Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 121, No. 2. Whole No. 738, February 2003

In October of 2002, Knopf published Only Child, the latest in the series of Burke novels by Andrew Vachss. The author, who has been called “a contemporary master” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has also recently penned a nonseries thriller that will be released as a Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original in February, 2003. Entitled The Getaway Man, the novel pays tribute to the origins of the hardboiled genre.

1.

Just because you live someplace, that doesn’t mean you understand how it works. The city where I came up is a perfect example. Everybody who lives there talks like they know all about it, but they never will. If you want to figure out how the city really works, you have to get far away from it. When you’re down too deep in it, all you can see is your own little piece.

I know what I’m saying. I’ve been away for a long time now. There isn’t much to do here, once you figure out how to stay alive. So I’ve been studying the city, getting ready for when I come back.

What I finally figured out was that there isn’t just the one city, like people think. I mean, everybody knows there’s different parts of the city, like Queens and Brooklyn. And there’s parts inside the parts, like Harlem and Greenwich Village. But the city is cut up a lot smaller than even that.

2.

When I was a kid, the city was split up into little tiny pieces, all the way right down to the blocks. Our territory was three streets, plus a vacant lot, where they had torn down some buildings. Anytime you left your territory, no matter where you went, you were an outsider.

Mostly, we got around by subway. You might think, nobody owns the subway, but you would be wrong. The subway, it’s just like the city itself. It’s a great big huge thing; but the minute you put people into it, it starts getting cut up into pieces.

Like, if you got on a subway car, and it was full of boys from another club, it was their car. And if you had enough boys get on with you, you could maybe make it your car.

Other people riding the subway, they would watch this happen right in front of them, and not pay it any mind. When I was a kid, I thought that was because they didn’t understand what they were seeing. Now I know different. They knew. But to them, the subway was like a bad neighborhood they had to go through every day to get to work. They would never want to live in a neighborhood like that, so they never wanted a piece of it for themselves, that’s all.

But the block, that wasn’t like the subway. The block was permanent. You were there every day. When outsiders came into your block, you had to make them pay tolls. Because if people could go through your territory without paying, it was like it wasn’t yours at all.

The City — that’s the government, not the territory — it owns the subway, so everyone who rides has to pay. But if you were riding with some of your boys, and a kid got on alone, you could collect, too. Charge a toll, because that was your piece he was standing on, then.

It was the same on our block. We didn’t own the buildings — nobody around there did. Even the men who came to collect the rents, they lived somewhere else. The City owned the streets, just like it owned the subway. But the City wasn’t around all the time, and we were.

3.

It was that rule, about paying the tolls, that got me sent away. The vacant lot was between two territories, ours and the Renegades’. We both used it, for different stuff, but neither of us claimed it. If a coolie — a kid who wasn’t with a club, or what they would call an off-brand today — went through the lot, any club that was there could take the tolls from him.

We had little clashes with the Renegades about the lot, but it was mostly just selling wolf tickets, loudmouthing around. Both clubs knew: that vacant lot, it didn’t move, but it was just like the subway. The only time you had a piece of it was when you were right there to hold it.

The leader of the Renegades was a skinny little guy called Junta. All of the Renegades had those PR names, but PRs, they don’t always look like each other. Some of them were so black, if they didn’t speak that Spanish, you would think they were colored. And some of them were as white as us, with everything in-between. The only way you could tell for sure was from listening to them talk — even the ones that talked English, they didn’t talk white.

I didn’t know how Junta got to be leader. He wasn’t a great fistfighter, he didn’t have any kind of rep with a knife, and no one ever saw him with a pistol. I didn’t see where he was any great brains, either.

The reason I knew about Junta is that I had to meet with him a few times, one-on-one. I was president of the Royal Vikings, and sometimes we would have a sit-down to settle a dispute. If the presidents couldn’t settle things, then the warlords would get together, to set the rules for a clash. But it never came to that between the Renegades and us.

Junta and me, we made a treaty, to have our clubs share the vacant lot. The way Junta explained it, the lot was kind of like the gateway to our two territories. If we fought each other over it, we’d always be having that same fight, over and over. We needed to protect the gateway from outsiders; that was most important. Better to share a little piece than not to have any at all, he said, and he was right. So our treaty was, whoever was on the set, for right then, it was their piece.

4.

