Dead Mann Walking

34

I didn’t have the recorder, but I had something else, maybe something better. Nell wasn’t like Misty. She was definitely lighter, despite the remains of dancer’s muscles. She was hesitant, too, unsure if she wanted to touch me. But side by side, we staggered into a smoky day.

The firemen found us before the police, saving us some trouble. They were more concerned about the collapsing building, so it was easy to convince them we weren’t feral or interested in putting up a fight. They even believed me when I told them Misty was trapped in a bin. Not right off. I had to beg them to listen, to let her out. I didn’t care what it looked like to Nell. She already thought I was nuts. Anyway, they’d never seen a chak beg before, so it worked.

A stocky first responder, Thompson, I think, who seemed to have sweated through to the surface of his black rubber coat, headed for the garbage to let her out. I hoped he’d tell Misty who sent him. I wanted her to know I was still . . . whatever it is you call what I am.

While he was gone, two cops came by. Their barely fitting uniforms gave them up as auxiliary. The regulars handled the more important stuff. These rubes were left with the cleanup work, like rounding up the rioters. Each led his own row of chakz, all shackled at the ankles like a monster chain gang. We were not so politely asked to join the line. I tried to refuse, but they insisted. They didn’t bother sorting men and women or children and adults. There were only two kinds of chak: those who obeyed and those who wanted to eat them. Lucky for them, I wasn’t hungry.

“It’ll be okay,” I told Nell as they clamped the iron on my good ankle. She gave me that look again. I imagined there was some fondness to it now, like she was beginning to think of me as a mentally challenged younger brother.

They led us, leashed, to the plaza. The fires still smoldered, but it was relatively empty now, except for the piled bodies. Show over. Buses lined the street. Any chakz who’d somehow kept themselves sane through this mess were being herded on.

It was pretty orderly, considering. Orderly enough for me to spot the master of ceremonies, Jonesey. His left arm looked shot to shit, but his sandy hair was intact, and he still wore a bit of that smile. It didn’t quite match the dazed look on the rest of his face. I was surprised he hadn’t lost it, and wondered how long he had left.

They were about to shove him on a bus when I thought I’d say hello.

“Jonesey!”

He saw me and stopped, nearly pulling the chak ahead of him back out of the bus. Like a windup toy, the chak, not one of the smart ones, kept trying to climb in, unable to turn, unable to realize what held him back.

Jonesey raised his good hand. “Mann! You still hiding out among the living?”

“So far,” I said. “Looks like you made it, too.”

His smile widened. “Have to keep a good thought, right? I mean, it was a start, wasn’t it?”

I furrowed my brow. “A start?”

A cop pushed him into the bus. Good thing, too. I was about to tell him what a fucking idiot he was. Well, he’d figure it out soon, or give new meaning to the word denial . Made me wonder, though, if I’d let him go feral back in that alley whether it would’ve been better for everyone.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one recognizing faces in the crowd. Of course Tom Booth was there; it was his job, after all. He must’ve heard Jonesey call my name. Puffed up like a fighting-mad turkey, clipboard stuffed under his arm, temple throbbing, he stormed toward me, ignoring all the men asking for orders.

“Hi, Tom.”

He pointed at me and barked at my walkers.

“Where was it found?”

The auxiliaries looked like startled fawns. One fumbled for words. “At the hospital. The firemen found him.”

Booth looked at the thick dust on my coat, scraped some of it off with his finger, then rubbed it, looking like he was touching someone else’s shit. “You were in the blast.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded.

“That bug, Jonesey, the terrorist who organized the attack, he’s your pal, isn’t he?”

“Terrorist? He’s an asshole. And it wasn’t an attack. It was a rally.”

Booth sneered. “And I’m Miss America.”

“Maybe if they left out the swimsuit competition.”

“You set the bomb.”

Nell, who’d been quiet all this time, grabbed my hand and squeezed. She may have been afraid, or she just wanted to let me know she was there.

I met Booth’s eyes and tried to glare back.

“That’s lame even for you,” I said. “It was a fucking psychopath, the one I was after. Those two contractors you hired to do that work on me? They were his. He was after Odell Jenkins, a remediation worker down in the basement. There must be some record of him, at least. Tom, this psycho, he killed Lenore.”

As soon as I mentioned her name, I knew I’d gone too far.

“Shut up.”

“He saved me,” Nell said.

He looked at her with equal disgust. “Take them out of the line and bring them back to the station.”

“Both?”

“That’s what them means, shithead,” he said. “I’ve got you now, Mann. This time we’re going to figure out a whole new way to kill you.”

He stomped off, a dust devil twirling through the dry, flat, smoky terrain.

