Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  Finally Harry allowed himself to fall down off the curb, and he began crawling on his hands and knees along the gutter, searching in the trash and dirt there for the familiar feel of the bottle—and he found it at last. Still on his knees, he clutched the bottle with trembling hands and lifted it to his mouth. There was still some of the raw, cheap liquor left in the bottle, and he swallowed it thirstily. Then it was gone, and he threw the bottle away from him into the street; there was the sound of shattering, then glass shards skittering along the concrete. Harry struggled to his feet, lurched back up on the sidewalk and staggered to the south, often pausing to peer into the darkened storefronts he passed along the way; with luck, he thought, he just might find somebody who'd passed out and left a bottle nearby.

  He went into the next block, stumbled into a darkened storefront—and suddenly found himself clutched by strong arms. Startled, he cried out in fear and tried to pull away, but the arms and hands held him firmly. Maybe he was hallucinating, he thought with hope born of panic and desperation; the skin that touched his didn't feel like skin at all. Whatever held him was not human.

  "It's all right, Harry," a low voice said. "I've got you. You won't fall. You're safe with me."

  Harry blinked, searching in his liquor-soaked mind for the memory of where he had heard that voice before. A car passed, and in the brief flash of headlights Harry saw that he was being held by a figure dressed all in shiny orange, with the same material that he had thought was skin coming up around the figure's neck and partially obscuring his face. One hand left Harry's arm, went up and pulled down the collar. Immediately, Harry recognized the face.

  "Hi," Harry said, smiling self-consciously.

  "You're drunk, Harry. Have you eaten anything today? I know they won't let you into the shelter."

  Harry shook his head. "Maybe if you'll just lend me a couple of bucks, I'll go get myself something to eat. Now that I think of it, I am kind of hungry."

  "Harry," the deep, gentle voice said with a note of resignation, "if I give you money, you'll just use it to buy more liquor. Isn't that true?"

  Harry started to sway, but both of the other man's hands were once again on his shoulders, and they held him firm. The man's features were blurred, but came back into focus when Harry blinked. "How come you're dressed like that?" he said. "It ain't raining."

  "You'd use the money I gave you to drink, wouldn't you, Harry?"

  "Aw, come on. You've helped me out before. All I'm asking you for is a couple of bucks. I'll pay you back. I promise."

  "Harry. Poor Harry. What more can people do for you? You've been given food and shelter, picked up off the street again and again and taken to the hospital where they've had to pick the fleas off you. Twice you've contracted tuberculosis, and been sent away to be cured. You've been put into rehabilitation and Alcoholics Anonymous. Nothing works. Every time, the moment you get out you make a beeline for the nearest liquor store. If you won't make even the slightest effort to help yourself, how can anyone else hope to help you?"

  "Tomorrow I'm going to start pulling myself together. You'll see.

  "Don't you suffer? You've got scars from rat bites on you, Harry. Don't you have even a shred of dignity left?"

  "I need a drink. Can you help me out?" He waited, but there was no response from the man in shiny orange. Then Harry felt anger surge within him. "Fuck you," he continued. "I don't need to hear any sermons from you about dignity. I used to be an engineer. In Cleveland. I made more money than you'll ever see. I was somebody. I had a wife, a new home and three good kids. But I liked to drink, and so I lost it all. You want me to tell you something, pal? I don't give a shit about what I lost, and I don't give a shit about clinics. I still like to drink, and that's all the fuck I like to do. So don't preach to me, pal. If you want to give me a couple of bucks so I can get a bottle, fine. If you don't, that's fine too."

  Harry tried to pull away, but the rubber-gloved hands held him firm.

  "Goddamn you, let me go!"

  "I've decided to help you, Harry," the soft voice said with an air of resignation.

  "Good," Harry replied.

