“I told you to choose one,” he said.
“One booklet,” I reminded him. “But I didn’t need your help to track Deeds down. He was in the damned phone book. And then when I went to take care of Loomis and found that shotgun in his closet…Well, I figured it was part of the test, to see if I had the initiative to take out both of them.”
“Did you really think that? Or did you kill Deeds because you wanted to?”
I shrugged. “Does it even matter? You said it yourself, they were both evil. The world’s better off.”
“Yes, but now there are discrepancies for the police to wonder about. Such as the fact that Loomis died several hours before Deeds.”
“They won’t be able to tell that, I bet. I mean yeah, if they came right now, while Deeds is still warm…But I don’t hear any sirens, do you? And once his body hits room temperature, it’ll be a lot harder to fix a time of death. That basement was cold as a meat locker.”
“And when they discover that Loomis’s other victims were poisoned, not shot?”
“So? Maybe Deeds wasn’t a normal victim. Maybe he found out what Loomis was doing, and tried to blackmail him, or just walked in on him somehow.”
“Somehow.”
“It’s a Nod problem. The police will believe that Loomis killed Deeds because it’s the simplest explanation. They’ll want to believe it, especially when they find out who Deeds was. Tell me I’m wrong.”
True shook his head. “This is not how we do things.”
“Look, you said you wanted to know what my priorities were. You want to give me grief for bending the rules? You want to blackball me for it? Fine. But we all make the world, right? And if that’s true, I’m not going to settle for just one bad guy when I can get two. I saw my chance and went for it, and I’m not sorry. I’d do it again.” I stopped there, worried about overplaying it, but after a minute had gone by and True hadn’t given me the chop, I went on, in a softer voice: “So do I pass the test? Am I in?”
Another minute. True sighed.
“You’re in.”
white room (iii)
“WHAT’S THE PROBLEM THIS TIME?” she asks. “Did I screw up the body count?”
“No, your description of the scene in Benjamin Loomis’s basement was accurate,” the doctor says. “And there are details in your account, such as the fact that Deeds was shot in the arm, that were never released to the press. So it’s plausible you were there, or at least spoke to someone who was.”
“But…?”
“But, there’s no evidence to support the rest of your story. If Julius Deeds was a vicious gangster, you seem to be the only person who knew about it. There’s no record he was ever indicted for murder; no record of anyone committing an arson-homicide of the kind you say he was charged with; no record, either, of the beating you claim you received at his hands.”
“Back up a second. You’re telling me Deeds didn’t have a rap sheet?”
“He was a criminal, all right, just not a violent one. He had a long history of petty drug offenses, including one early charge for theft of a doctor’s prescription pad. The prescription pad theft happened while he was an intern at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, studying to be an oncologist.”
“No, you’re mixed up. The oncology student, that was—”
“Your dealer friend Ganesh, yes. Of whom there’s also no record. Or none that I could find: I wasn’t sure if Ganesh was a first or last name, or an alias.”
“I’m not sure either,” she says, “but I didn’t just imagine him. Hey, I bought dope from the guy for years.”
“Well if Ganesh is a real person, Jane, can you explain how Julius Deeds ended up with his biography? Or is that another Nod problem?”
“No, it’s not a Nod problem.” She frowns. “It’s Catering.”
“Catering?”
“Organization counterintelligence. They must know I’m talking to you.”