Choice of Evil

succeeded in eventually lulling the children to sleep. But this one proved remarkably resistant. It was almost midnight when I looked up to find her wide awake.

     “Are you having trouble getting to sleep?” I asked her.

     “No. I’m just not sleepy.”

     “All right.”

     “But I *should* sleep, right?”

     “Well, of course. At some point, everyone—”

     “Could you read me a story?” she asked. “That would make me sleepy, I know it.”

     “I—”

     “There’s lots of books,” she reminded me. “And I haven’t read hardly any of them.”

     “Do your parents usually read to you before you—”

     “No,” she said, her voice flat. “Please?”

     I found a book about a mother polar bear and her cub and their various adventures as they crossed the Arctic ice cap in search of food. True to her word, she was fast asleep before I got a dozen pages into it.

     She appeared to sleep peacefully.

I felt Xyla in the room, but she wasn’t standing where she could see the screen.

“This was a lot longer one, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know what it means. . . .”

“I thought he was limiting transmission time to prevent us from fingering him, but he has to know there’s no way to do that with these little cookies—they’re files with programs—he keeps mixing in there. Not going over an open line.”

“But when you send him the answer to all his questions. . .?”

“I don’t think he’s there, waiting for it. I think the program he’s using just files it someplace else. He could open it whenever he wanted. I think maybe—”

I held up my hand to silence her, watching his question pop up:

>>Age first contact?<<

I wasn’t going to guess what he meant anymore. I played it the way it looked: how old was I when I first met Wesley? Truth is, I wasn’t sure. But I gave Xyla a number for him anyway.

12

I could never bring Wesley’s face into my mind. Never see it clearly. He didn’t look like anything. He was a generic. . . never got a second glance from anyone. Most of his targets never saw him at all. This is where I’m supposed to say “except for his eyes,” right? People who write those serial-killer porno books never met the real thing. Anyway, Wesley was no serial killer. He was an assassin. And his eyes didn’t show you anything. Nothing about him did.

I can hear his voice, though. Clear as if he was right next to me. It was a machine’s voice, lifeless, no inflection. Just a communication device. I remember every word from the last time we talked:

“Something about a kid?” the ice-man had asked me, wondering how I had stumbled across his business.

“Yeah.”

“That soft spot—it’s like a bull’s eye on your back.”

“Nothing I can do,” I said. Lying to Wesley was. . . wasted.

“It’s not your problem, right?” he asked me, trying to understand. “Not your kid.”

“I didn’t want it like this,” I told him. “I wanted to be. . . something else.”

“What?”

I dragged on my smoke, knowing I’d finally have to say it. I looked deep into the monster’s empty eyes. “I wanted to be you,” I said.

“No, you don’t. I’m not afraid. Of anything. It’s not worth it.”

Even as he said that to me, so many years ago, I knew it was true. But when we were coming up, Wesley was the icon. He was never afraid, even when we were kids. I don’t mean he was ready to go to Fist City with another guy over some insult. But he would take your life if you put your hands on him. Not right then and there—Wesley was no slugger. But someday. Guaranteed. It was all over the street, even then. You fucked with Wesley, you were dead. Money in the bank. Earning compound interest.

After he got out of prison that last time, I guess he figured he might as well make a living at what he was.

Wesley had a different mother than me. But his birth certificate had the same blank spots mine did.

He saved my life once, when we were kids. A stupid thing. Me and another guy in the gang, lying on the rat- slime next to the subway tracks, our heads on the rail. Train coming. First one to jump back loses. I was ready to die right then. Die for a rep I’d never be around to enjoy. To have a name to replace the one I’d never been given. Wesley was the one who pulled me back, just in time. The other guy had already jumped, but I hadn’t seen it. . . not with my eyes closed.

Later, when Wesley went to work, I never went near him. Once in a while, he’d reach out for me. Whatever he wanted, I would do it. Not because I was afraid of him. Wesley didn’t work like that. No robberies, no extortions, no scams. Wesley killed people. That was his work.

When he got tired of his work, he finished it. By doing as much of it as he could in one monstrous move.

The whisper-stream still throbs with it. Wondering if the ice-man had another way out. I knew he didn’t. Knew he wanted to go. I read the note he’d left behind—mailed to me just before he walked his last walk.

But as long as the whisper-stream flowed, Wesley would never die.

“You ever watch two girls have sex?” Nadine asked me, a sheaf of paper in her two clasped hands, still trafficking in a product I didn’t want.

“Yes.”

“Ever do it with them?”

“Why?”

“I thought maybe if I put on a little show for you first—me and my. . . friend—you might change your mind. Ever see a real pony girl? I’m a good rider.”

I let out a long breath to show her my patience was low. “I already told you once—there’s nothing you could do. Now either give me that stuff or not.”

But all the paper she’d tempted me over to her house with was crap. Her cop pal had looked a bit deeper, that’s all. And came up empty.

The guy who opened the door was big, six-six minimum, and built to match. He had a mild face, rimless glasses, short-cropped hair. I remembered him from the place I’d met Crystal Beth, always sitting off in a corner, drawing. And he’d been at this joint too, the first time I’d come. What was his name. . .? Oh yeah:

“Where’s everybody else, Rusty?” I asked him.

“Uh, there was a little thing. Earlier. They’ll be back soon.”

“Okay. I’ll just—”

“He’s here,” Xyla announced, standing in the doorway to the computer room.

“Uh, see you later,” the big guy said.