Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Aftershock
Andrew Vachss is a lawyer who represents children and
youths exclusively. His many books include the Burke
novels and three collections of short stories. His books
have been translated into twenty languages, and his
work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy,
and The New York Times, among other publications. He
divides his time between his native New York City and
the Pacific Northwest.
www.vachss.com
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Aftershock
Andrew Vachss
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Time enough to slide the silenced pistol back into its compartment. Time enough not to push the button that would make
the last five steps disappear. Any intruders who got this far might
walk ninja-soft, but they wouldnt be weightless. Easier to make
the whole stairway disappear in a soft explosion, but the last thing
I wanted to do was attract attention. Thats why the pistol was
silenced. Even a fall from the stairs onto a concrete floor wouldnt
necessarily kill, and I had to seize any chance to learn how anyone
had gotten so close.
How they had gotten past the only person on earth whose life
mattered to me.
Inside that rocket-blast of thought was another oneno one
could ever get that far unless Dolly had betrayed me. And if she
had done that, my life was over no matter how this played out.
Dell?
Im right here, Dolly, I called, leaving my voice to trail behind
me as I backed away to the pool of blackness that formed the entire
far wall of my basement workshop.
My voice was still where I last used it, but I wasnt. And I had
a new weapon trained on the staircase, its scope turning blackness
to greenish light. A modified FAMAS bullpup auto that people in
my old line of work had called un clarion. If someone had forced
Dolly to open the door and call my name, she was as good as dead
anyway. The only job Id have left would be to make sure that
everyone else in the house followed her.
And find out who sent them.
And then take out the chain, link by link.
Her voice hadnt sounded afraid. That could have meant a lot
of things, but it stopped mattering the second I heard her misbegotten mutt woof at whatever small animal was outside the house.
If there had been a human intruder, Rascal would have been inside.
Growling deep in his throat. Waiting, just like I was.
Dell, I . . . I really didnt want to disturb you. And Im not
coming any further if you dont want me to. But sometimes youre
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down here for hours on end and I . . . I didnt think this should
wait.
Come on down, honey. Its okay, I said, watching through
the scope so I could make sure Dolly was alone. When she was on
the third step, hands held palms-up to tell me she was okay, I said,
Ah, never mind. Give me a second and Ill come upstairs.
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larger than any Id ever seen. Out here, theyre called Stellers
jaysbig-bodied thugs with black heads and high crests. Every
morning, if Dolly didnt get out there quick enough, theyd hammer
on the back door with their beaks like a mob of crazed woodpeckers. And theyd keep it up until she went out with a little bucket of
peanuts and just flung the whole thing into the yard.
Slopping the jays is what she calls it, and thats not being
unfair to them; they do act like a pack of hogs. No manners at all,
wings flailing, shrieking loud enough to empty a cemetery.
Dolly doesnt care how much noise they make, but she wont
let them fight. I know it doesnt make sense, but the birds actually
seem to mind her. Once, I saw a couple of the jays really get into it
over a big fat peanut, leaping into the air and ripping at each other
like spurred gamecocks. Dolly yelled, You two just stop that! and
they did. Even looked a little ashamed of themselves.
Sometimes, one of the bolder chipmunks will charge right into
the middle of a mob of jays and try to swipe a peanut for himself.
But mostly they hang around by their portal, standing straight up
like prairie dogs, waiting until I wind up and throw long-distance
over their heads. The peanuts bounce off the shed, and the chipmunks have a private feastthe jays are too busy to take notice.
The roof of the chipmunks shed is where Alfred Hitchcock
always waited. He had a spot all to himself, and he seemed content
just to watch all the ranting and raving without getting involved.
When things got quiet enough to suit him, Alfred Hitchcock
would kind of float on down to the yard. Hed go right into his
back-and-forth pacing until Dolly called his name. Then it would
be my job to lob a peanut close enough for him to pick it up without acting all undignified, but not so close that he thought I was
trying to hit him. I got real good at it.
One day, I was out on the deck by myself, testing some new
optics I was putting together, when Alfred Hitchcock showed up.
He watched me from his perch on the shed for a long time before
he finally dropped into the yard and started his walk.
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hen I finally got back to the house that day, it was full of kids,
like it always is on afternoons during a school week. Teenagers.
