Choice of Evil

“But this ain’t no nut,” the Prof stepped up.

“He wouldn’t have to be. . . crazy,” Mac told him. “Just a. . . believer. He might be rational in all other senses of the word. But if you ‘reason’ from a false premise, any conclusion, no matter how logically it follows, will be wrong, do you see what I’m saying?”

“Both true,” Mama said again, not disrespecting Immaculata’s answer, but making it clear it wasn’t enough.

“All right,” Immaculata said. “Look at it this way. Some believe this. . . Wesley never actually died, yes? But there was no. . . support for that proposition. This recent rash of murders, they represent a sort of ‘proof,’ seemingly to underscore the presence of. . . Ah, look: Those who think Wesley never actually died or those who think he could return from the dead. . . merge. Into a belief system. If it is ‘Wesley’ doing these murders in the minds of the believers, he has come back, understand?”

Mama nodded gravely, a gesture of complete support. Immaculata bowed her gratitude for the recognition.

“It doesn’t matter!” Michelle said sharply. “He’s not a threat to us. There’s no reason to get. . . involved with him. It’s over. Let him do whatever he—”

Max bowed slightly. Put his two fists together, then made a snapping motion. Volunteering to do the job if I could get him close enough.

I bowed my thanks, knowing it was impossible. “Both true, Mama?” I asked her.

She pointed at the Prof, then at the Mole.

We waited, but she was done.

“Me first,” the Prof said, stepping up to the challenge. “If this guy found the Gatekeeper, he’d have to bring a whole bunch behind what Wesley did, right?”

Nobody moved. It hadn’t been a real question.

“And he did that, right?” the Prof continued. “Ain’t no question but the motherfucker’s qualified.”

“If that would work,” the Mole said, his mild voice throbbing with the one electrical current that always hit his circuits, “the Nazis could. . .”

“To bring Hitler back, they would have to kill six million people,” Clarence said. “If they could do that, why would they need. . .?”

His voice trailed off into the silence as we all let it penetrate. But it took the Prof to say it out loud: “You all just heard the word. You got it, Schoolboy?” he asked me.

“Anyone who could kill six million people wouldn’t have to bring Hitler back,” I said slowly. “He’d be Hitler.”

Immaculata looked up. “Yes. And this killer, he wants to be. . .”

“Wesley,” I finished for her.

“Why?” the Mole asked. “Wesley was. . .”

“No,” I told them all. “Wesley is. Check the whisper-stream. He’ll never die. They never found a body. You say his name, people start to shake. It’s not some ghost they’re afraid of.”

“You think if he kills enough he will have the same. . . respect Wesley has, mahn?” Clarence asked. “That is insane. It is not the count of the bodies that—”

“My son just got it done,” the Prof said. “No way you take Wesley’s name just by playing his game.”

I saw where he was going, and cut him off. “Everything he did, it’s like an improved version of Wesley,” I said. “Every hit tied to Wesley, this guy copied. He works just like Wesley did. Wesley wasn’t just a sniper. Neither is this guy: he uses bombs, poisons, high-tech. That’s why he wanted that damn. . . ‘assignment.’ When I challenged him. Told him that any freak can be a random hitter. Wesley took contracts. He was a missile. All he needed was a name. This guy, he took a name from me and did the job because he wants a name. He wants Wesley’s.”

“Never happen,” the Prof said. “Nobody could take Wesley’s place. Wesley’ll never die. And the only way to never die is to die, right? No matter what this guy does, no matter how many fucked-up letters he writes to the newspapers, you know what they’re gonna say: it’s Wesley’s work. He can’t change that.”

“He’s a shape-shifter,” I told them. “But that’s not the whole thing. I understand what Mama meant now. You too, Mac. All of you. It is all true. If this guy starts doing Wesley’s work—taking contracts, making people dead on order—then he is Wesley, see? When people whisper Wesley’s name, they’re talking about him. And he’ll know that, wherever he is.”

“But you said his. . . journal was all about kidnapping children and—” Immaculata said, dropping her voice, eye-sweeping the place to make sure her little girl wouldn’t hear what lurked past her circle of love.

“At first,” I told her. “But I get the impression that it’s old. He did it a long time ago. He’s an. . . artist. And he finally decided that the highest art was homicide. As a kidnapper, he was the best there was. No contest. He didn’t need his name in the paper, he knew. He probably thought he was the greatest killer too. I think that’s what he said his new art was going to be. Not killing child molesters, killing mobsters. Or. . . maybe both. I don’t know. But I figure, he started doing it. And kept it up, same way he did the kidnappings. For the ‘art,’ right? But when he snapped to it. . . when he figured out that there was someone ahead of him. . . that he was in a contest he couldn’t win. . . that’s when he figured out he had to be Wesley. That’s his art now.”

“Motherfucker’s way past crazy,” the Prof said.

“Sure,” I said. “So what? He can’t be Wesley except through me, understand? Gutterball thought he was dealing with Wesley when he sent out that hit. That’s why I sent this guy right back at Gutterball. There’s nobody left to—what’s that word you always use, Mac?— validate him. Except me. Gutterball was an idiot. That’s not news. But me. . . If I go into the street and say I saw Wesley, who’s gonna deny it? Everyone knows how we. . . were.”

“And with all those baby-rapers getting hit, it just reeks of you, honey,” Michelle said, nodding her head in agreement.

“He said it right at the beginning. Of that freakish ‘journal’ he sent me. ‘Folie a deux,’ remember? I told him I could get him mob contracts, but I’d have to say I saw Wesley, get it? He made me send him all this stuff, prove I was the real thing. That I was with Wesley. All the way back to the beginning. I don’t know where he got some of his info, but it was on the money, all of it. So now, the way he figures it, if I see him, I did see Wesley. He is Wesley now—the way he figures, he’s proved that. Taken over. So he’s going to meet me, I’m sure of it.”

“But, honey, what’s the point?” Michelle asked me. “He can’t do anything to you—not if he wants you to. . . do what he said. If you don’t do it, he’s on his own. Why meet with him?”

Max grabbed Michelle’s hand to get her attention. With his other hand, he reached over and tapped my heart. Pointed to himself, then to Immaculata. Finally, he made the sign of a man shooting a pistol.

“Oh God,” Michelle gasped. “You mean—?”

“It was him,” I told her. Told them all. “If he’s the one Gutterball talked to on the phone, then he’s the one who did the hit in Central Park. Did it the same way Wesley would have. A couple of flunkies to lay down cover fire, make a diversion, then a surgical strike. And wipe out the witnesses. Gutterball must have known it was gonna cost him those two other guys. Maybe he wanted them gone anyway—got three for the price of one.”

Immaculata cleared her throat, threading delicately, the way she always does. “But, Burke, if that’s true. . . this. . . killer, he wasn’t the one who shot Crystal Beth.”

“He made it happen,” I said flatly. “He knows a thousand ways to kill. If he’d used any other one, she’d be here today. Right here. With me.”

Something must have happened to me after I said that. When I came around, I was in a chair in the basement, my family all around me. I didn’t ask how I got there—Max could carry me as easy as a wino could lug a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.

I opened my eyes. Looked at the only people I loved on the whole planet. “I don’t know if you can make up for things,” I told them, calming down. “He killed a lot of little kids. Then he stopped. And killed a lot of scum. I don’t know if they were child molesters or mob guys or both. . . at first. Then it was fag-bashers. Then pedophiles. Maybe whoever’s keeping count thinks his scales are balanced. But not me. Michelle was right. What do I care if he