(The squeaking of castor wheels on a cold floor, echoing off dead walls)

Its been a quiet night, tonight. Through traffic’s been real slow. So slow, in fact, I almost done with this shitty ol’ paperback the duty officer at the station loaned me. Its full of bullshit about some guy going stir crazy in some ol’ hotel they built on Indian Ground. If you ask me, its plain daft. Makes people scared of being alone. Being alone don’t always send you mad. Sometimes it makes you sane, huh.

At least I got some company, now. So, what’s your name, Sweetness? Hmm? Oh, I see, huh, the quiet type. Allright. Its okay, I’ll do enough talking for both of us, I always do.

Lets get a look at you, then, hiding your pretty face behind that veil. Mmm, oh man, someone’s put the hurt on you, ain’t they? Don’t worry, Darling, I ain’t gonna hurt you. No one’s gonna hurt you any more. I’m gonna make everything just fine.

What’s that, officer? Huh, yeah, I’ll go and get those forms for you.

Don’t worry, Sweetness, I’ll be back to take care of you in just a moment. Just you stay where you are and good ol’ Officer Jones is gonna look after you. Don’t worry, he’s a good man, a fine man. And he’s just as upset as me that someone’s put the hurt on you. You can see it in his eyes if you’d care to. He’s got that edge on him tonight, and I think he’s gonna be calling me back real soon and asking me what I managed to get out of you. Now just you hold on a minute there with the good officer, okay. Be a good girl for me, huh.

(A cigarette sparks. Footsteps come and go, fading and returning)

Sorry I took so long, but I can never find what I want back there in that excuse of an office. I really ought to go in there and give it a good airing one of these days. Unlike good ol’ Officer Jones there, I don’t really have no one looking over my shoulder all the time. People just tend to leave me alone down here. I don’t think they like what I do very much; doesn’t make sense to them that someone does what I do. Hell, they’re homicide cops. They digest the shitty and the disgusting every damn day. They laugh and joke over corpses. Wouldn’t ever catch me laughing and joking and disrespecting like that, no ma’am.

Yeah, Officer, you filled those out just fine. Just give me a second.

A moment, here, huh, Sweetness, and I’ll be back with you just as soon as I can be.

Okay, sure thing, every little thing’s in order here. Except… you forgot to sign here, officer. Sure, yeah, not a problem.

He’s gonna find the man who did these shitty things to you, Darling. You can count on it.

Yeah, officer, we’re gonna be just fine here. I gotta do some paperwork, first, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. I think this little lady’s gonna be telling us a whole lot about what happened to her.

(Footsteps fading into the distance, clacking over that hard floor)

Wave goodbye, if you can, Sweetness. I would, but I think it might creep him out. I know what him and the boys think about me. They have a little joke about in the squad rooms, sometimes, calling me Igor. Yeah, I look a little strange, I guess, don’t I, darling? But you ain’t gonna judge on me because of a limp and because of what my daddy did to my face, huh, darling? No, I know that you ain’t gonna do nothing like that.

I ain’t never gonna be one of the pretty people. I guess that’s why I like it down here in the dark most of the time. There’s a peace among everyone here that you just don’t get out on the streets. I go up, sometimes, you know. I don’t spend my whole life down here among the quiet people, much as sometimes I’d like to. There are a couple of reasons, you know, for that, huh. One is that it’d just be damn crazy to lock myself away from everyone like that The second one is that I gotta live, you know. I gotta survive, gotta eat and drink an’ all that.

You know, if you don’t mind me saying, I bet you must have been real beautiful before. I mean, it ain’t that you’re not now, but that scarring and the red welts there on your pretty little heart-shaped face ain’t doing you no favours. I’m guessing your blonde hair ain’t been washed in a while either. I’m touching it right now, you know, and its feels hard and brittle like straw. I could snap it off, I suppose.

What’s that on your neck, there, Sweetness? That a birth mark? If you’ll excuse my rudeness, I’m just gonna move your collar a moment

Lipstick on your collar, Sweetness? I don’t think so, do you?

and I’m gonna take me a little looksee.

