Strega

maybe it was the sunlight.

'Who does this kind of thing? Nazis?'

To the Mole, every evil thing on the planet was the work of the Nazis. If Bobby did get me a meeting with the Real Brotherhood, I'd have to go without the Mole.

'Kind of,' I said, 'kind of the same thing. People who go on power trips, right? In the kid's mind, as long as they have the picture, they have his soul.'

'If you find the people.

'I know, Mole. That's not the problem now. I need to find the picture.'

He shrugged again-what did I want from him?

'I have to find the picture. It's like a scientific problem, right?' I asked, reaching for a way into his megawatt brain, probing for the switch to turn on the light.

'Scientific problem?'

'You once told me that to solve a problem in science you take all the known facts, then you work out some possible outcomes, right? And you keep testing until you prove…whatever you said.'

'Prove the hypothesis?' the Mole asked.

'Yeah,' I said, 'the hypothesis.'

The Mole sat slumped on his couch, watching the smoke curl from my cigarette. Quiet as concrete.

'You need a scenario,' he finally said.

'What are you talking about, Mole?'

'A way something could happen. You take the result- what you already know-and you reason backward. You eliminate whatever wouldn't work until you are left with what the past had to have been.'

The Mole took a breath-it was a long speech for him.

'I don't get it, Mole,' I said. 'You mean, if you have a problem, you reason backward and see how the problem started?'

'Yes.'

'Could you figure out where cancer came from like that?'

'Yes,' he said, again.

'So where did it come from?' I asked him.

'It would be too complicated for me to explain it to you,' the Mole said.

'You mean I'm not smart enough?' I asked him.

The Mole turned his face slightly toward me, trying to explain. 'You're smart enough. You don't have the background-the scientific knowledge. If it was in your world, you could do it.'

'This picture is in my world,' I told him.

'I know,' he said.

I lit another cigarette, looking around the junkyard.

'Mole, show me how to do it.'

The Mole sighed. 'You understand-it only works if you have enough data.'

I nodded.

'You know the Socratic method?' he asked.

'Where you ask questions to get at the truth?'

'Yes,' he said, barely able to keep the surprise from his voice. You spend enough time in prison, you read more than comic books.

'Can we try it?'

'Yes. But not on cancer. Let me think.'

I stubbed out my cigarette in the dirt next to the couch, waiting.

'You know about AIDS?' the Mole asked suddenly.

'Yeah, I guess. A superkiller.'

'Where does it come from?'

'Nobody knows,' I told him.

'I know,' said the Mole.

I sat bolt upright on the couch. If he knew where AIDS came from, we could all be rich. 'Tell me,' I said.

The Mole held up his fist, index finger extended. He grabbed the finger with his other hand. Point number one.

'Did AIDS come from God? Is it God's punishment for something?'

'No' I said.

'How do you know?' he asked.

'God's been on vacation for fifty years from New York,' I said. 'You try Dial-a- Prayer here, all you get is a busy signal.'

The Mole didn't say anything, still waiting for a Socratic answer.

'Okay,' I said. 'It's not God's punishment because little kids have it too. If God is punishing babies, we should have new elections.'

The Mole nodded. It was good enough for him. He didn't hate the Nazis out of any religious conviction. The Mole worshiped the same god I did: revenge.

'How do people get this disease?' he asked.

'Sexual contact, blood transfusions, dirty needles,' I said.

'If it comes from sex,' he asked, 'how did the first person get it?'

'It's something in the blood, right? Something where the blood doesn't make immunities like it's supposed to'

'Yes!' he said. 'There has been some interference in the chromosomes to create the first cases. But how did that interference take place?'

'Nuclear testing?' I asked.

'No,' he came back. 'If that were so, far more people would have been affected. Especially people near the site of the tests.'

'But what about if some people are…susceptible to radiation. You knowif it has a different effect on them than on other people.'

'That is better-a better hypothesis. But it is too broad, too weak. Think of more experiments-experiments on people.'

'Like they used to do on prisoners-like with malaria and yellow fever and stuff?'

'Yes!' he barked. 'Experiments on people.'

'Like the Nazis did in the camps?'

The Mole's eyes changed shape, like there was a different fuel in his reactor. 'They experimented on us like we were laboratory rats. To make twins from the same egg…eliminate what they called genetic defectstest it on us before they used it on themselves.'

'AIDS came from Nazi experiments?'

'No. They didn't have the scientific knowledge. Sadistic amateurs. They just wanted to torture people. They called it science. When doctors help the torturers.

I had to get the Mole off that topic. When he thought too much about the Nazis, the blood lust blocked everything else.

'So some other experiments?' I asked. 'Something going on now?'

'Maybe…' he said.

'They don't let prisoners volunteer for that stuff anymore. They let us test some crap that was supposed to grow hair on bald people when I was down the last timebut no real heavy stuff.'

'Where would the drug companies test?' he asked.

'Well, they test in Latin America, right? That fucking formula they wanted mothers to use instead of breast-feeding.