Choice of Evil b-11

by Andrew Vachss

  “Do you want to help me make a film, Zoë?” I asked instead.

  “Like a movie?”

  “Somewhat. Actually, it’s a videotape. You see that equipment over there? In the corner?”

  “Yes. I saw it before. We have that too.”

  “In your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “For surveillance?”

  “I don’t know. What’s. . . surveillance?”

  “Like the cameras they have in banks. To watch people who come on the premises.”

  “Oh. I don’t know if we have those. My father has a camera. In the basement, just like this.”

  “Like this basement?”

  “No. Never mind.”

  As this was a time when maximum participation was required, I again bowed to the child’s “Never mind” trademark. “What we have to do is make a short tape, Zoë. So everyone can see you are alive and well. Do you want to help?”

  “Sure!”

  “All right. But we’re going to have to play a trick on. . . the people who see the tape. Are you willing to help with that too?”

  “What kind of trick?”

  “Well, the only way to get the tape to them is to mail it. That takes two or three days. But it will take almost a whole day for me to go away and mail it. If I mailed it from around here, they would know we are close by.”

  “And we don’t want that?”

  “No. Certainly not. The further away they believe us to be, the better. And if the date is. . . advanced. . . they will believe it was mailed immediately after it was made, do you understand?”

  “You mean, like, pretend it’s already tomorrow?”

  “Precisely. Can you do that?”

  “That’s easy. What else do I have to do?”

  “Just say hello. Tell them you’re fine, and nobody has harmed you. That you want to come home, and to please do whatever ‘they’ say.”

  “ ‘They’?”

  “Yes, Zoë. It is much safer for me if the. . . if your parents and whoever is helping them believe there is more than one person involved in. . . this.”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  “There’s nothing to be nervous about, child. We can try it as many times as you like until we get it just right.”

  “I’ll get it right the first time,” she said confidently.

  As it developed, her confidence was neither misplaced nor overstated. At the first take, the child looked directly into the camera and said:

  “Hi! It’s me, Angelique. I’m fine. Everybody is being very nice to me here. It’s Saturday morning and I just watched my show. You have to do everything they say, okay? Bye!”

  “That was excellent!” I complimented her. “Now we must prepare the package.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Well, the most important thing is to leave no forensic traces.”

  “What’s ‘forensic’?”

  “Something that could be used as evidence. Say, a fingerprint, or a drop of perspiration. . . That’s why I always work under absolutely sterile conditions,” I told her, holding up my surgical-glove-covered hands for emphasis. “But an equally important part of presentation is misdirection. Do you know what that is, Zoë?”

  “Like magic tricks?”

  Again, I was brought up short by the child’s fund of knowledge. Or was I making unwarranted assumptions? “What do you mean?” I asked her, in order to determine.

  “Well, like with the rabbit in the hat, right? They make you look at something else, so you don’t see what they’re doing.”

  “Yes. That is called ‘legerdemain.’ ”

  “Leger. . .”

  “. . . demain. It means, sleight of hand.”

  “Oh. Anyway, how can you do that with this. . . stuff?”

  “Do you see this little mark?” I asked her, holding the cardboard sheath for the videocassette at an angle for her inspection.

  “It’s a little. . . I can’t see. . . . Oh! It’s a little piece of paper with a. . . number on it.”

  “That’s correct. Actually, it’s a tiny portion of a price code which was affixed at the point of origin—where the cassette was originally purchased. That was in Chicago. I also have this,” I said, showing her a postage-meter tape which displayed the next day’s date, “Chicago IL,” and a perfectly legitimate meter number. “I am going to fly to Chicago with the tape we just made and mail it from there.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “I was in Chicago some time ago. On business. After some period of reconnaissance, I discovered a twenty-four-hour public photocopying establishment which was very poorly staffed in the early-morning hours. I merely came in with a very large job and, when the clerk was distracted with its complexities, changed the date on the postage meter in the store, made several tapes, and then changed the date back.”

  “But how did you know what date you would need?”

  “Actually, child, I did not know. Not at that time. But I was reasonably certain of the time period. And, if events proved to be such that none of the tapes would work, they would be easy enough to discard.”

  “Oh. Then you’re going to Chicago?”

  “Yes. This evening, in fact.”

  “I’m going to be alone at night?”

  “Yes, you are. You won’t be frightened, will you?”

  “No. I won’t be afraid. I just. . .”

  “What, child?”

  “I just don’t like to be alone in the dark. Could I leave a light on?”

  “You may leave them all on if you wish, Zoë. But I have another idea, if you like.”

  “What?”

