Blue Belle Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Technical Assistance

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  Chapter 177

  Acclaim for Andrew Vachss

  About the Author

  Books by Andrew Vachss

  Copyright

  For Abe, who I never met but have always known.

  And for Nathan, who I knew.

  Two pieces of the root.

  Watching me from someplace above the junkyard.

  TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE:

  R. Winslow Dennis

  Dr. Loretta French

  Dr. Richard Pitz

  Jeffi Rochelle Powell

  Larry Smyj

  Dr. Walter Stewart

  Woody Vachss

  Roosevelt 10X Yamamoto

  Anne T. Zaroff.

  1

  SPRING COMES hard down here.

  The switchman was in the lotus position—serenely posed on an army blanket he had neatly folded into quarters before he assembled his tools and took up his post for the day. A black man with glowing bronze skin, hair falling straight and glossy down either side of his head like a helmet, framing a face that was mostly skull.

  He held a thick pad of graph paper open on his lap, carefully filling a page with finely shaded symbols—a covert calligraphy all his own. He didn't bother to hide his work from passing citizens. His half–smile said it all—the simple slugs thought him insane; they could never understand the difference between the messenger and the message.

  A pale–blue quilt covered his shoulders. He placed three identical blue china bowls on the blanket around him. To his right, the bowl sported a generous supply of fine–point felt–tip pens in different colors. The bowl on his left held a heavy Zippo cigarette lighter and some loose cigarettes—various brands. Directly in front was a bowl with some coins, encouraging the passing citizens to make a contribution to his mystical cause.

  He had long tapering fingers, clean and smooth, the nails manicured and covered with clear polish. I got a good look at his hands yesterday when I stopped to look over his shoulder and watch him work. He filled a quarter of the page with symbols, never using the same one twice, working in five separate colors, not acknowledging my presence. I helped myself to one of his cigarettes, lit it with his lighter. He never moved. I tossed some coins into his china bowl and moved on, smoking his cigarette. It tasted like it was about my age.

  I didn't need the polished nails to tell me he was the switchman. The neighborhood is full of halfway houses for discharged mental patients—they disgorge their cargo into the streets each morning, but this guy wasn't part of that herd. He wasn't talking to himself and he hadn't tried to tell me his story. And he didn't look afraid.

  The little piece of winter chill still hanging around in April didn't seem to bother him. He worked the same post every day—starting around eleven in the morning and staying on the job until about three. The switchman had a choice spot, always setting up his shop at the edge of a tiny triangle of dirt on West Broadw
ay, between Reade and Chambers. The slab of dirt had a couple of broken backless benches and a runty tree that had been bonsai'ed by years of attention from pigeons, dogs, squirrels, and winos. An alley without walls. Down in this part of the city, they call it a park.

  At eleven, he would still be in shadow, but the sun would make its move from the East River over to the Hudson past noon, and things would warm up. The switchman never took the quilt from his shoulders.

  His patch of dirt was a border town: Wall Street was expanding its way up from the tip of Manhattan, on a collision course with the loft–dwelling yuppies from SoHo. Every square inch of space was worth something to somebody—and more to somebody else a few months later. The small factories were all being converted into co–ops. Even the river was disappearing as land–greed took builders farther and farther offshore; Battery Park City was spreading its branches into the void left when they tore down the overpass for the West Side Highway. Riverfront joints surrendered to nouvelle–cuisine bistros. The electronics stores that would sell you what you needed to build your own ham radio or tap your neighbor's phone gave way to sushi bars. Antique shops and storefront–sized art galleries shouldered in next to places that would sell you some vitamins or rent you a videotape.

  People have always lived down here. The neighborhood used to be a goddamned art colony—it produced more pottery than the whole Navajo nation. The hippies and the artists thought the winos added just the right touch of realism to their lives. But the new occupants are the kind who get preorgasmic when you whisper "investment banking," and they didn't much care for local color. Locksmiths were riding the crest of a growth industry.

