Choice of Evil

by Andrew Vachss

  They cut away to a tall, lanky man with a beard and glasses, standing in the middle of a small office with haphazard piles of books everywhere. He looked like a professor. Talked like one too:

  Sure, the government says that child prostitution is illegal, and claims that offenders are always prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But virtually every international agency concerned with the protection of children from sexual exploitation has debunked those claims. Indeed, there is plenty of printed material explicitly advertising “safe” sex with children in. . .

  The camera quickly played over the glossy covers of some brochures. Just glimpses—a little girl licking a lollypop; a little boy running on the beach, naked, his back to the camera—the lens furtive and guilty, knowing it was lingering too long as the professor kept right on talking:

  . . . those countries. Some of these so-called “tour” companies offer “guidebooks,” while others offer “on-site services” which means. . .

  The camera snuck another look at images on a computer monitor, this time blurring out the details.

  Then back to the anchor:

  But not everyone is convinced that operations such as “Budding Blossoms” actually deliver what they promise. . . .

  As his words trailed off, they segued to an outdoor taped interview, with some disheveled-looking little guy who claimed to be the “coordinator” for various groups “exposing” the kiddie-sex tours as a scam. He babbled about how anyone going to the Philippines looking for sex with a child was going to end up in jail. Claimed all the “exposés” about kiddie-sex tourism were actually encouraging freaks to go there. Whoever was editing the tape cut him off in the middle of a stumbling rant about his “authenticated” website and replaced him with a young Asian woman with harsh eyes who called him a fraud:

  If it’s such a scam, how come that charter service has been running so long and so successfully? The reason that flight was full was because so many previous flights had gone so “well” for those degenerates. They live by word-of-mouth. Why don’t you pull the passenger manifest? I’ll bet you find it shows the name of plenty of repeat customers.

  Then back to the anchorman, live:

  Although law-enforcement sources have not released the manifest to which Ms. Hong referred, the ID Team has obtained a copy, and airline sources confirm that many of the passengers on Flight 0677 were, indeed, repeat customers. And we have learned that a number of those on board had criminal records involving sexual abuse of children. However, the essential mystery now is what caused the plane to spontaneously explode. Stay tuned to this station for updates as they occur. . . .

  Turned out they didn’t need the black box. Or even an investigation. He did all that for them. His message was front-page everywhere.

  Warnings were issued. And duly ignored. Consequences were promised. And duly delivered. I now utilize this forum for three distinct reasons, each of potential value to apparently disparate but occasionally interlocking constituencies of interest.

  (1) Flight 0677 was deliberately destroyed. It was neither accident nor negligence. I most sincerely recommend neither conspiracy theorists nor lawyer feeding-frenzies be tolerated by the media or the public.

  (2) There were no “innocents” killed. Collaborators are subject to the same punishment as principal actors. You are now on notice as to the rules of engagement. For those of you who fail to comprehend such argot, I will simplify: If you aid, abet, facilitate, or even transport others to the scene where children are sexually exploited, you are a target. The same rules, including the collaborative crime of harboring the enemy, apply, of course, to gay-bashing.

  (3) The mass execution was made possible only by the volitional act of a thief. One on board Flight 0677. The methodology was as follows: An obviously expensive, alligator-bound world atlas measuring approximately 5 × 9 × 3” and containing elaborate, full-color maps on silk-shot paper with numerous pull-outs, a compartment for holding personal papers, and other indicia of extreme cost (including, but not limited to, 18-karat gold corner clips and ribbon markers) was “left” in the Men’s Room at LAX. The specific Men’s Room was located just outside the gate area to Flight 0677. The person who stole the book was specifically and actually monitored. Had a passenger not booked on that flight taken the book, he would have been intercepted. Needless to say, the person who did take the book did not turn it in to the authorities, but simply pocketed his prize. That prize contained, in addition to the above-described contents, a sufficient amount of plastic explosive to blow out a considerable portion of the airplane, guaranteeing its inability to remain aloft. The timing mechanism was set so that, even allowing for deviation caused by weather or intruding flight patterns from other aircraft, the explosion would occur over water, limiting the damage to those on board. I commend to your attention this simple method of destroying aircraft. Any half-baked terrorist could have duplicated my feat, not targeting any particular flight but claiming responsibility as soon as the explosion occurred. As such “packages” will pass through existing scanners without incident, any dedicated, competent individual willing to play the odds with the requisite patience will succeed. The only method of defense against such eventualities is for those who “find” property to turn it over to the proper authorities. I believe it is safe to state that such activity is highly likely to increase in the immediate future. Consider this (still another) public service.

  This time, he only signed his initials.

  But that still didn’t mean he had a partner. There had been more than enough space between the last murders here and the flight out of L.A. for him to have made the trip with ease.

  It did tell me one thing. Whatever he looked like, it wouldn’t be remarkable. He was a blender, a natural camouflage man. He wasn’t obese, he wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t. . . Sure, he wasn’t anything but white either.

  Yeah, that narrowed it down. The guy I just described, he could be me.

  I was at Mama’s when she called.

