Then the other paramedic—he’d been listening to the kid’s heart with a stethoscope—said, “We’ve got to go, now.” So they put the kid on a stretcher, and I knew I should just shut up, be invisible, but as they were bundling him into the back of the ambulance, I said, “Is he going to be OK?” And the angry paramedic looked at me again, and said, “You want to come to the hospital with us? Or do you want to hide?” And I pinched the front of my kimono closed, and said, “I’ve got to get some clothes on…” And he’s like: “Yeah, right.”
They got into the ambulance, and as they were driving away, I saw the angry paramedic on the radio, talking to somebody, and I was like, if the Ukrainian lady hasn’t called the police already…
I ran back upstairs and got dressed. I took a plastic bag and swept as much of the marijuana as I could into it, and hid it in the back of a closet along with my drug-stash box. Then I got out—I thought I heard a siren outside, so I left by the fire escape—and stayed out.
I called Carlotta and asked if it was OK if I came a few days early. She said sure, so I got a car, some boxes, and a little extra Valium, and after midnight I went back to my apartment to pack. I just took the essentials—I had to leave the furniture behind, but that was OK, most of it wasn’t paid for anyway.
As I was packing, Phil showed up.
In the middle of the night?
Yeah, I told you, he had a knack for knowing when I needed him. “Phil,” I said, “I think I really fucked up here.” And he was like, “Yeah, I tried to warn you…” And then he just sat there, looking sad, which got me packing even faster. By sunup I was done, and by early that morning I was in Bodega Bay. End of story.
You never called the hospital to find out what happened to the boy?
It’s not malfeasance if you behave like a decent human being. The way I thought about it was like this: aside from the Officer Friendly types, cops are generally lazy, and tracking me to Carlotta’s would be difficult enough that they probably wouldn’t go to the trouble unless the kid died. So it followed that if I didn’t hear from the cops, he must be OK…And I never did hear from them. Even after I came back to S.F. — you know, I had other scrapes with the police after that, but the thing with the street preacher never came up. So I told myself I’d dodged a bullet, and swore I’d learned my lesson.
And had you?
Hey, after that day? It was a year and a half before I had sex with anyone again, and when I did, the guy was like thirty-five—a mature thirty-five.
So like I said, I counted myself lucky, and moved on. I tried to forget it had ever happened, you know? But Panopticon never forgets. They miss stuff, or misfile it, but if they know about it at all, they never really forget…And when the truth finally comes back around, all those excuses you thought were so clever end up sounding like the bullshit that they are.
So I finished my story and stood there staring at the video wall—it was all just Owen Farley’s picture, now—while I waited for Dixon to pass final judgment. But Dixon was waiting too, looking my way but focused on a point a half inch in front of his right eye. The little computer screen flickered like mad, and my wrist was tingling so much my hand had gone numb.
And so finally I just blurted it out: “Did I kill him?”
“Kill him?” Dixon said. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”
“It’s the right choice. You said it yourself, I was reckless. I knew better. So if he’s dead, it’s on me. If he’s in a coma somewhere, or locked up in a psycho ward, that’s on me too. I accept responsibility, OK? No excuses…Whatever you’re going to do to me, just do it.”
Seconds ticked by, and I felt another tingling, at the back of my head. I thought: that’s where he’s going to shoot me, the other Bad Monkeys operative who’s sneaking up behind me even now, waiting for Dixon to give the nod. I tried to brace myself.
And then a cell phone rang, breaking the spell. Dixon pursed his lips in annoyance and slipped the phone from his pocket. “Yes?” he said. “Oh, it’s you…I didn’t realize you were monitoring the session…Yes, I’m looking at the results now. I’d have to call them inconclusive, but I was going to…Really…Really…Is there some factor here that I’m not aware of?…Really…Well, it would have been helpful to know that before…Yes, I understand…Of course it’s your call, but for the record, I still don’t think it’s wise to…Yes…Yes…As you wish…”
He snapped the phone closed, and then, turning, pressed a single key on the laptop. The computer screen went dark. The video wall went dark, too.
“You’re free to go,” Dixon said.
“What? But what about…You never answered my question.”
“Owen Farley is alive. No thanks to you.”
“Is he OK, though? What happened to him? Is he—”
“Don’t push your luck,” Dixon said sharply.
“OK…But when you say I’m free to go, does that mean…Am I in the clear on this? Am I still in Bad Monkeys?”
“For now,” Dixon said. “Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless you have something else you’d like to confess.”
“No.” I hooked a finger under the wristband and popped it loose, then started massaging the feeling back into my hand. “No, that’s OK. I’m done confessing for now.”
“Then get out. And Jane?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be seeing you…”
white room (v)
“INTERESTING,” THE DOCTOR SAYS.
“What is?”
“In addition to my duties here, I sometimes conduct interviews at a facility called Red Springs, out in the desert. It’s—”
“A jail for sex predators,” she says, her cheeks coloring. “I know. I saw a sign for it on my way into Vegas.”
“Violent sex predators,” he says, but the correction does nothing to soothe her indignation. “I’ve spoken to over a hundred of them now, and they break down into two main categories: sociopaths, and a second group I like to think of as malefactors.”
Still flushed, she says: “Sociopaths are the ones who don’t feel guilty.”
“Very good. Most people think that sociopaths are the ones who can’t tell right from wrong, but of course that’s not true. They know the difference—enough to understand they have to hide what they do—they just don’t care about it.”
“Bad monkeys.”
“Oh, the malefactors are bad monkeys, too—and in some ways, they’re harder to take. Sociopaths are like Martians: their moral indifference is very strange, but at least their behavior is consistent with it. Malefactors, on the other hand, possess a normal sense of conscience. They experience guilt, and are capable of remorse. But they don’t let any of that stop them.
“Which brings me to my point,” the doctor says. “Another way of distinguishing sociopaths from malefactors is through the types of lies they tell. Sociopaths lie to other people. Malefactors do that too, but first they lie to themselves. In order to justify their actions, they often construct very elaborate fantasy scenarios…”
Her ire finally dissipates. She snorts. “So this is your new theory? I dreamed up the organization to help cope with my repressed guilt about the pet boys?”
“You think it’s a silly idea?”
“That Dixon was some kind of enabler? Yeah, I do think it’s silly. If you’d met him, you’d know why.”
“He did clear you.”
“No, he didn’t.” She starts to get angry again. “Did you not get the point about the phone call? Dixon didn’t clear me. Dixon wanted to burn me. At the very least he wanted me kicked out of Bad Monkeys, and if he could have sent me someplace like Red Springs, that would have made his day.”