I lit another smoke.
"I want her back. She's mine, not theirs. She's too young for this. She needs help. Maybe even a hospital. She…"
I cut her off. "What do you want from me?"
She tilted her chin to look up at me. "Get her out of there. Get her back."
"I don't do that stuff."
"Yes you do. You do it all the time. It's what you do. What you used to do before…"
I looked a question at her.
She pointed a finger at me, crooked her thumb. "Bang bang," she said softly.
I shook my head.
"All you have to do is ask, okay? Just go there. See the man. Ask him to let Elvira go with you."
"And if he says no?"
"Then I'll do something else."
"Do something else first."
"No! I want to keep my life. Just the way it is, okay? Just ask him."
"Why should he go along?"
"It doesn't matter. He will. I know he will."
I got off the couch, walked over to the window. It was dark outside, lights spotting the building across the street. Nothing was right about her.
"Say the whole thing," I told her.
"You go there. You ask him for Elvira. He gives her up. You bring her to me."
"He says no?"
"You walk away."
"No more?"
"No more."
"What kind of cult is this? They have the girls hooking, begging, selling flowers, what?"
"I don't know."
"How do you spell this guy's name? Train."
"Like a subway train.
I lit another smoke. "You said you'd pay me."
"I said I'd give you whatever you want."
"Money's what I want."
"Tell me the price. I'll have it here for you when you get back."
I smiled.
She didn't. "Half now, half when you come back."
"Five now."
She padded out of the room on her bare feet. I punched the redial number on the white phone, memorized the number that came up on the screen, hung it up gently before it could ring at the other end.
Candy came back in, handed me a thick wad of bills wrapped in a rubber band. I put it in my coat pocket.
"Here's all I know about him," she started, curling up on the couch again.
I DID IT RIGHT. Habits die hard. Like the woman I loved. The building was an old meat-packing plant in the shadow of the triangle formed by Atlantic and Flatbush, on the edge of the gentrification blot spreading east from Boerum Hill. A nonprofit corporation owned it. Four stories. The ground floor was a loading bay for trucks. The front-facing windows were new, vinyl-trimmed. The sides were flat-faced brick. The back windows were covered with iron bars. Front door was steel, set a few inches into the frame. The City Planning Office had the records. The place had been gut-renovated four years ago. The top floor had a domed skylight.
Traffic was light in and out. Most of the visitors were young. White. Empty-handed.
I went to see a guy I know. An ex-cop who doesn't pretend he's honest. For three hundred bucks, he told me the place had six separate phone numbers and two pay phones.
"You want the numbers, the toll calls?"
"How much?"
"A grand gets you the numbers, and one month's bill for each number."
"I'll let you know."
Four cars registered to the corporation. Two vans, a station wagon, and a Mercedes sedan.
Five hundred bought me an IRS scan. The corporation called itself Mission 999. It declared almost three hundred grand last year in contributions, none larger than a couple of thousand. The guy I paid told me that it had never been audited.
I had a picture of Elvira. Pretty little brunette in a school uniform. Looked about thirteen. Smiling a school-picture smile.
It made me think of something. Something that wouldn't come to the surface.
41
I TOLD MAX about the deal. Sitting in my booth in the back of Mama's restaurant, I drew a picture of the house. Max kept tapping the paper, not satisfied until I drew in every detail I could remember. He curled his fingers into a tube, held it to one eye, flicked a finger across the opening at the end. I shook my head- I didn't need photographs of the place. When I was finished, I handed the drawing to Max. He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, let the smoke bubble slowly out his nose as he concentrated.
He ground out his cigarette. Reached down, gestured like he was pulling a plant out by the roots. I shook my head again. We weren't going to snatch the kid. I took him through the whole bit again. And again. Finally he nodded.
42
THE NEXT morning we parked a couple of blocks from the building. Walked the rest of the way. Calm and quiet. I knocked on the steel door. Waited. Max stood next to me, just off my shoulder, centered inside himself, ready.
A young guy just past his teens opened the door. Wearing a blinding white karate gi, black belt loosely tied at his waist, black headband.
"Can I help you?"
"I want to talk to Train.
"Your name?"
"Burke."
"Wait here, please." He closed the door gently. No sound reached us from inside.
It wasn't a long wait. "Please come with me," he said.
The door opened into a long, narrow room. Kitchen sounds to one side. Young people moving around, serene looks, quiet smiles. "This way," he said, turning toward a staircase.
We followed him to the second floor. Sounds of a postage meter, telephones chiming. More people moving around. Nobody gave us a glance.
Another flight. Quiet. All the doors closed. The guy in the karate outfit never looked back.
He opened a door at the top of the last flight. Stood aside, sweeping a hand to show us in. A room the size of a basketball court. Wide-board pine floor, scrubbed so hard it was almost white. The walls were eggshell, the single row of windows blocked by thin aluminum blinds, slanted to make horizontal bars across the floor. The skylight threw an oblong slash of bright light into the center. A teardrop-shaped blob of concrete was placed at the center of the light. The guide led us to it. The center was hollowed out, red and white pillows arranged in the core to form a chair.
"Please wait," he said. He walked across the room, tapped on a door at the far end, came back, and stood next to us. A rainbow formed an arc over the concrete chair. I flicked my eyes to the skylight, catching a glimpse of a long arc-shaped prism suspended by a thread from the ceiling.
The far door opened. A man came through at the head of a wedge, three men on each side of him. Medium height, dark hair. Barefoot, loose faded cotton pants. He was bare-chested under a flowing white silk robe.
"I am Train," he said to me, ignoring Max.
"Burke."
"Get chairs for our guests," he said to nobody in particular. He sat down, one man on each side of his chair. The other four came back carrying one of the concrete blobs between them. I saw where hand-holds had been cut into the sides. They put the chair down. Went back and returned with another. Nobody spoke. The four men came back, each carrying two black pillows. They arranged the pillows in the hollow of the chairs. I took the chair closest to the windows. Max swept the room with his eyes, sat down next to me. One of the men put a metal bowl between our chairs. The four chair-carriers walked out. Train spoke to me from between his two remaining guards- their eyes tracked me. Nothing serene in them.
"You wanted to speak with me?" His voice was mellow-calm, almost polite.
I reached into my coat, watching his eyes. They stayed calm. I took out a smoke, fired it up, dropped the match into the metal bowl.