Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  "I seem to have a background of general knowledge that wasn't lost," Bone said, looking back and forth between the two men. "I suspect I'm fairly well educated, because that background of general knowledge seems broad; I keep finding out things that I know. But I can't remember specific events in the past, or anything at all about myself."

  The doctor ran a hand through his thinning, light brown hair. "I must say, considering the fact that you're just recovering from a serious illness, you look remarkably fit for a man who's been living on the streets. You have no idea of the condition some of the people the street squads—"

  "Street squads?"

  "That's what we call the mobile squads that work for the HRA the city's Human Resources Administration. The people they bring us are usually suffering from things like tuberculosis, scabies, frostbite and even an occasional case of plague or cholera. Almost all of them have to be deloused before we put them in a bed. During the winter and early spring, hardly a day goes by that we don't have to amputate some homeless person's fingers or toes because of gangrene caused by frostbite—and it's not unusual for us to be cutting off the digits of somebody we've worked on before. You're a striking exception to the usual kind of homeless person we usually get in here."

  "Why does the city allow it?"

  "Allow what?"

  "People to live on the streets who are dying of tuberculosis and the other things you mentioned. How can they let people freeze in the winter?"

  "If you want to discuss social reform, you've got the wrong person. It's not my field."

  "That's right, I forgot," Bone said. "You're an internist."

  If the young physician detected the sarcasm in Bone's voice, he didn't indicate it. "That's correct."

  "Why am I in a secure ward, Doctor?"

  The other man's brown eyes searched Bone's face, then looked away. "That's an interesting bit of the 'general knowledge' you mentioned; you not only have the concept of a secure ward, but you know you're in one."

  "What have I done?"

  "That would be my department," the well-dressed man with the milky eye at the far end of the room said, speaking in a casual tone as he walked to the foot of the bed and rested his forearms on the brass rail there. "Are you finished, Doctor?"

  "The pills," Graham said, pointing to the cup on the tray. "They're your antibiotics; take them, please."

  Bone put the pills in his mouth, washed them down with orange juice.

  "He's all yours, Lieutenant," the doctor continued matter-of-factly as he made a note on Bone's chart, then walked quickly from the room.

  "You're a policeman?"

  "Detective Lieutenant Perry Lightning, New York Police Department. Why don't you eat your food before it gets cold?"

  Bone drank the rest of his juice, then started in on the two eggs and three strips of bacon he found under the metal top of the covered dish. The food was already cold—but it was good, and he wondered if they would bring him more if he asked for it. As he finished the bacon and eggs, sipped coffee, then turned his attention to the cereal and toast, he felt oddly at peace. For better or worse, he thought, he was about to find out something about the stranger; if the stranger was a criminal, well, there was nothing he could do about it. To have a kind of witness, even a hostile one, to the behavior of the stranger in the past that was lost to him was a relief, and strangely reassuring. He thought he would trade almost any bad dream for the nightmare of having no past at all.

  "Sometimes, for a man in my position, it helps to have an unusual name," the detective continued in an easy, conversational tone. "It helps people to remember him. What about you? What's your name?"

  Bone ate the last slice of toast, then looked up into the other man's face. There was a straight-backed chair in the room, but Lightning gave no indication that he wanted to sit. Instead, he came around to the side of the bed and stood over Bone, very close, and this magnified his strong physical presence. Despite the man's easy tone, there was no doubt in Bone's mind that Detective Lieutenant Perry Lightning meant to be intimidating, and he found that this didn't particularly bother him.

  Interesting, he thought; the stranger was not easily intimidated. "I don't know," he replied evenly, pushing the table with the tray away from him and forcing the detective to step back. "I can't remember."

  "Well, people have to call you something. You like the name John Doe?"

  The man had moved forward again, and was standing so close that his broad chest was only inches from Bone's nose. Bone pushed himself back in the bed, drew his legs up and crossed them Indian-style. "Bone," he said.

  "Bone? You call yourself 'Bone'?"

  "It's what other people called me during the year or so I spent on the streets—and I think you know that."

