Choice of Evil (24 page)

T
hey were gone long enough for me to smoke through a pair of cigarettes. Not chain-smoke either—plenty of time in between. I went somewhere else then, closing my eyes.

“You asleep, baby?”

Strega’s voice. I opened my eyes. She was alone.

“No,” I told her. “Where’s—?”

“Oh, she’s nice and safe. But she has to stay there. It’s not her business what you want to know, right?”

“Right.”

“I have to whisper,” she said, turning her back and dropping into my lap.

I didn’t say anything, waiting. When she finally settled herself, her voice was calm, like she was giving me the recipe for something.

“Gutterball ordered it, all right. You know how he got his name? He was a bowler, a pro bowler, when he was younger. Like calling some fat guy Tiny, I guess. Anyway, Corky was angling, and Gutterball wanted him off the count. Corky wasn’t made, so Gutterball didn’t need the okay, but he—Corky, I mean—he was with some Irish guys. Some
bad
Irish guys, you understand what I’m saying? So it had to look good.”

She slipped her hand inside my pants. Said, “Oh, not interested, huh?” then chuckled at her own pun before she went on: “You know what was the real slick part? Corky, he thought
he
was gonna do someone. I mean, that’s why he was there. At that gay rally. What they told him was, the mark’s gonna come strolling by.
Behind
him, like, understand? So Corky, he
knows
there’s gonna be a car there. The way I got it, they made a few passes, let Corky see them and everything. How it was
supposed
to go, Corky stands at the very back of the crowd, close to the sidewalk, get it? Then, when the mark comes down the sidewalk, the guys in the car, they tap the horn three times, real quick. Corky turns around, blasts him, and just keeps running into the car and off they go. The cover fire was supposed to protect Corky. A real slick plan.”

“You saying Gutterball wanted them
all
gone?”

“I don’t know. They weren’t his honchos or anything, but they were in his crew. The way I heard it, Wesley told him he was gonna get Corky, but. . .”

“Wesley?”

“Wesley,” she said softly. “Gutterball talked to him himself. Made the whole deal on the phone. You know how Wesley works.”

“Yeah. But how could Gutterball be sure it was—?”

“That’s what he said himself. You know what Wesley told him? New deal. Nothing up front. COD. How could Gutterball lose behind that?”

“But how would Wesley know Gutterball wanted—?”

“I don’t know.
Gutterball
didn’t know. He thought he was being set up. So he met with him and—”

“He met with Wesley?”

“That’s what he said. Oh, he didn’t
see
him—just a man, in the shadows. But whoever it was, he knew Gutterball’s business, knew what Corky was up to. . . everything.”

“Jesus.”

“Wesley—”

“It wasn’t Wesley.”

“Okay,
baby. Sssshh. Who
ever
it was, all right? He said he was back in town, and he knew some people wouldn’t believe him. That’s why he was changing the deal. He didn’t ask for it all up front, like you’d expect. . . especially since that whole war started back then, when they wouldn’t pay him, remember? He said he’d prove who he was.”

“It stinks,” I said. “How’d Gutterball know he wasn’t talking to the law, for chrissakes?”

“He said he could tell. I don’t know what else to say. You’ve been around Wesley. No cop could ever. . . Wesley has his own. . . I don’t know what you’d call it. But it wasn’t a cop. And there damn sure was a killing.”

“More than one.”

“I know. Gutterball, he paid
fast,
I promise you. It’s Wesley’s style, right down to the end. No witnesses, right?”

“Yeah. But anyone could’ve—”

“Sure, honey. Whatever you say.”

“The other ones who died. . . the ones in the crowd. It was all for. . . nothing.”

“That’s Wesley too, baby boy.”

“He’d—”

“—do it just like that, and you know it. Wesley’d burn a building down to get one of the tenants. He did it before. And he couldn’t have known your girlfriend would be. . .”

“Gutterball, you think he’d talk to me?”

“Not in life. He’s not gonna talk, period. Even if they drop him for this, he’s never saying a word. You can always juice a jury or scam the parole board. But Wesley. . . Gutterball wouldn’t be safe, no matter where they put him. Anyway, it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen. Gutterball, he’s golden now. Word is, Wesley’s working for him. You know what that means.”

