Roy stared out the window at the houses they passed.  Junked cars sat in some of the driveways, on the lawns, at the curbs.  He knew the owners planned to fix them up or part them out someday, but until then, those junkers would just sit there.

     It reminded Roy of his life.  When he was young he had so much to live for.  Then, after the war--after Rose--he'd thrown it all away.  He'd parked himself in the driveway to rust, never bothering to fix himself up or part himself out.  How many others did the same thing?

     When they reached the hospital, Anderson parked in a no parking zone.

     “You can't park here,” Roy said.

     “I'm a cop,” Anderson said as if that made it all right.

     “You still can't park here.”

     “Shut up, old man.”

     “It says no parking.”

     “I didn't know you could read,” Anderson said.

     “There are a lot of things you don't know,” Roy said.

     Anderson opened the door.  “Out.”

     The Reverend climbed out and Roy followed.  He took a moment to stare into the young cop's eyes.  “You ain't such a good valet,” Roy said.  “Might want to take a class or something.”

     “Let's not cause any trouble,” the Reverend said, but Roy could tell she was hiding a grin.

     “Tell that to him,” Roy said.

     “Let's go.”  The young cop led the way to the double glass doors of Hillcrest Medical Center.  He held the door and waited for the others to come up the walk.  He tapped his foot and sighed.  “Come on.”

     Roy walked even slower; he wasn't about to be rushed.  He didn't want to see the corpse of his friend and if he could delay that, he would.

     Anderson fumed.  “I don't have all day.”

     “I do,” Roy said as he walked past him into the building.

     Even without the sad reason for coming here, Roy hated hospitals.  The smell of antiseptics never quite overpowered the stench of the sick and dying.  It was worse when they descended into the basement.  A sign hung on the wall with arrows pointing left and right.  To the left was the morgue, to the right, the cafeteria.

     “Good thing I ain't hungry,” Roy said.  “Whoever designed this place is one sick puppy.”

     Anderson grinned.  “Do you expect someone to offer you some Soylent Green, Mr. Porter?”

     Thompson shook his head and guided Roy to the left.

     They entered the morgue.

     A long-haired young man sat behind a desk with his back to them, bouncing his head in time with the rap music thundering from the headphones of his portable CD player.  The room couldn't have been more than ten feet by ten feet and the off-white walls with framed pictures of clowns did nothing to improve the atmosphere.

     Thompson cleared his throat.

     The morgue attendant's curly brown hair bobbed and waved and he wore thick glasses that wouldn't stay seated on the bridge of his nose.  He didn't give any sign that he heard anything beyond the rap song.

     Anderson stepped forward and tapped the man on the shoulder.  The attendant nearly hit the ceiling.  “Jesus!” he yelled yanking off the headphones.  “Don't do that, man!”  He noticed the uniforms and gathered his composure with a half-grin.  When he saw the Reverend, he blushed.

     “You the attendant?” Anderson said.

     “Uh, yeah.  Sorry.”  He nudged his glasses up with a forefinger and looked at the group.  “What's up?”

     “We're here to identify a John Doe,” Thompson said.

     “No prob.  Follow me.”  He tossed the headphones on the desk, then rose and led them into a large room.  Roy shivered, blaming it on the refrigeration; it was cold in there, but the chills came more from being surrounded by death.  A couple of tables stood in the center of the floor.  Three walls were painted a blinding white.  The fourth wall had rows of stainless steel drawers where they stored corpses.

     The attendant held a silver clipboard in one hand.  Several sheets of paper flapped on it as he walked over to the drawers.  “So, do you want to take a look inside drawer number one, drawer number two or trade it all for what lies inside drawer number three?”

     Roy guessed you had to be twisted to work in a morgue, but this guy really rubbed him wrong.  They were here to identify Roy's friend and he didn't appreciate the attendant's attempt at humor.  Maybe the guy's brain had soaked up too much formaldehyde and he was sliding off into the void of insanity.  Or--and Roy liked this possibility--the rap music had burned out his brain with its unbearable volume.

     “We're here for an old black man,” Anderson said.  “Would've been brought in this morning.”

     “Old puffball, eh?”

     “That's the guy.”

     The attendant yanked a drawer open.  It held the naked body of an old woman.  He gave a sheepish grin and closed the drawer.

     “Memory's gone,” he said and consulted his clipboard.  “Let's see ... here it is.  Number seventeen.”  He moved along the bank of drawers and pulled out a tray.

     The body had a sheet draped over it.  Roy knew that wasn't standard practice.  “Even Dr. Coverdale can't stand looking at this poor guy.  So who's holding the short straw?”  The attendant's eyes sparkled with glee.

     Anderson stepped forward.  “Come on, Mr. Porter.”  He raised the sheet so Roy could get a look.

     An awful smell hit him, but even that didn't prepare him for how bad old Willie looked.  This time it was snakes.  Willie was as full of holes as a pair of two dollar shoes.  Each set of twin puncture marks oozed purple fluid.  His face was so swelled that his eyes bulged, threatening to burst.  His skin was gray.  Roy looked away.  “That's Willie.”

     “We need a full name,” Thompson said.  “He had no identification.”

     “I told them you might know his name,” the Reverend said.  She stayed back so as not to see the body.  She always tried to help the cops.  Roy knew she did it because she figured they'd patrol the neighborhood a bit more.  Help her if she needed it or help one of the homeless.  Fat chance.

     Roy shrugged.  “He was always old Willie to me.  I doubt if Willie himself would have remembered his last name.”

     Anderson still held the sheet up, so Roy jerked it away from him and covered Willie's face.  He hated to look at him like that--degraded.  He patted him, saying his final good-byes.  “You was good people, Willie.  I'm gonna miss you.”

     “Pretty wild, huh?” the attendant said.

     Thompson walked over and placed a hand on Roy's shoulder.  “You all right, Mr. Porter?”

     “I'm okay.”

     “Did Willie have any enemies?” Anderson asked.  “Who's his next of kin?”

     Roy stared at him.  He knew they'd have lots of questions.  Willie was the third street person to die in the last two weeks.  It just so happened that Roy knew all of the victims and everyone from the cops to the guys at the mission to Roy himself was aware of that fact.  He kept repeating that he didn't have any answers, but no one accepted that.  Not even Roy.

     He didn't consider telling the cops what little he knew.  They'd think he was insane.  The cops couldn't help.  They'd look for a regular man and one thing Roy knew for sure was that the killer was definitely not a regular person.

     He'd seen the pattern of death before, ten years back, when he was new to the streets.  A few of the old timers took him under their wings and taught him to survive.

     Then they started dropping off, each in a different horrible way.  It looked like the killing would go on forever, but then came Jim.  He was a long-haired, pot smoking, rock star wannabe, but he cared.  Roy wasn't sure how he did it, but Jim stopped the killing.

     Always afraid that it might start up again, Roy kept an eye on Jim.  Jim was different after he'd dealt with the killer.  Meaner.  He traded his sandals for biker boots, bought himself a Harley and took off for a couple of years of soul searching.  When he came back, he settled on the West Side.

     Roy figured it was time to pay him a visit.

     He turned to the Reverend.  “Get me out of here.”

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