DREADFUL SELFISH CRIME

By Joseph M. O'Connell

Danny Lippman squeezed his little brother's hand and tugged four-year-old Joe through the twilight toward the black water. Mr. Lippman would be home any minute and Danny knew his Daddy's face would turn bright red, his mouth squeezed into a tight butthole shape, when he found they had disobeyed his orders to stay away from the river at night.

Zombies lived in the river, but they only came out at night when their hunger became unbearable, Daddy had told them. And zombies liked the flesh of little boys the best. It was fresh and tasted better than fried chicken and mashed potatoes to the undead.

Little Joe had dropped his chin to his chest, nodded his head and swore never to go down there. He was a scared crybaby. But Danny was ten and he knew it was a lie. He heard Momma tell Daddy to quit frightening the boys. If he didn't want them to go down there, just threaten them with an old-fashioned whooping.

"No," Daddy said. "I got enough of that from my own father, enough for two generations easy."

Even a spanking might've been worth getting to put the remote control boat out and watch it fly across the water like a monster truck sliding through the mud. And Danny had new batteries! But Joe had to start howling about how Danny never let him go anywhere. It was either fight about it with the baby and risk waiting too long or get on with it.

The river was gray-green in the pink, fading light. Danny scooped

Joe up and carried him the last few feet across the bridge and to the water's edge.

Danny placed it gently on the surface, and the miniature speedboat bounced in the water. Danny pushed the lever to full throttle. The sleek plastic boat zipped through a mass of floating leaves and into the open. Joe's little legs pogoed up and down as Danny mashed at the control box. More speed, more. The boat was close to the other shore when it cracked against a floating mass, maybe a log.

Danny smiled and put the boat in full reverse. He whacked it against the floating thing again and again, each time with a soggy, blunted slap of noise. Danny wanted a wreck; he wanted destruction. Little Joe wanted his turn at the controls and was about to burst with the denial. My turn. My turn. My turn.

Danny drove the boat almost all the way back to the shore nearest them, then slammed the throttle full force. The toy whined as it powered toward the floating hunk. Whack! The boat's nose crumbled into the thing.

The dark mass rose to the surface as if suddenly inflated with helium. Joe was the first to recognize it as a vaguely human dead thing. His scream was shrill and hollow as his feet begun to scurry to the bridge and toward home. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Then Danny's face turned cold. He was a man and could take it. He took one long look before the creature started to float toward him. Zombie!

The control box tumbled from his hand and onto a rock, the throttle lever pinned back at full. The tiny boat jabbed at the body again and again, drifting with the waves in a losing battle. The body floated with it, its arms skimming the surface. Bloated, purple fingers spelled out a wet warning that was too late for anyone to hear.

Bobbi leaned back on the grass and stared up at the stars. With one finger, she motioned for Arturo B. "Abe" Lincoln to join her. He did.

He tried to count the tiny specks of light in the otherwise pitch black sky, but quickly gave up. For the first time in years he did not feel alone. He wasn't worried about becoming one of what his friend Deputy Sheriff Walt Talbort referred to as Shadow People--people with so few human connections in life that when they fell victim to foul play, nobody noticed and authorities were left with nameless mysteries.

Arturo sat next to Bobbi and stared across the river to an abandoned house. In the shadows of night it looked not new, but alive-- if its owners had slipped off to the corner for a quart of milk or a

six-pack of beer and the house was patiently awaiting their return. Shadow People. Arturo felt a sudden chill. He was an abandoned person, first class, and had pretty much given up hope of being found.

Bobbi reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Kiss me, Abe."

She pulled him down to her and his lips met hers. They wrapped their bodies tightly within the blanket. Arturo held back years of pent-up emotions as he grabbed Bobbi's warmth with all of his might. He'd never experienced tears of relief, and he fought his hardest to keep them in check. He concentrated instead on this beautiful woman who somehow, inexplicably, saw something inside him worth investigating.

"I've been on the sidelines for a while, Bobbi."

