Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  The four hours Bone waited through the night for the terminal and the gate at the opposite end of the ramp to open seemed an eternity, and during that eternity he kept going over and over in his mind the events that had happened, searching for some clue—any clue—to the stranger's identity. It was, he decided at last, hopeless. He had made a mistake in trying to lose himself in this sea of the most wretched of the homeless. The stranger, he well knew, was meticulously clean, and only a few days of being dressed in filthy clothes, eating rotting food and not washing himself had drained him of his will. He now knew that there was no way the role he was playing could help him find the stranger's identity. Instead, he was in real danger of losing the only identity he really had, this identity of the ghost-eyes inside the stranger; as he slipped further and further away from the stranger's habits, he was losing himself.

  By the time he heard the gate at the opposite end of the ramp open, he had decided what he had to do. In fact, he had made the decision two hours before, and had spent the remaining time quieting himself, searching for his center. He had removed his floppy hat and dark glasses.

  He could not—would not—continue to live this way; he was going to turn himself in to the police and tell his story. Of course, Perry Lightning would not believe him, and he would almost certainly be locked away. But he had decided that a state prison, or a mental hospital, was infinitely preferable to this prison, this out-of-control mental ward, he was now in. He simply had to be clean in order to have peace of mind to think clearly.

  If nothing else, Bone thought as he walked with the others up the ramp toward the network of tunnels leading to the concourse and the adjoining waiting room, he had at last convinced himself of the futility of searching for the stranger's memories, traces of his lives before and after the injury that had certainly precipitated the amnesia, on the streets of New York. He had certainly given it his best shot, and all he had really managed to discover were places where the stranger did not belong. And, despite the ambivalence he had experienced while gazing down the great stone canyons of the streets, he was now convinced that the stranger did not even belong in the city. He had come from somewhere else.

  But, wherever he had come from, there was obviously no one there who missed him; the stranger had been alone even before the injury to his head. He had been all over Manhattan, had revisited the places where he had been seen, and had experienced only negative impressions. Of the two men who might be able to help him, Zulu and Lobo, one had disappeared, and the other desperately wanted to kill him. And so he would go to prison, or a mental hospital. Eventually, perhaps, he would be put to death. But until that time, it now seemed clear to him that he had no choice but to give himself up to the police and hope that one day his memory might return of its own accord. There would be other psychiatrists, other forms of treatment. All his hopes had not died with Ali Hakim, and the neuropsychiatrist had hinted at the existence of certain drugs that might . . .

  Suddenly Bone stopped and turned to his left as a huge display along the east wall flickered, then lit up. He stared at the display, abruptly felt light-headed and short of breath. But his reaction was not caused by fear this time, he thought; it was something about the display.

  Taking short, shallow breaths and with his heart beating wildly in his chest, Bone ran across the remaining distance of the concourse and bounded up a short flight of marble steps to a balcony on the west side. Then he spun around to once again look at the huge display that looked to be almost half the size of a football field, and was situated beneath a soaring bank of windows.

  The display consisted of what appeared to be a single, huge, photographic transparency, with a sign below it that read America's Parks. The photo itself, now brightly lit in the gray dawn light, showed a young man, obviously a hiker or climber, standing on a high ledge, shielding his eyes against the rising sun as he gazed out over a vista of purple-hued, craggy mountain peaks. Nearby, an eagle soared.

  Bone found that his mouth was suddenly dry, and he licked his lips. Almost unconsciously, he found himself reaching behind his back for something that wasn't there, something he felt should be hanging from his belt . . .

  He looked down at the marble railing of the balcony, ran his hands back and forth over the smooth, hard, cold surface. Then he crouched down and ran his hands through a small pile of debris at his feet, rubbing the dirt over his gnarled fingers.

  Not dirt, he thought; it wasn't dirt he was looking for; dirt wasn't what he carried.

  Chalk!

  Why chalk? he wondered as he straightened up and resumed staring at the gargantuan photo transparency.

