sketch matches mine.”
Gunter sank back against the pillows and feigned great illness. “I suppose I can rise from my sickbed to help the police with their inquiries.” Then he sat up and looked at me slyly. “This artist you’re going to send. Is he cute?”
“He’s fifty years old, with a pot belly,” I said, smiling. “I’ll let you decide if he’s cute or not.”
He flopped back against the pillows. “Oh, you.”
I was about to move over to speak with Robert when Harry came in, wearing a faded T-shirt from a long-ago surf competition. He looked ready to speak, and then he yawned instead. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “We didn’t get much sleep last night. They wanted to keep Brandon overnight for observation, and Arleen wanted to stay with him. So of course I stayed, too.”
I noticed that Gunter had dozed off, so I motioned Harry over to Robert’s side of the room and we pulled the two chairs together so we could talk quietly. Robert was still sleeping, too, his breathing steady but raspy. I noticed he had bandages around both arms and legs, as well as on his face.
“How’s Brandon doing?”
Harry yawned again and settled back against the plastic cushions. “Arleen’s mom came down and they took him home a little while ago. I said I’d come up and check on Robert and then head home for some sleep.” He looked closely at me. “You look like shit, brah. You get any sleep last night?”
I yawned. “Now you’ve got me doing it. Yeah, I got a couple of hours. Tried to surf in the morning but I got a burn on my back and it hurt like a bastard.”
“Idiot.” He started to smile but it stretched into a yawn again. “You know anything about what happened yet?”
“A little.” I told him about walking the fire with Mike Riccardi, about the witness statements and press phone calls. “I was hoping Robert would be awake so I could ask him some questions.”
“Slow down,” Harry said. “Tell me about this fireman again.”
I must have blushed because he said, “Aha! I knew it. You dog, you. You’ve got the hots for the fireman!”
“Har-ree.” I shrugged. “So I think he’s cute. I don’t know if anything’s going to happen. I’ve got to figure out this case.”
“Can I do anything to help?” He yawned again. “That is, after I get a little sleep?”
“You could. I need to find out as much as I can about the groups that are opposing the gay marriage lawsuit, and I don’t see myself having much time for research. Can you do some of that for me?”
“I’ll bet there’s a lot of stuff on the Internet,” Harry said. “I can narrow down the materials for you.”
“That’d be great.”
We heard a groan from the bed and turned to Robert. He was just waking up. He tried to talk, but started coughing. Harry jumped up and gave him the oxygen mask and said, “Here, try this.”
Robert took a couple of deep breaths and then put the mask down. “Hey, Kimo,” he said weakly. The hospital gown looked even worse on him than it did on Gunter, and somewhere along the way his eye makeup had gotten badly smudged. I thought if he could see himself in the mirror he’d take a terrible turn.
“Hey, Mr. Hero,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you running into that building last night. I was like, hey, isn’t he going the wrong way?”
Robert smiled. “I didn’t do much, not rescue any babies or women or anything.”
Harry said, “He did a hell of a lot. He managed to save all the membership lists, all the legal research on precedents, all the testimonials they had from supporters. Years worth of work that would have burned up otherwise.”
“And then Gunter had to come and pull me out.” Robert tried to sit up and look around the curtain but he was too weak. “How’s he doing?”
“He looks great,” I said. “And his personality came through undamaged.”
Robert smiled. “Good. I like his personality.”
“I’ve got a couple questions to ask you, buddy,” I said, pulling my chair up close to the bed. “We think somebody planted a bomb in the rest room. Did you see anybody suspicious last night?”
He tried to shake his head, but grimaced. “No. I was too busy making sure everything was organized to pay attention.”
“Gunter said he saw a sweaty, nervous-looking guy come out of the bathroom. Were you with him then?”
He frowned. “I don’t think so. I just don’t remember.”
I patted his arm, one of the few places that wasn’t wrapped in gauze. “That’s okay. Listen, you gotta get yourself better, all right? You know that place can’t function without you.”
“There isn’t a place any more.”
“There will be. You and Sandra are gonna get out of here and start things up again. After all, you saved those records. You gotta do something with them, right?”
“I guess.” He smiled, and then dozed off again.
When I looked up, Harry was napping in the easy chair by the window, and Gunter was still asleep, too. I looked back from the doorway at the three of them, the sterile light green walls and the array of monitoring equipment. I was going to get the bastards who did this.
FIGHTING BACK
Sandra Guarino was in a private room on the same floor. When I looked inside, the first thing I saw was a big red floral arrangement sent by her law firm. Sandra was lying in the bed very still, IV tubes in her arms and the mask of a respirator over her face. Her gown was a brighter shade of green than the ones the boys had been wearing, but it still looked like crap.
Then I saw Cathy Selkirk sitting by the window, her tiny frame dwarfed by the oversized chair. She had her knees pulled up to her and was staring out at the highway beyond.
“Hey. How’s Sandra?”
“Kimo.” Cathy got up and came over to me. Her head barely reached my breastbone. I held on to her as she started to cry. I felt my own tears welling up, but I pushed them back down.
I let her cry for a minute or two and then pulled back. “Come on, everything’s going to work out.” I sat on the window ledge. “Tell me about Sandra.”
“She hasn’t recovered consciousness yet.” She pulled a linen handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and I realized she was still wearing what she had worn to the party. She dried her eyes. “The doctors don’t know what to expect. They notified her parents and they’re flying in this afternoon from Oregon.”
“That’s good, right? You’ll have somebody here with you.”
“They never approved of me and Sandy. I’m afraid, Kimo. I’m afraid Sandy won’t wake up. I’m afraid her parents will come and they won’t let me see her. That they’ll-make decisions-that aren’t-what she’d want.”
“You don’t have a power of attorney, or medical authorizations or anything like that?”
“I have it all. You know how Sandy is-everything’s organized. But that doesn’t mean they’ll pay attention to it. I’m not strong like she is. I can’t stand up to her parents, the doctors-it’s too hard.” She sat in the big chair again, and she was so tiny that she looked like a small child. “It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? If we were able to get married then I wouldn’t have a lot of these problems.”
“I’ve got an idea.” I reached for the phone and called my brother’s office. After a couple of minutes on hold, listening to the weather guy’s pre-recorded voice promising sunshine and breezes, Lui came on. “Hey, brah. I’ve got a story for you.” I ran down Cathy’s situation for him. “It’s got a hook for you, tied into the bombing last night. You can keep running all that footage. You guys love all those explosions and fires and shit, don’t you?”
“Thanks for your high opinion of my job,” my brother said. “Let me talk to Cathy.”
They spoke for a couple of minutes and then she handed the phone back to me. “How’s Dad?” Lui asked.
“I haven’t gotten there yet. He’s next on my list.”
