Free Sacrifice by Andrew Vachss Page B

lights came up. Tall, big–shouldered man was facing the audience, a Doberman lying at his feet. Looked like one of those Pacific Northwest lumberjacks, long brown hair, ropy muscle all along his forearms. He had a power drill in his hands.
    "I know how things work," he told the audience, mouth a thin line. "When they get broke, I fix them."
    The big man had a straight–ahead stare. Empty and flat, not challenging, not backing off either. Talking like it was coming from inside his head.
    He lived in the basement, he told the audience. Janitor. Lived in a lot of places, some of them not so nice. And he did some things in those places, not nice things. Now he just wants to live in his basement, fix whatever's broke. The crowd was quiet, listening to his story.
    The dog didn't bark, he told us. Some freak had carved him up when he was a puppy, cut into his throat. "But he still works," the man said. His voice had life in it, but subdued, an undertone of Wesley's dead–robot sound.
    There was a kid who lived in his building. Slow in the head, but a sweet boy. He was scared of monsters coming for him in the night, so the man made him a machine. Just a bunch of flashing lights on a box with a toggle switch. The kid liked the machine. Slept good for the first time.
    The kid went to a special school. His teacher, Dr. English, told the mother that the machine was a placebo. A fake, but one the kid believed in.
    One night, the kid started screaming and he didn't stop. An ambulance took him away. The man visited him in the hospital. The kid told him the machine wasn't any good anymore.
    The man said he was sorry—he'd build him a better one.
    The man said he knew how things worked. Did some checking. Seems this Dr. English used to work at another school up North. The school had been closed behind some sex abuse scandal. Some teachers indicted, Dr. English resigned. The man called the kid's school. Dr. English was out. Broke his arm in a ski accident. Funny, the lady on the phone said, Dr. English only came to their school from his old job because he hated the cold weather.
    The boy lived on the second floor. There was a fire escape leading to the ground.
    We watched, listened as the man put it all together. Watched as he painstakingly drilled holes through the center of two hard rubber balls, strung a loop of piano wire between them. Tested it by snapping it in his hands.
    The man was getting dressed. Dark jacket, pair of gloves, a black watch cap on his head. When he pulled it down, it turned into a ski mask. "Tonight, when it gets dark, I'm going to show this Dr. English a machine that works."
    The stage went dark. Somebody gasped in the audience. Then the applause started. Built to a peak. Stayed there.
    The man came back out. The announcer took the mike, called his name. David Joe Wirth, A pretty girl at a front table stood up, waved a fist at him, her dark ponytail bouncing. He smiled. They left the front together.
    I watched the crowd. Wondered how many of them shared the Secret.

47
    L ater, in Bonita's studio apartment on the fringe of the Village.
    "My roommate will be back soon," she whispered, sliding the tube skirt down over her hips.
    Later, at her kitchen table. "Did you get it?" she asked me.
    "Get what?"
    "The
play.
The one we saw tonight. I didn't, the first time he did it. See, the teacher at the school, he was molesting that little boy. And the boy's mother, she
trusted
him. That's why the machine didn't work…the one the janitor made for him…the monsters weren't all in his head like they thought."
    "Yeah, I got it."
    "Isn't it
disgusting
…what some people do?"
    "Yeah."
    "I wonder where she is, Tawny. I thought she'd be home by now."
    "It's okay, I gotta take off myself."
    "She's going away next weekend. You could spend the night…"
    "If I don't have to work, I'll call you."
    "You
better
,"
sitting in my lap now, squirming.
    "Bonita, I feel pretty stupid about this, but…"
    "What?"
    "Well, I wanted to buy