"No pressure, darling. Just try your best to keep up."

Bobbi rolled on top of him and straddled his chest. Arturo reached up, took her porcelain face into his restless hands and kissed her waiting lips. When he pulled back, she looked into his eyes and gave a quick, gentle smile.

"I don't know. You might be worth a little effort."

She reached down to unbutton his shirt. He felt the suppressed tears escape as his own hands set out to explore territories long forgotten. Arturo raised his head slightly and felt the warmth as a salty drop flowed down his face and settled on his chin. Bobbi captured the tear on the tip of her tongue. They rocked gently at first, then picked up speed as the stars above began to blur into desire.

Arturo's eyes were closed and his mind far away when the fuzzy howl of the police scanner yanked him back to reality. Bobbi's nakedness was warm against his and she hesitated before breaking away. She sat to his side and grinned as he bent to grab the scanner. Arturo felt her staring.

"What's so funny?"

"You look like a big, dark baby, is all." She gripped the blanket and covered up. "I think I like your eyes the most, the squint to them is almost exotic."

"I feel more chilly than exotic at the moment," he said, and turned the volume up on the scanner.

"Walt," he could make out through the static, and knew it had to be Deputy Walt Talbort they were calling. Arturo was well-acquainted with the stump-like lawman with meaty hands so compact that gripping them in a handshake was a challenge.

"You got him."

Arturo immediately recognized Talbort's slow, fumbling drawl, and sensed his perfect evening was about to suffer an even more severe case of coitus interruptus. "Signal three. Kids found an unlive one near County Road 24. Meet father just past Little Cuckoo Branch bridge. Justice of the peace advised."

"Got you. I'm en route."

Arturo's heart jumped. Dead bodies weren't uncommon in Kelton

County, but he had some unfinished business from this afternoon that he could only hope was unrelated. He turned to Bobbi. She squinted her eyes in annoyance and reached for their clothes and the bucket of freshly caught fish.

"I guess I'll have to take a rain check on both this and that fish fry we'd talked about. A hazard of the newspaper business."

"No problem. I'll freeze the fish. You I expect to stay warm." She lifted her arms and let her shirt drop over her head and drift down to cover the slight bulge of flesh at her waist that Arturo found breathtaking. "Besides, it's been a long day, and I've never seen a dead guy before. Two firsts in one day."

"How's that?"

"Confession--you're the first non-white man I've been this intimate with, Abe. The first anyone in a long time."

"I hope you know what you're getting into. I guarantee the rednecks are alive and kicking here in Kelton County and your coworkers at the courthouse may be among them."

"I'm game if you are." Bobbi slipped into her shoes.

He would bet she didn't know the first thing about what she was messing with. Few white people had any idea what it was like to be either black or Mexican, and Arturo was both. Nonetheless, he was too high from the touch of Bobbi's silky skin to care at the moment.

He laced Bobbi's fingers in his and relished the warmth that radiated from her. What was it, three years since he'd been with a woman? And then it was just drunken desperation. He had awoken in a stranger's arms in a trailer park on the edge of Wilby. He couldn't remember the woman's name or her face, just the sad smell of her home--perfume and stale bacon grease.

Arturo leaned closer to Bobbi and took a sniff. The scent was familiar, like the sweet corn his grandparents had grown on their small farm in East Texas. His grandmother used to pull it right from the stalk and boil it on her ancient stove.

"How'd I rate, anyway?" Arturo asked. He turned his eyes downward for a moment, then peeked shyly back at her.

"I'll let you know when we pass the minute mark." Her eyes sparkled.

He cursed the police scanner under his breath. He was required to have one with him at all times, but half the time he forgot it at home or left it turned off. He'd picked a hell of a time to be reliable. Make a note for the future: When in the rhythm, don't stop for anything, not even a dead body.

