House of Blues

off quickly so she could call
headquarters, and now she couldn't call him. A ringing phone on a
Thunderbird-soused raver just wasn't going to cut it.
    It was dark in the breezeway. She could see in only a
little way. She couldn't see Jim or anyone Who might be Turan;
certainly could see no one with automatic weapons. They must have cut
through to another courtyard,
    Someone fired.
    She saw orange flames; the noise was like war. More
flames on the other side of the breezeway—then someone running. The
first shooter.
    She heard Jim call, "Halt! Police!" and her
heart sank.
    Drawing her gun, she started running toward the
shooter, who was running toward her. He turned around and fired—at
Jim, presumably, and then he turned her way again. Something hit her
from behind. She went down, her gun flying from her hand, and she
knew it was over.
    The man who had hit her—butted her with his head,
was her guess—had stopped to take a look at her. She saw his face,
clearly, and was surprised that he was terrified. And about sixteen.
A young scared-shitless kid, with the power of life and death over
her. .
    Sirens were getting loud, nearly upon them, the
backup she'd called for.
    The kid didn't even stop for her gun, just took off
after the shooter. She recovered it herself and yelled for Jim.
    No answer. She called him on her cute little
phone—still no answer.
    She found him at the back of the breezeway, a bullet
in his chest.
    But he was breathing.
    She talked to him all the way to the hospital, told
him he'd be fine, to hang on, that his wife would be there soon, that
he had to stick around to see her.
    They went to Charity, where she'd been so many times
on other shootings, and where she'd been taken herself once or twice.
It was utterly familiar territory, and yet right now a nightmare
landscape.
    " Room Four," she heard someone say. "Room
Four now!" That was the trauma room.
    " You can't go with him," a woman said, a
nurse probably.
    "I'm going."
    The nurse shrugged.
    Skip was okay about blood as long as it wasn't in a
hospital; she didn't know if she could trust herself to stay on her
feet in here, and she might be in the way. But Jim needed someone to
hold his hand.
    I don't want him to die alone.
    She was shocked at the thought when it came, had no
idea that was on her mind.
    " You won't die," she told him. "You're
not going to die."
    I'll die if you die. You can't die.
    A piece of her would; she knew it as well as she knew
the river was wet. She'd never be the same if he died.
    Oh, shit, why Jim? Why couldn't it have been
O'Rourke?
    " I really have to ask you to get out of the way.
You can stay in the hallway if you like."
    The man who spoke was in his early twenties, she
thought, but he must be a doctor. Other people were in the hallway,
lots of them—they came from all over the hospital to watch a Room
Four.
    Okay, she couldn't hold his hand, but she could stay
close. She could send him healing wishes or something.
    In the end, she couldn't find the energy in herself
to will him to heal, just to keep living, which he did, which he kept
on doing, until finally they sewed him up and took him upstairs.
    There were policemen in the waiting room, and a black
woman with them, with two children, about ten and twelve, a boy and a
girl.
    When the policemen rustled, the woman realized
instantly who Skip was, and rose. "I'm Dionne Hodges."
    Skip thought that if she had to categorize this woman
in one word, it would have been "pleasant." She was average
height—about five-feet-five—and a little plump, so that her
cheeks and chin were rounded. Her hair was about ear=length, styled
for business. She could have been anything—schoolteacher,
receptionist, high-level executive; her clothes might have given a
clue. But at the moment she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt,
probably just pulled on when she got the call about her husband.
    She didn't introduce the children, and Skip was glad.
She didn't want to look at their faces too closely, to see their fear
and misery, to have it remind her of her own. Dionne seemed a little
ragged, but at least she was still in one piece.
    Skip said, "Did the doctor talk to you? Jim's
holding his own."
    Dionne breathed deeply. "No, he didn't. This is
the first I've heard."
    "Well, they didn't stop to fill me in, but I
think he's out of danger for the moment. They took him upstairs."
Anxiously, she swiveled her head. Where was the doctor? Skip felt
strongly that this was no job for a cop,