Choice of Evil

You know how it is—you talk different things over with different people. I had no one to talk this over with. No point guessing what the next installment would be, or how it would end. I couldn’t make a move until he was finished with his story. If it was a story.

Nadine called me at Mama’s. Asked: “Do you have anything yet?”

“No,” I told her, and hung up, not even sure if I was lying.

When I called Strega to ask her the same question, she just hissed at me, asked what I really wanted. So I hung up on her too.

I know a brilliant guy when it comes to unhinged minds. Doc runs a little private clinic now, but I’d met him in the joint—he’d interned as a prison shrink. I could have asked him, I guess. But there just didn’t seem any point. He always said I knew more about freaks than he did.

You could only ask the Mole techno-questions. And Michelle only emotional ones.

Mama knew money. Max knew combat.

The Prof knew it all. But he didn’t know this.

I had the lines out. But I couldn’t do anything until I got a bite.

I spent a lot of time with Pansy. Wondering how much time she had left. They say Neos are a long-lived breed. But Pansy had already gone past where they said. She looked okay—fatter, slower, maybe, but okay. I took her to a vet I know in Brooklyn. He’s not a guy I like—he works pit-bull fights for cash—but when it comes to medical stuff for someone you love, you look the other way. He said she was in good shape: heart, lungs, all that. Nothing wrong with her. “She’s just old,” the vet said.

“Me fucking too,” I told him as I forked over the money.

I was in the Plymouth, on my way back from wasting a couple of hours with a punk who said he wanted to buy three crates of guns. But he didn’t show me the cash and I sure wasn’t showing him any guns first. Reason the conversation took so long, neither of us knew if the other was ATF. He didn’t feel that way to me. Just some disturbo who wanted to talk politics and had been thrown out of too many bars, so he set himself up as a buyer and got an audience that way. Pitiful stupid loser. When the ATF did drop him, he’d shriek “Entrapment!” all the way to Leavenworth.

The cell phone throbbed next to my heart. I unholstered it, said: “What?”

“Incoming.” Xyla’s voice.

I punched the throttle.

* There was no expectation of immediate response on my part. Indeed, the voice message transmitted had provided different directions entirely:

We have your daughter. She has not been harmed in any way. This is not personal. We are professionals. Do not notify the authorities. This can be resolved very easily if you cooperate. Place an ad in the Personals column of USA Today which states: “Lost at O’Hare Airport: Saudi Arabian passport number 125689774. Repeat: 125689774. Reward for return. No questions asked.” When we see the ad, we will contact you by this same method. Any attempt to trace calls will be detected by our equipment and the subject will be terminated without further contact. You may, however, record any incoming calls so that you need not rely on your note-taking ability.

I have found that allowing the target to tape calls provides them with a measure of reassurance. Even the most cooperative of victims can be subject to attacks of nervousness, and I would not want such a mental state in those whose *precise* cooperation would be required throughout the process.

USA Today was selected because of its status as a “national” newspaper, available from a wide variety of totally anonymous outlets. The ad itself has the ring of authenticity: While I cannot be certain without hacking into the passenger manifests of various airlines—something of which I am certainly capable—logic compels the conclusion that some Saudi nationals have passed through America’s busiest airport within the two weeks or so preceding the placement of the ad. Further, because it is a common practice of contraband-traffickers to place apparently innocent ads which contain a series of numbers, those in law enforcement who scrutinize such placements on a regular basis would assume the ad I requested to be in that category, never connecting it to my actual intent.

Finally, of course, no physical contact is required for me to read the ad. . . or to read subsequent entries in that same forum.

My next task was to monitor local radio, alert to any news of the kidnapping. There was no such reference. Although I had little fear of being discovered accidentally, the thought of roaming search parties of self-righteous locals, any of whom would trade their paltry futures for a few minutes’ exposure on television, was not comforting to me. By then, the bus would have been discovered. But even had I been careless enough—and I assure you, I was not—to leave some indication of my brief presence, any bus occupied on a daily basis by a dozen or so schoolchildren would prove beyond the forensic capabilities of any local operation. In my work, I rely to some extent upon the jealousy and territoriality of local jurisdictions, and do not expect FBI involvement for a minimum of seventy-two hours. And the FBI, following its own procedures for excluding known prints, would be required to take exemplars from all of the children who habitually ride that bus. Amazing though it will sound to the uninitiated, my experience indicates that at least one of the families of the children who were not kidnapped will balk at this intrusion into their “civil rights,” thus delaying the process even further.

None of that is of any consequence.

Then he was done.

I had my mouth open to call Xyla when she walked in. Almost like she knew how long it was going to take me.

“Question coming?” she asked.

“Always has, so far,” I replied.

It took less than a minute.

>>Last address?<<

Whose address did this maniac want? Mine? Wesley’s? Wesley never had an address. The last time I’d seen him face to face, it was in an abandoned building he was using as a staging area. . . before his last strike. Was he trying to tie me to. . . No, what was the point? All this. . . information. Fuck it. I spoke to Xyla and she made it appear on the screen.

Meserole Street

My answer to his last question had been a pair of guesses. Even if I was right and he was asking about Wesley, the ice-man’s last hideout wasn’t actually on Meserole Street, it was just off the corner. But I couldn’t give you the number of the building if my life depended on it. That neighborhood probably didn’t even have a goddamned zip code.

He was getting cute now. No reason for it.

None I understood, anyway.

“Not a single one,” Wolfe said.

That was all she said. I felt. . . surrounded. We were in the no-man’s-land under the Williamsburg Bridge. Someone I didn’t recognize was standing off to one side, holding a revolver. It was pointed at the ground, but I was close enough to see his left hand on his right wrist. And that the piece was cocked. Mick was somewhere behind me. Max had always figured him for a karateka of some kind, but we’d never known for sure. Pepper was in the front seat of her car, watching, the motor running.

Me, I was alone.

Wolfe was looking at me, a glowing red neon I Don’t Trust You! sign in her gray eyes. Cold gray now.

“Can you—?”

“On what you gave me, no.”

“Then I—”

“Just give me the money,” Wolfe said.

I guessed I’d sent the killer what he wanted. When I opened the next message, he was right back. . . continuing from where he’d left off.

When I returned—allegedly from making a telephone call from some remote location—the child was munching calmly on some cookies, a glass of juice at her elbow, her face half buried in one of the books I had procured in anticipation of her stay. If the restraints bothered her in any way, it was not apparent.

“Did you call them?” she asked, looking up as casually as if I had been a legitimate member of her household who had gone out to perform some mundane task.

“I did,” I told her. “But there will be no response from them for a minimum of forty-eight hours. This whole process will take a certain amount of time.”

“How much time?” That was a reasonable question, especially from a child’s perspective. Usually, I am careful to keep the estimate quite short (bearing in mind, of course, that even the modified form of sensory deprivation attendant to keeping a captive away from all sources of natural light is sufficient to completely blur the concept of “days”), but I sensed that this child was simply asking for information, and not emotionally invested in the response.

“It could be as long as two or three weeks,” I said.

“Is it ever longer?” she asked.

I watched her eyes, aware that innocence is often a mask. Had she deduced my true calling from my prior conversation? Or was she somehow baiting me into revelation? Could she simply be curious? I decided to make no assumptions. . . .

“Why do you ask that? Do you think I have done this sort of thing before?”

“Oh, you must have,” she said, her little face perfectly serious. “You know everything about it. Nobody’s very good at something the first time they try it, are they?”

“Well,” I explained, “there is a difference between talent and skill.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Let us assume you have a natural talent for. . . oh, I don’t know, say painting, all right? Now, you would be quite good at it as soon as you picked up a brush. That is, you would have a natural. . . aptitude for it. But the more you practiced, the better you would become.”

“I have a natural talent,” the child piped up.

“And what is that?” I asked her.

“I can draw.”

“Can you?” I asked, simply to engage the child. Her work on the checkerboard pieces rendered her declaration quite superfluous.

“Yes, I can. I don’t mean trace, or color either. Not like a baby. I can draw.”

“What do you draw?” I asked her, drawing her (pun intended) further away from the potentially frightening aspects of her situation.

“I can draw anything,” she said with the smug confidence of the very young.

This disturbed me. I pride myself on being fully equipped, studying the child I capture well in advance to be prepared for any eventuality. For example, I once took a child who was diabetic. It was greatly reassuring to inform the parents on my very first call that I was aware of the problem and our “nurse” was on hand with all appropriate medications. Improvisation is not my forte, and leaving the hideout to obtain materials was out of the question. Still, I asked the child: “What do you need to draw?”

She looked at me questioningly, but said nothing. Clearly, she required a further explanation.

“What. . . materials?” I asked. “Paper, pencils. . . what sort of implements do you require?”

“Oh!” she said brightly. “I have everything. Right in my backpack.”

A momentary flash of paranoia—that is, paranoia in the classic psychiatric sense, not the functional hyper-vigilance which is the trademark of a successful practitioner of my profession—overcame me for an instant, but then I told her she was free to get what she needed.

“I can’t reach it,” she said.

And I saw she was speaking the truth. Her restraints permitted significant freedom of movement, but I had placed the backpack in a far corner of the basement, and it was, in fact, beyond her grasp. I walked over and picked it up. Professional experience commanded that I search it thoroughly. . . but the finely honed instincts—which are, obviously, not “instincts” at all, being not bio-genetic but actually the synthesis of sufficient experiences so that they surface as quickly as if encoded—developed over those same years caused me to hand it to the child without examination.

She took it from me as though she expected nothing less. Some captives are querulous and demanding. Others are abject and fearful. Some are floridly terrified, others virtually mute. This one fit no such definition. She was. . . at peace. Not with the resignation that comes over an individual when all hope is gone, but with the sense that the future, while immutable, was acceptable.

“Is everything there, Angelique?” I asked.

“My name isn’t Angelique,” she replied, not looking inside the backpack.

“Angel, then,” I offered.

“My name is Zoë,” she said in a voice that brooked no disagreement.

I avoided the usual adult trap of condescension and merely said, “My apologies, Zoë. Now. . . is everything there?”

“You didn’t open it,” she replied.

“I. . . don’t understand.”

“You didn’t open it,” she repeated. “From the time I got on the bus, I was the only one who had it. It’s always been with me.”

“And so. . .?”

“So if you didn’t open it, whatever was there is still there, see?”

“Yes. That was a very good deduction. You’d make a good detective,” I told her, mentally chastising myself for overlooking the obvious—if I were interested in protecting a child from kidnapping, I would certainly have affixed a tracking device in some way, and a backpack would be quite suitable. I would not make such a mistake again.

“I would?” she asked, checking my face carefully.

“You certainly would,” I assured her, my voice brisk and professional. “A good detective works only with the facts. Anything that is not a fact should be ignored.”

“There’ll be detectives, won’t there? Looking for me, I mean.”

“Certainly. They have probably already begun.”

“But they won’t find me, will they?”

“No, child, they won’t.”

“Because you’re smarter than them, right?”

“I am. . . . It is not strictly a matter of intelligence,” I explained. “It is more a matter of careful planning and skillful execution. There is no accounting for random chance, but—”

“So they *could* find me?” she interrupted.

“It is possible. Nothing is one hundred percent certain in these matters. There is always *some* chance.”

“Oh,” is all she said.

“Don’t you want to draw?” I asked her.

“I always want to draw.”

“Then why not. . .?”

“I don’t want you to be mad,” she said, her voice tentative.

“Why would I be angry?” I asked her, hoping to teach by example the difference between insanity and annoyance—people are so imprecise in their verbiage, but only children seem capable of learning.

“Because I want to draw you,” she said, her eyes wide and alert.

A conundrum was thus produced. The child’s intelligence was manifest, a phenomenon not to be ignored. Therefore, despite my desire to make her stay with me as pleasant and stress-free as possible under the circumstances, surely she realized that a sketch of her own kidnapper would be of great value to the authorities. On the other hand, she certainly had ample opportunity to use her eyes, if not her skill at drawing, and my features were, presumably, memorized. If I refused her request, it might supplement the illusion that she was, eventually, to be returned. Conversely, it would perhaps distress her. On balance, I elected to compromise.

“You may certainly draw me, if you wish,” I told her. “But under the circumstances I’m sure you will understand you’ll have to leave the. . . artwork here when you leave.”

“It was for you anyway,” she said. “I never keep what I draw.”

I pondered this internally. Children are generally guileless, but that is a rule to which there are many exceptions. . . some characterological, but most situational. Children are extraordinarily self-absorbed—a characteristic often retained into adulthood. But that sort of analysis did not figure in my assessment—globalization is not a valid problem-solving tool. Why would the child never keep her own handiwork? Under other circumstances, I would have simply asked the apparently invited question. But the child’s mien was that of someone who did not expect to be questioned, so I merely said:

“Very well. How would you like me to. . . pose?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” she assured me. “I can just draw while we. . . talk or something, okay?”

“All right.”

She opened her backpack and removed a thick drawing tablet and several pencils.

“I have pastel sticks too,” she said, noticing my observations. “But I don’t draw people with them. Not until I’m done with the pencils.”

“Very sensible,” I told her. “Pencils are more precise, aren’t they?”

“They’re sharper,” she replied, as though amplifying her agreement.

She busied herself at the tablet. I watched her work, dark hair spilling over her face, almost obscuring it from view. I glanced at the tablet and noticed that a good many pages had been removed. Apparently it was true that the child did not keep her work once it was completed. I. . .

“How long does it usually take?” Her voice intruded into my thoughts, startling me. Even without glancing at my watch, I realized some considerable time had passed.

“How long does what take, Zoë?”

She smiled, perhaps at my use of the name she had selected. “For them to. . . I mean, don’t you have to talk to them? So you can. . .”

“Oh. I understand what you mean now. There is no set rule. Sometimes it takes several weeks for the entire arrangements to be worked out.”

“What’s the shortest time it ever took?”

“Nine days,” I answered without thinking. Immediately, I began to berate myself internally for my foolishness. The answer I gave the child was an honest one, but it would not be as reassuring as I had hoped.

“But this will probably take longer, won’t it?”

“Yes. Absolutely,” I told her, grateful that she was not going to fixate on a nine-day period and become anxious if it were exceeded.

“You’re hard to draw,” she said.

“Why is that?”

“Your face keeps. . . shifting. I don’t know, I’m not sure. You have to draw the skull.”

“The skull?”

“The skull beneath the skin. You have to draw that first. That’s the part that stays the same.”

“I’m not sure I follow you exactly,” I told her. “May I have a look?”

“No!” she replied, the first hint of sharpness in her voice since I had captured her. “I don’t like anyone to see my drawing until I’m done. Sometimes I don’t get it right, and I have to keep doing it. So I don’t like anyone to see it until it’s true. Please?”

“Certainly,” I assured her. “Every artist must work in his or her own way.”

She smiled gratefully and went back to work.

On her first night, I asked the child her normal bedtime, but she was vague in response. Offered a choice of evening meals, however, she became animated. When I told her that, yes, she could mix several of the meals I had planned, incorporating components as she wished, she clapped her hands in delight. After great deliberation, she chose spaghetti, spinach, and liver.

“Do you think that’s gross?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, I think it is quite creative,” I told her. “I believe I’ll have the same.”

The child helped with the cooking. She ate her meal with relish, but watched me anxiously until I assured her that, indeed, her mixed selection was delicious.

“And very good for you too,” she added.

Realizing that, for whatever reason, she was not going to be precise about her normal bedtime, I told her that she could, while she was staying with me, go to bed anytime she wished. After all, there would be no school for her in the morning.

“Are you going to do it?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Teach me. I have a friend. Jeanne Ellen. She’s home-schooled. Do you know what that is?”

“Certainly. Some states permit—”

“Are you going to do it?” she interrupted.

“Do. . . what?”

“Home-school me,” she replied, as though I were a bit slow.

“Well, I. . .”

“I have most all of my books with me,” she said, a pleading undertone to her voice. “And you have *lots* of books here too, the ones you got for me, I mean.”

I began to protest that I was not familiar with her coursework, but quickly self-edited. After all, how complex could a fifth-grade curriculum be, especially given the abysmal state of American education generally?

