Bone

by George C. Chesbro

  "Did anyone else know you were here?" Anne continued.

  "No."

  "Then who . . . ?"

  "Maybe the lieutenant is playing games with me," Bone said, not really believing it. "I told him the general location where I'd been sleeping, and he didn't seem particularly interested. Maybe he changed his mind."

  "If he wanted to examine your belongings, wouldn't he have come here with you?"

  "I believe so."

  "Then it must have been someone else, just somebody who was passing by and saw you come down here under the bridge. The person waited until you left, then came down and found your belongings." Anne paused, looked into his worried face, tugged at his sleeve. "Come on, Bone. The clothes and other things can easily be replaced, and you can pay me back from the job I'm going to find for you. It's not important. From what you tell me, even the femur wasn't helping you all that much."

  "No, it wasn't," Bone replied distantly as he took Anne's hand and climbed back up the bank. His sense of foreboding was growing even stronger.

  Chapter Twelve

  (i)

  Dr. Ali Hakim, absorbed in the task of laying out and organizing the battery of psychological tests he planned to administer to Bone that morning, started and looked up when he heard the door to his empty outer office open and close. He glanced at his watch; it was nine-forty, twenty minutes before Bone was scheduled to arrive, and he knew Bone to be punctual. Ali could not imagine who else would be coming to his office on a Sunday morning.

  The mystery was solved a few moments later when the door to his inner office opened and Barry Prindle, carrying a large blue nylon duffel bag, stepped through. Ali, who had not seen the other man in weeks, was shocked by the social worker's appearance, and he could see that Barry was deeply troubled. The burly young man appeared to have lost a considerable amount of weight, and the tendons in his neck stood out like wire cables. His face, normally full and ruddy, was now gaunt, and his bright green eyes seemed oddly blank. Barry, walking stiffly, came across the office and stopped in front of the desk, dropping the duffel bag to the floor, out of Ali's sight.

  "Good morning, Dr. Hakim," Barry said in a hollow voice.

  "Good morning, Barry," Ali replied, frowning slightly. "How can I help you?"

  "I need to talk to you."

  "How did you know I'd be here this morning?"

  "Anne told me. We talk on the phone a lot, and she told me you meet with Bone at ten o'clock on Sunday mornings."

  "She shouldn't have told you that, Barry," Ali said quietly in his lilting voice. "It was not her place. Who I meet with, and when, is confidential. You, of all people, should be able to appreciate that."

  "I don't think you should be angry with her, Doctor. She was just trying to be friendly to me. Since I was one of the people who picked Bone up, I think she just wanted to keep me up to date on what was happening with him. Is he making progress?"

  Ali said nothing, but he continued to study the face of the other man. He did not like what he saw.

  "Did you know that Anne has taken that man in to live with her?" Barry said in the same hollow voice as he sat stiffly in a leather-padded chair, pulled it up close to the desk.

  "I wasn't aware of that," Ali replied carefully, resisting the impulse to push back in his own chair. "And I'm not sure it's anyone's business. Do you think so?"

  "Yesterday, she found him a job. He'll be working in the stockroom of Bloomingdale's. They drive around a lot, looking at places where he's been. And then they go home and fuck all night. I wonder how that feels." Barry blinked slowly, shuddered slightly, and then his green eyes came into clear focus on Ali, who clearly saw the madness there. Barry laughed softly, continued: "It sure as hell beats sleeping under a bridge in Central Park, doesn't it?"

  Ali raised his eyebrows slightly. "How do you know where Bone has been sleeping?"

  "I knew he was walking around midtown, trying to find someplace he could remember. I took a couple of days off, walked around until I spotted him, then followed him. I made sure he didn't see me."

  "Why did you do that, Barry?" Ali asked softly.

  "I'm sick and tired of having things taken away from me, Doctor. God's not playing fair with me, so I don't see why I have to play fair any longer."

  "Barry, has Dr. Potter prescribed medication for you, as I did?"

  "I don't take it. If God played fair with me, I wouldn't need medication."