  Mountains. A youth on a ledge; an endless ocean of sky; a soaring eagle.

  Chalk up!

  Peel off!

  5.5.

  All traces of weakness, fear and exhaustion had vanished. He felt exhilarated—but also frustrated. He was, he thought, so very, very close . . .

  It was there, he thought, right on the tip of his mind, and it was what was causing the tears to well in his eyes and roll down his cheeks.

  He brushed away his tears, bowed his head and closed his eyes, trying to rein in the excitement and anxiety which seemed to be blocking the final leap in his mind.

  Leap.

  Mountains. What did mountains have to do with this city?

  He opened his eyes, once again gazed at the transparency and the bank of windows above it. The concourse was filling now with the light of dawn, with rays of sunlight streaking through the dozens of dirty windowpanes above the transparency. His gaze went up further—and he let out a little gasp. High above him, very faint, there were markings on the vaulted, green ceiling. The constellations, he thought. But there was something wrong with the paintings; they were not as they should be.

  It was the winter Zodiac, but it showed a left-handed Orion, which was wrong, and Pegasus was charging from the west instead of the east, which was wrong. It was the winter Zodiac in reverse.

  But how did he know it was wrong? Bone thought as he swallowed hard, trying to work up some moisture in his mouth. Because he had obviously spent a great deal of time out-of-doors, looking up at the winter Zodiac. He knew the stars, the constellations . . .

  He slowly lowered his gaze, once again fixed his stare on the photograph of the youth on the mountain ledge.

  Why did the picture move him so much? Bone thought. Why did it seem so familiar? Because . . . because . . . it was home.

  The voice that came from behind him was low, but taut with excitement. And hatred. "Is that you, Bone-man?"

  Bone slowly turned around, started slightly when he found himself facing an albino youth who could have been white, Hispanic or black. A black patch covered his right eye, but his pink left eye glinted with light like some strange jewel of evil. He wore a gray leather jacket, jeans, black boots. Behind the one-eyed albino were two other youths, dressed identically, and they now moved in opposite directions to flank Bone.

  "Christ, Johnny was right," the albino youth said, his voice betraying a slight lisp. "He said he saw you come in here the other day; he said you were dressed funny, but he was sure it was you. We wanted to get here early so we could check out everybody coming in over the concourse. We come in the door, and look what we find right off the bat."

  "You're Lobo," Bone said quietly.

  The youth raised his eyebrows slightly. "So you talk now. Found your tongue, huh?" He paused, sniffed, wrinkled his nose. "But you smell like a fucking sewer, just like all the other worthless, lazy bastards on the street who're fucking up this country, giving the Russians something to laugh at. Hey, are you really the guy who's been cutting off the heads of all those people?"

  Bone swallowed. The other two gang members were very close to him now as they leaned on the railing, almost brushing his sleeves. "I lost my memory," he said evenly, staring into the pink eye in front of him and seeing nothing but cruelty and madness. "I don't remember anything that happened to me, or what I did, during my time on
the streets. And I don't remember who I am, or where I came from. I believe you can help me remember—if you will. I've heard that I . . . hurt you. I'm sorry. I don't remember what happened."

  Lobo's thin lips curled back in a sneer, although the light in his pale eye remained cold, implacable. "You're sorry?" he lisped. "That's nice, you parasite; that's really nice. There I was in the alley about to get me a good little blow job from that toothless old broad when you pop up out of nowhere and bang me in the eye with that fucking bone you used to carry. You busted another guy's jaw, and knocked four teeth out of another guy's mouth. But it was my eye you burst. The doctors had to scoop it right out of my head. Now, what do you think I ought to scoop out of you, Bone-man?"

  Bone remained silent. There was nothing further to say, he thought. Three more gray-jacketed youths had come in the swinging doors behind Lobo and were fanning out, forming a tight phalanx around him, screening him from view.

  Lobo took something out of the pocket of his leather jacket, flicked his wrist. There was a sharp click as a six-inch steel blade snapped from the thick bone handle of the knife.

