Choice of Evil (30 page)

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

L
uther 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. . .

“
H
e’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.”

“
X
yla 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.