"And if I was dangerous before, then I could become dangerous again . . . and hurt somebody who was close to me. I'll call, or turn myself in, if I feel that happening. If I'm set free."
"If you have time."
"I'll pay attention."
"Keep a close eye on the stranger, Bone," Ali said, and left the room.
Chapter Six
(i)
Bone stared for some time at the grayish-brown, ossified bone and the locket on the bed, then finally looked over to where Perry Lightning stood leaning against the wall next to the open door of the hospital room. As before, the police detective with the shaved head and milky eye was immaculately dressed, this time in a light brown suit, pale blue shirt and tie, highly polished cordovan shoes. Outside the mesh windows, rain was beating against the glass and brick with a sound like snare drums.
"They're yours," Lightning said in a flat voice, gesturing toward the objects on the bed. "Those represent all your worldly possessions when you were picked up."
"I'm free to go?"
"Yeah. The HRA people are waiting for you outside, in one of their vans."
Bone's hand trembled slightly as he reached out and picked up the locket and chain which had belonged to an old woman he might have beheaded. "The locket should go to the woman's children," he said, and realized he had a lump in his throat.
"They don't deserve it. If you want to mail it to them, be my guest; I'll give you their address. On the other hand, as your lawyer so skillfully argued, it's possible that the old woman gave it to you, the same as it's possible you got that blood on your clothes when you came across the bodies and stooped down to examine them."
Bone studied the other man's face. "Does that mean you're willing to consider the possibility that I'm not a thief and murderer?"
"No, man," Perry Lightning said matter-of-factly. "You killed those people, all right."
"Oh," Bone said as he quickly looked away. He was surprised at how the other man's words—the certainty in them—could hurt the stranger. Suddenly he felt very much alone.
"The blood on your clothes, the locket, your proximity to the scene of the last two murders and the fact that we haven't had any more beheading killings in the week and a half we've had you in custody are, in my opinion, ample proof that you're the guy we want. Unfortunately, Detective Perry Lightning's opinion isn't what counts in a courtroom. That Winchell woman has good contacts; she had some normally very high-priced legal talent in that courtroom this morning."
Bone picked up the human femur, slowly turned it over in his hands. It felt very hard, cold—yet somehow familiar. "The stran—I passed a lie detector test, Lieutenant. You know that."
"That doesn't mean jack shit."
"Then why did you ask me to take it?"
"I could tell you stories about serial killers and polygraph tests that would make your hair curl. Polygraphs don't detect lies; they detect stress. Serial killers are great liars because they don't feel guilt; and they don't feel anxiety or stress because they don't believe there's any way they'll ever be caught. Serial killers don't have normal emotions."
Bone looked up, meeting the other man's hard, steady gaze. "I feel a lot of things, Lieutenant."
"Now."
Bone frowned slightly, trying and failing to read something in Lightning's face. "What does that mean?"
"You don't even know if you killed those people."
"That's what I've said from the beginning. You didn't believe me."
"Well, that I've come to believe, Bone. Hakim says he tends to believe you, and I put a lot of stock in what he says. Hakim is a pretty straight shooter for a shrink; he talks so that you can understand him, and he doesn't try to throw a lot of bullshit at you. The fact that he wouldn't recommend that you be released from custody jacks up his credibility with me. He says that the injury to your head could have caused you to lose your memory, and even have caused you to kill people without really being aware of it. Now, maybe, you're back to your old self again; you're different now, and might never kill again. We might never be able to pin those murders on you."
"Which would bother you a lot, wouldn't it, Lieutenant?"
"Yes. There's an accounting to be made."
Bone turned so that he was directly facing the other man. "If I remember that I killed those people, I'll tell you," he said evenly. "I agree that an accounting must be made, and that's not something I could live with."
Lightning did not say anything, but simply continued to study Bone.
"You don't believe me," Bone continued.
"Actually, I think I do," Lightning said quietly.
"I thank you for that."
"But it's not how you think and behave when you're like you are now that we're worried about, is it?"
"No."
"We're going to be keeping a close eye on you, Bone."
"I should hope so."
Perry Lightning abruptly pushed off the wall, walked across the room and stopped very close to Bone, looking hard into his eyes. His manner and the expression on his face seemed almost friendly. "I understand that the HRA people wanted to place you in a residence, a halfway house, in the Bronx, and that you turned them down."
"That's right."
"That was a mistake, Bone."
"I was out there on the streets for a year; but I wasn't in the Bronx, and I wasn't in a halfway house. I have to go where I was if I hope to find out who I was—and who I am. I had no job, no money and no identity. That's what I have to go back to."
"The HRA will give you some money, but it won't last you long here in Manhattan. And the only place they can put you in Manhattan is in the Men's Shelter down on the Bowery. You're not going to like it much there."
"I doubt that it will make a difference to me one way or another."
"With a proper residence, you'd be entitled to welfare payments. Also, I know the HRA people offered to give you employment counseling so that you might be able to find a job, and you turned them down on that, too. Why won't you let them help you?"