  Ali smiled easily as he slowly reached out for the telephone at the edge of his glass-topped desk. "Barry," he said evenly, "I'm going to call Dr. Potter right now. I know she'll want to talk to you, and I think you'll feel a lot better after you talk to her. You look very tired and stressed. I wouldn't be surprised if she recommended that you take some time off and go into a hospital."

  Almost casually, Barry reached out and snatched away the telephone, ripping the cord from its base, then tossed the phone across the office. The muscles in his jaw and neck writhed, but his voice was soft. "If I wanted to talk to Dr. Potter, I'd have gone to see her, Dr. Hakim, not you. You were the one who was supposed to take care of me in the first place."

  Ali, his heart beating rapidly, forced himself to slowly lean back in his chair, casually cross his legs and fold his hands in his lap. He knew it was important that he appear relaxed, but in fact he was afraid. Very afraid. He did not dare to glance at his watch, but he estimated that he had perhaps fifteen minutes before Bone arrived.

  He had to keep the other man talking.

  "It's true, as you know, that I sometimes see troubled city workers on a volunteer basis, Barry," Ali said quietly, still smiling. "That's how you first came to me last year. But after our second session together, I recognized that you were going to need far more extensive treatment than I was in a position to provide. Dr. Potter is a fine psychiatrist, and I knew that she could do far more for you than I ever could. My turning you over to Dr. Potter was not a rejection, Barry, but an attempt to get you the best treatment. Your unresolved homosexuality is a most difficult condition to—"

  "Don't say that!" Barry shouted, his face turning scarlet as he abruptly leaned forward in his chair. "I'm not a homosexual! I want Anne If Bone hadn't taken her away from me, you'd know I wasn't a homosexual!"

  "Perhaps a poor choice of words on my part, Barry," Ali said softly. "But it was your unresolved desires, and the commission of at least one homosexual act, that got you thrown out of the seminary, wasn't it? Sooner or later, you're going to have to deal with that fact, and resolve the conflict in your own mind. I'm sure Dr. Potter has suggested the same thing."

  Barry Prindle's response was to bend down toward the floor, and Ali heard the nylon duffel bag being unzipped. The gaunt, wild-eyed social worker drew out a gold-ornamented, purple priest's chasuble. He took off his light outer jacket, donned the chasuble. Next came a heavy gold cross on a chain. Barry kissed the cross, then draped it around his neck.

  "Jesus was a homosexual," Barry said with a kind of a sigh as he leaned forward on the heavy glass top of the desk. "Did you know that, Dr. Hakim?"

  A few more minutes, Ali thought. Perhaps Bone might be early. "I'm familiar with that speculation, Barry. Is that something you'd like to talk—?"

  "But I'm not!" Barry snapped. "God told me to do those things precisely because He wanted me to be cast out of the regular channels to the priesthood! He planted those yearnings . in my heart so that I would understand what it meant to feel compassion for all, men and women equally, as Jesus did. I didn't understand that at the time. I was devastated that I would want to make love to a man. Then, a year ago, I came to understand how God had been using me for His own purpose; He had another mission for me, and it was for this mission that He ordained me personally. I was to be His instrument here in this wretched city, and I was to minister solely to the most wretched of His children."

  Ali took a deep breath, trying to relax and project a semblance of calm. "And you've done just a marvelous job, Barry," he said, smiling broadl
y. "In my opinion, you're as fine a social worker as this city has. You've shown endless patience with the homeless, which is a most difficult group to work with. I wish I had your patience. Perhaps you have so much compassion because you've suffered so much yourself. It's something you might want to discuss with Dr. Potter. Are you sure you don't want me to call her? I have another phone in the outer office."

  Ten more minutes. Maybe five. A distraction might at least allow him to get out from behind the desk and run from the room. He had come face-to-face with Bone's nightmares.

  Next, Barry withdrew from the duffel bag a large rain hat with a floppy brim, ear flaps and chin strap. He put on the hat, drew it down tightly over his forehead. "You don't understand, Dr. Hakim," he said in a low voice. "You never did."

  "I don't understand why you killed all those people, Barry. Would you like to tell me?"

