Sacrifice

padded stool. You couldn't see him until you got close.

'Hello, Burke,' he said, his frail, strangler's fingers grasping an abacus.

'Hello, Luke. Mama's teaching you how to work that thing?'

'Yes. It's fun.'

'Very smart boy, Burke,' Mama said. 'Teach him how to use beads, never could teach you.'

'I was never good with math.'

'Math is money,' Mama said. Like God is Love.

'I've got to talk with you.'

'Okay. You want soup?'

'Sure.'

She patted Luke's fair hair, voice softening. 'You go in kitchen, baby. Tell cooks bring some soup to Mama.'

'I don't speak Chinese,' the little boy said. Being serious, not a wiseass.

'Speak like Max, okay?'

A smile brightened his face. 'Sure!'

He trotted off. We took our seats.

'Baby not right,' Mama said, tapping her temple with one manicured nail.

'Why do you say?'

'This morning, Mac bring him by to stay with me. Very good boy, sit quiet, read a book, okay? But later, talk funny. Baby talk, babble-babble. His name Susie, he says. I say, that a girl's name. He say, I'm a little girl…pretty little girl. He sound like a little girl, Burke. Ask me to play with him. I just hold him. Then he says, why you holding me, Mama? Luke, boy's voice. I ask him, what about little girl? He look at me like I crazy. Just been sitting, reading his book, he say to me.'

'Yeah.'

'Not surprise?'

'No.'

'Baby need a doctor.'

'I know, Mama. I found him one. Tomorrow, okay?'

She bowed agreement.

Luke marched in with a tureen of soup as the register phone rang. Mama got up to answer it.

'Here's the soup, Burke.'

'Thank you.' I helped myself. The kid sat across from me, self-possessed.

'Luke, tomorrow I'm going to visit an old friend of mine. A couple of old friends, actually. You want to come along?'

'I guess…'

'We can do something you'd like to do first, okay? What would you like to do?'

His little face concentrated. Then he rubbed his head, like it hurt. 'I'd like to go to the zoo,' he said. 'I always wanted to go.'

63

We found a bench in Grand Central, a half hour before the Albany train was due. Doc had been the prison shrink back when I was Upstate on my second bit. The better class of cons, hijackers, thieves, the professionals, we all liked him. You couldn't gorilla him out of medication and he wouldn't write you a phony rehab statement for the Parole Board like the wet-brain we had in one of the federal pens, but he was stand-up all the way. I remember once, a young white dude, he climbed onto the tier railing, started screaming he was going to take the dive, check out of the hotel for good. Some of the cons, they shouted at him, go ahead and jump, motherfucker, don't be talking about it, do it. Cheered him on. Some of us just watched. The guards too. Doc shoved his way through the crowd on the ground floor, talking softly, urgently up to the guy, telling him it could be fixed, whatever was wrong. But the youngster took off, and he couldn't fly. The sound when he hit the floor…first the whump! of his body, then the crack of his skull. One-two. A piece of his brain jumped around on the concrete, still full of electricity, looking for answers.

Doc ran T-groups for the rapists. I was typing reports in his office once, scamming with both fingers, hunting and pecking a go-home for a guy who'd paid me the usual twenty crates of smokes. Doc came in, face all red. He's a medium-sized man, husky, big chest, thick wrists. Hair cropped short, wears glasses.

'You give the skinners some new insights today, Doc?'

'The group is done, Burke.'

'How come?'

'Because I plain hate the slimy motherfuckers, boss. They ain't sick, they're mean. They didn't teach me that part in medical school.'

I liked him from then on. Once saw him go right into a cell with a con who'd ripped the toilet loose from the wall, he was that far out of his mind. And Doc talked him quiet. Saw him stop the screws from whaling on some poor bastard who'd just stopped— wouldn't move, gone catatonic. Now Doc runs the whole show for the State, manages all the joints for the criminally insane.