Another Life: The Final Burke Novel - Hardcover

Vachss, Andrew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307377415 ISBN 13: 9780307377418

Publisher: Pantheon, 2008

Synopsis

From the author of the acclaimed Burke series: a searing new novel that follows a band of homeless outcasts on a journey to recover what each has lost.
 
Ho was a revered sensei, but when his dismissive arrogance caused the death of a beloved student, he renounced not only his possessions but also his role as master, and now roams the streets in search of a way to atone. Drawn by his presence, a group forms around him: Michael, an addicted gambler who has lost everything, including himself; Ranger, a Vietnam veteran with a tenuous grip on reality; Lamont, a once-fearless street-gang warlord turned hopeless alcoholic; Target, a relentless "clanger" who speaks only by echoing the sounds of others; and Brewster, an obsessive collector of hardboiled paperbacks he stashes in an abandoned building that even vermin avoid.
 
Late one night, Michael spots a woman in a white Rolls-Royce throwing something into the river. Convinced that the woman is a perfect blackmail target, he attempts to recruit the others to search for her. But news that Brewster's library is slated for demolition turns this halfhearted effort into a serious mission to find the ultimate problem-solver: money, and with it a new home for Brewster's precious collection.
 
Each frantic knock opens another barred door as the building's destruction draws nearer. And the answers to each man's questions trigger shocking explosions that hit you with all the visceral power we have come to expect from this fierce and dynamic writer.
 

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in the area of sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, a labor organizer, and the director of a maximum-security prison for aggressive-violent youth. Now a lawyer and consultant in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. A native New Yorker, Vachss divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.

The dedicated Web site for Andrew Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com.
 

Reviews

After a nicely gritty opening (Revenge is like any other religion: There's always a lot more preaching than there is practicing), Vachss's 18th Burke thriller (after Terminal) goes off in disparate directions that never quite coalesce into a satisfying whole. When a sniper shoots Burke's father, the Prof, the Prof's uneasy relationship with the law means that his life-threatening wounds can't be treated at a hospital. While his father's fate remains uncertain, a shadowy figure connected with U.S. intelligence draws Burke, an ex-con turned avenging angel for hire, into a kidnapping case. Early one morning, somebody removed the infant son of a Saudi prince from his father's custom Rolls, parked near an abandoned pier near the Hudson River, after the prince was serviced by a prostitute, who didn't realize the child was in the back seat. Burke visits his usual seamy corners of New York City in the ensuing investigation. Those who enjoyed previous books in the series will find more of the same. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Revenge is like any other religion: There’s always a lot more preaching than there is practicing. And most of that preaching is about what not to practice.

“Vengeance is mine” translates to: “It’s not yours.” The karma-peddlers will tell you how doing nothing is doing the right thing, reciting, “What goes around comes around,” in that heavy-gravity tone reserved for the kind of ancient wisdom you find in comic books.

Every TV “counselor,” every self-help expert, every latte-slurping guru . . . they all chant some version of the same mantra: “Revenge never solves anything.”

Their favorite psalm is Forgiveness. And their hymn books are always open to the same page.

Get it? When you crawl away, you’re not being a punk; you’re just letting the cosmos handle your business. Whoever hurt you, they’ll get theirs, don’t worry. Just have a little faith.

Down here, we see it different. We don’t count on karma. And you can count on this: hurt one of us, we’re all coming for you.



A low-level maggot once got a little taste of power and overdosed on it. He murdered a thirteen-year-old girl after the three privileged little weasels who had started the fun ran to him for help.

The boys hadn’t meant to kill her; they were good kids who just got a little carried away. All they wanted was to gang-rape the little cock-teaser, take some pictures, and teach her what it cost to humiliate people of their status. But their freakish plan tumbled out of control when the girl suddenly stopped moving.

Terrified, they offered the maggot anything he wanted if he’d dump the body for them.

But when he arrived at the abandoned house where they’d left her, he discovered she wasn’t dead—passed out from the pain, but still breathing, leaking blood. He touched her throat, found a good, strong pulse. If he’d taken her to the ER, she would have survived.

Instead, he went to work on her. His kind of work.

The little girl lived a few more minutes. Alive in terror and praying for death.

More than thirty years later, the maggot and the three grown-up weasels were all killed. They went out within minutes of each other.

We got paid to do that.

Now we’re paying.




The sniper who had calmly pinned my father to the ground as we were making our getaway is gone, too. An on-target warhead from an RPG had turned the stone-shielded corner he’d been firing from into an incinerator big enough for him and the rest of the hired guns up there with him.

So many died that day. Every time my heart pumps, regret pulses through my bloodstream.

That’s the bad thing about killing certain humans: you can only do it once.



“What more can we do, mahn? My father is somewhere between this world and the next. He must stay—his body must stay—with those people until he comes back to us. If he were only in a real hospital . . .”

“We’ve been through this,” I told Clarence. “A thousand times, ever since it happened. You think we can, what, call a city ambulance? The Prof’s prints would fall like a cinderblock on an egg. They’d handcuff him to the bed and turn the whole place into a goddamn PBA convention.”

