Prologue: On the Matter of Choice
This is a story about choices.
It's not about the simple selections we make every day -- do you wear the red shirt or the blue one, have decaf or regular coffee this morning, or perhaps whether to fill the car with premium gasoline or just use plain old unleaded.
This is a story about choices made that affect just your fate, and about those that will change the lives of those around you. When your decisions have so much riding on them, can they possibly be the same?
This is a story about the choice to love, and the choice to hate. The choice to trust, and the choice to betray. The choice to give up and let harm come, and the choice to stand up and fight.
This is also a story about the consequences of the choices we make, about the decisions that save lives, and the ones that take them.
But most of all, this is a story about the choices made by three women who could be called three sides of the same coin. The light, the dark, and the gray. Heads, tails, and the coin on its side.
Which was which is a matter left open for some conjecture.
I: The First Tape -- Child-Rearing
Interview of Subject KS-11072, as recorded by Dr. Tobias Nolan Wednesday August 20, 2008; original notes in parentheses
'He came every night to see me, you know.'
(Subject smiles, quietly. Hazel eyes develop a faraway quality.)
'I was twelve back then, barely emerging from the cute-young-girl cocoon and into the woman I knew I'd become. It was that awkward stage -- stories always circulated about how difficult it was for boys during puberty, but us girls didn't have it much better, and that wasn't even counting that whole 'period' thing.
'His name was Kyle. He was a gardener, working for my dad -- well, stepfather -- and he was cute. I don't just mean, gosh-he's-dreamy cute, but he was... he was nice to me, you know? Sweet.'
(Fingernails dance on the tabletop, scratching out an irritated rhythm on the Formica.)
'Now, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, 'Gosh, Kathi's going to tell a horrible story of what life was like and what made her this way and blahblahblah.' Maybe he sexually abused me, maybe I took advantage of him and realized how much fun you boys are.
'The truth is somewhere in between, I suppose. Sure, I slept with Kyle -- he was nice and sweet. He bought me flowers and candies, and, sure there was a bit of an age discrepancy. Sure, he should have kept his damn dirty hands off of me because I was fucking twelve, and he was twenty-three. But 'abuse' implies a lack of consent or maybe knowledge about what I was doing.'
(A soft headshake; her head lowers. For a moment, I believe she is telling the truth, but I remind myself who I am dealing with -- the only woman ever to deceive Alexandra Pierce for an extended period of time.)
'No, when I lied down on that grassy hill with Kyle Wentworth, I knew what I was doing. I wanted it to be perfect, the moment where a girl wakes up to daisies and birds humming and all that shit. Yeah, even the airtight pussy of Kathryn Shaw was once a goddamn weepy emo girl.'
(The chuckle is forced here -- or is made to look that way. It's too wry, quirked wrongly. It's at odds with her admission.)
'It was great, mind you -- it just wasn't everything I could have hoped it'd be or all sunshine and roses, but I like to think, if I hated it, that I would've just gone on being Kathi, that I never would've gotten into any of the foolishness that led me, inevitably, to sitting right here. So, no, my first sexual experience? It wasn't be raped or manipulating a teacher to get an easy A -- though make no mistake, both of those things have happened in my life.'
(The admissions are off-handed, matter-of-fact -- as if she were discussing the weather.)
'When I met Kyle Wentworth, I was just a girl, like Quinn... well, not like Quinn, but that's a story for another time. I was an innocent, a child with a heart full of love and a future full of promise. Thing of it is, I was a child with a mother who was already a whore. And maybe she had the horrible history you might have imagined I would. Maybe she had her hymen broken by my grandfather. I don't know; never bothered to ask. If you find her, maybe she'll tell you what made cute, little Kathi Shaw into a monstrous person.'
(The subject's voice is usually a sweet thing -- to call it 'sultry' is to buy into the lie she is telling, and she will already have won. But when discussing her mother, the subject becomes more animated and yet colder. Likely, this is the side that the Contessa sees very often -- and enjoys.)
'If you find her, tell her that Kathryn said she should go deeper underground, because if you can find her, then so can I. And she... really doesn't want that.'