“Sure. It means they’re a pack of retards.”

“Whatever you say. But they’re a
scared
pack of retards, that’s the truth.”

“It wasn’t Wesley,” I told her.

“Burke, I wasn’t there, okay?”

“I know. Thank you.”

“You know how to thank me.”

“Strega, not now. I. . .”

“Sssshhh,” she hissed.

“
W
here is she?” I asked her later.

“You ready to go? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, you don’t. But I’ll know. And I’ll be here. I never forget. Give me something.”

“What?”

“Something of yours. That,” she said, pointing to my wristwatch, “I’ll take that.”

I didn’t say anything as she unsnapped the bracelet and pulled it off my wrist.

“Hmmm,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the crystal. “Come on, I’ll give her back to you. And you don’t need the mask. I don’t care if she knows where I live. She’ll never come back. Unless I tell her to.”

S
trega led me to a back bedroom. It was dark. I saw Nadine, sitting on a straight chair in a corner, facing out. Her legs were pressed primly together, hands in her lap.

“Come on,” I told her. “We’re going.”

She got up and came with me.

“
I
want to talk to you,” she said as I turned onto Metropolitan Avenue, heading straight down to the Williamsburg Bridge, no traffic at that hour, a clean run.

“Talk,” I told her.

“You know what she did?”

“Who?”

“Strega. She told me her real name. With me. Back in that room.”

“I don’t have a clue. Nothing she did would surprise me.”

“She told me to sit down. In that chair. I did it. Then she slapped my face. Not. . . playing, like we do. But to. . . get my attention. So I’d listen. I could tell. She has a voice like a snake. It scared me. But only a little. She said if I did anything to hurt you she’d make me dead. Slow dead. Rotting from the inside. She said she was a witch. And she told me something about myself to prove it.”

“Which was. . .?”

“I don’t have to tell you,” she said, in a little girl’s adamant voice. “She said I didn’t have to tell you. But she knew. Nobody knows, but she knew. She said I could have my secret. Everybody has secrets. But not from her. She said you were in her. Inside her. Not like sex. . . I don’t know what she meant, but I know she meant it.”

“So she guessed something about your past and you—”

“She wasn’t guessing. And it doesn’t matter. I wasn’t going to hurt you anyway. But I have to see him. Even if it. . . Whatever happens, I have to see him. You promised. You said if I—”

“I’m keeping my promises,” I told her. “To everyone. But I can’t
make
things happen. All I can do is
try
to make them happen, understand?”

“Yes. I know. I’m sorry if I—”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I told her.

I
pulled up outside her apartment building. “Where’s your mask?” I asked her, looking in the back seat.

“It’s hers now,” Nadine said. “She told me to give it to her. Are you going to call me when—”

“Yes,” I lied.

I had the Plymouth in motion the second she slammed the door.

I
thumbed the cellular into life, tapped out Mama’s number. I don’t use speed-dial—cloning cell-phone numbers is a big-time felony, and if this one fell into the wrong hands, I wouldn’t want anything that could connect back to me. I never even touch the damn thing without gloves on.

“Gardens,” Mama answered.

“Anything?”

“Yes. Girl call. Say, more come in, okay?”

“Got it,” I told her, and aimed the Plymouth in the right direction.

“
H
e sent another,” Xyla said, excitement clear in her voice. “Same as last time. You want to look at it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. You remember how to do it?” she asked, getting up from her chair.

“I do. Thanks.”