“I could—”

“You can’t do anything!” I snapped at him, as sharply as his father would have.

“When you were shot—”

“Your father—my father, too, remember?—he made the call then. And he made the right one. This one isn’t the same; the minute we unhook the Prof from those machines, he’s done. This call was on me to make, and I made it. Now we have to play it out.”

“If any of those doctors—”

Max pulled at the sleeve of Clarence’s jacket, the same dove-gray cashmere he’d been wearing the night we dropped the Prof off—now it was almost black, darkened with fear. When Clarence looked up, the mute Mongolian made the universal gesture of pointing his finger like a pistol and dropping his thumb like a hammer. Then tapped his temple, and made a facial expression that spoke louder than words.

“You think those medical boys don’t fucking know that?” I echoed. “They’re not worried about some malpractice claim. They’re running an outlaw operation, and they get paid a fortune to take care of people from our world. That’s what we’re paying so much for: not just the care, the risk—they’re putting a lot more than their licenses on the line, understand? That’s why you never threaten people like them—they’ve heard it all before. It won’t make them work harder. But it might scare them into doing something stupid.”

“But . . . for what they are charging, even with all the money we took from that last . . . thing, we will run out by—”

“I know,” I said soothingly. “But don’t worry about it, Clarence. We found a new way for us to keep earning.”

“Nobody told me—”

“You had no role to play in this one, son,” I said, channeling the Prof. “Not up till now, anyway.”

“Listen to me, sweetheart.” Michelle spoke just above a whisper, her voice the same mystery-blend as her perfume. “Trust me, the word’s out: the Prof’s in the consultant business now. Any serious thief playing for a retirement score would want the Master to check over the plans, make sure there’s no flaw. But they wouldn’t expect a face-to-face. So the Prof’s got a front man for that. Get it?”

“Yes,” the Islander said, looking over at me and nodding. “But how is that going to bring in the kind of money we—?”

“It already is,” I cut him off. “Got more business than we can handle. We’re even ready to have you start working backup, too. If you want.”

Clarence opened his mouth to say something, but Max just shook his head.

Mama crossed the distance from her register at the front to my booth in the back. Looked us all over. Held Clarence with her eyes. Said, “Movie business very good. Those kind of people, spend money like drunks.”

Clarence opened his mouth again, but this time it was Michelle who shut him up. “We’ve got a doctor too, baby. A script doctor. Best in the business. The only one who gets his quote and a percentage of the gross. Let’s you and me go over there and sit down, okay? Buy your baby sister a drink, and I’ll explain it all to you.”




The apartment was spacious by New York standards. Three bedrooms, two baths. And on a decent West Side block, too.

But this was no luxury co-op. No awning over the front door. No doorman, never mind a concierge. No central air. The elevator only went down: all the way down from a uniformed operator, to push-your-own-damn-buttons, to permanent “Out of Service.”

Even the super was part-time. His one qualification was that he’d done time, and his real job was handling complaints with a “you don’t want to go too far with this” look.

Thirty-six units, but only five of them still occupied. The building owner was warehousing the rest, playing stare-down with the remaining owners. No real-estate broker had any of the empty units listed.

Some of the holdouts had been stupid enough to try bribing the super. He introduced them to a new dance: the Sucker Two-Step. Step one, he takes your money. Step two comes when you run into him again—a blank look, like he’s never seen you before.

When it comes to bribery, citizens are out of their league. Even in this everything-for-sale pesthole of a city, you can’t run to the cops when the guy you greased doesn’t do what you paid him for—that would be like a loan shark suing you for missing a payment.

We paid the super for access to the apartment. Not a bribe: payment for a service. He didn’t try his look on us—it’s our kind he learned it from. He wasn’t a genius, but he was smart enough not to confuse us with citizens.

The cell phone in the right-hand pocket of my jacket vibrated. My clients were on their way up . . . up the stairs. I nodded to Max. He opened the door just as they were about to push the disconnected buzzer.

The doctor was in.





There were three of them. Nice business suits, nothing too flashy. I knew the headman by rep only. He may have looked like a pita pocket overstuffed with suet, but if crime was a dance, he had the moves of a tango star.

The other two could have been his partners. Or crew members, or undercover cops. The way we had it set up, it didn’t make any difference. Any tape they walked away with would be about as useful as a Vietnam body count.

My worktable was a rough-hewn slab of wood with fold-up legs. I gestured for them to sit wherever they wanted. Canvas director’s chairs were the only option.

Nobody offered to shake hands. As I leaned back, Michelle swiveled over. All they saw was a blonde in a red latex derma-sheath skirt and a padded bra threatening a stretchy top—if they even looked high enough up to see the blonde part. She held out a tray of plain glass ashtrays. The guy to the left of the headman took one, placed it carefully in front of him.

Michelle snake-hipped her way out of the room, making it clear that they’d already experienced the full extent of our hospitality. No minibar in this hotel, and the only room service you could order was already in the room.

The headman opened a document case, took out some pape...

Edition details

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307377415
• ISBN 13: 9780307377418
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288