(Subject grinds out her cigarette here. She'd never lit it -- just held it in her mouth.)
'I'm sorry; digressing again. Bad habit. Your fault for asking, though. Where was I? Right, Kyle, sweetness, light, sunshine. Right, so I raced home afterwards, overjoyed -- they call it the afterglow to color the fact that the blood is flowing in the wrong direction and you're not thinking straight. I was... I think I was happy, but I don't remember what that feels like. Not really, at least.'
(There is no faraway look in her eye now, nothing wistful. Her lack of happiness isn't a wish -- simply a fact.)
'I couldn't decide what to do, who to tell. I've never liked other girls, you know? Girls tend to overanalyze shit, and, at heart, every girl who tells you they don't like me wants to be me. Yeah, that includes Aimz, and, no, I like to imagine it's not just me being egotistical. The power I hold, the control... a lot of girls would find it enticing. A lot more are jealous, protective of their relationships. A girl like Aimz will tell you their spouse would never say 'Yes' if I asked them to drop their trousers. But deep inside, they know better, because they know me enough to know that I wouldn't just walk up to Darcy Markson and be all, 'Hey, sexay, I want to sex you up.' And they're scared.'
(I clear my throat. She smiles again, an affectation this time, falsely apologetic.)
'Anyway, I never got along with the girls. They thought I was a 'weirdo' back then. And guys? Pfft. I tell them that an older guy took my virginity and I would have been better off wearing a sign that said 'whore' in bright, neon letters. So, really, if a girl wants to talk about stuff like this, she should either talk to the guy or talk to her mom. Since I hadn't seen Kyle since -- I'd heard he was sick or something, and I was naïve enough to not think twice about it.'
(An irritation falls over the subject, but I do not press. I should have pressed.)
'I rushed home after school, put my bike in the garage like a good girl and everything and headed in to talk to her. On the ride home, I'd prepared what I was going to say, how I was going to approach it. You don't just tell your mom you fucked the damn gardener, you know? So I wander upstairs -- much slower than I want to go, but a daughter running to tell her momma something is... it changes the tone of the conversation.'
(Now she meets my eyes. She's hard and staring; bedroom eyes turned into lasers.)
'Would it surprise you if I told you my mother -- my own mother -- was fucking Kyle in the bed she and my stepfather shared? Does it make your dick hard to know that my mother had seduced the goddamn gardener, brought him up to the bedroom? That they were going at it doggy-style?'
(I didn't move -- couldn't move -- under the intensity of her gaze. I hope I didn't give anything away, but I have no idea what she was looking for.)
'I was devastated -- murderously, violently angry. But I was twelve, I couldn't do anything about it. I... it's cliché to say that a part of me died right there, at the door to my parents' bedroom. But maybe it did. Maybe it and a dozen other things just like it taught me that men were the weaker species. Good for a laugh, good for some pleasure, but ultimately, unworthy of the praise women foist upon them.'
(Silence for a beat. Two. Three.)
'I became everything I hated about the world. Superficial, grasping, gasping for everything and anything I could get my hands on. Left to my own devices, I would have probably become a whore, maybe a con artist, strictly small-time. It took a girl named Lexi -- who dislocated my finger the first time we met, by the way -- to show me the way, to give my life purpose.'
(The faraway look returns to her eyes; she blinks it away.)
'And sometimes, I drift back to the wench I'd become. These are moments I regret. Because Alex gives me a reason. A chance to show the world that I am not that scared little girl, crushed outside her mother's doorstep. I can be strong.'
(The chuckle here is darker than the earlier one; I am inclined to believe it to be real.)
'Plus she throws some killer parties. Now, are we done? Because if we're not done, then I will warn you -- you'll end up with me naked, legs spread on this table right here if I continue. And I doubt Gwenny will like that very much.'
(End recording.)
II: Vicarious Lies
Lauren Fox looks into the mirror above the bathroom sink; the hotel didn't have a proper vanity table, but it made due when she dragged the chair from the table. Why did hotel rooms like this have a table, anyway? It wasn't like travelers were going to sit around and play poker at the Days Inn in Kansas City.
