Brothers and Bones by James Hankins Page B

countries. I recognized the signs of torture, or at least I thought I did.
    Bones caught me staring and I shifted my focus to his eyes. Several times as I watched him eat, he “changed channels,” as I’d come to think of it. At times his face was nearly blank as he jammed bits of food into his mouth. Then he’d give his head a violent shake or blink a few times, and he’d look angry—at me, at the table, at his spoon, at the world. Then another shake and he’d look disoriented, like he had no idea how he had suddenly ended up in a diner with his mouth full of lemon meringue pie. One time he stopped eating and stared at the stump on his left hand where his little finger used to be, looking confused, as if he wondered if he’d accidentally bitten off his pinky during the meal. A moment later, his eye twitched and he resumed eating. I watched him mentally channel surf as he stuffed himself, and I hoped he’d end up on a harmless station, maybe PBS, when he was finally ready to talk.
    Soon, that moment arrived. He pushed the last of his plates aside, licked his fingers, and reached for his coffee cup. It was empty. I looked for the waitress, who wasn’t in sight, then signaled the manager. He frowned, waddled over, and dropped a small coffee carafe on our table, then took up his position again behind the counter, where he could glower at us in silence without Bones seeing him.
    Bones was staring at me, a little confused, it seemed, then he blinked and I saw recognition light his eyes.
    “Bones,” I said. “You have a first name?”
    He looked for a moment like he wasn’t certain, then said, “Yeah.” He offered nothing more.
    “Okay.” I smiled. “Bones it is, then.”
    He frowned suddenly, though, and shook his head. “Name’s Bonzetti. People call me Bones. It’s not my name, though. I don’t think I want to be Bones anymore.”
    “All right, what should I call you then?”
    He thought about it for a moment. “I was Bonz when I was a kid. Other kids called me that. That was okay.”
    “Like the Fonz?”
    He looked up, irritated. Either he didn’t know who the Fonz was or he thought I was an idiot. There was only a subtle pronunciation difference between “Bones” and “Bonz,” but it seemed that the weight of the baggage each pronunciation carried differed greatly to the man. I smiled again.
    “So I’ll call you Bonz, then, okay?” He shrugged and stared down into his black coffee. “Listen,” I said, “I should thank you for saving me from those guys in Chinatown. That was you, right?” He sniffed loudly, then wiped his nose on his sleeve. His eyes were blank, like the eyes of a child’s doll. A mean-looking doll. “Well, if it was you, and I think it was, you probably saved my life. So thank you.” Nothing. I added, quietly, “It’s okay that my wallet was empty.”
    His eyes met mine for a moment, then he looked back down at his food. “You like my new boots?”
    I leaned over and looked at his boots, which indeed looked brand-new.
    “Very nice.” Though probably not worth the two hundred–odd dollars I remembered having on me when I was attacked by the gang. I wondered what he did with the rest of the money. “All right then, where should we begin?”
    “Why were you looking for me?” he asked.
    “I think you might have—no, you do have—some information I need.”
    He seemed to chew on that for a moment, but I soon realized he was chewing on something he’d found stuck between two of his teeth. He ran it around his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “Thanks for the food.”
    He started to rise. I shot my hand out and placed it on his arm, not aggressively, but firmly. “Wait, please.” He stopped, mid-rise, and stared down at me. His head twitched and he switched to a bad channel, his eyes red and angry. I had forgotten how imposing he could look. I hadn’t forgotten the lunatic ravings I’d witnessed in the past,