'Can you come over later?'
'You're okay?' she asked.
'Yeah. But I could use some heavy-duty succor.'
'Things are going crazy here. You heard about Elmer Linstad, out in South Dakota?'
'Yeah. The attorney general.'
'Dead as a mackerel. The guy they shot, this Liss guy-'
'Whoa, whoa, you're ahead of me now. Who is he?'
'He's an Indian guy named John Liss. He's from right here in the Cities. He's in the operating room, but the word is, he's going to make it. They're talking about putting me on a plane later this afternoon. I'll be running the crew out there…'
'Okay.' Lucas tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
'… but I could sneak away around lunchtime.'
'I'd like to see you,' Lucas said. 'I'm feeling kind of weird.'
'If we sent a crew over there, could you talk…?'
'No, I can't, Jen. Really. Tell them I'm not here. I'm going to turn off the phone. I've got to lie down.'
'All right… Love you.'
Lucas crawled into bed, but sleep wouldn't come. His brain was turning over, hot, he could feel the touch of muzzle behind his ear, the grotesquely bloated face of Yellow Hand floated up in front of his eyes…
He was lying flat on his back, sweating. He turned his head and looked at the clock. He'd been in bed for more than an hour; he must have been asleep, he must have been somewhere, it felt like five minutes…
Lucas sat up and winced as the headache hit him. He went out to the kitchen, got a bottle of lime-flavored mineral water from the refrigerator and walked unsteadily back to his workroom. The answering machine was blinking at him: eight messages. He punched the replay button. Six calls were from TV stations and the two papers. One was from Daniel, the last from Lily. He called her back.
'I'm up to my ass in paperwork,' she said.
'I heard.'
'And I've got a deposition tomorrow morning…'
'Lunch, maybe?'
'I'll call you.'
'I'll be on the street. I'll have a handset…'
Daniel had called to see how he was. 'We've got the feebs by the nuts,' he said. 'We've got one team working the people in Hood's apartment house and his roommates; Sloan and Anderson are digging for stuff on this guy in South Dakota. You heard he was from here?'
'Yeah. Jen told me.'
'Okay. Listen, I've got to go. You take it easy. We got it covered.'
When he got off the phone with Daniel, Lucas poured the mineral water into a tumbler and followed with three fingers of Tanqueray gin. The combination made a bad gin and tonic. He sat in the kitchen and drank it down. Fuckin'
Yellow Hand. Hood and the shotgun. He reached back and rubbed the spot where the shotgun had been, then walked unsteadily back to the bathroom and got in the shower. The liquor was working on him and the hot water beat on his face, but the images of Hood and Yellow Hand would not go away.
He was out of the shower, toweling off, when the doorbell rang. He wrapped the towel around his waist, padded through the kitchen and peeked out a window at his porch.
Jennifer.
'Hi,' she said, taking him in. 'You still okay?'
'Kind of drunk,' he said.
A worry line appeared between her eyebrows, and she leaned forward and kissed him. 'Gin,' she said. 'I never would have believed it.'
'I'm fucked up,' he said, trying on a grin.
'Follow me,' she said, tugging at his towel. 'We'll try to unfuck you.'
The afternoon sun dropped below the eaves and lit up the curtain in Lucas' bedroom. Jennifer pushed him off and swung her legs over the side of the bed, and looked back and said, 'That was… frantic.'
'I'm not sure I'm still alive,' Lucas said. 'Christ, I could use a cigarette.'
'Were you scared?'
'Almost paralyzed. I wanted to plead, but… it just… I don't know, it wouldn't have done any good… I just wanted to get it off me…'
'This policewoman from New York…'
'Lily…'
'Yeah. There was a press conference, a short one, with Daniel and her and Larry Hart. She looked tough,' Jennifer said, watching his face. 'She looked like your type.'
'I could give a shit about that,' Lucas grunted. 'The best thing about her is that she used to shoot in combat competition. She had that forty-five in Billy Hood's face in maybe a tenth of a second. Boom. Adios, motherfucker.'
'She looked pretty nice,' Jennifer said.
'Jesus, yeah. She looks pretty nice. She's a little chubby, but nice-looking.'
'She looked a little chubby,' Jennifer agreed. Jennifer worked out every morning at a hard-core muscle gym.
'She eats everything in sight,' Lucas said. 'Jesus, I wish I still smoked.'
'So you're all right…'
'Nothing like this has ever happened,' he said, bewildered. 'I've come close before, shit, with the Maddog I almost got my ass killed. But this got to me… I don't know.'
She rubbed his still damp hair and he asked, 'Did you go on the date? To the symphony?'
'Yeah.'
'How was it?'
'It was okay,' she said. 'I'll go with him again if he asks, but I won't be sleeping with him.'
'Ah. Decent of you to tell me.'
'He's just too fuckin' nice,' Jennifer said. 'No edges. Everything I said, he agreed with.'
'He's probably hung like a Tennessee stud horse.'
Jennifer's forehead wrinkled. 'Men worry about the god-damnedest things,' she said.
'I wasn't worried.'
'Sure. That's why you mentioned it,' she said. 'Anyway, even if I did plan to sleep with him, I'd put it off for a while. I keep looking at the baby, and I keep thinking I want to do it again. With the same daddy.'
Lucas turned on his side and kissed her on the forehead.
'I'd like to help, whenever you want to. Soon?'
'I think so. In a couple, three months. This time, I'll tell you when I go off the Pill.'
He kissed her again and his hand crept over her breast, circling and pressing her nipple with the palm of his hand.
'I'd like a boy,' she said.
'Whatever,' said Lucas. 'Another daughter would be fine with me.'
'Maybe we could move it up. Next month, maybe.'
'I'll be on the job,' he said.
She laughed, shook her head and looked at her watch.
'Think you could stand some more succor? I've got barely enough time.'
'Christ, I don't know, I'm getting old…' They made love again, more sedately, and later, when Jennifer was getting dressed, Lucas said, hoarsely, 'I didn't want the world to go away. I would never have known, but I kept thinking… I don't even know if I was thinking it, but I was feeling it… I wanted more. More life. Jesus, I was afraid I'd just wink out, like a soap bubble…'
After Jennifer left for the airport, Lucas tried again to nap. Failing, he turned on the television and caught the cable news from Sioux Falls. John Liss was out of surgery; he'd live, but he'd never walk again. The cowboy's shot