  Barry took out a large, lined raincoat made of the same bright orange oilcloth as the hat, put that on over his purple priest's vestments, began to button it up. "I've been sending those people home to God," he said in the same low voice. "They were of no use to either God or themselves here on earth. They had lost the capacity to care for themselves, and they refused to let others help them. It was time for them to die and go on to their reward. They were suffering, and God wished for me to demonstrate to them His infinite compassion. He told me to send the most wretched on to Him. I have been performing acts of great mercy."

  "What does Bone have to do with all of this, Barry?"

  "Nothing," the other man replied curtly as he pulled up the collar of his raincoat. "I am God's messenger, not Bone."

  "But—"

  "Bone knows. Or he did know."

  Ali swallowed hard; his mouth tasted of copper. "Bone knows what? Does he know that you're the one who's been killing those people?"

  Barry Prindle slowly nodded. "He'll know—if he gets his memory back. But that won't happen until God wills it."

  "How does Bone know that you're . . . that you've been committing these acts of mercy, Barry? What happened to Bone?"

  "It's not important."

  Ali shook his head slightly. Somewhat to his astonishment, he discovered that his fascination with the other man's murderous pathology was slowly overtaking, outweighing, his fear. "But you were around him for weeks. Obviously, he poses a threat to you. Why haven't you killed him?"

  "He's never posed a threat to me. God took away his memory precisely so he wouldn't be a threat to me, the same as He spared Bone's life because Bone was not mine to send home to Him. That was fair, and I understood what God was doing. Now I don't. That's why I'm not playing fair. That's why I'm killing Bone now."

  "Barry, you have to make it clearer for me if you want me to understand."

  "It's not necessary that you understand, Doctor—but I will try to make it clearer. Bone should have died a year ago, when we first met. But he didn't. Believe me when I say that it is a miracle that he's alive. When I first saw him on the streets, I understood that he was alive because God had not meant for me to kill him. And when I realized that he had lost his memory and was mute, I understood that God had forgiven me for what I'd tried to do to Bone, and that He wished for me to continue my ministry. That day in the park, when Bone awakened, I thought it meant that God wanted my ministry to end. I was ready to accept that. If Bone had recognized me and remembered, I was ready to find a way to kill myself and go on to my own reward. But Bone didn't recognize me, and he didn't remember. The message was clear to me—at least, I thought it was. But then I quickly learned that God was using Bone to torment and humiliate me. Or so it seemed. I couldn't understand why God would play tricks on me—unless He expects me to fight for what is mine, and unless He doesn't expect me to play fair any longer. That's what I now believe."

  "Anne," Ali said in a voice just above a whisper.

  Barry nodded. "I've been in love with Anne from the first time I met her. To love a woman had been the most joyous, wonderful feeling I'd ever had in my life. I've never been in love before, you know."

  "I know, Barry."

  "Up to that point, all of my sexual attractions had been for men."

  "I know that too."

  "But that wasn't right; I knew that. Homosexuality is a mortal sin. But when Anne came into my life, I saw that she was going to make everything all right for me. Anne was going to be my reward for faithful service; I'd been forgiven for what I did to Bone, and was to continue my mission. For the first time in my life, my suffering was going to be alleviated; God had sent me a woman to love, and to be loved by. And Anne did love me—before."

  Ali watched in horrified fascination as the other man withdrew a pair of orange rubber gloves, slipped them on. "Life doesn't work that way, Barry," he said in a voice that cracked. "Because you love somebody doesn't mean that she has to love you. You just have to keep searching for somebody who can love you in return."

  Barry shook his head angrily. "Anne is right for me. But God is testing me! He's challenging me by holding out the promise of a reward, then seeming to punish me for the accident with Bone by having Bone take my reward from me. It's like the testing of Job! The difference is that I'm to fight back in order to prove I'm manly enough for Anne!"

  "But why kill me, Barry?" Ali said softly, slowly raising his hands with the palms upward. "Or isn't that what you plan to do? Are you waiting for Bone to arrive so that you can kill him?"

