By John Cosper

A quick glance at the photographs on the passenger seat, and Harris knew he was in the right place. He looked out his window to see the same type of lights and sights he first saw two days earlier when the packet of photos arrived. He hadn't been stationary a minute, and the half-naked women were approaching the car with their sales pitch. Careful not to hit any of the hookers or staggering drunks on the road, Harris nudged a head, finding a gap between two vehicles large enough for his. He parked, grabbed his photos, and moved quickly through the outstretched arms of hungry whores toward the nearest club.

Stepping inside, the place immediately looked familiar. His target had been here, he was certain. Music pulsated through every writhing body in the club, pounding like a tribal drum in Harris's head. He spotted the bar at the center of the club and made his way there.

A woman with barely a top on looked up from the other side of the bar. "What'll it be tonight, hun?" she asked.

"I'm looking for someone," he said.

She smiled, "You're in the right place."

Harris slid a photo across the counter. "Have you seen this man?"

The bartender glanced at the photo, and Harris could see her smile melt. She looked up sternly. "What sort of game you playing here?"

"I need to know where he is," said Harris. "And who is he?"

The bartender shook her head. "Guess you started drinking before you got here tonight." She popped the top on a drink, slid it into his hands, and walked away.

Harris snatched up the photo. He took a pull from the drink, and walked away from the bar, wondering what his next move would be. Fate was on his side, as a girl with a bar through her nose and blue hair approached him. "Hey, there," she said.

He smiled back. Looking beyond the hair and piercing, she was incredibly beautiful.

"Long time no see," she said. "How've you been?"

He shrugged. "Same as always."

She rubbed up against his front. "I like the sound of that. Wanna spend some time together?"

He thought about his wife, sitting home, angrier than she had ever been in her life. If this is what it took to fix things... "Sounds good to me."

She smiled, leaning to whisper in his ear. "Where to?"

Time to take a chance. "You know where I like to spend time."

She stepped back, a hungry look in her eyes. "I certainly do."

Just the break he needed. "Lead the way," he said.

-----------------

It was just after three o'clock when Jack emerged back on the street. Two years experience out there taught him that, while the streets were never safe, by three AM most of the more dangerous types were either asleep, stoned, or passed out. He could have stayed; Kimberly was always begging him to spend the night, but it was a long-standing policy of his never to wake up in someone else's arms.

Shadows moved. Echoes of activity in the distance flew in one ear and out the other as he walked briskly back to his place. Trouble only came when you stopped to ask the dangerous question: what was that? He paid no mind to the footsteps, nor to the silhouette of a man thrown on the buildings across the street by a fallen street lamp. Odds are the man was just as anxious to know Jack was not dangerous either.

He crossed the street. Jack turned his mind toward other things. Tomorrow night, he had dinner plans with Tammy - always Tammy on Thursdays. They were headed uptown, a dangerous venture for him, but Tammy enjoyed the cloak and dagger of following Jack uptown. Always got her hot, and Jack liked when Tammy got hot.

He crossed another street; there was no doubt, now, the footsteps were deliberately following him.

Jack saw the lights on at the little Greek place, one block from home. Could be a good place to stop, get a bead on who exactly was tailing him. Could be a nice place to trap himself in a corner.

Fear rules the streets, he reminded himself. The one who flinches, loses... and he'd come out on top in more than his share of encounters. The steps light, uneven... this cat was nervous. Jack smiled, his confidence growing. He would take the upper hand. The alley up ahead would be the place to do it.

He turned the corner, took a few steps, and positioned himself in the center of the alley. From here he could fight, or take flight. Plenty of hiding places in the darkness... though there was always the risk someone else more dangerous would be waiting. Nevertheless, Jack was confident he would win this one.

Until he saw the gun. That, in even a coward's hands, was an equalizer.

The trailer kept his face hidden in shadows. Jack could hear him breathing hard. He lifted his hands slowly, his mind racing in search of his next move.

"Step into the light, please," the man ordered.

Jack looked down to see where the street lights ended. He walked forward. "Slowly," the gun man ordered. Jack let the street lights touch his face and heard the other man gasp.

Harris could not believe his eyes. The pictures were not faked. He had found his man.

"What's your name?" Harris demanded.

"Jack Jansky," the other answered.

"Who do you work for?"

"No one," Jack answered.

"You're lying," Harris insisted.

"Am I?"

Harris threw the envelope of photos toward Harris's feet. "Explain those," he said.

"I'll have to have a look inside first," Jack answered.

"Slowly," Harris ordered.

Jack kept his eyes on the gun man as he stooped down. His right hand picked up the envelope. He pulled the photos out. There were pictures of him on Broad Street. Photos in the clubs. Photos with Tammy, Kimberly, and other girls, some whose names were long forgotten. He gazed up at the man in shadows. "You a photographer?"

