Zero at the Bone

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

4760 Preston Road

Suite 244-149

Frisco, TX 75034

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Zero at the Bone

Copyright © 2009 by Jane Seville

Cover art by Paul Richmond, www.paulrichmondstudio.com.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

ISBN: 978-1-935192-80-0

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

April, 2009

eBook edition available

Dedicated to every reader who has ever

offered me praise, criticism, support or just
acknowledgment. You know who you are.

You have helped keep me writing for many

years, and without that, I would not be the
writer I am now, nor would I ever be the

writer I still hope to become.

A narrow fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides—

You may have met Him,—did you not,

His notice sudden is.

The Grass divides as with a Comb,

A spotted Shaft is seen,

And then it closes at your Feet

And opens further on—

He likes a Boggy Acre,

A Floor too cool for Corn—

But when a Boy, and Barefoot,

I more than once at noon,

Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled, and was gone—

Several of Nature's People

I know, and they know me—

I feel for them a transport

Of Cordiality—

But never met this Fellow

Attended or alone

Without a tighter Breathing

And zero at the bone.

—Emily Dickinson

Zero at the Bone | 1

THE smell of cheap motel rooms was comforting to him, like his oldest, rattiest T-shirt.

Lysol, unwashed feet, and that sour tang of grime and desperation that tried to dress up and look nice with laundered sheets and those stiff bedspreads that felt like sandpaper on your ass, bargain basement art on the walls and the cheap paper-wrapped chits that weren’t so much soap as a suggestion of what soap might be like.

Motel rooms like this had known many men without names, but he wondered if he was the first who’d let his go by choice. He signed a meaningless pseudonym to the register and paid cash. He could afford to stay in nicer places, but that would mean hauling out one of his impressive array of fake identifications, and he didn’t use them unless absolutely necessary. Each one, when used, left a shallow footprint in the shifting sand dunes of his existence, which he preferred to keep pristine and featureless. Even if that hadn’t been the case, he’d still prefer rooms like this. They fit around him snugly with the comforting security of anonymity. Every time he’d stayed in fancier digs he’d felt like he was rattling around in them like the last pea in the can. The eyes of the world could see him in places like that. Places like this, he could float through without leaving a trace, and the world’s eyes looked away.

He shucked his jacket, smelling smoke and stale beer on himself from the bar he’d spent the evening in. He didn’t know why he kept going. The bars, like the motel rooms, were always the same. He didn’t go to the ones with fancy neon and clever drinks at the bar. He liked the ones with gravel parking lots and sagging roofs, the kind that sported hand-painted signs proclaiming that this was Somebody’s-Name’s-Bar. Folks went to those places for two reasons: to get drunk enough to forget their sorry-ass lives, or to pick up a piece of tail. Neither interested him. He wouldn’t claim that his life couldn’t stand some forgetting, but the booze had not yet been invented that could let him, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pick up a piece of tail.

Sometimes he thought he should, just to keep up the appearance of being part of the human race. It wouldn’t have been hard. The skanks that hung out at these bars usually homed in on him the minute he walked through the door, sizing him up to see if he was good for a screw, a free meal, maybe shacking up in a double-wide and paying the bills.

They’d flap around on the dance floor, presenting like monkeys at a zoo, and lean too close when they stood next to him at the bar, wafting an unpleasant mixture of Love’s Baby Soft and flop-sweat.

The occasional notion that maybe he shouldn’t sleep alone every single night of his life wasn’t enough to actually make him take the initiative. It had been a long time since anyone got that close to him. In his line of work, he had to be careful. Close enough to 2 | Jane Seville

fuck was close enough to shank him with a dagger hidden in the crease of some chick’s jean shorts. Some part of his mind that remembered civilization knew that it wasn’t normal to be this paranoid. Couldn’t be helped. That ship had sailed.

So he went to the bars, had a beer or two, stayed quiet, watched the people, and left.

If he stayed any longer, the eyes on him became too much. Always the eyes, looking at him sidelong, like they knew. What could they know about some stranger having a beer in a bar? They didn’t know shit. But the eyes were always on him, and whether they knew anything or not, the idea that they might always drove him out.