It started when one of the Mystic Dragons got himself a girlfriend in our territory. He would walk right through our block, flying his colors, and nobody was crazy enough to make him pay tolls. The Mystic Dragons, they were a major club. People said they could put a thousand men into a meet, and a couple of hundred of them would have guns. Real guns, not zips.

The way guys in gangs talk, a lot of that was probably just blowing smoke, but there was enough truth in it to keep us all chilled. Our club, the Royal Vikings, we could put, maybe, twenty guys out for a meet... and some of them would only make it because they would be scared not to. If a club like ours ever vamped on a Mystic Dragon, we’d be finished.

What kicked it off was the day Bunchie came charging down the steps to the basement we used for a clubhouse.

“Mystic Dragons!” he yelled.

“What?!” Tony Boy said.

“Mystic Dragons! All over the block. They got a car at both ends. And one parked right across from here!”

Everybody was getting all excited, talking at once. “Cool it,” I told them. “If this was a raid, they would have been down here already.”

“The president is right,” Little Augie backed me up. But I could see he was nervous.

I looked around the basement. Just five men, plus me. I thought about sending Sammy out to see what the Mystic Dragons wanted — it wouldn’t look good for the president to go himself. But if they saw the guy we sent was our warlord, they could get the wrong idea.

I could send Little Augie, but he’s not a good talker. And bringing the Mystic Dragons down to that ratty basement would be showing them too much.

I had to think. Everyone went quiet, waiting on me. All we had in the clubhouse was Sammy’s zip, and some bats and chains. I knew at least a couple of the boys always had knives, but Bunchie had said there were three carloads of Mystic Dragons.

“I’ll handle it,” I told the others. “I’ll go see what they want. No reason to let them see what we’re holding down here.”

“You want we should go with?” Little Augie asked me.

“Yeah,” I said. “But stay back. Right against the building, understand? Don’t crowd nobody.”

I was proud of my boys. They looked sharp and hard, in their white silk jackets with Royal Vikings across the back. Our jackets are all custom-made, by this very classy place down in Little Italy. They cost a lot, but they say a lot about us, too, so they’re worth it. Two of the boys stepped out first, then moved off to the side to let me through, while the others filled in behind.

The Mystic Dragons’ car was a big black Buick. A four-door. Facing the wrong direction on our one-way street, so the driver was against the curb. As I walked over, the back door opened, and three men got out. They didn’t say anything. The driver looked at me out of his window.

“You Hawk?” he asked.

“Right,” I said. That’s the name I go by. It was written in purple script on the left side of my jacket. On my right sleeve, there were four little hearts; meaning, I’m the president. Sammy, our warlord, had three on his. We didn’t spell out the offices, the way some clubs do.

“The man wants to talk to you,” the driver said.

“Here I am,” I told him, cool.

“Boss,” he said, as he climbed out of the car, holding the door open.

I couldn’t tell if he meant, “Boss!” it was good I was willing to talk, or that I would be talking to his boss, but I got in. It was classy, the way they set it up. I didn’t have an excuse to refuse, because I would be the one behind the wheel, so they couldn’t take off with me as a prisoner. Besides, all their men were already standing on the sidewalk. Except for the ones in the cars at the end of the block.

The guy in the passenger seat was colored. I expected that, him being a Mystic Dragon and all. But I was surprised at how old he was.

“I’m Baron James,” he said. “You know my name?”

“I heard it,” I said. Which was the truth. Everybody in the city who ran with a club had heard of Baron James. He killed two men in a clash a long time ago, when he was real little. Baron James was famous. His name was in the Daily News, with headlines and everything. The paper said it was wrong that they couldn’t send him to the state pen, just because he was only fourteen at the time. People wrote letters to the paper, saying, for what Baron James did, they should give him the electric chair, no matter how old he was.

“You’re leader of... what’s the name of your club?”

“The Royal Vikings,” I told him, like I didn’t know he was saying that just to say we were nothing.

“Yeah. Well, then you’re the man I have to talk to. About what happened to Chango.”

“Who’s Chango?”

“All you need to know about Chango is two things, man. One, Chango is a Mystic Dragon. And two, some of your boys jumped him two nights ago, in the vacant lot over by Twenty-ninth.”

“Not my boys.”

“Yeah, your boys. Chango’s got himself a little twist around here. She’s a PR, but she lives over in your turf.”