  “Well, there is some flexibility in my schedule. I could leave rather late this evening. . . after you’re asleep. And I could return while it is still daylight tomorrow. How would that be?”

  “Great!” she exclaimed.

  We had another astoundingly complex dinner, played several games of checkers—all of which the child lost—watched the news briefly, and then I read her a story until she fell asleep.

  ##############################################

  The late-night flight to Chicago was, as expected, quite full of passengers, mostly businessmen returning to their homes for the weekend. I landed at O’Hare just after 2:00 a.m., took a cab into the Loop driven by an individual whose command of English seemed limited to that particular destination, dropped the package into a mailbox on Michigan Avenue, and returned to O’Hare. By ten o’clock on Saturday morning, I was back in the hideout, eating a complicated breakfast.

  “How long will it take?” Zoë asked.

  “For this particular phase, or the entire operation?”

  “For. . . for them to get the film I made.”

  “The United States Postal Service has the capacity to deliver within two days, but we should figure three days on average. However, we must also assume the Chicago mailbox won’t even be emptied until Monday, and receipt at. . . the other end won’t be until Thursday.”

  “Couldn’t they, like, trace it?”

  “The envelope? I don’t believe so, child. I don’t know, and frankly doubt, that the mailers supplied by the post office itself are identifiable by location, but, just to be sure, I have a supply from various cities on hand, and I was careful to use one from Chicago. The label was typed on a machine I constructed from several ancient typewriters, and that concoction itself was destroyed as soon as I was finished. The package was sealed with a type of packing tape available commercially through a dozen different mail-order houses. And any ‘tracing,’ as you put it, would only add to the mystery, not solve it. There is absolutely nothing which would give a key to our current whereabouts.”

  “It’s going to take *much* longer than nine days, isn’t it?”

  “Considerably more,” I replied.

  “Can we start school, then?”

  “School?”

  “*Home* school. Remember? I told you my friend—”

  “—Jeanne Ellen.”r />
  “Yes! You *do* remember. You were just teasing.”

  “I would not. . . ah, well, perhaps.”

  “So? Can we start?”

  “There is no school on weekends,” I informed her.

  “But you *study* on weekends, don’t you? Didn’t you do that? When you were in school?”

  “I was. . .” I stopped, wondering why the next words simply would not come. Momentarily puzzled, I quickly changed the subject: “That was a long time ago,” I said. “What’s important is the way people do things today.”

  “Well, I want to study. I always study. Not just my homework either. All right?”

  “Very well. Do you want to get your schoolbooks?”

  “Okay!” She almost flew across the basement in her eagerness, and proudly presented me with a stack of well-worn texts. I took them from her and began to leaf through them in the hopes of recognizing an appropriate starting point. It was impossible to ignore the fact that virtually every page was covered with Zoë’s drawings. Although she had been careful not to obscure the actual words, the margins were completely decorated, and even the white space between paragraphs was not spared. Her mathematics book was creative to the point of genius—the child had connected various equations with drawings that seemed, in some symbolic way, to link the numbers with the art. The depth was breathtaking.

  “Are you okay?” I felt the child’s small hand tugging at my sleeve.

  “Of course, child,” I replied. “I was merely absorbed in the book, looking for—”

  “But you were doing it for an *hour*!” she said, her voice not so much complaining as. . . nervous? Frightened? I could not determine.

  “Ah, well, that is likely to occur when a person gazes at works of art. One becomes lost in the work.”

  “You were looking at my drawings?”

  “Yes, I was. They are quite. . . remarkable. But aren’t your teachers. . . annoyed at your defacement of the books?”

  “They used to be. But now they know I won’t turn them in at the end of the year. My father has to buy them. From the school, I mean. So they don’t get mad anymore.”

  “Are you bored, Zoë?”

  “No! I’m having a good time. Really.”

  “I didn’t mean here, child. I meant in school. Do you draw during class because the material is so boring?”

  “I don’t know. I always do it, I guess.”

  “And then you learn the material at home? By yourself?”

  “I. . . guess. I always do my homework, so nobody ever gets mad.”

  “But what about your grades? Your. . . report card, I suppose it would be called.”

  “I always get all A’s,” she said, without the expected vein of pride in her voice, just stating a fact.

  “Is that right? Your parents must be very pleased with your performance.”

  “My. . .” The child looked stricken, unable to complete her thought. She stood frozen, an unconnected look on her face. It was. . . familiar, in a way I myself could not articulate.

  “Your grades, Zoë,” I said gently. “Weren’t they pleased with your grades?”

