Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

“What’s a game that has the right design?” she asked suddenly.

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, you said Risk isn’t really for two players. There must be games that *are*, right?”

“Certainly. There are card games—casino, gin rummy, and others of that sort.”

“Do you have cards?”

“Uh, no, I don’t.”

“Can you get some? When you go out?”

“I can,” I told her, remembering that every airport in the world sells such items.

“What else?”

“What else?”

“I mean, besides cards. What other games?”

“Oh. Well, there’s checkers. And chess.”

“Do you have them?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Can you—?”

“Yes, Angelique,” I said. “I can try to find a set while I’m out.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. Couldn’t you. . . make one?”

“Make a. . . oh yes, I see. Actually, I have no such skills. But *you* do. So if I provided the schematic—”

“What’s a schematic?”

“It’s like a plan. A picture of how something works.”

“You draw pictures?” she asked, an unreadable look on her face.

“No, child. Not pictures, plans. There’s a great difference.”

“What’s the difference?”

Realizing I should have anticipated just such a question and incorporated the answer in my prior explanation, I mentally resolved to concentrate with greater task-oriented precision. “A plan is something that can be drawn with instruments, say a ruler, or a protractor, or a T-square. A diagram. Art is freehand. Very individual. No two pieces of art are ever exactly the same.”

“Can’t people copy art?”

“Certainly they can try. But a true connoisseur could always distinguish between an imitation and the genuine article.”

“What’s a connoisseur?”

“A person who is especially knowledgeable about a certain subject. It could be food, or antiques, or even wild animals, for that matter.”

“But it has to be a thing?” the child asked.

“A. . . thing?”

“Yes. Those are all things, right? Not something you do.”

“Well, certainly, one could be a connoisseur of. . . oh, I don’t know. . . say, ballet. Or football. Those are not objects, they are performances. Do you understand?”

“But could you do them yourself and still be one?”

“I am not certain I—”

“Could you, like, be an artist and still be a. . . connoisseur of art?”

“Ah. Yes, to be sure. In fact, there are those who say one cannot be a great writer unless one is also a connoisseur of writing. . . as an art form, do you see?”

“Sure! That’s me. I love to draw, and I love to look at. . . paintings and stuff. So I guess I’m a connoisseur, aren’t I?”

“Well, that would depend on the criteria you employ.”

“I don’t—”

“I mean,” I corrected myself, “whether you had good taste. In other words, if you liked only very fine art, you could be a connoisseur.”

“I like everything.”

“Well, then, you—”

“But I don’t like everything the same. I mean, I like some stuff a lot better. So could I be a—?”

“Yes, child. That’s correct. You certainly could be. Shall I show you the. . . drawing of the game?”

“Yes, please.”

Using the edge of a hardcover book, I quickly roughed in a diagram of a checkerboard—sixty-four identical squares. Then I used a half-dollar to make a pair of circles. “See, Angelique? There will be thirty-two pieces, half of them one color and half of them another. And we put them on a board that will look like this. Do you think you could make one?”

“Sure I could. But I’d need some construction paper. Do you know what that is?”

“Not only do I know,” I told her, a trace of pride perhaps in my voice, “I have some right here.” [In fact, I always keep a plentiful supply for my captives, having found that making the sort of mess children create with brightly colored paper occupies some of them for long periods of time.]

When I gave her the paper and a pair of scissors (with rounded tips) she set to work. When we took a break for the midday meal, she was so absorbed I had to summon her twice.

The checkerboard was finished by mid-afternoon. I pretended not to notice the child’s progress, concentrating on the portable computer’s screen. [Yes, obviously, the computer will contain incriminating evidence. But should I be apprehended in the company of a captive, it would be coals to Newcastle.]

“It’s ready!” she called out, and I got up to see her project.

My astonishment was impossible to conceal. . . which was fortuitous, as it seemed to delight the child. The board was composed of what appeared to be several dozen layers, a multi-colored laminate (the top of which was a dazzling white) on which she had drawn the squares to perfection. My amazement, however, was reserved for the pieces themselves. Although each was a disk of the same size, and although the thirty-two of them were equally divided between a sort of Day-Glo orange and a misty blue (I had not disclosed to the child that the traditional colors are red and black), each piece was individually decorated with a tiny drawing. . . everything from butterflies to bears to houses and cars. The work was as complex and delicate as scrimshaw and, to my not-untrained eye, displayed no less skill.

“This is absolutely remarkable,” I told the child.

“Do you like it?”

“Very much. It’s. . . magnificent.”

“It’s for you, all right? To keep. Like a present?”

“I will treasure it,” I told her solemnly, realizing even as I spoke that it too would be evidence and I could not keep it, but. . .

“Can we play now?” she asked.

“After dinner,” I promised.

The screen switched colors. I knew what was coming, so I called out Xyla’s name.

>>Queensboro Bridge: (1) You present? (2) Caliber?<<

I said some words to Xyla and she made them appear on the screen:

(1) yes (2).223 Remington

She hit the keys, and my message disappeared. Somewhere in cyber-space, I had just told a killer I was with Wesley when he’d done one of his hits. And proved it.

You know how it is—you talk different things over with different people. I had no one to talk this over with. No point guessing what the next installment would be, or how it would end. I couldn’t make a move until he was finished with his story. If it was a story.

Nadine called me at Mama’s. Asked: “Do you have anything yet?”

“No,” I told her, and hung up, not even sure if I was lying.

When I called Strega to ask her the same question, she just hissed at me, asked what I really wanted. So I hung up on her too.

I know a brilliant guy when it comes to unhinged minds. Doc runs a little private clinic now, but I’d met him in the joint—he’d interned as a prison shrink. I could have asked him, I guess. But there just didn’t seem any point. He always said I knew more about freaks than he did.

You could only ask the Mole techno-questions. And Michelle only emotional ones.

Mama knew money. Max knew combat.

The Prof knew it all. But he didn’t know this.

I had the lines out. But I couldn’t do anything until I got a bite.

I spent a lot of time with Pansy. Wondering how much time she had left. They say Neos are a long-lived breed. But Pansy had already gone past where they said. She looked okay—fatter, slower, maybe, but okay. I took her to a vet I know in Brooklyn. He’s not a guy I like—he works pit-bull fights for cash—but when it comes to medical stuff for someone you love, you look the other way. He said she was in good shape: heart, lungs, all that. Nothing wrong with her. “She’s just old,” the vet said.