  "I like to get my information firsthand. Do you remember people calling you that?"

  "No; not before I woke up in the park. Do you think I'm putting on some kind of act?"

  "Are you?"

  "No."

  "Is that what you were doing in the park, sleeping?"

  Bone leaned his back against the wall and studied the other man's stern features, the hard light in his black eyes only partially eclipsed by the milky spot in the left, the compressed, grim line of his mouth that contrasted so sharply with his casual, almost friendly, tone of voice. "I don't know what I was doing in the park before I became aware of those three people from the HRA standing in front of me. The first thing I remember is hearing the woman's voice, and it sounded far away. It was dark; I couldn't see anything. Then I got my vision back and I could see the three of them. I remember everything that's happened since, except for the time I was unconscious. I use the term 'wake up' because that's what it felt like, and that's how I think of it. Have I committed a crime?"

  "Have you?"

  "This is going to get us nowhere, Lieutenant. You do think I'm putting on an act, so you're playing games with me. Believe me, I really want to know what it is you suspect I did—or what I did. It would make things easier for me."

  "You really think so?"

  The tone had changed, and something in the other man's voice and eyes made Bone extremely uncomfortable. "I don't know," he replied softly. "What I'm saying is that I very much want to regain my memory."

  "Sometimes the mind plays very strange tricks on people, Bone," Perry Lightning said, his tone once again easy, conversational. "You say you want to remember, but maybe you really don't. Maybe you have the need to block one or two things you don't want to remember, and the only way for you to do it is to block out everything."

  "Does that mean you're giving me the benefit of the doubt when I tell you that—for whatever reasons—I can't remember anything that ever happened to me before I came around in the park?"

  The policeman took a cigarette from a pack in his suit jacket pocket, placed it between his lips but did not light it. "I'd like to ask you some questions."

  "I thought that was what you've been doing."

  "What I've been doing is enjoying a casual conversation with you about the state of your physical and mental health, Mr. Bone."

  Bone smiled thinly. "Just 'Bone' will do, Lieutenant."

  "Before I formally ask you any questions, I have to tell you that anything you say to me could be used against you in a court of law, and I have to ask if you would like a lawyer present while I question you. If you can't afford a lawyer, which clearly seems to be the case, the city will provide you with one free of charge. Do you want me to get you a lawyer, Bone?"

  "No, thank you."

  "Does what I just said mean anything to you?"

  Bone thought about it. "It's the Miranda ruling," he said at last, not knowing where the knowledge had come from.

  Perry Lightning's thick eyebrows lifted slightly. "I'm impressed. Has anyone ever said those words to you in the past?"

  "I don't remember. I just know what the words mean."

  "Let me tell you something, Bone: for a man who supposedly can't remember anything, y
ou seem to remember a whole hell of a lot of things. How do you explain that?"

  "I can't," Bone replied evenly, meeting the other man's steady gaze. "I've told you that I seem to have a fairly good background of general knowledge; and certain facts, or knowledge of what things mean, surface from time to time. But I can't remember anything about myself. I'm being straight with you, Lieutenant."

  Perry Lightning grunted noncommittally, then stepped back and went around to the foot of the bed. He bent down to the floor, came up holding a large paper bag that had been hidden from Bone's view. Lightning reached into the bag with his left hand, drew out a small tape recorder and microphone. He turned on the recorder, then set the apparatus down on the bed a few inches from Bone's right thigh. He came back around the bed, placed the paper bag close to Bone's feet.

  "Bone, have I informed you of your rights under what you yourself informed me is the Miranda ruling?"

  Bone sighed. "Yes, you have, Lieutenant."

  "And have you waived your right to have an attorney present while I question you?"

  "That's correct. Let's get on with it, Lieutenant."

  "Let me tell you something, Bone," the police detective said in a low, rumbling voice that now seemed almost tinged with sadness. His eyes, as they stared into Bone's, seemed even brighter. "I've been in the police business a long time, close to twenty years, and I've seen some of the damnedest things; but this business about you supposedly losing all but bits and pieces of your memory has to be the strangest. You can cite the Miranda ruling to me, and yet you say you can't remember even the tiniest detail about yourself."

