Only Child

There’s no new crimes, only new criminals. And I didn’t know any of them.

Oh, sure, there were little jobs I could pull. Minor stings where I wouldn’t need an active crew, just a little help with front. Low-risk, low-return.

That’s all I wanted to do, once. Live small. Stay off the radar. I could never be a citizen, but I didn’t want to be a convict again, either.

Thing is, only citizens have 401(k)s. When I was coming up, I’d always hear the crime guys I admired talking about the “retirement score.” That one big job they could live off forever.

When you’re young, that kind of thing’s just another convict fantasy. One of the Big Three—money, sex, and revenge.

When you’ve put on some mileage, when you’ve been some places and done some things, you realize that the Big Three is down to One. Money. That key works all of the locks.

And by the time you get old enough, close enough to that time when any trip back Inside amounts to a life sentence, you know what “blood money” really means. This is an ugly country to be poor in. Worse if you’re sick. And if you’re old, you can ratchet that up a few notches more.

I knew all that. I was schooled by the best. I’d been putting money aside from every score almost since I started. But when I had to disappear, most of it got eaten up during the hunt. And I didn’t have another twenty years to rebuild my stake.

When I was a young man, rep was all a lot of us had. Heart. We tattooed it on our souls, a prayer never to be forgotten. Paying with our lives for the sacramental wine poured into an “X” on callous City concrete by those who had watched us go. Whenever his brothers pooled their cash for a bottle of T-bird, the man who had proved his heart in battle always got the first taste.

I’d lost that need for a two-minute tombstone a long time ago. The reason I’d rather go out quick than rot to death on Welfare hasn’t got anything to do with pride. Some pain is easier to manage, that’s all.

This isn’t Willie Sutton’s world anymore. Banks aren’t where the money is—at least, not money you can get at in a quick-hit robbery. Casinos and racetracks have tons of untraceable cash. But there’s no way to ease it out, and it would take a military assault to take it by force. Kidnappings always come unglued at the exchange. Blackmail’s hit-or-miss; mostly miss. Jewelry’s easier, but it has to pass through too many hands before it turns into cash, and each one cuts a slice off the loaf.

The whisper-stream is always vibrating with rumors of open contracts. A Central American druglord is offering millions for any crew that can break him out of a federal pen. A collector is offering more than that for a certain painting under museum guard. Some shadowy zillionaire has a huge bounty out on whoever the hate-flavor of the moment is.

There’s always enough shreds of truth clinging to stories like that to make some retardate act on faith. Ask James Earl Ray.

The surest proof that Ray acted alone is that nobody ever ratted him out. Ask the church bombers. Or McVeigh.

But I wouldn’t go there. I’ve been to that school. Paid what the tuition cost.

So I knew who to ask.

“Snakeheads,” Mama said.

“Is there really that much in it?” I asked her.

“Always money. Just not...” she said, snapping her fingers to say “immediately.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Snakeheads like farmer with cows, okay? Cow meat worth not much; cow milk, very good. Get all over again, every day, understand?”

“The people they bring over, they pay off their debts by working? Takes a long time, but the money keeps coming in...?”

“Yes. Small payment, each week. But many make payment, so plenty money, see?”

“Sure. But where do we come in?”

“To snakeheads, people...cargo, okay?”

“But it isn’t cargo you can hijack, Mama. What could we do with—?”

“Plenty...what you call ‘societies,’ here. In America. They, how you say, sponsor people.”

“Pay their way over?”

“Yes. Like ticket.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons. Some good, some not so good.”

If you’re ever fool enough to let Mama know anything she says isn’t crystal-clear, she gets offended. It’s okay if you don’t get it, so long as it’s not her fault.

Only silence works. So I just ate a little more of my fried rice with roast pork and scallions. The minute Mama’s satisfied you don’t want an explanation, she always explains.

“Sometimes, family, okay? Relatives. Sometimes, just want to buy girl, like for wife.”

“They wouldn’t need to smuggle anyone in for that. Seems like half the women in Russia under thirty are registered with some broker. It’s a big business now.”

“Not like for...American wife,” Mama said, venom-voiced. “Not like for...marry. To use. You understand.”

That wasn’t a question.

“And war,” she went on. “In Vietnam. Plenty brothers, sons, fathers...never come home. Not dead, maybe. Nobody know for sure.”

“MIAs?”

“Maybe,” Mama shrugged. “Nobody know for sure,” she said again, as if I’d missed it the first time. “Always rumors. People in the camps, they hear. If you say you know where American soldiers still in Vietnam, then, maybe, people sponsor, bring you here, so you say where soldiers still kept, see?”

“What camps are you talking about, Mama?”

“Always camps,” she said, no expression on her face. “Always fighting. So—always refugees. Cambodia, Laos, Burma. On Thai border, plenty place to hear whispers.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I heard about some of those hustles. I guess, if you had one of your own go MIA, you’d listen to anyone who claimed to have seen him, pay to bring him over.” I thought of Robert Garwood, a Marine who had spent fourteen years in Vietnam. He was either a POW or a collaborator, depending on whose story you bought. The smart money had it that he’d originally been grabbed by the VC, then changed sides while in captivity.

Years after the U.S. pullout, he came back, and the military put him on trial. Found him guilty of collaboration, but not desertion. Maybe because they’d never listed him as a deserter, even after returning POWs reported that he’d gone over.

One of those stories you never know the truth of, I guess. But for those who want to believe that some of the American soldiers listed as MIA are still alive, Garwood’s tales of “live sightings” are precious gospel. To those folks, Garwood couldn’t have been a collaborator; he had to have been a prisoner. Because, if he lied about one thing, then...

“Other societies, too,” Mama said. “Chinese. Not want coolies. Want doctors. Scientists. Computer people. Pay very good money.”

Is she talking about the Taiwan government? “But if they already—”

“No, no. Same deal. Societies never trust snakeheads. Nobody trust snakeheads. Same deal. Must see before payments start. Only payments bigger, see?”

“But why should they pay us?”

“They pay everybody,” Mama said, explaining natural law. “Pay for paper, like green card. Pay lawyers. Pay, how you say, political people. Always pay, what difference? Pay whoever has cargo, okay? Pay snakeheads maybe hundred dollar a week. Forever, pay that. But pay you ten thousand. One time, all done, see? Everybody happy.”

“But even at...How many could the snakeheads possibly bring over at one time?”