“Do you have a sewing kit?” Harry asks.
Mary holds up her gnarled hands. “I haven’t sewn in twenty years.”
“How about safety pins?”
Mary checks the first-aid kit, doesn’t find any safety pins. She has to go into her bedroom.
“Hold the towel,” she tells Harry. “Keep the pressure on. I’ll be right back.”
Mary takes the flashlight and hurries into the hallway, heading for her room. She finds the box of safety pins in her desk drawer. She also sees an inkjet refill kit for her computer printer and takes that as well.
When she gets back into the hallway, the shooting resumes.
Mary drops down to all fours, her old bones creaking with pain. Round after round hit the refrigerator, but none penetrate it. Mary guesses they’re using hollow points, or something similar. They must have night-vision scopes as well. And suppressors; the gunshots aren’t nearly as loud as they should be. Mary wishes she still had her father’s Winchester rifle – she’d be happy to show these men how to shoot.
The onslaught ends. Mary hopes that one of their neighbors heard the shots, called 911, but quickly dismisses the notion. Their neighbors all know that Jacqueline is a police officer. They won’t call the cops on a cop making too much noise.
Mary crawls back to the bathroom.
“Help me open these safety pins.”
Harry is almost as useless with his left hand as Mary is with both of her hands combined, and they drop pin after pin without getting one open. It’s an exercise in frustration, made unbearable because neither one of them is keeping pressure on Jacqueline’s wound, and the blood is just pouring out of her.
“Got one,” Harry says.
Mary grasps the open safety pin, holding it up like a rare jewel.
“Hold the light.”
Harry aims the beam while Mary goes to work on Jacqueline’s head. It’s slippery, hard to see, and neither the pin nor her hands want to cooperate. But Mary stays focused, fights the pain, and she gets the pin through both sides of her daughter’s gash.
Closing the safety pin is even harder than opening it. She pinches it, again and again, but it resists her every effort.
Jacqueline’s breath becomes shallow, weak. Mary wants to cry.
“Staples,” Harry says. “TV doctors use those all the time.”
That might work. Mary tries to stand, but she’s too weak. Harry helps her up.
“You can do it, Mom,” he says.
Mary nods, takes the flashlight, and heads into the hallway again, back to her bedroom. She has a senior moment, unable to remember where her stapler is, but sees it on the desk. She opens the top, checking to make sure it’s loaded.
A shot comes through the window, knocking the computer monitor off the desk. Mary considers dropping down to the floor, worries that she might not be able to get back up, and hurries for the door instead.
In the hallway, the fridge is once again being used for target practice, round after round dinging into it. Mary stays low, makes it back to the bathroom, and sits next to Jacqueline. The safety pin is still in her daughter’s head, pinching the ends of the wound together even though it isn’t closed.
Mary swings out the stapler base, presses the magazine to Jacqueline’s head, and pushes down.
It works. The staple holds.
She repeats the process eight more times, the bleeding slowing to a trickle.
“There’s witch hazel in the vanity,” she says to Harry.
“Witch hazel. Stat.”
He hands it down, and she pours it on Jacqueline’s head, hoping that’s enough to sterilize it. Then she towels off the excess and uses the medical tape to seal the wound completely.
“Once again, the day is saved by television,” Harry says. “Eat your heart out, George Clooney. I kind of look like him, don’t I?”
Mary lets out a long breath. “You’re practically twins.”
Now for the transfusion Harry mentioned.
“I don’t have any IV needles,” Mary says. “But this came with my ink refill kit.”
She reaches into the box and takes out a twenty-cc syringe, still in its package.
“Is that even sharp enough?” Harry asks.
“I’m going to find out.”
Mary bites the wrapper off. The needle is long, pointy. She stares down at her own arm, looking for a vein.
“What blood type are you?”
“Does it matter? I’m her mother. I should be compatible.”
Harry shakes his head. “That’s not how it works. What are you?”
“Type A.”
“What’s Jack?”
“Type O.”
“Type O is the universal donor. Jack could give you blood. But if you give her blood, you’ll kill her.”
Mary stares down at Jacqueline, watching her gasp for oxygen that her body isn’t absorbing. Mary almost starts crying again. Seeing her daughter suffer, and not being able to help, is the worst torture a parent can endure.
“I’m Type O,” Harry says. “She can have some of my blood.”
Mary touches his face and says, “Thank you, son.”
Harry smiles. The smile quickly falls away when she jabs him in the arm with the needle.
“Jesus!” He shirks away. “I think you hit bone!”
Mary pulls the plunger, filling the syringe with blood.
“You don’t have any diseases, do you?” Mary asks.
“Nothing that can’t be cured with antibiotics,” Harry says through his teeth.
Jacqueline has thin wrists, and her veins are easy to find. Mary’s hands are curled into painful claws, and the syringe is hard to hold, but she manages to give Jack twenty ccs of Harry’s blood.
“How many pints do you think Jacqueline has lost?” she asks Harry.
“Two, maybe more.”
“How many syringes is that?”
Harry turns very white.
“How many, Dr. Clooney?” Mary asks again.
Harry mumbles a number.
“Pardon me?”
“Forty or fifty,” Harry says, rubbing his eyes.
Mary takes his hand. “Jack and I won’t forget this.”
Harry yelps when she sticks him again.
9:56 P.M.
SWANSON
THIS IS TAKING FAR TOO LONG. The more time Swanson squats here, waiting for a shot, the more time he has to dwell on why this is the granddaddy of all bad ideas.
So far, he’s only killed one man – the one who attacked Jen. That scumbag deserved to die. It isn’t Swanson’s fault that Munchel went butternuts and wasted all of those cops. Swanson had nothing to do with that. But this – staking out a police officer’s house and trying to murder everyone inside – Swanson is a full participant in this colossal mistake. Prior to this, a savvy lawyer could ensure that he wasn’t charged with Munchel’s murder
