butt in a chair and be a desk jockey of one kind or another.'
'I'll buy you a whole case of hemorrhoid cream'
'I'll have to get a
coffee mug with my name on It.'
'And a supply of notepads that say From the Desk of Jack Mcgarvey.'
' He said, 'It's going to mean a salary cut. Won't pay as much as
being on the street.'
'We'll be all right.'
'Will we? I'm not so sure. It's going to be tight.' She said,
'You're forgetting Mcgarvey Associates. Inventive and flexible custom
programs. Tailored to your needs. Reasonable rates. Timely
delivery.
Better legs than Bill Gates.'
And that night, in the darkness of their bedroom, it did seem that
finding security and happiness again in the City of Angels might be
possible, after all.
During the next ten days, however, they were confronted by a series of
reality checks that made it impossible to sustain the old L.A.
fantasy.
Yet another city budget shortfall was rectified in part by reducing the
compensation of street cops by five percent and that of the deskbound
in the department by twelve percent, a job that already paid less than
Jack's previous position now paid markedly less. A day later,
government statistics showed the economy slipping again, and a new
client, on the verge of signing a contract with Mcgarvey Associates,
was so unnerved by those numbers that he decided against investing in
new computer programs for a few months. Inflation was up.
Taxes were way up. The debt-strapped utility company was granted a
rate increase to prevent bankruptcy, which meant electricity rates were
going to climb. Water rates had already risen, natural-gas prices were
next. They were clobbered with a car-repair bill of six hundred forty
dollars on the same day that Anson Oliver's first film, which had not
enjoyed a wide or successful theatrical run in its initial release, was
reissued by Paramount, reigniting media interest in the shootout and in
Jack. And Richie Tendero, husband to the flamboyant and unshakable
Gina Tendero of the black leather clothes and red-pepper Mace, was hit
by a shotgun blast while answering a domestic-dispute call, resulting
in the amputation of his left arm and plastic surgery to the left side
of his face. On August fifteenth, an eleven-year-old girl was caught
in gang crossfire one block from the elementary school that Toby would
soon be attending. She was killed instantly. Events unfold in uncanny
sequences. Long-forgotten acquaintances turn up again with news that
changes lives. A stranger appears and speaks a few words of wisdom,
solving a previously insoluble problem, or something in a recent dream
transpires in reality. Suddenly the existence of God seems
confirmed.
On the afternoon of August eighteenth, as Heather stood in the kitchen,
waiting for the Mr. Coffee machine to brew a fresh pot and sorting
through mail that had just arrived, she came across a letter from Paul