I lit a cigarette and pulled the curtains aside. There he was:

     This is my ninth experience. Of the prior eight, I collected the ransom in five. I consider this to be a laudatory record of success. Perhaps I could have increased the collection percentage, but at the cost of increasing risk. My way is unalterable, however—unless and until each and every step is flawlessly executed, in sequence, with the proper response from the target, I simply retire from the field.
     The first step, obviously, is research. How many kidnappings have failed when it develops that the parents simply lack the appropriate resources? To demand a half-million-dollar ransom from a man whose net worth is in five figures is the act of a fool. A doomed fool.
     As I write this, I realize the value of the writing. It clarifies my own thoughts. And helps me to express them to you. . . the eventual reader. Thus, in reviewing the last paragraph, I came to realize that I have omitted a vital step. One that comes before research. Indeed, before anything. It is, doubtless, one of the many aspects of my modus operandi that distinguishes me from other operators. What is this critical distinction, you might ask? The answer is: A trial run. Not with the intended victim, but with the entire process.
     Thus I began my kidnapping career by deconstructing the totality into segments, then practicing the various aspects independently so as to avoid even the possibility of detection. So, for example, I might research Family “A” as to finances, but conduct surveillance of Family “B” as to terrain and so on. In point of fact—verified by the records, which are appended hereto—I captured four separate children successfully before I ever sought ransom of any kind. Each technique was perfected before moving on to the next.

I scrolled down fast, looking for the records he was talking about, but all I got was:

     Forgive the rambling. I realize it is a conceit to assume that the (future) reader will be as fascinated with my thought processes as I myself am, but not all conceits are axiomatically invalid. Again, it is a matter of risk versus gain. If you are interested, then I must include everything or you will be cheated. If you are not, what has been lost?
     Research is only a small portion of my success. Another operative factor is clinical purity. That is, no secondary motive. Too many kidnappers are, in fact, perverts or degenerates. Sadists, child molesters, rapists. . . those of that odious breed. The ransom demand is mere protective coloration over their actual intent—the true force which drives them.
     I have no such demons within me. I take only children because: (a) they are more gullible; (b) they are less capable of physical resistance; (c) they are more likely to be ransomed, if only because the dictates of society so require.
     The children are never returned. No matter how careful the kidnapper, some risk is always inherent in returning a victim. And while children are, in fact, weaker and easier to gull than adults, their powers of observation are extraordinary, their memories excellent, and their post-traumatic revelations have convicted more than one perpetrator.
     I never kill with force. Not one child yet has refused the food I offered. Death follows, painlessly. The bodies are never found. No, not out of some sadistic desire to deny the parents the “closure” so beloved of the self-aggrandizing, but from the knowledge that forensics is a weapon I must deflect to the fullest extent possible.
     Often, the children must be kept alive for some protracted period of negotiations, that complex dance in which the parents attempt to avoid the inevitable and the police interfere regardless of my instructions. In fact, at this point in my career, I *expect* police intervention. A routine, predictable annoyance.
     Which is undoubtedly what led me to my most recent decision. . . to kidnap the child of an organized-crime kingpin. Viewed logically, it squares fully with my own precepts. The target: (a) has the necessary cash resources; (b) believes his child to be exempt from attack because of some archaic “code” allegedly governing conduct between gangsters; and (c) will not notify the authorities.
     If this works as anticipated, I may sub-specialize in this area for the foreseeable future.

As soon as the screen started to change color, I knew what was coming. I hardly got her name out of my mouth before Xyla came bounding into the room, dropping into the chair I had just vacated with the springy grace of a gymnast. His message came in seconds:

>>Your prior proof acknowledged. Further transmissions from me on pure exchange basis. Next installment available only upon revelation of Wesley work not known to law enforcement. Maximum length = 5 words. Send *now*.<<

I stepped behind Xyla, put my hand on her shoulder. “Five words maximum? I’ll go the son of a bitch a couple better,” I told her. “Type this”:

blowgun dart

“Any idea why he only wants such short messages?” I asked as soon as her fingers left the keyboard.

“It could have something to do with his security software, but it’s too much for me to figure out,” she replied. “You’d think it would be the other way, right? I mean, he’d want to keep
his
transmissions as short as possible, limit his exposure. Are they longer?”

“Much longer,” I told her.

“It
couldn’t
be something as simple as an attached file,” she mused. “Maybe. . . I don’t know. You want me to poke around, see if I can—”

“No!” I interrupted her sharply. “Don’t look for him at all. Stay away. Just get word to me anytime he makes contact again, okay?”