Flood

“There is a man named Goldor”-the room went dead quiet so suddenly that my voice sounded like it was echoing-“that I need to speak with. He knows something I need to know. I understand that he is a person with whom you have a dispute. He is not the target of my inquiries, but he is not my friend and I would not protect him. I come here for two reasons. First, I must talk to him and I do not want you to believe that this talk means we are doing business-I would not do business with someone you dislike. Second, if you dislike him you must have good reason. If you have good reason, you have good information-and if you have good information, you can perhaps assist me in getting an audience with him. That’s all.”

No one spoke, but the tension level had tripled since I said Goldor’s name. It stayed quiet until Pablo spoke again. “How do you know we dislike Goldor?”

“This is something I heard from a good source.”

“A source you trust?”

“As to reliability of information, yes. That is all.”

“So your source is in law enforcement?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been told if Goldor has any protection?”

“I have been told that he does not take street rumors seriously, and that he does not believe himself to be in any danger.”

Pablo smiled. “Good. Do your inquiries about Goldor involve a woman?” Nothing showed in my face, but it felt like a punch to the heart-did that goddamned Flood ever stop making trouble? “In some ways, yes,” I told him, “but I am not looking for a woman. I am looking for a man, and Goldor may know where he is.”

“This man is a friend of Goldor?”

“Possibly. It is also possible that he may be an enemy.”

“An informant, then?”

“He may be.”

“If you find this man, will it help Goldor?”

“No.”

“Will it hurt him?”

“Most likely not.”

Pablo paused for a moment, looking at me. Then he got up from the table, disappeared back into the shadows- they blended around him until I was alone in a pool of light. I couldn’t make out a single word of what they said this time, but it didn’t sound like an argument. After few minutes Pablo came back to the table and the shadows followed him again. “For me to tell you what we know about Goldor it is necessary to tell you some other things, some things that otherwise you would not know. But first I tell you this, and I tell you out of friendship only. Goldor is dead. His body is still moving above the ground but his death is certain. If you go and speak with him it may be that later el porko will want to speak with you, understand? You must be able to say another reason to have spoken with him. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

Pablo took another deep breath, reached over and took the cigarette from my hand, put it to his lips, took a deep drag. “Goldor is not a human being. You have no word for him in English, nor do we in Spanish. The closest we could come is gusaniento, you comprende?”

“Like rotten-full of maggots?”

“Something like that, yes. He is the head of an industry which sells the bodies of human beings for the pleasure of others. But not like a whoremaster or a common pimp. No, Goldor is special-he sells children in bondage. If you buy a boy or a girl from Goldor’s people, that child is yours to keep-to torture, to kill, whatever you want. Goldor is above the street. He is like a broker of degeneracy-you tell him what you want and he finds it and delivers it to you. Goldor is not human, as I told you. He is a demon, a thing who worships el dolor, the pain of others. He believes in pain, my friend. Where he finds women who share his beliefs we do not know, but we do know that many of his victims are volunteers. The police know of him but he cannot be touched. To the authorities, his hands are not dirty.”

“He’s not alone in this.”

“Compadre, you come right to the point. Why would we want to deal with such a man when there are so many others like him? I will tell you. On the Lower East Side you know we have a community. It is a bad place to live but survival is possible-you know about survival. We have many operations down there, as we do in the Bronx. We hear many stories about young Puerto Rican boys who just disappear, but with no complaints to the police. So we look for ourselves. We see that some of those boys are in foster care-but not foster care like with the city. Some kind of informal arrangement, we are told. Some of the mothers believe that their children will have a better way of life, more opportunities-at least they say so to us. But some-and we know this for certain-they have just sold their children. We look, we ask questions, we spend some money until we are sure. It is Goldor doing this. Not personally, but it is him.

“We have a meeting about what is to be done-by then we know much about this Goldor. One of our people, a brave jibaro not too long in this country, she volunteers to get with Goldor to learn the whereabouts of the children he has taken. Her name was Luz; we all called her Lucecita, which means Little Light. Lucecita was not a child, Burke. She knew that she would have to have sex with the demon, but it was a price she was willing to pay. We are a disciplined people, not like the newspapers think. Her man is sitting right in this room. He fought with her in front of all of us. He wanted to kill Goldor, not to send Luz to him. But we as a group decided that killing him would not find the children-it would not kill the thing he does. Lucecita got a job in a restaurant where Goldor eats, and it was arranged that they would meet. She was invited to his home, and she went. We never heard from her again.”

“Did you-?”

“Wait, Burke. Please. The next day Goldor left on a plane for California. We have people there, he was followed. Some of us went to his house in Westchester but we found no sign of Luz. We thought she perhaps had been taken for sale too, but we knew he only sold children-so we assumed she was dead. Then our people in California told us that some of Goldor’s people were dealing in films-videotapes. Sex films, torture films. We arranged to buy all of the films, one of each, and they were sent here. When we viewed the films we were looking for clues to where they might have been made, thinking we might find a way to locate Lucecita. We found the answers and we swore by our blood that Goldor would die. There are some things one cannot say in any language. Some things you must see yourself.”

Pablo gestured to the shadows to bring the videotape monitor close to the table. I heard the sounds of a cassette being inserted, heard a switch flip, and the screen began to flicker. The overhead light went out. Sitting in the darkness, I saw:

A starkly lit room, all in black and white, with a shot of a longhaired woman seated on a straight chair in the center. The camera zoomed in and I saw the woman was held to the chair with a thick band around the waist and two more thinner ones crossing over her exposed breasts like bandoliers. She was naked except for a dark ribbon tied around her neck. The woman was saying something-biting off the words. There was no sound except for the hum of the machine and a slight tape hiss.

Suddenly she lunged forward, but the chair didn’t move. The camera panned down to the chair legs and you could see they were bolted to the floor, held down by metal brackets.

A man entered the frame, wearing a black executioner’s mask that extended down almost to his chest. He had a dog’s collar in one hand and a short three-lash whip in the other. The woman’s hands were free, and the man extended the dog collar to her. She spat on the extended hand, and the whip cut down across her exposed thighs. The woman leaped in the chair, bucking against her bonds, her soundless mouth wrenched open in pain.

The man approached again, holding out the dog collar. The woman flashed out her nails at him but he was too quick. He put down the collar and the whip and came closer, almost within striking distance. He was talking to her, using his hands in a be-reasonable gesture. The woman appeared to calm down, her eyes dropped to her waist.

The man came back to her with the dog collar. She shook her head no. He put it on the floor, shaking his head, then picked up the whip and came to her again. Another slash across her thighs, again she bucked and silently screamed. He tossed the whip aside and walked away from her, turning his back.

The screen flickered and I wondered if parts had been edited out. Then I saw the man close in on the woman