###

A one-lane bridge crossed the Little Cuckoo on County Road 24 twenty feet above the water. The stream ran steady but shallow far beneath Arturo's car. Flashing red and blue lit the night around Deputy Sheriff Walt Talbort's cruiser. Arturo pulled his blue 1970 Cutlass up next to where the stumpy deputy stood with his notepad in hand listening to a gimme-hatted father and his wide-eyed sons tell their tale.

"Abe, what the hell are you doing out of bed?" Walt grabbed the edge of the car door with a pudgy paw, then looked at Bobbi. "Oh, I see you're taking this lovely lady out sight-seeing. I trust her husband is still on the run."

Last year Arturo had helped kick out Bobbi's husband, Dowell Goodman, a wife-beating son of a bitch. Arturo planted a plastic bag of white powder in Dowell's truck and got Walt to scare Dowell straight out of the county. Bobbi kept the little bag and grinned when she used its contents to sweeten her tea.

"He knows I'll pump him full of lead if he sticks his ugly face in my door." Bobbi reached over and touched Walt's hand. "But thanks for asking."

Walt and Abe had been drinking buddies off and on for the past few years, after meeting on a night much like this when a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals. Reporters came from as far as Dallas to cover the story, but Walt made sure the local boys got the scoop first. Arturo invited him out for a beer in thanks. They discovered that law enforcers and journalists have plenty in common--they both work odd hours, are apt to screw up their personal lives, and are reviled by strangers.

"Is this one worth my while, Walt?" Arturo held his breath.

Walt leaned close to Arturo's ear. "Only if you're a blood and guts fan. This poor ape caught lead right between the eyes. We'll have hell putting a name to him. I've got most of the report if you want to take notes before the J.P. arrives."

Arturo took out his notepad and rewrote Walt's words: Two boys, ages ten and four, playing along the bank at approximately 6:30 p.m. when saw something floating. Upon discovery it was human, went home, waited for father's arrival to tell him. Father called 911 with report at 8:48 p.m. Deceased is white male, early 30s, brown hair, beard, thin build."

The father tapped Walt hard on the shoulder. "Can we get this done? I want my boys home and in bed."

"Zombies," the youngest boy said, his eyes the size of silver dollars and his arms clutching his father's leg.

The man spit hard at the ground. "County ain't fit to raise cattle, much less kids. Dead bodies floating around."

Walt rolled his eyes before turning back to the red-faced man.

"Hold your horses, sir."

The deputy grabbed the report from Arturo's hand. "Let me finish this, Abe. Why don't you go get acquainted with our swimmer? I double dare you."

Arturo opened the car door, and as he rose he caught sight of something white along the bank. He could barely make out a human foot where it stuck out of a tattered sheet the father had probably brought with him after hearing the boys' descriptions.

"Bobbi, grab that point-and-shoot camera from the glove box for me and wait here." He always kept the idiot camera handy for just such a reporting chore.

"Abe, I'm a big girl." She had the expectant look of a kid about to peek into a carnival freak show tent. Arturo knew at that moment that he could easily fall in love with her, and it scared him.

"I don't want a corpse to be your memory of this evening. Please.

I've got to do a little work here and then I'll get you home."

It had been a long day for them both, and her tired eyes gave in.

She handed him the camera, then leaned her head into the seat.

The lens became his eyes and Arturo felt himself vanish. It was too corny and new-agey for him to admit to anyone, but he'd learned long ago that a good photographer must inwardly disappear and become the camera.

Arturo kneeled and clicked close-ups of the wiggly boys as they told the rest of their tale to Walt. Then he walked a couple yards toward the sheet and shot it with the moving stream as the backdrop. The flash lit the damp night.

Goose bumps raised on his arm as he crossed the short distance still separating him from the gory facts of death. The bank was eerily silent. Even the crickets had packed up their instruments and moved on.

The sheet was partway in the water and the wet area was molded to an arm whose only movement came from the gentle sway of water as it struck bank.

