Andrew Vachss - The Weight

ALSO BY ANDREW VACHSS

THE BURKE SERIES

Flood
Strega
Blue Belle
Hard Candy
Blossom
Sacrifice
Down in the Zero
Footsteps of the Hawk
False Allegations
Safe House
Choice of Evil
Dead and Gone
Pain Management
Only Child
Down Here
Mask Market
Terminal
Another Life

OTHER NOVELS

Shella
The Getaway Man
Two Trains Running
Haiku

SHORT-STORY COLLECTIONS

Born Bad
Everybody Pays

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Andrew Vachss

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vachss, Andrew H.
The weight / Andrew Vachss.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37975-7
1. Professional thievesUnited StatesFiction. 2. Criminals United StatesFiction. I. Title.
PS3572.A33W45 2010
813.54dc22 2009050945

www.pantheonbooks.com

v3.1

Mom:

I know you couldnt wait any longer to be with Dad, but dont fretIll be with you both soon enough.

Ive got a few things to take care of first.

Yeah, I know I always did.

And you know I always will.

Whatever it was the cops had snatched me up for, they had to believe I was good for it. But not all that good. Otherwise, why go tag-team on me?

One of the cops on the second shift was an older guy. He looked the way some people say all cops used to: tall, big hands, straw-colored hair. Back then, theyd say, cops would catch a kid doing something wrong, theyd kick him in the ass, send him home, and go back to walking their beat. They never paid for a meal, but nobody thought that was graft. Some might even take money from bookies or whorehouses. But never from a dope dealer.

Maybe cops were really like that once. I dont know; I wasnt around then. I only know how they are now.

Ill say this for the older cop: He dressed like a guy who lived on his paycheck. And he wasnt there to dance. He walked in with his partner, sat down, and threw his Sunday punch: This one just doesnt look like your line of work, Sugar.

That told me he was sharp enough to do more than just check me for priors. Not by calling me Sugar. The first pair, theyd called me that, too. Sliding it out of their mouths like they knew something dirty about me. This cop, he just said it like it was my name.

The first two cops, I think all they did was scan my record for a Registered Sex Offender ticket. When they didnt see one, they were out of gas; its the only card they know how to play.

The older cop shook his head, like he was confused about what theyd arrested me for.

I got to say, I dont like you for this one at all.

Then what am I here for? I asked him.

He made his eyes go sad, showing he was disappointed in me. It was a good trick. A guy whos been around as long as him, he probably knew a lot of them.

Wed already been sitting in the interrogation room for a couple of hours when he did that. Maybe it was part of his act, I dont know. But it was as clear as if somebody wrote the rules on the wall for us all to see: As long as I didnt say the magic words, we were going to play it like men. No disrespect, not in either direction.

Those magic words could only come out of my mouth. Door Number One: I want a lawyer. Door Number Two: Yeah, you got me.

I tell them I want a lawyer, theyd give me a look like Id just screwed myself, cuff me back up, and have one of the bluecoats walk me into a holding cell.

But if I started talking, theyd hold off until they squeezed as much juice out of the lemon as they could. Say I told them I wanted a deal. Theyd tell me that I could get damn near whatever I wanted depending on what I had to trade.

The way they were working me, walking so soft, that was just to stop me from asking for a lawyer. Good copsI dont mean like they were good guys, just good at their jobthey think the same way we do. They know if you get all impatient you can mess everything up.

So they stayed decent and respectful, like I said. Not kissing my ass or anything; making it just three men, talking. The way theyd figure it, so long as they could keep me talking, talking about anything, there was always the chance Id take Door Number Two. Or stumble through it.

They had to know it was a-thousand-to-one against them getting me to confess. And I knew it was even worse odds against me convincing them theyd grabbed the wrong guy.

A weak hand, sure. Who hits a gutshot straight-flush draw? But I wasnt drawing dead, not yet.

We each had our reasons for staying with it. They had all the time in the world. And thats how much time I was looking at.

So I had to stay to see the last card drop. Because, no matter what those sex-crimes clowns had told me, I knew this couldnt really be about a rape.

The rape they kept asking me about, it must have been a bad one. For the cops, the worst one would be if it happened to some kind of famous person. I hadnt seen a paper for days, but I knew theyd been sitting on my place, waiting for me to come back. At least six of them, round the clock. Thats a lot of cops.

I didnt know how long theyd been waiting, but they couldnt have started until after I left, and that was only a few days ago.

Sending the sex-crimes cops in first, that didnt mean anythingit could just be a hype to get me to take my eye off the ball. Misdirection, like three-card monte. They pull you in for something big, get you so scared of that charge that you drop your guard and give up something about whatever theyre really after you for.

I knew they hadnt bagged any of the others. If they had, theyd drop their names, so Id know they werent just blowing smoke. Then theyd have their magic words. Door One: one of the other guys had turned canary, put all the weight on me, trying to cut himself a deal. Door Two: here was my chance to help myself before it was too late.

Only the second pair of cops would try a move like that. The first two, the sex-crimes boys, they mostly made speeches. Or asked me stupid questions, like a TV camera was filming them. Big guy like me, all those muscleswhat happened? Id been on steroids so long I couldnt get it up, and shed laughed at me? I hadnt meant to hurt her, just slap her around a little, maybe? Come on, isnt that how it went down?

I yawned in their faces.

Got nothing to say now, huh? one of them had said. Like hed just nailed me to the cross.

I wanted to ask him if that pathetic crap ever worked. What kind of chumps show you their hand first and then try to bluff you off a better one?

But I didnt say anything. Im a professional, not a punk with a pistol. Youll never see my picture on a security camera sticking up a bodega. Or jacking some guy in a suit while hes standing at an ATM.