I stared at him. He could have said, “She was my second grade guppy,” for all the remorse in his voice. “Your girlfriend?” I shot back incredulously. “Did you plant her in the clinic?”

“No, she worked there all on her own. She wanted to be that kind of nurse. I just asked her to do me a few favors.”

“Did you get the women’s names from her?”

“What names?”

“Beverly Morris. Alice Tresoe. Faye Zimmer.” I wondered if I would ever stop remembering their names.

“Yeah, I guess. We were just supposed to send them stuff. To keep them from killing their kids. She got their names off some list, women who were going to have abortions.”

“Faye Zimmer wasn’t going to have an abortion. She was fifteen years old,” I hissed at him.

“Oh,” he said. “I guess that was a mistake. I must have read the codes wrong,” he muttered.

“You read the codes?”

“It was an accident. I was picking up Betty one day and I just happened to see that secret file. Faye Zimmer had an A by her name. A for abortion.”

“How about A for adolescent?”

“I didn’t think of that,” he replied slowly.

“You stupid shit. You didn’t think.”

“Betty wouldn’t give me any more names. I thought she was on our side. I don’t know what went wrong,” he complained.

I roughly pulled him up. “I’ll tell you what went wrong. Betty really was pro-life. She started asking questions. And she realized your answers weren’t her answers.”

“She just didn’t understand.” It was almost a whine.

“And you murdered her,” I spat at him.

“No, no I didn’t. All I did was tell Will what she was going to do. He said he wanted to talk to her. I didn’t think he would—”

You unctuous little shit, I thought as I stared at him, you didn’t think. Betty was a problem and you handed her over to Will to solve. Will, who got his jollies out of ramming sharp, unsterile things up women’s vaginas and probing around until he found a major artery. You didn’t think because if you had thought for half a second you would have known you were handing Betty off to her death. How damned convenient to never let a thought enter your head.

“Like Pontius Pilate, you washed your hands of her and let someone else do your dirty work,” I hissed at him. Then I hit him as hard as I could, in a very soft place. He gave a strangled groan and crumpled to his knees.

But hitting him wouldn’t bring Betty back. And there were other lives to save now. I had to get the location of the bombs out of him, not beat him senseless.

We were starting to get attention, a crowd forming. I wanted them on my side.

“Where did you plant the other bombs? How many more people are you going to murder?” I yelled at him. “I’ll beat it out of you if I have to.” I jerked him up to half standing.

“I want to see my lawyer,” he cried. “You can’t just hit me. It’s not legal.”

One of those white boys the world has always been fair to, I thought. He can blow up people’s dreams, but we can’t hit him. Where were his legal protests when Betty Peterson was being murdered? I lost my temper again and jerked him fully upright, then punched him in the stomach. He staggered back, but was caught and held by someone in the crowd.

“Where are those bombs?” I screamed at him, grabbing his shirt and cocking my fist to hit him again.

“No,” he cried, putting his hands up to protect his face. “I’ll tell.”

“Where? The next one?” I demanded.

“Uh…that AIDS place on Decatur. At two thirty.”

I heard O’Connor’s voice behind me say, “Radio that in. Hurry.”

I didn’t give a damn. Let him arrest me. I didn’t let go of Choirboy.

“Next?” I demanded. “Next?”

“She’s beating me,” he whined to the police officers who were behind me. The only white male faces in the crowd.

“Next?” O’Connor echoed me.

Choirboy got a lesson in fairness. He mumbled out the entire list. O’Connor made no move to take him until he had gotten every scrap of information out of him. Only then did he motion two uniformed officers to take Choirboy from us, handcuffing him and dragging him off. He looked like a little boy, with his bloody nose and eyes red from crying. I had no sympathy for him.

“Well?” I demanded of O’Connor.

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Aren’t you going to arrest me?” I asked.

He grunted, then said, “No one’s pressed charges. Besides, it looked like self-defense to me.” He shrugged and started to walk away, but stopped for a second and threw over his shoulder, “You know, Miss Knight, I like your style.”

Then he sauntered into the crowd.

It’s over, I thought. Sarry dead, Choirboy in custody, Frankenstein… I looked over the crowd again, still half-expecting to see him. Logic said he was probably on his way to West Texas by now. But it was hard to find anything logical in him.

I stopped at the store and got some juice. It’s thirsty work beating up guilty choirboys.

Sister Ann was propped under the oak tree, with her ankle bandaged and gauze on her forehead. I offered her some of my juice. She looked hot and tired.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the bottle from me. She took a long swallow. “Here, take it back before I finish it.”

“Go ahead,” I offered.

“Sit beside me and we’ll share,” she compromised.

“Naw, finish it,” I said, there wasn’t much left. But I sat beside her anyway.

“What happened?” Sister Ann asked. “I haven’t seen him in—it must be thirty years.”

“He was crazy. It’s not your fault,” I said.

“I know. I do realize that. Still, it is sobering to be somehow connected with…this.” She gestured to indicate the destroyed building.