David Wiltse - Bone Deep

"Interesting phone call," Karen said.

"Has it occurred to you that our domestic life is a little unusual?"

"I'd say it's pretty normal."

"Except that while you're on the phone talking to somebody about the PTO function for the sixth grade, I'm in the other room searching Bureau files for anyone who puts bodies in trash bags and plants them under trees."

"You find something unusual in that?" she asked. She handed him the glass of wine he had left half finished on the dining room table.

"It seems to me you should be researching friend Johnny while I do something more manly in the evenings, like bowl. "

"What did you call him?" Karen asked.

"I'm calling him Johnny, for Johnny Appleseed, another lover of trees."

"Disney will be pleased," Karen said. "Have you found anything yet?"

"Nothing useful. A couple of woodsy types in the Northwest who liked to tie people to trees while they killed them, but I don't think that's much of a connection. What was the interesting call? I thought it was the P'TO."

"That was the first call. I got another one from someone named Tovah Kom." Becker chuckled mirthlessly. "Know her?"

"I met her. I told you about her. The doctor's wife."

"Yes, she made that clear. Is 'Mrs. Doctor Kom' really the way to say that? Isn't it just 'Mrs. Kom'?"

"They do that in the Army, too. Mrs. General Jones. Like Doctor is a first name."

"Or a rank."

"Some people look at it like that, I guess. So she actually called. I was hoping it was just one of those things people say, like let's have lunch."

"She invited us to dinner," Karen said.

"Did you tell her no, I hope, I hope."

"Oh sure. I told her no, we don't eat."

"You could have told her I was antisocial."

"You said she'd met you. She must have figured that out for herself.

Apparently she doesn't care."

"You could have told her you were antisocial."

"We have to keep that our little secret," Karen said. "Remember, social ineptitude is perfectly all right for a big strong man, but for women it's still not done, liberation or no. Anyway, it might be fun."

"Alternately, it might not."

"Do you have anything in particular against the Koms, Doctor and Mrs.

Doctor? Or is it just your general dyspep sia'?"

Becker sighed. "Not really, I suppose. The truth is, I would rather spend the evening alone with you, or with you and Jack, than with anyone else in the world."

"I know. Me too. But it's just one evening. We'll be alone again when it's over."

"if I must, then I am, as always, your slave."

"Dinner sounds good at least," she said. "Mrs. Doctor tells me we're having lobster."

McNeil entered the jail cell with the warder of the Bridgeport police behind him. The perpetrator, looking young, nervous, and sullen, sat on the cot. His eyes never met McNeil's directly, but seemed transfixed on the bars at the opposite end of his cage. McNeil was accustomed to the middle-distance stare; it came as regulation issue to everyone he contacted in the Bridgeport jails. From some it arose from a rage so deep that direct eye contact must lead to violence. From others, from most, it was the ghetto version of a teenager's feigned indifference to authority. It sprang, McNeil knew, from confusion, from profound ignorance of the way the world worked, and from an intense desire to appear cool, regardless of the circumstance. Occasionally he would come to pick up a Clamden youth who had wandered into Bridgeport in search of drugs or trouble and had found both. They were quick to abandon the stare when they saw McNeil, a familiar face in a bad situation, appealing to him with all the sincerity and innocence they could muster.

At that moment at least, they looked on McNeil as a friend.

Tyrone Kiwasee did not regard McNeil as a friend, and he was right in his assessment. "I'm Sergeant McNeil of the Clamden police," McNeil said, giving himself a promotion as he often did under these circumstances. "You Tyrone… Kiwasee?" McNeil played with the last name as if he regarded it a joke.

"That's him," said the warder.

"He doesn't seem too sure about it," said McNeil. "Tyrone's a little confused about a lot of things," said the warder.

Kiwasee had not yet stirred or made any recognition of McNeil's presence.

"I'm from Clamden," McNeil repeated. "You know Clamden, don't you, Tyrone?"

Kiwasee shrugged imperceptibly.

" Sure you do, Tyrone. Bridgeport cops found your house stuffed full of stolen goods-about half of them came from Clamden."

"Wasn't my shit," said Kiwasee. "I got nothing to do with it. "

" They found it in your house, Tyrone. In your room, tucked under your bed. How'd it get there? we got to wonder. We don't wonder where it came from though, you know why, Tyrone? Those people in Clamden don't like punks from Bridgeport coming into their town and stealing everything in the house. That's how some people are, I can't explain it. So know what they do? They mark that stuff. They record serial numbers on all their valuable little goodies. They get special machines to put special codes right into the merchandise so it can be identified later when we find it under your bed. Isn't that selfish of them, Tyrone?"

Kiwasee continued to gaze blankly at the bars of his cell.

"So, you know what else, Tyrone? That makes the police in Clamden just a s eager to talk to you as the police right here in your own hometown.

You are an inner-city, intercity celebrity, Tyrone. You and your pals are the burglars who been stealing from those nice folks in Clamden for the last three years, aren't you?"

"Ain't stole nothin'. Don' know where that shit come from."

"Well now, that's a good story. it is." McNeil looked to the warder for support.

"It's a good story," said the warder. "I believe it."

"Anybody would believe it, except maybe the judge. The judge might not believe it. But, hell, you don't expect me to explain judges to you, do you, Tyrone? You already have more experience with them than I do. So I tell you what, Tyrone. I'm going to take you back with me to Clamden and you're going to talk to us some, and look at some houses and tell us why you broke into them and tell us what you did with the other things you took from those houses, and generally be cooperative. You'll like that, won't you, Tyrone? A nice ride in a police car? We can even swing through your old neighborhood and let everybody see how you're getting on. Most of them'll be proud of you, we know that much, don't we?"

For the first time Kiwasee lifted his head and looked directly at McNeil. His eyes were deep brown, the whites clouded and rheumy as an oyster. "Then let's go," he said.

"VVhat's your real name, Slick?" McNeil asked. Kiwasee sat in the back seat of the cruiser, separated from the driver by a screen of wire mesh.

"Tyrone Kiwasee."

"I mean your street name. What do the bros call you?"

Kiwasee was silent. He watched the trees of Clamden sail past the window.

"They call you Skids, right? That's your street name, Skids. What's that mean?"

"Means I run so fast, when I turn a corner I skids."

McNeil studied his prisoner in the mirror to see if he was being mocked.

"I know your street name," Kiwasee said. "I heard about you. "

"I don't have a street name."

"Sure you do, everybody do."

"My name's McNeil."

"That ain't what the bros calls you."

"What do they call me?"

Kiwasee allowed a slow grin to steal over his face. "They call you the fat-ass jack-jawin' motherfuckin' cop from Clamden."

"Oooh, dat what dey call me, Tyrone?"

"No, that's too long. They just call you Pussy, 'cause you loves pussy."

McNeil laughed. "You're funny, Skids. I like that in a felon. What else they say about me?"

"We don' talk about you a whole lot, you unnerstan'. Ain't nobody studying on you 'cause you ain't that important. Jus' once in a while when your white-ass preppies come to the Port to buy a ho or some snort.