“No.”
“I’m not going to let you kill my brother, Dixon.”
“And what about all the other people he’ll kill, if he gets away? I suppose you’ll blame their deaths on the bad Jane, too.”
“Dixon—”
“Go ahead,” he said, staring me down. “Pull the trigger. Prove me right.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No…” Relaxing my grip, I let the gun drop. It bounced off the catwalk and vanished into the light.
Behind the pebble glasses, I caught the tiniest flicker of relief. “That’s better,” Dixon said. “Now—”
Before he could finish his sentence, I dipped my hand in my pocket and came out holding the bad Jane’s knife.
“I’m not going to let you kill my brother,” I repeated. “But you’re wrong about the rest of it. I take full responsibility. For everything. For Phil.”
Then I flicked open the blade and stepped towards him.
white room (viii)
“SO YOU KILLED DIXON TO PROTECT your brother.”
“No, I killed Dixon because I didn’t protect my brother…and because I finally realized I couldn’t save him.”
The doctor shakes his head. “I don’t understand. If you thought Phil couldn’t be saved—”
“I didn’t say that. I said I couldn’t save him. The bad Jane was right about that much: I’d missed my one chance, and all I could do now was get him killed…But Phil could still save himself.” She looks the doctor in the eye. “I don’t care what the Troop did to him, what they made him do, I have to believe there’s some part of him that’s not irredeemable. He was a good kid, you know? He deserved better than me for a sister…But I was what he got, and if I wasn’t strong enough to bring him home, I could at least buy him some more time to find his own way back.
“So that’s my story.” She shrugs and sinks back in the chair. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Jane.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I could point out some more holes in the narrative, if you like,” the doctor says. “I could tell you that there have been no reports of bodies found at the Venetian: no butchered guests up in the penthouse, no mimes with their throats slit beside the Grand Canal. I could tell you that the security guards at the Luxor are quite certain there was only one Jane, not two, running amok in the casino that night, and none of them witnessed any laws of physics being broken—just a lot of punching and kicking. I could tell you that, but then you’ll tell me that Catering covered up what really happened, and if that explanation still leaves a few loose ends, well, it’s a Nod problem.”
“Good to see you finally catching on,” she says. “So what about Dixon? What did they make him out to be? Another security guard? A hotel employee who got in my way?”
“He was a social worker,” the doctor tells her.
“Dixon, a social worker?” She laughs. “That’s rich! Let me guess: he worked with street people, right? Deranged street people?”
“Homeless addicts.”
“Sure, of course. And that night—don’t tell me—that night, he just happened to be passing through the Luxor and heard one of his new clients had gone berserk. So he decided to help track me down and ended up getting stabbed for his troubles.”
“The police don’t know how Dixon came to be in that room with you. But that scenario sounds plausible.”
“Yeah, except for one thing: I’m not deranged. I mean, my story’s crazy, I know that, but I’m lucid.”
“You’re lucid now,” the doctor says. “But that night?”
“Yeah, well…Those X-drugs really were something. Too bad I won’t be getting any more.”
“Jane—”
“I talked to Phil again, you know,” she says. “I mean, not really…But after I killed Dixon, when I was sitting at the top of the stairs waiting to see if the cops or the Clowns would come for me first, I pretended Phil was there with me. I told him I was sorry. I’d never done that, you know, in all the conversations we’d had, but this was like the last time, so I apologized for being such a lousy sister, for leaving him that day…I told him that no matter what bad things he’d done for the Troop, it wasn’t his fault, it was all on me. I said I hoped he’d find a way to get free of them—that he could, I knew he could, if he really wanted to.”
“And what did Phil say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He just listened.” She looks the doctor in the eye again. “I hope he listened.”
Before the doctor can respond, his pager goes off.
“Time to go?” She sounds disappointed.
“I have to step out for a moment,” the doctor says. “But I would like to talk some more. If you don’t mind waiting…?”