  "That isn't quite accurate, Lieutenant," Bone said evenly. "I told you I don't remember anything about myself prior to a week ago, when I first became aware of events and my surroundings."

  Lightning's gaze shifted to the ceiling, as if he were looking for cracks. "I mentioned before how, and why, a man will let his mind play very powerful tricks on him. For example, in the past I've come to know very hardened criminals—murderers, some of them—who, deep down, really wanted to be caught. Maybe they got tired of the hassle of offing people and then worrying about having the police on their trail. Or maybe their consciences began to catch up with them. For whatever the reason, Bone, I've seen many a killer roll over, drop right off and sleep like a baby after he became convinced that we really had the goods on him and he was going to be put away. These men are deeply relieved, Bone. It was peace of mind they were looking for."

  "I've been sleeping very well, Lieutenant, thank you."

  "You've been very sick."

  "I don't feel guilty about anything."

  "But then, you're a special case, aren't you?"

  "Why don't you just tell me what you're getting at, Lieutenant? What are you accusing me of?"

  "Do you still claim not to remember anything before you squatted down in the Sheep Meadow?"

  "I don't even remember squatting. I don't know where I came from, or what I was doing there. I only remember waking up. I don't 'claim it,' Lieutenant; it's true."

  Lightning removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth, carefully put it back in the pack, then replaced the pack in his suit jacket pocket. He pulled a chair over next to the bed, sat down and casually crossed his legs. Apparently, Bone thought, the other man's attempt to intimidate him with his physical presence was over; yet, rather than feeling relieved, he felt the tension in him increasing. The police detective was a dangerous adversary, certainly in possession of knowledge he had not yet revealed, and the stranger had nothing with which to defend himself but the truth.

  "All right," Lightning said easily, "just for the sake of argument, let's say I believe you. Why do you suppose you ended up in that particular place at that particular time?"

  "I don't know. It might help me remember if I knew the precise locations where people had seen me in the past, and if these people would tell me what I was doing. Did you ever see me out there on the streets, Lieutenant?"

  "I'd like to ask you some specific questions concerning certain crimes—"

  "Why won't you answer my question?"

  Lightning slowly uncrossed his legs, leaned forward in the chair. "We're here to have you answer my questions, Bone, not the other way around. I was about to say that I want to ask you about certain crimes that have been committed within the confines of New York City." He paused, and without taking his eyes off Bone's face reached with his left hand into the paper bag on the bed near Bone's feet. He drew out an object that was sealed inside a translucent plastic bag that had a large, yellow, numbered tag on it. "Do you recognize the object inside this bag?"

  Bone nodded. "It looks like the bone I was carrying—holding—when I woke up in the meadow."

  "Where did you get it?"

  "I don't know."

  "Do you know that it's a human bone?"

  "I heard Dr. Hakim mention it. It's a femur—a thighbone."

  "Now, why do you suppose you'd have carried a human thighbone around with you for a year?"

  "I don't know—and I want to know. Obviously, it meant something to me." He paused, glanced over the detective's shoulder at the closest of the two mesh-covered windows. It was raining outside, and, as if echoing from another world, he could hear the faint sound of wind and rain lashing against the side of the building. He continued quietly, "When I find out where I got the bone, and why I carried it with me everywhere, then maybe I'll have the key to who I am, and what happened to me."

  "Did you ever hit anyone with it?"

  Bone looked quickly from the window to the other man's face, which remained impassive. "I don't know, Lieutenant; I hope not."

  "Our lab technicians found traces of human blood and hair in the cracks at one end of this little trinket of yours, Bone. It's amazing what those lab boys and girls can do, don't you think? I went after being deluged with rain and sunk in the mud, the traces of blood and hair were still there—and the lab people found them. It looks to me like you used this bone, at least once, to club somebody. Does that bit of information tickle your memory at all?"

