THE PHONE IS in my apartment. The apartment I have no keys to. The apartment directly above where I had apparently tried to kill someone. The police are probably already looking for me here. The white coats from the hospital too.
I’d made my escape from the hospital easily enough in the panic and confusion of the fire alarm. In new clothes and walking on my own, nobody would have mistaken me for the broken maniac chained up and crippled in that room.
I shuffled out and down the hall, past the policemen hovering nearby, trying to calm down old ladies in hospital gowns, dragging their IV stands toward the exits. I ducked into an alcove and pretended to be drinking from the fountain as Doctor Rhodes hustled by, his bald head flushing red down into his face. He had two orderlies and the two police with him, hustling toward the room I’d just vacated. I limped past the nurse’s station and down the long hall to Emergency, stepping out into a night as clear and fine as I had ever seen.
There was a bum with a cart full of cans passing in the street. I gave him a twenty for the three bucks change to take the bus.
Once I was safely packed into the back corner of the bus, I pulled out the crumpled sheets of paper and, for the very first time in my life, looked at my own past.
Which is why I’m back here, at the scene of my crime. A crime I don’t remember. The reports on the clipboard say I attacked a girl, right here on my own doorstep, chased her into traffic like a rabid dog. Got hit by Checker Cab #336. Driven by a man named Manji. There was a second report attached, about two young men being attacked in the park, mauled by some kind of maniac. One of them facially disfigured. The other one now short a few fingers. Attacked without provocation. That’s what the report said. Just two guys walking in the park at three A.M. I don’t remember any of it. I’ve become some kind of monster.
I need to see Devil.
Clinical Lycanthropy.
Dressed of fur and fierce of tooth.
He’s the only one who might understand. The only one who might help me. Might.
So I need that goddamn phone.
I creep around the back of the building. The cops are there, but they’re busy. There’s two of them, raining down fists on the poor homeless bastard that sleeps in the corner next to the kitchen of the pizza place next door.
I hop the cement wall into the parking lot and wind my way through the cars, finding a spot right next to the door, tucked in front of a blue minivan. I wait.
The cops finish with the bum on the other side of the wall. I hear them laughing and talking in their cruiser. Football. Which of the sixteen-year-old hookers on third they wanted to nail most. Which Disney princess would be hottest in real life? A couple of times, one of them walks past the outer wall and waves a flashlight past in a lazy arc.
Finally the lock clicks, I hear the bar clack against the metal of the door, and somebody steps out, framed by the light from inside. I pop up behind them and dart inside before they even register me. If they thought they saw something, they might have turned back to an empty doorway and momentarily cursed their own paranoia.
In the few hours since my breakout, my ribs have hewn back together. The cramping pain is gone, the throbbing weakness in my leg is gone. I’m stronger, faster, more focused than I feel I’ve ever been. I bound up the stairs without losing a breath. Thirty floors running. Not even running. Skipping.
I land at the thirty-third floor and sense them immediately. I can smell them. I realize that cops have a smell. Their own scent. Maybe it’s the oil on their holsters, the plastic in their radios, or the cleaner in their uniforms. I can sniff them out as easily as a black banana, or a tuna sandwich that’s been left out that little bit too long.
There’s two of them. Same as downstairs. They’re hovering at my door. These two are quieter than the bozos in the street and likely better at their job, but I need that phone.
I open the door slowly, carefully, eyeballing them through the gap, trying to calculate how close I can get before they recognize me, or want me to explain myself.
It comes to me in a flash. I walk calmly down the hall, trying not to tense too much, but ready to move if they recognize me. Maybe they have pictures, or a description from Rhodes or the girl they say I attacked.
I walk right past the officers and knock on 3312. It’s around the corner and out of their sight line. I hear the old man fumbling and straightening things, putting himself in order. I hear the TV click and the electronic moaning stop.
“Vas ist das?” he yells. “Vas ist you want?”
He’s plodding to the door, sock feet on carpet, old steps, soft and unsure.
“Vas?” he hollers through the peephole. I back away from the door, against the adjacent wall, away from the peephole.
I hear him patter away, and I knock again, sliding up against the wall once more.
“Who ze fuck ist das?” He’s screaming now. I hear the cops mumbling to themselves behind me, wondering what the problem is.
I wait, then knock one more time. This time I duck out of his eyeline and across the hall, behind the giant fake palm by the elevator. 3312 explodes into the hallway, screaming in German.
“Scheisskopf! Vas ist Das? I vill cream your asses!”
The cops come running. 3312 sees them coming and screeches like a Great Owl, slamming the door in their faces. I reach behind me and hit the button for the elevator, as the cops are banging on 3312’s door, demanding he let them in. Contempt of Cop. Works every time. The more he refuses them, the more furious they get. The elevator hits, dings, and I pop out of my hiding spot as if nothing could possibly be amiss. I smile cordially as I pass, dropping my head as any of us would do, avoiding the maelstrom—letting the officers do their job. They’ve already forgotten me from the hallway, and I walk past completely unremarked.
I’m hoping, and I’m right, that they’ve already been in my apartment and didn’t bother locking up. The hallway cops have doubtless used my bathroom, been through my medicine cabinet, raided my fridge. I’m likely missing change from the big jar by the bed. The car keys are sitting in the middle of the table, instead of lost between couch cushions or placed haphazard on a shelf full of paperback novels.
I only need the phone.
It’s still packed up, under the bed, cast aside like an empty box, and they’ve assumed exactly that.
I take one look around, cataloguing a lifetime of possessions, realizing that none of this shit is mine.
Some other guy. A broken guy. That strange, crazy asshole with the miserable life.
That’s who lived here. That asshole, Jimmy Finn.
Not me. Not the monster who tears people apart and eats little girls in the street.
I’M BACK OUT and down the stairs, listening with some small amount of contentment as the officers say, “What do we have here, Fritz?” and “I suppose these videos don’t belong to you, huh?”
“Sieg Heil, Schweinhund,” I whisper as I bounce down the stairs, tearing the box open with my teeth.
I walk right past the two cops in the alley. I flip up my hood and hustle down the alley as if I’m late for work. They’re busy arguing about the best sauce for an Arby’s roast beef sandwich.
The little pigs don’t notice the Big Bad Wolf.