“No, I don’t mind.” She shows him her bracelets again. “It’s not like I’ve got anywhere to be.”
He stands up and reaches for the tape recorder, then hesitates. “Did she say anything else?”
“Who?”
“The bad Jane. Before you dropped her—did she say anything else about Phil, or the Troop?”
“No. I mean, it’s not like she was super-articulate with my fist in her chest. It was all she could do to scream out a few words…Why?”
“Just curious,” the doctor says. He presses the STOP button on the recorder. “I’ll be back shortly…”
He goes to the door and tries to open it, but it’s been locked from the outside. “Guard?” he calls. “I’m ready to come out now…Guard?” He raises a fist, knocks. “Guard!”
Behind him, there is a thunk of handcuffs hitting the table. He looks over his shoulder. She is leaning forward, aiming a bright orange pistol at him. “What on earth…?” he says. “Where did you…?” Then he sees it: the black tile in the floor has been flipped up to reveal a compartment underneath.
“Phil,” she says.
He blinks. “Is this some kind of joke? Did…Did Dr. Chiang put you up to this?”
“It’s no joke, Phil. I wish it was.”
He stares at her for a moment, glances at the tape recorder, and then he is hammering on the door. “Guard!…GUARD!”
“There’s no one out there to help you, Phil. This isn’t the county jail. You’re in an ant farm in the desert.”
He stops pounding. He turns around slowly, a new expression on his face.
“Yeah,” she says. “Sorry. I lied to you about Dixon: I probably would have killed him, but he was smart enough not to give me a reason. By the time he showed himself on the catwalk, the strike team was already on its way, and he sent them in with strict orders to take you alive—not because he’s a nice guy, you understand, but because even he didn’t dare break the deal Love made with me…Love said the Clowns had a way to trick your memory, make you think you’d come to me on your own, to pump me for intel, which would give me a chance to try to reach you. Dixon said it would never work, that you had no conscience left for me to reach, but I told Love I was sure I could pull it off…” She sighs. “But I was wrong about that, wasn’t I, Phil?”
She picks up the tape recorder and slams it down hard. The case splinters, revealing the flat disc of the Mandrill bomb inside. There’s a nervous pause as they both wait for the timer to finish counting down, but when it reaches zero, there’s no explosion, just a short buzz. A word appears in the digital readout:
SHIBBOLETH
Then the lead h flickers and goes out:
SHIBBOLETH
“Jane,” he says. “I can explain…”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you can,” she says. “But there’s not much to explain, is there? It was a simple test. You didn’t have to confess, or break down crying, or anything dramatic like that. All you had to do was walk out of this room without trying to kill me.”
“Jane…Jane, please.”
“I’m sorry, little brother. I tried. I gave you every chance I could. But this is my half of the deal…”
“Jane!”
/> “Bad monkey,” she says.
She pulls the trigger.
The NC gun makes no sound.
He convulses. One hand grabs the knob of the door behind him; the other flies up to his chest. A strangling noise issues from his throat; his face reddens and his eyes bulge. Her eyes widen, as she leans farther forward, taking it all in. His knees start to buckle.
And then, right at the point where he should fall dead of a heart attack, he catches himself. He stops gasping for breath. His legs straighten and his arms return to his sides.
She pulls the trigger again. Once again the NC gun is silent, but it’s a different kind of silence—the kind that signifies impotence. This time he doesn’t react to the shot. He stands tall, his face returning to its normal color. She switches the gun’s dial from MI to CI, aims straight at his head, and tries once more.
Nothing. He doesn’t even blink.
She is not pleased with this outcome.
“Phil,” she says.
“Jane,” he replies.
“You’re not the ant in this ant farm, are you?”
“No.”
“I am.”
“Yes.”
“Well, fuck,” she says, and tosses the useless gun on the table.
There’s a knock at the door. Phil steps aside, and Dixon enters the room. She greets him with a sour look.
“How long have you known?” she asks.
