Storm Prey

That fell apart when Lucas dragged in, and she said, “Oh my God—what happened?”
    “Fight,” he said. He detected the possibility of some sympathy, so he added, “Del’s down at Regions. Guy head-butted him, eyebrows got ripped up, just about bit through his lip. Saved my ass. The guy was crazy, a goddamned Frankenstein’s monster. Del hit him in the face with a shovel.”
    “A shovel?”
    “Twice.”
    Shrake, who’d come in behind Lucas, chortled, and said, “Twice? That’s my boy.”
    Weather looked past Lucas and snapped, “Shrake, go play the piano. I need to talk to Lucas. Privately.”
    Shrake stepped hastily across the kitchen and out, and Weather turned back to Lucas and asked, “Really—you’re okay?”
    “I’m okay. I need to take a shower. I got blood on my coat and it has to go to the cleaner’s, and my shirt and pants are probably ruined, and my shoes are gone.”
    “So what? You’ve got more clothes than Brooks Brothers,” she said. “Are you hurt? Your forehead’s all scraped.”
    “I’m fine. Del’s not so fine. I mean, nothing serious, but he’s gonna be in some pain,” Lucas said. “The thing is, it was all pointless. The guy freaked and jumped us because he was pissed off about losing a limo-driving job. Ah, Christ, I stink. I had the guy all over me. I smell like the ass-end of a limo driver.”
    Weather crossed her arms again. “Virgil told me about the French-accent thing. If you think for one second that Gabe had anything to do with it ...”
    “I don’t think it for one second,” Lucas said. “I’ve already got Virgil looking for other people with French accents.”
    “Well, that’s just fine,” Weather said. “Virgil told me that. He also told me that he didn’t want me alone with Gabe, which means he’s thinking about Gabe. I was screaming at him: at Virgil. But he wouldn’t budge. You know what he gets like.”
    Lucas thought, silently, Good. “I’ll talk to him.”
    “Do that,” she said. She looked at him for a second, and said, “Don’t go telling him behind my back that he’s doing the right thing.”
    “I won’t,” Lucas lied. They could hear Shrake playing “White Christmas” on the piano, and it echoed strangely through the house. “Listen, you want to come up and wash my back? I’m sorta hurtin’ here.”
    “No, because then you’ll try to jump me, to make sure you’re still alive. I’m not sure that I’m not still pissed off at you.”
    “Looking for some comfort,” Lucas said, trying to put a little pathos into it.
    “Well, I’m going down to Regions and comfort Del,” she said. “I bet Cheryl’s freaked out. You call Virgil.”
    “Take Shrake with you.” Shrake was banging out “Silent Night” with a jazz beat. He only knew how to play the piano one way, and only knew Christmas tunes, so that was what you got—honky-tonk Baby Jesus.
    “And Jenkins,” Weather said. “Jenkins is out driving around the block again. This whole thing is driving me insane.”
    “Crazy is better than dead,” Lucas said. “That’s my rule of thumb.” He sniffed himself again. “Jesus, that guy smelled bad. You know? Some people just stink.”

11
    TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE Barakat’s shift was due to end, a kid was brought in from a back-street traffic accident. He had a couple of cuts on his forehead, probably from airbag shrapnel, and his stomach “felt really bad.”
    Barakat ran him through the hospital’s blunt trauma protocol and learned that he’d been using a laptop in the passenger seat, and when the car hit the truck, the laptop had been jammed into the kid’s gut. Barakat thought, Liver, and talked to the shell-shocked mother for a minute, then got the scans going, woke up the radiologist and cranked up a surgeon, just in case.
    By the time everything was in place, he was running almost two hours overtime, for which he would not be paid. He went back to the locker room, changed clothes, and did a twist of coke to pick himself up. Hated overtime.
    He did another twist, washed his face, got his shoes on, and headed out. On the way, a senior medical guy slapped him on the back and said, “Nice call. The boy’s going into the OR right now.”
    “That’s great,” Barakat said. “I had a feeling that something was going on in there.” A little self-aggrandizement, combined with discreet, comradely sucking up, just might get him to Paris.
    Or LA, anyway.
     
     
    BY THE TIME he got to the parking ramp, it