Dollys just a magnet for them. Mostly girls, but anytime youve got
that many girls, theres going to be some boys, too.
She knows how to have fun, my Dolly. And she can tell some
stories, believe me. But what shes best at is listening; I know this
for a fact.
Theres a lot of stuff I never told Dolly, not out loud. Not
because I wanted to keep it a secret. Dollys got this . . . I dont
know the word for it, exactly, but she feels things inside her that
other people are feeling. I would never want Dolly to have some of
the feelings I still have inside me.
Maybe thats why those kids are always talking to her. Not the
phony way theyd talk to some school guidance counselor; more as
if she was the kind of aunt you could trust, the kind whod never rat
you out to your folks, no matter what you told her. If you needed
an abortion, shed know where to go, and take you there herself.
That last part, I knew for a fact, too.
Shes always teaching those kids something, like how to stitch
up those crazy costumes theyre wearing out in public today. And
theyre always teaching her stuff, too. Like how to work her cell
phone with her thumbs to send messages. She showed me one of
those messages one timeit was like it was in a different language.
When she tried to explain it to me, I told her I didnt care about
stuff like that, stuff Id never have a use for.
What I didnt tell her was that using any kind of code was for
business only. I was out of business, and I didnt want any reminders of what I used to be.
I dont . . . I dont dislike kids, exactly, but Ive really got nothing to say to them. Im not interested in anything theyve got to
say, either. What could they know at their age? Well, maybe it isnt
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their age. When I was younger than any of them, I was already
doing things that these kids only see in movies. Not things Im
proud of.
After a while, they got used to my staying in my workshop in
the basement, and they never bother me when Im down there.
Dolly doesnt have a lot of rules in her house, but the ones she has
you better follow, or youre eighty-sixed. Like bringing drugs or
booze into her house. Try it once, its two weeks. If theres a next
time, its your last.
No one can ever open that basement door, anyway. Even if they
get past everything else, only Dolly knows the keypad code.
Ive actually got two places of my own. The basement workshop, and what Dolly calls my den. She fixed it up real fine. Its
got a big dark-red leather easy chair, and a flat-screen TV with earphones, so I can watch the BBC without the racket from all those
kids bothering me. I like to read, too. I never read that I was there
stuff. I tried it for a while, but it wasnt any different from what the
library racked in the Fiction section.
One wall is nothing but bookshelves. The others hold my
terrain maps. Theyre from different places Ive been, but I never
explain that to anyone.
Theres this big porthole window, so I can see right out into the
yard. Some days, Id be sitting there and Alfred Hitchcock would
pace right past that window, like he was making sure everything
was okay.
Every once in a while, a couple of the boys wander back to the den.
If the doors closed, they never knock. But if its open, they know
they can just walk right in. Sometimes girls come in there, too.
The boys always want to talk about Vietnam. I dont know
where they got the idea that Id been there. I guess they figure any-
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one my age must haveespecially with all the liars running around
VFW halls bragging about what heroes theyd been.
A town this size, especially nestled away in a cove of its own,
word gets around. Even if the word is all wrong. I had been inside
Vietnam, all right, but long after the last American soldier had
pulled out.
Did you ever kill anyone? Thats their favorite question.
I always tell them the truth and lie with the same words. Yes,
I would always tell them, but thats what war is. I never killed
anyone who wasnt trying to kill me.
That was true for a lot of places Ive worked. But after La
Lgion, I never wore a uniform. Dog tags would have been nothing more than extra weight. I wouldnt have known what to put on
them, anyway.
Does it make you mad when people say theyre against the
war? theyd want to know. They meant that mess in Iraqthe one
that spilled back over from Afghanistan, and was on its way back
there now. Some of their relatives had told them stories, about how
it hurt them to come home after fighting for their country, only to
be hated for doing it.
No, Id always tell them. Thats got nothing to do with me.
And that part was the truth.
My father says Jane Fonda was a traitor, one of them said
once. I could see he was trying to get me going.
I can see where hed think that, I answered, calm and mildvoiced.
But do you think that? one of the girls asked. At that age,
theyre a lot sharper than boys.
Its not people like me who matter, I told them. Its people
like you.
How come?
Because the only way anyone listens to someone like Jane
Fonda is when people treat them like theyre important. If someones a big enough celebrity, journalists ask them questions about
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