Sacrifice (16 page)

92

I
t was still early. I rolled by Central Park, telling myself I was scanning Carlos. Practicing my lies. But the woman who said her name was Belinda didn't come by.

93

T
he white dragon was still on guard in the window. Always a dragon there—white for clear, blue for cops, red for danger. I drove around the back. The guys in the kitchen looked me over like they'd never seen me before.

I found my booth, waited. Mama wasn't at her register. No waiter came by.

A copy of the
Daily News
was in my booth. Five kids murdered so far this week. Separate incidents. Gunned down—cross–fire killings. The city's loaded with homicidal punks, and not a marksman among them.

If you wrote a book about it, the critics would say it was full of gratuitous violence.

Letter to the editor from some cop, arguing with a citizen who complained the police don't ticket off–duty cars parked near the precinct house. The cop said he put his life on the line every day—he was entitled to park on the house.

That was true, they should give cabdrivers free rent.

I turned to the race results.

94

"Y
ou not want soup?" Mama materialized at my elbow.

"I was waiting for you."

"Cook not come out?"

"Nobody came out."

"Cooks nervous—strangers in the basement."

"Luke?"

"Luke not a stranger. Woman…Teresa…come every day."

"I know."

"Alone with the boy. Every day," she said, eyes narrowing. Mama doesn't trust citizens."

"I'll go talk with her."

"Not now. She come up here, finished. Talk then, okay?"

"Okay. Could I have some soup, then?"

Mama smiled with a corner of her mouth, spewed out a torrent of Chinese with the other. One of the waiters came through the back door. Bowed, nodded, went away.

"You bet horse?" Mama asked, pointing at the open newspaper.

"Maybe. If I see something I like."

The waiter came back with the soup. Also some hard noodles and a plate of dim sum floating in clear sauce with tiny flecks of green. Mama watched me eat, taking only token sips herself, tapping her long fingernails on the cheap Formica tabletop. I waited—she wouldn't say anything she didn't want to.

The waiter came back. Said something to Mama. She nodded.

"Woman coming up," she said to me.

I stood up to greet her. Silver–streaked blonde straight hair parted in the middle, hanging down almost to her shoulders. Brown eyes, nose slightly off–center, small nostrils, tiny jaw at the bottom of an oval face. Dressed in a camel's–hair blazer over a silk turtleneck, wide dark blue skirt, sensible bone pumps.

"Hello, I'm Dr…ah, Teresa. You must be Burke—Lily described you."

"But I'm even better–looking than she said, right?"

"No." She laughed gently. "You're not."

I made a sweeping gesture and she sat down across from Mama, who showed no sign of moving. I slid in next to her.

"What can you tell me?"

"In a way, it's good news. Luke is very young to have gone full multiple. We can get to fusion a lot easier if the behavior isn't calcified over time—if the membrane between the personalities doesn't harden. For a child, there's no real investment in any of the alternates. So when the situation changes…Are you following me?"

"The safer he is, the easier it is for him to come together."

"Yes." She smiled. "That's a good way to put it."

"How long?"

"I don't know. There's no schedule for these things. But I don't feel it will be that much longer."

"What did Lily tell you about his…situation?"

"Luke is a patient, I'm a physician." Meaning she knew the whole story.

I lit a smoke as the waiter came to clear away the plates. Noticed Mama didn't offer Teresa anything.

"Lily tell you how I fit in?"

Teresa let her gaze trail across Mama's face. "There are…confidentiality issues. If Mrs. Wong would…"

"Mama is my family," I told her. "I have no secrets from her." Mama smiled—at the truth and at the lie.

Teresa watched my face. I dialed sincerity right up into my eyes. Waited.

She took a breath. "Lily said you were her friend. That you specialized in some sort of currency transfers…she wasn't specific. And she said you could be trusted."

"She tell you I was in the middle of a goddamned war between her and one of her sisters?"

"Yes. Wolfe."

"Yeah, Wolfe. And this Wolfe has a pack, understand? I'm about out of time. What I need is to have you talk to her. Let her see where things are. Back her off a bit."

