Choice of Evil

Christ, or so she says. In fact, she can trace any goddamned thing to her ancestors, from gunpowder to telescopes. It’s not political with her. She fled to Taiwan a long time ago, and she thinks the Chinese government—Mao Chinese, she calls them—are the scum of the planet.

Everyone takes Max for Chinese, but he’s not. He’s a Mongol, from Tibet. Something happened to him there when he was a kid. He wasn’t born deaf. He showed me once how they made him deaf, and it makes me sick to even see it in my mind. I don’t know if Max can’t speak, or he just refuses to—I never asked. He goes along with the game that he’s Chinese because Mama took him for her son. Mama wants to claim that it was the Chinese who invented haiku, that’s okay with Max. She wants to say Max’s daughter Flower is pure Mandarin, hell, royal Mandarin, no problem. But he was damn well going to claim this “singing bowl” for his own country. . . and Mama got it.

He handed me the bowl, showed me how to strike it, guided my hand in smooth whisks around the rim until I could make it sing too. Then he bowed and handed it to me. A gift.

I held it in my hand, still feeling it vibrate faintly. I could feel its age and its power. And I knew why my brother had given it to me.

I put it aside and we started to play casino. Max was into me for another ten grand by the time the Prof breezed in the front, Clarence in tow.

“What’s up, Schoolboy?” the Prof greeted me. “I know you been looking and cooking—the wire’s been on fire.”

I brought him up to date, even down to what Mama had been saying. . . or not saying.

“Can’t be.” The little man dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

I just shrugged.

“Why you doing this anyway, son?” the Prof asked.

“Fifty large. Paid up front. No refunds.”

“Cool. But why try? The sting’s the thing.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s all. . . connected, right?”

“How could this be connected, mahn?” Clarence, speaking for the first time.

“Whoever killed Crystal Beth, they were killing queers, far as they knew, right?”

“That’s what it say in the papers,” the young man replied, tone telling what he thought of that source.

“The next thing happens,” I said, ignoring his tone, “is that this ‘Homo Erectus’ guy starts killing them . . . fag-bashers, right?”

“That deal is real,” the Prof put in. “Man is taking heads, and dead is dead.”

“Okay, so the cops, maybe they thought I was involved. Some of them, anyway. But they know better now. . . even though I still think I could get rousted if they need headlines bad enough. But, if he could kill all of them, he’d get the ones who killed Crystal Beth in the bargain, right?”

“Bro, you too dense to make sense. He was gonna do all that, your move is: Get out the way, let him play.”

“Sure. But the people who hired me to find him, they don’t want to turn him in, they want to help him get away.”

“Maybe the boss plans a cross,” the Prof said.

“You mean. . . play for the reward? Nah. He’s already out a hundred G’s—Davidson got half.”

“Not for money. Who knows, bro? Everybody got game, but it ain’t all the same.”

Nadine flashed in my mind. I just nodded.

“I’m gonna meet someone,” I told them all. “Meet her right here. I think I got a way now.” Then I showed them the picture of the little dinosaur thing.

“What’s that?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know. Not exactly, anyway. But I know who will.”

“Want to go for a ride, honey?” I spoke into the cellular.

“You mean. . . work?” Michelle asked, clearly less than excited about the prospect.

“I’m gonna visit an old pal. Thought you might like to tag along.”

“Someone I know?”

“No question about that, girl. I guess what everyone wonders is, how well you —”

“That’s enough of your smart mouth, mister. I’ll be ready in forty-five minutes.”

“Forty-five minutes? I’m just down the block. Come on. I’ll meet you out front in—”

“Forty-five minutes, you gorilla. Not one second sooner. I am not going anywhere dressed like this. Go amuse yourself or something.”

Then she hung up on me.

Aargh. I slammed in a forty-five-minute cassette, lay back, slitted my eyes against the midday glare, and let the music take me to someplace else. The Brooklyn Blues. East Coast doo-wop. The Aquatones’ classic “You” set the scene. . . and the river was flowing deep into “Darling Lorraine” by the Knockouts when I came to. Checked my watch. . . perfect.

I cranked up the Plymouth and motored over to Michelle’s. She was standing on the sidewalk in a burnt- orange parachute-silk coat, tapping the toe of one black spike heel impatiently.

“It’s hot out here,” she bitched as she climbed into the front seat.

“You keep me waiting forty-five minutes; I’m ten seconds late and you’re already running your—”

“As much as you know about women, I’m surprised you’re not still a virgin,” she snapped, cutting me off.

I surrendered without firing another useless shot, heading uptown toward the only place I could ever be sure Michelle would always want to go.

But I was thinking about what she said, even as we crossed the bridge.

“Michelle, could I ask you a question?”

“Who better?” she wanted to know, still not mollified over the enormous wait I’d put her through.

“About what you said. About women?” I stalled, thinking Michelle was the only person on the planet I ever asked about women. As if the vicious trick nature had played on her—she’d been born a transsexual, into a nest of maggots—had made her an authority. And how I’d never say that.

“I am waiting,” she said, tapping her long, burnt-orange-tipped nails on the dashboard to show me how patient she wasn’t going to be with me for a while.

“What is it with bisexuals?”

“That means. . . what?”

“I met this girl. . . .”

“Go figure,” she sneered.

“Michelle, come on. You’re this mad at me for being a few seconds late?”

“How do I look?” she asked, opening her coat to display an ivory blouse over black pencil pants.

“Fabulous,” I assured her. “But you always do, for chrissakes.”

“And you don’t think it might be nice to. . . reassure a girl once in a while?”

“I never thought—”

“Because you are, in your heart, a pig,” she reassured me.

“All right, already. I’m a pig. A late pig too, okay? I was going up to see the Mole, figured you’d like to ride along, and now I get all this?”

“Sweetie,” she said softly, one hand on my right forearm, “I am trying to teach you something, all right? Little Sister’s not mad at you. But ever since that. . . ever since Crystal Beth died, you haven’t really been yourself. A new woman is exactly what you need. And, knowing you, what it’s going to bring you is more pain. Maybe if you knew how to act around a normal girl, you wouldn’t always be—”

“How do you know I’m—?”

“Baby, how long have I known you? A million years? This bisexual you asked me about, that wouldn’t be Crystal Beth, now would it?”

“No.”

“Huh!” she half-grunted in surprise. “Really?”