In this city, race-hatred so thick you could cut it with a knife. Some tried.
I waited on the abandoned loading dock, playing the tapes again in my head. There's supposed to be a kid inside every adult. When women talk about men being little boys inside, they say it with a loving, indulgent chuckle. Or they sneer. I knew the little boy I'd been— I didn't ever want to see him again.
The car was the color of city dust. It bumped its way onto the concrete apron. The front doors opened and the cops rolled out. McGowan and Morales. NYPD Runaway Squad. They strolled over to where I was waiting, McGowan tall and thick, hat pushed back on his head, cigar in one hand, Irish smile on his mobile face. Morales was a flat-faced thuggish pit bull— more testosterone than brains. If he was a shark, he'd be a hammerhead.
I dropped to the ground, leaned against the loading dock as they approached.
"You okay?" McGowan asked in that honey-laced voice that had charmed little street girls and terrorized pimps for twenty years.
I nodded, watching Morales. We'd gone a few rounds a while back, then touched gloves when it was over. He wouldn't turn on me for no reason, but he'd never need a very good one.
"Is it for real?" I asked.
McGowan puffed on his cigar. "Jeremiah Brownwell was reported missing almost five years ago. He was seven then. With his mother at a shopping mall in Westchester. Just vanished. No ransom demand. Not a trace."
"So it was in the papers?"
"Yeah." Reading my thoughts. "Anyone could've picked it up."
"Was there ever a reward posted?"
"Not that I know of. It was before all this missing children stuff in the media. The kid's parents hired a PI and he put the word around. That's all. The kid's picture was in the paper."
"He won't look like that now. If it's him."
"No."
Morales leaned forward, chest out, forehead thrusting. Like he was getting ready to butt the bridge of my nose into my skull. "What's the deal? What's the motherfucker want?"
"Cash."
"Where d'you come in?"
"He wants me to see if the kid's parents will put up the money. Make a switch."
"What's ours?"
I ignored him. "You speak to the kid's folks?"
McGowan took over. "Yeah. They'd pay. Something. What they have. It's not all that much."
"If it's him…he's not going to be the same kid."
McGowan's face was grim. "I know."
"They still want him?"
"They want what they lost, Burke."
"Nobody ever gets that back."
McGowan didn't say anything after that. Morales' ball-bearing eyes shifted in their fleshy sockets. "The fuck that called you. It's extortion, right?"
"I'm not a lawyer."
"A lawyer's not what that guy needs."
McGowan shot his partner a chill-out look. Like asking a fire hydrant to run the hundred-yard dash.
"They got any sure way to identify the kid?" I asked.
"Pictures, stuff like that. Things only the kid would know. Name of his dog, his first-grade teacher…you know."
"Yeah. The freak…the one who called me…he says he wants ten large."
"They can do that."
"No questions asked?"
"No."
"Win or lose?"
"Yes."
"Let's take a shot."
"That's one thing we can't do," McGowan said, a restraining hand on his partner's forearm. Morales had flunked Probable Cause at the Police Academy— his idea of civil rights was a warning shot.
"I'll give you a call," I said.
9
THE FREAK kept dancing. It took another few days to calm him down. I let him pick the place. A gay bar off Christopher Street. He told me what he'd be wearing, what he looked like. When he'd be there. "Bring the cash," he said. Hard guy.
Vincent's apartment was on West Street. The outside looked like a set from Miami Vice.
Glass brick, blue-enameled steel tubing wrapped around each little terrace. I stood so the video monitor would pick up my face, pressed the buzzer.
Inside it was turn-of-the-century England. Vincent's twin pug dogs yapped at my heels until I sat down on the dark paisley couch. He's a big man, maybe six and a half feet, close to three hundred pounds. Long thick sandy hair combed straight back from a broad face.
"You know nothing about this person?"
"Just what I told you on the phone," I said.
"He thinks he's safe in a gay bar," Vincent said, two fingers pressed against a cheekbone. "Like he's one of us."
"That's the way I figure it."
"What can I do?"
"I need to talk to him. Not in the bar, okay?"
"You want to take him out of there?"
"Yeah."
"He won't want to go?"
I shrugged.
Vincent rubbed his cheekbone again, thinking. "You did me a favor once. I consider you a friend, you know that. But I can't be part of…uh…your reputation is…I'm not saying I personally believe every silly rumor that jumps off the street, but…"
"All I want to do is take him out of there. Without anybody noticing."
"Burke…"
"A little boy disappears. Five years later, a young guy calls me, says he knows where he is. Wants to trade him for cash. Scan it for yourself. What's it say to you?"
He wouldn't play. "It's not important. Those…creatures…they have sex with children and they say such sweet things about it. Fucking a little boy isn't homosexual."
"I know."
"I know you know. Are you saying I owe you? From that business in the Ramble?"
The Ramble is part of Central Park. An outdoor gay bar. One of Vincent's friends got caught there one night by a wolf pack. They left him needing a steel plate in his head. Good citizens, Vincent and his friends went to the cops. The badge-boys found the gang easily enough. Fag-bashers: pitiful freaks, trying to smash what they see in their own mirrors. One got the joint, the rest got probation. Then Vincent came to me. Max went strolling through the Ramble one night. The punks who'd walked out of the courthouse ended up in the same hospital as Vincent's friend. When the cops interviewed them, all they remembered was the pain.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I have to make some phone calls," he said.
10
THE MEETING WAS for ten o'clock. The pay phone in the parking lot off the West Side Highway rang at 9:50. Vincent's voice. "He just went in. Alone."
A smog-colored Mercedes sedan pulled up. Vincent's life-partner was in the front seat. "Please don't smoke in the car," he said. Didn't say another word to me, looking straight through the windshield. Dropped me off in front of the bar.
The freak was in a back booth. Short curly brown hair dropped into ringlets over his forehead. Dressed preppie, older than he was. I pegged him for maybe nineteen. Greenish drink in a slim glass in front of him.
"I'm Burke," I said, sliding into the booth across from him.
"You have the money?"
"Sure."
He dry-washed his hands. Noticed what he was doing. Fired a cigarette with a lighter that looked like a silver pencil. "How can we do this?"
"You give me the kid, I give you the money."
"How do I know…?"
"You called me, pal."
"If I tell you where he is…how do I know I'll get the money?"
I shrugged. "You want to come along when I pick him up?"
"I can't. That's not the deal."
"Is there a pay phone in this joint?"
"I guess so…I'm not sure." He waved his hand. Heavy gold chain on his wrist. Slave bracelet. A waiter came over. Didn't look at me.