The Mole took a breath-it was a long speech for him.

"I don't get it, Mole," I said. "You mean, if you have a problem, you reason backward and see how the problem started?"

"Yes."

"Could you figure out where cancer came from like that?"

"Yes," he said, again.

"So where did it come from?" I asked him.

"It would be too complicated for me to explain it to you," the Mole said.

"You mean I'm not smart enough?" I asked him.

The Mole turned his face slightly toward me, trying to explain. "You're smart enough. You don't have the background-the scientific knowledge. If it was in your world, you could do it."

"This picture is in my world," I told him.

"I know," he said.

I lit another cigarette, looking around the junkyard.

"Mole, show me how to do it."

The Mole sighed. "You understand-it only works if you have enough data."

I nodded.

"You know the Socratic method?" he asked.

"Where you ask questions to get at the truth?"

"Yes," he said, barely able to keep the surprise from his voice. You spend enough time in prison, you read more than comic books.

"Can we try it?"

"Yes. But not on cancer. Let me think."

I stubbed out my cigarette in the dirt next to the couch, waiting.

"You know about AIDS?" the Mole asked suddenly.

"Yeah, I guess. A superkiller."

"Where does it come from?"

"Nobody knows," I told him.

"I know," said the Mole.

I sat bolt upright on the couch. If he knew where AIDS came from, we could all be rich. "Tell me," I said.

The Mole held up his fist, index finger extended. He grabbed the finger with his other hand. Point number one.

"Did AIDS come from God? Is it God's punishment for something?"

"No" I said.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"God's been on vacation for fifty years from New York," I said. "You try Dial-a-Prayer here, all you get is a busy signal."

The Mole didn't say anything, still waiting for a Socratic answer.

"Okay," I said. "It's not God's punishment because little kids have it too. If God is punishing babies, we should have new elections."

The Mole nodded. It was good enough for him. He didn't hate the Nazis out of any religious conviction. The Mole worshiped the same god I did: revenge.

"How do people get this disease?" he asked.

"Sexual contact, blood transfusions, dirty needles," I said.

"If it comes from sex," he asked, "how did the first person get it?"

"It's something in the blood, right? Something where the blood doesn't make immunities like it's supposed to"

"Yes!" he said. "There has been some interference in the chromosomes to create the first cases. But how did that interference take place?"

"Nuclear testing?" I asked.

"No," he came back. "If that were so, far more people would have been affected. Especially people near the site of the tests."

"But what about if some people are…susceptible to radiation. You knowif it has a different effect on them than on other people."

"That is better-a better hypothesis. But it is too broad, too weak. Think of more experiments-experiments on people."

"Like they used to do on prisoners-like with malaria and yellow fever and stuff?"

"Yes!" he barked. "Experiments on people."

"Like the Nazis did in the camps?"

The Mole's eyes changed shape, like there was a different fuel in his reactor. "They experimented on us like we were laboratory rats. To make twins from the same egg…eliminate what they called genetic defectstest it on us before they used it on themselves."

"AIDS came from Nazi experiments?"

"No. They didn't have the scientific knowledge. Sadistic amateurs. They just wanted to torture people. They called it science. When doctors help the torturers.

I had to get the Mole off that topic. When he thought too much about the Nazis, the blood lust blocked everything else.

"So some other experiments?" I asked. "Something going on now?"

"Maybe…" he said.

"They don't let prisoners volunteer for that stuff anymore. They let us test some crap that was supposed to grow hair on bald people when I was down the last timebut no real heavy stuff."

"Where would the drug companies test?" he asked.

"Well, they test in Latin America, right? That fucking formula they wanted mothers to use instead of breast-feeding.

The Mole was coming around again. "Yes. Yes, now you are working. What else do we know about AIDS?"

"Haitians, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts, and homosexuals…the 4-H Club, right?"

"And why do the drug companies test in foreign countries?" the Mole asked.

"It's illegal here, right? But some countries-they let you do what you want as long as you got the bucks."

"In democratic countries?"

"Okay, Mole, I get it. The best country would be some outrageous dictatorship where the people do what they're told or they get themselves iced."

"Like…"

"LikeI don't knowIran, Cuba, Russia."

" Haiti?" the Mole wanted to know.

"Hell, yes, Haiti. I did time with a guy from Haiti. He told me this Papa Doc was the devil, straight up. And that his kid was the devil's son."

"Close to the United States?" said the Mole.

"Yes."

"Need money?"

"Sure."

"Dictatorship?"

"Yeah!"

"Would the leader care if some of his people were exposed to the grave risk of biochemical experiments?"

"No fucking way," I said. The Haitians who try and cross the ocean on rafts aren't looking for better social opportunities.

"Who goes to prison in Haiti?" asked the Mole.

"Anybody Baby Doc wants to put there," I said, thinking. "And dope fiends. Sure!"

"Homosexuals?"

"You better believe it, Mole. Damn!"

The Mole smiled his smile. It wouldn't charm little children. "The drug companies seek a cure for cancer…or any other great disease. The cure will make them rich beyond our imagination. This is the fuel that drives their engine. The scientists want to experiment, and they don't have the patience to test rats. And rats are not people."

I lit another smoke, saying nothing. The Mole was on a roll.

"So they make arrangements in Haiti to test their new drugs. On prisoners. Many of them in prison because of heroin addiction or homosexuality, yes? And they alter the genetic components of the blood with their experiments. The homosexuals do what they do inside the prisons. When they become obviously ill, the government disposes of some of them. But the drug companies don't want them all killed. Like when the government let those black men with syphilis go untreated years ago-they never treated them because they wanted to study the long-term effects. Some of the infected Haitians come to America. And when they have sex with others, the drug companies lose control of the experiment.

"And we have AIDS?" I asked him.

"It's one scenario," the Mole said, still thinking it over.

"Son of a bitch," I said, almost to myself.

Simba-witz rolled back into the clearing-we'd been there a long time. He saw us both sitting quietly, flicked his tail over his back, and faded away again.

"Mole," I said, "I've got a scenario about this picture I need to find. The way it was taken…Polaroid camera and allit was for sale. If it goes in a magazine, then it's in the stream of commerce and there's nothing I can do about it."

The Mole looked up, listening.

"But I don't think that's the deal," I told him. "I think it was taken for a collector-a private thing. If they put it in a magazine, someone could see it. Cause a lot of problems. I need some freak who gets off looking at this stuff. Not some money-makers. You understand? Someone who's got shoeboxes full of pictures like that."

The Mole nodded. It made sense-at least so far.

"So I need to talk to a collector-a serious, hard-core pedophile. Someone with the money to buy things like this. This is a no-consent picture, right? The freaks might trade copies back and forth, but I don't think it will get commercially produced."