  "I'm sorry, Doctor," Barry said curtly as he pulled back a sleeve of his oilcloth raincoat to glance at his watch, then once more reached down into his bag. "I'm afraid there's no more-time to talk."

  (ii)

  At three minutes past ten Bone entered Ali Hakim's outer office, knocked on the closed door of the inner office. He waited, knocked again, then opened the door and stepped in. Instantly he was assailed by the hideous sight of carnage, the fetid odor of death. He gagged and was almost sick. He swallowed bile, forced himself to look even as his mind raced and he tried desperately to absorb and somehow go beyond the horror, to think.

  Ali Hakim's decapitated body was slumped over his desk, and blood, pooling and pebbling on the glass surface, still oozed from a stump that was a horrid pallet of severed flesh, dangling ivory-colored pieces of tendon, the cable-like end of the vertebrae. Directly overhead, blood dripped from the ceiling where it had spurted; blood, as if shot from a spray can, was splattered over the wall to Bone's left, and over the windows directly behind the desk, as well as over a half-open door a few feet to the right of the desk.

  Suddenly Bone became very conscious of the fact that he was standing just inside the entrance, and that the killer could be inches away from him, on the other side of the half-open door. Another shudder passed through him, and then he suddenly threw his weight against the door, slamming it back against the wall. There was nobody there.

  Still feeling stunned and short of breath, Bone slowly walked into the office, approached the desk. On the glass surface, next to the bloody torso of the dead neuropsychiatrist, were a bloody pair of rubber gloves and blood-spattered rain gear, hat and coat, all of brilliant orange oilcloth.

  The orange and crimson of his dreams.

  On the floor in front of the desk was a large blue nylon duffel bag stained dark with blood. Using the toe of his shoe, Bone spread open the unzipped top; inside were Ali Hakim's head, along with Bone's hunting knife, his razor and the ossified human femur.

  Bone walked quickly to the door to the right of the desk and peered through the crack between the door and the jamb; the doorway led out into a small vestibule with a private elevator and emergency fire stairs. There was nobody there. He turned back to again survey the carnage inside the office, trying to marshal his cascading thoughts, slow down his racing heartbeat and decide what to do.

  The stranger was definitely not the killer, Bone thought. That was now certain, and this, at least, offered him a sense of relief which was as profound as it was short-lived.

  He knew now that he had been rig
ht when he'd speculated that the killings and the killer were somehow connected to him; the orange-and-red-clad demon-figure that had chased him through his flickering, candlelit nightmares was the murderer. He had met him—somehow, somewhere.

  Perhaps underground.

  But why was Ali Hakim dead? he wondered. The psychiatrist was certainly not homeless, and this made him radically different from the other victims of the serial killer, an anomaly in death. One of the doctor's patients? Bone considered the idea, then rejected it. The psychiatrist had made it clear to him that he preferred research to people, and had no real private practice. Yet the presence of his personal items in the bag made it clear to Bone that the killer had been following him, had stolen the items from his campsite in the park and had left them here in an attempt to frame him. But it made no sense to him for the murderer to kill Dr. Ali Hakim. If the man was his enemy, if he feared discovery, then why hadn't he been the victim?

  But he was to be the victim, Bone thought when he suddenly heard the sound of police sirens approaching from at least three different directions. The ultimate victim. Ali Hakim, it seemed, was to be the last person beheaded, and he was set up now to take the blame for all the murders. There wasn't even time to call the police, for the killer had already done that for him. He was to be caught inside the building, or trying to somehow hide the damning evidence inside the duffel bag, or trying to run away.

  Now Lieutenant Lightning would have the "proof" for which he had been so diligently searching. Nobody could now possibly believe that he was innocent—not even Anne. He would be executed, or locked away for many years—perhaps for the rest of his life. And he would never find out who he really was. He had to run.

  And then Bone had a thought which made him nauseated and light-headed and caused his heart to hammer even faster. If he managed to escape, Ali Hakim might not be the last victim; if he was free, the murderer would be able to continue slaughtering helpless people, secure in the knowledge that Bone would be blamed. If he ran, he might be condemning an unknown number of innocent people to death.