“I’m not easy about this,” Abner said.
“Because one of them told you not to trust the police? What other recourse do we have?”
“We could take him out ourselves.”
She shook her head. “He’s a normal. Criminal, but he has a soul. We kill sopaths, not normals, no matter how corrupt the normals may be.”
“Maybe we should make an exception.”
But she wouldn’t have it. “I’m not crossing that line. I’ll try the police, and hope for the best. If they don’t act, then we can consider other ways to drive him out.”
“I hope they act,” Abner said. Maybe she was right.
Sylvia went to the police to make her case that day.
That evening when she stepped out of her house, a sopath shot her at point blank range, killing her, and fled before any neighbor could react.
It seemed they had the criminal’s response. It was an open assassination, eliminating the one who wanted the criminal out of the neighborhood. A warning to others.
“The criminal must be paying off the police,” Abner muttered to Bunty.
“I don’t think so. They could have notified the man of the complaint and asked him to move out. Instead he killed the opposition.”
That did seem more likely. The police might not be very effective, but they had tacitly cooperated with Pariah to deal with the sopaths. “But it was Sylvia’s complaint that did her in.”
“She tried to follow protocol,” Bunty said. “Nefer’s warning was on target: don’t trust the police. Not because they’re corrupt, but because there are times when standard practice, such as forwarding a complaint, doesn’t work.”
They held an emergency Pariah meeting. “We can’t allow Sylvia’s work to be destroyed,” Abner said. “To do so would be to let the sopaths and their corrupt enablers win.”
They were grief-stricken and angry about the assassination, but confused. “What can we do, if the police can’t help us?” a man asked.
“We can take out the criminal directly,” Abner said. “That would eliminate the present problem and serve as a warning to those who try to arm the sopaths.”
“How?”
“I believe I have a connection. The less said about it the better.”
They agreed to let him try it his way. They did not inquire about the details.
Abner discussed it with his family. “I have two serious reservations. First, do we really want to get into the business of killing people with souls? That pedophile may be a wretch, but he surely has a soul.”
“He’s acting like a sopath,” Bunty said. “I’m willing to classify him as a fellow traveler, to be treated much the same. In fact I would rather kill a criminal souler, than a civilized sopath.”
Abner looked at the children. They nodded, taking their cue from Bunty. “But how?” Clark asked.
“I’m thinking of Nefer,” Abner said. “But I’m wary of her price. That’s my second reservation.”
“We can talk with her,” Bunty said with resignation.
Abner called Nefer’s cell phone, let it ring once, and disconnected. That was the signal.
In five minutes she was there. “You want me!”
“We have a job for you,” Abner said grimly. “We need to talk terms.”
“That child fucker,” she said wisely.
“The pedophile. You were right about the police,” Abner said. “Sylvia of Pariah went to them to ask that they arrest the man. Instead they gave the criminal a warning, and he sent a sopath to kill her.”
She nodded. “The bad guys play hardball.”
“We can play hardball too. You could take him out.”
She didn’t blanch. “Sure. What’s your offer?”
Abner braced himself. “What do you want?”
“A night in bed with you, naked, and you let me do anything I want.”
Clark and Dreda smiled, having seen that coming. Bunty’s face remained studiedly neutral.
“No.” But he remembered to say the word without special force. “What else will you trade for?”
“You wouldn’t have to do anything,” Nefer said. “You could just lie there. Just ignore me.”
As if she’d ever let him do that! “What else?” Abner repeated.
Nefer tried yet again. “When I kiss you, firm your lips a little. And when I put it in me, you just let it spout. Nothing else.”
He suppressed a violent negation. “That was not what I meant.” As she surely understood.
“What else?” Bunty inquired with tight control. She could afford to play the part of a jealous female.
The girl sighed. “A get out of jail free card.”
“A what?”
“The police catch me, I call you and you come bail me out, no questions.”
“Why would they let me do that?”
