The Ones Who Got Away by Stephen Graham Jones

Author:Stephen Graham Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2025-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Kupier closed his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “yes,”

The next lab report identified the particulate soft tissue as the malignant bronchial matter of a lifetime smoker. Which gave them a range of ages, from forty to maybe sixty, just because sixty was the oldest active pattern killer to date. And the spectrum of pharmaceuticals in the bloody sputum from the park broke down in the lab’s pie tin as medicines for medicine—chemotherapy.

“He’s dying,” Stevenson said, another joke.

Kupier got in his car and drove the streets for bones, until Ellen showed up one night bruised around the face, silent, Kupier’s hand dropping to the gun he didn’t wear to bed.

“Ellen,” he said.

She laid her head against his chest and moved in. Moved out again a week later.

“Still working on that Maneater thing?” she asked when she came back for a dress from her old closet. The kids were standing in the living room waiting for the television to warm up.

“That’s just what the paper calls it,” Kupier said.

Sometime after that—a week, a month, no bones, the stake-outs all dry, abandoned—Kupier saw Eric again, at the bus stop on the east side of the park. The bus came, lowered itself onto its forelegs, then stood up again, left. Eric was still there.

That he was waiting for something illegal was obvious. He had that nervous stance, moving gravel around with his toes.

Kupier eased into the diner half a block down, sat by the plate glass. When it finally happened, the drop, Kupier wished he wasn’t there: it was Stevenson. He walked out into the grass with Eric, away from the streetlight. Kupier left a ten on the table and followed them, arcing wide to come up out of the darkness. They were talking low when he stepped in with them.

“K—Harold …” Stevenson said, stuffing both hands into his pockets.

Kupier looked away. To Eric.

“What do you want?” Eric said.

Kupier pursed his lips.

“Harold,” Stevenson was saying. “A little late, aren’t we?”

“Just saw you here,” Kupier said back, still watching Eric.

“Well here I am,” Stevenson said, holding his empty hands up.

There was nothing to do, really, so Kupier rubbed his eyes, left.

The next morning Stevenson was in his office door again. “Eric Waynes,” he was saying.

“I’m not—” Kupier started to say.

“It’s not what you think,” Stevenson was already saying, “not what I know you’re thinking.”

Kupier looked up. “What is it, then?” he said.

Stevenson blew a pink bubble of gum, collapsed it. “He’s a … contact. From the old days. We’ve got kind of a system worked out.”

“This isn’t Narcotics,” Kupier said.

“I know it’s not Narc,” Stevenson said. “I tell myself that every day, man. But listen. This guy, this Eric Waynes, he says he was in the park the other night. That he could maybe give us a description of the Maneater.”

Kupier breathed in, made himself exhale.

“In trade?” he led.

Stevenson shrugged, did something with his lips.

“I don’t want to know,” Kupier said then, “do I?”

Stevenson shook his head no, just once, in a way that Kupier knew he used to have long, greasy bangs.

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