“All right,” I agreed. “But you had better get ready for bed, just in case you fall asleep.”

“I don’t have any pajamas.”

“My apologies. I showed you the books, but not the clothes. Over there in the chest of drawers. Take a look. It’s all new, of course. I had to guess at your sizes, but I believe I was quite accurate.”

The child immediately ran over to where I had indicated and began pawing through the clothing. It was all of good quality, but not up to her usual standard, I assumed.

“Can I keep all this?” she asked, surprising me. After all, if she was not permitted an excess of books, why. . .? Still, I did not pursue the issue.

“Of course,” I said. “But now go put on your pajamas, all right? You can use the bathroom.”

She trotted off without a word, emerging in about fifteen minutes. I had no anxiety about the time lapse—escape from the bathroom was impossible and it was devoid of potential weaponry.

“I brushed my teeth,” she announced when she emerged, wrapped in the pink terry-cloth bathrobe I had purchased in anticipation of a little girl’s natural modesty in the presence of a stranger.

I made up the bed for her, and sat down to read. I left the television on. In the past, that had always succeeded in eventually lulling the children to sleep. But this one proved remarkably resistant. It was almost midnight when I looked up to find her wide awake.

“Are you having trouble getting to sleep?” I asked her.

“No. I’m just not sleepy.”

“All right.”

“But I *should* sleep, right?”

“Well, of course. At some point, everyone—”

“Could you read me a story?” she asked. “That would make me sleepy, I know it.”

“I—”

“There’s lots of books,” she reminded me. “And I haven’t read hardly any of them.”

“Do your parents usually read to you before you—”

“No,” she said, her voice flat. “Please?”

I found a book about a mother polar bear and her cub and their various adventures as they crossed the Arctic ice cap in search of food. True to her word, she was fast asleep before I got a dozen pages into it.

She appeared to sleep peacefully.

I felt Xyla in the room, but she wasn’t standing where she could see the screen.

“This was a lot longer one, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know what it means. . . .”

“I thought he was limiting transmission time to prevent us from fingering him, but he has to know there’s no way to do that with these little cookies—they’re files with programs—he keeps mixing in there. Not going over an open line.”

“But when you send him the answer to all his questions. . .?”

“I don’t think he’s there, waiting for it. I think the program he’s using just files it someplace else. He could open it whenever he wanted. I think maybe—”

I held up my hand to silence her, watching his question pop up:

>>Age first contact?<<

I wasn’t going to guess what he meant anymore. I played it the way it looked: how old was I when I first met Wesley? Truth is, I wasn’t sure. But I gave Xyla a number for him anyway.

12

I could never bring Wesley’s face into my mind. Never see it clearly. He didn’t look like anything. He was a generic. . . never got a second glance from anyone. Most of his targets never saw him at all. This is where I’m supposed to say “except for his eyes,” right? People who write those serial-killer porno books never met the real thing. Anyway, Wesley was no serial killer. He was an assassin. And his eyes didn’t show you anything. Nothing about him did.

I can hear his voice, though. Clear as if he was right next to me. It was a machine’s voice, lifeless, no inflection. Just a communication device. I remember every word from the last time we talked:

“Something about a kid?” the ice-man had asked me, wondering how I had stumbled across his business.

“Yeah.”

“That soft spot—it’s like a bull’s eye on your back.”

“Nothing I can do,” I said. Lying to Wesley was. . . wasted.

“It’s not your problem, right?” he asked me, trying to understand. “Not your kid.”

“I didn’t want it like this,” I told him. “I wanted to be. . . something else.”

“What?”

I dragged on my smoke, knowing I’d finally have to say it. I looked deep into the monster’s empty eyes. “I wanted to be you,” I said.

“No, you don’t. I’m not afraid. Of anything. It’s not worth it.”

Even as he said that to me, so many years ago, I knew it was true. But when we were coming up, Wesley was the icon. He was never afraid, even when we were kids. I don’t mean he was ready to go to Fist City with another guy over some insult. But he would take your life if you put your hands on him. Not right then and there—Wesley was no slugger. But someday. Guaranteed. It was all over the street, even then. You fucked with Wesley, you were dead. Money in the bank. Earning compound interest.

After he got out of prison that last time, I guess he figured he might as well make a living at what he was.

Wesley had a different mother than me. But his birth certificate had the same blank spots mine did.

He saved my life once, when we were kids. A stupid thing. Me and another guy in the gang, lying on the rat-slime next to the subway tracks, our heads on the rail. Train coming. First one to jump back loses. I was ready to die right then. Die for a rep I’d never be around to enjoy. To have a name to replace the one I’d never been given. Wesley was the one who pulled me back, just in time. The other guy had already jumped, but I hadn’t seen it. . . not with my eyes closed.

Later, when Wesley went to work, I never went near him. Once in a while, he’d reach out for me. Whatever he wanted, I would do it. Not because I was afraid of him. Wesley didn’t work like that. No robberies, no extortions, no scams. Wesley killed people. That was his work.

When he got tired of his work, he finished it. By doing as much of it as he could in one monstrous move.

The whisper-stream still throbs with it. Wondering if the ice-man had another way out. I knew he didn’t. Knew he wanted to go. I read the note he’d left behind—mailed to me just before he walked his last walk.

But as long as the whisper-stream flowed, Wesley would never die.

“You ever watch two girls have sex?” Nadine asked me, a sheaf of paper in her two clasped hands, still trafficking in a product I didn’t want.

“Yes.”

“Ever do it with them?”

“Why?”

“I thought maybe if I put on a little show for you first—me and my. . . friend—you might change your mind. Ever see a real pony girl? I’m a good rider.”

I let out a long breath to show her my patience was low. “I already told you once—there’s nothing you could do. Now either give me that stuff or not.”

But all the paper she’d tempted me over to her house with was crap. Her cop pal had looked a bit deeper, that’s all. And came up empty.

The guy who opened the door was big, six-six minimum, and built to match. He had a mild face, rimless glasses, short-cropped hair. I remembered him from the place I’d met Crystal Beth, always sitting off in a corner, drawing. And he’d been at this joint too, the first time I’d come. What was his name. . .? Oh yeah:

“Where’s everybody else, Rusty?” I asked him.

“Uh, there was a little thing. Earlier. They’ll be back soon.”

“Okay. I’ll just—”

“He’s here,” Xyla announced, standing in the doorway to the computer room.

“Uh, see you later,” the big guy said.

As soon as we got into her room, Xyla opened him up.

To my surprise, the child did not rush through the evening meal in her eagerness to play the new game. Indeed, she politely inquired if she could, again, select the menu and, given permission, spent the better part of an hour examining the various options before making a decision. Which was: Pasta in a cream sauce of her own creation speckled with chunks of albacore.

“It would be better with bread,” she assured me.

“Bread doesn’t keep well,” I replied. “And since we are going to be—”

“Well, couldn’t you pick some up? When you go out the next time, I mean?”

“I will. . . try,” I finally agreed, understanding intuitively that the child was not referring to typical manufactured bread—she expected me to visit an actual bakery. That was out of the question. Still, if I remembered correctly—and, in fact, I have never failed to remember correctly—there was a bakery of some sort right within the airport.

We ate in relative silence, for which I was grateful. The child’s manners were superb—she invariably asked if I would pass a condiment rather than reaching for it herself. But her visage appeared troubled.

“Is something wrong, Zoë?” I asked.

“Do you like it?”

“It?”

“The *food*. Do you like the food?”

“It’s delicious.”

“Well, you didn’t *say* anything.”

“That was bad manners on my part,” I said, truthfully enough. “I was enjoying it so that I forgot myself.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I just. . . When people don’t say anything, I never know. . . I mean, I always think. . .”

“I promise to tell you what I’m thinking, Zoë. How would that be?”

“Oh I would *love* that. You’re not. . . teasing, are you? You’ll really tell me?”

“I certainly will. But only when you ask, fair enough?”

“Okay! And I won’t ask all the time, I swear.”

“Whenever you like, child.”

Throughout the rest of the meal, we talked around pockets of silence, but never once did she ask what I was thinking.

“Can I do it myself?” she asked as we started to clean up after dinner.

“I thought it would be easier if we both did it.”

“No. I mean, yes, maybe it would. But it doesn’t have to be easier, does it? I mean, I would like to do it myself. It would be fun.”

“Very well, Zoë. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled.

Not having access to a newspaper, I flicked on the television set to watch PBS as the child busied herself in the kitchen portion of the basement.

I must have been resting my eyes, half-listening to the television, when the child tapped me on the shoulder. Startled, I turned to her, waiting for her to speak.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the screen.

It only took a second to ascertain. “Some footage of tribal warfare,” I told her.

“Why are they killing everyone?”

How to explain xenophobia and its natural byproduct, genocide, to a child? “They hate each other,” I tried for simplicity, knowing what was coming next.

“Why?”

I was not disappointed, but no closer to an explanation. It was clear that the child was not trying to be annoying, that she was deeply puzzled by what appeared, on its surface, to be patent insanity. Yet, in thinking through to a response accessible by a child of Zoë’s age, I could not escape the internal logic. After all, tribalism is per se insanity. Still, I made another attempt:

“Do you know about Indians, Zoë? Have you ever studied about them in school?”

“Not really. But I know. . . something about them, I guess.”

“All right. You know Indians are aligned into tribes, yes?”

“Yes. Like Apaches and Navahos and—”

“That’s right. Now, even today, there are tribes too. In the Balkans, in Africa, in the Middle East. And some of them hate each other. They have for many, many years. Sometimes, when that kind of hatred builds up long enough, one tribe attempts to exterminate the other.”

“Exterminate? Like with—”

“Yes, like with termites in a house. But the difference is. . . it would be. . . as if the goal was to exterminate every single termite from the face of the earth. So no more termites would exist anywhere.”

“But. . . people. . .?”

“To a virulent tribalist, people of other tribes are the same as termites. Mere vermin, to be disposed of by any means at hand.”

“They all want to kill each other?”

“Yes.”

“In. . . these different places?”

“In other places too, Zoë. Kurds and Iraqis. Turks and Armenians. Serbs and Croats. Hausa and Ibo. The list is endless.”

“But not in America, right?”

“Child, what you must understand is that those thoughts are everywhere. In America too, certainly. Do you know anything about Adolf Hitler?”

“Yes. He was an evil man. He wanted to kill all the Jews.”

“That is correct. And there are people in America who still follow Hitler.”

“They want to kill all the Jews too?”

“Yes. And there are others who want to kill all the blacks. And blacks who want to kill all the whites. And—”

“Why?”

“The reasons are too complex to explain simply, Zoë. Some are mentally ill. Some are inadequates who can only feel superior by denigrating others. Some are profiteers, who make money from hatred. Some actually believe in a sort of manifest destiny—that God has designated them to rule the earth.”

“Will America be like that someday?”

“It is not impossible,” I told her. “With the technology for mass destruction so readily available that any moron can kill thousands all by himself, race war in America is not out of the question.”

“So where is it safe?”

“There’s no *place* that is safe, Zoë. Only people are safe.”

“I’m safe now, right?”

“Yes, you are perfectly safe here.”

“Do they kill children too?”

“Exterminators do not discriminate on the basis of age,” I explained.

She started to cry then. I was. . . confused by that reaction, especially as I had assured her of her own safety. Her immediate safety, in point of fact, and children have a more truncated view than adults—the “future” to them usually is not very much beyond the present. I had no wish for the child to be in distress, and vaguely understood that I could have responded to her inquiries in a way different from that which I had elected. Still, beyond the usual platitudes so beloved of adults, I was bereft of any actual comfort potential, and I sensed that Zoë would be impervious to hollow clichés. However, by the time I had reasoned all this through in what I acknowledge to be a laborious fashion, the child quieted down, utilizing some self-soothing inner mechanism I could not immediately detect.

“Aren’t we going to play checkers?” she asked me, rubbing her eyes as though to banish traces of her just-departed tears.

It induced no consternation that the child grasped the principle of checkers almost immediately. By that time, I had grown accustomed to her quickness. We played only three games—“practice games,” she termed them—with me showing her the consequences of each move as she proposed it, before she announced she was ready to play “for real.”

This proved problematic. Unlike Risk, checkers is a finite activity, with all probabilities susceptible to near-instantaneous calculation. Therefore, it was impossible for the child to defeat me. And having proposed the activity myself, it would be unseemly for me to dominate the contest. Fearing she might detect a deliberate miscue, I provided full disclosure: “You understand, Zoë, this game really isn’t for children.”

“Why not?” was the reply, as expected.

“Well, because it takes years to actually win a single game. Years of practice. And most children don’t have the patience for that.”

“I’m very patient,” she assured me.

“I am certain that you are. But, still, won’t you get bored playing if you never win?”

“It’s still playing,” the child said. “It’s just not winning.”

That comment seemed far too sagacious for a child of her age, but I allowed it to pass and we began to play “for real.”

Zoë lost every game for almost three hours without a word of complaint.

“Sleepy,” she finally said, her head lolling.

I did not think it proper to undress the child, so I simply opened the bed and placed her there, covering her against a possible chill.

############################################## “Would it work if we put something inside first?” the child asked me early the next morning.

“I’m not certain what you’re asking,” I told her. Which was certainly the truth.

“Inside the biscuits.”

“I don’t. . .” I began, but then, upon actually looking at what I had been doing, I understood the question. The “biscuits” to which the child had been referring were not fresh from a bakery. Rather, they came in a tube designed to be stored in a refrigerator. One simply pops open the tube by pulling a strip down the side of the container. Inside, there are eight white disks of dough which, if placed in the oven for the requisite time, emerge as biscuits. I eat such products frequently. So frequently, in fact, that I go into auto-pilot mode as I cook for myself, never paying attention to the process.

“You want to put something inside the biscuits *before* they are baked?” I asked her.

“Yes, please.”

“Why would you want to do that, Zoë?”

“Just to make it different. Maybe. . . even better. Just to. . . I don’t know. . . see what happens. Do you think it would work?”

“I must say I don’t know. The biscuits are a specific design. If they are separated to insert something, that might alter the result. And whatever was inserted would be subjected to the same degree of heat for the same duration.”

“But can’t we *see*?”

“If you like.”

“Goody!” the child exclaimed, clapping her hands. She immediately began to forage through the entire supply of foodstuffs, holding up various options much as an artist might examine a dab of color before applying it to canvas. She finally settled on an entire palette: Celery, onion, radish, parsley, and other herbs.

“Are you going to put all that in the biscuits?” I asked her.

“No, silly. Each biscuit gets a different one.”

“Very intelligent,” I complimented her. “That increases significantly the prospects of success for at least a portion of the experiment.”

“And they might *all* be good too.”

The child was still during the baking process, but stole occasional glances at the oven. When the timer sounded, she reached it before I did. She turned the oven off, opened the door, and took out the metal tray with the biscuits, being careful to wrap her hand in a towel first. I never use a pot holder for such tasks and the child had apparently observed my propensity for utilizing whatever was at hand.

“They *look* real good,” she said, holding out the tray.

I was constrained to agree. The appearance of the finished product did not vary visually from what I had grown accustomed to over the years.

“Which one do you want?” she asked.

“Do you remember which is which?”

“Yes,” she said proudly. “Just tell me which one you want, and I’ll pick it out.”

“Oh, the. . . parsley.”

“Here!” she said, reaching unerringly for the correct biscuit. She watched as I took a tentative bite. It tasted as it usually did but, perhaps, there was just a hint of parsley. . .?

“It’s quite good,” I told her.

“See?”

“Yes, I do. Now perhaps you would like to sample one yourself?”

“I’m going to try the onion,” she declared.

We then reversed roles, me watching her with some interest. “Ummm! It’s really, really good!” she sang out.

The radish biscuits—she had, for some reason, made two of those—were, we both agreed, the least successful of the batch. “Now you have your own recipe, Zoë,” I told her.

“My own?”

“Certainly. You are the originator, so it is certainly your own.”

“You mean it’s a secret?”