  Lightning again raised his eyebrows slightly, obviously waiting for a reply. Bone said nothing. Despite his former resolve to give himself the benefit of any doubt, he was becoming increasingly suspicious of the stranger, and was once again feeling split—a pair of eyes haunting someone else's body.

  Lightning put the bone back into the bag and drew out a much smaller object, also wrapped in plastic and marked with a yellow tag. "Do you recognize this?" he asked in a soft, flat, neutral tone as he held the object out to Bone.

  Bone took the plastic bag, held it up against the bank of fluorescent lights directly over his bed. Inside something metallic gleamed—a small heart-shaped locket, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, on a fragile-looking gold chain. On the back of the locket, just barely legible on the time-worn metal, were the engraved initials MHK. He turned the bag around repeatedly in his fingers, staring intently at the inlaid front, the engraved initials on the back, straining to find some link between this object and the stranger's past. There was nothing, and finally he gave it up.

  "No," he said quietly, holding the bag with the locket out to the detective.

  Perry Lightning ignored the locket, kept staring hard into Bone's face. "Are you sure?" he asked tightly. "That locket doesn't mean anything to you?"

  Bone set the bagged locket down next to him on the bed, next to the running tape recorder. "It doesn't mean anything to me, Lieutenant. It might help if you told me why you think it should mean something to me."

  "You were wearing it around your neck."

  Bone snatched up the locket and chain inside the plastic bag, once again held the bag up to the light. MHK. "It's a woman's locket," he said tightly, feeling his heartbeat quicken. "It could belong to a relative. It's old. The initials; maybe my mother . . ."

  "It didn't belong to your mother unless she was a bag lady," the other man said in a voice that had again become soft, neutral.

  Bone gl
anced up into the detective's dark eyes, saw the intensity there behind the impassive features, knew the man was gauging his reaction.

  "We got lucky with that locket," Perry Lightning continued in the same flat tone as he continued to stare hard at Bone. "An acid bath brought up those initials, and a date which you can only see if you look at it just right, from an angle. There were also traces of hair and body oils that weren't yours. One thing led to another, and we were finally able to match that locket to a crazy but harmless old bag lady by the name of Mary Kellogg. Middle name: Helen. There are lots of records on Mary. Mary heard voices, and it seems those voices made her do a lot of crazy things. Almost thirty years ago her two children and some other relatives decided that she'd be better off in a mental hospital. As a matter of fact, she was; the doctors found a proper balance of medication, and she functioned pretty well, considering the fact that she was a schizophrenic. Then the state started emptying the mental hospitals, and Mary was sent off to a residential treatment facility in Queens. It seems she didn't much like it there, so she split. They brought her back, and she split again. Finally, she just fell through the cracks. Either her kids and relatives didn't care enough to take the trouble to look for her, or she didn't want to be found—a lot of them don't. For the past twenty years or so she's been living on the streets of New York."

  Bone swallowed hard, found that his mouth was very dry. He had thought the truth about the stranger could not be worse than the void in his mind, and now he realized that that wasn't necessarily true at all. He thought of a tormented woman growing old on the streets, suffering in the wind and the snow and the sun and the cold and the rain, and his eyes misted with tears. "Maybe my name is Kellogg," he said in a choked voice, clenching the locket in his trembling fist and looking away. "Maybe I'm one of those relatives. The woman could have been my mother—or grandmother. Maybe I did come looking for her, and something happened. Lieutenant, if I could just talk to this woman, there's a possibility—" He stopped speaking when he glanced back, saw Perry Lightning slowly shaking his head.

  "Her two children are a lot older than you, Bone. They've been accounted for, and so have their children. And you can't talk to Mary Kellogg. She was murdered nine days ago sometime between two and four in the morning—the same morning of the same day, incidentally, when you plopped yourself down in the Sheep Meadow. Her body, and that of a homeless old man we still haven't been able to identify, was found on the steps of a Presbyterian church on Fifth Avenue. The church is less than five blocks from Central Park, by the way."