Arturo squatted and pulled the sheet back from the face with a jerk. His stomach instantly tightened. The bullet had torn off most of the face, leaving half a lip and one dangling, vacant eye. The ragged edges of the facial flesh were the color of pale cheese. Apparently what the bullet didn't get, hungry fish had nibbled. But they were kind enough to leave his old friend and colleague Casey Bonner's tangled beard almost perfectly intact.

A metallic tang filled Arturo's mouth. He turned his head before the first load of bile spewed up his throat and out his gaping mouth. He could just make out Walt's chuckle from back at the squad car as another spasm forced the afternoon's beer out onto the grass.

He wiped the dregs from his lips and stumbled up the bank.

"Abe, puking on a crime scene is a felony in my book." Walt's smile faded to concern. The father was already a few yards off, ushering his boys back to the world of television cartoons where dead men shook it off and came back for more.

"You all right, buddy?" Walt patted Arturo lightly on the shoulder.

Arturo nodded his head and coughed up the last of the bile. He felt like he'd been hit by lightning and the electrical charge was trying to force its way out of his trembling hands.

"That corpse used to be a friend of mine," Arturo said.

"Shit." Walt's voice was barely above a whisper.

"Yeah. Some deep shit."

The camera slipped from Arturo's hand and crashed to the ground. Justice of the Peace Raymundo Ruiz reached down and picked it up.

"Not often the press beats me to the victim, m'ijo." Ruiz exposed his false teeth as he grinned. The J.P. was well past eighty and painfully thin. But he was happy to jump out of bed when asked to confirm that a corpse was indeed dead, and order it sent to the coroner in Austin for determination of cause.

"This should be an easy one, Señor Ruiz," Arturo said.

"Qué Pasó? From the looks of your face, this feller must not be a beauty queen."

"No, sir, he's in desperate need of a face lift." Arturo was pleased to see he'd retained his composure enough to make a sick joke.

"Abe's just about to tell me the floater's name," Walt said. His smile was nowhere to be found.

"Casey. Casey Bonner. He's an Australian. We worked at the same newspaper years ago. He's a private dick from San Antonio now, doing worker's comp slop. I dropped him a few miles upstream near County Road 10 this afternoon. He was shooting pictures of a farmer."

"This farmer shot back, no?" Ruiz said.

"I don't think so," Arturo said. "He looked pretty harmless to me."

He could feel himself sinking deeper. He was too old for this shit. His fortieth birthday was a few months away, but most of the time he felt at least a decade older.

Walt stomped his right foot hard. "Goddamn it, Abe. Sit your ass down and start drawing me a map to this farm."

Ruiz pursed his lips and made a clucking sound. "Relax, deputy.

Show me to the dilemma."

While Walt and the J.P. walked down to the body, Arturo checked the Cutlass and found Bobbi snoring in the front seat.

Arturo knew the cardinal rule of the journalist was to avoid getting too close to a story. The reporter's real emotions on the issue weren't supposed to show, so both sides could get their fair say and readers could make their own decisions. That was the theory, but he had learned from experience that the mere choice of what story to cover put a reporter on record. Tonight he had fallen head-first into his own byline and it chilled him to the bone. Maybe he was being punished for daring to be happy for a few minutes with Bobbi. Enough pessimism. He'd scrawl the map that would lead Walt to the farmer, and then get Bobbi home. The deputy could meet Arturo in the morning and take away the last traces of Casey--a wallet and a set of car keys.

He inhaled deeply of the crisp night air and let the breath out slowly. He knew what Casey would say if he still had a mouth: You owe me, Abe. You owe me a life. Pay up. Too late, old friend.

Walt and Ruiz came back into sight, and they weren't smiling.

"What do you think, señor?" Arturo asked.

"I think somebody didn't like that feller a bit." Ruiz's knees began to wobble. Arturo caught the old man by the armpits and held him up.

Casey's one loose eyeball flashed into Arturo's mind. It turned and stared at him, pleading for answers. Pay up.

Copyright Joseph M. O'Connell, 2001. This work may not be reproduced in whole or part without written permission of the author. Select quotations for the purpose of review are fine.