Andrew Vachss: Choice of Evil

“He is a man. Everyone knows that. I meant. . . Crystal Beth. Her. And me. Between us. You could never get that.”

“And that’s what you hate me for?”

“I didn’t say I hated you. I said I never liked you.”

“You know what, Lorraine? I never liked you either.”

“That matter we discussed the other day?” Davidson’s voice, treading carefully over the line at Mama’s.

“Yeah.”

“Your. . . surmise was, in fact, reasonably accurate. The individuals to whom you referred have expressed a desire for an interview, but they cannot seem to locate the. . . object of their interest.”

Meaning: yes, the cops want to talk to you, and no, they don’t know where you are.

“You think this ‘interview’ should take place?” I asked him.

“Assuming the factual content of the material you imparted during our prior conversation is unchanged, I do. If only to. . . reorient their interest.”

Meaning: yes, if I really had nothing to do with the murders, I should go in and talk to the cops, answer their questions, show them they were wasting their time so they’d leave me alone.

“Set it up,” I told him.

“What do you need a lawyer for, you coming in here to assist us with our investigation and all?” the sandy-haired plainclothes cop asked me, nodding his head in Davidson’s direction.

“Oh, I’d be scared to come here by myself,” I told him. “I heard you guys do terrible things to people when nobody’s watching.”

“A comedian, too?” his partner asked, a short guy with a round face and a boozer’s nose.

“Me? Nah. I even heard you guys sometimes put a telephone book on top of a guy’s head and whack it with a nightstick. Doesn’t leave marks, but it kind of scrambles your brains.”

“Where’d you hear that?” the sandy-haired one asked.

“My brains are still scrambled from the last one, and that was a long time ago,” I told him, nice and quiet, but letting him know I was done dancing. “You’ve been looking for me. Okay, here I am. You want to ask me some questions, do it. You don’t, see you around.”

“My client is here at the request of the DA’s Office,” Davidson put in. “Since he’s not a suspect, I assume you won’t be Miranda-izing him?”

“Sure, counselor,” the one with the boozer’s nose said. He opened a notebook, looked over at me. “Name?”

“See you around,” I said, getting to my feet.

“Hold it!” the sandy-haired one said. “What’s your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem. You guys do. I came here, in good faith, because I thought you thought I could help you. You know who I am. You got my rap sheet and my mug shots right there in front of you. What else you want to know?”

“A current address would be nice.”

“Sure as hell would,” I told him. “Problem is, I don’t have one.”

“You’re homeless, right?”

“Yep.”

“So you’re sleeping in the shelters?”

“I look that fucking stupid to you?”

“Hey, Johnny, relax,” the boozer-nosed one said to his partner. “Burke here, he got a lot of friends he could stay with. Besides, they don’t let no dogs in the shelters, right?”

“What dog?” I asked him.

“Ah, it’s gonna be like that.”

“Last chance,” I said, meaning it.

“Okay, okay. Relax. Come on. Let’s just deal like men, all right?” the sandy-haired one lied. “We know your girlfriend was one of the ones killed in that drive-by, at that queer rally.”

I looked at him like I was watching a TV test pattern.

“And we figured, maybe, you’d like to find the guys who did that.”

I kept looking at him.

“And we know you’ve been asking around. . . .”

“Do you?” I said, uninterested.

“Yeah, we do. We got a witness to it, all ready to walk in and talk to a grand jury.”

“And the crime is. . . what? Asking questions? That was true, all reporters would be doing life.”

“And we got a bunch of fucking murders,” he went on. “All fag-bashers. So, the way we figure, somebody don’t like fag-bashers. Brilliant so far, huh?”

“About up to par,” I acknowledged.

“And we figure, there’s at least one, maybe two, or even three fag-bashers that you don’t like.”

“Oh. You mean, you solved that case? You got the shooters.”

“You’re one sarcastic motherfucker, aren’t you? How about this one, Mister Burke. How about you tell us where you were on the thirteenth? Say, between four in the afternoon and eleven at night?”

“I can’t remember,” I said flatly. “You know how it is, drifting around, looking for a place to stay.”

“So you got no alibi for that time?”

“I got no alibi for any time,” I promised him.

“You fit,” boozer-nose said.

“Fit what?”

“The profile. Everyone knows you’re a revenge freak. They killed your girlfriend, so you. . .”

“I what? I don’t know who did it. You know, why don’t you tell me, find out if your theory’s correct?”

“We don’t know,” the sandy-haired one said. “And we figure, you don’t, either. So maybe you’re just working your way through the whole list.”

“You know why I came in here?” I asked him. “You know the real reason?”

“No. Why don’t you tell us.”

“I came in because I thought you guys were actually trying to get whoever killed Crystal Beth. I thought maybe you knew who it was, but you didn’t have enough to arrest them. And that maybe you were going to let that. . . slip, understand? Then you’d close the case. Call it ‘exceptional clearance’ and keep your stats up. But now I see what’s going on. All this bullshit game-playing crap. You think it’s me ? That I’m a fucking serial killer? Jesus H.—”

“Hey, pal, it’s not like you never—”

“Never what? Went around whacking people for the freakish fun of it?”

“Nothing freakish about it,” boozer-nose assured me. “Somebody did my girlfriend, I’d wanna take ’em out too.”

“And if you knew it was a Spanish guy, you’d kill every Latino in New York?” I asked him.

“Gentlemen,” Davidson interjected. “It is quite obvious that my client is unable to meaningfully assist in your investigation. And that you are not going to arrest him. I am quite certain of the former. Unless I am mistaken about the latter, we are, in fact, leaving.”

I followed Davidson out the door. Neither of the cops said anything.

“That’s really why you wanted to come in?” Davidson asked me in the car on the way over to his office.

“Yeah. It happens. Some cases, they close ’em that way: ‘Exceptional clearance.’ Means they know who did it, but they can’t prove it. Every once in a while, it eats at a cop, and he lets a name slip out. . . to somebody who just might do something about it.”

“You figure they wanted you to kill the guys who—?”

“How could they lose? Not only do they close one case, they get a beautiful new felony handed them on a platter, complete with perpetrator. One step closer to that gold shield.”

“I thought I was cynical,” Davidson said.

“You are,” I assured him.

But nothing happened. Nothing changed. There’s a million places to live in this city, but it’s hard to find one off the radar screen. The Mole had done it. Even if you suspected he lived in an underground bunker in a Hunts Point junkyard, you wouldn’t go poking around there to make sure. The Prof used to live in the subways until he hooked up with Clarence. Then they found a crib over in East New York, right off one of the prairies. Bought the whole building, a gray brick eight-flat, for a song and started the rehab. Only they’re never going to have tenants. They offered to let me stay, but they blended into that neighborhood and I didn’t. It wouldn’t take long for somebody to notice.