Another Life by Andrew Vachss Page B

level—”

“He’s a Saudi. They don’t drink.”

“And they never have diabetes? Or bum tickers? Epilepsy? See where I’m going?”

Pryce blinked his eyes. Once, like a camera shutter. “According to the Prince, he was swarmed by a group of men who sprayed some kind of mist in his face. And before you ask, they were all masked, gloved, wearing generic clothing. They never spoke. The Prince was just waking up when a sector car spotted his vehicle.

“Now, this is important: the Prince had not been reported missing. The cops were not responding to a BOLO of any kind, just drawn to the sight of such a car in such a place.

“Actually, the Prince was lucky that night. When the uniforms opened his vehicle, he was still wearing all his jewelry. In that neighborhood, if the cops hadn’t gotten there first, he would have been picked clean.”

“In that ‘neighborhood,’ they would have harvested his fucking organs.”

Pryce shrugged. I didn’t waste any focus trying to interpret what that meant.

“The baby was taken. That was all I got from him.”

“And you think someone took all those risks, spent all that money…just to get their hands on a kid?”

“No ransom demand,” Pryce repeated. “You tell me.”

“How could it not be some kind of political thing?” I said. “One baby’s the same as another to traffickers. Value varies, but the kid you’re describing, he’d be too old and too dark-skinned to be worth much.”

“Too old ? He was only—”

“Worth maybe one percent of a blond-and-blue, doll-faced white baby girl. The kind of money it would have cost to put together an operation like you described, it had to be that particular kid they wanted. So how could it be anything but political?”

“Watch” was all he said, reaching for a thin black box on his desk. His eyes directed mine toward a flat-screen TV.
    * * *
    “C ar tricks are always scary.” I put the age of the woman on the screen at anywhere from sixteen to thirty—impossible to tell more because of the slightly out-of-focus image and hazy lighting. I figured the tape had been diffused to produce the copy Pryce was showing me, so I didn’t put much stock in the voice being her own, either.

She looked like an upscale streetwalker: a lush packaging of illusion and delusion, from the plastic breasts to the expensive wig to her pass-a-polygraph belief that what she did was all about “love.” Half reclining in a stark white padded chair, she recited her lines: “All G.K.’s ladies stroll, but he won’t let us do business outdoors. He’s got a deal with a very fine place—private parking around the back, no register, satin sheets, fresh flowers…everything.

“G.K. says a john isn’t buying sex; he’s buying an experience. You don’t buy us, you buy our time. We’re actresses, not hookers. That’s why G.K.’s the king of—”

Something out of camera range induced her to cut out the infomercial and get back to what she was being paid for this time: a quick round of Truth or Dare. And Dare wasn’t an option.

“Look,” she said, haughtily, “you want a quick blowjob while you’re sitting behind the wheel of your hoopty, you drive on over to Skankville. G.K. says I’m double-fine enough to work outcall, but we all live by his Three Commandments: no credit cards, no paper trails, and no partners. Some other girls use the Internet, but even that’s a—”

Whoever cut her off the first time did it again.

“Okay,” she said, after a little pause…long enough for her complexion to get closer to the color of the chair. “One time, a cop got me in his car. He told me I could either take a ride around the corner and do him for free, or take a ride downtown. My choice: front seat or back. I told him I’d take the back,” she said, pride swelling her fake chest. “I carry a panic button, and I knew G.K. would have a lawyer—a real lawyer—waiting for me at arraignment.

“Besides, G.K. says, you give it away to a cop even once, he keeps coming back for more. You