W
HY RIPINSKY
He sat in the waiting room at SF General, surrounded by distraught and anxious strangers, but as alone as if he were on a deserted island. He hadn’t called anyone; he couldn’t have stood the sympathy and the too-early condolences.
A door opened, a tall dark-haired man in scrubs strode in.
“Mr. Ripinsky, I’m Ben Travers. I’ll be your wife’s surgeon.”
“What’re her chances?”
“I don’t play the odds with people’s lives.”
“Meaning not good.”
“Meaning we don’t know.”
“What happened? She wasn’t good when I left her today, but she hasn’t been good a lot of days.”
“In all likelihood, the bullet has moved and a blood clot has formed and is causing more severe pressure on her brain stem. We’ll have further information when we get the results of the CT scan. In the meantime, we’re prepping her for surgery.”
Hy felt a wrenching in his chest. He propped his elbows on his knees, put his face into his hands.
Travers’s hand touched his shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as we know something.”
“Never mind me. Just save my wife.”
Mick came through the doors from the parking lot, his eyes wild, hair disheveled.
“Jesus, Hy,” Mick said. “Where is everybody?”
“I didn’t make any calls.”
“I was at the institute when she… I saw something was wrong and got the nurse.”
Hy nodded.
“You shouldn’t be here alone.”
“Go away, Mick.”
“What?”
“I
“I don’t understand.”
He’d been alone when Julie died, staring off the bluff at the light-dying, too-on Tufa Lake. Left her in the care of her best friend because she didn’t know him any more. He’d always felt guilty about that. Maybe it was his punishment to be alone when Shar died.
Mick said, “No one needs to be by himself at a time like this.”
Hy just looked at him. It wasn’t something you could explain to anyone else.
Mick backed off, probably seeing the anger and desolation in Hy’s eyes. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll go. But I think you’re being selfish. I love Shar, too.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know something. And please don’t call any of the others.”
“… If that’s what you want.” Mick turned and left.
Want? All he wanted was for Shar to live.
An hour gone.
“She’s still in surgery, Mr. Ripinsky.”
“What did the CT scan show?”
“You’ll have to talk with her doctor.”
An hour and a half gone.
Hank Zahn and Anne-Marie Altman came into the waiting room. Two of Shar’s and his best friends. Both attorneys, both calm and rational people. If Mick had to tell someone what had happened-and Hy had seen the need in his eyes-they were the best possible choice.
They sat on either side of him, clasped his hands. Hank, lanky with gray curly hair; Anne-Marie, statuesque and blonde. Curious couple: they lived in different flats in the same building. She bordered on the obsessive about housekeeping, and he was more than slothful. Their adopted teenage daughter, Habiba Hamid, divided her time between their places-although she seemed to favor Hank’s more offhand attitude toward housekeeping.
Sharon loved all three of them. So did he.
“Mick called you, huh?”
Hank said, “Yes.”
“I told him not to.”
“Why?” Anne-Marie asked.
Suddenly Hy felt foolish. Why had he thought he should be alone? Penance? Ridiculous. This was not about him or his past misdeeds.
He said, “Let’s wait a while, and if there’s no news, then we’ll call the others.”
RAE KELLEHER
She located Lee Summers at the Pro Terra Party’s headquarters in a refurbished warehouse south of Market. A fund-raising party was going on, drinks and canapes being served all around.
She’d shown the man at the door her credentials, said she was here on official business. He let her in without question and pointed out Summers. In Rae’s experience these gatekeepers-usually hired from security firms-were not always the brightest individuals or totally committed to their jobs. She ought to know; she’d worked security for a time. There was the colleague who read only comic books, moving his lips the whole time; the woman who painted her finger- and toenails while the entire building was burglarized; the man who took sleeping pills on the job. Of course, there were smart and conscientious people, too-many students working their way through college, as Rae and Shar had done-but they usually left for better jobs or different careers.
Now Rae watched Summers from across the room: tall, silver-haired, expensively dressed, his posture and gestures hinting at arrogance. He was surrounded by other well-dressed and attractive people who seemed to hang