He stretched out on top of the bedspread and lit a cigarette, staring at the ceiling. He could tell Josey that it was just a precaution, he could tell himself that it was paranoia, but here on the sandpaper bedspread where it was just him and the bargain-basement art, he couldn’t deny that he was always alone in these godforsaken motel rooms because the tits and ass on offer just weren’t that interesting to him. He didn’t like to think about how far gone he was into the abyss that even the humanness of lust was now foreign to him.

At least he still felt hunger, and cold, and the craving for nicotine. How long until even those animal sensations left him? Would he eventually be left with nothing but a set of skills that suited him for only one profession, and a head full of things he didn’t want to know? Maybe he’d disconnect enough that he would no longer sweat, or piss, or get stupid songs stuck in his head. He’d been told over and over again that he’d have to become a machine, but he hadn’t really believed that he would. He knew better now.

He stubbed out his cigarette and shut off the bedside lamp. He wondered if he should try jerking off. It’d be nice if he were capable of even that level of self-love, but he hadn’t managed to wring one out in a long time. Months? Years? He couldn’t remember. The desert stripped most indicators of date and season from his memories.

Everything was always hot and bright and seared crisp.

He set the alarm clock. He couldn’t be late for Josey tomorrow, and it still was a long drive to Nevada.

JACK just wanted to wash the blood off his sleeves. It was ground into the creases of his knuckles and clotted into the hair on his wrists. He was elbow-deep in blood on a daily basis, but never without the shielding of gown, gloves, sterility… sanity. He couldn’t stop staring at it, the edges of the stain bleeding into the white of his shirt, the darker blotches on his hands. He just wanted to be allowed to get up, leave the interview room, and wash it off. Or change his shirt. Or go home and cry.

The odds of this happening seemed slim. “Let’s go over it again, Dr. Francisco.” He didn’t bother to look up to see which of the suits was talking to him. They were all the same. They blended into one nameless entity of Suit With Questions that surrounded him in navy blue polyblend and poked and prodded and wouldn’t let him go home. “I told you already.”

“Tell us again.”

“I was on my way to my car.”

“In the parking garage.”

“Yes.”

“What floor?”

“The tenth.”

“Why’d you park way up there?”

Zero at the Bone | 3

“I got to work late today; that was the first spot I found.” He could hear his own voice, flat and uninflected. This was what it had come down to: a rote recitation of one of the worst days of his life. “I saw three people standing in the empty spot next to the car.”

“What kind of car?”

“It was a black Escalade. I don’t know what year. Late model. I didn’t get the plate number. The woman was up against the side. I looked over to see if she needed help, then I saw the knife.” He felt the shame rising in his chest again, wanting to choke off his words. “I should’ve helped her,” he said.

“It’s a good thing for you that you didn’t, or you’d be dead too. Then what happened?”

“I ducked down behind a car. The tall one stabbed her. She didn’t scream. There was this sucking noise, like a gasp. I heard her fall. The two men got in the Escalade and drove off.” He gulped. “They didn’t see me.”

“And you saw the men clearly?” Jack nodded. “Then what’d you do?”

“I ran to her to see if I could help her. I tried to put pressure on the wound while I called nine-one-one.” He swiped at his eyes. “She died before the paramedics got there.” Silence. Jack looked up. The suits were concerned. He glanced around. The suits were waiting for something. He didn’t bother to ask what.

The door opened and another suit entered, carrying a folder. He didn’t introduce himself or acknowledge the other suits; he just sat down next to Jack. “Dr. Francisco, the woman you saw killed was Maria Dominguez. She was scheduled to testify about her extensive knowledge of her ex-husband’s drug-related activities.”

“So… those men were….”

“Yeah.” The new suit met his eyes. “I’m not going to bullshit you, Dr. Francisco.

You’re our winning lottery ticket here. We’ve never had a witness who could identify any of the Dominguez family in the commission of a crime.”