Strega

'You think an incest victim would not have scars?' he said.

I lit a cigarette, thinking of Flood and the scars she made on herself to replace the brand of a rapist-how she poured gasoline on herself over the tattoo the gang put on her, lit a match, and held on to her one friend in the world until the fire made them free. 'What good would it do to trick a kid like that?' I asked.

'Children don't vote,' he said.

'And Freud said there was no such thing as incest?'

'Freud did not make a conscious decision to accept the women stories as fantasies-he lived within a political climate and he responded to it.'

'But we know it happens.'

'Now we know. But to truly know it then, you had to experience it.

'So if you thought the experience was all in your mind…'

'Yes,' said Pablo, grateful that I was finally seeing the light that shone so brightly for him.

I got to my feet, pacing uncomfortably in the small room. 'Forget politics for a minute,' I said. 'We know people do these things to kids, okay? Do we know why?'

Pablo tilted his head until he was gazing at the ceiling. 'I will tell you everything we actually know-it won't take long. We know people have sex with children-the children of strangers and also their own. We know this has something to do with power-the power grown people have over children. In fact, sex with children is not sex as you would understand it, Burke. It is not, for example, the kind of adaptive mechanism which could cause a man to turn to other men when there are no women-like in prison. This is another dimension entirely. The pedophile-the one who has sex with children-he may be able to have sex with women, or with grown men. But he does not prefer to do this. The more intelligent the pedophile, the more skillfully he may rationalize his behavior, but the truth is really simple-he knows what he does is wrong and he does it anyway.'

'I thought those freaks couldn't help themselves?'

'No! They can stop-they choose not to.'

'It can't be that simple,' I told him. 'Who the fuck would choose to pass up women and force little kids to?'

'All that is within them is within you and me, my friend. If every man who felt sexual violence toward a woman acted on that feeling, New York would not be a city-it would be a graveyard.'

'You mean it's not?'

'You joke when you do not understand. Just because some of the lower beasts walk our streets does not make our community into a jungle- not so long as people struggle against the beasts.'

Pablo took a dark bottle down from a shelf and poured himself a glass of that jungle juice he drinks all the time. I passed up his offer with a shake of my head.

'To rehabilitation!' he said, tossing down half the glass.

'You ever try that with one of these freaks?' I asked him.

'One time. One time we did just that,' he mused, his eyes somewhere else. 'My people brought a man in here years ago. He had been molesting children in the neighborhood, and it was thought best to turn him over to our clinic.

'Why not the cops?'

'My people wanted justice, Burke. And they knew the man would probably never be prosecuted. His victims were not important.'

'What did they expect you to do?'

'The man agreed to go into treatment with us. He made a specific contract that he would cease his activity while we tried to do something about his behavior.'

'Behavior?'

'Only his acts were a danger to our community-his motivations are so deep inside him that it would take years of treatment for them to surface. And even then we could probably do nothing about them. We asked only that he stop.'

'Did he?'

'No. We cannot know why he made his choice-what forces were within him. We can only assume that he tried to walk the line. One day he slipped and fell.'

'What did you do then?'

'Nothing. At that point, it became a matter for the police.'

'I thought you said the cops couldn't do anything.'

'They could in this case, compadre. When he slipped and fell for the last time, he was on a rooftop.' Pablo held his glass in a silent toast to the only rehabilitation that really works.

We sat in silence for a minute-each waiting for the other. Pablo took another sip of the jungle juice. 'Hermano, truth we have been talking about crime, not about psychiatry. And you know more about the behavior of such people than I do. Many times we have called upon you to predict the actions of such evil people-our paths originally crossed for that very reason, yes?'

I nodded-it was the truth.

'And you have become my brother, verdad? Do you think I call a man my brother and do not understand him?'

'No-I know you understand.'

'Then maybe you should tell me why you have come to talk with me,' Pablo said.

I took a last drag on my cigarette, feeling the cold wind eddying in the corners of his office, stirring the dust, making its own howling only I could hear. And I started to tell him about Strega.

80

I TOLD HIM everything. It didn't take as long as I'd thought it would-maybe there wasn't so much to tell. Pablo took off his glasses, carefully rubbed them on the lapel of his white coat, waiting to be sure I was finished.

'What is so puzzling to you, my friend? A person with a task to do uses the weapons he has, no? This woman wants you to do something-she obviously believes the money is not strong enough to bind you to her will. The sex is nothing more than a chain she tosses over your neck- a leash you put on a dangerous dog.'

'It doesn't work like that. If she was working me to make sure I did the job, the sex would be a promise, right? A reward. Something to look forward to when the job was done.'

'A promise, then? Not a performance?'

'It always seems like a promise…but it's not.'

'The woman promises nothing?'

'Nothing.'

Pablo looked at the ceiling, thinking it through. 'She has already paid you some of the money, yes? If you took the money and didn't do the jobwhat could she do?'

'Nothing. Maybe she thinks she could, but…nothing.'

Pablo shrugged. 'I cannot see what makes this so difficult for you. Perhaps the woman is just covering her bets-making sure your nose is open-that you keep coming back for more. Remember when we were young menhow much we would risk for a night of love with a woman?'