  She did not respond. I had observed both catatonia and elective mutism in captured children previously, but this was neither of those states. Acting on some perhaps primal instinct, I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her over to the couch. She responded only by curling up in a tight fetal ball.

  It was almost forty-five minutes before she stirred. If she was surprised at finding herself under the blanket, she gave no sign. “Are we going to study?” she asked.

  “It seems you have already mastered the material in your own books,” I told her. “Perhaps you would be interested in learning something about computers. . .?”

  “Sure!” she said enthusiastically, throwing off the covers and coming over to where I was working on the portable machine.

  Two hours later, she was sufficiently familiar with the basics of programming to create a small module of her own. Once she did that successfully, I opened a modified version of a drawing program and showed her how she could use the electronic stylus to create freehand drawings on the screen.

  She was still working on acquiring the feel of the stylus when I told her it was time for supper.

  Oh, I knew him then. But I couldn’t figure out if he was testing me or telling me. I called for Xyla, playing out the lie that she couldn’t retrieve what had just disappeared from the screen.

  “Want me to—?”

  “Just a minute,” I told her. “There’ll be one of his questions next. Let me ask you something, what does this stuff mean?” I pulled a pad of paper off the desk and wrote down the symbols he’d been using.

  “Oh,” she said smiling. “The ** marks around a word is the same thing as italics. Most computer programs won’t let you underline unless you’re connecting with someone using the same ISP. Some people use ###### for chapter breaks, like if they’re sending you something in segments. And the >> and <<, those are quote marks, but you only use them when you’re quoting something that’s already on the screen from another person, see? I don’t know why he uses them the way he does. You understand?”

  “I. . . guess.”

  “Oh, you’ll get used to it,” she promised brightly. “I wonder when he’s going to—”

  His message interrupted her.

  >>You ever conduit?<<

  I was with him by then. I couldn’t see why, but I could see where.

  yes

  It was supposed to be a job. A job of lies. All liars. Every one of them. And I fit right in. I work for money, but I live for revenge. If I’d had a target, if I’d known who took Crystal Beth, I never would have gotten into this whole thing.

  First I thought, this killer, maybe he had a list somehow. You want a list of all the neo-Nazis, you ask ZOG. But if you want a list of all the fag-bashers, who is there to ask? Maybe this guy? And, sure, I’d get him out of here in exchange for that list—Crystal Beth’s killers would have to be on it somewhere.

  But once we connected, I could see it. He had no list, this Homo Erectus maniac. He had a fetish. Like any serial killer. That’s why they’re so hard to catch. Random hitters, triggered by something too common to protect—blondes, hookers, gay hitchhikers, red shoes, priests—symbols, not individuals.

  Whatever he was, he’d started out snatching kids. Hard to tell if killing the kids was anything other than what he said it was—that he was an artist, and killing the kids was no more than keeping his paintbrushes clean. But all the record searches came up empty.

  Was he some kind of insane fiction-writer, playing out his fantasy to thousands of people at once, me thinking I was the only one? Or just too much of a narcissist to keep his light under a bushel?

  Why Wesley?

  If I could get that, I could get him.

  But it was hard to care, and I couldn’t figure out why I did. Whoever put Crystal Beth in the ground, that’s where they were too, thanks to the hit man—if what Strega said was true.

  And I believed it was. Strega did things no man could understand, but she wouldn’t lie.

  Responsibility isn’t a legal thing. If the hit man, the one Gutterball thought was Wesley, if he did the other two from the drive-by car when they got to the garage, then the only one in the crowd he took out himself was the guy on the spot, Corky. Crystal Beth, she was an accident. One of those “casualties of war.” Casual. No malice. Just. . . in the way. And the guys who had laid down the cover fire that claimed her were already taken care of.

  The drive-by, that’s what had triggered this maniac. At least, that’s what I thought at first. But he didn’t come across as gay in his transmissions. He didn’t come across as sexual at all.

  Like Nadine. . . With all her flash and fire, she didn’t have any hormones I could smell. Said she was gay, and maybe she was. And making people do what you want, that’s sexual, in its own way. But she had a piece missing. Like there was no “Nadine” at all, just some collection of
parts.

  No point me looking anymore. I had to wait for the end of his story. And the punch line.

  “You kind of done admiring this guy, huh?” I asked Xyla, probing gently.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you used to talk about what a cyber-genius he is, all like that. Last few times, you haven’t said a word.”

  “He hasn’t shown me anything new,” she replied, a little too glibly, her face slightly flushed.

  I wondered what Trixie and Rusty and the rest of her crew thought. Because I was sure that whatever Xyla knew, they did too. I gave her the nod, and she opened his latest: