Choice of Evil (23 page)

I was still trying to connect what he was saying with what was happening now when the screen went blank. Then it bloomed in bright red, with black lettering clear against it.

>>Summon your operator now. A question will follow. It must be answered in order to see my next journal entry.<<

“Xyla!” I called out.

She bounced into the room, shooed me out of the chair, and took over. “Ready?” she asked me.

“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully.

We both watched the screen. In another few seconds, his message came, this time in a regular font, black letters on a white screen:

>>Prove link, you <–> Wesley. Three (3) names. No more. Send immediately.<<

“What words?” Xyla asked me urgently, her fingers poised.

I told her. Watched the screen carry the message.

Candy. Train. Julio.

D
riving back, I wanted the safety of my cave. My head hurt from it all. It started reasonably. . . for a lunatic. That whole gay thing. But he was saying he was a kidnapper. The best in the business. What business? There hadn’t been a successful kidnapping in years. Nothing remotely resembling the perfection he was bragging about. When had he first written this? Why was he sending it to me? And what did Wesley have to do with a. . . “metaphorical” death?

Was he saying all those homicides meant something other than what they were? Was
any
of his journal true? I. . . couldn’t get it. So I stuffed as much as I could deep into my memory, packing a suitcase for a long journey.

I
was in Mama’s that night. The Prof had left word he’d roll by, and I waited to. . . I don’t know what I wanted. Maybe just to be with the only father I’d ever had, just for a little while. Before I did something I knew was going to end ugly.

My father came in with his son. They sat down. The old man looked at me. . . and, for the first time, I realized he
was
an old man. I mean, he
had
to be, right? But it never came to me so hard as right that moment.

He didn’t ask me anything, just had his soup and waited. When he was done, I told him.

“Okay, let me get this straight. Motherfucker sends you his ‘journal’? A diary, like those teenage girls keep? Only this one, it’s about him being the all-time ace of snatch artists?”

“Not the whole thing, Prof. It was. . . a piece, like.”

“There’s more, then? He gets his pleasing from teasing?”

“I don’t think so. It could be techno—maybe he could only maintain security with so much data at a time. But it feels like. . . You remember those serials you told me about, the ones they had at the movies when you were a kid?”

“Oh yeah. Those were some
boss
cliffhangers, son. Kept you coming back for more, that’s the way they scored.”

“Right. That’s what this feels like.”

“He gets you hooked, so you don’t book?”

“Sure. But why would he care? The only thing he wants from me has something to do with Wesley—that name really opened his door. And, remember what I told you, he said he was ready to die. And I was going to help him.”

“But not die-die, right? Meta-something die. That don’t mean the real deal.”

“No. I don’t know what. . . The way it started, I thought he was going to go into a rant about being gay, you know? But he dropped that in a flash, switched to the kidnapping thing.”

“Then here’s what’s true,
that
ain’t new.”

“Because. . .?”

“Because the motherfucker may be crazy—hell, he sure
is
crazy—but no way he’s stupid, right? If he’s king of the kidnappers, you won’t know it from the papers. Like I said, that ain’t the play, no way, not today. The drug boys do snatches, but it’s to get back their powder or make somebody go along with the program, not a ransom deal.”

“So you think this is an old journal?”

“What the man said, right? Got it stashed in some computer in case he’s caught or something. . . .”

“No. In fact, he said, if anyone tried to get at it, the whole thing would get nuked.”

“But it was getting him off,” the Prof said, flatly.
“Had
to be. Keep fucking records of your own heists—what kind of righteous thief does that?”

“You got me. He says he’s a pro. He came across like there’s no way he’s got partners.”

“He figured out a way to do snatches without partners, man’s good,” the Prof conceded. “But he still sounds like the kind of fool I came up with. . . you know, a motherfucker so dumb, you tell him somebody with a gun’s coming for him, he runs around looking for a knife.”

“Those they still have,” Clarence said gravely.

“Always
gonna
have,” the Prof assured him. “Like they wasn’t
born
stupid enough, they got to practice.”

“Prof,” I asked him quietly, the same volume we used to speak on the yard, so many years ago. But straight ahead, not out of the side of my mouth. “Can you tell me anything?”

“Got two things to tell you, Schoolboy. Only one you gonna listen to.”

“You sure?”

“Here’s the first one: Walk away. Fast.”

The little man looked at me until my eyes dropped. “Thought so,” he said. “Here’s the other. Motherfucker’s tied to Wesley some way. And the way I see, only one way that could be.”

“Which is?”

“He’s afraid of him,” the Prof said.

“Wesley’s dead,” I said. My theme song now, I guessed it was.

“And people still not afraid of him?” the Prof challenged. “You know what they say. You know where they say it. Wesley may be dead, but he ain’t in the ground. Some be saying Wesley went down to the Crossroads, see if he could meet the Devil. Not like Robert Johnson did. Not to make no trade. To
meet
the man, to get it on. And the way it’s told, the Devil, he never showed. Remember, nobody did no autopsy. Every once in a while, the wire starts humming: Wesley’s coming. You hear it too, what do you do?”

“Get out of the way,” I told him, all truth.

“I don’t think this crazy motherfucker’s got even
that
much sense,” the Prof said solemnly.

W
e were still sitting there when Mama told me I had a phone call. It was just after midnight.

“What?” I said into the receiver.

“I have what you want.” Strega’s voice. “You bring me what I want now.”

“I don’t know if she’s—”

But the witch-woman was gone.

“
W
here are we going?”

“Never mind. You said you wanted in. This is how it has to go.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll meet you—”

“No. Stay there. I have to make sure you’re. . . okay before we go.”

“What does that—?”

I hung up on her.

S
he was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, a thin red leather jacket held over one shoulder.

“Hold it,” I told her. “I want you to bring something with you.”

“What?”

“You know that mask you told me about?”

“Yes. . .”

“That.”

“Why?”

“Go get it,” I told her.

She stared at me for a long second, then went somewhere into the darkness. When she came back, she had it in her hand. Black leather, just like she described, right down to the zipper for the mouth.

“How do you get this over a full head of hair?” I asked her.

“She doesn’t. . . Oh: it laces up the back, see?”

I turned it over, saw what she meant. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”

T
here’s lots of ways to cross the river into Queens, but I had to make my move before I took any of them. I pulled under the FDR underpass, turned off the ignition. Handed her the mask.

“Put it on,” I told her.

“Me?”

“You. Where I’m taking you, I don’t want you to remember the route.”

“You could use a—”

“I don’t trust blindfolds. And I’m not gonna tranq you; it would take too long to bring you around.”

“Isn’t there any other way?”

“Sure,” I told her. “Get out.”

I walked her around to the back of the Plymouth, opened the trunk, showed her how much room there was back there, even with the padded fuel cell cutting into the space. Showed her the blankets I had for Pansy, the air holes for breathing.

“No,” is all she said.

“Then we’re down to two choices,” I bluffed, knowing I had to have her with me. Knowing Strega. “You can wear the mask, or I can take you back to where I got you.”

“I never had it on,” she said. “I always wondered what it felt like. Some doms I know, they try their gear on themselves. Like a paddle, you know? See how hard it’s really going to sting? But I never. . .”

“Yes or no?”

“All
right
,” she said, walking away from me.

Inside the car, she pulled the mask over her head. I laced it up, not tight. She found the zipper herself, pulled it across. “It’s hard to breathe like this,” is all she said.

“I won’t smoke,” I promised her.

I
wasn’t worried about some cop spotting the mask. All the glass in the Plymouth is tinted, and I could just tell Nadine to yank it off if I spotted any company. She didn’t say another word for a while. I was just turning off the BQE when she spoke again.

“You like this?”

“Like what?” I asked her.

“Me. Keeping me. . . restrained.”

“You’re not restrained,” I told her. “This isn’t some bondage trip. I don’t want you to see where you’re going. Big deal.”

“You said you don’t trust blindfolds. Why?”

“Because they don’t always work.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve had them on me, bitch. All right?”

“Playing a—?”

“You’re not going to make me lose my temper,” I promised her. “Playing? No, not playing. I was a child. And people were. . . It doesn’t matter. You’re not with me. There’s nothing you need to know about me. We made a deal. I’m keeping my end. But the person I’m taking you to, maybe they don’t want you to be able to find them on your own. Is that so fucking shocking to you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You don’t have a truly sorry bone in that body you’re so proud of. But it doesn’t matter. You being sorry wouldn’t help me, even if it was true. You don’t even know what you’d be being sorry for. You’re just making it up. Filling in the blanks. Look, you don’t want to do this, just tell me. I’ll turn around, you can take the mask off. Then I’ll drive you back to your place.”

“I
said
I was sorry.”

“Oh. Yeah, I get it now. You’re sorry that you might have been a little too cute, even for you. There’s something
you
want. It’s marked all over you. I don’t know what it is, and—”

“I
told
you I—”

“Yeah, I forgot. You love this guy. And you want to help him. And you don’t trust Lincoln and his crew and you sure as hell don’t trust me. Got it. It’s all playing with you, huh? All games? No matter what happens, you go back to your leashes and your collars and your chains and your other toys. Me, I’m
in
it, understand? So how about you just shut up, okay?”

I could feel her vibrate next to me, but she didn’t say another word for the rest of the trip.

I
wasn’t surprised to see the garage door open. Two far-apart cars inside the murky space. I backed the Plymouth in carefully, but there was no risk—plenty of room on both sides. I got out and hit the switch—the door came down. The place went pitch-black then, but I’d been ready for it. I opened the passenger door and helped Nadine get out. Then the door opened, the one that leads right into the first floor of the house.

Strega was standing there, waiting. She was wearing a long-sleeved white silk something that was cut off around her diaphragm and a tiny black spandex skirt. Her fiery hair was lustrous and loose. Her stockings had some kind of sparkle-dust woven into them, picking up glints of light over her ankle-strapped black spikes.

“Bring her over here,” she said, her voice witchy and low.

I did that. Strega turned and walked. I followed her until we got into the living room. A couple of the baby spots were on, but it was shadowy elsewhere. If the spots had been rose-colored, it would have looked a lot like Nadine’s joint.

At a nod from Strega, I unlaced the mask. Nadine yanked it off before I was finished, the heavy muscles standing out on her bare arms. She shook her head hard, resettling her hair without touching it. I stepped to the side as she and Strega faced each other.

“So this is the girl who’s helping you, huh?” Strega said to me.

“This is the girl I told you about,” I said, not asking for her judgment, just telling her I’d delivered the goods, kept my promises.

“What’s your name?” Strega asked her.

“Nadine.”

“I’m Jina. And he’s mine,” she said, pointing at me like I was an unlicensed dog she was claiming from the pound.

“You’re welcome to him,” Nadine said. “I’m only here because—”

“Oh!” Strega said suddenly. “I see. You’re not into men at all, huh?”

“I’m a lesbian,” Nadine said proudly, folding her arms under her breasts.

Strega walked around Nadine like the bigger woman was a statue, not saying anything for a long minute. “Sit down,” she finally said, pointing at a chair.

Nadine sat back, crossed her legs, waiting. Strega perched herself on the ottoman that matched the chair, imitated the other woman’s gesture.

“Yours?” Strega asked her, holding the leather mask.

“Yes,” Nadine replied, eyes and voice steady.

“Oh, you like to
spank,
huh? What do you think?” she said, getting up. “You like to spank
me?”

“I don’t know you,” Nadine said, like she was answering questions at a job interview.

“Ahhh. . . and I thought I had such a tempting ass too,” Strega said, bending forward and making a kissing sound at Nadine. “Get up,” she said suddenly.

Nadine did it, standing still and calm, taller than Strega.

“Take a better look, maybe you’ll change your mind,” Strega told her, turning her back on Nadine and walking away. Nadine followed her into the darkness.