lingo.
'This is Lieutenant Jack Daniels out of the two-six, officer down...'
After giving them my badge number and an address, I crawled over to Mark, who was pitched face-first on the carpet. Shoulder wound, a bad one. I kept pressure on it.
A minute later the place was surrounded with cops. Latham and Mark were carted off in ambulances. They tried to take me too, but I put up such a fight, they gave up.
Harris came back. He'd chased the killer on foot down an alley, but the perp had gotten away in a plumbing truck. He got a plate number, and it matched the one Phin gave us.
Benedict arrived shortly thereafter. 'You okay, Jack?'
I was sitting at the kitchen table, an ice pack pressed to my leg. 'He got away again, Herb. Even worse -- he got my gun.'
The thought of him killing someone with my weapon was almost as sickening as the thought of him torturing me to death.
'On the way over, I got word from the hospital. Your date has a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. He's in surgery. But it looks pretty good.'
'How about Mark?'
'Stable.' Herb put his hand on my shoulder. His eyes were kind. 'This wasn't your fault. We couldn't have known he was waiting here for you.'
'Yes we could have. This would all be over now if I'd just used some common sense and thought about it. He'd been following me, Herb, saw me with Latham, and followed him instead. If he dies...'
'You aren't the bad guy here, Jack. You didn't pull the trigger.'
'As if that makes a difference.'
'It does, and you know it. Why don't you come over? Bernice is keeping the pot roast warm for me. There's more than enough.'
I shook my head.
'Jack, there'll be plenty of time to beat yourself up later. Come to my house and eat.'
'I'm going to the hospital, check on Latham.'
Herb frowned, but knew there wasn't any point in arguing. I stuck around for a bit longer, sulking, and then limped out to my car and went to the hospital.
Latham was in Recovery. The doctor said he was still critical, but the outlook was good. I'd found an address book near his kitchen phone and called his parents. They came about an hour later, crying. We all sat vigil late into the night. None of us slept.
At five in the morning Latham's eyelids fluttered, and he awoke briefly. His gaze met mine.
'I don't want you here,' he said.
I went back to my apartment.
There was a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet.
Since sleeping wasn't an option, I hit the bottle until I passed out.
Chapter 36
I WOKE UP TO PAIN.
Leg pain. Headache pain.
Emotional pain.
One more layer on the shit cake.
It was almost two in the afternoon. My stomach was doing a mambo, protesting all the liquor I'd consumed. I dropped two Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water and drank it before they finished dissolving.
I called the hospital. Latham was stable. His parents didn't let me talk to him. Couldn't blame them, I guess. I considered sending flowers, or at least a card apologizing, but they would only be reminders of me, the person who put him through hell.
My stomach settled down some, so I swallowed three aspirin to help with my other aches. I was due for a day off, but didn't feel that I deserved one. After a shower I scrubbed the bloodstains out of my pants. Then I shelved the guilt for later, and went to work.
Captain Bains wanted to see me. I gave him the blow-by-blow, filled out the requisition form for a new gun, and picked one up at the Armory.
It was homecoming week for the media. The Gingerbread Man's letter was all over the news last night, as was the discovery of the third woman. The incident at Latham's fueled the fire. Internal Affairs began conducting an investigation of the loss of my weapon. Bains told me to keep a very low profile, and the word to the world was I'd been suspended pending an inquiry.
Unofficially, I was still on the case. I just wasn't allowed to be connected with it. We live in a political world.
After working with a police artist to improve our composite photo of the perp, I grabbed a vending-machine ham on rye and went down to the shooting range to try out my new .38.
I spent an hour there, shooting round after round into paper silhouettes, imagining each one was the Gingerbread Man. When I was finished, my gun was hot to the touch and the stench of cordite had penetrated my clothes and hair like cigarette smoke.