  But only one hand came away from his shoulders, and he never even had time to cry out as the razor came out of the darkness and bit deeply into his flesh, sinew, cartilage, arteries and veins. Three more quick slashes, expertly delivered, severed the remaining muscles and the spinal cord, and Harry Boniface's lifeless head toppled off the gushing stump of his neck and fell to the sidewalk.

  Chapter Eleven

  (i)

  Police Detective Lieutenant Perry Lightning glanced up from the papers on his desk, raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw the two men standing just inside the doorway to his small office in the midtown precinct station house. "Well, well, well," he said quietly to the man on the left, a uniformed policeman. "You finally found him."

  The uniformed policeman shook his head. "He found us. He came up to me in Times Square and asked if I'd bring him to you."

  "I saw the newspaper headlines this morning," Bone said evenly to the impeccably dressed, powerfully built black man with the shaved head and milky left eye. "I figured you might want to talk to me."

  "You figured right!" Perry Lightning snapped. He stared hard at Bone for a few moments, then nodded to the uniformed policeman, who turned and walked from the office, closing the door behind him. "We've been looking for you, Bone," Lightning continued in a low voice.

  "You couldn't have been looking very hard."

  "Where have you been?"

  "On the streets, doing what I told you I was going to do. I've been trying to regain my memory."

  "And have you regained your memory?"

  "No—not from before the time I woke up in the park."

  "We've had three more homeless people killed and beheaded in the ten days since you walked out of the Men's Shelter—two loonies and one hopeless drunk. The heads are missing, Bone. You know anything about that?"

  "No. I told you I read about it in the newspapers—at least the last two. Dr. Hakim told me about the twenty-ninth victim. Like I said, I knew you'd want to talk to me."

  "Why didn't you come to me after Hakim talked to you?"

  "I probably should have. I knew you'd think it was me."

  "The beheading killings stopped when we had you locked away, Bone. And they started again after you were released and dropped out of sight; three murders in a little more than a week. How do you explain that?"

  "I can't."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "I told you."

  "Why are you cutting out the genitals? That's a new trick."

  The words struck at Bone with the force of a physical blow delivered by a fist of ice, chilling him. He felt paralyzed, transfixed by the other man's steady, accusing stare. Finally, he managed to shake his head. "I . . . didn't know that. It wasn't in the papers."

  Perry Lightning sat silently for almost a full minute, staring at Bone, then nodded to a straight-backed wooden chair against the wall to the left of his desk. Bone hesitated, then sat down in the chair.

  "Bone," the detective said evenly, "I'm thinking now what I thought at the beginning: you're lying. You want us to stop you—or you're playing games with us, to show your superiority. Serial killers love to do that."

  "If I was playing games, why would I be so stupid as to kill three people right after I left the shelter?"

  "Because you think you can get away with anything."

  "I came in voluntarily. I think you're the one who's playing games; when you don't have an explanation that you believe in, you cook one up."

  "Why did you sneak away from the shelter?"

  "I didn't 'sneak away.' I just left—or I was thrown out. It depends on how you look at it, and who's doing the telling."

  "Why?"

  Bone told the detective about what had happened at the shelter, of the bribe-taking guards and the member of the Wolfpack who had tried to kill him. Lightning listened intently, his good eye gle
aming with a kind of black light. When Bone had finished, he nodded his head slightly.

  "So, since you left the shelter you've been walking the streets and sleeping at night in Central Park?"

  "That's right."

  "Why sleep in Central Park?"

  "Why not? I had no place else to go."

  "Where in Central Park?"

  "Under a bridge, in a section they call The Ramble. I'll be happy to take you there."

  Lightning studied him, made a dismissive gesture with his left hand. "If that's where you kept the heads and the murder weapon, you wouldn't very well take me there, would you?"

  "I didn't kill those people, Lieutenant," Bone said with more assurance than he actually felt. His conversation with Ali Hakim still haunted him; but he had no choice but to continue to trust the stranger and defend him until he was proven wrong. And locked away.

  "Anybody been sleeping under that bridge with you?"

  "No."