"I'll ask the questions!" the gun man shot back.

"Have it your way," said Jack. "But if you're looking to blackmail me, you should know I have nothing to hide."

"Is that so?" Harris stepped forward. A shiver ran down Jack's spine as he recognized the face. Then, a smile creeped over his lips. He began to laugh.

"Dr. Michael Harris, I presume," said Jack.

"You do know who I am," said Harris.

"Better than you know yourself, Doc," said Jack.

"You did your homework?" asked Harris.

Jack nodded. "The Duality of the Soul, Adam's Will, Dr. Jeckyll's Sin. Won the Nobel Prize for science five years ago, quite a feat for a psychologist. Yes, I am quite familiar with your books. Pretty bold assertions regarding the evil that men do, and why."

Harris bristled at the man's smugness. "You seem to know a good deal about evil yourself," he said.

A grin was Jack’s reply. "How did you find me?"

"A friends of yours named Trish," said Harris. "Little girl with blue hair?"

"Ah, Trish," said Jack. "So she’s sporting the blue this week? That’s cool."

"Enough!" said Harris. "I want to know who you belong to."

"I belong to me," said Jack.

"You’re lying!" Harris shouted, holding the gun out further. "I want to know who gave you that face, who put you up to this!"

And then it hit him, what this was all about. Jack laughed. "I get it now. You think this is some frame job."

"Isn't it? My wife gets an unsigned package of photos of a man who looks just like me with other women?"

Jack shook his head. "Boy... I am sorry. I never dreamed this would happen. Poor Janice."

"What do you know about Janice?" Harris screamed. "You've ruined my marriage! Fifteen years of marriage!"

"Has it been that long?" Jack shook his head. "Dr. Harris, please accept my apologies. If I had foreseen this, I would have left town. Maybe the country. I never meant to embarrass you."

"You're lying again!!" Harris screamed.

"'There are two of each of us,'" Jack began, "The "I" we show the world, and the "I" that is our true self. Freud called the latter person the id. Biblical authors called it the sin nature. However you define it, the latter is an embarrassment to the former, a person we spent our lives trying to conceal for fear of how they might ruin us. Yet the awful truth is the id, the sin nature, is '"

Harris's arm fell under the weight of the gun. He stepped more closely toward Jack. "Who are you?"

Jack smiled. "Do you have to ask?"

Harris's head shook in disbelief. "It's not possible. You're not me."

"No," said Jack. "And I am not you, though once upon a time, I tried to make the world believe it."

Harris's mouth hung open in shock. Jack walked to the brick wall and leaned against it. "I thought I was you once. The good man, the faithful husband, the wise scientist. But what puzzled me was how someone so good and upright could have such insidious thoughts about adultery, not to mention a host of other sins. I hated myself for wanting to be so sinful. More than that, I hated myself for insisting I live the moral life. I hated being the hypocrite so much, I..." He laughed. "I guess I couldn't live with myself," he said.

A gentle rain had already started. The cool drops brought a sense of feeling to Harris. This wasn't a dream; his sin nature, manifested in the flesh, was responsible for the ruin his life was about to become.

"How did you do it?" Harris asked.

"Does it matter?" Jack asked.

"As a scientist, it might be useful."

Jack shook his head. "Better left in my head than yours. Better no one else suffers like you."

Harris felt Jack place a hand on his shoulder. Maybe he meant to be comforting, but the hand felt cold, menacing... evil.

"Ironic, isn't it? If we had gone on in the same body, I would have eventually destroyed myself, giving in to the lusts of the flesh. I found a way to split us apart so that you could go on living the good life, and look what happens?" Jack giggled. "I've destroyed you anyway." Jack's laughter swelled. "There's just no escape is there?"

The fire of anger burned from Harris's heart, through his chest, down his arm. He lifted the gun, aimed it right in Jack's surprised face, and pulled the trigger.

-------------

The police called around seven AM, and Janice was at the police station thirty minutes later. The damage to his face was so extensive, they wouldn't allow her to see the body. She made the identification from the clothing and personal effects. A young woman in uniform handed her the plastic bag containing Michael's watch and ring. She pulled the ring out and turned it over in her hand a few times. He had sworn it was a frame job; and yet his body was found on the very streets where the illicit photos, found on the ground beside him, were taken.

Janice looked at the sheet covering her husband's remains on the coroner's table and shook her head. Michael's entire life was devoted to studying the dual nature of man: a smiling, good persona that hid the evil within. A devoted scientist, unfaithful husband, he proved more in death than he ever did in life.

Copyright 2005 by John Cosper