Everytime she looked into a mirror like this one, she knew she was about to do something unpleasant. Something she should probably not do. Something a 'normal' person (but what the fuck does that even mean?) wouldn't do. And she'd long ago decided she didn't care about the moral consequences of what she was doing -- the people she was ruining for her teacher.
She pulls the wig off the mannequin head; it was a flat, woody brown and curly, cut to just past shoulder length. She buries her neon purple hair in it, buries herself behind the lie. People ask her why she does it, why she lies like this; she tells them she does it because it's fun.
That's a lie.
Savant replaces the studs in her ears with dangling, bronze hoops. She slips ring out of her lip, the stud out of her nose.
Lauren doesn't do this because it's 'fun' -- she's not in danger of becoming the next Cozen. She does it for a far different reason.
Soft pink blush and eyeshadow takes years off the face. Glittering green contacts hide her dark eyes. She glosses her lips only a little, barely shimmering in the ugly fluorescence of the room.
Lauren does this because she hates herself -- no, that's too easy. She does this because she never had a life of her own, trained unwillingly from her youth by a woman like Alex Pierce. She slips into these guises, makes these other people up in her head so that she can have the life that Life denied her.
A red and black plaid headband holds back her false mane of dark curls. She pulls white leggings up her legs, only capri-length on, zips up a bedazzled denim skirt. Her t-shirt is pink and it has a smiley face on it.
She hates it, but the woman -- the girl -- she's going to be today loves it.
She doesn't wear a bra underneath it, just a hint of flirtiness to a package that shouldn't be flirty. The girl is seventeen, she knows. Underage, but right on the cusp where men start a ticking clock in their head, waiting for her next birthday.
Lauren pulls a silvery, shimmering purse out of her suitcase. It's already full of the materials she needs. Her cellphone is a Razr, she doesn't know how much Alexandra pays the phone companies, just for bogus accounts her agents use, but it's a big piece of the operating budget.
She slides the phone under her ear and she pulls on a smile.
Lauren Fox is no longer looking back at her, and a part of Savant is glad for it.
'Daddy?' she asks as the man picks up. 'It's Tessa, how are you? Listen, I was wondering if you could meet me for dinner. Just the two of us.'
Lauren tells herself she doesn't care, that things like she's been instructed to do tonight don't bother her.
She's lying to herself as well, of course. She's still under there, hidden behind the lie and fully cognizant of what she's becoming -- what she's become.
The man on the phone thinks he's speaking to his daughter. He's happy, but he's nervous because something about her unsettles him, and not just the fact that she refuses to meet his wife and his son.
He's not the first who she's told this lie to, nor is he likely to be the last. Sometimes, she's a sweetheart, an innocent overwhelmed by the truth of a father she's never met before. Sometimes, it doesn't go past that.
This is not one of those times.
Lauren used to think she could be someone different -- a certain bleach-blond Brit used to tell her that all the time. Now she's something different every day.
It's a fair trade, she thinks.
III: The Second Tape -- Who Are You?
Interview of Subject MS-17340, as recorded by Dr. Tobias Nolan, Thursday, August 21, 2008; original notes in parentheses.
(Subject plays innocent when the orderlies remove the black hood from her face. She blinks repeatedly, not willing to look into the light.)
SUBJECT: You can't do this to me! Don't you know who I am?
DOCTOR: That is my question, not yours. Who are you?
SUBJECT: My name is Madison, and my husband is going to kill you for this.
DOCTOR: Names are immaterial. I know your name; else you would not be sitting before me. Who are you?
SUBJECT: I am a wife. I have two small children. They'll miss me.
DOCTOR: Roles are immaterial. Who are you?
SUBJECT: I am a wrestling manager for Sin City Championship --
DOCTOR: That is your job, how you earn your paycheck. Who are you?
(Subject takes a moment to consider; this is far earlier than most.)
SUBJECT: I am... not sure how you want this question.
DOCTOR: If you are not sure, if you have nothing in your life, then you are of no use to us.
SUBJECT: Who said I wanted to be?
DOCTOR: You would fight for others -- to stop her. Why?
