Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

“Oh.”

She was silent after that, getting up and going back to her drawing. After some time passed, I realized that I had been puzzling over her reaction to my last statement. A logic gap was apparent, but the sequence eluded me.

“Zoë,” I asked, “weren’t you surprised?”

“At what?”

“When I told you I had so much money.”

“No.”

“Well, then, weren’t you surprised that I would do something like this for money when I already had so much?”

“No. My father has a lot of money too. Millions and millions. And he always wants more.”

“Ah. But, you understand, child, I don’t do this for the money. Do you know why I do it?”

“Because you’re a connoisseur, right?”

I was stunned. There was not a trace of sarcasm in the child’s statement. Yet how could she. . .? I quickly recovered, and asked her: “Why do you say that, Zoë?”

“Well, because of what you said. Before. Remember? You said you could be a connoisseur of. . . something, right? And also *do* it too. Like my drawing.”

“I remember.”

“Well, what you do, it’s like. . . acting, right? And other people do it, but they don’t all do it the same.”

“How do you mean, other people do it?”

“Kidnapping. It happens all the time. On TV, you see it. My father talks about it sometimes.”

“About you being kidnapped?”

“No, about other kids. What he saw on TV.”

“I see. And you think I do this because it’s my. . . art? Like what you do?”

“Sure.”

“But your drawing, it’s designed for. . . display, isn’t it? You want other people to see what you did?”

“Sometimes.”

“All right, sometimes. But nobody will ever see what I do.”

“Yes they *will*. They just won’t know it was you. Like a painting on a wall.”

“But artists sign their paintings.”

“I don’t sign mine.”

“Ever?”

“Never. I never sign mine. They tried to make me. In school. But I wouldn’t do it.”

“Still, they would know it was you.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they displayed different drawings that the whole class did, wouldn’t everybody know which one was yours?”

“Yes. But only in the class. If you put my drawings up in another place, nobody would know it was me.”

“But they could still admire them, couldn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Then—”

“That’s like you,” she interrupted. “You don’t sign your. . . stuff either. Or you’d go to jail. You can’t sign it. But people see it. And you know it was you.”

That evening, I began to teach her how to play chess.

I knew what was coming next. Looked around. Xyla wasn’t there. I called her name and she came running just in time for the next question to come up:

>>Where’s Candy?<<

I couldn’t figure out if he was testing or really asking, but it didn’t matter, the answer was the same.

dead

Luther Allison’s “Cherry Red Wine” was searing out of the Plymouth’s speakers as I drove back. About an unfaithful woman who drank so much wine that the earth around her grave turned the same color. I wondered what color the dirt would be around wherever they’d put Candy. Whatever color human hearts are, I guess. Ripped-out human hearts, sold to the highest bidder.

I’d given the maniac her name earlier on. And two more: Train and Julio. It’d be easy enough for him to find out who Train was. Who he’d been, anyway: the leader of a baby-breeder cult. There was a contract out on him, and Wesley was holding the paper. But Candy came into it. Hard Candy. She went back with me and Wesley. All the way back. I hadn’t seen her in years, didn’t recognize her when I met her again—all that plastic surgery. But when she took off her contacts to show me those yellow eyes, when she told me things that nobody but she could have known, I believed her. Candy was in business for herself by then. I can’t think of a name to call her, but she sold sex. Packaged it, any way you wanted. Train had her daughter, and she wanted the kid back. I. . . got into it.

All of this happened around the same time. And it was more connected than I’d ever nightmared. Train and Candy were partners. Her daughter was a toy. And Candy thought I’d be her tool.

It didn’t work out like that. First, Wesley warned me off Train. Later, we ended up trading targets. I took Train. Julio too. Wesley did mine, then claimed them all in his suicide note.

But not Candy. When we were all kids, when all of us were doing wrong, all building sins, Wesley was magnetic north on her compass. He never knew. I don’t think it would have made any difference to him. Wesley was too lethal to mate; never had a real partner. And Candy. . . she worshipped the ice in Wesley just as I did. But it penetrated her. Took her.

Citizens would say there was no difference between them, but they’d be missing it. Wesley was walking homicide, but he never did it for fun. It was fun for Candy, all of it. Even selling her own daughter to freaks, and chumping me into getting the kid back after she’d been paid for the merchandise.

I’ve got enough regret in me for the things I’ve done in my life to fill a chasm. But Candy. . . killing Candy. . . that wasn’t one of them.

Wesley died never knowing what happened to her. But now my secret was shared. With a. . .

“He’s crazy , baby,” Michelle said. “You can’t make sense out of crazy. You’ll just make yourself crazy trying.”

“He’s not crazy.”

“Burke! Listen to yourself. That stuff you told me. The ‘messages’ he’s sending you. He kidnaps kids and kills them. That’s his ‘art.’ He’s foaming at the mouth, sweetie. If the people running around making a hero out of him knew. . .”

“Michelle, there hasn’t been one murder since he started. . .”

“Started. . . what?”

“These messages. To me. It’s like. . . those murders were all some kind of. . . You know how you have to prove?”

She knew what I meant by the word. Had to do it herself too many times on the street not to. “Sure,” she said.

“Credentials,” I said, finally finding the word I was looking for—the word that kept echoing through all of this. “He’s the real thing. I just can’t see what he wants.”

“Wesley,” she said softly.

“Wesley’s—”

“—dead. Sure. But that’s what all his little crazy ‘tolls’ are about, right?”

“Tolls?”

“The price, honey. Like stud poker. You have to pay to see his next card. Every time, isn’t that true?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, that’s the link,” she said, like she was telling me it was Monday, so certain.

“No, it isn’t,” I said, all of a sudden getting it. “I am.”

“Xyla around?” I asked Trixie.

“She was. But she had to. . . do something. Said she’d be back in a couple of minutes. You don’t mind waiting, right?”

“Not at all.” I don’t know why, but there was no sense of urgency in me. I knew the killer’s next message was somewhere in that computer, just waiting for Xyla to open it up. But I wasn’t in any hurry to see it.

“Crystal Beth was my sister,” Trixie said, snapping me out of wherever I’d gone to.

I just looked at her, waiting.

“This. . . guy. The one Xyla got you to. You think he killed them?”

“Who?”

“Whoever killed Crystal Beth. He kills fag-bashers, right?”

“Yeah. There’s no guarantee he’ll ever get the right ones. He hits at random.”

“So why do you want him?” she asked, stepping closer to me. A shadow changed behind her. Rusty. The big guy who was always drawing. He didn’t say a word, just bowed slightly. I returned it. And finally got it—I’d have to say the right thing to this woman if I wanted Xyla to open another message.