Andrew Vachss - Strega

"And why do the drug companies test in foreign countries?" the Mole asked.

"It's illegal here, right? But some countries-they let you do what you want as long as you got the bucks."

"In democratic countries?"

"Okay, Mole, I get it. The best country would be some outrageous dictatorship where the people do what they're told or they get themselves iced."

"Like…"

"LikeI don't knowIran, Cuba, Russia."

" Haiti?" the Mole wanted to know.

"Hell, yes, Haiti. I did time with a guy from Haiti. He told me this Papa Doc was the devil, straight up. And that his kid was the devil's son."

"Close to the United States?" said the Mole.

"Yes."

"Need money?"

"Sure."

"Dictatorship?"

"Yeah!"

"Would the leader care if some of his people were exposed to the grave risk of biochemical experiments?"

"No fucking way," I said. The Haitians who try and cross the ocean on rafts aren't looking for better social opportunities.

"Who goes to prison in Haiti?" asked the Mole.

"Anybody Baby Doc wants to put there," I said, thinking. "And dope fiends. Sure!"

"Homosexuals?"

"You better believe it, Mole. Damn!"

The Mole smiled his smile. It wouldn't charm little children. "The drug companies seek a cure for cancer…or any other great disease. The cure will make them rich beyond our imagination. This is the fuel that drives their engine. The scientists want to experiment, and they don't have the patience to test rats. And rats are not people."

I lit another smoke, saying nothing. The Mole was on a roll.

"So they make arrangements in Haiti to test their new drugs. On prisoners. Many of them in prison because of heroin addiction or homosexuality, yes? And they alter the genetic components of the blood with their experiments. The homosexuals do what they do inside the prisons. When they become obviously ill, the government disposes of some of them. But the drug companies don't want them all killed. Like when the government let those black men with syphilis go untreated years ago-they never treated them because they wanted to study the long-term effects. Some of the infected Haitians come to America. And when they have sex with others, the drug companies lose control of the experiment.

"And we have AIDS?" I asked him.

"It's one scenario," the Mole said, still thinking it over.

"Son of a bitch," I said, almost to myself.

Simba-witz rolled back into the clearing-we'd been there a long time. He saw us both sitting quietly, flicked his tail over his back, and faded away again.

"Mole," I said, "I've got a scenario about this picture I need to find. The way it was taken…Polaroid camera and allit was for sale. If it goes in a magazine, then it's in the stream of commerce and there's nothing I can do about it."

The Mole looked up, listening.

"But I don't think that's the deal," I told him. "I think it was taken for a collector-a private thing. If they put it in a magazine, someone could see it. Cause a lot of problems. I need some freak who gets off looking at this stuff. Not some money-makers. You understand? Someone who's got shoeboxes full of pictures like that."

The Mole nodded. It made sense-at least so far.

"So I need to talk to a collector-a serious, hard-core pedophile. Someone with the money to buy things like this. This is a no-consent picture, right? The freaks might trade copies back and forth, but I don't think it will get commercially produced."

"I don't know anyone like that," he said.

"Mole," I said, keeping my voice level, "you have friendsassociates, anyway…people I did some work for a couple of times…when we first met." No point mentioning the name the man from Israel had given me-whichever branch of the Israeli Secret Service made contact with the Mole was likely to be a pure wet-work group anyway.

The Mole turned so he was facing me. "So?" he said.

I was talking fast now, trying to get this all out, get the Mole to agree. "So they have to keep files on freaks like that. Blackmail, whatever. They have to know what's going down on the international scene-know who the players are. I know they don't do law-enforcement or vice-squad shit, but information that's something they always want. Anything to give you a leg upa handle."

"So?" he said again, waiting.

"Mole, I want you to ask your friends to give you the name of such a person." I held up my hand before he could speak. " If they knowokay? Just a name and an address. I want to talk to this person. It's a real long shot he would have the picture, but he sure as hell could put me into the pipeline of people who might."

I was done talking.

The Mole got off the couch, hands in his pockets, and walked toward the Lincoln. I followed him. The pack followed me, materializing out of the shadows.

"Is the little boy Jewish?" the Mole asked.

"He wants his soul back," I said.

I opened the door of the Lincoln, climbed inside. I hit the power window switch, looking at the Mole.

"All I can do is ask," he said. "I'll call you at the restaurant."

The Mole turned and walked back into his junkyard.

DARKNESS was dropping its blanket over the city by the time I crossed back over the bridge into Manhattan. I got off at 96th Street and worked my way through Central Park, heading for the West Side. It was still too early for the yuppies to start their mating rituals, but the neon was already flashing by the time I got into the West Fifties-humans who buy their sex in New York expect twenty-four-hour service.

The Lincoln cruised Broadway, hugging the curb. A block-long video-game parlor washed the sidewalk with flashing strobe-lights. Electronic war-sounds poured through its doors, a harsh wave dividing the kids lurking on the sidewalk. Black teenagers were standing to one side in little groups, their pockets emptied of quarters by the machines inside, alert for another penny-ante score so they could go back inside. The white boys on the other side of the doors were younger-they cruised quietly, hawk eyes watching the cars for a customer. The groups never mixed. The black rough-off artists knew better than to move on the little stud-hustlers-a kid peddling his under-age ass and telling himself he's not really homosexual will be happy to stab you to prove it.

Hookers don't work the main drags in the Square after dark-they have the massage parlors for that. Lexington Avenue was their turf. The customers know where to go.

I cut off from Broadway over to Ninth Avenue, kept heading downtown. The fast-food joint I was looking for stood next to a theater specializing in kung-fu films, a heavy streamer of red and blue lights making a banner over its canopy. I slid the Lincoln to the curb behind a dark Mercedes stretch limo, waiting my turn.

It didn't take long. Three little kids bounded up to the passenger window, arranging their faces into smiles. The Hispanic kid was working with a partner, a blond boy a little taller but even thinner. The dark-haired boy had eyes like dinner plates; his curly hair glistened in the neon. He probably told the johns his name was Angel. Wearing a red T-shirt over a pair of jeans with a designer label on the back pocket. He turned like he was talking to his partner to show me. I couldn't read the designer's name but I knew what the label said: "For Rent." The blond kept his hands in his pockets, eyes down, heavy shock of hair falling in his eyes. They looked about twelve years old.

I pushed the power window switch and slid over to talk to them. The third kid was a redhead, freckles on his round face, a trace of colorless lip gloss on his mouth. He was wearing a white sweatshirt with a "Terry" in script on the front, black pants. New white leather sneakers on his feet. His skin was already a pasty color from a steady diet of junk food and freak-sperm.