SUBJECT: This is about Alex?
(I am saddened to say that my chuckle did not get hidden as well as I would have liked.)
DOCTOR: Everything is about Alexandra, not for who she is or what she has done, but for what she stands for. You and your husband, you fight?
SUBJECT: Professionally, we --
(My fist hit the table. Frustration built in both of us.)
DOCTOR: Do not obfuscate. Do not hide, do not muddle, and do not lie to me. You fight, you and your husband?
SUBJECT: We try, but she's...
DOCTOR: She is not here. She will not see this, not know your answer, not know that you have been lying to her, over and over, as you lie to your friends, to your co-workers, to your children --- the same ones that you wave in my face as a Get Out of Jail card. Who are you to fight her? You are a wrestling manager, a woman discovered on a cruise ship, the ex-wife of a man who I am not sure could spell 'cat' if you spotted him the 'C' and the 'A'. Why must it be you two? There are others, in your industry and without, who have been wronged by her, who would tear her apart on sight. Who are you to fight?
SUBJECT: And that's why they fail. Anger is one thing -- it's great to have, it makes you go that extra mile, just look at what Troy did to Cozen. But anger can't be everything.
DOCTOR: And why is that? Did it not make you angry when she burned down your nightclub? When your husband's would-be lover died in the flame? What makes you different, special, able to fight where no one else can?
SUBJECT: Because we know it needs to be done. When I was a child, my mother --
(I do not know why I dislike this woman so fiercely, but I interrupt her.)
DOCTOR: Another tale of mother being a horrible person and teaching you to lie and manipulate? Teaching you to cheat your friends out of their ability to face their enemy?
(She is undeterred; she even leans across the table.)
SUBJECT: My mother taught me that there are things you need, things you have to have, and things you want. Lindsay Troy wants revenge, she wants to bring Desade down, has to have it. Lance Marshall needs a quiet life with his wife, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Amy Campbell has to have the success she feels is hers. Who is stronger? I say Marshall, because you can give Troy revenge, you can give Campbell success, and they will stop fighting. They'll give up and let her have whatever she wants.
DOCTOR: But you and your husband, you need to see Alexandra Pierce brought low?
SUBJECT: No.
DOCTOR: Then who are you?
SUBJECT: I guess I'm someone who wants to make a difference, someone who has to have a world where people like Alex Pierce aren't hovering in the background to play the world like a string quartet. And I am someone who needs to do whatever it takes to find that world. If it means I have to be her, then I will, because I'll remember that underneath it all, there's a light -- my daughters, Zach Marshall, Drake Lambert... even Kathryn's son Cash. They deserve better than we can give them. All that's required for evil to prevail...
DOCTOR: (softly) ...Is for good men to do nothing.
SUBJECT: Or get wrapped up in their personal thoughts and problems enough that they don't really have another choice, yeah.
(I nod, stand up, leave the room. The subject leans back in the chair, satisfied that she has convinced me. She is less than enthused when the two large men throw the bag over her head, but she relents when the syringe of sedative is injected into her arm, going slack.)
IV: Show and Not-Tell.
Kids say the darnedest things.
'Is it true,' Little Frankie Cantore asked, thumbing his glasses up his squat, box-like nose. 'That you once did a 900° senton backsplash off the top of a cage? 'Cuz I talked with my brother Don and he said that's not possible.'
'Peerless' Hunter Sabuani stretched out in the high-backed, black leather chair that Mrs. Pompeo had very carefully not asked the origination of, crossing his hands behind his head. 'It was only an 810° splash, and it wasn't me, though I was in the cage, too. So tell your brother Don he's a dou...a dork. A big dork.'
It was show and tell day at Allendale Columbia, a day that the kids of Mrs. Pompeo's second-grade class had been looking forward to for weeks. Timmy Rodgers brought in his rat (and it was awesome!), Jenny Garland brought in her kitty (and it was awesomer), and Ted Epps brought in a football signed by Thurman Thomas.
