what the Category means—it would be in their coding. If they're operating at this level, they'd have a way to alter things like that too."