"I'm on shaky ground with that," she said. "I can't reveal information about a patient."

"She doesn't have to know your name—she'll play square."

"You think if she believes Luke is close to recovery, she'll give him more time."

I dragged deep on the cigarette. Mama's face was bland, like she didn't understand English.

"Wolfe's gonna give
somebody
some time, Doc. Somebody has to pay. I know that's not your department, but that's the game. I'm no psychologist, but I know Luke wasn't born like he is, right?"

"Yes."

"Somebody did something to him. Something bad. You go far enough, you'll find out, yes?"

"Probably. Not for sure."

"That's what I need you to tell Wolfe. Just like that."

"I don't understand what good that will do."

"Wolfe's a hunter. That's what she does. Sometimes she does it by trading, you understand? Gang rape, four punks involved, okay? The evidence is weak…dark in that alley, hard to make a stand–up ID, like that…but they nail one of them—say with a DNA match. The rest are gonna walk. Rape's a B felony here: twenty–five max on top. So she offers the one freak she has cold maybe four–to–twelve…and he rolls over on the others, nails them down."

"Yes, I know. Plea bargaining."

"No, you don't know…not the way Wolfe plays it. When she deals, it's a bargain for the victim, not the rapist. She'll take any case to trial, go the limit. She makes a deal, it's gotta be a good one."

"So…"

"So whatever Luke did, he was just the messenger. The freaks who turned him out, Wolfe'd take them in exchange, see?"

"Yes. All right, tell her to call…"

"That's not the way it's done. I'll bring her here. You'll talk to her here."

"Why not just…?"

"I think I know Wolfe, how she'll act. But if I'm wrong, if she won't play, then I'll take her away …she won't find this place, she won't know your name."

I ground out my cigarette, waiting for her answer.

She got up to leave. Turned to speak to me. "I am treating a patient. A seriously disturbed patient who also happens to be a child. If someone shows up in my office…wherever that is…and I believe it to be in my client's interests to discuss the matter, I would do that."

"Thanks."

She offered her hand. I shook it. "Goodbye, Mrs. Wong," she said to Mama.

Mama inclined her head a fraction of an inch.

Teresa went out the back, one of Mama's waiters just behind her.

95

I
took the Manhattan Bridge to the BQE, heading for Queens. Shoved a cassette into my tape player. Judy Henske. Making a comeback now, playing clubs on the Coast. She wasn't back in the studio yet—the bootleg tape cost me fifty bucks. Fucking thieves. It was like she'd never been away–still had all the chops–wailing, growling, cooing at the crowd, owning the audience. Shining her torch. "Duncan and Brady," her own take on "StagoLee." Perfect. The Plymouth hit one of those lunar craters they call potholes here—I just caught the tail end of some Primo Bitch piece I hadn't heard before.

I've had just about enough of your love

It's time to take it on the road

It started out with a hug. darlin'

But now it's a stranglehold

You say you've been saving for our future

You say you got some Master Plan

Well, you can keep your Social Security, sonny

What I need now is a man

I listened to the end–tape hiss, thinking about the waiter in Mama's joint, the one following Teresa. Sword or shield?

96

I
found a pay phone on Queens Boulevard. They put her through.

"This is Wolfe."

"It's me. Could you spare a few minutes to talk to me about something?"

"You don't want to come here?"

"No."

"Remember where we last had lunch?"

"Sure."

"One–fifteen, more or less, okay?"

"Okay. Remember what I brought you—last time we ate there?"

"Sure."

"Can you bring it with you?"

"Why?"

"I'll explain."

"I'll see."

97

T
hey were in the same place, Wolfe and Lola. I sat down, ordered another chef's salad. It wasn't much—the restaurant's produce buyer had gotten to the market after the Koreans that day.

"You bring it?" I asked her.

"Tell me why you want it."

"Okay with you, I talk like this…?" Eyes on Lola.

"Yes. In fact, it's the only way."

"You looked in the bag, right?"

She nodded, not saying anything.

"And you took it apart real careful, one pin at a time, analyzed what you found inside?"

Nodded again.

"No baby?"

"Chicken parts," Lola said. Caught a warning look from Wolfe.

