as children, teenagers, college kids, and finally adults, if in fact they had ever grown up.
The old man looked up from his wheelchair with almost orgasmic relief when Doe came into the
room. He held out his arms and she rushed into them, as if she had just returned from a long trip.
Titan stood in front of the dominant fireplace, smoking a short, stubby cigar which he held between
two fingers like a cigarette. You could almost feel the relief in the room, like a warm breeze seeping
through the shuttered windows.
Chief was the first to speak. He looked at me over Doe?s shoulder.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “You?re a brave man.”
“Not really,” I said. “It was my stupidity that got us into trouble in the first place.”
Doe said, “We?re back, Daddy. That?s all that matters.”
“We?ll make it up to you, son,” Chief said, hanging on to her as if he were afraid the tide was going to
rush in and carry her away.
“You don?t owe me anything,” I said. “It was Stick who bailed us out.”
“Stick?” Chief said.
Both he and Titan tried to cover their surprise, but they were not very good actors.
“A cop. You probably know him better as Mickey Parver,” I said, when it had sunk in.
“What happened out there, doughboy?” Titan asked. “There hasn?t been much in the way of radio
communication for the last two hours.”
“We were too busy to bother,” I said curtly.
I gave them a sketchy report on what had happened from the time we left the Breezes until the
shooting was over.
“Costello, Bronicata, Chevos, and Turk Nance are all dead, along with nine of their gunslingers,” I
said.
“My Cod,” Chief whispered, clutching Doe even tighter.
“The four of them were behind the Tagliani killings,” I went on. “My guess is that Nance did most of
the work, although we?ll never know for sure.”
Titan looked up as if a bee had stung him, then said, “Well, I?ll be damned.”
“It will all work out because Parver didn?t make it,” I said. “He went down saving me and Doe.”
Titan stared at me. A long minute crept by before he said, “What do you mean, it will work out?”
“I mean for the record, it will work out.”
“1 thought you just said Costello was behind it all, doughboy,” Titan said cautiously.
“I think I can sell the idea. Who?s around to argue, right?” Doe looked at me with curiosity.
“I don?t understand,” she said.
