The nigger looked off through the loose crowd. “I hope it’s Harkner. ’Cause if there’re two of them crazy maniacs runnin’ around, I don’t even want to know about it.”

I looked through the crowd too.

All the activity was around the barge beside Red and Rufus’s scow. Searchlights had already been set up to shine over the water. Others shone on the barge cabin. A couple of cops came out the cabin door. On the peeling tarpaper, in wide, brown-red swatches—some of it was still wet and redder—were the big letters:

ALL RIGH

—followed by a smear, like whoever’d written them had been interrupted. There were dribbles from both L’s and the G.

One cop turned another spotlight on the wall: all the little tongues of shadow from the tarpaper tatters swung up, then went away. Flashbulbs popped.

Parts of the letters, still wet, glistened. Parts had dried a dull rust.

“Shit,” the nigger orderly said. “That’s Harkner. Might as well get ready for another leisurely trip to the morgue.”

“Naw, man: we gotta rush.” The white orderly gave a grin like a cup of cold coffee. “I mean, you never know when we gonna have to make the next one!” I guess he didn’t like his own joke, because he scowled and shook his head. “When I went up close, I could see part of the woman through the door, when one of the cops came out. Man, she looked like a fuckin’ watermelon somebody’s taken an ice-pick to—for about an hour!” He took his hands out of his pockets, opened them, closed them, put them back. “Jesus!”

“Whyn’t they just scrape ’em into a couple of baggies and let us haul ’em in, huh?” The nigger still hadn’t really moved. “You know? Instead of makin’ us stand around like this?”

“They got measurements and pictures to take and stuff.” The white one put all his weight on one hip, shook his head again, then put it all on the other. “Besides, they’re looking for a baby.”

“A baby?” The nigger uncrossed his arms and let them drop. “Aw, man, a baby?” His dark hands hung against his white pants. Behind his round, rimless lenses, his eyes got all scrunched up.

“There was supposed to be a baby on the barge, but nobody can find it now. We’re supposed to wait around in case they got to get it to the hospital fast or something—”

“Jesus God,” the nigger said softly. He took a breath, crossed his arms again, again looked off through the crowd.

I walked on, trying to get a better look.

Police were on the garbage scow too.

Rufus stood on the deck, one wide black thumb hooked under his tanktop strap. One leg of his pants—a searchlight swung across his face and made him turn aside—was wet.