“That you are a deep-cover agent, working for the Troop? From the beginning,” Dixon says. He gestures to Phil. “We were warned about you.”
“Then why recruit me?”
“As an experiment. We’d been aware for some time that the Troop was attempting to infiltrate the organization. We’d enacted countermeasures, but were uncertain how effective they were. Recruiting you offered us an opportunity to test them.”
“So the idea was to see how long it would take to catch me if you didn’t already know?”
“Yes.”
“It was a lot harder than you thought, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Dixon says. “Of course I expected you to be a good actress, well practiced in passing yourself off as a charming misfit rather than the monster that you really are, but your ability to fool shibboleth devices came as a shock. Your emotional control was remarkable, especially in someone who seemed so impulsive. For a while I almost despaired of catching you out.”
“So what finally tipped it?” She glances at Phil. “Him?”
Dixon nods. “Even the most self-controlled person is subject to temptation. You were able to conceal your enthusiasm for more mundane acts of evil, but I thought your composure might crack if you were presented with a chance to commit a truly extraordinary sin.”
“So you sent me to hunt down my own brother.”
“To kill him, on the pretense of saving him.”
“How’d you know I’d go for it, though? I mean, if he’s really Troop, then we’re technically on the same side.”
“Technically,” Dixon says. “But it is true, isn’t it, that your brother’s abduction by the Troop was no coincidence?”
“Of course it wasn’t a coincidence,” she says. “He was my ticket in. They wanted a sacrifice to prove that I was serious. But they didn’t tell me they were going to adopt him.”
“I assumed as much. I thought the discovery that your brother was not only alive, but occupying a position of importance in an organization to which you were little more than a peon, would undermine whatever loyalty you had.”
“So this whole thing…” She waves a hand at the room. “This…play…It was all so you could read my heart the moment I pulled the trigger?”
“Yes,” Dixon says. “And the results, I’m happy to report, are conclusive. You’re evil.”
“Yes I am,” she says, unable to resist a smile. “But you know, you didn’t have to go to so much trouble. You could have just asked my mother.”
“Perhaps I would have, if she were still alive.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame about that. You know they never found the truck that hit her?” She sees Phil bristle and her smile broadens. “So what happens now? You turn me? Make me a double agent?”
Dixon shakes his head. “You’re a bad monkey. Now that that’s out in the open, the organization has no further use for you.”
“Right.” She nods, then shrugs, accepting the inevitable. “Oh well, I had a nice run. Did some good damage along the way.”
“Some,” Dixon agrees. “But less than you believe…The beginning was real,” he explains. “But after the Arlo Dexter mission, Cost-Benefits became concerned that it was too dangerous to leave you running around loose, even under close surveillance. True began pressuring me to kill you and be done with it. Ultimately I convinced him to accept an alternative. We gave you to the Scary Clowns. Everything that has happened to you since you met Robert Wise has been simulated.”
“Simulated,” she says. “You mean the Ozymandias facility…The diner…Vegas…?”
“Dreamscapes and ant farms, all of it.”
“No way! That…They can’t do that!”
“Love will be pleased his illusions were so effective. It turns out I owe him an apology. When I first saw the script his people had prepared, there were a number of plot twists that I was sure would give the game away. But the Clowns’ understanding of human gullibility is greater than mine.”
She thinks about it. “X-drugs don’t exist?”
“Drugs that allow you to stop time and fly around like a martial-arts superhero? No, they don’t exist.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing…So if the scene at the diner never happened, that means—”
“True and Wise are both still alive,” he says. “Oh, and Love didn’t have a heart attack.”
“What about John Doyle?”
“Bad Monkeys killed him twenty years ago.”
“And the bad Jane?”
“Roberta, actually. Roberta Grace. My protégée. She’s already back at Malfeasance, preparing to use what we’ve learned from you to weed out the Troop’s other moles.”
“And what about him?” she asks. “Is he really my brother?”