“They’ll think I’m your sopath mistress. Grist for the dossier. Blackmail ammunition. They’ll like that.”
“It would ruin my reputation!”
She nodded. “Maybe I’ll get killed first. Then you won’t have to pay.”
“But if it happens--”
“So maybe easier to have me in bed. I won’t tell.”
“My wife would be outraged.”
“Maybe not,” Nefer said. “She knows it’s just a deal, like buying a car.” As a sopath, she was not concerned with family loyalty.
Abner looked desperately at Bunty. Bunty looked at Nefer. “This would be a single night? No repeats?”
The girl hesitated, then agreed. “One shot. For this one deal. Other deals, other bargains.”
“Suppose I was there watching?”
Another hesitation. “If you didn’t interfere.” As a sopath she didn’t care about Bunty’s sentiments, just whether she would act to stop it.
“Before or after the assassination?”
“You’re pretty cunning,” Nefer said. “Okay, after. He’s normal; he’ll honor it.”
“I can’t say it appeals,” Bunty said. “But it’s a fair offer.”
She was giving the sopath hope! Now he understood Bunty’s strategy. Nefer would have no reason to be mad at her. Such anger could have deadly consequences. “No. I’ll make the get out of jail deal.”
“Suit yourself. Maybe next time we can fuck.” Nefer, disappointed, slipped out.
“She’s really, really sweet on you, daddy,” Dreda said.
“And she’s sort of pretty,” Clark said.
“And that’s enough of that,” Bunty said severely.
The children laughed. They had been teasing her.
An hour later Abner’s cell phone rang. It was Nefer. “I made the deal,” she whispered. “Three fucks for a small gun. He’s fetching the gun now. I’m naked in the back shed. I’ll hide the phone in my pile of clothes and leave it on.”
“Nefer, I can’t go there to rescue you!” Abner protested.
“I know, Mr. Slate. I just want you with me like this, so if it goes wrong you’ll know I really tried.”
What could he do? “I’ll listen.”
“Great. Here he comes. Bye.” There was a sound as she hid the phone.
“Here’s the gun,” a gruff man’s voice said. “You’ll get it after the third fuck tonight.”
“I know,” Nefer said. “Here’s my split. Remember, put it in slowly.”
“The hell.” There was the sound of him getting down on her.
“Not so fast! It hurts!”
He answered only with an urgent grunt.
Nefer screamed. But Abner knew her well enough to recognize it as a performance rather than real pain. She was acting like a halfway novice girl, rather than an experienced whore. If the man had a small penis, she might not be hurting at all, but she wanted him to think he was really forcing her.
Then he spoke again. “What’s that in your clothing?”
“My cell phone.” The scuffle must have exposed it.
“Let’s make sure it’s off, you little bitch.” Sudden
ly the connection broke.
Abner was left holding his phone, afraid to imagine what was happening. One thing was clear: Nefer really was doing it.
All he could do was wait, hoping for the best of this ugly transaction. It was hard to decide which was worse: what the girl was doing, or the way he had set her up for it. He certainly shared her guilt. He had knowingly sent a child to indulge in sex and murder.
Abner informed Bunty, who nodded. “We made a deal with the devil. But I hope she wins.”
That night there was a knock on their back door. It was Nefer. There was blood all over her dress. She saw him, smiled, and collapsed.
Abner picked her up and carried her inside. “She’s hurt,” he announced.
“Put her in my bed,” Dreda said. She kept her things in her room, but spent the nights sharing with Clark so as not to be alone. “It’s a sopath room.” Because Olive the sopath had used that room before her.
Bunty fetched a rubber sheet and laid it over the bed. Abner set the girl down. Nefer seemed to have lost consciousness; it wasn’t an act. Bunty examined the girl, then removed her clothing. “Stab wound, in the left forearm,” she said. “She’s lost blood.”
“Her dress is soaked,” Abner said.