“Not necessarily. I only mean you hold the key. If you share your recipe with anyone else, they could certainly pass it along. But if you keep it to yourself, only you will know.”

“You know too.”

“I promise I shall never tell another living soul.”

“Swear?”

“Yes, child. I swear.”

“What should I call it?”

“Well, what about ‘Zoë’s Secret Recipe’?”

“No, I don’t like that. It’s not really a secret, it’s more like a. . . they *look* the same, right? As the regular ones?”

“Yes, they do.”

“So it would be a surprise? If you ate one and you didn’t know?”

“Absolutely.”

“Zoë’s Surprise,” the child said. “That’s what I’m going to call it.”

“Perfect,” I assured her.

True to her word, although the child insisted on playing checkers throughout the day, she never once complained about not winning. In between, she busied herself with drawing. Although she watched television programs when I did, she displayed no independent interest in the medium. Nor was she at all drawn to the video games, the first of my captives who resisted such temptation. She continued to be somewhat ceremonious about meals, but as it mollified her to be allowed to alter either content or presentation, I silently acquiesced to the point where it became the norm.

I observed her closely for signs of dissociation, especially as she displayed no anxiety whatever concerning the progress of reunification with her family. Some children segue into an altered state to cope with unbearable trauma and, despite my best efforts, children have reacted in such a manner occasionally. However, Zoë was fully oriented—albeit often preoccupied—at all times. And although her curiosity was, in general, boundless, it was all outwardly focused.

“I’m going to be gone when you get up tomorrow morning,” I told her. “I have to go out and check the newspapers, and pick up some of the things you wanted. But I have to leave quite early to do that, do you understand?”

“Yes. But can’t I—?”

“Zoë,” I said patiently, “it would be impossible to take you along. I already explained—”

“Not that. I just wanted to. . . Oh, never mind.”

“Wanted to. . . what, child?”

“Never *mind*!” she blurted out, stamping her foot. The first display of willfulness I had observed. I made a decision not to press her, and she soon returned to what I had come to understand was her normal affect.

In order to encourage her to go to sleep earlier than usual—I myself could not rest until she had achieved that state—I read her another story.

As soon as she was asleep, I disabled the computer, proofed the surroundings, and tested the restraints. Everything was in order.

I awoke at 4:00 a.m.—my wristwatch has a silent alarm which causes it to throb against my pulse. After showering and shaving, I selected an anonymous business suit and a well-used carry-on bag. But when I re-entered the main room to have a cup of tea before I left, Zoë was up and bustling about.

“Why are you up so early, child?” I asked her.

“Well, I had to make breakfast, didn’t I?”

“It’s too early for you to eat. Why don’t you go back to—?”

“Not me, you. You have to eat something before you go out. It’s important to always have something in your stomach.”

“Very well,” I told her, not wishing to cause her any distress when she would be alone for so long.

She made an omelet with several different ingredients. I didn’t watch her closely, preferring to be surprised. It was excellent, despite the pale color and altered texture.

“What did you put in this, Zoë?”

“Cream cheese and red peppers.”

“Well, you’ve done it again. This is quite astounding.”

“You won’t forget, will you?”

“Forget what?”

“What you’re going to get. When you’re out?”

“A deck of playing cards,” I told her. “And some fresh bread, if I can find it.”

“You *did* remember.”

“It wasn’t a very complex task,” I told her. “Why would you expect me to. . .”

“People forget stuff,” she said, dismissively.

“My memory is flawless,” I responded.

“I wasn’t. . . Never mind.”

Not wishing to evoke another tantrum, I did not pursue the matter. After testing the security of the restraints, I said goodbye to Zoë and left the hideout from the first floor.

The drive was uneventful, as I had hoped. The radio had nothing about the kidnapping, despite my enduring its repetitive blather for the entire trip. I was fortunate enough to locate a spot in the short-term parking lot, the advantage being the coin-operated meters as opposed to a human being who filled the same role in the larger lot. The rates were near-extortionate, but a full hour was permitted, so there was no risk of an identifying ticket from one of the uniformed drones eagerly circling awaiting just such an opportunity.

The young woman at the airport concession counter rang up my innocuous purchases: People magazine, a lurid-covered paperback book, a deck of playing cards, and, of course, USA Today. I made certain that, upon inquiry, she would not recall a man matching my “description” as having purchased only the newspaper. She pulled a receipt from the cash register and handed it to me along with my change, never making eye contact. I placed them in my carry-on bag, a round-trip ticket to a nearby city in my inside breast pocket against the unlikely chance of being asked to produce a reason for my presence.

The airport did, indeed, feature a bakery. I purchased three loaves of French bread, then made my way out of the terminal toward where a group of people had gathered to smoke. I had a pack of cigarettes in my pocket, opened with several missing, in preparation. It was not at all uncommon for ticketed passengers to wait outside until the last moment in order to ingest as much nicotine as possible in the fresh air (the contradiction apparently lost upon them) to fortify them for the coming deprivation. However, once certain I was not being shadowed, I simply proceeded across the various walkways until I reached my car. I left the airport as undetected as I had entered.

As an act of self-discipline, I did not examine the newspaper until I re-entered the basement. The child looked up when I entered, her artwork spread in front of her, classical music of some kind playing on the radio.

“Hi!” she said brightly.

“Hello, Zoë.”

“Did you get—?”

“Of course,” I assured her, pulling out the deck of cards and the French bread.

“No, I meant. . . did you get the paper?”

“Yes.”

“And did they—?”

“I don’t know yet,” I told her. “Let’s see.”

Apparently, the child took that statement as an invitation (although it was not so intended, I could not fault her for taking the words literally) and perched herself on the arm of the chair I was occupying as I searched for the appropriate section.

The response was there. Precisely as instructed. I pointed it out to Zoë.

“Does that mean they’ll buy me back?” she asked.

“It would appear so,” I replied. “But it may be a ploy of some kind.”

“What’s a ploy?”

“A ruse. A. . . trick.”

“Oh. How will you know?”

“There are stages to these operations. As we progress, the truth will emerge.”

“But you are going to ask them for money, right?”

“Certainly. That is the whole purpose.”

“Do you have a lot of money?”

“I. . . don’t know, child. I suppose that would depend on what ‘a lot’ means to you.”

“Do you have a million dollars?”

“Yes,” I told her truthfully. “I have considerably more than that, in fact.”

“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.

“Some people. . . some gay people. . . they hired me to reach out to him. See if he needed any help. Getting away, I mean.”

“And you were willing to do that?”

“I’m trying to find whoever killed Crystal Beth,” I told her. “And maybe he’s the path.”

“Yeah. Okay. I mean, I’m no serial-killer groupie but. . . I mean, it’s not like he’s killing kids or anything. Everyone knows how you’d feel about that.”

Her face was a study in repose, brown eyes alive but calm. And right then I knew. Xyla was slicker than the killer thought. And, somehow, she’d read his damn messages too.

I didn’t say anything.

Xyla swept into the room. Trixie and Rusty backed away.

“Ready to have your look?” Xyla asked, so upbeat and innocent.

“Sure,” I told her.

The following morning, it was time for the next phase of the operation. Again telling Zoë that I would be making a call from outside, I simply went upstairs and activated the staged sequence in the computer with the “contact-target” command. Within minutes, a call would be placed to the subject’s home. Whether picked up by an answering machine or a person, I was reasonably confident that it would be recorded. The digitized paste-up was ready to send, one of a menu of choices available to me telephonically via button-sequence selection. As the target had indicated compliance via the newspaper ad, I was able to proceed to the next step without the annoying game-playing that sometimes results when the target’s response is placed other than as precisely directed.

When the phone was answered at the target’s home, the following message would come across the line:

Thank you for your cooperation. If you wish proof of the child’s health and safety, please so indicate by affixing a piece of *red* material to the flagpole in front of your residence. This may be an object of clothing, a scrap of cloth. . . anything at all, so long as it is unmistakably red. As soon as we observe this, we will prepare and transmit the appropriate proof.

There is an element of bluff—and, thus, of chance—in all operations. Requiring the target to attach a piece of red material to the flagpole in front of their house is a classic example. Certainly, I was aware of the flagpole. Now was the time to balance the value of instilling the belief that they were under constant observation against the risk of revealing the somewhat mechanized nature of my contact systems. Restated: I would necessarily assume that they would, indeed, attach the red material, and act as if that were a fact. If I was correct in my assumption, it would exacerbate their sense of being under observation. . . and increase my safety by decreasing their willingness to participate in any law-enforcement exercise designed to ensnare me. However, if they refused (or were unable) to attach the material and I sent the promised proof anyway, it would surely disclose that they were *not* under active surveillance, threatening the credibility of my entire presentation to date.

Although not given to introspection, I do understand that my exercises contain an element not purely intellectual. That is, the intellectual portion is *reduction* of risk. But were I able to eliminate *all* risk, my art would be truly completed and any repetition thereof utterly banal and meaningless. Were I ever to achieve perfection, I would cease at the apex.

Downstairs again, I found the child wearing some sort of coveralls, busily engaged in cleaning the kitchen area.

“Did you call them?” she asked by way of greeting.

“I did.”

“Did they say anything?”

“I would have no way of knowing, child. It was a one-way conversation. Remember? I explained how it worked.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you did that for all the. . . phone calls. Just maybe for the first one.”

“No. In fact, I will never actually speak to. . . the people.”

“What people?”

“Whoever your parents designate to act for them. Sometimes, the parents have. . . difficulty in dealing with the emotional stress of the situation, and they have others act for them.”

“Like the police?”

“That is the most likely.”

“My father won’t do that,” the child said. Not smugly, but with clear assurance.

I did not pursue the matter. Although the child seemed far too clever to be deceived about her father’s actual occupation—he is listed as the owner of a waste-removal firm in the business directory—there was no point in providing her with the information known to me.

“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.”

“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:

It is very important to me that my captives do not suffer. Infliction of pain would be an affront to my art. Physical pain, that is. I am not without comprehension that my art causes emotional pain, but I am deeply concerned that its practice never replicate sadism—a repulsive “disorder” which, upon observation, I refuse to characterize as such. That is, I consider sadism, especially sexual sadism, to be a conscious decision on the part of its wielder. Clearly, there is a market for such hideousness—witness the enormous pornography industry which has attempted to fill the vacuum created by demand. And my personal investigations have proven that the market is by no means limited to *staged* depictions of the most graphic, even terminal, torture. Even assuming, as I do, that many if not most of the proffers are from government agents—parenthetically, I do not consider such activity to be “entrapment,” as the essence of same is to induce conduct to which the “victim” is not otherwise disposed—there exists a significant demand for such product. A mental disorder, then? I think not. I suspect, if one were to seek venture capital for a magazine catering to schizophrenics, one would find the prospects bleak indeed.

Ah, so many “masters” out there, convinced of their superiority, never realizing that their obsession makes them as susceptible to manipulation as the “slaves” they “collar.” But such games are, in fact, just that. Games. To be played as children play: Immaturely, focusing on immediate, tactile gratification.

But when the jolt fades, when they require reality, when their sadism can only be satisfied not with the *appearance* of unwillingness but its actuality, then pain becomes the goal. Such humans are beneath contempt. They fancy themselves “superior,” but they are pitifully dependent creatures, fools who believe they *are* the power, but who come alive only when the power is supplied by others—proving them to be as self-determining as an electrical appliance.

I know power. I was born to it, I believe. And I use it to create. My art.

The next days passed without incident. Indeed, my recollection of them is. . . flawed, perhaps. I do recall promising the child some additional art supplies. Or was it condiments? I realized that to ask her again would be to damage the fragile connection between us, so I merely resolved to obtain a sufficient quantity of anything she might potentially have requested when I left the hideout.

Friday’s telephone message to the target was simplicity itself:

If the proof you requested is sufficiently satisfactory to you and you wish to proceed with negotiations, please so indicate by replacing *red* as previously instructed with *yellow*. It is not, repeat *not* necessary that the material be similar, only the location.

That evening, Zoë became agitated, claiming that I had not been listening to her. No explanation would satisfy the child. In truth, I was at a loss for such explanation myself, vainly attempting to fill in the apparent gaps in our conversation in confabulatory fashion. I remembered a phrase from one of the TV shows Zoë and I had watched together, some trendy serial about “relationships” she said she had not been allowed to watch at home but had heard about from her friends at school. I told her, “My mind must have been somewhere else.”

The child came over to the chair where I had been slumped—itself somewhat remarkable, as I pride myself on my correct posture—and said, “I know.” Then she shyly kissed my cheek. It may surprise you to learn that this was not such an unusual event during the term of my career. Children, once their survival instincts have been activated, often attempt to curry favor with captors. However, there was none of that quality about this child’s conduct. While puzzling, it posed no danger to the operation, so I resolved to consider it post-completion, a time always more conducive to contemplation.

Saturday morning brought with it the next phase. Again, assumption-upon-assumption: (1) the target had, in fact, placed the red material on the flagpole; (2) the target had, in fact, received the video of the child; (3) the target had, in fact, decided to open negotiations and had so signified by replacing the requisite marker as directed.

The latter assumption is not, as the amateur might assume, auto-warranted. On several occasions, I have encountered parents who simply refused to negotiate—whether in blind obedience to police instructions or because the child’s return was not desired, I have no way of ascertaining to any degree of scientific certainty. While it would be possible to theorize that some negotiation offers would be rejected on the ground that the child him/herself was a participant rather than a victim—a not-uncommon occurrence among teenagers of the ultra-wealthy class—I avoid this by capturing only children too immature to concoct such a scheme. And, on one occasion, my research failed. It was impossible to convince the child’s father—a notorious drug-lord of foreign ethnicity—that I was not the representative of a rival gang but an independent entrepreneur. As a result, no money changed hands. I consider such an attempt imperfect, but a learning experience. Nevertheless, I had assumed no risk of discovery, as the target insisted on his view of reality, attacking the rival gang with great ferocity. While Zoë’s father was himself a member of organized crime—indeed, if my information was accurate, the head of a continuing criminal enterprise—I was unconcerned about him misperceiving the facts. Kidnapping children of enemy gang leaders seems a cultural phenomenon—common among some groups, unheard of in others. As always with such groups, morality is not an issue (despite the wishful thinking of some screenwriters). Only tactics are of importance. There is a Darwinistic quality to establishment and maintenance of ongoing criminal-group activity, and media exposure is, eventually, antithetical to survival. So those “sources” so highly prized by newspaper reporters are rarely in possession of *working* knowledge. That is, they may know names, dates, places, and events. But they do not understand the interstitial tissue which binds the enterprise. Thus, their information may destroy a gang, but cannot be used to replicate one.

I have developed a pre-recorded menu which allows me to “converse” with targets without actually speaking. The target is presented with a series of questions and directions. The response determines which menu item I then select. The R&D component was rather lengthy, but I now have the system perfected, reducing not only risk of identification but the length of all conversations.

Therefore, with both assumptions and equipment in place, I dialed the target’s home.

“Hello?” A man’s voice, crisp with tension, but without that crackling underpinning of anxiety characteristic of most in his position.

I tapped a button on my console and the pre-recorded voice said: “You have the proof. Do you now understand that we have your child? Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ *only*, please.”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand that your child is unharmed, and will remain unharmed if we conclude our business successfully?”

“Yes.”

“Are you prepared to pay for your child’s safe return?”

“Yes.”

“Have you notified the authorities?”

“No.”

“The price is seven hundred thousand dollars, U.S. currency. Confirm you understand: Seven hundred thousand dollars.”

“I under—I mean. . . yes.”

“By what date will you be prepared to pay?”

“Uh. . . give me, three, four days, okay?”

“The date you have selected is suitable. Now listen carefully. Do you have a method of electronic banking?”

“Yes.”

(It was well he answered as he did, as I knew the truth.)

“Can you place the money in an account subject to your *immediate* transfer authorization?”

“Yes.”

“During what hours can such transfers be effectuated?”

“Uh, what. . . twenty-four hours. I mean, anytime at all.”

(So the target was experienced in such matters. My guess was that he probably utilized one of those easily penetrated Cayman Islands bank accounts.)

