Free Shockwave by Andrew Vachss

Dolly along?”
    “More than once. Living the way they do, they get cut. And sick sometimes, too. But none of them would go near the hospital.”
    “But … Okay, maybe I don’t get it. Even kids, some of them, they’re crazy, right?”
    “Sure.”
    “And crazy people, they can be dangerous.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “So if one of them thought Dolly was … I don’t know, maybe a witch or something, he could … You know what I mean.”
    “Some people you don’t even have to guess about. Not the crazy part, the dangerous one.”
    “So you think Dolly can protect herself?”
    “What are you really asking me?”
    “Dangerous people who aren’t crazy, if you’ve got something they want, if you get in their way, if you even—”
    “I get it. So does Dolly. The good thing about people who aren’t crazy is that they calculate. Compute the odds.”
    “So Dolly’s safe with you, is what you’re saying.”
    “That’s true. But it’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that you’d have to be howling-at-the-moon insane to think you could get past Minnie.”
    “Minnie?”
    “My dog. She goes everywhere with me when I work outside.Everywhere. I know Dolly brings her own dog other places, but when she goes with me, it’s better if I bring mine.”
    “She told me you had a pit bull. Adopted from the shelter.”
    “Yep. That’s Minnie. She’s a sweetheart. Just finds a spot, lies down, and watches. You don’t move, she won’t move. You do, she will.”
    “Doesn’t that make some of your … whatever you call them, clients or patients or—”
    “I call them by their names.”
    “Okay,” I said, thinking,
This one probably doesn’t know all the signals he gives off
. “Doesn’t that make some of them nervous?”
    “I don’t know. If they’re there for the right reasons, they get over it real quick once they start talking about why they came.”
    “You don’t have any dog with you now.”
    “No.”
    “And I’m a stranger to them, right? So the dog will be coming along?”
    “No.”
    “You’re saying …? Never mind. You carry a gun?”
    “No.”
    “I’m no expert on homeless camps, but I’ve been in some. Ridden some freights, too. Hitched rides. They’ve always got something to protect themselves with. Usually a knife, but there’s other stuff.…”
    “You
do
carry a gun, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “If you don’t flash it, they won’t pick it up by scent or anything.”
    “I never do that.”
    “Meaning …?”
    “If I bring it out, it’s going to get used.”
    “You don’t look like you spook at shadows.”
    “I don’t shoot at them, either.”
    “Tomorrow morning, then. I’ll pick you up. Around seven, okay?”
    “I knew you could do something, baby.”
    “Dolly, I haven’t done anything. I’m just having Mack take me around so I can get some answers … provided there’s any answers to get, and I wouldn’t bet too heavy on that.”
    “Well … Anyway, I got those depth charts. Even when the tide’s on full ebb, there’s still a good eight, ten feet of offshore water before you hit those razor rocks. But that’s tricky. Some of the underwater rocks rise much higher than others, like stalagmites in caves.”
    “So it could be even deeper—the water, I mean—at night?”
    “Sure. Why does it matter?”
    “If that body was thrown off the top of the rocks, depending on the time that was done, it could just stay underwater until the tide rolled it in.”
    “Do you think that’s what happened?”
    “I’m not there yet, honey. First, I have to look at what
couldn’t
happen, see?”
    “I think so. But that may not be so important. Let’s see what comes back on the … dead man. If he was on parole, or even if he was a registered sex offender, there’d be an address for him—although it doesn’t seem like they check those out. But if he really lived, say, fifty miles away, his body could have just drifted down. Or up—I’m not sure which