Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

There was no need to tell the child this. I have learned that children are especially sensitive to commitments. . . even those made by their captors. The promise to return, for example. One might imagine the children would be happy if I never returned. After all, they are incapable of seeing deeply into the future—very much instant-gratification creatures, indeed. So with a plentiful supply of food—including, of course, the sort of so-called “junk food” many children are not allowed by their parents—and toys and games, they would not worry about being rescued. Yes, they might easily become bored—that is always a concern. But you would surmise that the return of their captor would hardly be greeted with pleasure. Yet, surprisingly, that has not been my experience. Without exception, each child was absolutely overjoyed when I returned. It took me considerable time to synthesize this data. My conclusion was as stated: The keeping of promises is critically important to children.

Therefore, I told the child I was going out to make the first call, but would return within two hours. I then simply went upstairs, dialed up my home-base computer, and waited patiently for the time to pass.

He finished the way I’d gotten used to by then—if I wanted to see the next installment, I had to pay up front. His question was a simple one this time:

>>Marco Interdonato. Wesley?<<

Marco Interdonato. Sure, I remembered that one. A spring-bomb in a public storage locker at La Guardia. Another of the killer’s tests? Trickier than before, maybe? That one was Wesley’s work. It was in the goodbye letter he’d left with me, the one where he took the weight for killing Mortay. And Train. And some other things I’d done. Maybe it convinced the cops. Maybe it didn’t. But it wasn’t something they ever leaked to the papers, so. . . It was like the blowgun-dart thing again. How the fuck could he know such things?

If I said Wesley’s name now, would I be ratting him out. . . or confirming he was dead? I figured the killer could have put it all together without any inside knowledge. Morales always said Wesley left his fingerprints all over every job, and he wasn’t talking forensics. That left only one way to play it:

yes

Xyla typed it in.

“Is there anything I could do to make you hot?” Nadine asked me. Her outfit didn’t go with the question—she was wearing a gray jersey workout suit, and her hair was dank with sweat, like she’d been pushing herself hard just before I’d come to her place.

“You mean you you?”

“That’s right. Me me.”

“And by ‘hot,’ you mean aroused?”

“Yes!” she snapped, impatient now.

“What difference would it make?” I asked her.

“I want to have sex with you.”

“Huh? From the minute I met you, all you’ve been telling me is how bad I want you, right? What a liar I am when I say I don’t. So. . . what is this, another stupid game? I fuck you, that proves I’m a liar? Look, all men are liars. I’m no exception. You already have all the answers, why don’t you just write ‘Burke’ on a vibrator and be done with it?”

“Why are you like this?” she demanded, stepping close to me. She smelled like a sweaty-sweet girl. No estrogen pheromones, just. . . girl-smell.

“Me? I’m not ‘like’ anything. I’m me.”

“And you . . . you don’t want to fuck me?”

“You know what? Sure. Who wouldn’t? You got all the stuff. But you don’t smell like pussy to me,” I said, hoping that going crude would end this game. . . whatever it was.

“Oh yes?” she asked, standing right against me. “What do I smell like?”

“Like a trap,” I told her.

She turned her back on me and walked a few feet away. Then she whirled around and stood looking at me for a few long seconds. And disappeared.

When she came back, she was wearing a pair of loose wide-leg white cotton shorts and a pink T-shirt, barefoot, smelling of soap. She took the chair next to mine. Asked: “What did you mean?”

“About. . .?”

“Me smelling like a trap. What does that mean?”

“You got the information I wanted? The stuff you said you had to get me over here.”

“I have it,” she promised. “And you can have it. If you’ll just answer my question. Honestly. One time. Will you do that?”

I looked at her cobalt eyes until I was sure she was connected, deciding what to tell her. . . deciding it would be the truth. I wasn’t sure I needed anything more from her anyway. But I also sensed that she’d smell a lie this time. And that if she did, and it turned out that I did need her again, there’d be nobody home when I rang the bell.

“I think you’re crazy,” I told her, my voice low and carefully controlled. “I mean. . . clinically insane. Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me what the diagnosis is. But you’re. . . nuts. There’s something about you so. . . off, I don’t know what else to call it.”

“You mean, like some Fatal Attraction thing?”

“No. I mean something like you having AIDS and wanting to spread it around before your time is up.”

“ What?! You’re the one who’s crazy. I never even heard—”

“—of what? Spare me. There’s been dozens of guys charged with murder for doing exactly that, and you know it. Or you’re out of touch.”

“Yes,” she almost snarled, “dozens of men. But you can’t name one woman who—”

“Sure I can. You’re talking percentages, that’s all. Like saying most child molesters are men. Or that most serial killers are. But not all, right? It’s bound to happen. A woman with your body. . . you could probably kill a few hundred while you still looked good. And who knows how many they’d spread it to. If—”

“Stop! I do not have AIDS. Come on,” she said, standing up. “I know a clinic, a private one on East Eleventh. We’ll go together. You and me. Right now. Tell them we’re going to be married, and we want to exchange results, okay? You get mine, I get yours. You don’t have to give your name, just a code number. Fair enough?”

“Sit down,” I told her. “It was an example, that’s all. I didn’t say I smelled AIDS on you. I just said it was some kind of major-league craziness. . . and I gave you an example of that, okay?”

“I don’t have AIDS.”

“All right. Fine. You don’t have AIDS. Whatever you say. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“You wouldn’t care if I—”

“I don’t care if you live or die,” I told her. “I work real hard at that—not caring about people who don’t care about me. You say you don’t have AIDS, I believe you. But you are crazy. And you are dangerous. And there’s nothing you could do, no outfit you could put on, no girlfriend you could invite over. . . nothing that could make me take a chance against that.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Who?

“Strega? Strega the witch. Is that what she said? That I was crazy?”

“She didn’t say anything about you,” I lied. “Believe me, jealousy isn’t her game.”

“Then why would you—?”

“I don’t have time to spell it out for you. Only reason you want to know is so you can camouflage it better, right?”

“Of course not! Camouflage what? That I’m ‘crazy’? Don’t be an idiot. I just want to know why you think so.”

“Not today. Just get me the—”

“But you will tell me, right?”

“If you—”

“Not today. I don’t care. But you’ll tell me. Someday.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t have any paper,” she said.