“Yes. And he really does work for the Troop. But really, he works for the organization.”
“How? He was ten when they took him. Don’t tell me you recruited him before that.”
“No, and we didn’t recruit him afterwards, either. He came to us. The Troop’s indoctrination specialists had done their best, but your brother proved to be something they never planned on. Incorruptible.”
“Incorruptible!” She snorts. “The little shit just didn’t have what it takes to be a bad monkey, that’s all!”
“You asked on the day we met, what it is that I want,” Dixon says, ignoring her outburst. “The answer is: to demonstrate the futility of evil. You and your brother, each in your own way, have helped me do that. But your part of the demonstration is over now.”
He opens his coat to reveal another NC gun. This one does not resemble a toy. It’s black, and its dial has only two active settings. Dixon draws it from its holster, then turns to Phil and asks with uncharacteristic deference: “May I?”
“No,” Phil says. “She’s mine.”
“Of course.” Dixon hands off the pistol, and brushes his palms together as if wiping away dust. “Good-bye, Jane Charlotte,” he says. “We won’t meet again in this life—or in the next, I hope.” He leaves the room.
“Prick,” she says, as the door shuts behind him. Then she looks at Phil and her demeanor softens. “So, little brother. I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Are they?”
“Don’t be a sore winner, Phil.”
“You think this is winning for me, Jane?”
“Bad monkey dies, good monkey lives to fight another day…”
“That’s Dixon’s victory,” he tells her. “Dixon took for granted that you passed the shibboleth tests by hiding your true self. I was hoping that there might be another expla
nation.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “You actually thought I might be good?”
“Conflicted, let’s say.”
“Oh my God…You wanted to redeem me.” She shakes her head in wonder. “How has the Troop not seen through you yet?”
“The answer to that is simple enough. Evil people are easy to fool.”
She laughs. “Guess I can’t argue with that. Still, I don’t know what the hell you were thinking. After what I did to you…”
“About that,” he says. “I know I probably can’t trust your answer on this, but I have to ask: When you gave me to them, was that…Did you hate me?”
“Was it personal, you mean? Eh, not so much…Mom was personal,” she says. “Definitely. But with you, well, it was a little personal maybe—you were my brother, after all—but mostly it was just, what did Dixon call it, ‘a truly extraordinary sin’? Yeah. I guess I do have a weakness for those.” She looks over at the door, not too hopefully. “So listen, I know you can’t let me get away clean, but is there any chance I can talk you into giving me a thirty-second head start?”
“Sorry, Jane.”
“Fifteen seconds, then. Come on, Phil, you said you wanted to save me. I could still have a change of heart.”
“If you do, you’ll have to take it up with God. How do you want it?”
“Yeah, OK…I’ll take the stroke. Less painful than the heart attack, and maybe I get a nice light show on the way out.”
He nods, and fixes the dial on the CI setting. He takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly.
His efforts to steel himself are a fresh source of amusement to her: “Jesus, Phil, I’d have shot you ten times already.”
“Sorry,” he replies, but still he hesitates. She watches him, drawing strength from his ambivalence. As the gun comes up, she is calm, and her final words are almost kind.
“It’s all right, little brother,” she says. “I’m ready. Send me to Nod.”
Acknowledgments
FIRST, THANKS TO THE USUAL SUSPECTS: my wife, Lisa Gold; my agent, Melanie Jackson; and my editor, Alison Callahan. Thanks also to Lydia Weaver, Olga Gardner Galvin, Jeanette Perez, Matthew Snyder, Harold and Rita Gold, Kathy Cain, Charles McAleese, Michael Hilliard, and my unpaid P.R. staff at Queen Anne Books: Patti McCall, Cindy Mitchell, Tegan Tigani, Lillian Welch, Hilary Vonckx, Torrie Marshall, Hollis Giammatteo, Mary Helbach, Irene Piekarski, Anne Wyckoff, and Nichole Mogen.