"They are helping me. You have to understand, Lieutenant, that I'm not interested in starting a new life. I already have a life—somewhere. I have to find it. I'll need work, but I'll look for it somewhere around the shelter; that's one area I used to wander around."
"I know I'm repeating myself, but you're not going to like it in the shelter. You're not like the men on the Bowery, or in the shelter."
"Obviously; the difference is that they know who they are."
"That's not what I'm talking about, Bone. There are lots of homeless people on the streets of this city, but they're not all there for the same reasons. Believe it or not, some actually prefer to live on the streets. But the men down on the Bowery are defeated. They're life's losers—alcoholics, drug addicts, crazies and just generally broken people. Where you're going is just a warehouse for people who are never going to make it back into society. You're different because you were never defeated. Christ, I hear what you're saying about the need to recover your memory, but why not at least accept all the help you can get?"
"I appreciate your advice, Lieutenant."
"But you're not going to take it."
"The person who wandered those streets didn't accept the kind of help you're talking about. He's the person I have to find, and in order to do that I have to get as close as I can to the life he was leading."
"If I heard Hakim right, that was a different person. You may never find him. And life on the streets, especially with the people you're going to run into down around the shelter, just might squash you, Bone."
"I guess that's a chance I'll just have to take."
"You can get yourself killed real easy in this city, Bone—especially in the places where you plan to go."
Bone hesitated, then slowly and deliberately hung the old woman's locket around his neck. Then he again picked up the femur and, feeling slightly foolish, put it under his arm. "I'd like to go now, Lieutenant. I have two lives to find."
&n
bsp; Lieutenant Perry Lightning's response was to abruptly turn his back and walk quickly from the room.
(ii)
Bone had sensed tension between the two social workers from the moment he had walked out of the Bellevue Hospital Center and stepped into their blue van, which had been parked with the engine running beside the curb just outside the entrance. Anne Winchell's greeting had seemed oddly distant, and Barry Prindle had seemed almost hostile. Clutching his femur, Bone had settled back in the seat in the rear, then gazed out the window, looking for familiar sights or figures, as Barry headed downtown on Second Avenue.
There seemed to be signs of homeless people everywhere—cardboard cartons used for shelter pushed back into doorways, men and women in dirty clothes squatting or sitting in desultory solitude on the sidewalks, some holding signs begging for help.
He saw nothing that looked familiar. This passing landscape had nothing to do with the stranger, he thought; the stranger had not squatted on the sidewalk, nor had he begged for help.
It felt very good, if slightly disorienting, to see Anne. Once again it occurred to him that the attraction he felt toward this woman could be distracting, even damaging, to him. Also, he wondered if the palpable tension he sensed between the man and woman in the front seat had something to do with him.
As if in response to his thoughts, Anne half turned in her seat. She was smiling, but her eyes seemed clouded. "There's no reason for you to go to this place, Bone. Believe me, the residence in the Bronx where we want to place you is a hundred times nicer."
"I wasn't in the Bronx; you said I was always sighted in Manhattan."
"The chances are that you were never in the Men's Shelter, either. You have to register to get in there; if you couldn't—or wouldn't—speak, somebody would have assigned you to a social worker. There'd be a record of a mute man staying there, and there isn't."
"At least it's in Manhattan, Anne. I was in this territory."
They passed a one-legged man on crutches leaning against the side of a building, wearing a huge overcoat that was at least three sizes too big for him. The man's mouth was open, as if in a silent scream, and he was violently shaking his head back and forth.
Anne pushed a strand of shiny brown hair back from her hazel eyes, breathed a small sigh of frustration. "Bone, I've talked to a number of doctors. Most of them think that you're faking at least some of your symptoms; you know that."
"I know that."
"But there is one thing that they do agree on. They agree that if you really can't remember anything, it's because of your head injury—and this form of amnesia is incurable; you'll never get those memories back. Even if we could find somebody who'd been around you all during that year, somebody who could tell us what you did, where you went and where you stayed, it still wouldn't mean anything to you. The same is true of the memories of the life you lived before the injury. Those memories are gone, Bone. You have to face that fact, and then let us work with you and help you to build another life. This searching for the past is a waste of time, and a few of the doctors think it might even be dangerous. Going to the Men's Shelter when there's a choice of something better is a big step backward for you. I really wish you'd reconsider."
Bone watched Barry Prindle shake his head slightly, as if in annoyance. The heavyset man's shoulders were hunched forward, the muscles tense, as he drove the van. "Not all of the doctors think that my memories are necessarily lost forever," he said quietly.
"You're talking about Ali and his theories," Anne said with thinly concealed anger. "I love Ali, Bone, and he's given us more of his time and help than we have any right to expect. But I have to tell you that he's a very strange man."
Bone smiled, laughed quietly. "Then he sounds like just what the doctor ordered for me, doesn't he?"
"It's not a joke, Bone."
"I wasn't joking."
