Only Child

“You certainly don’t think I went into the thug business?” Michelle tossed off.

“Sure!” Mama said triumphantly. “But people come here, okay? Come with money. Say, ‘This for Burke,’ leave with me. Maybe think dead, but not sure, okay?”

“Who came?” I asked her.

“Plenty people,” she said, dismissively. “Anyway, see you, now, not know, okay? You not look like, but talk like, okay? You know what Burke knows. Maybe you his brother. Cousin. So—same name. Maybe still you, new face. What difference? Nobody ever know. Not for sure, never know.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said, then handed it off. “Prof?”

“Could be,” the little man said, not arguing with Mama, but not deferring to her, either. “Only one way we gonna see.”

It was after rush hour by the time we split up. Michelle said she had to get some sleep. The Prof and Clarence exchanged conspiratorial looks, said something about putting the finishing touches on a crib they’d found for me. I went out through the back door into the alley. A beige Honda Accord sedan stood there, idling. I got into the front seat. Max slipped into the back.

“Burke!” the young man at the wheel almost shouted. Before I could answer, he calmed himself, asked, “It is you, right?”

“It’s me, Terry,” I said. “Damned if I didn’t have trouble recognizing you, too.”

“I’m a man now,” he said. He’d been a boy when I pulled him away from a kiddie pimp in Times Square, way back before Mickey Mouse took over the territory. He reached his hand behind him for Max to slap, then folded his palm into a fist, tapping it twice over his heart.

Terry pulled slowly out of the alley, heading for the FDR. “This ride’s okay, right? I knew you wouldn’t want anything flashy.”

“It’s great,” I assured him. “You got paper? A license?”

He gave me the look kids give to adults who should be in detox.

I’d been this way a thousand times. FDR to the Triborough to Bruckner Boulevard to Hunts Point Avenue. Past the endless ribbon of dull-gray blight that passes for residential housing, and into the badlands.

The kid slipped the Honda into a break in the fence that surrounded a huge junkyard. The opening was invisible unless you were right on top of it. And if you ever wandered that close, you’d see why the proprietor hadn’t bothered with a “Beware of the Dog” sign. The pack formed before Terry shut down the engine.

Terry pulled a lever, and we drove into a sally port made out of two parallel walls of chain link. The dogs waited behind the inner wall, predator-patient, not even bothering to bark.

“Is Simba still...?” I said, not realizing how fearful I was of the answer until the question was out of my mouth. The reigning king of the junkyard had to be at least twenty years old. He should have gone to be with Dog a long time ago.

“Are you kidding?” Terry said.

We drove past the second gate. The kid hopped out to close it behind us. In seconds, the car was a big rock in a river of dogs, their voices blending into a single low snarl.

Terry waded back through the dogs, knocking some of them aside with his knees. They didn’t seem to mind. He had his hand on the car door when Simba made his entrance.

The monster was white around the muzzle now, but the others still gave him room. A bull-mastiff–shepherd cross, with one ear almost gone—probably a challenge from one of the younger males for pack leadership. He walked carefully. Not crippled, just conserving his energy. The next fight, that was Simba’s life.

“Simba!” I called to him out of my opened window. “Simba-witz, the Lion of Zion! You remember me, don’t you, boy? Old dogs like us, we don’t need to see to smell.”

The beast came closer. I dangled my hand out the window. Chum out of a shark cage, if Simba didn’t recognize me.

He sniffed experimentally, then gave a deep-throated growl of welcome.

“That’s my boy,” I said softly, scratching him behind his remaining ear.

The old warrior’s eyes were milky with age. A couple of teeth were missing. I wouldn’t have taken him on with a machine gun.

Max climbed out. He never went through any kind of greeting ceremony with the dogs. They never seemed to care.

Terry stashed the Honda, came back with the topless Jeep they use as a jitney. Max and I climbed on. After a moment’s hesitation, Simba jumped up there with us.

We rode through the moonscape, Terry piloting the Jeep around the hidden obstacles set up to slow down anyone visiting without permission. Compound fractures will do that.

“You drive like a pro,” I complimented him. “Your dad teach you?”

“Right!” he joked. “Mom said she’d murder him if he even tried. No, it was Clarence. And my license—it’s a hundred percent legit, Burke. I passed the test and everything.”

The clearing was under a canopy of twisted metal formed by stacks of smashed cars waiting for the crusher to finish them off. The cut-down oil drums were arranged in a neat horseshoe—empty chairs, awaiting guests. Terry braked gently; then vaulted easily off the Jeep to the ground. He disappeared somewhere behind the rubble, leaving Simba with me and Max.

I sat down on one of the drums. The junkyard was a graveyard, too. My Pansy was there, her body under a wreath of twisted rebar and razor wire. |Just her body, I said in my mind. I’m not a man who visits cemeteries—Pansy was always with me.

Belle’s body is there, too.

I see them, together. Waiting.

Sometimes, that comforts me. Sometimes, it makes me wish I could kill some people all over again.

Simba slowly came closer. Finally, the beast sat before me, his harsh old eyes holding me until he was sure I was paying attention.

“I know,” I told him. “Thanks.”

The Mole materialized from the gloom, wearing his standard dirt-colored jumpsuit. The Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses were prisms in the tricky light. He shambled forward, as awkward as a drunk.

“Mole,” I said, getting up.

He kept coming until he was only inches away, then stopped.

“So?” His madman’s eyes examined me, collecting data for his genius brain.

“I’m all right,” I told him.

“Is there a job?”

“No, Mole. I just came home.”

“To stay?”

“If I can pull it off.”

The Mole turned and greeted Max with a slight bow. Simba banged his noble, scarred head against the Mole’s leg. The lunatic absently patted his dog’s head, muttering something in their two-creature language.

“Everything’s different!” Terry said brightly. “You wouldn’t believe it, Burke. I’m in college. Mom has a new job. We’re all going to—”

“Nothing is different,” the Mole said mildly.

The kid looked at me, then slowly nodded agreement. Learning from his father, as always.

We spent a few hours down in the Mole’s bunker, catching up. Listening to Terry, mostly. The kid made sure to include Max in his narratives, using the street-signing we’d taught him. Max can read lips, but I’m never sure how much he gets, so I usually throw in a few gestures whenever I speak. The Mole never bothers; it’s not like most people understand what he says, anyway.

“You need a car?” the Mole finally asked me.

“I...guess. I came in with one, but it’s not exactly anonymous. A Subaru SVX.”