I bet there ain’t no one gonna have trouble telling who you are. That’s a pretty little mark, there, almost like a little heart right on the old jugular. And some bastard’s taken his knife and scored through it. I guess you could say he broke his heart.

I wonder if that’d be any help, huh, Sweetness? You know that there’s a big thing on the force these days for getting psychological profiles of every goddamn criminal out there. They even want to know how the mind of the guy who holds up Ralf’s with an empty shotgun is ticking over. Its like a damn craze. Because they look for signs like this, you know. They say that if a guy scores over your heart shaped birthmark with his big-ass knife, then its a goddamn sure sign that he was making a metaphor just like we used to do in English classes.

How’d you do in English, sweetie? I’d love to hear you read, hear you talk a little, because I bet you had the most delicious voice. I wonder what you sound like, how you pronounce your words. I bet you got a little schooling in you. You got an educated face.

I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward right now, Darling. I’m just doing my job, here. Its just a job, although I guess I kinda wish I could be undoing your blouse under different circumstances. Did you have a boyfriend? Is he calling your home right now, real worried over where the hell you’re at? Or is he away somewhere else, maybe on a trip somewhere, utterly oblivious that right now you’re here with me and I’m undoing your blouse in the name of professionalism.

Jesus, honey, was it him that did this to you? Was it him that dragged his knife down from your throat between your breasts and down along your stomach? Deep enough to leave a scar, but really only a surface cut. Is this another metaphor? Is the guy we’re looking for a repressed English Professor maybe?

I wish you could talk to me. I wish I could hear your tender little voice talking to me. I wish you could tell me who did this. Was it the boyfriend, maybe? If he even exists.

What’s your name, Sweetness? What’s your name?

Do you like music? It helps me work, I find. They let me have a little player down here, just a cheap little thing, but I got a ton of cassettes sitting right there beside it. Tell you what, Darling, I’ll put something on, shall I? Something to take your mind off all that’s happened to you.

What kind of music do you like, I wonder? Its hard to guess, isn’t it, when I know next to nothing about you. I would give you a name, but I don’t suppose any name will do. If I call you Janet, I’ll know you as Janet and then, when we find the truth, and you are no longer Janet, I will be unable to connect your sweet, heart-face with your real name, with the girl found battered to death in an alley on the wrong side of town.

(Footsteps, the click of a tape recorder, the hiss of white noise and then a gentle beat, soul riffs)

He took your wallet, so Officer Jones told me. I wonder, then, why he did that, huh? Did he do it because he needed the money? Is this nothing more than a random mugging; a crime so ordinary that when people read the sidebar in their morning papers, they will merely shrug and make platitudes about how the world is changing? I do not want to believe that. You are something special.

I am sorry about this, about the way I touch you, the way I run my gloved hands up and down your skin, so disrespectful and yet so necessary. I know you understand. We need to talk, you and I, but you are in a place beyond words, beyond conventional conversation.

Just listen to the music, Sweetness, listen to Curtis Mayfield tell you that he’s So In Love (With you, Sweetness? It ain’t unlikely, now).

Why did he take your wallet, Sweetness? Its a question Officer Jones will be asking himself right now unless he’s been called somewhere else, to the side of another woman lying dead out on the streets.

You can rest, soon, Sweetness, I promise. There are others down here, you know. There are others with whom you can rest. This place, its like a hotel for all the quiet people, you know, huh?

Whose marks are these? Whose fingers have been placed along your body, gripping you at the waist, bruising your skin? Is it the same man who drew his knife along your throat, breaking your heart as he did so? If we had the knife, I would know. Maybe Officer Jones can do something, Sweetness, with what you have told me? Maybe this man, maybe he’s convicted already, on our records?

