Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

“No, you don’t. I’m not afraid. Of anything. It’s not worth it.”

Even as he said that to me, so many years ago, I knew it was true. But when we were coming up, Wesley was the icon. He was never afraid, even when we were kids. I don’t mean he was ready to go to Fist City with another guy over some insult. But he would take your life if you put your hands on him. Not right then and there—Wesley was no slugger. But someday. Guaranteed. It was all over the street, even then. You fucked with Wesley, you were dead. Money in the bank. Earning compound interest.

After he got out of prison that last time, I guess he figured he might as well make a living at what he was.

Wesley had a different mother than me. But his birth certificate had the same blank spots mine did.

He saved my life once, when we were kids. A stupid thing. Me and another guy in the gang, lying on the rat-slime next to the subway tracks, our heads on the rail. Train coming. First one to jump back loses. I was ready to die right then. Die for a rep I’d never be around to enjoy. To have a name to replace the one I’d never been given. Wesley was the one who pulled me back, just in time. The other guy had already jumped, but I hadn’t seen it. . . not with my eyes closed.

Later, when Wesley went to work, I never went near him. Once in a while, he’d reach out for me. Whatever he wanted, I would do it. Not because I was afraid of him. Wesley didn’t work like that. No robberies, no extortions, no scams. Wesley killed people. That was his work.

When he got tired of his work, he finished it. By doing as much of it as he could in one monstrous move.

The whisper-stream still throbs with it. Wondering if the ice-man had another way out. I knew he didn’t. Knew he wanted to go. I read the note he’d left behind—mailed to me just before he walked his last walk.

But as long as the whisper-stream flowed, Wesley would never die.

“You ever watch two girls have sex?” Nadine asked me, a sheaf of paper in her two clasped hands, still trafficking in a product I didn’t want.

“Yes.”

“Ever do it with them?”

“Why?”

“I thought maybe if I put on a little show for you first—me and my. . . friend—you might change your mind. Ever see a real pony girl? I’m a good rider.”

I let out a long breath to show her my patience was low. “I already told you once—there’s nothing you could do. Now either give me that stuff or not.”

But all the paper she’d tempted me over to her house with was crap. Her cop pal had looked a bit deeper, that’s all. And came up empty.

The guy who opened the door was big, six-six minimum, and built to match. He had a mild face, rimless glasses, short-cropped hair. I remembered him from the place I’d met Crystal Beth, always sitting off in a corner, drawing. And he’d been at this joint too, the first time I’d come. What was his name. . .? Oh yeah:

“Where’s everybody else, Rusty?” I asked him.

“Uh, there was a little thing. Earlier. They’ll be back soon.”

“Okay. I’ll just—”

“He’s here,” Xyla announced, standing in the doorway to the computer room.

“Uh, see you later,” the big guy said.

As soon as we got into her room, Xyla opened him up.

To my surprise, the child did not rush through the evening meal in her eagerness to play the new game. Indeed, she politely inquired if she could, again, select the menu and, given permission, spent the better part of an hour examining the various options before making a decision. Which was: Pasta in a cream sauce of her own creation speckled with chunks of albacore.

“It would be better with bread,” she assured me.

“Bread doesn’t keep well,” I replied. “And since we are going to be—”

“Well, couldn’t you pick some up? When you go out the next time, I mean?”

“I will. . . try,” I finally agreed, understanding intuitively that the child was not referring to typical manufactured bread—she expected me to visit an actual bakery. That was out of the question. Still, if I remembered correctly—and, in fact, I have never failed to remember correctly—there was a bakery of some sort right within the airport.

We ate in relative silence, for which I was grateful. The child’s manners were superb—she invariably asked if I would pass a condiment rather than reaching for it herself. But her visage appeared troubled.

“Is something wrong, Zoë?” I asked.

“Do you like it?”

“It?”

“The *food*. Do you like the food?”

“It’s delicious.”

“Well, you didn’t *say* anything.”

“That was bad manners on my part,” I said, truthfully enough. “I was enjoying it so that I forgot myself.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I just. . . When people don’t say anything, I never know. . . I mean, I always think. . .”

“I promise to tell you what I’m thinking, Zoë. How would that be?”

“Oh I would *love* that. You’re not. . . teasing, are you? You’ll really tell me?”

“I certainly will. But only when you ask, fair enough?”

“Okay! And I won’t ask all the time, I swear.”

“Whenever you like, child.”

Throughout the rest of the meal, we talked around pockets of silence, but never once did she ask what I was thinking.

“Can I do it myself?” she asked as we started to clean up after dinner.

“I thought it would be easier if we both did it.”

“No. I mean, yes, maybe it would. But it doesn’t have to be easier, does it? I mean, I would like to do it myself. It would be fun.”

“Very well, Zoë. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled.

Not having access to a newspaper, I flicked on the television set to watch PBS as the child busied herself in the kitchen portion of the basement.

I must have been resting my eyes, half-listening to the television, when the child tapped me on the shoulder. Startled, I turned to her, waiting for her to speak.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the screen.

It only took a second to ascertain. “Some footage of tribal warfare,” I told her.

“Why are they killing everyone?”

How to explain xenophobia and its natural byproduct, genocide, to a child? “They hate each other,” I tried for simplicity, knowing what was coming next.

“Why?”

I was not disappointed, but no closer to an explanation. It was clear that the child was not trying to be annoying, that she was deeply puzzled by what appeared, on its surface, to be patent insanity. Yet, in thinking through to a response accessible by a child of Zoë’s age, I could not escape the internal logic. After all, tribalism is per se insanity. Still, I made another attempt:

“Do you know about Indians, Zoë? Have you ever studied about them in school?”

“Not really. But I know. . . something about them, I guess.”

“All right. You know Indians are aligned into tribes, yes?”

“Yes. Like Apaches and Navahos and—”

“That’s right. Now, even today, there are tribes too. In the Balkans, in Africa, in the Middle East. And some of them hate each other. They have for many, many years. Sometimes, when that kind of hatred builds up long enough, one tribe attempts to exterminate the other.”

“Exterminate? Like with—”

“Yes, like with termites in a house. But the difference is. . . it would be. . . as if the goal was to exterminate every single termite from the face of the earth. So no more termites would exist anywhere.”

“But. . . people. . .?”

“To a virulent tribalist, people of other tribes are the same as termites. Mere vermin, to be disposed of by any means at hand.”

“They all want to kill each other?”