“I don’t know any names,” I said. “But we know a guy who flies Mystic Dragon colors has a girl around here. He comes and goes. Whenever he wants. Nobody ever bothers him.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Baron James said. “Only, it wasn’t. Chango, he’s going to make it. But he got hurt pretty bad.”

“Shot?”

“Stomped,” Baron James said. “Wasn’t no fair one, either. No challenge, nothing. He said he was just cutting through the lot when he got piled on.”

“It wasn’t any of my—”

“You Vikings, you going to pull something like that, you should’ve left those jackets at home,” he said. He reached over and rubbed the back of his fingers against where my name was. “Nice,” he said.

“Look,” I said, being reasonable. “You know a club like ours, we’d never start anything with—”

“Oh, I don’t think it was your club,” he said. “We thought it was your club, there wouldn’t be no Royal Vikings, now. No, what we figure is, it was a couple of members of your club. See the difference?”

“No,” I said. I took out my pack of smokes, held it out toward Baron James — I wanted him to see my hand wasn’t shaking. I was a little surprised when he took one. I lit us both up from my lighter.

Baron James took a deep drag. Then he said, “Difference is, a club makes a move, it has to be approved, am I right? The president has to give his okay.”

“Unless it’s—”

“This wasn’t no self-defense,” he said. “Don’t even try to run that.”

“I wasn’t saying—”

“And, if it’s not approved, that means the boys went freelance. Now, if that was one of the Mystic Dragons, anybody who would try a breakaway move like that, he’d be disciplined, understand?”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s all we’re asking for,” he said. “A little discipline.”

“But none of our—”

“Only thing is,” he said, talking right over me, “we’d kind of like to do the discipline ourselves. I mean, you do whatever you think needs to be done. But, when that’s over, we get our turn. Fair enough?”

“If one of the Vikings did anything like that, I would—”

“Not one,” Baron James said. “At least two. Probably three, but we’ll settle for two.”

“Who are you saying jumped your man?”

“I just told you,” he said.

“You said Vikings,” I said. I knew if I backed off, even a little, we were all done. “I asked you which ones?”

“How would Chango know your boys?”

“Well, you said—”

“I said Vikings. I didn’t say which ones. That’s for you to find out. And deal with.”

“There’s no way any of—”

“This here is Wednesday,” Baron James said. His voice was soft, but it was ice cold. “We give you until Sunday night. Now, your boys, they seen us talking for a while now. Seen us talking like men. No screaming and yelling. Calm and cool, am I right? So when you go on back, what you tell them is, the Mystic Dragons thinking about making you Vikings an affiliate club. You know what that is?”

“Yeah. But I thought you guys only took—”

“Times are changing,” Baron James said. “This color thing, it put a lot of good men in the ground. And a lot more in the penitentiary. There ain’t no money in it. The Mystic Dragons, we got plans. There’s all kinds of rackets going on in the city, and we’re going to take our place, soon enough. This is a big city, and we entitled to our piece of it.

“Now, the only way we make the right people listen is behind numbers. Big numbers. What we got to do is consolidate,” he said, like he loved the word. “We can’t be fighting each other all the time; what we get out of that? So, that’s what you tell your boys.”

“But you’re not really...”

“What I just tell you, that’s the stone truth,” Baron James said. “Everybody be doing this, you see soon enough. Even the China-boys, way downtown, they stepping past color when it come to business. Us, too. We reaching out to the little clubs... no offense... to bring them in. You don’t get to be Mystic Dragons, but you get to be with us, you understand?”

“I think I do.”

“But you know the rules,” he said. “And the toll you got to pay. You got to give us the boys who stomped Chango.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew more was coming.

“Sunday night,” Baron James said, “we pull up to the curb, just like now. We get out, just like now. You walk over to us, just like now. Only, Sunday night, you have two men with you. The ones we want.” Baron James looked at me. His eyes were green — I never saw that on a colored before. “Everybody gets in the car,” he said. “The car takes off. Later, when you come back, you president of an official Mystic Dragons affiliate.”

Baron James leaned in, close to me. “Only, when you come back, you come back alone.”

5.

We started that same night. First, I put out the word — all the Royal Vikings had to come in, emergency. Then I questioned every single one of the boys.

Little Augie and Bunchie helped me. Sammy, too. I knew it couldn’t have been any of those three, because they had all been with me the night Chango got stomped.

Everybody denied doing it. I expected that. What I didn’t expect was that I couldn’t tell which one was lying, the way I usually can.

