It roasted Marty the minute he stepped foot outside his office. It sweated him
of hope. Two blocks down, the Greene Street bus stop shimmered like a mirage.
Marty knew he didn’t stand a chance of getting there without an alluvial
overflow of wetness dripping down his crack. And a mouthful of the grit five
o’clock traffic whipped up. Or the wince of white-hot sidewalk nuking the
bottoms of his ancient Oxfords. For a second he stood blinking in disbelief:
Marty Childs, bookkeeper. Age forty-six. Sporting creased uppers and a baggy,
summer-weight suit. Circle of hair scruffy from neglect. And a pain in his gut
that felt like a midget pounding him with a polo mallet every time he took a
breath.
I stare at my melted keyboard and blank monitor
and the CPU humming nonstop, and I don't dare unplug it. I'm
not sure what would happen, but it would be ugly. Somewhere early
on there might've been a bail-out point. The best thing I could've
done - and jeez, I never thought I'd hear myself say this - was
listen to Mom.
Billy
Ray Jones eased the station wagon onto the highway, skirting
a pothole at the edge of the shoulder
to avoid bouncing the corpse around.
This was the third time
in two years he'd hauled a body for the state prison system.
The cheap administrators had never
yet provided a transport box. At the other end, the country
church that donated burial space would have a pine coffin waiting,
but that didn't help Billy Ray any now.
He could just see himself
trying to explain a corpse to the highway patrol. So far he'd
never been stopped, but he kept
the transfer papers tucked right up here on the visor, in case
that ever happened.