  "You want to talk, we'll talk, Bone-man," the albino said in a voice that was just above a whisper. "But we won't do it here. You're going to come with us nice and quiet, and then we can talk all you want to—when you're not screaming. I have business to take care of with you."

  Bone threw back his arms, smashing the knobby knuckles of his gnarled hands into the faces of the two gang members flanking him at the marble railing. At the same time he kicked Lobo in the groin—but not before the albino had thrust at him with the knife. The blade slashed through his shirt. He felt a brief, stinging sensation in his stomach, then numbness as blood began to flow, warm against his belly.

  But Lobo was doubled over, both hands clutched to his groin, and the youths flanking him had been stunned—but the other three were now lunging for him. Bone wheeled around, planted both his hands on the stone balustrade and jumped up.

  Peel off!

  He leaped out into space, over the stairway, and landed on his feet on the marble floor, instinctively collapsing and rolling to absorb the shock of the landing. Instantly he was up on his feet and racing across the concourse as early-morning commuters scattered to get out of his way.

  Two leather-jacketed youths were closing in on him from his right. Bone, holding his right hand against the wound in his belly, cut to his left and bounded up an escalator, dodging around startled commuters. Hearing running footsteps close behind him, he pushed through a set of swinging doors and ran out of the building. With the cursing youths racing at his heels, he glanced down at the blood staining the front of his shirt. He knew that the knife had not punctured the stomach wall, but it had given him a good slice, and he was losing blood rapidly; he couldn't go much further, and if the youths caught up with him he suspected he would be immediately and unceremoniously butchered.

  He dashed across the street, looking around in vain for a police car or a patrolman on foot. He reached the sidewalk, ran left, then darted right into a passageway over which was a sign that read Helmsley Walk. Still holding his hand tightly over his bleeding flesh wound, he sprinted to the end of the covered walk, came out on Park Avenue.

  The members of the Wolfpack were so close now that he could hear the heavy, rasping breathing of two of them, one just off his right shoulder and the other off his left. A hand grabbed at his sleeve, missed.

  In another second or two, he thought, he was going to die.

  Directly to his right was a wall of glass panels enclosing the Chemical Bank Building's four-story-high terrarium—a bright, airy rectangle of sculpted space fronting on Park Avenue and encasing a charming mini-jungle of trees, ferns and plants in striking counterpoint to the shrubbery malls which bisected the elegant thoroughfare. As the hands on the left reached for him and a knife blade sliced through his coat, Bone instinctively leaped up on the side of the building. His toes found the narrow ledge at the base of the panels; his fingertips found a groove in the lead strip between the panels above his head, and they held their grip. But he knew he was not high enough to escape a knife thrust to his legs, and he did not have the strength or leverage to pull himself higher. Looking down, he saw the stunned expressions on the faces of Lobo and the other five members of the Wolfpack as they stared up at him.

  "What are you?" the startled Lobo said, shaking his head slightly. "A fucking human fly?"

  Bone looked back the way he had come, then up the long, canyon-like street. Park Avenue at dawn was virtually deserted, and there was no sign of the police.

  Lobo recovered from his shock, then slashed at Bone's calves with his knife. Bone, his fingertips digging into the lead strip above him, leaped over the arcing blade, then nimbly danced down the length of the concrete ledge and around the corner of the building, looking and feeling above him for a grip, a route up the side of the glass wall, that would enable him to escape the slashing knives below him.

  A few yards down the length of glass panels was the adjacent building on Forty-eighth Street, a brick structure. Between the panels and the adjacent brick wall was a narrow fissure perhaps three or four inches wide. As Lobo and the other five youths below him slashed at his legs, Bone unhesitatingly jammed his gnarled left hand into the fissure, then clenched it into a fist; muscles and tendons expanded like a wedge, forming a tight lock in the fissure. He leaped up, jammed the fingers of his right hand into the fissure and clenched his fist, pulled himself up as he relaxed his left hand. And he kept going. In less than five seconds, using only his hands as wedges and the tremendous strength in his arms, Bone had hauled himself ten feet up the narrow space between the buildings.