  The Superior Hotel entrance was around the corner on Chambers Street, with rooms extending all along West Broadway. Mine was on the top floor, facing out over the park. Seventy–five bucks a week bought me a swaybacked single bed on an iron frame, a ratty old easy chair worn down to the cotton padding on the arms, and a metal closet standing against the wall. The room was painted in some neutral–colored stuff that was about half disinfectant. A heavy length of vinyl–wrapped chain stood against the wall, anchored at one end to U–bolts driven into the floor. The other end stood open, padlocked to nothing, waiting patiently. I hadn't gone for the optional TV at only two bucks a day.

  Someone who had never lived in one might say the room looked like a prison cell. It didn't come close.

  Almost one in the afternoon. Into my third hour of watching, I shifted position in the chair, scanning the street with the wide–angle binoculars, watching the human traffic flow around the switchman. A young woman strolled by with her boyfriend. Her hair was dyed four different colors, standing up in stiff spikes, stabbing the air every time she moved her head. Her hand was in the back pocket of her boyfriend's jeans. He looked straight ahead, not saying a word. A biker rolled up to a tobacco–colored Mercedes parked at the corner. The car's window slid down and the biker put his head and hands inside. He wasn't there long. The Mercedes and the biker went their separate ways. A young woman about the same age as the one with the spiked hair tapped her business–length heel impatiently on the curb, holding a leather briefcase that doubled as a purse, wearing a pin–striped skirt and jacket over a white blouse with a dark–red bow for a tie. Winos stretched out in the sun, sprawled across the benches—passengers on a cruise ship in permanent drydock. A diesel dyke cruised into view, her arm braced around the neck of a slender, long–haired girl, her bicep flexed to display a bold tattoo. I was too far away to read it, but I knew what it said: hard to the core.

  Still no sign of the target. I had followed him for three weeks straight, charting every step of his lunchtime route. The calligrapher on the blanket had to be the switchman—it was the only stop the target always made. I rotated my head gently on the column of my neck, working out the stiffness, keeping my eyes on the street. Invisible inside the shadows of my room, I lit another cigarette, cupping the wooden match to hide the flare, and went back to waiting. It's what I do best.

  2

  I WAS working in a dead–end hotel, but I'd gotten the job in the back seat of a limousine. The customer was a Wall Street lawyer. He dressed the part to perfection, but he didn't have enough mileage on his clock to make it seem like sitting in a hundred–thousand–dollar taxi was an everyday thing for him.

  "It took quite a while for you to get back to me, Mr. Burke," he said, trying for a tone that would tell me he wasn't a man used to waiting for what he wanted. "I reached out for you yesterday morning."

  I didn't say anything. I'm not in the phone book. You have to have a phone of your own to qualify for that. The lawyer had called one of the pay phones in the back of Mama Wong's restaurant. Mama always answers the same way: "Mr. Burke not here, okay? You leave message, okay?" If the caller says anything else, asks more questions—whatever—Mama just runs through the same cycle. She says it enough times, the caller gets the message: If it's not okay with you, it's too fucking bad.

  The lawyer tried another ice–breaker. "My firm has a problem, Mr. Burke, and I was told you might be the ideal individual to assist us."

  I shrugged my shoulders slightly, telling him to get on with it. He wasn't in a hurry—that's the problem with paying guys by the hour.

  "Is there any particular reason why we had to meet out here?" he wanted to know, gesturing toward the Hudson River with an impatient sweep of his hand. He had a nice watch. Pretty cuff links.

  "Who gave you my number?" I asked, stepping on his question.

  The lawyer swallowed his annoyance, reminding himself he wasn't speaking with an equal. Time to put me in my place. "Do I have to say anything more than 'Mr. C.'?" he asked, smiling.

  "Yes," I said.

  He looked honestly puzzled. Since he was a lawyer, only part of that could be accurate. "I thought that would be enough. I was given to understand that a recommendation from Mr. C. would be all that you would require."

  "Give the understanding back, pal. And tell me who gave you my number."

  "I told you."

  "You saying Mr. C. spoke to you?" I asked him, watching his face.