Do you know how the police catch so many criminals, Sweetness? Its stupidity, really, on the criminal’s part. They’re a bunch of idiots, really, because most people don’t set out to be criminals. Its always a crime of passion or a mistake that spirals out of control until its too late to backtrack and suddenly you’re looking out at the world from the wrong side of those iron bars, your hands gripping them, knuckles brushed by the air of freedom outside.

That’s gonna happen, Sweetness, to the man who did this to you.

What did he do to you? He didn’t just beat you, Sweetness, did he? Did he force you to have sex, is that what you’re telling me? Is that what you’re showing me, bruised along the inside of your thighs, blood encrusted on your skin, semen mixed there with it.

If you’ll excuse me, for a moment. I’m sorry to leave you like this, exposed, so graceless the way you lie there on the table, the way I’ve moved your arms and legs, poked and prodded you with barely a thought as to your comfort. I wonder if you feel it, somehow. I wonder, is there a part of you in there, still looking out, crying for the dignity that you once had?

Please, excuse me for just a minute, Sweetness.

(Footsteps; the rustling of papers)

Did you scream, I wonder, when he did this to you? What was worse? His fists smashing against your face, or when he entered you, forcefully, imagining himself like a barbarian of old? Or was it all some dreadful blur in your mind, a nightmare in which all horrors were part of a larger tapestry of pain and suffering? I cannot imagine it, Sweetness, the horror this night held for you.

I have filled in forms now, and we have a time of death for you. You died six hours ago. You were, in a sense, lucky that ol’ Officer Jones found you, huh. Oh yeah, I forgot, it would’ve been luck if you were still alive.

I wonder what he’s doing right now, ol’ Officer Jones. Is he pounding the mean streets, knocking on doors and asking all the right questions, or is he sitting at his desk with a sad look about him, drinking coffee that went cold an hour ago? We been talking a while now, you and I. Long enough for the coffee to be stone cold, I guess.

How many like you has he seen? I’ve seen so many that I’m beginning to lose count. You’re all pretty and none of you deserve the fate you end up with. The universe ain’t fair, Sweetness. I guess you understand that now, even better than I do.

I guess I should dress you again. Once more, for the road. Its the third time you been dressed today, ain’t it? I know from all the poking and prodding I done on your body and all the attention I paid to your clothes and how he hadn’t bothered or hadn’t known how to fasten your white bra with the blood red stains that he’d dressed you again in a hurry. Thing was, Sweetness, he hadn’t invaded your body after you were dead. He’d killed you naked after making you burn with fear and shame and pain. I can’t understand a man like that, you know. I know that the profilers will come up with all kinds of tales about him, about how he had a fucked childhood or how he’s the kind of man continually acts out some kind of revenge fantasy that came from the bigger kids whomping on him in High School. Its a crock of shit, Sweetness, huh, ain’t it just?

Your clothes didn’t fit well, you see. I knew it when I looked at you, but now I’m sure. The bastard knew what he was doing, huh, yeah. He knew what he was doing when he threw your body out into the alley, next to a dumpster, looking to all the world like a lump of raggedy clothes tossed out, which is exactly how he thought of you, because he didn’t have no remorse at what he did. How could he? He took the goddamn time and care to dress you again.

Motherfucker!

I’m sorry, Sweetness, but whoever he is, you can’t have any feelings for him, not now, anyway, not after what he did to you.

(The phone rings, loud and shrill. Footsteps. Click. Voices, indistinct. The click of the receiver returning to its cradle)

Good ol’ Officer Jones is a diligent man. They got you a name, Sweetness. They got your purse and they got your cards and they got your name. And I got the prints. Faxed em, you see, to ol’ Officer Jones. He’s a good man, Sweetness. I ain’t never met him before tonight, but you can always tell the good ones, cos they got that look in your eyes.

So what happens when I peel your eyelids, Sweetness?

What do I see? Do I see one of the good ones? I got to, Sweetness, you understand. I got to see that you’re one of the good ones, or everything I do here with the quiet people, where I feel such peace, will mean nothing at all.

(Castor wheels on hard floor, once more. Slowly quieting, fading until there is only silence and darkness.)