Michael Harvey - We All Fall Down

Donnie tugged the body into the dark recesses of the underpass and took another look around with his flashlight, this time checking the upper windows of the nearest apartment buildings. Everyone and his brother had a camera shoved up their ass these days, and Donnie didn’t need any of that shit. Fuck it, he could always say he was just looking for an ID.

Donnie checked the man’s hands and wrists first, then around his neck. People would be surprised at how many of these homeless fucks wear rings, watches, necklaces, every goddamn thing. This one, unfortunately, was clean. Donnie unzipped the red Bulls jacket the corpse was wearing. Donnie’s twelve-year-old loved the Bulls, but he wouldn’t love the smell of this coat. From inside the jacket, Donnie pulled out a couple of newspapers the departed had used for insulation against the cold. Then the cop found an inner pocket and a wad of cash, wrapped up in a piece of notebook paper and bound with a rubber band. Donnie gave the roll a quick count-all singles, maybe thirty dollars total. He slipped the money into a pocket and reached for his shoulder mike to call in the body. That was when he heard a noise.

“Chicago police.”

Donnie splashed light across some bushes at the far end of the underpass. He caught a glimpse of what looked like a green army jacket and a pair of red Converse sneakers. Someone was trying to stand and run. Donnie couldn’t have that. Not with all the cameras people had these days.

“Hold it right there. Police.”

Donnie got all two hundred eighty-four pounds moving as fast as he could in one direction, crashing across the street and belly flopping into the bushes. Whoever he was, the interloper’s face kissed Chicago cement. Donnie rode him into the gutter and gave him an asphalt face wash for good measure.

“Didn’t you hear me identify myself?”

The second bum was younger than the first, and in better shape only in the technical sense: he was alive and the other wasn’t.

“That your friend over there?” Donnie gripped the man with both fists and shook. Dark lines scored the man’s cheeks, and there was a hunger circling his lips. Even in the cold, Donnie could feel heat radiating from the man’s skin. He let the rough coat slip from his grasp.

The man dropped back into the loose gravel and exploded in a fit of coughing: huge, ragged bursts, hauled up wet from the lungs and leaving the man exhausted. Donnie took a step back. The bum uncovered his face and looked up at the cop. His grin was a red and sticky thing.

“I saw what you did to my friend. Dirty fucking cop.”

Donnie cracked the bum across the side of the head. His face snapped to the left and bounced off a frozen piece of rebar. Donnie plodded forward. His fingers found the man’s throat. Donnie lifted and squeezed. A pair of red Cons dangled in the early morning light.

“What did you say?”

Ropy lines of saliva hung from the man’s open mouth. Donnie put a fist over it. Then he pushed hard up against the cracked cement of the underpass. The bum’s eyes gripped him, and Donnie could feel the first stirrings of fear, irrational and unbidden, uncoiling inside. It was kill or be killed time. And somehow, the cop knew it.

He leaned into the job, closing off the man’s nose with his other hand and taking him to the ground. The man clawed at the cop’s back, and Donnie could hear his legs thrashing against the scatter of rocks and dirt. Yellow eyes danced in the half darkness, but Donnie didn’t waver. The scratching got weaker. The legs stopped moving. The eyes began to jitter and fade, losing focus before, finally, unthreading altogether. Donnie knelt over the man and felt his own heart slow. He didn’t know why he’d done it. Just that it was the right thing, maybe the best thing he’d ever done. He checked for vitals, a hint of breath. Then he brushed the man’s eyelids shut and dragged him over to join his companion.

Donnie radioed dispatch and told them he had two bodies for the morgue-apparently dead from natural causes. He waited in the warm cruiser for the coroner’s wagon. He was supposed to go out for beers after his shift, but figured he’d take a pass. Donnie had two more things to take care of. After that, he just wanted to go home and crawl into bed.

Danielson walked back into the room without his briefcase. Trailing behind him were two women. Both in their mid-thirties. Both seriously scientific.

The first was maybe five seven, with long limbs and an athlete’s shoulders hidden under a lab coat. Her skin looked like coarsened marble, her hair black and cut loose to the shoulder. She had a large mouth, a square chin, and a nose that was probably longer than she liked. Her deep-set eyes were polished to a high shine and slid smoothly in my direction. She was sizing me up, whether for a drink or a specimen jar, I wasn’t sure. But she was sizing me up.

The second woman was maybe five three, round almost to the point of squat, with curly red hair and a face full of sun and freckles-the dubious look of someone who liked to camp. She had a mouth that moved, even when she wasn’t speaking, and her eyes were dangerously alive-two electric blueberries plopped in a couple saucers of heated milk.

I stood as the two settled. Danielson took a chair and waved his hands toward the women.

“Kelly, this is Dr. Ellen Brazile. She’s working with us on this.”

The taller of the two stood up. “I’m Dr. Brazile.” She pointed to the redhead. “This is my associate, Dr. Molly Carrolton.”

We shook hands all around. Danielson tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. When we were all seated again, Danielson flipped open his cell.

“Where are they?” he said and listened to whoever was on the other end. Then he grunted and hung up.

“We need to wait a minute.” Danielson talked to the two scientists as if they were the only other people in the room.

“Who are we waiting on?” I said. Danielson continued to ignore me, so I got up and poured myself some coffee.

“Anyone want any?” I held up the pot. Ellen Brazile kept her eyes focused on a stack of paperwork she’d pulled out of a briefcase. Molly Carrolton shook her head.

“We can’t have coffee.”

I poured some cream into my mug and stirred.

“Want to know why?” Carrolton said.

I didn’t really want to know, but there she was, perched and pert, looking like she wanted to climb inside my ear and collect a sample from my prefrontal lobe. I figured it was best to play along.

“Why?” I said.

“We work with live pathogens, so we get our blood scanned every week. Just a precaution. Caffeine throws off the diagnostics on some of the tests. We can have limited amounts of dairy, but cream is, like, pushing it.”

“That’s very interesting,” I said.

“We drink a lot of Diet Coke. Caffeine free.” Carrolton smiled. I smiled back and moved down the table, sitting a few seats closer to Danielson. The man was an asshole and might like to pop his colleagues when they became inconvenient, but he didn’t work with viruses that could wipe out half the world in a single exhale. And he didn’t have to get his blood screened like Count Fucking Dracula.

“Who are we waiting on?” I said for the second time. Just then the door opened.

“Thanks for coming, Mr. Mayor.” Danielson stood up and stuck out his hand. John J. Wilson gave him two flaccid fingers and scanned the room, taking in the two women before fastening on yours truly.

“Kelly. I was wondering if you’d be here.”

The mayor took a seat at the end of the table. In his wake floated a gray smudge of a man whose features seemed to collect in a holding pattern and hover at the mayor’s shoulder.