  "Anybody with you on the streets?"

  "No."

  "Then you don't have any witnesses to back up your story about where you've been and what you've been doing?"

  "No."

  "Then this conversation looks like a waste of time for both of us, doesn't it?" Lightning said, a hard edge to his voice. "If you've really got nothing to say to me, why come in?"

  "Because I knew you'd want to question me. You've asked me a few questions, but mostly what you've done is accuse me."

  "What good are more questions when you can't even prove where you've been and what you've been doing for the past ten days?"

  "I had another reason for wanting to come and talk to you, Lieutenant."

  "What's that?"

  "I'd like you to help me find a kid by the name of Rafael Billingsley. They call him Lobo."

  Perry Lightning's eyelids narrowed. "What do you know about Lobo?"

  "He's the leader of a youth gang which calls itself the Wolfpack. The kid who came after me in the shelter was a member."

  "You told me about that; you still haven't told me how you know so much about Billingsley and his Wolfpack."

  "Dr. Hakim told me. Will you help me find Lobo? Will you bring him in so that I can talk to him?"

  Perry Lightning folded his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "Lobo's as hard to find as you are, Bone," he said tersely. "And as tough to prove anything against."

  "But will you help me look for him? Lobo could have a lot of answers we both want."

  Lightning lowered his gaze, leaned forward and picked up a pencil, which he began to roll back and forth between the fingers of his right hand. "You're trying to manipulate me," he said softly.

  "What?"

  Suddenly the detective's eyes glinted with anger, and he snapped the pencil in two. "The killings started at the same time you surfaced in New York, pal. They stopped when we had you locked up, and they started again when you got out."

  "I know that," Bone said in a flat voice.

  "And now you've got the balls to ask me to cooperate with you and go chasing after Lobo just so you can talk to him. I think you're trying to make a fool out of me."

  "No, Lieutenant."

  "If you were me, what would you think?"

  "I'd think that my prime suspect should at least get some points for coming in voluntarily to talk about it. And I'd think that it couldn't hurt to pick up this Lobo and see what he might have to say about my prime suspect; Lobo might even give you a clue as to where to look for evidence. If I were you, I'd pick him up—for my own reasons, not the suspect's."

  "I fully intend to do that, Bone. But it still occurs to me that my prime suspect may be trying to make fools out of the police;

  I told you that's partly how serial killers get their jollies—until they get caught. We'll get you eventually."

  "If I were you," Bone said quietly, "I think I'd also not want to make a fool out of myself; that can be worse than having somebody else make a fool out of you."

  Perry Lightning flushed. "Get out of here. Stop wasting my time."

  "I'd like to say something else, Lieutenant. I had one more reason for coming in."

  "Bullshit."

  "Will you listen?"

  "If it's fast."

  "Suppose I'm telling the truth, Lieutenant?"

  "That's it, pal. Now you just—"

  "I grant you that it's a very large and damning coincidence that these beheading murders began with my appearance in New York, and have continued since I've been free," Bone said quickly. "So, even if I'm not the killer, the murders could have something to do with me."

  Lightning, who had started to rise to his feet, slowly sank back down in his chair. "A most interesting thought on your part," he said in a low voice still heavily laced with suspicion. "Go on."

  "One of two things is true," Bone said, suddenly feeling slightly light-headed and short of breath, for the first time voicing the idea that had begun to grow in his mind shortly after his last conversation with Ali Hakim. "Either I'm the killer—knowingly or unknowingly—or I'm not. Grant me again', as you once did, that I'm telling the truth when I say that I can't remember killing anyone, and I'll grant you the possibility, as I always have, that it's possible, considering my head injury and history of bizarre behavior, that I could still be murdering those people and not even be aware of it; Dr. Hakim and I have considered that possibility from the beginning."

  "It's more than a possibility, Bone," the detective said wearily. "You're the killer. The timing of the killings is just too much of a coincidence."

