CHAPTER 14

WE MADE TURN AFTER TURN, THROUGH A MAZE OF IDENTICAL corridors. I tried to keep calm, to remember every turn we took. There was no one in the hallways. The TWA passengers had left long since. For all I knew, we were the only people left in the terminal.

They led me to a small office. It was almost bare, except for a filing cabinet in the corner and a scuffed brown desk pushed against the wall. Fluorescent lights shone all around us. A third man, dressed in the same uniform as the others, sat behind the desk in a straight-backed wooden chair. His skin had the same strange brown tint as theirs.

“Hey, Corky!” said Pockface. “Got a young fella here. Found him walking off with somebody else’s suitcase. Says it belongs to his sister.”

Corky stood up and pushed the chair away from the desk. Pockface laid the suitcase on the desk. I set The Book of the Damned beside it. Pockface gestured toward the chair. “Asseyez-vous, Al,” he said cordially.

I hesitated.

“Don’t know much French, do you?” he said. He took me by the shoulders and pushed me roughly into the chair. It slid back a few inches as I landed. He towered over me.

“Let’s get down to business,” he said. “You got any ID on you, let’s see it.”

“I’ve got my driver’s license,” I said, getting up from the chair. “And I’ll be glad to show it to you. But first I’d like to see some ID of yours, please.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Pockface mildly. And stood absolutely still for a second or two.

I didn’t see him pull his hand back. I might have caught a glimpse of his large, hard palm swinging through the air toward me. My head jerked violently to the right; a burning pain flooded my face. Dazed, I sat back down. It took a few seconds before I could open my eyes.

Everything was a blur. My glasses had gone sailing off my face. Somebody was lashing my wrists together behind the chair, tightly, with wire. “Fun and games is over, Al,” Pockface said. “You wanted to play I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, you shoulda done it out in baggage claim. Where there were people around, so they could hear you when you hollered.”

“What pocket you keep your wallet in?” Corky said from behind me. “Nev’ mind, here it is. Damn if it isn’t stuck tight.” He poked his fingers into my hip pocket. I tried to squirm away. “No, no,” he said. “Don’t bother getting up. I got my razor right here.”

Click! I felt my pocket pulled tight, then noisily cut away. I pressed my thighs together, hard. My wallet went flying through the air. Pockface caught it.

“Got it,” said Corky. “No trouble at all. Didn’t have to scrunch up your face so much, did you?”

“We ain’t hurt you none, yet,” said Snaggletooth.

“Hey, whaddaya know!” Pockface cried out. “This isn’t Al’s wallet. Belongs to some guy named Daniel Shapiro. In Pennsylvania, looks like.”

“Bet that’s another one of Al’s brother-in-laws,” said Snaggletooth. “Bet he’s got two sisters, both of them went and married Jews. Then Al stole this guy Shapiro’s wallet. Figured there’d be plenty of money there, didn’t you, Al?”

“Hey, Al, you know what?” said Pockface. “Your brother-in-law’s only thirteen years old. That’s what it says on his license. Right by the photo. Damn if he isn’t the ugliest kid I’ve ever seen. Glasses thick as Coke bottles.”

“You got some weird family,” said Snaggletooth.

“Where’s my glasses?” I said.

“Right here on the floor,” said Pockface. “Reminds me, we got to be careful. Might step on them just by accident. If we’re not careful, I mean.”

“How the fuck did this kid get a driver’s license if he’s only thirteen years old?” said Corky.

“Who knows?” said Pockface. “Maybe that’s the way they do it up in Pennsy. Now, Al,” he went on. “You listening to me? Corky is gonna play a little game with you.”

I felt Corky’s arm snake around my neck. His hand grasped my face. His finger lifted my left eyelid and held it open. There was a powerful smell of gasoline. In front of my eye something metallic gleamed, too close for me to focus on it.

“Corky’s got a needle there,” said Pockface. “He’s gonna see how close to your eyeball he can get that needle,” said Pockface. “Without touching it. He’s gonna try real hard not to touch it. You got to help him not touch it.”

“No,” I said faintly. “No.”