“Not all of it is hers. Still, it’s bad enough.” She washed the arm, bandaged and bound it. Then she washed the rest of the girl’s body. “She had sex.” She cleaned that up too.
“They were into it when the phone connection cut off. Let’s hope she got him.”
“She must have. Obviously she managed to get close enough to use the knife.”
“She knew how,” he agreed, wondering how Nefer had managed to conceal the knife. Wouldn’t the pedophile have checked for that as well as for the phone?
“She’ll have to be watched tonight,” Bunty said. “She might run a fever, and there could be damage that doesn’t show, like a concussion. We’ll have to be ready to take her to the hospital if she goes into shock.” She fetched a nightie and worked it on to the girl’s body.
They took turns watching. Nefer slept fitfully but seemed to be all right. Around midnight, on Abner’s watch, she opened her eyes. “I got him.”
“And he got you,” Abner said.
“I had to wait until he got his cock--” she broke off, then corrected herself. “His penis into me before I stabbed him, when he was spouting. Then I did it.”
“That was the way,” Abner agreed, suppressing a wince. She was trying to honor the rules of the house about the vocabulary, but the reality remained ugly. “When he was distracted.”
“Yes. It had to be then, because he was alert the rest of the time. He’s done sopaths before. He fucks us, he doesn’t trust us. He knew to turn off the phone. He grabbed my knife before he died. Twisted it from my hand. Stabbed me. Then he dropped. I had to get out from under him. Couldn’t go home this way. Couldn’t explain. Mom would never understand. Had to hide until dark. Came here.”
“Yes. And I trust you also understand the other rules of the house. Harm any member of it and I will kill you regardless of any other deals.” He knew he had to make a threat she understood.
“I know, Mr. Slate. I’m on normal behavior here. I need you.” By normal she meant souled. She had no conscience, but she did understand civilized rules. And she did need the family, as people who could be trusted to help her and not to betray her. As long as she behaved.
“Good. We will take care of you.” He was relieved.
She gazed at him, evidently in pain. “I did it for you, Mister Slate. Please. One kiss?”
“Do it,” Bunty murmured behind him. “She earned it.”
Indeed she had. This much he could do. He went to the bed, leaned down, and kissed Nefer on the mouth, the way he knew she wanted. She met him with surprising passion. She smiled blissfully, sighed, and sank back into unconsciousness.
He watched her as she slept. She looked angelic. What irony! Yet she had one curious quality: she wanted his favor. He had not understood before getting to know her that a sopath could have such a desire. It was a revelation. It meant that the desire for approval was independent of conscience.
Nefer woke when Dreda came to relieve Abner. “You want to talk,” Nefer said to her.
“I’m not supposed to mess with you, just make sure you’re okay,” Dreda said uneasily.
“Talk about what?”
“Tell her,” Abner murmured, delaying his departure. He had half a notion what was bothering Dreda.
“My brother was a sopath,” Dreda said. “He tried to—to—”
“To fuck you,” Nefer said. “I mean, rape you.”
“Yes. He said he liked me, and he tried to do it, and I killed him.” She gulped, and continued. “You like daddy. So sopaths can like people. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him.”
“He lied. If he really liked you, he wouldn’t have forced you,” Nefer said dismissively. “He just wanted the fuck. I mean, the sex. Some boys do. Even some girls. It can be fun.” She sank back into sleep.
And there it was, confirmed, directly from a sopath. Nefer had said the same thing that Abner and Bunty had told Dreda at the outset. Abner could see that Dreda was immensely relieved. She had truly killed in self-defense.
And maybe he owed Nefer one, apart from the deal to kill the pedophile. Had she reassured Dreda because she wanted to please him? That seemed likely.
Later in the night Bunty rejoined him in bed. “Interesting sequence as Clark relieved me on watch,” she said. “He was nervous, and Nefer asked him what he wanted. She’s one sharp observer of people. He was mighty interested just where the man had put what. ‘He put his hard penis in there,’ she told him, showing her vagina and pointing. ‘It hurt, some. Then I stabbed him to death. The way Dreda did with her brother.’ That evidently satisfied Clark’s guilty curiosity.”