  “I have it,” she said. And hung up.

  It was almost three in the morning when she’d called, so I was outside her apartment house in fifteen minutes. I didn’t like the doorman eyeballing me more than once, but I didn’t see a way around it either. If he thought it was unusual for someone to be calling at that hour, he didn’t show it. . . just rang up and got the okay for me to enter the elevator.

  She must have been right at the peephole—the door opened even as I raised my knuckles to rap. The rose lighting was back on. Otherwise, the place was shrouded. “Go sit down,” she told me, standing aside.

  I gave up trying to solve the mystery of her three chairs and just took the middle one, letting her play any way she wanted.

  She looked ghostly, floating across the room toward me. Barefoot, in a gauzy white robe that wrapped her body—a frame, not a cover. She took the nearest open chair, reached over, and pulled mine around so we were facing each other.

  “I believe you,” she said.

  “Which means. . .?”

  “I believe you wouldn’t. . . do what you said. I believe you. . . Oh, never mind. Look, here it is, okay? She. . . asked around. Like you said. I don’t know about this ‘theory’ of yours, but you’re right about one thing—they have the men who did that drive-by.”

  “Have them?”

  “Found them, I should have said. They’re dead. And one of the people killed in the crowd—you were right about that too. The police think it was murder. I mean, deliberate murder. The rest was only for. . . what do you call it? Camouflage? I don’t know. But the cops say it was business. Professional business. They think they know who gave the order. That’s what you want, right?”

  “That’s what I want.”

  “Well, I have it,” she said.

  “But you want to play with it first? Or you want me to place a fucking bid? What?”

  “Why are you so. . . hostile?” she asked softly. “I’ve been nice to you. It was fun. . . flirting, right? I know y
ou liked it.”

  “We’ve already been there,” I told her.

  “You really hate them, don’t you?” she said, leaning so close I could feel her breath.

  “Who?”

  “Child molesters.”

  “Who doesn’t?” I said, sloughing it off, staying clear of whatever was lightning-bolting around the rose-lit room.

  “You should spend more time where I do,” she said, an ugly undertone to her soft voice. “And you said to ask. You said it was okay. You told me to do it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My. . . friend. The cops. All that. It was easy, she said. They all. . . a lot of them anyway. . . they know you. Or about you, at least. I even know about those murders—the ones in the South Bronx.”

  “Jesus Christ, that’s the kind of sorry two-bit rumor your pal came up with? That story’s a fucking fossil.”

  “I know what you think,” she said, sliding the gauzy robe off her shoulders. “You think I’m trying to get you to. . . admit something, right?”

  “That’s why you keep taking your clothes off? So I’ll see you’re not wearing a wire?” I laughed at her.

  I could see her face flush. Or maybe it was just the reflected light.

  “I’m just more. . . comfortable this way,” she told me. “I don’t like clothes. I don’t like people to wear clothes. It’s another thing to hide behind.”

  “Yeah, sure. You spend half your life in a gym, you’ve got a beef with clothes? You’re more confident without your clothes, that’s all. Because you’re an overmatch against most everyone else that way.”

  “I’ll bet I’d be with you.”

  “No contest,” I acknowledged.

  “You don’t want to play at all, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not a player.”

  “What does that mean? You don’t have sex unless you’re in love?”

  “No. It means I smoke cigarettes but I don’t light them with sticks of dynamite.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I’d have to upgrade a cubic ton to distrust you,” I told her, keeping my voice level. “You got me over here because you said you had what I wanted. Instead of giving it to me, you start asking me about some murders I’m supposed to have committed. I tell you I don’t want to fuck you,” I said, dropping my voice, letting a harder tone bleed through, “you tell me I’m a liar. I told you before: Behavior is the truth. What’s the game? I say: ‘Sure, you’ve got a body that would get a rise in a morgue,’ and you say, ‘Well, you’re not getting any of it’? Would that make you happy? Is that your game? Okay, I’ll pay that much, if that’s what it takes. You’re a gorgeous woman.”

  “But. . .?”

  “But you can’t get juice from marble,” I told her.

  “What does that mean?”

  “How many different ways you want me to say it? You’ve got a stake in this. Not the same one Lincoln and those other guys have. Yeah, I know, you told me: You ‘love’ this guy. And you just want to protect him, right? Sure, fine. I’ll buy it, that’s what you want. And I played right along, didn’t I? You think I’d turn him over to the cops for a pass on one of my own cases, then don’t help. But you already did that, right? Checked me out. Found out some stuff. Enough to convince you that, whatever else I am, I’m not a rat. So here I am. And what do I get? Another strip show. More of your stupid teasing. And some questions about. . . bullshit crap that couldn’t be your business.”

  “How do you know?”

  “What?”

