14 Stories by Stephen Dixon Page A

before it reaches the lobby. I head for the outside. There’s a security guard sitting beside the revolving door. He looks like a regular city policeman other than for his hair, which hangs down past his shoulders, and he also has a beard. Most city policemen don’t; maybe all. He gets a call on his portable two-way set as I step into one of the quarters of the revolving door. “Laslo,” he says into it. I’m outside. “Hey you,” he says. I turn around. He’s nodding and pointing to me and waves for me to come back. I cross the avenue to get to the bus stop. He comes outside and slips the two-way into his back pocket and walks up to me as I wait for the bus.
    â€œThey want you back upstairs to sign some papers,” he says.
    â€œToo late. She’s dead. I’m alone. I kissed her hands. You can have the body. I just want to be far away from here and as soon as I can.”
    â€œThey asked me to bring you back.”
    â€œYou can’t. This is a public street. You need a city policeman to take me back, and even then I don’t think he or she would be in their rights.”
    â€œI’m going to get one.”
    The bus comes. Its door opens. I have the required exact fare. I step up and put my change in the coin box.
    â€œDon’t take this man,” the guard says to the bus driver. “They want him back at the hospital there. Something about his wife who was or is a patient, though I don’t know the actual reason they want him for.”
    â€œI’ve done nothing,” I tell the driver and take a seat in the rear of the bus. A woman sitting in front of me says “What’s holding him up? This isn’t a red light.”
    â€œListen,” the driver says to the guard, “if you have no specific charge or warrant against this guy, I think I better go.”
    â€œWill you please get this bus rolling again?” a passenger says.
    â€œYes,” I say, disguising my voice so they won’t think it’s me but some other passenger, “I’ve an important appointment and your slowpokey driving and intermittent dawdling has already made me ten minutes late.”
    The driver shrugs at the guard. “In or out, friend, but unless you can come up with some official authority to stop this bus, I got to finish my run.”
    The guard steps into the bus, pays his fare and sits beside me as the bus pulls out.
    â€œI’ll just have to stick with you and check in if you don’t mind,” he says to me. He pushes a button in his two-way set and says “Laslo here.”
    â€œLaslo,” a voice says. “Where the hell are you?”
    â€œOn a bus.”
    â€œWhat are you doing there? You’re not through yet.”
    â€œI’m with the man you told me to grab at the door. Well, he got past the door. I tried to stop him outside, but he said I needed a city patrolman for that because it was a public street.”
    â€œYou could’ve gotten him on the sidewalk in front.”
    â€œThis was at the bus stop across the street.”
    â€œThen he’s right. We don’t want a suit.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought. So I tried to convince him to come back. He wouldn’t. He said he’d kissed some woman’s hands and we can have the body. I don’t know what that means but want to get it all in before I get too far away from you and lose radio contact. He got on this bus. The driver was sympathetic to my argument about the bus not leaving, but said it would be illegal his helping to restrain the man and that he also had to complete his run. So I got on the bus and am now sitting beside the man and will get off at the next stop if that’s what you want me to do. I just didn’t know what was the correct way to carry out my orders in this situation, so I thought I’d stick with him till I found out from you.”
    â€œYou did the right thing. Let me speak to him