“Friday. Nine-fifty-seven a.m. Have you marked that time?”

“Yes.”

“*Prior* to that time, you will dial up the account in which the money is placed. At nine-fifty-seven precisely, I will call. You are to recite the account number I read to you then and *immediately* authorize the transfer. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“We will know within approximately thirty-five seconds if you have complied. If you have done so, the child will be released within the hour, and returned to you by close of business the same day. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

I terminated the conversation.

It was always hard to tell when his transmissions ended. Every single time, I scrolled down until I hit a blank wall. I did it that time too. When the screen started to change colors, I was ready. I thought about trying to answer him myself—I had been watching Xyla each time and I thought I could do it—but there wasn’t any point if she’d already seen his stuff. And I couldn’t shake the thought that she had. His next toll didn’t ask for a fact from the past. I had to look at it a couple of times to make sure what he was asking:

>>Wesley. Me. Difference? One word<<

Time to see if I could find a button to push. “Send him this,” I told Xyla, and watched.

professional

come up on her screen.

If I had it figured right, my response would be a stake in his heart. But even if it was, I knew it wouldn’t kill him. Vampires I understood. What else is a child molester but a blood-bandit who breeds others of his tribe from his own venom? But this guy was way past that.

And I wondered if he’d keep playing by his own rules.

Back at my place, I sat down with Pansy to watch some TV. She used to love pro wrestling years ago, but now she hates it. I don’t understand why, but she’s real clear about it. Her favorite is this Japanese soap opera, Abarenbo Shogun. Maybe soap opera isn’t right, but I don’t know what else to call the damn thing. It takes place in eighteenth-century Edo, where the Shogun has a secret identity as the resident bodyguard for the boss of the firefighter brigade, and it’s all about him bringing truth and justice to his subjects. He does it with his sword, and the body count is even higher than the old Untouchables used to be. Every time, it ends with the Shogun revealing his true identity to the perps and ordering them to commit seppuku. They, quite reasonably, refuse and decide to fight it out. Fat fucking chance. The Shogun also has a pair of ninjas working for him, a young guy and a dazzlingly beautiful girl who looks like a geisha most of the time and only lets her hair down when she’s slashing and stabbing. The bad guys always retreat behind their hirelings, and the Shogun has to hack his way through to them. He faces off by cocking his sword to display the royal crest—the same flashy way movies show a guy jacking a round into the chamber—and starts his walk, complete with special theme music. The outcome is not in doubt. At the end, he orders his ninjas to finish off the main culprits. Pansy knows her TV.

Anyway, when I finally got cable here, I learned that there’s an all-news TV show too, just like the radio. I clicked it on. Another dead baby. Beaten to death. ACS wasn’t giving out any explanations, although it admitted the family was “known” to them. ACS: that’s “Administration for Children’s Services.” When I was a kid, they called it BCW. They’ve changed the name half a dozen times since then, usually after a bunch of babies die.

Even when they die, it doesn’t amount to much. I remember the last big media-play murder. Kid doesn’t show up for school for a whole year. Nobody even checks. Finally, they come around looking. Little girl’s not there. Turns out the mother’s boyfriend strangled her to death while the mother held the kid’s hands so she couldn’t struggle. Then they wrapped the body in plastic and duct tape and trucked it through the snow in a laundry cart to a Dumpster near a vacant lot. The DA offers the mother probation for her testimony, and she gets on the stand and tells it like it happened. The jury’s so full of hate for the DA letting her walk away, they convict the guy only of manslaughter, not murder, trying to divide the blame by sending a message. Same way the jury did with Lisa Steinberg’s killer—his girlfriend got a free pass from the DA too. Wolfe had that kind of case once. Only she took them both down, not going for the sure-thing conviction of the man by free-passing the woman.

I remembered the “social worker” I had when I was a kid. One of them, anyway. A young girl. . . although I guess she looked pretty old to me then. All I remember about her was her mouth. Her lying mouth. I never looked at her eyes.

Fuck it. I got up, worked Pansy through a few of her routines, just to keep her sharp. She loves that. I don’t get the way people train dogs. There’s really nothing to it. You wait long enough, the dog will do anything you want. When you see it, you reward it. Sometimes you have to create the situation so it happens, but that’s not so hard. There’s no reason to hit a dog. Every time I think about people doing that, I. . . think about how people starve racing greyhounds, run them until they’re used up, then round them up and shoot them. And how scumbags feed their pit bulls gunpowder. The fucking morons think it makes the dogs tough. All it does is eat the linings of their stomachs, so they get ulcers and they’re always in pain. Makes them vicious, not tough.

I met a lot of guys who fit that exact description over the years. And vicious hurts the same as tough when you’re on the receiving end. I took a lot of beatings until Wesley pulled my coat. We were just kids, but he knew the truth. “They’re easier when they’re sleeping,” he whispered to me one night in the dorm.

When I walked into Nadine’s apartment, she told me to have a seat—she had to get something. I took the middle chair. There was a tape playing on the screen. Pony girl, just like she’d bragged about. A chubby blonde on her hands and knees, wearing some kind of mask with little leather ears sticking up, a bridle bit in her teeth, a harness fitted around her upper body. Nadine was riding her, using a crop on the blonde girl’s rump, directing her around a room I didn’t recognize—not the one I was sitting in.

It ended like you’d expect. Nadine waited for the tape to go blank before she came back in.

“She loves it,” Nadine said.

I didn’t say anything.

“She calls me up and begs for it,” Nadine kept on. “She usually comes before she even starts eating me.”

“That the cop?” I asked her.

“Yep.”

“Okay. I already got that message. So what’s your point?”

“A true submissive will do whatever you tell her. She’d come right over and suck your cock if I snapped my fingers. And she doesn’t like men. . . not at all.”

“I still don’t get your point.”

“I just want you to keep your promise.”

“What promise? The only thing I ever told you was—”

“—that I’d get to meet him. Be there with you when you did.”

“If that happens.”

“It’ll happen,” she said confidently. “It was meant to happen.”

“Better stick to your toys and games,” I told her. “I don’t see a crystal ball around here.”

“Never mind,” she said. “I know it. So it doesn’t matter what you believe. That won’t change anything.”

“Yeah, fine. So. . . why the videotape?”

“You know why,” she said. “And you’ll be back.”

Where I went back to was where I’d find Xyla. And there he was, waiting:

“It is all a matter of timing,” I told Zoë later that day. “Any transfer, electronic or paper, can be traced. However, I have set it up so that, within minutes after the money reaches the receptor account, it will be transferred from there to twenty-one *other* accounts in various parts of the world. As soon as the transfer is effectuated, the receptor account will automatically close. A trace will dead-end at the bank. By the time the authorities discover how the money was distributed, it will have been emptied from each of the new accounts into a funnel account, and *that* account too will be closed. . . with the money withdrawn.”

“That sounds hard.”

“Not really,” I said, annoyed at myself for the ascertainable trace of pride in my voice. “The Swiss are quite cooperative in such ventures. They have a long history of separating money from morality.”

“What does that mean?”

“It simply means that they will not question—indeed, they will deliberately avert their eyes from—the *source* of cash so long as they are paid a goodly sum for their ‘handling’ of it.”

“Oh.”

“Are you certain you understand, child?”

“Sure. Maybe they’re not bad themselves, but they don’t care if *you’re* bad, right?”

“Yes, that is a worthy approximation.”

“Doesn’t that make *them* bad, too?”

“One could certainly argue that, Zoë.”

“Do they?”

“Do they what?”

“*Argue* about it?”

“Oh. Yes, certainly. In fact, such arguments seem to provide an endless source of entertainment for some individuals. But nothing changes as a result.”

“People always do it, right?”

“Do what, Zoë?”

“Bad things. I mean, it’s not new. People always did bad things, didn’t they?”

“Yes. And good things. That is human nature, to be both bad and good. Or to have that potential within us, anyway.”

“So it’s a choice?”

“I don’t follow—”

“You can be good if you want, right? I mean, nobody *has* to be bad. . .”

“It’s not that simple, child. But, generally speaking, I believe you are correct.”

Oh, he was on the money there, the crazy bastard. The first time I really understood it, I was in prison. Reading. I killed a lot of time doing that. I remember something about a “choice of evils.” And it made me think. About the other guys in there. How some didn’t have much choice. The thieves, mostly. If you wanted to live like a human being, if you were culled out of the herd when you were little so you couldn’t earn honestly, what was left? But the ugly ones—the rapists, the child molesters, the torture freaks—they weren’t bad guys the way thieves were, they were stone evil. And it was their choice. That’s what they picked. They didn’t do it for money, they did it for fun. That’s what evil is, when you strip away the crap. It’s choice. This guy wasn’t sick. The way he was telling it, the rules didn’t apply to him, that’s all. He was above it. Above everything. He was killing kids for art. And that was his choice. I snapped out of it and started scrolling again, fast now, to make up for the lost time.

“Okay. Can we play chess now?” the child asked.

I agreed. And, as I anticipated, she learned the rudiments of the game with alacrity.

There was a languid, drifting quality about the next several days. My memory of them is. . . imprecise. Zoë continued to prepare her impossibly elaborate meals. I read. . . I believe I read. . . some technical manuals. We played chess together and I began to introduce her to plane geometry. She worked on her drawings.

Tuesday night she woke me up, saying she was afraid. She would not elaborate further. I allowed her to sleep in my bed, sitting next to her in a chair. It appeared to comfort her, and she eventually fell asleep. I suppose I did too. When I awoke, it was Wednesday morning.

Wednesday night, I explained the remainder of the operation to the child. She listened, fascinated as always. Suddenly she looked up at me.

“I know who you are,” she announced.

“What is it you know, child?” I asked her. “My name?”

“No. It doesn’t matter. I have a name I call you, but I won’t tell you what it is. But I know who you are.”

“And who is that, Zoë?”

“You’re my hero,” she said solemnly. “You came to rescue me. Just like in the story I read. I was a princess. Sort of. And you came to rescue me.”

“I do not—”

“That’s your art,” the child said eagerly. “You’re always saying, we have our art. You and me. Zoë me. I draw. And you rescue little kids.”

Try as I might, she refused to discuss the subject further. I saw no reason to interfere with her childish coping mechanisms. I detest cruelty.

Thursday night, Zoë said: “I’m going to tell you a secret.”

“What secret is that, child?”

“I know your secret,” she said.

Friday morning ran like a Swiss watch—pun intended. I returned to the hideout.

“It’s time to say goodbye, Zoë,” I told her.

“I know,” she said, eyes shining as though a special treat were in store.

“Zoë, I have a. . . new art now. One I must practice and learn very well before I can reach the heights of my old art. You are the last of that, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Zoë, you cannot come with me, child. Do you understand?”

“No!” she said sharply. “I *can* come with you. I’ll help you. Kill her. Kill Angelique. Kill her now!”

Angelique drank the potion I prepared for her. I held Zoë while Angelique departed.

As with all art, practice is essential. Someday, I shall achieve the same perfection with my new art as I had with what I have now discarded.

I will return to this area soon.

To practice.

What the hell? What was he telling me. . . that this was the last transmission? There was only one way to read it—I’d seen it coming a while back. But if he changed and started on. . . No, it was just. . . insane.

“Xyla!”

She was there before the last syllable of her name left my mouth. Dropped into the computer chair, waiting.

>>explain last answer<<

First time he didn’t put a word limit on my response. So I had stung him. “Type this,” I told Xyla. Then I watched it come up on the screen.

any freak can kill random targets.

a professional hits only the target

he is assigned to. *any* target.

When Xyla tapped one last key, the message vanished.

“He’s gone now, right?” I asked her.

“He’s gone every time,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “He can come back anytime he wants, but only if I ask him to. . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“The way it works, I change my address each time too. Then, later, I send out a message with the new one.”

“But. . . he knows you’ve got plenty of time to set up. So you could be waiting to trap him every time he sends a message, right?”

“Sure. He knows. Doesn’t matter. The only time his own modem is actually open is that last little thing at the end—when I send to him. He receives it, and the whole thing comes down. Fingering it would be a waste of time.”

“But if you don’t send him a new address. . .?”

“Hmmm,” she said. “I see what you mean. He couldn’t reach me. Unless he could. . .”

“. . . do what I wanted you to do,” I finished for her. “Right?”

“Right. You think he can?”

“I think he will,” I told her.

“How could you possibly—?”

“Because I know who he is now,” I said.

“You want what?” Wolfe laughed. “A list of every Family man hit during the past. . . what did you say, ten years?. . . Sure. I can get that for you. Only the printout wouldn’t fit in the trunk of your car.”

I was standing in the same box I’d been in the last time I’d met with her. Only this time, besides the pistol, the man I didn’t recognize had something else—a honey-colored pit bull on a snap lead. I’d seen that pit before—she scared me more than the gun.

Yeah, I was standing in the same place, all right. And Wolfe was showing me where I stood with her.

“There’s that many?” I asked her.

“It would be ‘that many’ even if you were talking just the metro area,” she said sarcastically. “New York, New Jersey, Connecticut—give me a break. And national, come on!”

“I just thought. . .”

“You know what?” she said, shifting her posture to a more aggressive one, dropping her voice just a fraction. “I think you’re in something way over your head. You think there’s a pattern somewhere, that’s obvious. But the database is so huge, you couldn’t find it without some serious computer. . . . Oh! You found yourself some new friends, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And I don’t know what you’re doing. But I really only came here to tell you this. We’re done, you and me. You want to know about dead mobsters, ask your pal—he put more of them in the ground than anyone else.”

She turned and walked away. Her crew stayed in place until I did the same.

The sheets on Strega’s bed were silk. The same color as her hair. Her body slid between gleam and shadow, mottled by the candle’s untrustworthy light.

“Tell me the rest,” she whispered at me. “Quick, before I get hungry again.”

“Dead guys. Assassinations, not accidents. And they have to have been on the street when it happened, not in the joint. Murders, okay? Unsolved murders.”

“Wesley did—”

“Forget Wesley,” I said, harsher than I’d meant to. “Listen. I know the list would be too long. You—”

“I’m still working on what you asked me before. You can’t get something like that in—”

“I know. Forget that too. Come here.”

She crawled over to me. Looked down. I shook my head. She dropped hers until her ear was against my mouth.

“This won’t be in any computer,” I told her, speaking soft. “I could do that myself. It has to be a whisper. Dead guys. Mob guys. And they had to have been fucking their own little girls before they—”

“Aaahhh,” she moaned, her fingernails raking my chest. I could feel the blood. She licked it off her talons, kneeling straight up now, witchfire loose and wild in her eyes.

“Not Julio,” I told her softly. “That one’s done, remember? All done.”

She started to cry then. I pulled her down to me, held her against my chest, rubbed her back.

A long time passed.

“I can find out,” she finally said, the steel back in her voice. “But you have to tell me why.”

“You said you’d do anything for—”

“I will do anything for you,” she hissed. “I already have. You’re in me. Forever. I would never let anyone hurt you. But if he’s doing. . . that—killing them—I don’t want to do anything that would—”

“He’s stopped,” I said, sure it was the truth. “And he’s moved on.”

“How do you—”

I pulled her close to me. And, for the first time in all the years I’d known her, I told her some of my secrets.

I spoke to the ice-man the way I always do. In my mind. If I told people that Wesley answered, they’d institutionalize me. But regular people don’t get it. We have our own language, the Children of the Secret. It’s garbled gibberish to anyone else. But that wasn’t my link to Wesley. He was my true brother. We had gene-merged in the crucible of the State system for abused and abandoned kids. Even the grave couldn’t silence him when I reached out.

And when I saw the next message from the killer, I knew Wesley was right.

>>select target<<

is all he sent.

I sat there, smoking a cigarette all the way through, waiting. It got too much for Xyla. “Aren’t you going to answer him?” she finally asked.

“He doesn’t expect an answer,” I told her. “If I put one in right now, he’d get suspicious.”

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“I think I do,” I told her. “Just send this”:

come back. 72 hours.

She typed it in.

“This means I have to leave my same addy up there, you understand that, right?”