  “How do you know it isn’t my business? All right, I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was stupid. I’ll tell you what she. . . my friend. . . told me. She said there was a. . . cult or something. Or maybe just a ring of perverts. They were making torture films. Of little kids getting raped. The cops were looking for them, all over. There’d been a murder. . . a baby’s murder. It all got confused. But this is what they know for sure: They were all in a house. In the South Bronx, like I said. Some people went into that house and killed them. Every one of them. And they, the cops, they all say it was you. Your work. My friend asked, if they thought you did all that, how come you’d never even been arrested for it? You know what they said? They said they didn’t have any proof but it was the kind of thing Burke would do. They said you’re a homicidal maniac when it comes to. . . them.”

  I heard Wesley’s machine voice in my head. “Every time one of those diddlers gets done, your name comes up on the radar screen. Killing people, it’s a business. You start making it personal, you’re dead meat yourself.”

  I went with it and used it. Like I always do when Wesley talks to me. “Look, it’s no secret that I hate those freaks,” I told her. “But the rest of it, that’s just lazy-ass cop-speak for ‘We can’t find who really did it, so we’ll just chalk it up to Burke.’ How many people was I supposed to have killed, anyway? Couple a hundred?”

  “No,” she said, her voice soft and serious. “But a lot. A lot more than were in that house, too.”

  “And you believe that?”

  She reached over and put her hand on the inside of my thigh. It didn’t feel sexual. . . more like she was checking for a pulse. “Yes,” she said. “I believe it. And this Wesley. . . he helped you, too.”

  “Wesley’s dead,” I told her. Seemed like that’s all I’d been telling people for a while. “Didn’t your cop pal tell you that?”

  “Yes. She told me about it.”

  “All about it?”

  “I. . . think so. Why?”

  “You’re ready to do something for me, to trust me, because you believe I killed a bunch of baby-rapers, right? That’s your story. Today’s story, anyway. If you know how Wesley died, you know he didn’t go out alone.”

  “I know what he did. That. . . explosion. At the school.”

  “And who died in that?” I put it to her. “Kids, right? Lots and lots and lots of kids. You hate baby-rapers, you want to help me because I do too. You think I did a bunch of killings. You think Wesley was my partner. If that was true, then my ‘partner’ killed more kids in a few minutes than any of those freaks could do in ten lifetimes.”

  Her eyes did that flicker-thing again. Not blinking—a light going on and off. It was over in a second. She took a deep breath. Not showing off this time—like she needed strength.

  “Maybe he had his reasons,” she said.

  “To kill kids?”

  “Yes.”

  “You pay your shrink by the hour or do you get a volume discount?”

  “I don’t have a shrink,” Nadine said. “I don’t need one. I know what I need. And you have it.”

  “I already said—”

  “Stop! I’m not playing either. Just listen. The man the cops think ordered that murder—of the gay guy in the park—is someone named Gutterball Felestrone. And the name of the man who was killed is Lonnie Cork. ‘Corky’ is what they called him.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. Let it out. Looked directly into my eyes. “And the man Felestrone hired was your friend. Wesley.”

  I waited, not wanting to cut her off if she had anything more. But she was done. She looked exhausted, as if saying those few words had wasted her.

  “Okay,” I told her, starting to stand up.

  She jumped to her feet and shoved me with both hands against my chest. I fell backward into the middle chair, Nadine on top of me. “Don’t even think about it,” she said into my ear. “You promised! You said if I got that information for you I could be in on it.”

  My hand went to her back, fingers searching for the spot on her spine that would stop her cold if she ended up acting as crazy as she was talking.

  “You will be in on it,” I said calmly. “What you just got was a piece of the puzzle. Maybe, I can’t even be sure about that. And it’s a big puzzle, girl. You think you were gonna just throw some clothes on and come with me? Right now?”

  She grabbed the sides of the ch
air with both hands and pulled, hard, jamming her body into mine so deep I had to turn my head to breathe. “You think what you want,” she said into my ear. “You do what you want, too. But when you meet him, I have to be there. That’s our deal. Nothing else. Nothing less. Understand?”

  “How could I guarantee—?”

  “He is going to meet you,” she hissed at me. “I know it. I’m trusting you. What I told you. . . it might make it happen. And I’m going to be there. So that nothing happens to him, understand?”

  “Yeah, sure. I got it. He’s the one man in the world you want to fuck, so—”

  She punched me in the face so fast and hard that I didn’t have a chance to get my hand up. But I stabbed a two-finger kite deep into her heavily muscled rib cage before she could do it again. She gasped and slid off me.

  “You dirty fucking pig!” she snarled at me from the floor. “I would never. . .”

  My mouth tasted bloody. Some of it probably sprayed on her when I bent down to tell her: “Don’t ever do that again. What did you think, you insane bitch? We were gonna handcuff ourselves together until this is over?”

  “You better not—”

  “Don’t threaten me,” I said. “Far as I’m concerned, you’re with them. You were there when the deal was made. If I do get this guy to meet me, you can be there. And then I’m gone. Whatever you do after that, it’s on you. I’ll be all square then. Earned the money, right?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Right?” I asked her again, shoving my face within inches of hers.

  She didn’t flinch. Locked eyes with me for a long few seconds. “All right,” she finally said.

  The whole crazy scene hadn’t taken long. There was enough of the night left for me to reach out for a woman who loved the dark.