BORN
BAD
Acclaim for
Andrew Vachss
"Vachss [is] in the first rank of contemporary American crime writers."
—Kansas City Star
"Next to Vachss, Chandler, Cain and Hammett look like choirboys."
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
"[Vachss] does to pimps, pederasts, snuff film makers and porn industry purveyors what you know he'd like to do in real life, but seldom can. In other words, he decimates them."
—Detroit News
"Vachss is a contemporary master."
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Move over, Hammett and Chandler, you've got company…. An absolute original… Andrew Vachss has become a cult favorite, and for good reason."
—Cosmopolitan
"Vachss' writing is like a dark rollercoaster ride of fear, love and hate."
—Times Picayune
"Andrew Vachss, a lawyer who specializes in the problems of child abuse, writes a hypnotically violent prose made up of equal parts of broken concrete block and razor wire."
—Chicago Sun-Times
"The best detective fiction being written…add a stinging social commentary…a Célinesque journey into darkness, and we have an Andrew Vachss, one of our most important writers."
— Martha Grimes
Andrew Vachss
Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social caseworker, a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for youthful offenders. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, poetry, graphic novels, and a "children's book for adults." His books have been translated into twenty different languages and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, The New York Times, and numerous other forums. He lives and works in New York City and the Pacific Northwest.
The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www. vachss.com
BOOKS BY
ANDREW VACHSS
Flood
Strega
Blue Belle
Hard Candy
Blossom
Sacrifice
Shella
Down in the Zero
Born Bad
Footsteps of the Hawk
False Allegations
Safe House
Choice of Evil
Everybody Pays
Dead and Gone
Pain Management
BORN
BAD
stories
Andrew Vachss
Vintage Crime / Black Lizard
Vintage Books • A Division of Random House, Inc. • New York
Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 by Andrew Vachss
All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Some of the stories in this collection were originally published in The Armchair Detective; Borderlands; Cemetery Dance; Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; Hard Looks; Hardboiled Detective; A Matter of Crime; New Mystery; Underground; Cold Blood (Ziesing); Crossroads Press (chapbook); Dark at Heart (Dark Harvest); Invitation to Murder (Dark Harvest); Narrow Houses (Little, Brown, UK); New Crimes (Robinson Publishing, UK); The New Mystery (Dutton); Ten Tales (Cahill Press) , and in trade paperback by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1994
Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data
Vachss, Andrew H.
[Short stories. Selections]
Born bad: stories / by Andrew Vachss.–1st ed.
p. em.–(Vintage crime/black lizard)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/
eISBN: 0–375–71909–1
This book is also available in a print version:
ISBN 0–679–75336–2
Tortured far apart
Children of the Secret are
Alone until love
CONTENTS
Introduction
A Flash of White
Alibi
Anytime I Want
Born Bad
Cain
Cough
Crime Partner
From the Cross Series:
Bandit
Cripple
Mad Dog
Statute of Limitations
Crossfire
Value Received
Head Case
Kidnap
Date Rape
Dead Game
Dialogue
Drive-by
Dumping Ground
Exit
Family resemblance
Hostage
It's a Hard World
Joyride
Lynch Law
Man to Man
Plan B
Replay