“I think I understand it better than you think,” I told her. “Go ahead and nuke your address, girl. My best guess—he’s already found you.”

“You mean. . .?”

“Yeah. I’ll be back. Three days from right now.”

How much did the killer really know? Everyone thought Wesley was a machine, but they had it wrong. Wesley was just. . . focused. Right down to a laser dot. He studied his prey, but he didn’t know anything outside of that. Didn’t matter to him. This guy—this super-killer, how much could he know about Wesley’s jobs? How they worked? The last part of his journal—at least, the last part he’d shown me—said he was going to hunt them too. But. . . “them”? I had to play it like it was a category he hunted, not a group. It was the only thing that made any sense. And if I was right, there’d only be one match.

“He’s gone,” I said.

“You’re. . . sure?”

“Absolutely,” I told Lincoln, scratching behind Pansy’s ear. “He’s well away. No chance of getting caught. He’s a million miles from here.”

“What’s he. . . like?” one of the men in the back of the room asked me.

“That wasn’t the deal,” I said. “You wanted him safe. You got him safe.”

“He’s right.” Nadine’s voice cut into the room. She was seated at the same table, but she’d replaced the lank-haired skinny woman with the same chubby blonde pony girl I’d seen in her little home video. “There hasn’t been a killing for weeks. The cops are just blowing smoke.”

“It changed things, though,” another woman said from across the room. “It’s. . . different now.”

“Sure,” an older man said, “you can walk down Christopher Street without the back of your neck tingling every time you see a crowd of straights now. There hasn’t been a fag-bashing for a good while. They’re scared. He did that. But what makes you think it’s going to last?”

“He showed us the way,” Nadine spoke up. Like she was talking about Jesus. Walking to Mecca. Following the Tao.

“What does that mean?” one of the younger guys asked, the sneer just below the surface.

“They didn’t stop because they saw the light,” Nadine said, an orator’s organ-stop in her voice, speaking to the whole room. “They stopped because they were afraid. They’re still afraid. They’re afraid of him. And now he’s gone. But he doesn’t have to go. . . .”

“What are you talking about?” Lincoln demanded.

“Nobody knows who he is, right?” Nadine shot back. “All they have is two things: letters to the newspapers. . . and dead bodies. It’ll be quiet for a while. Maybe a long while, I don’t know. But when they. . . when they start going after us again, well. . . who says we can’t write letters to the newspapers?”

“Sure, but they only printed the letters because they were authentic,” Lincoln said.

Nadine got to her feet. Eye-swept the room a couple of times to make sure everyone there was riveted to her. She took a deep breath.

“We could make ours authentic too,” she said. Softly. But everyone in the place heard her.

“This is Tracy,” Nadine told me in the alley outside the room where they’d met, a nod of her head indicating the chubby blonde.

“Pleased to meet you,” was all I could think to say.

“Turn around,” Nadine ordered her.

The blonde did it.

Nadine stepped over to the blonde, pushed her until the other girl’s face was right against the wall. Then she reached around the blonde girl’s waist, and did something with her fingers. The blonde girl made some sound, too low for me to understand. Nadine yanked down the blonde girl’s jeans and her underpants in one two-handed pull.

“Stay!” she said.

Pansy stayed too. Watching. She didn’t know what was going on, but the hair on the back of her neck was up.

It was dark in the alley.

“Light one of your cigarettes,” she said to me, just this side of a command.

I did it, wondering why even as the match flared. She snatched it out of my mouth. Looked at the glowing tip. Smiled ugly. “Want some of that?” she said, pointed at the chubby blonde.

“No,” I told her.

“Then go away,” she said, dropping her voice. “I’m going to play with her. Right out here. In public. When I’m done, she’ll carry my brand. Think about that. And remember your promise. I cleared it with the rest of them. You got your money. But you better not be—”

“I’m still working,” I said.

Then I snapped my fingers for Pansy to heel and walked out of the alley.

Why did that crazy girl think she could pull me in with sex games? I couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t understand the cigarette thing either. That wasn’t me. Ever. It always made me. . . I could never get it, never get the part where people yearned for what other people had done to me. But I guess I did get it after all. The freaks, they set things in motion. Sometimes they make more of themselves. Sometimes they create their own hunters. I guess they don’t. . . know. Or care. I never asked one. Except when I was a kid. I remember crying, “Why?” And I remember him laughing.

I never knew what to do with all that hate until Wesley told me. A long time ago. “Fire works.” The ice-boy never played, not even back then. Not even with words.

“Rocco LaMarca,” Strega whispered to me late the next night.

“You’re sure?”

“He ran a big crew. Mostly in Westchester. The carting industry. But he lived in Connecticut. New Canaan. Very classy. Not even a whisper about him. Called himself Ronald March.”

“And he was—?”

“The cops thought it was a mob hit. An ice pick in the eye. You know what that means—he saw something he shouldn’t have. And they cut his tongue out too. Saying he said something about what he saw.”

“But how do you know he’s—?”

“It wasn’t a sanctioned hit. The Family doesn’t know who did it. But they knew about his daughter. He made. . . films of her.”

“For money? Like—?”

“No. Just to. . . show off. His. . . power. I mean, he said it was business. Showed the films to a few of the boys who were in that end. You remember Sally Lou?”

Strega, telling me she knew everything. Sally Lou ran the mob’s kiddie-sex business before Times Square felt the Disney steamroller. I love it. Disney cleans up Times Square, but they hire a convicted child molester to direct one of their movies. People protested, but the studio ranted on about giving people another chance. Sure, once it came down to money, all of a sudden, Disney’s got more faith in “rehabilitation” than an NCAA recruiter.

Sally Lou had gone down around the same time Mortay did, all part of that same horror show that cost me my love and launched Wesley on his last rampage.

A lot of thoughts. But all I said to Strega was: “Yeah.”

“Well, Sally Lou was one of the ones who saw it. But LaMarca never turned it over. So Sally Lou, he asked around; like, what was the guy up to, right? And that’s when the word came back. He had a daughter. So they put it together. The filthy slime. He was—”

“I know,” I said, stroking her hair. “What happened to her? To the daughter?”

“Nobody knows,” Strega said.

Meaning she didn’t. But she knew everything else. And her answer to my next question was the last tile dropping into the mosaic. I could read it then, even through the haze of blood.

“It was almost fifteen years ago,” Wolfe said quietly. “September twenty-seventh, nineteen eighty-four.”

“I got him now,” I told her.

“You’re really working this?” she asked, disbelief the strongest element in her voice.

“I’m not a good liar,” I lied. “There’s nothing more for you to do. You got paid. We’re square. You think what you want about me. Make your judgments. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it.”

“Why ‘maybe’?”

“I think you know,” I told her. “I think you’ve always known. You don’t want. . . me. I got that. I’m doing this for me. The way I do everything, right? For me, that’s what you think. But you had me wrong, and one day you’ll know that. Even if I don’t tell you myself.”

“Burke. . . wait!”

I just kept walking.

“Write it down on a piece of paper,” Xyla told me. “I can’t tell how to spell it from what you’re saying. And what if you’re—”

Her mouth popped open as her computer screen shifted.

>>name?<<

was all it said. And

gutterball felestrone. 50-50

is all she typed back.

“He did find me,” Xyla said. “Christ, he’s good. I could never have found him.”

“I did,” I told her. “Get ready. He’s going to come back. And pretty soon, I think.”

I guess he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss it. Gutterball’s last meal had been in his favorite restaurant, a mob joint deep in what of Little Italy still survived the all-borders Chinatown encroachment. Nobody walked in there and blasted him, but someone had gotten into the kitchen. Gutterball was dead before the EMS ambulance managed to bull its way through the clogged streets. Gutterball always had the same thing: spaghetti and sausage with oregano-laced sauce—gravy, he called it. The newspapers had all that. The autopsy report was made public. The sauce had a little extra spice in it, that night. “Enough ricin to kill a regiment,” the pathologist was quoted as saying. “After the first swallow, he never had a chance.”

“Would it be a true death?” I asked the woman. Her office was jumbled and serene at the same time. She had no desk, just a couple of easy chairs and a couch. No computer screen, not even a file cabinet.

“It. . . could. Do you know if there were any others?”

“No.”

“Do you know—?”

“I told you everything,” I said. “Everything I know. Doc said you’re the best there is. At. . . this stuff.”

She flashed a smile. “This ‘stuff,’ as you call it, is. . . variable. That is, it depends on so many things. From what you told me, all I can say is that it could be. But only if the subject felt completely, totally safe.”

“Safe? I don’t get it. I mean—”

“It would be a true death only if the dead person never came back—that is what you’re asking, isn’t it? And I’m giving you the best answer I can. As long as the. . . environment was safe, really truly safe. . . if the. . . original conditions never resurfaced, then, yes, it could be a ‘true death,’ as you put it.”

“How do you know he’ll—?”

“I don’t,” I told Lorraine. “But I have to be ready in case he does.”

“And you’re sure he’s the one who—?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get a cot put in here,” she said. “The bathroom’s right through that door over there. You want food, just walk into the kitchen, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.”

“I would like to go with you,” Rusty said quietly. I hadn’t even noticed him before he spoke.

“It can’t work like that,” I replied, bowing slightly to show my respect for what he was offering.

“What kind of dog is that?” Xyla asked me.

“She’s a Neapolitan mastiff,” I told her. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”

Pansy ignored me, watching Xyla. I saw a look pass between them. And I recognized it. “You love dogs, don’t you?” I asked Xyla.

“Oh, I do. I have a—”

“Yeah. Whatever. Listen, do not feed her, understand?”

“I wasn’t gonna—”

“Yeah, you were,” I told her. “It won’t matter. She wouldn’t take food from a stranger anyway.”

“I guess I’m busted,” she said, face reddening. It was a pretty sight in that machine-cold room, like a flower blooming at the base of a prison wall.

“I’ll call you when it’s time,” I told her, lying back on the cot and closing my eyes.

I wasn’t surprised when Xyla’s computer screen started blinking at 3:44 a.m. Sure. Let him think the machine was sitting in my house—that’s what the test was all about.

>>50-50<<

his message said. I told Xyla what to do, and she hit her keyboard:

yours $125K

Xyla was about to get up, but I put my hand on her shoulder, telling her he wasn’t done.

>>why target?<<

“He’s using ICQ,” Xyla said excitedly. “He’s there. I mean. . . somewhere. But he’s on the line.”

“He won’t stay long. Just type what I tell you.”

Cork unauthorized

His response popped up almost immediately.

>>next?<<

4 names. major money. but they want to deal direct

“What does that—?” Xyla asked.

“Ssshhh,” I told her. “He wants that too. You’ll see.”

>>understand. but no face-to-face<<

they don’t want that either. afraid

>>then?<<

want proof

>>*names* = proof<<

no. want proof he’s alive

>>*you* tell them<<

polygraph

>>understand. you know who i am?<<

think so

>>not *look* same<<

so?

>>how pass polygraph then?<<

only question: did i talk to him in person?

>>understand. you *do* know who i am.<<

yes

>>no more talk. next message, instructions for meet<<

got it

The screen flickered, glowed red, then yellow. Then Xyla’s computer just shut itself off.

“Fuck!” she snarled, flicking switches like a madwoman.

I watched her in silence. It was almost a half-hour before she pushed herself away from the computer, rolling her chair back across the room, sweat-drenched.

“He crashed it,” she said. “Thunderbolt. I’ve heard about them, but I didn’t know if they were real.”

“What’s a thunderbolt?”

“A giant spike. Electrical. It’s transmitted over the modem during ICQ. When the sender signs off, it’s activated.”

“You lost all your data?”

She gave me one of those “What are you, stupid?” looks young girls probably memorize in the cradle. “Of course not. That’s in a separate unit. I don’t leave anything connected. All he spiked out was my software. But there was a ton of that. It’s gonna take me a couple of weeks to. . .”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. Even as I realized that his attack on Xyla’s setup was another message: whatever meeting he was going to set up wasn’t going to be soon.

I learned a lot of trades in prison. Not the ones the rehab-geeks talk about. The ones we all learn, some better than others. Trades have tricks. One of them I did learn was how to use time you’re stuck with. And that’s what I did while I was waiting for the finale.

“I know the whole thing now,” I told my family.

They were all there this time: Michelle and the Mole, Terry sitting between them. The Prof and Clarence. Max and Immaculata. Even little Flower was around someplace, probably playing with the cooks in the back. Mama hawk-eyed the kitchen area, getting up every couple of minutes to check on her granddaughter.

Nobody said anything, waiting for me to fill in the blanks. I did it. Slow, taking my time, testing every link before I added it to the chain.

When I was done, the Prof was the first to speak. “If it’s written in blue, it must be true,” the little man said. “He found the Gatekeeper.”

“Prof!” Michelle snapped at him. “Stop it! This is insane enough without a bunch of superstitious—”

I reached over and took Michelle’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Prof,” I asked, “you said the only way to work it is to give them a soul for every one the. . . dead guy took, right?”

“One for one, son,” he agreed.

“That plane. . . the sex-tour one. I figure that probably evened the score.”

“It is impossible to transmit matter in that way,” the Mole said, earning a loving glance of approval from Michelle.

“Nobody knows some—” Clarence started, defending his father.

“Both true,” Mama said.

We all looked toward her, but she nodded at Immaculata, the first time I’d seen her defer. Mac gulped at the honor, knowing it had to be her profession Mama was deferring to, not her wisdom—Mama believed nobody under seventy knew anything of value from their own life experience. “Psychologically,” she began, “a belief can become a fact to the believer.”

“But this ain’t no nut,” the Prof stepped up.

“He wouldn’t have to be. . . crazy,” Mac told him. “Just a. . . believer. He might be rational in all other senses of the word. But if you ‘reason’ from a false premise, any conclusion, no matter how logically it follows, will be wrong, do you see what I’m saying?”

“Both true,” Mama said again, not disrespecting Immaculata’s answer, but making it clear it wasn’t enough.

“All right,” Immaculata said. “Look at it this way. Some believe this. . . Wesley never actually died, yes? But there was no. . . support for that proposition. This recent rash of murders, they represent a sort of ‘proof,’ seemingly to underscore the presence of. . . Ah, look: Those who think Wesley never actually died or those who think he could return from the dead. . . merge. Into a belief system. If it is ‘Wesley’ doing these murders in the minds of the believers, he has come back, understand?”

Mama nodded gravely, a gesture of complete support. Immaculata bowed her gratitude for the recognition.

“It doesn’t matter!” Michelle said sharply. “He’s not a threat to us. There’s no reason to get. . . involved with him. It’s over. Let him do whatever he—”

Max bowed slightly. Put his two fists together, then made a snapping motion. Volunteering to do the job if I could get him close enough.

I bowed my thanks, knowing it was impossible. “Both true, Mama?” I asked her.

She pointed at the Prof, then at the Mole.

We waited, but she was done.

“Me first,” the Prof said, stepping up to the challenge. “If this guy found the Gatekeeper, he’d have to bring a whole bunch behind what Wesley did, right?”

Nobody moved. It hadn’t been a real question.

“And he did that, right?” the Prof continued. “Ain’t no question but the motherfucker’s qualified.”

“If that would work,” the Mole said, his mild voice throbbing with the one electrical current that always hit his circuits, “the Nazis could. . .”

“To bring Hitler back, they would have to kill six million people,” Clarence said. “If they could do that, why would they need. . .?”

His voice trailed off into the silence as we all let it penetrate. But it took the Prof to say it out loud: “You all just heard the word. You got it, Schoolboy?” he asked me.

“Anyone who could kill six million people wouldn’t have to bring Hitler back,” I said slowly. “He’d be Hitler.”

Immaculata looked up. “Yes. And this killer, he wants to be. . .”

“Wesley,” I finished for her.

“Why?” the Mole asked. “Wesley was. . .”

“No,” I told them all. “Wesley is. Check the whisper-stream. He’ll never die. They never found a body. You say his name, people start to shake. It’s not some ghost they’re afraid of.”

“You think if he kills enough he will have the same. . . respect Wesley has, mahn?” Clarence asked. “That is insane. It is not the count of the bodies that—”

“My son just got it done,” the Prof said. “No way you take Wesley’s name just by playing his game.”

