Choice of Evil

“I have it,” she promised. “And you can have it. If you’ll just answer my question. Honestly. One time. Will you do that?”

I looked at her cobalt eyes until I was sure she was connected, deciding what to tell her. . . deciding it would be the truth. I wasn’t sure I needed anything more from her anyway. But I also sensed that she’d smell a lie this time. And that if she did, and it turned out that I did need her again, there’d be nobody home when I rang the bell.

“I think you’re crazy,” I told her, my voice low and carefully controlled. “I mean. . . clinically insane. Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me what the diagnosis is. But you’re. . . nuts. There’s something about you so. . . off, I don’t know what else to call it.”

“You mean, like some Fatal Attraction thing?”

“No. I mean something like you having AIDS and wanting to spread it around before your time is up.”

“What?! You’re the one who’s crazy. I never even heard—”

“—of what? Spare me. There’s been dozens of guys charged with murder for doing exactly that, and you know it. Or you’re out of touch.”

“Yes,” she almost snarled, “dozens of men. But you can’t name one woman who —”

“Sure I can. You’re talking percentages, that’s all. Like saying most child molesters are men. Or that most serial killers are. But not all, right? It’s bound to happen. A woman with your body. . . you could probably kill a few hundred while you still looked good. And who knows how many they’d spread it to. If—”

“Stop! I do not have AIDS. Come on,” she said, standing up. “I know a clinic, a private one on East Eleventh. We’ll go together. You and me. Right now. Tell them we’re going to be married, and we want to exchange results, okay? You get mine, I get yours. You don’t have to give your name, just a code number. Fair enough?”

“Sit down,” I told her. “It was an example, that’s all. I didn’t say I smelled AIDS on you. I just said it was some kind of major-league craziness. . . and I gave you an example of that, okay?”

“I don’t have AIDS.”

“All right. Fine. You don’t have AIDS. Whatever you say. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“You wouldn’t care if I—”

“I don’t care if you live or die,” I told her. “I work real hard at that—not caring about people who don’t care about me. You say you don’t have AIDS, I believe you. But you are crazy. And you are dangerous. And there’s nothing you could do, no outfit you could put on, no girlfriend you could invite over. . . nothing that could make me take a chance against that.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Who?

“Strega? Strega the witch. Is that what she said? That I was crazy?”

“She didn’t say anything about you,” I lied. “Believe me, jealousy isn’t her game.”

“Then why would you—?”

“I don’t have time to spell it out for you. Only reason you want to know is so you can camouflage it better, right?”

“Of course not! Camouflage what? That I’m ‘crazy’? Don’t be an idiot. I just want to know why you think so.”

“Not today. Just get me the—”

“But you will tell me, right?”

“If you—”

“Not today. I don’t care. But you’ll tell me. Someday.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t have any paper,” she said.

“What? So this was all a—”

“I don’t have any paper because there isn’t any. Just listen to me for a minute, please? My. . . friend looked. Just like you asked. There is nothing in there.”

“Not a single—”

“Not one single organized-crime figure whose child was kidnapped and not returned. Not one, period. But my. . . friend says maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“And that would be. . .?”

“NYPD only has local records. Kidnapping, it’s a federal offense. And there’s Mafia in other cities. She said what you need is an FBI contact. They’d have a record of every kidnapping and—”

“And you just happen to have a friend who works there?”

“No,” she said, almost sadly. “I don’t. But I thought the information would be. . . helpful. I mean, at least it’s something. A new place to look. . .”

I left her sitting there. She looked like a sad little girl. In a translucent mushroom cloud of menace.

“Why would you want this information?” Wolfe asked, not playing the game the way she always did. Away from me now. Maybe forever.

“What difference does that make?” I asked her. “You’re in the business. You sell stuff. I want to buy some of it.”

“You sell stuff too. And now you’re in stuff, aren’t you?” she asked, her gray eyes empty of even a hint of warmth.

“Not what you think,” I told her. “On the square.”

“What you’re into? Or what you’re telling me?”

“What I’m telling you.”

“Is Wesley gone?” she asked me bluntly, cobra-killer eyes unblinking.

“He’s dead,” I said. Wondering if she’d take that for an answer.

“Kidnappings. Ransom paid. Child never returned. No arrests, no clearances, no nothing. And the targets are all Family members?”

“Yes.”

“Going back. . . how far?”

Damn. Wolfe was the first one to think that way. Like a hunter. “Uh, twenty years,” I said, pulling it at random.

“That’s a big search.”

“A big price, you mean. It’s computers, right? How long could it take?”

“Everything wasn’t databased back then,” she said. “They only started keeping certain records recently.”

“But kidnappings. . . that’s been federale territory since Hoover was wearing a dress.”

“Sure. But, still. . . they have to code it in by hand from those days. It may not be all done yet. And if you want—”

“I don’t care what it costs,” I told her.

She stood there facing me, hands at her sides, clenched, not giving ground. “If I find out you’re in business with Wesley, I’ll take you down myself,” she said. Then she walked away.

“This one’ll take a while to come up,” Xyla told me, her eyes deliberately averted from the screen. “I can tell by the pre-coding when the message came in.”

“How’d you learn all this stuff?” I asked her, more to kill time than anything else.

“I had to pretty much teach myself,” she said. “It’s mostly men—boys, really—who understand it. And you can’t get them to teach you much.”

“Why not?” I asked. “I don’t mean to be offensive, but you’re a pretty girl. I’d think those kids would be falling all over themselves to—”

“The opposite.” Xyla laughed. “Cyber-boys are always flexing their little muscles, you understand? Like, if I go to the beach. . . I walk by, guys show off, understand?”

“Sure.”