Dakota and Summer Sabuani weren't nearly as impressed by that one, but the boys in the class thought it was completely badass. It wasn't often that a kid brought their parent in for show & tell; most kids, even that young, are kind of embarrassed by their parent. Even Summer (they call her 'Lil') didn't support the decision, though that could possibly be because of Tad, the new tadpole they were keeping in an aquarium (this was the awesomest~!).
In truth, Mrs. Pompeo hadn't wanted to honor Dee's invitation to her father to come today -- Hunter Sabuani was a controversial figure in his business, and the last thing she wanted was some foulmouthed jerk teaching her students the best uses of the word 'fuck'. Dakota was adamant, however, and she's difficult to deny. Especially when she lets the boys know of the possibility.
To her surprise, Hunter was a perfect gentleman, careful with his words and moreso with his stories. But when you get a guy like him in a room with a bunch of curious listeners, it isn't so much that he talks as it is that he holds court, no matter their age. She had no doubt several parents would still find a reason to complain -- the fact that their children were likely to come home and want to become professional wrestlers was enough of a reason.
'All right,' Mrs. Pompeo said softly from her perch near the window. 'We have time for just one more question.'
'You heard the lady,' Hunter said. 'Make it a good one.'
The girl who raised her hand was a round-faced blonde with a ribbon in her hair and an easy smile on her lips. 'My brother watches your show a lot. Like, a whole lot,' Becca Daniels said. 'And he'd be kinda mad if I didn't ask if you were still a bad guy.'
Hunter fidgeted, sitting up slightly. The eyes of the room were on him -- but it was the intense stare of Lil that he was trying most diligently to avoid. 'It's not that simple,' he said, painfully aware they were the same words he'd fed to his daughter some six months ago.
'I...look, let me tell you a story, okay? I'd just started out in the business. I mean, we're talking so green I didn't...there's an old saying that you wouldn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch. And that was me. Some punk kid straight out of the academy, eager to prove to the world I was different. I'll never forget I sat with a guy...guy named Lars the Fifteenth.'
Hunter's smile quirked with memory; the students all watched, twenty-three sets of eyes on him.
'Lars was a big guy, right? I mean... big. And he was a big deal, too. Former champ or some sh...stuff. He pulled me aside -- I mean, he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me aside, right in the hallway, and he says to me, he says, 'Kid...' He called everyone 'kid'.'
A sort of misty look flickered through his crystalline blue-green eyes. When he spoke as Lars, his voice was deeper, gruff.
''Kid, I like you. You've got the look and the talent to go places. Now, there're gonna be people who tell you how you gotta act a certain way. How you smile too much, or not enough. How you gotta hit folk from behind or always shake their hand.' Then he slapped me on the shoulder, hard enough to bring the redness to my skin. 'Now, whether ya listen or who ya listen at...that's yer biz, an' I'd be one of them guys if I told you which way to go. An' I hate those...' Well, he said an awfully bad word here, Becca, but if your bro watches Temptation, I'm sure he'll hear Seanny Sterling say it. Then you know what he says to me?'
The kids couldn't look away -- neither could Mrs. Pompeo. Little Frank Cantore shook his head.
Hunter grinned, leaning forward. 'He said, 'People will remember how you acted, yeah. But they'll remember what you did all the more. Good guys an' bad guys, they're for the folks in the arena. The ones who buy t-shirts and come to stomp their feet. All that matters is what's in here.' And he thumped me in the chest. 'You do what you gotta, be who you wanna, and no one will care, so long as you make them ask their buddies if they saw what you did the night before on their TV.' And that's how I'm living. Good, bad, I'm the guy you can't stop watching.'
Silence rang in the room, but it was his daughter, it was Lil who raised her hand. 'You didn't really answer the question, Poppa.'
Mrs. Pompeo pushed away from her lean against the wall, smiling her 'I'm being patient' smile. 'That's all the time we have with Mr. Sabuani, children. We still have to get to the others -- Clyde, you brought in some postage stamps?'
Hunter slipped up out of the chair, meandering to the back of the room, where his daughters sat. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a mass of multi-colored braids and some flat gray coveralls. The Raja pressed his lips to the top of Dee's head, muttering, 'I'll be back to say goodbye.'
