Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

“Is she. . . trained, like?”

“You mean, can she do tricks?”

“Yes. I mean, I guess so. What else could—?”

“They got food in that joint? The one around the side?”

“Sure. What would—?”

“Go get a nice piece of raw steak, no bone, I’ll show you a trick.”

She gave me a quizzical look for a long second. Then got up and walked out the door. If running around in her bra bothered her, you couldn’t see any evidence of it.

I lit a cigarette. “Ready to show off, girl?” I asked Pansy.

She didn’t say anything.

I was almost done with the smoke when Nadine came back in, a big slab of bloody steak in one hand. “Now what?” she asked.

“Just give it to her,” I said.

“She won’t. . . bite me?”

“She won’t do anything unless I tell her to. Go ahead.”

She handed the steak to Pansy. The big Neo sniffed it appreciatively and immediately started to slobber. With Pansy, that means quarts, not drops. But she didn’t move a muscle.

“How come she won’t—?”

“Drape it right over her snout,” I told her. “Go ahead—it’s perfectly safe.”

She did what I told her. I got up, walked behind Nadine. Pansy’s eyes were only on me. “Tell her she’s beautiful,” I whispered into Nadine’s ear.

“You’re beautiful, ” she said, just as I made the hand signal for “Speak!” to Pansy. The beast expertly spun her huge head, dewlaps sending a spray of drool all across the room as the steak disappeared into her maw. It was gone in a few chomps. She sat up alertly, waiting for more.

“That’s enough, you pig,” I told her, walking back to the table.

“She only takes food when you tell her she’s beautiful?” Nadine asked, a tone of wonderment in her voice. Really curious now, not playing.

“You know how some women are about their weight,” I said.

“That’s. . . amazing. Does she do other stuff?”

“Lots of stuff. But I couldn’t show you most of it.”

“Why not?”

“There’s nobody here to show it on. ”

“Oh. She’s a. . . what do you call them. . . attack dog?”

“She’s a protection dog,” I said. “Just about all her tricks have something to do with that.”

“She doesn’t, like. . . I don’t know. . . roll over or play dead or anything?”

“What good would any of that be?”

“I don’t know. I see people with their dogs. . . in the park. . . . Does she play fetch? Or Frisbee?”

“Pansy doesn’t play anything. She works. Just like me.”

“Oh, you never play?” she asked, a wicked grin making her face look softer.

“Not word games.”

“Me either. No matter what you think of me.”

“How do you know what I think of you?”

“Oh, that’s not hard. I’m a cock-teasing queer cunt, right?”

“ ‘Queer,’ that’s your word. I don’t know anything about the rest.”

“So what do you think?”

“I think you want something. And that you’re going to tell me what it is.”

“Because. . .?”

“Because, unless you’re lying, the others are going to show up, and you don’t want to ask me whatever it is in front of them.”

“A lot of strippers are gay,” she said, as if that was an answer to a question.

“Why tell me?”

“To explain what I said before. I have girlfriends who strip. They have to. . . sit with the guys, it’s part of the job.”

“You mean sit on them, right?”

“Yes. But it’s not a whorehouse.”

“You take off your pants for money, then you’re a. . . what? Actress?”

“Men hate that,” she said, as if I hadn’t said a word. “They find out you’re gay, it’s like they’ve been. . . tricked or something.”

“ ‘Tricked’ is exactly what they’ve been. You pay some broad to wiggle on your lap, what are you except a trick?”

“You don’t understand. They wouldn’t care. . . . I mean, they wouldn’t get mad, if the girl was straight. I can’t explain it. They just—”

“Yeah, whatever. You got a point to all this?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I do have a point. You already have one gay partner. You want another?”

I watched her face, staying on her eyes, little chunks of cobalt, looking for. . . I don’t know what. But I came up empty.

“What’s that mean?” I finally asked her.

“If you’re really going to look for him, there’d be places you’d have to go. It would be a lot easier. . . easier for you. . . if you had someone with you, understand?”

“You think I’m going to look for a serial killer in gay bars?”

“No,” she said. Eyes alive, mouth tense. “That’s what they think. I mean the. . . others. Lincoln and all. Or maybe not. I don’t have any idea. But. . . neither do they. That’s the point. All they know about you is. . . what they heard. They don’t know what to do, but they want to do something, okay? It’s more. . . symbolic to them, I think. I mean, they can’t expect you to really find this guy. How could you? Every cop in the city is looking for him, and. . . Anyway, they just want to be able to tell themselves they tried . . . like they were being ‘supportive’ or whatever the hot word is this week. I mean, with that deal you wanted, how would they even know if you ever looked at all?”

“Ah. So the idea is, you tag along, you make sure I’m earning the money?”

“No. I think. . . I know about you too. And not from where they do.”

“Which means. . .?”

“You think the only gay cops on the force are in GOAL?”

I knew what she meant—Gay Officers Action League. Like the Guardians, the organization for black cops. Every group inside the department has got some kind of organization of its own. It took major cojones to come out in the open like the cops at GOAL had, but it wasn’t news, not anymore. I just shrugged an answer at her.

“They’re not,” she said, firmly. “I mean, they’re not all. . . out. Not because they’re afraid, but because they have. . . work to do. And it wouldn’t get done if the brass knew the truth, no matter what NYPD’s PR people say.”

“So?”

“So I have a friend. And I got to learn a little about you from. . . my friend.”

“I’m giddy with anticipation,” I told her.

Pansy grunted, convinced, finally, that she’d seen the last of the steak.

“You’ve been arrested dozens of times,” she said. “And you’ve been in prison too.”

“That’s your idea of a secret?”

“No,” she said, leaning closer, dropping her voice. “This is: A cop was killed a couple of years ago. A woman cop. Belinda Rogers. She was bent. Bent bad. Killed some women to make it look like a rapist did it. Her boyfriend was in prison. In New Jersey. He was just finishing up there, for some other crimes, and then he was coming here for trial. It was copycat killing she was doing—like that crazy woman in California who tried to copy one of the Hillside Strangler’s crimes because she was in love with one of the guys who actually did it.”

“What’s this got to do with—?”

“The cop who killed her? It was a shootout. His name is Morales. He’s still on the job.”

“If you say so.”

“You had something to do with it,” she said flatly.

“With killing a cop?” I asked, raising my eyebrows with the ridiculousness of the idea.

“No. But the word is that you were the one who found her. Found her out, I mean. That you were the one who tracked her down.”

“That’s some weird ‘word’ you got,” I said gently, just shy of mocking her.