We were unshackled, taken from the line, and put in the back of a squad car. Nell and I didn’t speak much during the drive. I was afraid that anything I said would earn me another condemning stare. We did hold hands. Hers were cool, white and smooth beneath the dirt, like some kind of cotton. Mine were gnarled and gray, like tree bark.

At the station, we were separated. I was put into holding and left to sit there rotting for days. No reason to let a chak out to stretch his legs, right? They didn’t offer any medical care, but they did let me keep my foot. To be fair, it was still attached by a little flap of muscle, so it probably would’ve been too much trouble for them to find a pair of scissors.

My old partner, Jimmy Hazen, came by once. If he was sorry he’d betrayed me to Booth, he didn’t say so. He just shoved a needle and thread through the bars and walked away like he’d done all he could. I wished I knew how to sew.

Better yet, I wished I had that recording. If only . . . At least I had Nell Parker to think about. Ever since she saved me, I figured I might as well try to stay saved, at least until I understood why.

As for the rest of the world, I didn’t have access to news, but my guards talked. Over two hundred feral chakz had been put down “humanely”—though there was a bullshit rumor that they’d developed some kind of virus that could spread to livebloods. I’d heard crap like that dozens of times, whenever the LBs got scared. We could walk through walls, bend steel in our bare hands.

I did believe the rest—sick and tired of waiting for the feds to do something, the state was passing its own legislation. Meanwhile, all the chakz were being rounded up and put in camps. At worst we’d all be incinerated. At the liberal end of things, we’d be forced to register and undergo monthly exams. Somewhere in the middle, we’d be stuck in those camps forever. Liberals, unfortunately, are worse at organizing than chakz. They’d do well to hire Jonesey. Didn’t matter much. Thanks to Booth, I was already in my very own special five-by-five camp.

My mind had little else to bounce off of other than itself, but I kept thinking of Nell, and Misty, and the fact that I finally knew what had happened to Lenore. Once, as I sat there, I even remembered, I think, what it felt like to love my wife. It was possible, I guess, that if I got out of here I could convince someone what’d happened even without the recording. Colby Green would want to know, but I wasn’t about to write or call him. If he was my best bet, there were times during the long, slow days when I thought those camps might not be so bad.

About a week later, they let Misty in to see me. She was so worried about the broken foot and all the tears in my skin, she forgot to be angry with me for locking her in the Dumpster.

“Nice dress,” I said with my best grin as the guard locked the door. No lie. It was sleek and auburn. Was it already fall? She’d carry it nicer if she wasn’t weighed down by the heavy bag. It threw off her posture, made her look like a schoolgirl struggling with too many books.

“They wouldn’t let me bring you new clothes,” she said apologetically.

I shrugged. “Be like lipstick on a pig anyway.”

She tsked, put the bag down, and opened it. “You don’t look so bad. Nothing I can’t fix.”

Inside I saw books and papers. I started to ask, but Misty made a face like she didn’t want to talk about that yet. Instead, she pulled out her own sewing kit and some Krazy Glue.

She started with the foot, checking pictures in an anatomy book to see where the pieces should go, then using the glue on the bone. Whenever she got a piece together, she’d hold it tight for a slow count of sixty. I knew better than to make a peep until it set. It might dry wrong, or get stuck to Misty’s hand.

Half an hour later, the bones roughly in place, she was the one who started talking.

“New law was passed this morning,” she said, threading the needle.

“I heard the guards grumbling about something. Camps or fires?”

She shook her head. “It was a close vote. Everyone had to compromise.”

“Camps, then fires? The other way around would be ridiculous.”

“All chakz have to register, carry photo ID. They’ve got a test worked out, supposed to tell how likely it is for a chak to go feral. You take it once a month. Pass and you’re free for another thirty. Fail and you’re . . .”

“In the camps.”

“Yeah. Or the fires.”

Triage of the dead. It was almost like the cells in Green’s basement. I tried to whistle, but that trick never worked. What I managed was more like blowing a raspberry.

“Doubt I’d pass now.”

She looked up from her work. “I’ll help you study. We’re in this together, right?”

I smiled, tried to make it warm. “Right. Thanks. Sorry about the Dumpster.”

The muscle reconnected, she stitched the skin. I felt the needle go in and out, but there wasn’t much pain to speak of.

“Was it worth it?” she asked. “Nearly getting yourself buried?”

“Got any easier questions I can answer first?”

“No.”

“Fine. Yes and no. I didn’t find the recorder, but if I hadn’t tried, I would’ve gone crazy.”

“And that girl chak pulled you out,” she said. Now it was her turn to smile. Finished sewing, she waved at my foot. “Come on; try it out.”