'But, Daddy, the stamps are pretty cool,' Dee objected. 'He has this one with a buffalo on it and -- '
'Philately has never been a hobby of mine, dumpling. You can tell me all about it later.'
'Okay, Daddy.' She was already engrossed in the stamps again as Sabuani shut the door quietly behind him. His eyes were momentarily stuck on Dakota, her chin in her hand, eyes wide, as Clyde showed off his stamp collection. He smiled around a sigh.
'She's a real cutie, Bubba,' the miniscule woman said, leaning slightly on a mop. 'Both of them are. You done good.'
Hunter turned, unable to suppress his smirk at the sight of his longtime friend, Cecilia 'Rat' Sicarii, with a mop and a bucket. 'You the janitor now, Ratsy?'
'Man, I've been cleaning up your messes since third grade. Of course I'm the fuckin' janitor.'
'Still watching the girls?'
'Eh. Ever since Devonshire knocked Ozzie Smythe's teeth out, the folks in town are much less interested in your kids. Came to see you, actually.'
Sabuani rested his hip against the doorframe. 'He's pretty mad, I take it?' Hunter didn't seem surprised, just kind of aggravated.
'The plan was pretty clear. Piercey shouldn't be questioning your loyalty. Not if you're really interested in this working.'
'I know, I know. I just figured that I could be more of a distraction, allow Troy a better chance to -- '
'Don't go changing the plan for that joker.' Rat stepped closer to the Raja, jabbing a black-and-white nail into his chest. 'You know that's not how this shit works. Sure, Troy will be a pain in Piercey's sweaty ball sack, and, you know, good for her or whatev. But you come in from the left when Alex has that character in her sights and she's liable to be less patient with your bullshit. And that...that ain't good for those two girls in there.'
'Yeah.' The word was filled with an overabundance of exasperation. 'I'm just...I'm tired, Rats. You ever think about what it was like before any of us knew who the fuck Alex Pierce was?'
'We been over this. We were young, naïve and stupid then. We thought it was all about the wrestling.'
'I kinda wish it was. Ain't cut out for this sneaky bullshit.'
'Couple more months. Hold it together.'
'Fine. Someone told Mads?'
'Yeh. She's bumping into Shaw this afternoon once Jonie's peoples tell her where to go.'
Hunter flicked his gaze back to the milky window of the classroom door. 'You talked to her first?'
'Well, duh. She's not as stubborn as you are.' He didn't have to turn to hear the grin in her voice. 'She knows it's for the best. Probably more than you or I do.'
A softly jangling bell echoed through the hallway, triggering a veritable stampede of children. Mrs. Pompeo's door was flung open by one of the kids, who bumped past the King of Swing and the Dynamo.
Within, Hunter heard children's voices -- Frankie Cantore and his daughters.
'Your dad is...awesome,' Frankie said.
'Yeah,' Dee said happily. 'He's like the best dad ever.'
Hunter's hand lingered on the doorframe. 'I tellya, Ratsy. How did I ever get so lucky?'
When he didn't receive a response, the Raja turned back over his shoulder.
Rat was gone. Even Cecilia Sicarii knew when to leave well enough alone. Still, Hunter frowned. 'Shit,' he whispered. 'I hate it when people do that.'
Dr. Tobias Nolan was not a large man, nor a brave one. He was just a doctor, an interviewer in a white lab coat. A nobody.
Which is why he had a full security suite from ADT, with motion detectors and a hotline to the police department and an alarm that, curiously, rang, jangled, and clanged -- all at once.
A sound they made for precisely thirteen seconds at 4:17 this morning. Alarms wailed and then were choked into silence. Lights flickered and went dark.
Tobias Nolan was startled from his sleep, hand sliding into his nightstand drawer. A snub-nosed, pearl-handled .38 Special weighed heavily in his hand. Tobias slipped his feet into suede slippers, pulling on a terrycloth robe and meandering downstairs. His gun rested against the side of his head.
'Put the weapon away, Dr. Nolan.'
