in doughnut shops, chowing down, and collect protection money from drug
dealers.'
'Sometimes we beat up innocent citizens.'
'Well, yeah, that can be tiring.'
His eyes had closed.
She kept smoothing his hair. His hands were still concealed by the
sleeves of the restraining jacket, and she wanted desperately to keep
touching him.
Suddenly his eyes popped open, and he said, 'Luther's dead?'
She hesitated. 'Yes.'
'I thought so, but . . . I hoped ...'
'You saved the woman, Mrs. Arkadian.'
'That's something.'
His eyelids fluttered again, drooped heavily, and she said, 'You better
rest, babe.'
'You seen Alma?' That was Alma Bryson, Luther's wife. 'Not yet,
babe.
I've been sort of tied up here, you know.'
'Go see her,' he whispered. 'I will.'
'Now. I'm okay. She's the one ... needs you.'
'All right.'
'So tired,' he said, and slipped into sleep again.
The support group in the I.C.U lounge numbered three when Heather left
Jack for the evening--two uniformed officers whose names she didn't
know and Gina Tendero, the wife of another officer. They were elated
when she reported that Jack had come around, and she knew they would
put the word on the department grapevine. Unlike the doctors, they
understood when she refused to focus gloomily on the paralysis and the
treatment required to overcome it.
'I need someone to take me home,' Heather said, 'so I can get my car.
I want to go see Alma Bryson.'
'I'll take you there and then home,' Gina said. 'I want to see Alma
myself.'
Gina Tendero was the most colorful spouse in the division and perhaps
in the entire Los Angeles Police Department. She was twenty-three
years old but looked fourteen. Tonight she was wearing five-inch
heels, tight black leather pants, red sweater, black leather jacket, an
enormous silver medallion with a brightly colored enamel portrait of
Elvis in the center, and large multiple-hoop earrings so complex they
might have been variations of those puzzles that were supposed to relax
harried businessmen if they concentrated totally on disassembling
them.
Her fingernails were painted neon purple, a shade reflected slightly
more subtly in her eye shadow. Her jet-black hair was a mass of curls
that spilled over her shoulders, it looked as much like a wig as any
Dolly Parton had ever worn, but it was all her own.
Though she was only five three without shoes and weighed maybe a
hundred and five pounds dripping wet, Gina always seemed bigger than
anyone around her. As she walked along the hospital corridors with
