Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

But then it whirlpooled. Her daughter had a pal, a little kid named Scotty. And somebody in a clown suit had taken a Polaroid of Scotty being raped. Scotty thought they had captured his soul, and his therapist couldn’t convince him otherwise. Strega hired me to get that picture back. And she helped too. Witch’s help. We had sex in this chair. She didn’t want to use anything but her mouth. And I had to tell her she was a good girl every time she was done. I should have known then, but I was too focused on staying alive. The maggot who had taken Scotty’s picture was half of a husband-and-wife team. And they’d hired muscle—a White Night gang I knew from Inside. I had to walk that tightrope. Then I had to sit in a room with a human so foul that killing him would have given me an orgasm. And listen while he spooled out evil, showing me how pedophiles computer-networked their traffic in trophies. . . pictures of raped babies. It ended in murder and arson. Later, two more fires: one in Strega’s hands as she burned the Polaroid I’d found in front of Scotty; one in her eyes as she told me the truth about her Uncle Julio.

It was years later when that score got squared. The vicious old gangster had used me once and gotten away with it, but he went to the well once too often. He started it with Wesley, then he couldn’t make it stop. So he tried to middle me, figuring the ice-man would kill the messenger and forget the message. But it was Julio who went down—his neck broken on a bench near La Guardia, Strega watching from the car as it happened.

I don’t know how she did some of the things she did. But I knew her word was platinum, her heart was steel, and her touch terrifying.

So I told her the truth.

“I still don’t understand,” she said when I was finished. “You already have the money, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So. . . Ah, it’s the woman. This woman. Your woman. The one who got killed?”

“I. . . think so.”

“You’re a very religious man, aren’t you, Burke? It’s always in you. This isn’t for love. Did you love her?”

“I. . . guess I did.”

“But you can’t bring her back, no matter what you—”

“Did you ever hear anything about. . . a Gatekeeper?”

“Oh God, not that thing. Yes, you crazy, dangerous man, I’ve ‘heard.’ Do you believe it?”

“No. I just—”

“It’s only for the evil,” she said softly. “Or those who did evil. It’s from the same root. The revenge root. Are you saying you loved an evil woman? Is that why you came to me?”

“No. She wasn’t evil. The opposite.”

“So even if there is a Gatekeeper, what good would it do you?”

“None, I guess. I just. . . heard about it. And I thought I’d ask you.”

“Want me to kiss you?” she asked, hand drifting into my lap.

“No.”

“I know you don’t. But someone made that mistake, didn’t they? With a lot less evidence than this, huh?” she whispered, flicking her long thumbnail just under the head of my cock. The response was a match in gasoline, but she just kept holding me, gently, waiting for an answer.

“Yes. That happened.”

“Some woman thought you wanted her, but you didn’t?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s involved too?”

“I. . . think so.”

“But she doesn’t know you?”

“No.”

“Know how I know? That she doesn’t know you?”

“No.”

She grabbed my cock around the shaft, squeezed hard, made one of her little sounds deep in her throat. “ I asked you what you wanted. That never works on you. It hurts you to say you want something. Anything. So you never say. But if I asked you. . . if I said, ‘Could I?’ you would have said something different, huh?”

I didn’t answer. It was like it always was with her. She frightened me past fear.

“Some men like to be asked. Begged, even. If I got down on my knees and begged, would you like that?”

“No.”

“Why wouldn’t you? It would be a very pretty sight, wouldn’t it?”

“Sarcasm isn’t pretty,” I told her.

“Ummmm,” she moaned. “I don’t beg, and you don’t take orders. It’s so hard, huh?” She squeezed my cock again, chuckling, enjoying her magic tricks. Like always.

“You want to know why I came?” I asked her.

“You want me to stop playing with you?”

“No. It feels. . . nice. I just want. . . something else. Like I said.”

“You can have it,” she promised, breath soft against my face. “Whatever it is. You know that.”

“The way this started—the drive-by—I learned some things about that. It was a hit. Somebody was deliberately taken out, the rest of it was just cover. The guy who ordered the hit was Gutterball Felestrone. The dead man was Lonnie Cork. . . ‘Corky,’ they called him.”

“So? Gutterball’s with the Donatelli crew. And they’re part of the—”

“Yeah, I know all that. Listen for a minute, okay? The way I heard it, when Gutterball made the. . . arrangements, it was on the phone. And the guy he thought he was talking to—the hit man—it was Wesley.”

“Wesley’s—”

“Right. But he’s the key to all this.”

“How could he be, my poor baby? All Wesley is, is a ghost. A rumor. People talk about him in the street like he was a god, but he was a killer, that’s all.”

“That’s not all he was,” I told her. “I know. I know. . . him. We came up together.”

She nibbled at the carotid artery in my neck, waiting.

“Look,” I said, “here’s what I need to know: Is it true? All I got is a handful of rumor. I don’t even know if the stuff about Gutterball is the real thing. Maybe it’s just cop-talk bullshit.”

“Ah. That’s what you came for, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“But you could find out some other—”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Or I would have.”

“Are you afraid?” she asked me.

“I’m always afraid,” I told her.

“I know. I didn’t mean. . . that. I mean. . . this. Of this. You don’t think Wesley’s alive, right?”

“Right.”

“Because, you know, it’s true, some say he’s not gone. That he never died. That he’s still. . . working. Some even think he’s the one doing all this. . . killing now.”

“But not you.”

“No. If Wesley was still here, I’d know it.”

“Will you do it?”

“I already said I would. But you have to trade.”

“Trade what? First you say you’ll—”

“I swore I would always protect you,” she hissed, “and I will. But you have to let me do it my way. My way, the way I know. I’ll get what you want—it won’t be hard. I have all the wires. But I need something. . . need you to do something.”

“What?”

“I need you in me. I need to taste you. So sweet. It banishes the. . . I’m not going to tell you. I want to taste you again.”

“All right.”

“Yes. And I want her too. I want to see her.”

“Who?”

“This woman who doesn’t know you.”

“Why would you—”

“Ssshhh,” she said, holding her fingers against my lips. “You don’t ask now. Two things. For what you want. Will you do them? Do them both?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“Do one now,” she said, her mouth dropping onto me.

Pansy and I watched first light come, sitting together. I wondered if I’d ever watch it come with a woman next to me. I knew Strega would do whatever she promised. She was a woman without boundaries, but she hated liars. In her mind, “they” were all liars. I knew who “they” were. . . . It was a secret she’d shared with me, and I never with her, but we were the same. She knew I lied. Knew it was part of what I did. But I didn’t lie to her, and I guess that kept the wolfpack of her witchery at bay.