Even in our own little piece of the city, you didn’t see Royal Vikings out by themselves too often. We had our clubhouse, the candy store, the corner; that was about it. The school had dances at night, sometimes, but that was too far out of our territory for anyone to go alone. And, if you did go alone, it would take a lot of heart to fly colors. Sammy might do it, or Little Augie, but not the rest, I didn’t think.

And Baron James had said it was at least two men.

The clubhouse had a back room. We used it for initiations, and for when we got the debs to come down. That night, we used it for the interrogations.

We all suspected these particular two boys might be guilty. They were real tight with each other, partners, and we figured they might be plotting to move up in the organization. But even after Sammy hurt one of them pretty bad, they wouldn’t admit anything.

By Friday night, I knew I wouldn’t have anyone I could give to Baron James.

6.

I got my men together, and I told them how it had to be. I talked for a long time before I was finished.

“What happens to us?” Little Augie asked. He was talking to me, but I knew he was speaking for the whole club.

“The Mystic Dragons don’t know any of our real names,” I said. “Not even mine. Just ‘Hawk.’ The first thing, the jackets have to go. I mean, burn them. The Royal Vikings are done. Once this is over, the only one the Mystic Dragons are going to be looking for is me.”

“You sure you want to—?” Sammy said.

“What choice is there?” I told them. “I’m not going to play Judas on guys who didn’t do anything. If we want to keep our little piece, here, we’d have to go to war against the Mystic Dragons. That’s crazy; we’d all be wiped out in a day. I’m the president; I know what I have to do. I got people in Chicago. Soon as it’s done, that’s where I’ll go.”

“The hell with that,” Little Augie said. “Just go. Tonight.”

Little Augie was a good man. I was sorry to lie to him about having people in Chicago. But the whole club was there when I was talking, and I wasn’t sure of them all. I knew the Mystic Dragons would be around right after I took off, asking questions, and I couldn’t take a chance that one of them wouldn’t turn rat, if they got scared enough.

“No,” I said. “The way I have to do it is the only way. They’re going to get me anyway. I might as well have a name.”

“Where are you going to get a real pistol?” Bunchie said. “Nobody around here has one to sell.”

“The same place we get our jackets,” I said. “The guy who makes them up for us, I heard, if you bring the right money, he can get you anything. Now, everybody, put up your coin. Tomorrow, I’m going shopping.”

7.

I didn’t blink when the old man in the shop told me it would be three hundred dollars for the pistol and the bullets. I told him I’d leave the money with him, come back in a couple of hours. He looked at me for a minute, then he said, “That’s not how it’s done. You want the piece, you wait right here for it. Understand?”

I said I did. Right then is when I started to understand a lot of things. Like why people call a pistol a “piece.”

The old man picked up the phone and said something in Italian. I didn’t speak it, but I figured what it was about.

When he hung up, he looked at me. “You’re getting bigger,” he said. “All the time.”

“I’m almost eighteen,” I told him.

“I mean your... ambitions,” the old man said.

“Oh. Like what I just—?”

“Sure, that. A business expense. And I see you’ve been recruiting, too. Outside the tribe. Very smart. All over the city, you can see, that’s the trend among... businessmen.”

I think I knew it right then, but I gave myself a minute to make sure I was under control. Then I asked the old man, “What do you mean, outside the tribe?”

“The last bunch who came in here for your jackets, that was a surprise,” he said. “I never saw Spanish boys in your... organization before.”

8.

Right after that, I straightened things out with Baron James. We agreed on the tolls. I paid them, and the Mystic Dragons never moved on the Royal Vikings.

The pistol the old man sold me worked perfect. The only way I could use it was by calling for a one-on-one, so the cops found out pretty quick it was me who aced Junta.

I thought maybe the Renegades wouldn’t testify against me... you’re not supposed to. But they did. By the time the court was through with me, I was doing the book. That’s what they call a life sentence... from throwing the book at you, I guess.

When I got to prison, I came in with a name. Not just from what I did — there were plenty of guys who had a body up there. But I was the first white guy inside who had friends in the Mystic Dragons, just like Baron James promised. It made me kind of a leader in there, even that young.

I see the parole board again in another year. Maybe they’ll cut me loose this time. I’ve got a perfect institutional record — I know how to do time.

I’m only forty-two years old now. It’s not too late for me to get my little piece of the city.

Copyright © 2002 by Andrew Vachss.