I heard over the radio: “DOS.”

Paramedics bolted from a white ambulance. I watched them hustle the stretcher up the switchback path. They couldn’t get too close, smoke still pluming out, but a firefighter emerged from the house with something in his arms.

It was black, gnarled like a root, but you could see the naked toes dangling. He laid the body on the stretcher and the paramedics brought it down the hill.

I approached the body—it was what you had to do—and saw the head, cooked and faceless, baring its teeth. Then they zipped the bag and the ambulance surged away.

—

I don’t know how long I stood there before Tim Braun, the Messenger reporter, came along the shoulder of the road on a scooter in a sparkling gold helmet. There wasn’t anywhere to hide, so I had to watch him converse with the cop, who gestured in my direction. He came stalking over.

“So you’re writing for the Messenger now.”

I didn’t answer. It was too strange just looking at the thick pink flesh of his face.

“Anyway, you owe me one,” he said. “I told her you were with us.”

Braun shielded his eyes and peered up the slope. The houses smoldered and fell.

“I knew I’d be too late,” he said. “These things go up like tinderboxes, happens all the time.”

I was thinking of Pavel’s cigarette burning in his lips as he drowsed off on pills.

“Another daily drama on the west side,” Braun said. “I guess you got what you came for, huh.”

“I knew him.”

Braun’s eyes flickered. “Who?”

I gestured toward the house.

“Is he okay?”

I shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”

I coughed and he offered me a bottle of water. There was a strange taste in my mouth that I tried washing out, but even after I’d swirled and spat, it lingered.

“Hey,” he said, “I need to ask a few questions around here, but it shouldn’t take long. You want to get a drink or something? I know a few good spots. You buy me a round and we’ll call it even, okay?”

I thought I’d inhaled human remains.

Braun shouted something after me as I set off down the road, hacking up whatever I could and spitting on the rocks. At one point I looked up and saw the people in the gridlock watching me, but I just kept spitting and spitting, it wouldn’t come out.

THE TAPES

1.

Upon landing at LaGuardia, I had a message from Dr. Kriss. I called her back at the baggage carousel.

“I heard,” she said. “It’s awful, I’m so sorry.”

I told her I’d seen the body.

“Between this and the shooting,” she said, “you’ve been through so much, too much. Are you alright?”