The woman's whisper-soft, diamond-hard voice echoed strangely in the ill-lit room. Tobias snapped the barrel of the gun towards the pool of light in his study, a soft, green-shaded desk lamp, casting ruddy, orange-tinted light over the woman's gleaming white pantsuit and burnished, blood red hair.
She was perched on the edge of his favorite desk chair (the Victorian Era, high-backed green one) with a snifter half full of amber liquid swishing around in her leather-gloved hand. The brandy never touched her pale lips.
'I... I know who you are,' Tobias said, the firearm shaking slightly, but not moving away from the woman in his home. 'I know what you've done, and the police will be here shortly. So you... you just sit over there.'
'As you say,' Alexandra said quietly. 'Though I would not hold out hope. The only route to this subdivision from the nearest police station goes down one street -- truly, if you are attempting to hide from me, this was not the location I would have chosen. Police heading down this street will be required to stop a terrible scuffle between two pretty ladies of my own employ. By the time they get here, you and I will be finished.'
'What do you...' He stopped himself as her frigid eyes locked in tight on his face.
'That is my question, Doctor. Take care when you ask it of me, as I always get what I desire.'
The thin, balding man wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, but the act did nothing to assist his sudden onset of cottonmouth. 'Can I help you with something?'
Her smile was as small as it was sudden. 'Excellently played. You have been interviewing people I have had dealings with. Why?'
'I don't... I don't get the reasons. I just get names.'
'Who provides them to you? Who brings you the subjects?'
'I never see them. So I have no idea, sorry.'
Pierce's already dangerous whisper took on a more violent edge. 'Do not dissemble, Doctor. It is a talent you have no skill for. If you do not see your benefactors, certainly you hear them. Or you are provided correspondence. If you wish to see the sun rise outside your home this morning, it would behoove you to provide me answers, and quickly.'
Tobias finally lowered the gun -- he was provided no protection by it, so why even bother with it. 'There are two of them.'
A crimson brow arched gently above Alexandra's left eye. 'Two.'
'Yeah. A man and a woman.'
'And you have never seen them before?'
'We only talk on the telephone. It's code phrases and doublespeak. I think they're afraid of you.'
'What do these people sound like? Describe to me their voices.'
'The guy is... he doesn't have much of a tone, but I can tell he's mad about something. It's an internal voice, a quiet hiss behind some of his words, especially when your name comes up. And the woman is... she sounds pretty. Irish.'
Desade very carefully set the drink glass down onto the table at her side and flowed to her feet -- didn't really stand. Tobias couldn't tell you when she'd moved, only that she obviously had. 'What do you want, Dr. Nolan? What drives a man like you into accepting a ludicrous offer from a man like Jonas Stryker and a woman like Guinevere Maddox?'
She prowled forward, her eyes rooting him to the ground where he stood. He couldn't look away, and by the time he remembered he had a gun in his hand, she was standing in front of him. Her breath smelled like sweet wine, roses, and death.
'Tell me what you want and I will grant it to you. It is what I do, what I have done since I was a youth. Consider me an expediter of services.' She tucked a lock of the red behind her ear, at once girlish and practiced. 'How about we try it this way. I want copies of your tapes, the interviews that Jonas and Guinevere have arranged for you to conduct.'
Her smile stretched further.
'What is it you want in return?' she asked him, voice at his ear, a devil on his shoulder. 'The world is your oyster.'
Tobias Nolan wasn't the first to kowtow to this offer from Alexandra Pierce -- businessmen and entrepreneurs, thugs and charlatans, heroes and villains -- everyone wants something. The human brain is a series of switches; controls that make choices easier, pulleys that make moral decisions less difficult than they should.
All that matters -- if one is to believe Alexandra Pierce -- is to give those buttons a little push, the strings a little tug.
When she gets finished, this is not a story about choice in the standard sense of the word.
Can you really call it choice if someone's made it for you already and simply allows you to believe you have made it yourself?
'I must hold on - this happens all the time
I still find my faith in you
I can't hold on - this happens all the time
I still find my way to you.'
-- Cold, 'Happens All the Time'. From the album 'A Different Kind of Pain,' available now from Atlantic Records.