CHAPTER ONE

     The day felt like bad news.  The night's rain had left the city looking sick and gray like a drowned rat.  Water collected in gutters, swirling around the garbage piled at the sewage drains.  Puddles stood in the streets, but the sidewalks were mostly dry.  People driving to work didn't look too happy to be up so early.  Even the birds refused to sing.

     Roy Porter leaned against the brick wall of the Tulsa Rescue Mission, turning his harmonica over in his ebony hands.  He liked the feel of the instrument--liked the fact that he could play a bit of music that wouldn't sound great to anyone listening, but would create true songs in his mind.  Sometimes the music brought back memories he'd rather forget, but on days like today, it pushed the bad times back into the shadows where they belonged.  He brought the harmonica to his lips, cradling it with both hands and blew a tune.

     A heavy loneliness settled onto his shoulders and he wondered who he hadn't seen today.  Who he'd never see again.

     That feeling of dread tickled at the back of his mind.  Down the alley, his buddy Frank dug in a trash dumpster.  Frank rooted around a bit, then stood up straight, a smile stretching his face as he tossed a new treasure into the shopping cart he'd stolen from the Homeland grocery store down the street.  The cart overflowed with junk, but Frank would protect it with his life.

     Roy kept playing the tune and the bad feeling nudged at him like a cat that wanted to go outside.  He watched another of the mission's regulars approach.  Pete walked by holding a bandage on his arm.  Roy figured he had finally sobered up enough to sell blood down at the clinic.  Roy had gone with him a time or two, but not lately.  He liked his blood just fine right where it was and it would take more than a lousy fifteen bucks to convince him otherwise.

     Pete didn't even nod hello as he passed, but Roy didn't take it personally.  Pete wasn't much for conversation.  Near as Roy could tell, Pete had been a fine upstanding citizen until one fateful day when he'd been driving his father to work and instead, in a moment of carelessness, he ran a red light and delivered his old man to the reaper by way of a Mack truck.  Pete's father had died badly in his arms.

     Roy stopped playing the harmonica and sat down on a dry patch of sidewalk.  The damp wind carried a song of warning.  Its mournful voice whispered and moaned.  Roy shivered in the cold air while whatever the wind said drifted out of reach like bits of a forgotten dream.

     He wasn't surprised when the Reverend came up with a couple of Tulsa's finest trailing behind her.  The Reverend tugged her heavy black overcoat tight around her thin frame.  Age spots dotted her hands and cheeks.  Her wild silver hair waved in the breeze like a lion's mane.

     “Roy,” the Reverend said, adjusting her spectacles.

     Roy looked up at her.  “Who was it this time?”

     The Reverend choked on her reply and looked at the cops.  The older man could stand to lose twenty pounds.  His name badge said Thompson and his gray eyes lacked the spark, the fire that burned in the younger man, Anderson.

Neither spoke.  Roy knew it was going to be bad.  She took a deep breath and shook her head.  “Willie.”

     Roy closed his eyes.  The Reverend laid a hand on his shoulder.  Roy knew that she understood the loss of friends and loved ones.  The Reverend's husband, Charles, passed away six years back following a long battle with the Big C.  After he died the Reverend threw herself into her work.  She went out of her way to help the homeless.  She once admitted to Roy that without Charles, she felt as if she were completely lost.

     Roy sat still a moment, letting the news sink in.

     Willie was gone.

     No more late night stories or practical jokes.  No more smiles or clever turns of phrase.  No more walks in the park with Willie making up names and pasts for the people they saw.

     No more Willie.

     If only Roy had tried to do something, maybe Willie would still be alive.  He knew that was ridiculous, but he still felt guilty because Willie was his friend.  He shook his head and forced himself to breathe.

       “Where was he?” Roy asked.

     “He was found in the field behind the mission,” the Reverend said.  “I'm sorry, Roy.  I know you two were close.”

     “Yeah.”  Roy glanced at the two policemen who stood behind her.  Let them wait, he thought.

     Willie was dead.

     Roy's mind came back to that thought.  He tried to dodge it, to think about the Reverend and himself, but the fact was there plain as day.  His friend was dead.  Just last night, he and Willie had shared a cigarette and they'd laughed about some tall tale Willie told.  Frank had been gullible enough to believe it.  When Roy suggested they tell Frank the truth, Willie laughed and said they'd do that tomorrow.  Now tomorrow would never come.

     “Mr. Porter,” said Anderson, “we need you to come with us.”  It wasn't a request.

     “Why?”

     “We need you to identify the body.”

     “Can't the Reverend do that?”

     They just looked at him.

     “Look, if you already know it's him, you don't need me.”

     “We still need a positive ID.”

     “And the Reverend can give it.  Why do you want me?  I don't want to see my friend's corpse.  I've seen more than enough death.”

     “We understand that, Mr. Porter,” Thompson said.  “But--”

     “But nothing.  I ain't going.  I can tell from the way you're looking at me that you think I did it.”

     “Mr. Porter--”

     “Am I under arrest?”

     “Not yet,” Anderson said.

     “Come on, Roy,” the Reverend said.  “It's all right.”

     “No it's not.  I'm not a killer.”

     “I know, Roy.  Really, they just need a positive ID.  You're the closest thing Willie had to next of kin.  I'll go with you.  All right?”

     Roy sighed and pushed himself to his feet.  The two policemen led the way back to their cruiser.     “Get in the car,” Anderson said.  He locked his fingers together and popped his knuckles.

     Roy looked at him, saw that Anderson clearly considered street people to be beneath him.  Roy was used to that, but it still didn't sit well with him.  “Crackin' your knuckles like that makes arthritis set in faster.”

     “Shut up, old man.”  Anderson opened the door.  “Get in.  And try not to piss on the upholstery.”

     Roy made a show of sniffing the air inside the car.  He made a face.  “Smells like you beat me to it.”

     “Just get in,” Anderson said and pushed him.

     Roy rolled his eyes and climbed into the back seat.  He didn't want to make a trip to the morgue, but he felt like he owed it to Willie.  He slid over so the Reverend could get in and she patted his leg.

     “Are you all right?” she asked.

     Roy nodded.  She was going all out to try and comfort him.  Roy wished she'd stop; he wanted his own space.

     Anderson drove.

     “It’s terrible,” the Reverend said to no one in particular.  “Just terrible.”

     “Yep,” Thompson said.

     “Why do these things happen?”

     “That's more your arena than mine, Reverend.  I'd just say these are bad times.”

     Death must have a warped sense of humor, Roy thought.  It always takes those who most love life.  Willie had been a happy man.  Roy didn't know what happened to leave him on the streets; the old man had been a permanent fixture for as long as anyone could remember.  He'd been a good friend and had lit up the lives of those around him.  They used to say that nothing could get him down.

     They were wrong.

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