Choice of Evil

by Andrew Vachss

  So I will not actually leave the premises, just the basement. I use a portable phone to reach the computer. Even should the call be inadvertently intercepted—it is, after all, a radio transmission—it would not reveal anything but a series of connection-beeps. I make only one call per phone, and then discard it. After I reduce it to untraceable rubble, of course.

  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.

  “What? So this was all a—”

  “I don’t have any
paper because there isn’t any. Just listen to me for a minute, please? My. . . friend looked. Just like you asked. There is nothing in there.”

  “Not a single—”

  “Not one single organized-crime figure whose child was kidnapped and not returned. Not one, period. But my. . . friend says maybe there’s a reason for that.”

  “And that would be. . .?”

  “NYPD only has local records. Kidnapping, it’s a federal offense. And there’s Mafia in other cities. She said what you need is an FBI contact. They’d have a record of every kidnapping and—”

  “And you just happen to have a friend who works there?”

  “No,” she said, almost sadly. “I don’t. But I thought the information would be. . . helpful. I mean, at least it’s something. A new place to look. . .”

  I left her sitting there. She looked like a sad little girl. In a translucent mushroom cloud of menace.

  “Why would you want this information?” Wolfe asked, not playing the game the way she always did. Away from me now. Maybe forever.

  “What difference does that make?” I asked her. “You’re in the business. You sell stuff. I want to buy some of it.”

  “You sell stuff too. And now you’re in stuff, aren’t you?” she asked, her gray eyes empty of even a hint of warmth.

  “Not what you think,” I told her. “On the square.”

  “What you’re into? Or what you’re telling me?”

  “What I’m telling you.”

  “Is Wesley gone?” she asked me bluntly, cobra-killer eyes unblinking.

  “He’s dead,” I said. Wondering if she’d take that for an answer.

  “Kidnappings. Ransom paid. Child never returned. No arrests, no clearances, no nothing. And the targets are all Family members?”

  “Yes.”

  “Going back. . . how far?”

  Damn. Wolfe was the first one to think that way. Like a hunter. “Uh, twenty years,” I said, pulling it at random.

  “That’s a big search.”

  “A big price, you mean. It’s computers, right? How long could it take?”

  “Everything wasn’t databased back then,” she said. “They only started keeping certain records recently.”

  “But kidnappings. . . that’s been federale territory since Hoover was wearing a dress.”

  “Sure. But, still. . . they have to code it in by hand from those days. It may not be all done yet. And if you want—”

  “I don’t care what it costs,” I told her.

  She stood there facing me, hands at her sides, clenched, not giving ground. “If I find out you’re in business with Wesley, I’ll take you down myself,” she said. Then she walked away.

  “This one’ll take a while to come up,” Xyla told me, her eyes deliberately averted from the screen. “I can tell by the pre-coding when the message came in.”

  “How’d you learn all this stuff?” I asked her, more to kill time than anything else.

  “I had to pretty much teach myself,” she said. “It’s mostly men—boys, really—who understand it. And you can’t get them to teach you much.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I don’t mean to be offensive, but you’re a pretty girl. I’d think those kids would be falling all over themselves to—”

  “The opposite.” Xyla laughed. “Cyber-boys are always flexing their little muscles, you understand? Like, if I go to the beach. . . I walk by, guys show off, understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, it’s the same thing in Cyberville. Only the muscles they have, they’re not real. I mean, I can’t bench-press four hundred pounds. But I can do anything on a computer they can do—it doesn’t take strength, just knowledge. If they give me theirs, they can’t. . . pose, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And you figured that out yourself?”

  “You want to know the truth?” she asked. “A man taught me. Not computers—what I just told you. And as soon as I snapped to it, I realized I’d have to learn the cyber-stuff myself. So I did.”

  I saw the screen change. “That’s—”

  “It’s coming up?” she interrupted.

  “Yeah.”

  “See you later,” she said, walking out of the room.

  The killer continued his serial. The same way. I watched it come up, then started to scroll. . . .

  I had been careful to act on a Monday. Not only are reaction times typically slower on Monday mornings, it is a major “sick day” for civil servants, and late starts are also common. In addition, USA Today does not have a weekend edition, and I wanted to give the targets maximum opportunity to post their answer as directed without having to wait. A Tuesday response was impossible, and even Wednesday was unlikely. A drive to the airport would be necessary. Anyone buying USA Today from a regular newsstand might attract attention in a small town, and anyone buying on two consecutive days certainly would. Such risks must be minimized.

  Obviously, this is a part of the operation where a confederate would be invaluable. But even had I not ruled this out on practical grounds, I confess that my artistic sensibilities would be offended by the appearance of collaboration with others. I refer, of course, to *internal* appearance—externally, the appearance of having confederates involved in kidnappings is, indeed, one of the critical elements of success.

  The nearest airport was approximately 77 minutes, depending on road conditions. [I was not willing to make the trip during the early-morning hours, at least not until there was considerable commuter traffic. The additional investment of time was worth the cover traffic would provide.] A minimum of three hours’ absence was thus required, so Wednesday was out of the question.

  Fortunately, the child was quite capable of self-entertainment. The two-day wait passed uneventfully, and I did not have to resort to the tranquilizers some of the other children had required. At the age of ten—and a highly precocious ten she was, although her school records had not so indicated—boredom plays a significant role in counter-tranquillity. I asked the child if she wanted to play with any of the dolls I had purchased, realizing, from experience, that some children would eagerly accept a new doll while others only wanted their own—something I could not assure, depending on the circumstances of the original capture. The child refused, but made no reference to any doll of her own. Perhaps she was already outgrowing such things. . . .

  Common thugs have “equipment” for their crimes. I have a repertoire. This includes a working knowledge of the developmental milestones in children and their unique linguistic capacities. One must be careful, for example, never to use “tag” questions when conducting interviews. One does *not* ask a child: “It’s really nice that it has stopped raining, isn’t it?” This common lawyer’s trick requires that the responder confirm the proposition in order to answer the question: i.e., to agree that it *had*, in fact, been raining, even if the child was not aware that it had been and could observe only the fact that it is *now* not doing so. I have also learned that an engaged child is a less anxious child, and so I delicately questioned my captive to ascertain her tolerance for engagement. As it developed, she was profoundly uninterested in what I had been assured were “age-appropriate” games.

  However, I did have a variety of higher-level board games on hand, ranging in difficulty. Her favorite proved to be something called Risk, a strategy-based game not intended for children her age. . . . I had added it almost as an afterthought. I explained that Risk was not really designed for only two players, and she quickly grasped the concept of playing two roles simultaneously. I was prepared to let her win a moderate number of games, balancing a child’s natural competitiveness against the need to maintain intellectual challenge for her, but it proved unnecessary: There is sufficient luck in any game which involves rolling dice so that she managed to win legitimately a number of times. I noted with interest that she did not insist on keeping score, nor did she “celebrate” her victories.

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

  “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.