I saw where he was going, and cut him off. “Everything he did, it’s like an improved version of Wesley,” I said. “Every hit tied to Wesley, this guy copied. He works just like Wesley did. Wesley wasn’t just a sniper. Neither is this guy: he uses bombs, poisons, high-tech. That’s why he wanted that damn. . . ‘assignment.’ When I challenged him. Told him that any freak can be a random hitter. Wesley took contracts. He was a missile. All he needed was a name. This guy, he took a name from me and did the job because he wants a name. He wants Wesley’s.”

“Never happen,” the Prof said. “Nobody could take Wesley’s place. Wesley’ll never die. And the only way to never die is to die, right? No matter what this guy does, no matter how many fucked-up letters he writes to the newspapers, you know what they’re gonna say: it’s Wesley’s work. He can’t change that.”

“He’s a shape-shifter,” I told them. “But that’s not the whole thing. I understand what Mama meant now. You too, Mac. All of you. It is all true. If this guy starts doing Wesley’s work—taking contracts, making people dead on order—then he is Wesley, see? When people whisper Wesley’s name, they’re talking about him. And he’ll know that, wherever he is.”

“But you said his. . . journal was all about kidnapping children and—” Immaculata said, dropping her voice, eye-sweeping the place to make sure her little girl wouldn’t hear what lurked past her circle of love.

“At first,” I told her. “But I get the impression that it’s old. He did it a long time ago. He’s an. . . artist. And he finally decided that the highest art was homicide. As a kidnapper, he was the best there was. No contest. He didn’t need his name in the paper, he knew. He probably thought he was the greatest killer too. I think that’s what he said his new art was going to be. Not killing child molesters, killing mobsters. Or. . . maybe both. I don’t know. But I figure, he started doing it. And kept it up, same way he did the kidnappings. For the ‘art,’ right? But when he snapped to it. . . when he figured out that there was someone ahead of him. . . that he was in a contest he couldn’t win. . . that’s when he figured out he had to be Wesley. That’s his art now.”

“Motherfucker’s way past crazy,” the Prof said.

“Sure,” I said. “So what? He can’t be Wesley except through me, understand? Gutterball thought he was dealing with Wesley when he sent out that hit. That’s why I sent this guy right back at Gutterball. There’s nobody left to—what’s that word you always use, Mac?—validate him. Except me. Gutterball was an idiot. That’s not news. But me. . . If I go into the street and say I saw Wesley, who’s gonna deny it? Everyone knows how we. . . were.”

“And with all those baby-rapers getting hit, it just reeks of you, honey,” Michelle said, nodding her head in agreement.

“He said it right at the beginning. Of that freakish ‘journal’ he sent me. ‘Folie à deux,’ remember? I told him I could get him mob contracts, but I’d have to say I saw Wesley, get it? He made me send him all this stuff, prove I was the real thing. That I was with Wesley. All the way back to the beginning. I don’t know where he got some of his info, but it was on the money, all of it. So now, the way he figures it, if I see him, I did see Wesley. He is Wesley now—the way he figures, he’s proved that. Taken over. So he’s going to meet me, I’m sure of it.”

“But, honey, what’s the point?” Michelle asked me. “He can’t do anything to you—not if he wants you to. . . do what he said. If you don’t do it, he’s on his own. Why meet with him?”

Max grabbed Michelle’s hand to get her attention. With his other hand, he reached over and tapped my heart. Pointed to himself, then to Immaculata. Finally, he made the sign of a man shooting a pistol.

“Oh God,” Michelle gasped. “You mean—?”

“It was him,” I told her. Told them all. “If he’s the one Gutterball talked to on the phone, then he’s the one who did the hit in Central Park. Did it the same way Wesley would have. A couple of flunkies to lay down cover fire, make a diversion, then a surgical strike. And wipe out the witnesses. Gutterball must have known it was gonna cost him those two other guys. Maybe he wanted them gone anyway—got three for the price of one.”

Immaculata cleared her throat, threading delicately, the way she always does. “But, Burke, if that’s true. . . this. . . killer, he wasn’t the one who shot Crystal Beth.”

“He made it happen,” I said flatly. “He knows a thousand ways to kill. If he’d used any other one, she’d be here today. Right here. With me.”

Something must have happened to me after I said that. When I came around, I was in a chair in the basement, my family all around me. I didn’t ask how I got there—Max could carry me as easy as a wino could lug a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.

I opened my eyes. Looked at the only people I loved on the whole planet. “I don’t know if you can make up for things,” I told them, calming down. “He killed a lot of little kids. Then he stopped. And killed a lot of scum. I don’t know if they were child molesters or mob guys or both. . . at first. Then it was fag-bashers. Then pedophiles. Maybe whoever’s keeping count thinks his scales are balanced. But not me. Michelle was right. What do I care if he was planning to kill every last freak on the planet? Because now he’s. . . stopped. He’s going to be Wesley now. A contract hitter. And you know what? It doesn’t matter anyway. He killed Crystal Beth. Got her killed, same difference. He wants to be Wesley so bad—I’m going to send him someplace where he can talk to him face to face.”

“You ain’t alone, home,” the Prof reminded me.

“You want Terry to hear this?” I asked Michelle.

“It’s not up to her,” Terry said, his still-changing voice on man-sound now. “I know how I got my mother,” he said, reaching over to touch her. “And my father,” he said, bowing his head toward the Mole. “I know what you. . . did, Burke. Then, I mean. I’m in this too. Whatever you want to do, I want to do it too. If someone took my. . .”

He didn’t finish. Didn’t have to.

“There’s no way,” the Prof said. “He’s not gonna walk into a room. Motherfucker don’t take no risks. No way you’re gonna get a piece past whatever he’s got set up either.”

“Mole?” I asked.

“If he has the correct equipment, he could pick up any weapon, in any form, just from its composition. Even plastic explosive. Thermal-image scanners could. . . . I have. . . devices. Very small. But they would not be. . . invisible if he were properly equipped.”

Max leaned over, tapped each of my hands, spread his into a question. Could I kill him with my hands if I got close enough?

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. Max has been training me for years and years, but I never got that good at any of the techniques. I can hit pretty hard, and I can take a shot and keep coming. And if I got my hands on any vital spot—and focused hard on why I was there—maybe. But it could never be a sure thing.

“It will not work,” the Mole announced.

“Mole, I think I can—”

The Mole held up his hand for silence. “He will not let you get close enough. Remember?”

Sure. I knew what he meant. Like Wesley. This killer would keep a safety zone around himself. Wesley usually did it with an Uzi. I don’t know what this guy would use, but the Mole was right—he’d use something.

“We could put a tracking device on you,” the Mole said. “But you would have to discard it before you stepped into his zone.”

“Fair enough,” I told him.

“Not enough,” the Prof said. “This team needs a scheme.”

They all argued for a while. I just sat there, slumped in the chair.

When they ran out of gas, I told them how I wanted to do it.

“I’m not rebuilt yet,” Xyla said. “How could I—?”

“I need a message sent to him. I don’t care if you send it on this machine. Send it the same way you sent the first one. He’ll get it. I don’t need an answer. When he bangs back in. . . when you have this all back up. . . he’ll either go for it or he won’t.”

“I can do that,” she said. “Trixie has a little halfass Mac I could—”

“Sure,” I stopped her.

She grabbed a pen. I waved her away, wrote it down myself, and handed it to her.

not coming alone. bringing woman. she *direct* connect. she *only* one who can validate in certain areas. can *not* make it happen without her. not negotiable. you pick time, place, conditions. . . anything you want. but if can’t bring woman, no go.

“Jesus,” Xyla said. “He might not answer at all now.”

“That’s his choice,” I told her. “Just like this whole thing’s been since he started.”

“This is the only way,” I told her.

“You’re. . . serious?” Nadine asked.

“Dead serious. I’m keeping my promise. But this is the way I’m going to keep it. I don’t trust you. There’s only one way I can—”

“How do I know you’ll—?”

“You don’t,” I told her. “You don’t know anything. Take it or leave it,” I said.

“No!” I whispered to Strega. “No handcuffs. No chains. You have to keep her—”

“She’ll like them,” the witch hissed at me, glancing over at Nadine standing in the farthest corner of the white living room, her back to us. “If she tastes it herself, she’ll know how it feels when she—”

“No.”

“Burke, if I have to keep her for—”

“If you can’t do it, say so. But you can’t chain her, understand? No restraints.”

“How else could I watch her twenty-four-seven?”

“You know how,” I told her.

I didn’t feel guilty about leaving Nadine there. Poison wouldn’t have a chance against Strega—she drank it for nourishment.

I needed the time to get everything ready. And I needed Nadine with me when I went to meet the killer. Needed her to come when she was called, no hesitation. Once he opened the window, I knew it was going to be just a narrow crack. And if I moved wrong, a guillotine.

I kept thinking about my hands. I’d boxed in prison. I wasn’t really any good at it. The Prof got me started. He’d always wanted to train a fighter. Knew how to do it too. But it was a long time before I understood what I was really being trained for. When I first started, I’d be fine until I got hit with a good shot. Then I’d go off. Take three to give one. All I—finally—learned from boxing was self-control. Staying inside myself even in battle. I did learn that much. Max tried to teach me too. And I learned some of his stuff. But I never worked at it. Never. . . got it, I guess. I don’t know.

I don’t like fighting, maybe that’s the problem. I can’t see hitting someone to hurt them. And if someone’s going to hurt me, I can’t see hitting them at all. Wesley told me he once killed a guy in the joint when he was just a kid. The guy was part of a crew, and they’d told Wesley he had a choice: give up some head to one of them, or get gang-banged by them all. Wesley picked the easier one. That made sense to them, but they didn’t know what “easier” meant to Wesley. He got on his knees, but then he rammed the guy in the stomach and got his hands on his throat. And held the guy’s head in place while some anonymous guard at the other end of the tier threw the switch that racks the bars on all the cells. The guy’s skull crumbled like it was papier-mâché.

The reason Wesley did it that way was because there’d been a shakedown, and the hacks had taken the shank he had stashed in his cell. Didn’t matter—he always got it done.

So I thought about dying. But even if I could get enough explosives past whatever security he’d have set up, I couldn’t be sure.

My hands, then. All I had. But not for his throat. To push a button.

I hit the post with a perfect two-knuckle strike, driving through it, not at it. . . the way I’d been taught. I hardly felt my hand. My mind was right.

“That’s mine,” Strega said. “Don’t touch it.”

I turned and saw her in the corner of the shadowy basement. “Where’s—?”

“In the bathtub,” Strega said. “With no towels. And if she steps out of it wet, she’ll fry like an omelet.”

“Jesus,” I said, looking down at my hand.

“I said don’t touch it,” Strega ordered, coming toward me. She was naked, her hair tied back with a black ribbon. She grabbed my hand. It was bloody around the knuckles. “Mine!” she said, like a two-year-old just learning the word. She licked the blood off. Then she squeezed my hand, hard. Some new drops blossomed. She pulled my knuckles into her mouth, sucked until she came, spasming, me with one arm around her to keep her from falling.

The bathroom door on the second floor was standing open. Strega stepped in. I looked over her shoulder. Nadine was in the tub, lying back, her eyes closed. Strega pulled a pair of plugs from their sockets, disconnecting the red-coiled heaters which were standing sentry on the soaked tile floor. Then she tossed a heavy black mat down, dropped to her knees, and started gently rubbing Nadine with a bar of soap, crooning to her.

Nadine’s eyes never opened. I couldn’t tell if she even knew I was there.

After a minute, I wasn’t.

I spent a lot of time waiting, some of it at the joint where Xyla had her war room in the back. I watched Rusty draw, wondering how he could do that and scan the room at the same time. Listened to the table-talk around me. Drifted. Knowing the answer was somewhere in me. Knowing I couldn’t force it out.

I went back Inside. When we were all doing time together. Maybe not together. I mean, Wesley was in there with us, but he wasn’t with us. Wesley wasn’t with anyone. But we were close enough so that we wired anything back to him that he’d need.

That’s when we found out this guy was looking to take Wesley off the count. Tower. I don’t know if that was his name or his handle. Didn’t matter—his true ID was tattooed on his forearm, the swastika dripping blood. That was years ago, before they announced their kills with the spiderweb on the elbow. He wanted a shank, and he wanted it from Oz. That’s because Oz made the best shanks in the whole joint. Only problem is, he wanted it for five cartons of smokes, and the going rate was ten. Oz was a very pale guy. Not prison-complexion pale, his natural color. Even his hair was almost white. He was some kind of Scandinavian, about as Aryan as you could get, but Tower didn’t see him that way. Tower wasn’t bargaining—although that’s what it would sound like to you if you only heard the audio and didn’t get the implied threat in the way he loomed over Oz. That’s when the Prof stepped in:

“Where you been, chump?” the little man asked Tower. “You know nothing’s on sale in the jail. You want a shank, you tap your bank. Far as I’m concerned, ten crates for one of my man’s pieces—hell, that price is nice, Jack.”

Tower looked down at the Prof, making up his mind. Big mistake. I was in position by then. And I’d already paid my ten cartons. “Tomorrow, motherfucker,” Tower said to Oz, saving face. “Bring the best you got.” Then he stalked away.

Oz was there the next day, but Tower never showed. That stirred the whisper-stream, but it wasn’t until later that I learned the truth.

“Damnedest thing I ever heard of,” Doc mused in his office. He liked an audience. And I liked to listen. “They find him dead in his cell. Looked like he went in his sleep. Not a mark on him. But the tox was bad—I mean, deadly bad.”

“So he OD’ed?” I asked.

“Not on curare!” Doc snorted. “But once they saw that, then they really did the job. They found it in his ear.”

“What?”

“A little dart. Beautiful piece of work, fluted and everything, like you’d make in a lab.”

“Somebody threw—?”

“No way, Burke. It was deep. Cruz said he recognized it. You know what he said it was? A fucking blowgun dart! Can you believe that? Last time I checked, we didn’t have any rain-forest pygmies here.”

“So how come the Man didn’t shake down the whole place?” I asked him. That’s what happened every time there was a stabbing and the weapon wasn’t recovered at the scene.

“What would be the point?” Doc responded. “It was weeks old by the time they found it. Whoever did it certainly got rid of it by then. Or took it apart, turned it back into whatever he made it from. Who knows?”

“Who cares?”

“You got a point,” Doc agreed. “No way this’ll kick off a race thing—Tower locked in H Block.”

I just nodded. H Block was all white. Not all AB, true, but all white, for sure. Everyone in there didn’t have the same politics, but they had the same color.

Same color as Wesley.

And when I’d sent “blowgun dart” to this super-killer, he’d just nodded from his cyber-hideout. He knew. So I had to play it like he knew it all.

I was going to get close to him soon. But there’d be bars. Some kind of bars. My hands wouldn’t do it.

A muscular guy with deep-glazed eyes staggered past us. He bumped into Rusty, knocking the big man’s drawing tablet onto the floor. Rusty didn’t say anything, just bent to pick it up.

“You got a fuckin’ problem?” the guy asked, speech slurred but fists clenched.

“There’s no problem,” I told him.

“I wasn’t talking to you, motherfucker,” he said to me, eyes only on Rusty.

Before he finished, Trixie was standing next to him, off to the side. “What’s he been drinking?” she asked the waitress.

“V and V,” the girl said.

“You’re out of here,” Trixie told the muscular guy.

“Fuck you, butch.”

“Step off!” she warned him.

“I’ll fucking step—”

Rusty shoved the heavy wood table he was sitting at right into the guy’s knees, driving it so hard you could hear bone snap. The drunk dropped.

“Goddamn it, Rusty!” Trixie yelled at him. She reached down, hooked the guy’s belt, and dragged him off somewhere. The waitress went with her.

“What’s a ‘V and V’?” I asked Rusty.

“Vodka and Vicodin,” he told me. “Lots of fools taking that now. Really gets you wrecked.”

Freddy Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” mocked me from the Plymouth’s speakers as I headed back to my place.