  "The number came from him," he said, answering questions the way a lawyer does.

  "Have a nice day," I said, reaching behind me for the door handle.

  "Wait a minute!" he snapped, putting his hand on my sleeve.

  "You don't want to do that," I told him.

  He jerked his hand away, sliding into his speech. "I can explain whatever is necessary, Mr. Burke. Please don't be impatient." He shifted position on the soft gray leather seat, pushed a button, and watched proudly as the padded wall between us and the driver opened to reveal a well–stocked bar. "Can I get you a drink?"

  "No," I told him, taking a single cigarette from my jacket. I put it in my mouth, reached the same hand back inside for a match. I kept the other hand in my pocket, where it had been since I climbed in the limo. The gesture was wasted on him.

  "Would you mind opening the window if you're going to smoke?… I'm allergic."

  I pushed the switch and the window whispered down, letting in the traffic noise from the West Side Highway. We were parked in the pocket between Vestry Street and where the highway forks near 14th. Cars went by, but not people. The limo had picked me up on Wall Street; I told the lawyer where I wanted to go, and he told the driver.

  I lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, watching the lawyer.

  "Those things will kill you," he said. A concerned citizen.

  "No, they won't," I promised.

  He shrugged, using the gesture to say that some people are beyond educating. He was right, but not about me. He tried one more time. "Mr. C. is a client of our firm. In the course of discussing…uh…other matters, he indicated that you might be better suited to our immediate purposes than a more…traditional private investigator." He glanced at my face, waiting for a reaction. When he realized he'd have a long time to wait, he shifted gears and rolled ahead. "Mr. C. gave us certain…uh…assurances concerning your
sense of discretion, Mr. Burke." His tone of voice made it into a question.

  I drew on my cigarette. The breeze from the open window at my back pushed the smoke toward his allergic face.

  The lawyer slid a leather portfolio onto his lap, deftly opened it into a mini–desk, tapped a yellow legal pad with the tip of a gold ballpoint to get my attention. "Why don't I write a figure down, Mr. Burke. You take a quick look, tell me if you're interested." Without waiting for an answer, he slowly wrote "10,000" in large numbers. Reverently, like he was engraving a stone tablet. He raised his eyebrows in another question.

  "For what?" I asked him.

  "Our firm has a.…uh…confidentiality problem, Mr. Burke. We occupy a rather unique position, interfacing, as we say, between the business, financial, and legal arenas. Necessarily, information crosses our desk, so to speak. Information that has a short but exceedingly valuable life. Are you following me?"

  I nodded, but the lawyer wasn't going to take my word for it. "You're certain?"

  "Yeah," I replied, bored with this. Yuppies didn't invent insider trading—information is always worth something to somebody. I was scamming along the tightrope between prison and the emergency ward while this guy was still kissing ass to get into law school.

  The lawyer stroked his chin. Another gesture. Telling me he was making a decision. The decision never had been his to make, and we both knew it.

  "Somebody in our firm has been…profiting from information. Information that has come to us in our fiduciary capacity. Are you following me?"

  I just nodded, waiting.

  "We know who this person is. And we've retained the very best professionals to look into the matter for us. Specialists in industrial espionage. People who are capable of checking things we wouldn't want to use a subpoena for. Still with me?"

  "Sure."

  "We know who it is, like I said. But we have been unable to establish a case against him. We don't know how he moves the information. And we don't know to whom he passes it."

  "You checked his bank accounts, opened his mail, tapped his phones…all that, right?"

  Now it was the lawyer's turn to nod, moving his head a reluctant two inches.

  "Telegrams, visitors to the office, carrier pigeons…?"

  He nodded again, unsmiling.

  "How much time would he have between getting the information and making use of it?"

  "Ah, you do understand, Mr. Burke. That's exactly the problem. We deal with extremely sensitive issues. Nothing on paper. In a normal insider–trading situation, a profiteer would have a minimum of several days to make his move. But in our situation, he would have to act within a few hours—no longer than close of business on the same day the information comes in."