The Hundredth Man by Jack Kerley Page B

hands. The Potentialswere second-stringers on the sideline benches, there if needed, but hopefully kept from the field.
    He swiped his hands on his khakis to blot sweat and reached for the closest stack of photos. There were five in all: the Absolutes, the chosen ones. From the seventy-seven photos he’d received, five had survived the most intense scrutiny. He arrayed the Absolutes before him like supplicants and studied them from chin to kneecaps.
    Until the sound started up in his head.
    Not again, please not again . . . .
    He sat back and pushed his palms against his ears. She’d started singing in the next room. He knew she wasn’t physically there, but the woman sang across time and between dimensions if she wanted. He hummed loudly to blunt her song, but it made her sing louder. The only way to stop her singing was push his pants past his knees and do that thing, his buttocks squeaking against the cupped plastic chair until down there made nasty business across the underside of the table and the floor.
    It took two minutes to make her shut up. He refastened his pants in blessed silence, then spent five minutes at the sink attending to his hands: hot water, soap up to the elbows, scrub with the brush, rinse, repeat. Dry his hands with a fresh towel, toss it in the hamper.
    He returned to the table and picked up a photo from the Absolutes. The pictured man stood grinning and naked against a cream-colored wall, hips cocked forward, the male-fruit displayed shamelessly for the camera. The man had a smile like actors grow, white as snow and lacking only a glint of light flashing from an incisor. He’d flashed the bright smile in the park when they met.
    The man at the table picked up the scissors. Carefully aligning blades and photo, he snipped, and the head tumbled to the floor. He retrieved the scrap, tore it into dime-sized pieces, and brushed it from his hands into the toilet. The last piece sucked down the whirlpool was the white smile.
    The man cocked his head and listened for her song, but she seemed to be resting. Gathering strength, probably; time was growing short. He’d been exceptionally careful, but she surely sensed hewas closing in. He returned to the table, picked up the magnifying glass, and studied the men in the remaining photos—knee to chin, chin to knee—over and over, until he knew his choice was right.
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    â€œQuart of whores,” Harry said, “Rats back Rats back Rats back Rats back Rats Rats Rats Rats.” He scribbled aimlessly on his pad, then tore off the top sheet, crumpled it, and flicked it to the growing pile of paper balls in the center of the round table. The tables in Flanagan’s were too small for brainstorming, I thought. The lights too low. The noise level too high. The floor too wooden. Everything irritated me when the thoughts wouldn’t come.
    â€œEight rats,” I said, exasperated. “Four with backs.”
    Harry doodled on his fresh page. “Ate rats? A-T-E?”
    I thought about it. Shrugged. Nothing clicked.
    â€œ Rats anagrams to ‘star,’ ” Harry continued, drawing stars. “Eight stars, four stars times two, four-star restaurant, four-star meal, twice as good?”
    I dry-washed my face. “Who in the hell warped the whores?”
    The third round arrived. Eloise Simpkins picked up the dead soldiers, glanced at my pad, winced. I’d sketched a large rat.
    â€œYuck,” she said, wrinkling her nose, ratlike.
    I craned my neck, stretching. Medium crowd at Flanagan’s, twenty-five or so, about half cops. Most were at the bar or tables near it. Harry and I’d sat up front where we could pull the curtain and look outside for inspiration. I opened the curtain. Rain in such solid vertical lines it could have been falling up. Four lanes of canal with a street beneath it, an occasional car splashing by. Across the way a chiropractor’s office, pawn shop, and boarded-up