Morales took it as a challenge. 'You think those fucking therapists can fix a freak like him?'
'No. They know what to call it, that's all. Pedophilia. Like it's a disease. They had a disease named after hijackers, maybe I would of gotten past the Parole Board the first time.'
Morales wouldn't let it go. 'A few years ago, they'd have to lock slime like that away from the regular cons. Not no more. Baby-raping motherfuckers like him need to resist arrest more often.'
McGowan shook his head sadly. He got up to leave, Morales trailing in his wake. The cops tossed bills on the table for their breakfast and split. I watched the smoke collect near the ceiling of the diner. Thinking of something Wesley once told me.
Something he once called me.
13
I WAS AS CLOSE to square as I was going to get. I could go on vacation, not worry about the mail piling up on the doorstep.
But a responsible businessman doesn't take a vacation unless his desk is clean. After a half hour of dodging potholes deep enough to have punji sticks at the bottom, the Plymouth poked its anonymous nose off the BQE at Flushing Avenue. Heading through Bedford-Stuyvesant. Some people call it 'do or die Bed-Stuy.' Those people are called something else. Escapees.
On to Bushwick. A bad piece of pavement even by city standards: if you went down on these streets from less than three gunshot wounds, the hospital would write 'natural causes' on the death certificate. Just before the intersection at Marcy Avenue, a three-story shell of a wooden building, blackened timbers forming X-braces, decaying from the ground up. Next to it, an abandoned Chinese take-out joint. Hand-painted sign: Houes of Wong. Parked in front, a car full of black teenagers, baseball caps turned on their heads so the bills pointed backwards. Waiting for night.
The going rate for three rocks of instant-access cocaine is five bucks. The dealers won't take singles, makes too much bulk in their pockets. The bodegas operate as war-zone currency exchanges: a five-dollar bill costs you six singles.
I crossed Broadway, past a pet store that advertised rabbits. For food. A rooster crowed from somewhere inside one of the blunt-faced buildings.
A Puerto Rican woman strolled by on the sidewalk, wearing a bright orange quasi-silk blouse knotted just below her midriff, neon-yellow spandex bicycle pants with thick black stripes down the sides stretching almost to her knees. Backless white spike heels, no stockings. She was fifteen pounds over the limit for a yuppie aerobics class, but on this street, she was prime cut. She acknowledged the men calling out to her with her lips and her hips, but she never turned her head.
Another couple of blocks. The projects. An olive-skinned little boy was playing with a broken truck in a puddle near a fire hydrant, making it amphibious.
Most of the businesses were war casualties, liquor stores and video rental joints the only survivors.
And the crack houses. Fronted by groups of mini-thugs hoping to grow up to be triggerboys. Watching the escape vehicles slide by, Mercedeses and BMWs, seeing themselves behind the wheel. Ghetto colors slashing the grime, not telling the truth.
Gut-grinding poverty. Sandpaper for the soul.
Pigeons overhead, circling in flocks. Hawks on the ground.
Make enough wrong turns and you're on a no-way street.
A no-brand-name gas station on the corner. It pumped more kilos than gallons. A big dirt-colored junkyard dog was entertaining himself, dropping a blackened tennis ball from his mouth down a paved slope, chasing it once it got rolling. A trio of puppies watched in fascination.
The sign outside said Custom Ironwork. A sample covered the front door. I rang the bell. Door opened. Guy about five feet tall answered. Red Ban-Lon shirt, short sleeves threatened by biceps the size of grapefruits. He either had a pin head or a twenty-inch neck. One dark slash was his full supply of eyebrows. His hands gripped the bars like he could bend them without a welding torch.
'What?'
'Mr. Morton.'
'Who wants him?'
'Burke. I got an appointment.'
He must have been told in front. In one-syllable words. I stepped back as he shoved the iron gate open, stepped past him as he stood aside.
'Upstairs.'
I heard him behind me on the steel steps, breathing hard by the second flight. Bodybuilder.
'In here.'
Bars on the windows, gray steel office desk, stacks of army-green file cabinets against the wall. The man behind the desk was younger than I expected. Deep tan, expensive haircut, heavy on the gel. Diamond on one finger, wafer-faced watch on his wrist. Manicure, clear nail polish. White silk shirt, tie pulled down. Suit jacket on a hanger, dangling from a hook on the wall.
'Mr. Morton?'
'Yeah.'
'My name is Burke. We have an appointment.'
'You got what you're supposed to have?'
'Yes.'
He looked sideways at the bodybuilder. 'You pat him down?'
'No, boss. I thought you…'
Morton glanced across at me, tapping his fingers. 'Never mind,' he told the bodybuilder in a disgusted voice. To me: 'Put it on the table.' Hard edge in his voice, looking me right in the eyes. Tough guy, projecting his image.
I had his image: lunch meat, on white bread. I reached in my pocket, laid the thick envelope on the desk.
'You got this straight from him? You look inside?'
'Yeah.'
'How come? You don't trust the
'I didn't want to come up short. It wouldn't be respectful.'
He nodded. 'You know how much this costs?'
'I know what he told me. Twenty-five K.'
'That's what's in there?' Gesturing at the envelope.
'In hundreds. Used, no consecutives.'
'Okay.' He took a nine-by-twelve manila envelope from the desk drawer. 'You want to look?'
'No.'
His head tilted up. 'No?'
'I agreed to bring you an envelope, bring him an envelope.'
'What if this one's empty?'
'It wouldn't be.'
'Or else what?'
'You have to ask the man. It's not my business.'
He lit a cigarette. 'I know you. I know your name. I wouldn't want you to come back if the man was unhappy.'
'Sure.'
'What's that mean?'
'It means, you know my name, you know I'm not a chump. Like the senator, right? Don't jerk my chain. The pictures are in there. And the negatives. Not because you're worried about me coming back.'
'Then why?'
'Only a fucking sucker buys pictures. We both know that. You got more. Or copies of the negatives. Maybe
