Choice of Evil

“Who doesn’t?” I said, sloughing it off, staying clear of whatever was lightning-bolting around the rose-lit room.

“You should spend more time where I do,” she said, an ugly undertone to her soft voice. “And you said to ask. You said it was okay. You told me to do it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My. . . friend. The cops. All that. It was easy, she said. They all. . . a lot of them anyway. . . they know you. Or about you, at least. I even know about those murders—the ones in the South Bronx.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s the kind of sorry two-bit rumor your pal came up with? That story’s a fucking fossil.”

“I know what you think,” she said, sliding the gauzy robe off her shoulders. “You think I’m trying to get you to. . . admit something, right?”

“That’s why you keep taking your clothes off? So I’ll see you’re not wearing a wire?” I laughed at her.

I could see her face flush. Or maybe it was just the reflected light.

“I’m just more. . . comfortable this way,” she told me. “I don’t like clothes. I don’t like people to wear clothes. It’s another thing to hide behind.”

“Yeah, sure. You spend half your life in a gym, you’ve got a beef with clothes? You’re more confident without your clothes, that’s all. Because you’re an overmatch against most everyone else that way.”

“I’ll bet I’d be with you.”

“No contest,” I acknowledged.

“You don’t want to play at all, do you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not a player.”

“What does that mean? You don’t have sex unless you’re in love?”

“No. It means I smoke cigarettes but I don’t light them with sticks of dynamite.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I’d have to upgrade a cubic ton to distrust you,” I told her, keeping my voice level. “You got me over here because you said you had what I wanted. Instead of giving it to me, you start asking me about some murders I’m supposed to have committed. I tell you I don’t want to fuck you,” I said, dropping my voice, letting a harder tone bleed through, “you tell me I’m a liar. I told you before: Behavior is the truth. What’s the game? I say: ‘Sure, you’ve got a body that would get a rise in a morgue,’ and you say, ‘Well, you’re not getting any of it’? Would that make you happy? Is that your game? Okay, I’ll pay that much, if that’s what it takes. You’re a gorgeous woman.”

“But. . .?”

“But you can’t get juice from marble,” I told her.

“What does that mean?”

“How many different ways you want me to say it? You’ve got a stake in this. Not the same one Lincoln and those other guys have. Yeah, I know, you told me: You ‘love’ this guy. And you just want to protect him, right? Sure, fine. I’ll buy it, that’s what you want. And I played right along, didn’t I? You think I’d turn him over to the cops for a pass on one of my own cases, then don’t help. But you already did that, right? Checked me out. Found out some stuff. Enough to convince you that, whatever else I am, I’m not a rat. So here I am. And what do I get? Another strip show. More of your stupid teasing. And some questions about. . . bullshit crap that couldn’t be your business.”

“How do you know?”

“What?”

“How do you know it isn’t my business? All right, I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was stupid. I’ll tell you what she. . . my friend. . . told me. She said there was a. . . cult or something. Or maybe just a ring of perverts. They were making torture films. Of little kids getting raped. The cops were looking for them, all over. There’d been a murder. . . a baby’s murder. It all got confused. But this is what they know for sure: They were all in a house. In the South Bronx, like I said. Some people went into that house and killed them. Every one of them. And they, the cops, they all say it was you. Your work. My friend asked, if they thought you did all that, how come you’d never even been arrested for it? You know what they said? They said they didn’t have any proof but it was the kind of thing Burke would do. They said you’re a homicidal maniac when it comes to. . . them.”

I heard Wesley’s machine voice in my head. “Every time one of those diddlers gets done, your name comes up on the radar screen. Killing people, it’s a business. You start making it personal, you’re dead meat yourself.”

I went with it and used it. Like I always do when Wesley talks to me. “Look, it’s no secret that I hate those freaks,” I told her. “But the rest of it, that’s just lazy-ass cop-speak for ‘We can’t find who really did it, so we’ll just chalk it up to Burke.’ How many people was I supposed to have killed, anyway? Couple a hundred?”

“No,” she said, her voice soft and serious. “But a lot. A lot more than were in that house, too.”

“And you believe that?”

She reached over and put her hand on the inside of my thigh. It didn’t feel sexual. . . more like she was checking for a pulse. “Yes,” she said. “I believe it. And this Wesley. . . he helped you, too.”

“Wesley’s dead,” I told her. Seemed like that’s all I’d been telling people for a while. “Didn’t your cop pal tell you that?”

“Yes. She told me about it.”

“All about it?”

“I. . . think so. Why?”

“You’re ready to do something for me, to trust me, because you believe I killed a bunch of baby-rapers, right? That’s your story. Today’s story, anyway. If you know how Wesley died, you know he didn’t go out alone.”

“I know what he did. That. . . explosion. At the school.”

“And who died in that?” I put it to her. “Kids, right? Lots and lots and lots of kids. You hate baby-rapers, you want to help me because I do too. You think I did a bunch of killings. You think Wesley was my partner. If that was true, then my ‘partner’ killed more kids in a few minutes than any of those freaks could do in ten lifetimes.”

Her eyes did that flicker-thing again. Not blinking—a light going on and off. It was over in a second. She took a deep breath. Not showing off this time—like she needed strength.

“Maybe he had his reasons,” she said.

“To kill kids?”

“Yes.”

“You pay your shrink by the hour or do you get a volume discount?”

“I don’t have a shrink,” Nadine said. “I don’t need one. I know what I need. And you have it.”

“I already said—”

“Stop! I’m not playing either. Just listen. The man the cops think ordered that murder—of the gay guy in the park—is someone named Gutterball Felestrone. And the name of the man who was killed is Lonnie Cork. ‘Corky’ is what they called him.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. Let it out. Looked directly into my eyes. “And the man Felestrone hired was your friend. Wesley.”

I waited, not wanting to cut her off if she had anything more. But she was done. She looked exhausted, as if saying those few words had wasted her.

“Okay,” I told her, starting to stand up.

She jumped to her feet and shoved me with both hands against my chest. I fell backward into the middle chair, Nadine on top of me. “Don’t even think about it,” she said into my ear. “You promised! You said if I got that information for you I could be in on it.”

My hand went to her back, fingers searching for the spot on her spine that would stop her cold if she ended up acting as crazy as she was talking.

“You will be in on it,” I said calmly. “What you just got was a piece of the puzzle. Maybe, I can’t even be sure about that. And it’s a big puzzle, girl. You think you were gonna just throw some clothes on and come with me? Right now?”