I tried to pull my head back. It was wedged firmly against Corky’s shoulder. I jerked myself slightly from side to side. The metallic glint followed, only the tiniest distance from the surface of my pupil.

I began to scream. First a series of short loud yelps, then one protracted howl of grief and terror—for the pain, and for the pain that was to come, and the blindness that would follow. For the space of I don’t know how many seconds, I felt myself to be nothing but that one extended howl.

“That was real good, Al,” said Pockface. “Good and loud and all. Only trouble is, there’s nobody can hear you. So you might want to do your lungs a favor, spare them all the hollering. Know what I mean?”

“I wouldn’t jerk around like that either,” said Corky. “All you’re gonna do is get your eyeball stuck on my needle. You just stay real still. That’s it. You’re a good boy, Al. I got real close that time.”

“What do you want from me?” I said. It was almost a whisper; I couldn’t speak any louder. I didn’t dare take any but the most shallow breaths.

“Just want to talk to you,” said Pockface.

“Shit,” Snaggletooth said. “What have we got to talk to him about?”

“You shut up!” Pockface yelled at him. “Got plenty to talk to you about, Al. Drugs, f’instance. What d’ya think about drugs?”

“Drugs?”

“Drugs. Like heroin. Like mary-gee-wanna. Haven’t you ever heard of drugs? Don’t you read the goddamn newspapers?”

Corky released my eyelid. I began to breathe again. I could not stop blinking.

“I think—” I really hadn’t thought anything, until that moment, about either heroin or marijuana. People in the slums smoked them, or injected them, or whatever. They had nothing to do with me. “I think drugs are a terrible problem in this country,” I said.

“That’s right. And terrible problems call for drastic measures. Don’t they?”

“Well, I don’t know just what we ought to do about—”

My right eyelid was pulled up. Again I glimpsed the needle’s shine. I moaned softly.

“Don’t they call for drastic measures?”

I felt the point of the needle touch the corner of my eye, where the inside of the lid met the tenderness of the eyeball. I cried out. I tried desperately to pull myself back. “Ooh,” said Corky. “Got a little close there, didn’t I?”

“Don’t they, Al?”

“Yes,” I wailed. “They call for drastic measures.”

“And how you think drugs get into this country, Al?”

“Get in?”

“They all come in from foreign countries. You knew that.”

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Sure you did, Al.”

He began pacing in front of me as he spoke. “What happens is this. The Mexicans smuggle heroin across the border, into Texas, say, or New Mexico. Then your sister, or whatever the hell she is, gets it from them. Then she puts it into a suitcase, puts the suitcase onto a plane, and somehow manages not to get on the plane herself. Then you pick the suitcase up in Miami, and you got a million dollars in heroin in your hands. All ready to sell to the dealers, up and down the East Coast.”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, yes, Al. You know it, good as I do. In a minute we’re gonna open this suitcase and find the heroin. And then you know what’s gonna happen to you?”

“No, no, no-o-o.”

“I keep telling you, yes, yes, ye-s-s. We’re gonna find that heroin. And then we got the rest of your life planned for you. Don’t care how many Jew lawyers you got for brothers-in-law, you ain’t never getting out. We got you now, for good.”

“Lookit him sweat,” said Snaggletooth.

“There’s no heroin in that suitcase,” I said.

But deep down I knew different. At age fifteen, Rochelle was already an experienced housebreaker. Julian had told me that. Why shouldn’t she have tried out drug dealing too?

“It’s locked,” Pockface said. “Let’s have that screwdriver.”

I saw his blurred form bend over the suitcase. I heard the latches snap open. Bitterness burned deep in my stomach. Fifteen years old, and Lord knows how many boys she’s seduced, how many homes she’s robbed. How many trusting old sick ladies she’s deceived—

“What’d I tell you?” Pockface cried.

—and now it’s drugs, she’s dealing drugs, and now my life is over—

“Right there in the lining! There’s the stash. You can feel it, sewed into the lining!”

“Oldest goddamn trick in the book,” said Snaggletooth. “Don’t know why they still think they can get away with it.”

“Corky, you got your razor? Gimme your razor.”

The lining ripped noisily, slashed open. Pockface reached in his hand.

“Shit!” he said. “It’s a goddamn book!”