"It's your life we're talking about, Bone. Ali is very, very good at what he does, but his primary interest is research. I know that he sees in you a way to test some of his theories. His interests aren't necessarily yours, and it seems to me that he's putting his interests above yours. He's using you."
"He told me the same thing from the beginning," Bone replied evenly. "I accepted the situation. I understand that the odds are against me, and I understand that I could be wasting time. But I've lost two lives, and it seems to me that it's worth a bit of my time to search for them."
"Where you're going is the pits, Bone."
"So people keep telling me."
"They had a shooting there last week."
"I understand there are a lot of shootings every day in New York."
"Why don't you let him be, Anne?" Barry said tightly. "If he wants to pass up a chance to get into a residence, so be it. Lord knows there aren't that many residence beds available. Bone's a big boy, and he doesn't need you to mother him."
Anne glanced sharply at the man behind the wheel of the van. "Why don't you mind your own business, Barry?"
"I was just—"
"Why don't you go over the procedures with Bone?" she interrupted coldly. "There are things he should know."
Bone said, "I'm sure I'll find out what the procedures are soon enough."
"They're expecting you," Barry said in a flat voice, turning his head slightly. "The first thing you'll do is sign in. I take it you remember how to write, so you can use the name Bone if you want to. I'll explain things to them."
"I can do my own explaining, Barry," Bone said evenly. "For now, Bone is the only name I have, so I think I'll stick with it."
"Suit yourself. You should be there in time for lunch, since the meals from Creedmoor almost always arrive late."
"What's Creedmoor?"
"A mental hospital. All the meals for the city shelters are prepared there, then trucked around to the centers." He paused, glanced at Anne. "Bone should be thankful he's not going there."
Anne flushed angrily. "He's lost his memory, Barry, not his mind."
Which wasn't quite true, Bone thought, and suddenly felt cold. He had lost his mind for a year; and there was the possibility he could lose it again—perhaps forever.
Barry said, "You're in luck, Bone. Up until two months ago they didn't have sleeping quarters in the Manhattan shelters, so you'd have been trucked someplace else every evening. Now they've got beds, but you have to sign up for one early in the day—every day. You'll have preference, since you'll be an official resident, but you still have to sign up; forget, and you'll find somebody else in your bed that night."
"I understand," Bone said drily. "I'll try to cope."
"You have to sign up in the morning, but you won't be allowed into the sleeping quarters until five. During the day, you can do whatever you like."
Anne handed him an envelope over the back of the seat. He opened it, found a hundred dollars in small bills inside.
"That's an emergency grant," Anne said, smiling warmly. "You have to have some money in your pocket."
"That's Anne's own money, Bone," Barry said in the same flat voice. "It's true that you're eligible for an emergency welfare grant, but you'll have to apply for it at the welfare office in the shelter."
Bone started to give the envelope back, but Anne pushed his hand away. "That's walking-around money, Bone. You may need it. Filling out forms and meeting the requirements for getting money from city agencies is no easy task, believe me. You'll pay me back, won't you?"
"Yes," Bone said. He folded the envelope and put it into the back pocket of the pants that were part of the clothing parcel he had been given, then looked away in order to hide the sudden surge of emotion he felt. "I'll pay you back."
"You'll find the Social Services office on the second floor of the shelter. Would you like Barry and me to go with you?"
"No, thank you," he replied quietly, once more gazing out the window at the moving panorama of hope and despair, wealth and poverty. The stranger had apparently not needed the city's shelters, food, clothing or money, he though
t. The stranger had been able to take care of himself. "I think I can manage to find it."
Barry said, "If you want to sign up for the shelter's work-employment program, it pays thirteen dollars a week. You'll have to clean up the shelter itself, city parks, subway stations—whatever. Thirteen dollars isn't much, but it'll give you some pocket money. We also have an employment counseling office up there, in case you change your mind and decide you want us to help you find a job."
He had to find two lives. "Thanks for the information, Barry. I appreciate it."
"Bone," Anne said quietly, "there's so much more we can do for you, if only you'd let us."
"For now, Anne, I feel that I have to do it this way. I got along for a year without your help. If I'm ever going to recover my memory of that time, I believe I have to follow the same pattern of living, as closely as possible."
"You mean Ali believes that," Anne said tersely.
Bone did not reply.
"A word of advice, Bone," Barry said, his tone warmer, almost friendly. "In the place where you're going, you're going to stick out like a sore thumb. Some people may mistrust you; the guards at the shelter aren't the most highly educated people you're ever likely to meet, and you never know what the residents are thinking. People are going to wonder just what the hell you're doing there, and paranoia is not an uncommon characteristic of this city."
"Do any of the people there know that the police suspect me of killing all those people?"
Anne answered, "A couple of the people on our staff have been briefed, but the guards and residents won't know unless they read the papers and somehow connect you to the stories. Maybe you should leave that bone somewhere; it will only attract attention to you. Would you like me to keep it for you?"
"No. It means something to me—or it did. I prefer to keep it with me."
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