The little flap of muscle still working, I managed to move my ankle. I even stood and circled the cell. I didn’t say anything, but my foot didn’t feel exactly right.

She nodded. “Better stay off it for forty-eight hours until the glue completely sets.”

I sat on the cot and tried not to look disappointed, but Misty could read me.

As she loaded up another line of nylon thread for the smaller gash in my neck, she said, “They say if a chak gets ripped a second time, old wounds can heal. Even bone.” She looked up at me. When I didn’t say anything, she added, “We do still have some money.”

An image of Ashby’s powdered bones shivering in the moonlight popped into my head, along with a thought. Maybe Boyle had saved enough to get the kid an extra RIP, hoping to fix his brain, and that was the unexpected result.

“I’m already worried I can’t ever really die. Why push it?”

She tsked. “I can’t keep patching you up like this. Could you think about it, at least?”

“One crisis at a time, okay?” I answered, indicating the jail cell.

The neck only took a couple of stitches. “How’s your tongue?”

I clucked it against the roof of my mouth. “Dry as chalk, but working. Any idea what happened to that chak-girl, aka Nell Parker? Unless, of course, you’re jealous.”

“I have half a mind to stitch your lips up.”

“I wouldn’t blame you. But . . . ?”

“She was released last week. That’s all I know. The police have been trying like crazy to connect you to the bomb, but they can’t. Every time they try to make a circumstantial case, there’re articles in the paper tearing them apart.”

I was about to ask why, but she put a finger to her lips and shushed me. She lowered her head and whispered, “I can’t let anyone hear this, but I think I figured out Turgeon’s real name.”

I nearly bolted to my feet, but she held my shoulders and kept me down. “Hess, they can’t know I’m telling you this. I didn’t exactly get the information legitimately. I had to get friendly with one of the guys in records.”

I flashed her an angry look. She slapped my forehead. “Don’t judge me! He was nice, treated me with some respect, and I’ve done worse for lots less. We’re even going to NA meetings together. Anyway, that’s why I’m not supposed to know what I know. I don’t want him getting in trouble for letting me use his computer.”

She’d already done whatever it was she’d done, and I didn’t feel like I was in a position to lecture her. Besides, the part about the meetings sounded good. “What did you find?”

“Took me a while, going through records of spousal murders. There’re thousands, Hess; it’s like everyone gets killed by their lover.”

“I know, I know. Get to the point.”

“Fine. About seven years back, this guy James Derby was executed for beating his wife to death. He had a history of abuse. There was a bloody golf club with his prints and DNA all over the handle. He pled guilty, so no one looked too close. His stepson, Lamar, inherited his business. Inside of a year Lamar sold everything and vanished with a shitload of cash.”

The next part, like it usually happens with exonerations, was almost an accident.

“Then a university crime lab class gets ahold of the case for practice. A student notices some bruising on her neck, like strangulation. Those wounds were swabbed, too, but never tested. They gave him the extra samples, thinking he’d just find more James Derby DNA. Maybe he started choking her and moved up to the club. But it wasn’t his DNA. It belonged to Lamar. Hess, the bastard murdered his own mother, then planted his stepfather’s golf club at the scene. Why would someone do that?”

I whispered back, “Because he blamed her for driving away the men in his life, his daddies. At least, that’s what he said.”

“But it still doesn’t make sense. Why would James Derby go to the death chamber to protect him?” she said.

I shrugged. “Guilt? He abused the kid’s mom, right? Probably felt responsible, even if it wasn’t him. Didn’t realize the boy was a sociopath. Or maybe he’d just given up on life. It happens, y’know.”

“You think it’s him?”

I nodded. “Sounds like it. It fits. Good work. No, great work. Lamar Derby. Shit, no wonder he changed it to Turgeon.”

I sat up and gave her a hug.

“So maybe you can double back? Find the same evidence and get Lamar convicted posthumously?”

“It sure as hell is something to do. But first Booth would have to let me out of here.”

She made a face. “I’m trying, Hess. There isn’t a lawyer in the city who’ll take your case, and the bail is more money than we’ve got. I could sell some stuff, try to borrow.”

“Don’t. Save the money. They can’t keep me here forever, and it turns out I’ve got more patience than I thought.”

She nodded, but I wasn’t sure she meant it.

“Misty,” I said, grabbing her wrists. “You’ve done a lot for me. More than I can say, but stop now. Don’t you spend that money on bail. And no more being ‘friendly’ for favors.”

She seemed offended. “I told you, it’s not like that. He was nice to me.”

“I don’t care if he’s Prince Charles and plans to make you his queen. Sleep with who you want, but not for favors. Promise?”

“Okay! I promise.”

I still wasn’t sure she meant it.