  "But that's what I'm trying to get at. What if I'm not the killer, and the timing of the killings is not a coincidence?"

  Perry Lightning slowly blinked. "What?"

  "The killings began around the time I showed up in New York, walking the streets and carrying a human femur; they stopped when I was hospitalized, and there have been three in the ten days since I left the shelter."

  "You sound like your own prosecutor," Lightning said in a flat voice.

  "I'm only stating the obvious—what's known, and what makes you absolutely convinced that I'm the killer, consciously or unconsciously. I'm saying that it's possible for the killings somehow to be linked to me, even if I'm not the killer—which I don't believe I am."

  "How?"

  "I don't know, Lieutenant," Bone said, feeling the frustration grow in him. "Maybe it's something connected to the year I spent on the streets; maybe there's a connection to my past—where I was or what I was doing in the years before I ended up on the streets. It's just a thought that occurred to me; even if I'm not the killer, I could somehow be the key to the killings."

  Lightning ran the palm of his right hand back over his shaved head. "That's crazy, Bone."

  "I didn't kill those people, Lieutenant. Even if I had some other personality that took over at night, it still means I'd be wandering around at all hours covered from head to toe with blood. So then I'd have to tidy myself up and hide everything in order to keep the truth from this personality. At the very least I'd be damn tired when I woke up in the morning—and I'm not. I slept well last night, and I sleep well most nights."

  "In Central Park, under a bridge?"

  "Yes."

  "Eating garbage?"

  "Everything that's thrown away isn't garbage, Lieutenant."

  "If you'd stayed at the shelter, or checked into some residence like those HRA people wanted you to, we'd all have a hell of a lot clearer picture of what you've been doing—day and night."

  "I've never been in a shelter before, Lieutenant; I'm sure of that. If I'm ever going to regain my memory, I have to live and keep doing things in the context of how I was living and what I was doing during that lost year. That's the only way I have of finding out who and what I was before."

  "What if you never regain your memory?"

  "Will you pick up Lobo and arrange a meeting between the two of us?"

  "I'll give it some thought. But I'll tell yo
u right now that Lobo won't tell you anything—especially after we pick him up. And if he and his buddies are after you, you're in trouble."

  "You won't do it?"

  "I said I'd give it some thought. Why won't you let the HRA people help you? Maybe you just have to start all over building a new life. Why don't you give that some thought?"

  "Am I free to go?"

  Lieutenant Perry Lightning nodded curtly, and Bone rose and walked from the office.

  (ii)

  "Bone!"

  It was a voice Bone hadn't been sure he would ever hear again. He looked up from the map he'd been studying, turned toward the street as Anne, her face flushed, stepped out of one of the blue Project Helping Hand vans, then slammed the door shut behind her. Her hazel eyes flashed with anger as she stepped up on the curb, strode quickly up to him and stopped, her hands on her hips.

  He had not fully realized how very badly he missed this strong yet vulnerable woman until now, with her standing before him, obviously angry, and just as obviously deeply hurt.

  "Hello, Anne," he said quietly, feeling very vulnerable himself, foolish and slightly ashamed.

  "You've got a hell of a lot of nerve!" Anne snapped, her voice even huskier than usual. "You walk out of the Men's Shelter in the middle of the goddamn night without telling a soul, you walk around for better than a week, and it's the police you go to see! You go to see Ali, but you don't even bother calling me to say you're all right! Do you have any idea how many hours I've spent driving around looking for you?"

  "I'm sorry," Bone said in the same soft voice. "I just wasn't sure—"

  "Oh, you're sorry. Well, I'm really glad you're sorry. I suppose I should be grateful for that." She sighed deeply, let her hands drop to her sides. The anger had drained out of her face and voice, leaving only a residue of pain. "Christ, do I sound like a bitch," she continued in a voice so low Bone could hardly hear her. "Worse, I sound like Barry. I had no right to talk to you like that; I'm not your mother. I just thought maybe . . . I gave you my card, Bone."