When I got upstairs, I saw Pansy had Max’s singing bowl on the floor. She was just nosing it around with her snout, not biting it or anything. But she must have worked hard to get it down from the shelf where I’d put it.

“You like the sound, girl? Is that what you’re trying to do?” I asked her.

Pansy just looked at me.

I sat on the floor next to her, worked the wooden whisk until the bowl began to sing.

And then I went into it.

When I came back, I had the weapon. A bomb. A bomb built in hell. I knew it was there. I knew I could bring it with me. But I didn’t know if I could detonate it.

And then there was nothing left.

I wasn’t worried about walking out of there alive. Without me, the killer couldn’t be.

“She knows what we’re doing,” Strega whispered at me from her silky bed.

“So what?”

“It’s part of her. . . discipline. She has to know.”

“All right,” I said softly, knowing I was near the edge, dancing with a witch.

“Now she has to have more.”

“What?”

“She has to watch. I’m going to bring her in here. And make her watch us.”

“No.”

“Yes. You know how I hold her? How I keep her here?”

“No.”

“I love her,” Strega said. “And she loves me. I let her. . . here,” she whispered, guiding my hand to between her legs, a moist soft trap.

“Because you—?”

“Because she,” the witch said. “Understand? We’re the same. . . some ways. The same. She wouldn’t let a man. . . either. But me. . .”

“I already know she’s gay.”

“She’s not,” Strega said, dropping her face, nipping at my cock. “Me either.”

“Look, I don’t care what you—”

“She has to watch,” Strega hissed at me, nipping harder. “And, if you want, we could all. . .”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t let her hurt you, my darling. I’ll be right here.”

“I don’t want her near me—not like that.”

“Oh, yes you do, baby. My baby. But you’re afraid. You never have to be afraid when I’m here. When I’m alive. Even when I’m not, I’ll always be with you.”

“Strega,” I asked her, sitting up, tugging at her hair to pull her face away from my cock, “did you ever meet the Gatekeeper?”

“She has to watch,” the witch said. Like the Gatekeeper herself; always a price.

“Just. . . watch, right?”

“If that’s all you—”

“Just watch,” I told her, surrendering. Hating a piece of myself but staying within the circle surrounding my life. Everything costs. Everybody pays. . . and I’d paid so much to learn even that.

“Hmmmm. . .”

“And then you’ll tell me?” I asked, telling myself it would be over soon. And then I’d know. Not why Strega did things, but what she knew. What I needed.

“Yessss. . .” she whispered.

Strega disappeared. I lay there, my back against some propped-up pillows, smoking and waiting. Knowing it wasn’t about giving in to Strega, or doing what she wanted. No, whatever it was, she was doing it for me. But she was a witch, and she couldn’t work without her charms.

Nadine walked in. Nude. I couldn’t see her face in the shadowy light Strega seemed to bring with her as she followed the bigger girl into the room. Strega stood next to Nadine, her right hand somewhere behind the other woman.

I watched them watch me.

Strega crawled onto the bed between my legs. Then she stopped, well short of reaching me. “No closer, understand?” she said.

I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. Strega was a witch, not a tease. And I was. . . limp, anyway. Frightened. Strega always frightens me. This was worse. There was lightning in the room. No thunder, just the soundless pressure of electricity ready to crackle into life. Or take it.

Strega got up, went back to where she had been standing. Then Nadine crawled onto the bed. I was frozen. If she. . .

Nadine stopped, right where Strega had. And stayed there, arching her back as Strega knelt on the floor behind her and took her. Nadine’s eyes gleamed, but they weren’t seeing me. She made a throaty sound. Strega hissed into her. I couldn’t not look at them.

Nadine let go, exploding inside. Even her overdeveloped arms wouldn’t hold her as her shoulders dropped and her face hit the bed, only inches from me. Strega slithered across Nadine’s back until her mouth was on me.

“It works now, doesn’t it, baby?”

I didn’t want it to, but it did.

Nadine never moved, staying face-down on the red silk sheets. Strega gulped hard—but she didn’t swallow the way she always did. She yanked hard on Nadine’s hair and when the bigger girl’s face came up, Strega kissed her. Deep and long.

“You’re in her now too,” Strega said when she was done. “I washed your blood. It’s mine. I can give it to whoever I please.”

I couldn’t move. My spine was frozen. But I’d paid the tolls.

Trixie approached my table, telling me it was time without saying a word. I got up and followed her to the back room.

“Incoming,” Xyla said, over her shoulder.

I watched the screen.

>>Meet. Now.<<

where?

>>ground rules: (1) no “friends”; (2) no weapons<<

understand

>>pay phone. corner 23rd and 1st. go there now. one hour. no more. await call. follow instructions.<<

bringing woman, remember?

I had Xyla type, stalling for time as I thumbed my cellular into life.

“Hmmmm,” Strega answered.

“Get ready to ride,” I told her. “Right now. Corner of Twenty-third and First.”

“We’re ready.”

“Now!” I told her, hitting the “End” switch just as his response popped up on the screen.

>>yes. *you* remember. same rules for her.<<

ok

>>leave *now* one hour, no more.<<

The huge digital clock above Xyla’s computer read 02:12. Sure, no traffic at that hour. I’d be able to get where he said on time, no matter where in the city I was. He couldn’t know the woman wasn’t with me already. I told Xyla to type:

leaving now

“He’s gone,” she said, fingers tapping impotently.

In another minute, so was I.

I knew he had the technology to monitor cellular traffic, but he couldn’t hear me speak face to face. “Pay phone. Twenty-third and First,” I told Clarence as I opened the door to the Plymouth.

“With you, mahn,” the islander said, strolling over to his own car. They’d all be there, most of them before me.

I couldn’t afford to be stopped, so I kept well within the limits all the way over. Still, I was there with a good twenty-five minutes to spare. I opened the transmission tunnel and pulled out the ice-cold untraceable pistol. Not for him—in case somebody was using the pay phone.

But it was deserted. I put the gun back.

A flame-colored Porsche Boxster roared up across the street from the pay phone. Strega, flying her flag.

I walked over to her, not feeling his eyes, but believing in them. No way he wouldn’t have the whole terrain covered. I couldn’t see any of my crew, and hoped he couldn’t either. I bent down just as her window lowered.

“He’s going to call me on that phone,” I told her, nodding in its direction without turning my head.

“Kiss me,” she commanded.

Her tongue was fire in my mouth.

“Give me your hands.”

She licked the backs of them across the knuckles.

“Mine is stronger,” she said. “I’ll send her over in a minute.”

“Then go,” I told her.

“I’ll never go,” she witch-promised me. “And if you do, I’ll bring you back.”

Nadine walked across the street to where I was standing at the pay phone. The Porsche roared away.

“He’s going to call and—”

“I know,” she said. She was dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans and a pink T-shirt, plain white sneakers and sweatsocks on her feet. If she felt the chill in the night air, she didn’t show it.

I lit a cigarette.

“She did that,” Nadine said to me.

“What?”

“Burned me. With a cigarette.”

“She doesn’t smoke. . . .”

“On purpose. So I would understand.”

“Understand what?”

“What I did. To. . . my friend. She said if I hurt you she would find me in hell. I had to wear her brand when I met. . . him.”

“And you just—?”

“You don’t understand,” Nadine said quietly. “But she does.”

“I—”

The phone rang.

“The woman with you—is she the one?” the voice asked.

“Yes,” I replied, knowing I could be talking to a tape recording, not wasting an atom of concentration on the voice.

“Turn around.”

I did it. Waited. Nadine didn’t move, so I was looking over her shoulder.

“You are under observation. Full thermal. Discard all weapons, recording devices, and transmitters now.”

“Don’t have any,” I told him.

“See building directly ahead of you to the right? Gray stone. Twenty-nine stories?”

“Yes.”

“Security box to right of door. Access code is: thirteen thirty-three thirty-nine zero three. Repeat.”

“Thirteen. Thirty-three. Thirty-nine. Zero. Three.”

“Enter building. Summon elevator. Last car on your left. Enter. Follow instructions.”

I heard a disengagement click!

“Let’s go,” I told Nadine.

The building had twin front doors of thick glass, each with a long vertical brass handle. I punched in the numbers. Pulled on the handles. Nothing. The muscles between my shoulders tightened. I took a deep breath through my nose and pushed. The doors opened inward. We walked across a medium-sized lobby with an unattended doorman’s desk. The last elevator to my left was standing open. We stepped inside. As the door closed, I saw a typed note taped to the control panel.

PRESS → 21-11-19-4

I did that. The car started to rise. A digital indicator showed each floor as we passed. When it reached 29, it kept on going. Like my old place, I thought. Crawl space. . . off the charts.

The elevator door opened into an archway. I knew what it was right away. Security gauntlet. The most sophisticated detector made, as sensitive as an MRI. I’d seen one like it before. On the private penthouse floor of a terrified billionaire with enough cash to indulge his paranoia.

I didn’t waste time worrying about the zipper in my jacket or my belt buckle or. . . anything. He’d trust his machines. I just said, “Come on” to Nadine and started to walk through it.

The place was operating-room cold. I felt Nadine behind me, her hand fluttering against my shoulder. At the exit end of the archway was a small table, standing just off to the right. The only thing on it was a box about the size of an eight-by-ten photograph. I looked down at it. Greenish glow. I placed my right hand flat, making sure my fingerprints would register. I looked around. A tiny red light was standing above a door a few feet away. Even in the murky light, I could tell that the door was built hard and heavy. I could feel Nadine’s breath against my neck. It was ragged but not frightened. More like. . . excited.

The red light blinked off. I walked to the door. Couldn’t see a knob. I pushed gently. It opened, swinging free. I stepped inside, Nadine so close now she almost shoved past me.

The floor was carpeted. I could feel it, but I couldn’t see it. A single strand of blue neon tubing ran all around the walls. That was the only light. I could make out two metal chairs, a coffee table between them, standing lengthwise so the chairs were close together. On the table, a long narrow tray full of sand, like one of those miniature Buddhist gardens.

I took the chair to the right, furthest from the door, showing him I knew I couldn’t get out if he didn’t want me to. Nadine sat down next to me. The blue neon amped up just enough for me to see what was in front of us. A wall of thick plastic, like they use in liquor stores, only this one had no money slot. Lexan, probably. I could make out a shape behind it. Seated. Impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman.

“The instructions I taped to the inside of the elevator car—did you bring them with you?” a voice asked. A man’s voice, coming from speakers somewhere on my side of the glass. No way to tell if it was his own or an electronically altered version.

“No. I left them there,” I said.

“Good. If your. . . friends overheard the coordinates to enter the building and try the elevator, I presume they will push the same sequence. It has been reprogrammed.”

“They won’t—”

“If they do that,” the voice continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “the doors will seal. And unless they came equipped with gas masks, they are already dead. The stairway is secured against anything other than low-yield explosive, and I have it on both visual and audio right in front of me. That option is closed as well.”

“I played this square,” I told him. “I’m alone. And unarmed. You must have your own way out of here.”

“Of course.”

“So. You want to do business or I wouldn’t be here, right?”

“Yes. Questions first.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Mine. Why is the woman with you?”

“Not now,” I told him.

“You have no options,” the voice said.

“Yeah, I do. If I gave a damn about dying, I wouldn’t have looked for you in the first place.”

“I would have found you.”

“I know that now, but I didn’t when I started. I know what you want. You can’t get it snuffing me. I’m sure you got gas jets in the ceiling. Probably got electricity in these chairs too. I got the message, pal. I’m surrounded. It’s no new experience for me. Your questions have nothing to do with her. She’s here because she wants to be. Ask her whatever you want. . . when you and me are done.”

“You are in no position to bargain.”

“No? You think you know me. You don’t. You think you know Wesley. You don’t know him either, for all your fucked-up ‘research.’ Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. What’s your problem? We can’t leave. And we can’t hurt you. Do what you want—I don’t give a good goddamn.”

The voice was quiet after that. Nadine twitched in her chair. I probably shouldn’t have said anything about electricity. I breathed through my nose, shallow.

Time passed.

“I thought you would have wanted one of your cigarettes by now,” the voice said, like he had all the time in the world. “By the way, purely as a matter of interest, what brand did Wesley smoke?”

“Dukes,” I told him. “Same as me.”

“Dukes? I am not familiar with—”

“New York has a humongous tax on smokes,” I said. “Lots of states do. Contraband creates opportunity. There’s major traffic in bringing them up from North Carolina. Tobacco country. ‘Dukes,’ get it? You buy them from a wholesale jobber down there, truck them up here, sell them for fifty percent retail, and everybody scores. Doesn’t matter what the brand name is—Dukes is what they call smuggled smokes. Me, I smoke whatever’s on the truck that month, understand?”

“Certainly. Nothing in your profile indicates a connoisseur’s taste, even in something so mundane.”

His voice wasn’t anything like Wesley’s. The voice coming through the speakers was machine-altered. Wesley was a machine.

I waited.

“I am in no particular hurry,” the voice said, picking up on my thoughts. “Even if your. . . friends have this building under surveillance. . . even if you have notified the authorities. . . I am able to leave undetected.”

“And then blow the building?”

“Perhaps,” he acknowledged, like it was no big thing. “I may choose to do so, but only if—”

“I understand,” I told him. I could feel shock waves of surprise from behind the glass partition, but he didn’t say anything.

Neither did I. Nadine had stopped twitching. A heavy, thick smell came off her. Not fear, something I couldn’t put a name to.

I concentrated on my breathing.

Time passed.

“Why did you search for me originally?” he finally asked.

“A group of gay people wanted to protect you. They were afraid you’d be captured. They wanted me to find you, get you out of the country to someplace safe.”

“Ah. You understand that—”

“You can leave whenever you want?” I cut in deliberately, trying to shift his balance, even if only a little bit. “And that this was never about fag-bashing?”

“Correct. On both counts.”

“You had a long rest,” I told him.

“A. . . rest? No. Not a rest. I went. . . quiescent. Once I had mastered my art, there was no. . . challenge.”

“You were always above us, huh?”

“I am above you, Mr. Burke. In all ways.”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking of his velociraptor icon. And the killing claw. “So far above you couldn’t get your ear to the ground, much less down into the whisper-stream. But it wasn’t until you did that you learned the truth.”

“Your. . . idiolect is unfamiliar to me.”

“You were the greatest kidnapper ever,” I said quietly. “Perfect.”

“I was,” he acknowledged, accepting his due.

“You mastered that art,” I told him, shifting my gears, trying to jam his. “And you switched to another. I never did get that last piece.”

“Piece?”

“Of your journal. That was your last kidnapping, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then you switched to homicide?”

“Assassination,” he corrected me. “Yes.”

“Your journal was ambiguous,” I said. “What was the new art? Killing mobsters? Killing incest fathers? Killing child molesters? What?”

“Ah. Because the first target fit all those criteria?”

“Yeah.”

“The target was pedophiles,” he said. “From the very beginning.”

“But you. . . practiced on. . . what?”

“Anyone,” he said. Dry ice.

“Sure. And when you were ready, that’s when you switched from your private journal to the letters to the newspapers. And it almost worked.”

“Almost? Please, Mr. Burke, don’t be ludicrous. I am universally acknowledged as the—”

“Not in the whisper-stream,” I chopped him off. “You got a higher body count. . . maybe. . . than Wesley, but so what? Every single one of his hits was bought and paid for. Someone else picked the target. Down here, there’s talk of a guy called the Trustee. Supposed to be managing a fortune some old gay guy left. . . for killing fag-bashers. And word is, this Trustee got to Wesley. And all this work, it’s his, not yours.”

“Where is this mythical ‘down here’ of yours?”—the machine not altering the sneer in his voice.

“You like ‘grapevine’ better? It doesn’t matter. Back alleys, prison tiers, waterfront bars. Crimeville, understand? Not for citizens. That’s where Wesley lives. You say his name there, people tremble. He starts his walk, somebody’s gonna die. Everybody knows.”

“Wesley is dead,” he said, repeating my line now.

