Only Child (4 page)

• • •

I
never asked the Prof or the Mole what the stuff they'd set up for me cost, any more than I would ask Max if I owed him rent. I'd left everything behind when I disappeared. I didn't know what they'd sold, what they'd destroyed, and what was still around. But I knew how to find out.

• • •

"W
here do I stand?" I asked Mama.
"With who, stand?"
"With money, Mama."
"Oh. Plenty money here for you."
"Mama, a straight answer, okay? You're the bank, not the Welfare Department. I'm not coming around and asking for money that's not mine. Just tell me what's left, in cash, after everything."
"Why so important?"
"I have to know when I need to go back to work."
She regarded me balefully for a solid minute. Then she said, "Soon," her face as smooth and hard as glazed ceramic.

• • •

I
t took another couple of hours to pry the balance sheet out of her. I was down to about sixty grand. I took ten to walk around with, asked Mama to dispose of the Subaru for whatever she could get for it, and went looking for work.

• • •

Y
ou can't do the kind of work I do without a lot of preparation. There's all kinds of people who steal, from the stupid slugs who think 7-Elevens turn into ATMs after midnight to the slicksters who can buy themselves a presidential pardon when things get dicey. Me, I've got my own ways. And my own flock to fleece.
I never target citizens. They're easy, but they squawk. Before the damn Internet, I had a lovely business built up, regularly selling everything from nonexistent kiddie porn to mercenary "credentials." The horde of humans who bought from me couldn't go to the Better Business Bureau when their merchandise never arrived in the mail.
I also dealt in hard goods, middle-manning low-level arms deals, usually suctioning a little from both sides in the process. But with the breakup of the Soviet Union, there was too much ordnance floating around. By the time I left, even the congenital defectives who commanded five-moron militias were demanding surface-to-air missiles.
I gave it a lot of thought, remembering the formula I memorized during my first bit Inside— the less time you spend on planning, the more time you should plan on doing.
When I first went down, a common scam was for a prisoner to get hold of one of the lonely-hearts magazines and write to a whole list of dopes. Admitting "she'd" been a bad girl, but now all she wanted was a good man. Between the losers with handjob habits who asked for letters about lesbian sex behind bars, and the deep-dish dimwits who sent money for the "correspondence courses" their little darlings needed to take to please the parole board, you could make a nice living.
It got so bad that suckers were showing up at the gates, demanding a visit with their soon-to-be-released sweethearts. That's when they would discover that the "D. Jones #C-77-448109" they'd been sending money orders to was in there all right . . . but the first name was Demetrius, not Darlene.
Eventually, the authorities got wise. Now they stamp outgoing envelopes with bold notices that the letters inside are from a "Correctional Institution for Men."
Every move has a counter, and it's never been real difficult to defeat the great minds who cage humans for a living. The letters started going out to the marks from an outside PO box. Little Darlene's in solitary, and she can't get mail "direct" anymore. But, don't worry, Darlene's sister (who's also real cute, but only sixteen, so she shouldn't be getting too involved with a grown
man
and all) can handle the forwarding. Fortunately, her name's Désirée, so "D. Jones" would work just as well on the money orders.
And then there's the poor tormented transsexual, who describes her absolute horror at being locked up in a
men's
prison. She has to stay in close confinement twenty-four/seven, or she'd be set upon instantly by rabid packs of rapists. All she has to sustain herself are the chump's love letters, the money he sends for things like shampoo—
so
expensive in a men's prison, you know— and the knowledge that, the minute she's paroled, she could finish the sex-change surgery she'd already started before she'd been arrested (which is why she already had such nice big breasts). And they'd live happily ever after.
But that scam plays different today. Now it's a beautiful teenager prowling the chat rooms, crying out in her desperate need to get away from her horrible home life . . . until a "connection" is made and her shined-on knight sends her the money for a bus ticket. And some decent clothes, maybe some luggage . . . you know.
It'll be a long wait at
that
depot.
But I don't like working in public. And, anyway, that ground's already been strip-mined down to the bare rock.
As long as there's contraband, there's money to be made. Sometimes, you traffic in things— like no-tax Southern cigarettes or no-questions-asked shipments of computer chips. Sometimes, the product's a lot less tangible. Like jail-phone relay systems. No matter what the level of security a prisoner's held in, he'll have the right to call
somebody,
even if it's only his lawyer, and only collect. With three-way calling, it's no trick to put a gangster in direct touch with the people waiting for his orders. The guards can open mail, but there's way too much volume for them to monitor all the outgoing calls. More gangland hits get ordered from jail now than from outside. All you need is a live person to play switchman, and decent timing.
A nice hustle . . . but not for me. Too close to home.
Drugs have ruined the game for a lot of us good thieves. Dope fiends are the illegal immigrants of crime— a cheap, undocumented labor force that will take any job, even the dangerous ones, for garbage money. Years ago, we'd hijacked a load of H and tried to sell it back to the mob. But when I mentioned that caper to the Prof this time, he sneered it away.
"Not much chance of finding a decent-sized shipment you could take off with anything less than an army, not today. And when it gets down to the street dealers we
could
jack, it's not worth it. You can't deal with these punks. The drug boys, all they know is rock and Glock, honeyboy. You steal from a professional, he knows he's got to buy his stuff back— cost of doing business. These boys out there now, they're all mad violent. They'd load up their nines and come looking to hose you down, give you a kiss for the diss, see?"
I did. And started making new lists.