  But he could go no further. The front of him was covered with blood; the wound in his stomach burned, and his legs felt as if they were filled with sand. Gasping for breath, he tried to yell for help, but could not summon the strength.

  "I'm going to kill you, you fucking freak!" Lobo shouted, and flung his knife at Bone.

  With both his fists now wedged into the fissure to support his weight, Bone could only duck his head and hunch his shoulders; the knife bounced off the brick a few inches from his left ear. He looked down, watched as one of the gang members hurried to the corner to act as a lookout. Forty-eighth Street was empty.

  A car came around the corner, slowed as the driver cast a puzzled glance up at Bone, then sped away when two of the gang members stepped toward him threateningly.

  Lobo motioned to one of the other gang members, who quickly handed over a straight-edged razor to the albino Wolfpack leader. A second Wolf stepped forward and leaned against the building, his hands flanking the fissure, his legs outstretched, his back arched slightly. Lobo backed up a few paces, then ran forward, leaped up on the other youth's back and planted his feet on the youth's shoulders. Now he was only a few feet below Bone, within striking distance of Bone's legs. Lobo glanced at the Wolf on the corner, who gave a thumbs-up sign to signal that he saw no one. Then Lobo reached up, slowly ran the gleaming blade of the razor along the sole of Bone's shoe.

  "Now I'm going to open up the arteries in your legs and let some more blood out, you fucker," the albino said softly as he raised the razor.

  "Hey, Lobo!" the Wolf at the corner shouted, tensing and reaching into his pocket. "Watch out! Here comes—!"

  At that moment the huge black man Bone recognized as Zulu came sprinting around the corner, his multi-colored robe billowing behind him. Without slowing, he raised his great staff and brought it crashing against the side of the lookout s head. The gray-jacketed youth flew off his feet, landed sprawled and splay-limbed in the street.

  Both Lobo and the youth supporting him cried out in surprise and alarm, and then the two-man tower began to quaver and crumble; its collapse was helped along by Zulu, who in three great bounds was down the sidewalk, his staff swinging sideways and forming a blurred arc in the air. The Wolf on the bottom ducked out of the way, and the thick staff caught Lobo's ankles
. There was a sharp crack, then Lobo screamed as he flipped in the air and landed on his back on the sidewalk.

  Bone's vision blurred, came back into focus, then blurred again. He screwed his eyes shut, shook his head slightly, opened his eyes. Below him on the sidewalk, three gang members had drawn their knives and were cautiously circling Zulu. The giant black man, his staff now held in both his hands, was slowly turning, occasionally jabbing or sweeping the air with the weapon, keeping the youths at bay.

  "All of you charge him at once!" the crippled Lobo screamed from where he lay on the sidewalk, clutching his shattered left ankle. "Rush him! One of you has to get to him! Stick the bastard!"

  The three other gang members looked at one another—but they continued only to circle. Lobo picked up the razor that had fallen beside him on the sidewalk, then began to crawl the short distance separating him from Zulu, whose back was to Lobo, and whose attention was focused on the other three youths in front of him. Lobo continued to crawl forward, reaching with the razor beneath Zulu's flowing robe, searching for the legs . . .

  Peel off!

  Bone relaxed the tension in his fists, and as his hands slipped out of the narrow fissure he pushed against the glass and brick on either side of him, launching himself through the air. He fell, landed with both his feet on the back of Lobo's neck. There were two sharp, almost simultaneous, cracking sounds—one as * the albino's neck broke, and the other as his face smashed into the sidewalk. Bone fell sideways, crumpling to the sidewalk as the staff whirled through the air over his head and smashed into one of the circling Wolf's ribs, crushing his rib cage. Virtually in the same series of movements, Zulu brought the staff up over his head and prepared to attack again.