“From the horse’s mouth, again,” Abner said.
“She’s a sopath, but there are things to appreciate about her.”
“She’s trying to ingratiate herself with our family.”
“And succeeding,” Bunty said. “I don’t like any of this business, but we do need her for our dirty work.”
“We do need her,” he agreed morosely.
“You won’t have to have sex with her, Abner. She’s a sopath; the only way she knows to get the real appreciation of a man is sexual. That’s immediate and powerful. If you could persuade her that you liked or respected her in some other manner, I think she’d be satisfied.”
“What other manner?”
“I don’t know. I think we need to study her. We are already learning things we never discovered with our own sopaths. Maybe if we understood their positive qualities as well as their negative ones, we’d be better able to deal with them.”
“You are remarkably tolerant.”
“Just practical. We need to handle the sopath challenge, and ignorance won’t help.”
“You are surely right. You’re more objective than I am. I love you.”
She looked at him archly. “Are you just trying to get into my pants?”
He realized with surprise that he was turned on. “That too.”
“Then take it all,” she said, clasping him.
*
The item was in the morning newspaper. A criminal drug dealer, a known pedophile, had been stabbed to death by a person unknown. The conjecture was that one of his victims had done it. It was scant on detail, probably deliberately, so as to keep the likely sopath aspect out of the news.
The counter-message had been delivered: the criminal element would not be tolerated in this neighborhood. That assassination would be met by assassination. It was hardball. Would that be effective? Abner was gambling his reputation with Pariah that it would be, but only time would tell.
Meanwhile they had Nefer as a patient. She seemed somewhat recovered, but not ready to leave on her own power. She wasn’t faking it; she really was weak from blood loss. “Your family will be concerned,” Bunty told her
as she fed her some breakfast.
Nefer was surprised. “I guess so.” She was a sopath; she lacked empathy. Her concern of the night had been only to conceal her state from those who would not understand, complicating her life.
“Can you call them?”
“Sure.” Nefer found her cell phone and touched the number. “Mom? I had an accident and couldn’t make it home last night.” She paused. “Yes, I sneaked out. I’m sorry.” Another pause. “I’m at a friend’s house. It’s okay.” Another pause. Then she covered the mouthpiece. “She wants to know where. You’ll have to tell her. Name’s Johna Biggs.” She handed the phone to Bunty.
Bunty picked right up on it. “Mrs. Biggs? I’m Bunty Slate. It seems Nefer came over to see my daughter, but was intercepted by a sopath. She got away, but was stabbed in the arm. We had to take her in. She was unconscious much of the night, but seems to be recovering now. Yes, of course. Here is our address.” She concluded the call and returned the phone to Nefer.
“You’re a good liar,” the girl said admiringly.
“It was as close to the truth as she needs to know. She’s on her way here.” Bunty quirked a smile. “Does this count as fulfilling a get out of jail card?”
“No,” Abner said. “She got injured in the course of doing our dirty job. We still owe her the bail.”
“And you kissed me,” Nefer said. Then she closed her eyes and sank back into sleep.
“She’s right,” Abner said to Bunty. “You are a good liar.”
“We do what we have to do. All of our lives would be in jeopardy if word of her part in the assassination got out.”
“Remember,” Bunty cautioned the children. “Her folks don’t know she’s a sopath. You are now officially Nefer’s little friends.”
“Got it,” Dreda agreed.
“I can lie too.” Clark nodded in agreement.
Mrs. Biggs arrived, the woman Abner had seen in the store. She hurried to the girl. “My baby! We were so worried!”
“I was a bad girl,” Nefer confessed. “I snuck out and got in bad trouble.” Then she started crying.
Her mother was immediately comforting. It was clear that Nefer knew how to manage her.