• • •

W
hat I found out was . . . I'd been away too long. I sniffed around the edges where I used to do work. Sent word through third parties to people who dealt in stuff I used to move, checked the usual drops. . . .
But no matter where I looked, the arteries were all clogged with amateurs.
There's no new crimes, only new criminals. And I didn't know any of them.
Oh, sure, there were little jobs I could pull. Minor stings where I wouldn't need an active crew, just a little help with front. Low-risk, low-return.
That's all I wanted to do, once. Live small. Stay off the radar. I could never be a citizen, but I didn't want to be a convict again, either.
Thing is, only citizens have 401(k)s. When I was coming up, I'd always hear the crime guys I admired talking about the "retirement score." That one big job they could live off forever.
When you're young, that kind of thing's just another convict fantasy. One of the Big Three— money, sex, and revenge.
When you've put on some mileage, when you've been some places and done some things, you realize that the Big Three is down to One. Money. That key works all of the locks.
And by the time you get old enough, close enough to that time when any trip back Inside amounts to a life sentence, you know what "blood money"
really
means. This is an ugly country to be poor in. Worse if you're sick. And if you're old, you can ratchet that up a few notches more.
I knew all that. I was schooled by the best. I'd been putting money aside from every score almost since I started. But when I had to disappear, most of it got eaten up during the hunt. And I didn't have another twenty years to rebuild my stake.
When I was a young man, rep was all a lot of us had. Heart. We tattooed it on our souls, a prayer never to be forgotten. Paying with our lives for the sacramental wine poured into an "X" on callous City concrete by those who had watched us go. Whenever his brothers pooled their cash for a bottle of T-bird, the man who had proved his heart in battle always got the first taste.
I'd lost that need for a two-minute tombstone a long time ago. The reason I'd rather go out quick than rot to death on Welfare hasn't got anything to do with pride. Some pain is easier to manage, that's all.

• • •

T
his isn't Willie Sutton's world anymore. Banks aren't where the money is— at least, not money you can get at in a quick-hit robbery. Casinos and racetracks have tons of untraceable cash. But there's no way to
ease
it out, and it would take a military assault to take it by force. Kidnappings always come unglued at the exchange. Blackmail's hit-or-miss; mostly miss. Jewelry's easier, but it has to pass through too many hands before it turns into cash, and each one cuts a slice off the loaf.
The whisper-stream is always vibrating with rumors of open contracts. A Central American druglord is offering millions for any crew that can break him out of a federal pen. A collector is offering more than that for a certain painting under museum guard. Some shadowy zillionaire has a huge bounty out on whoever the hate-flavor of the moment is.
There's always enough shreds of truth clinging to stories like that to make some retardate act on faith. Ask James Earl Ray.
The surest proof that Ray acted alone is that nobody ever ratted him out. Ask the church bombers. Or McVeigh.
But I wouldn't go there. I've been to that school. Paid what the tuition cost.
So I knew who to ask.