"I need it back. You probably tagged it, so you'll have to put something else in its place in the evidence locker."

Wolfe pushed her salad aside, lit a smoke. Raised her eyebrows to ask why.

"The people who it belongs to…they want it back. You opened it, you know what it is. These aren't people I can play with. It was evidence of the homicide, I wouldn't say anything."

Wolfe pulled on her smoke, thinking. Lola scanned the room over my shoulder.

"You get the divers yet?" I asked her.

"Couple, three days," she said.

"What I asked for…?"

"Your turn to pay the check," she said.

98

L
ola opened the trunk of her Reatta. I transferred the package to the Plymouth.

"Is she married?" I asked, nodding my head toward Wolfe, sitting in the front seat.

Lola held her finger to her lips in a "ssssh" gesture.

99

B
ack in my office, I took a look. Carefully unwrapped the layers of plastic, bracing myself for the smell. It didn't come.

The juju bag looked like it hadn't been touched. Somehow smaller than when I'd first seen it, not as menacing lying on my desk.

Pansy poked her nose over the desktop, trying to see what I was doing. I told her to go to her place. She ignored me. Snarled—a higher pitch than I'd heard before.

I still didn't want to touch it.

100

T
here's places even zombies won't go. I walked to the station at Chambers Street, slipped into the underground. Dropped a token into the slot. The Exit door was propped open—most of the citizens just walked through without paying. Social protest, like the yuppies who throw Israeli shekels into the Exact Change baskets on the highway. Sure.

It didn't look like rain, but I carried a little red umbrella—the kind you can compress to baton size. A real piece of junk—so cheap that one of the ribs had worked itself loose—one pull and it would come right out in my hand. The tip was real sharp.

At West Fourth, I changed to the F train. Got a seat next to an old man who looked like he snorted interferon—pinch–faced, thinning hair nicely parted at the back to reveal dime–sized dandruff flakes. He opened a copy of the
Times,
spreading it across my face. His hands were liver–spotted, nails long and yellowing, curving at the tips. He smelled like his life.

The train picked up speed, rocking on the rusty tracks, overloaded with human cargo, paradise for the rubbers and the gropers. And the boys who carried box cutters to slice wallets free of clothing. If the air conditioning was on, it never had a chance.

The old man slammed a sharp elbow into my chest, shoving for more room, making high–pitched grunting noises, rattling his newspaper, flakes flying off his skull like greasy snow.

A good–sized Puerto Rican woman got on at Thirty–fourth, a plastic shopping bag from a drugstore chain in one hand, using it as a purse. She was wearing a white uniform of some kind, white flats with thick soles, white stockings. Coming from work. She worked her way over to a pole in the subway car, leaned against it gratefully.

I saw my chance.

Caught her eye, rose to my feet, my back to the rest of the humans, bowing slightly, gesturing with my hand like an usher showing a customer to her seat. There was maybe eighteen inches of seat showing—she dropped into it just as the vicious old man slid over to close the gap. She pancaked him like he was Play–Doh—the
Times
went flying, a thin shriek came out of his mouth. After that, they fought in silence.

My money was on the right horse. The old man finally extricated himself, stumbled off to another part of the subway car, reeking hate.

The Surrogate Ninja Body Slam—it doesn't always work, but when it does, it's a thing of beauty.

101

I
got off the train at Rockefeller Center, stepped out and walked back along Sixth to Forty–second. It wouldn't be dark for hours, but clots of teenagers were already on patrol. "Driving the Deuce," they call it, cruising Times Square, eyes lusting into the windows full of
things:
electronic gear, overdose jewelry, flashy clothes, battery–powered body parts. Down here, the only culture is Cargo Cult.

I had more pieces to put together before I brought Wolfe to meet Luke. The library had signs all around—the Campaign to Combat Illiteracy.

They should have asked me to be a consultant. I learned to read, really read, in prison. The Prof told me you could steal more money with a briefcase than with a pistol. I know that's true—but I never seem to get it right.

When I came back outside, it was just getting dark. I called Bonita at the place she works—told her I'd come by later, take her home.