“To who?” I challenged him. “He went out the way he wanted. But maybe he went someplace else. Some say he never really left. That he had some tunnel under the school, or that it was a remote-control robot’s voice the cops heard or. . . whatever. You know how people talk. You’ve got a way out of here. Who’s to say Wesley didn’t?”

“Yes. But the circumstances are—”

“And others, they say he came back.”

“From the dead?” The voice dripped sarcasm.

“Yeah. You never heard about ‘Reaching Back’ either, huh? You’re so far above us, you can’t see down through the clouds. Wesley’s alive. He can’t die. And I know that’s what you want.”

“What I want?”

“Why else all this? I’m no threat to you. You don’t bite on that Internet bait, you’re well away. Vanished. Like you did before.

“But you figured the only true test of art is immortality. Like a statue or a painting or a book that people still look at hundreds of years after it’s done, right? Your art. . . it dies with you. I don’t know how old you are, but you are going to die. And all your little ‘journals’ will end up as some cheap paperback book. There’s only one way for you to get where you want to go. And that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? You need me to set up some more hits. As Wesley’s ‘agent,’ right? That makes him alive. And that makes you him.”

There was such silence I could hear heartbeats. A slow, steady thump. I was so calm I was almost comatose. Once you’re over the line, the tension stops. Maybe it was Nadine’s heart I heard. I never looked her way.

“Yes,” he finally said.

I waited. It wasn’t time yet. He wasn’t. . . exposed enough for my one strike.

“How would it work?” he finally asked me.

“There’s people I could talk to. See in person. They know me and Wesley were. . . They know I can reach him. I was—”

“You were the original suspect when my most recent. . . artistry started,” he cut in. “Why was that?”

It wasn’t time to fire yet, but I cocked the hammer. “One of the people that was killed in the drive-by. She was my woman.”

“Ah. And the police thought you were seeking revenge.”

“Yes.”

“That is your reputation. Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“And when did you decipher the coding?”

“Later on,” I said. “You needed a way to justify killing a whole lot of people quickly. So the body counts would put you up there with Wesley. But you didn’t want the police making connections—you wanted to spell it out for us. And you wanted some way to say Wesley was alive too. I don’t know how you found out that Gutterball wanted—”

“He was not. . . discreet about it. I happened to access an individual he had attempted to. . . retain for that purpose.”

“And then all it took was a phone call? And some meeting in the shadows?”

“Yes. He. . . quite readily accepted that he was speaking to. . .”

“Wesley.”

“Yes.”

“So you resurrected Wesley and kicked off the killings at the same time. It was. . . brilliant. No way the cops ever make that connection. Only problem is, it trapped you too.”

“What does that mean? I am hardly the one trapped here.”

“Listen to what you just said.” I spoke quietly, willing him closer. “You couldn’t have imitated Wesley’s voice. You never heard it. Nobody’s ever really heard it. So how come Gutterball went for the whole thing unless he already believed Wesley was alive? It’s like I told you, pal. Wesley can’t die. Not down here, he can’t.”

“Ah,” he said smoothly. “So, in fact, I do not require your ‘services’ at all, do I, Mr. Burke? Let me ask you another question. . . purely for my own edification: Do you hold me responsible for the death of your. . . girlfriend? You do understand that I only executed the target. The rest was. . .”

“I understand,” I lied. “No way you could have known who else would be there.”

“Your statement does not square with other information I have unearthed about you, Mr. Burke.”

“If you were really convinced of that, why have me here?”

“Ah. Well, in simple terms—and please believe me, I do not intend to be insulting—your personal animosity, to the extent it exists at all, is of no concern to me. You are. . . powerless, shall we say. My. . . research sources are, as you so adroitly pointed out earlier, dissimilar to yours. And I concede that your. . . reputation is, to some extent, inaccurate. When I began my final. . . quest, long before I ever made contact, it quickly became apparent that you were linked to Wesley. However, it also became apparent that there was a commingling at some juncture, so that various homicides were misattributed between you.”

“What does it matter?” I asked him.

“Matter? Nothing. I was simply explaining that I have no direct method of ascertaining whether your rather legendary commitment to vengeance is valid. Regardless, I am both invulnerable as to you and needful of your. . . services, for which I am prepared to pay. Or, at least, until you so adroitly pointed out your own uselessness, I was prepared to pay. I do assume your reputation as a man-for-hire is factual. . .?”

“Yeah. It is. But I’m no hit man. Wesley—”

“Wesley was a rank amateur,” he said, his tone sounding more human now, even through the mechanical barrier. “How he achieved such. . . immortal status is beyond my comprehension. I assume it was the rather theatrical way he elected to exit which retroactively amplified his rather pedestrian accomplishments as an assassin.”

“Amateur?” I taunted him. “Amateurs do things for fun. Like you do. Amateurs call it fucking ‘art.’ Like you do. Wesley, he got paid. And he never missed. You gave Wesley a name, you got a body,” I said, echoing the Prof. “The only body they never got was his.”

“Have you ever read any of Conan Doyle’s works, Mr. Burke? Sherlock Holmes, surely you are familiar with that fictional detective? Holmes was a self-described amateur. And, simultaneously, the king of his profession. Performing feats for compensation is not a higher art.”

“Maybe where you live,” I told him.

“Where I live. . . doesn’t matter. That I live is all that is of importance. Vital importance. I am Wesley now. His immortality is mine. I no longer require your services. Any works of art erected after Wesley’s demise which are attributed to him are, in fact, mine. When this ‘whisper-stream’ of yours speaks, as it will forever, every time it says his name, it will be me of which it speaks. Do you understand?”

“Sure. You’re gonna blow this building. After you get out. So everyone’ll say: That’s Wesley—he knows how to blow things up and still walk away. You’re an identity-thief.”

“My work was superior to his in every aspect!” he said, sharply. “His identity is mine, now. I have not ‘stolen’ it, I have ascended to it. And then transcended it. And you have, unwittingly, already identified my work. . . my recent work. . . as his. That is not theft, it is proper attribution. Anything less would be plagiarism.”

“How can you be sure I did that?” I asked him.

“Oh, I have no doubts,” he said. “Mr. Felestrone is proof enough of that.”

“How can you be sure?” I repeated.

“Pure art will out. Time is its only test. Axiomatically, I cannot personally verify such things. It is an act of faith.”

“And you did it all for art?”

“For my art. I do not fit any of those pitiful law-enforcement ‘profiles.’ I do not live to kill. In fact, I killed to live. . . although I do not believe you are capable of comprehending such a concept other than in the most elemental terms. No ‘motivation’ drives my work. The motivation is the work itself.”

“Bullshit,” I told him calmly.

“Surely you are not fool enough to believe you can anger me into accessibility, Mr. Burke? Am I supposed to rise to your transparent bait and physically attack you in some way? Your attempt is ludicrous. Do you know what an osmotic membrane is?”

“Yeah. A one-way barrier. You can cross over to the other side, but you can’t step back.”

“Ah. You surprise me. I would not have thought—”

“I did a lot of reading in prison,” I told him.

“Which apparently included a good deal of pop psychology,” he said dryly. “Nevertheless, this barrier—the one which separates us now—is, in fact, osmotic. You could enter the area I now occupy, if I so elected. See. . . this!” he said.

A yellow light suddenly blinked on to my right. It looked like it was floating in air.

“What you see is a projected beam. It will open the barrier between us.”

“A door in the Lexan?”

“If you will. I prefer my own analogy—it is more. . . applicable to the instant situation, especially given the wires embedded in the glass. Do you wish to come closer, then, Mr. Burke?”

“No,” I told him. “I’m fine right here.” I lit a cigarette, leaned back in my chair, blew smoke at the invisible ceiling.

“Then you wish to retract your absurd statements concerning my alleged ‘motivations’ for my art?”

“Sure,” I told him. “I’ll do that. I figure there’s a better way.”

“What are you—?”

“I know you,” I told him. I didn’t know if he could feel that truth—maybe it would just wash against the glass, never touch him. But it was all I had. I couldn’t see his eyes. A freak’s eyes always get soft and wet—sex-wet—when he talks about his fun. Wesley’s eyes were as dry as his bloodless heart—killing was work to him. “And I know you don’t want me going out and being your ‘agent,’ ” I sneered softly at him. “Once was enough. Now you want this all to vanish. Everything. You figured it out a long time ago. Immortality requires death. And that part you said I’d never understand. . . killing to live? I know who you killed to live.”

“Do you actually believe I—?”

“Why don’t you tell him?” I said, turning to Nadine. “It’s time now. You wanted this so bad. Now you’re here. Tell him.”

“I. . .” she started to speak, then stopped.

Velociraptor. A combination of crocodile and bird. Both survived. He claimed that for his own. Time to find out if he’d split or stayed mixed. It was all I had. I sucked the smoke deep into my lungs again, knowing it had to be perfect or I was done. “Go ahead. Tell him. Tell him the truth. . . Zoë.”

She gasped so hard her whole body shuddered in the chair. She got to her feet, shakily. Stood with her hands behind her back, one knee slightly bent. A little girl.

“You are my father,” she said into the darkness. “You gave me life. I waited for you. Inside. But I knew you would come for me someday.”

“You’re—” His voice cracked, clear even through the microphone.

“You never killed her at all,” I told him, flat, no more debating. “Not all of her. That last journal entry was as cute as it gets. You figured out Angelique was a multiple. And you knew why she was. But that wasn’t what did it. It was when she recognized you that everything. . . changed. Changed forever. You killed the alter. Killed Angelique. And left this other one behind. I don’t know how you did that, but. . .”

I let my voice trail off. Then I spoke right at Nadine’s back: “Where did you wake up?”

“I. . . don’t know,” she said, her voice still a child’s. “It was in. . . California, somewhere. The police found me. I was. . . they said I was. . . amnesic. They put me in a hospital. I never. . . They looked, but they never found. . . I was. . . adopted. Not really adopted. . . a foster home. They named me. Nadine. I was very. . . intelligent. But I couldn’t remember. I was. . . somewhere else. Inside. Waiting. I’m an architect. I knew I loved. . . design. And I hated men. I was never with a man. Ever. I. . . waited. And when my father started to. . . avenge. . . I felt the pull. I always. . . knew, I think. But not. . . I’m still not. . . I’m Zoë. Now. I am.”

The speaker spit out, “You could not. . .” but his voice trailed off.

“You know the truth,” I told him, calm and quiet and centered as deeply as I ever had been in my life. “You only killed Angelique. That’s when your art was done. When you found out the real reason why you did it. She taught you. She’s not lying. You are her father. But she was the one who gave you life.”

“My life is art. And my art is death.”

“Yes. And you’re done now. You’re Wesley. You can’t die. So you can’t stay either.”

“I know,” he said. A human voice now. He must have switched off the distorter in the microphone.

“Take Zoë with you,” Nadine begged him. “I wanted to go with you then. I can help you now. I can be with you. I don’t want to be here.”

She was crying then. I didn’t move, even when the cigarette started to burn the tips of my fingers.

“Come here, child,” he finally said.

Nadine walked forward. Touched the yellow button. And stepped into the darkness.

I heard a faint click as the Lexan door closed again.

I sat there, frozen, watching the barrier.

A white-orange fireball exploded in front of my eyes. The room rocked.

I got off the floor, surprised I was still there. I knew what was coming next. Wesley was going out again. The same way. I wondered how much time I had even as I ran toward the waiting elevator.

“Reprogrammed,” the maniac had said. I didn’t touch any of the buttons in the elevator. I climbed onto the railing and shoved the flat of my hand against the ceiling. The security panel yielded. I climbed out of the car and looked across. Empty black space. Sure—only that one car went to the secret top floor. But the blackness ahead of me wasn’t the Zero. There had to be other cars. I slipped the gloves onto my hands, wished for a flashlight. The stairway was sealed at the bottom. This way was my only shot. And a timer somewhere was ticking away my life. How much was left before he turned into Wesley for real?

I jumped, reaching out for the cable I couldn’t see. I hit it with my chest, grabbed on as hard as I could. Got a grip but it was too greasy—I lost it and started to free-fall. I. . . crashed onto the roof of the car below. Felt the wind go out of me. Didn’t fight it, waiting even as my mind screamed the opposite command. I got a breath. Clawed around frantically until I found the panel’s handle. Yanked it up and dropped inside. Stabbed the button for the ground floor, willing the damn thing to drop like a stone.

It opened into the lobby. I sprinted toward the thick glass doors and pulled with all my strength. Locked! Sure, the son of a bitch wouldn’t do anything without a backup plan. Alive, I could tell the truth. I pounded on the door. Useless. I looked around frantically, knowing it was coming and. . .

The night lit up. The quad beams of my Plymouth, aimed right at the door. I semaphored wildly. The Plymouth backed up, tires squealing, spun into a J-turn, and shot toward me, rear end first like they do in Demolition Derbies. I backpedaled toward the elevator as the Plymouth roared right up the steps and crashed into the doors, splitting them wide open. I ran for the passenger door, wrenched it open, and dove inside as the big car lurched forward, bouncing down the steps, fishtailing as it hit the street, then shot toward the FDR.

I looked over at the driver and caught Wolfe’s Satan-slayer smile. “Controlled collision,” she said. “The Mole wanted to work the lock, but the Prof said it was probably rigged. So we waited. When we saw you, it was time.”

“I. . .”

“I know you do,” Wolfe said, as the night behind us turned into flame.

It was probably getting light outside somewhere, but none of it penetrated into Mama’s.

“All she did was love him,” Wolfe said. “And he must have hated all the freaks, just like she did. Why didn’t he just go on and—”

“It was his choice,” I told her. “She knew his secret. She loved him for it, but he had no love left in him. He wanted to go, but he wasn’t going to leave anyone who would make excuses for him. You know how they talk about a choice of evils? He had all the choices. And evil was the one he chose.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Wolfe said. “I think he loved her. The only way he could.”

“He was just. . . what, then?”

“I don’t have a name for it.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s gone now.”

“You’re not,” she said, leaning toward me, her hand on mine, gray eyes soft with something I’d never seen before. “And it’s your time now. Your time to choose.”

An excerpt from

DEAD AND GONE

by ANDREW VACHSS

Soon to be available in hardcover from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

You know what it takes to sit across the table from a man, listen to him talk, look into his eyes. . . and then blow his brains all over the wallpaper?

Nothing.

And the more of that you have, the easier it is.

“You pick a spot yet?” The voice on the cell phone was trying to come across as bored with the whole thing, but I could pick up little worms crawling around its edges. Impatience? Nervousness? No way to know for sure.

“No,” I told him. “And if I can’t find one in a few minutes, we’ll have to do it next time.”

“Hey, pal, fuck you, all right? There don’t have to be a next time.”

“Up to you.”

“Hard guy, huh? I guess that’s right—it’s not your kid.”

“Not yours, either,” I said, my voice level and unthreatening, sending my calmness out to him. “We’re both professionals—how about we just keep it like that? This is a trade. You know how trades work. Soon as I find a safe spot, I’ll pull in, just like we agreed, okay? We’ll hook up, do our business, and everybody gets paid.”

“You don’t find a spot soon, nobody gets paid.”

“I’ll get back to you,” I said, and killed the connection.

It had taken weeks to get this close. A missing kid. Too young to be a runaway, but there’d been no ransom note. Just a. . . vanishing. That was almost ten years ago. It wasn’t a media story anymore. The cops told the parents they were still looking. Maybe they were.

The parents were the kind of people the cops would put out for, that was for sure. She was a gynecologist; he did something in biochemistry. But they were also first generation Americans; Russians. So when they got a call from a man who spoke their language, a man who said he ran a “recovery service” on commission, they took their hopes and their fears to Odessa Beach. Not the one on the Black Sea, the one in Brooklyn.

In the Russian mob, even the grunts have a hierarchy. You can read their rank right on their bodies—the specialists mark themselves with prison tattoos. The symbols tell you who’s the thief, who’s the assassin, who uses fire, who does bodywork. But they didn’t have anyone who does what I do. So Dmitri, the boss, reached out across the border. To a Chinatown restaurant run by a Mandarin matriarch who trafficked in anything except dope and flesh. She didn’t sell food, either.