• • •

"S
nakeheads," Mama said.
"Is there really that much in it?" I asked her.
"Always money. Just not . . ." she said, snapping her fingers to say "immediately."
"I don't understand."
"Snakeheads like farmer with cows, okay? Cow
meat
worth not much; cow
milk,
very good. Get all over again, every day, understand?"
"The people they bring over, they pay off their debts by working? Takes a long time, but the money keeps coming in . . . ?"
"Yes. Small payment, each week. But
many
make payment, so plenty money, see?"
"Sure. But where do we come in?"
"To snakeheads, people . . . cargo, okay?"
"But it isn't cargo you can hijack, Mama. What could we do with—?"
"Plenty . . . what you call 'societies,' here. In America. They, how you say,
sponsor
people."
"Pay their way over?"
"Yes. Like ticket."
"Why?"
"Many reasons. Some good, some not so good."
If you're ever fool enough to let Mama know anything she says isn't crystal-clear, she gets offended. It's okay if you don't get it, so long as it's not her fault.
Only silence works. So I just ate a little more of my fried rice with roast pork and scallions. The minute Mama's satisfied you don't want an explanation, she always explains.
"Sometimes, family, okay? Relatives. Sometimes, just want to buy girl, like for wife."
"They wouldn't need to smuggle anyone in for that. Seems like half the women in Russia under thirty are registered with some broker. It's a big business now."
"Not like for . . . American wife," Mama said, venom-voiced. "Not like for . . . marry. To use. You understand."
That wasn't a question.
"And war," she went on. "In Vietnam. Plenty brothers, sons, fathers . . . never come home. Not dead, maybe. Nobody know for sure."
"MIAs?"
"Maybe," Mama shrugged. "Nobody know for sure," she said again, as if I'd missed it the first time. "Always rumors. People in the camps, they hear. If you say you know where American soldiers still in Vietnam, then, maybe, people
sponsor,
bring you here, so you say where soldiers still kept, see?"
"What camps are you talking about, Mama?"
"Always camps," she said, no expression on her face. "Always fighting. So— always refugees. Cambodia, Laos, Burma. On Thai border, plenty place to hear whispers."
"Yeah," I agreed. "I heard about some of those hustles. I guess, if you had one of your own go MIA, you'd listen to anyone who claimed to have seen him, pay to bring him over." I thought of Robert Garwood, a Marine who had spent fourteen years in Vietnam. He was either a POW or a collaborator, depending on whose story you bought. The smart money had it that he'd originally been grabbed by the VC, then changed sides while in captivity.
Years after the U.S. pullout, he came back, and the military put him on trial. Found him guilty of collaboration, but not desertion. Maybe because they'd never listed him as a deserter, even after returning POWs reported that he'd gone over.
One of those stories you never know the truth of, I guess. But for those who want to believe that some of the American soldiers listed as MIA are still alive, Garwood's tales of "live sightings" are precious gospel. To those folks, Garwood
couldn't
have been a collaborator; he
had
to have been a prisoner. Because, if he lied about one thing, then . . .
"Other societies, too," Mama said. "Chinese. Not want coolies. Want doctors. Scientists. Computer people. Pay very good money."
Is she talking about the Taiwan government?
"But if they already—"
"No, no. Same deal. Societies never trust snakeheads. Nobody trust snakeheads. Same deal. Must
see
before payments start. Only payments
bigger,
see?"
"But why should they pay us?"
"They pay
everybody,
" Mama said, explaining natural law. "Pay for paper, like green card. Pay lawyers. Pay, how you say, political people. Always pay, what difference? Pay
whoever
has cargo, okay? Pay snakeheads maybe hundred dollar a week. Forever, pay that. But pay
you
ten thousand. One time, all done, see? Everybody happy."
"But even at . . . How many could the snakeheads possibly bring over at one time?"
"Two, three hundred."
"In one boat?"
"Sure. Not nice, but . . ."
"It might be nice for us," I finished.