Strangers

them, Brendan went to the officer, knelt beside him. Winton had been hit twice in the chest. Not with the shotgun. Probably the other thug's revolver. The wounds were sickening, far too traumatic to respond dramatically to a mere tourniquet or first-aid procedures. His breast was mantled with blood, and blood trickled from his mouth. The pool of blood in which he lay was so deep that he appeared to be floating on it. He was still, eyes closed, either unconscious or dead.
        "Winton?" Brendan said.
        The cop did not respond. His eyelids did not even flutter.
        Filled with a rage akin to that which had caused him to heave the holy chalice against the wall during Mass, Brendan Cronin gently put both hands on Winton Tolk's neck, one on each side, feeling for the throbbing carotid arteries. He detected no life, and in his mind he saw the photographs of Raynella and the Tolk children again, and now he was seething with resentment at the indifference of the universe. "He can't die," Brendan said angrily. "He can't." Suddenly he thought he felt a thready pulse, so faint it was virtually nonexistent. He moved his hands, seeking confirmation that Tolk lived. He found it: a less feeble beat than that first phantom drumming, though no less irregular.
        "Is he dead?"
        Brendan looked up and saw a man coming around the side of the service counter, a Hispanic in a white apron, the owner or an employee. A woman, also in a white apron, had risen from behind the counter.
        Outside, distant sirens were growing nearer.
        Under Brendan's hands, the throbbing in Winton Tolk's neck seemed to be getting stronger and more regular, which was surely not the case. Winton had lost too much blood to stage even a limited spontaneous recovery. Until the paramedics arrived with life-support machines, his vital signs would deteriorate unavoidably, and even expert medical care might not stabilize his condition.
        The sirens were no more than two blocks away.
        Puffs of snow blew in through the shattered windows.
        The sandwich-shop employees edged closer.
        Numb with shock, in a haze of anger at fate's capricious brutality, Brendan trailed his hands from Winton's neck to the wounds in his chest. When he saw the blood oozing up between his fingers, his rage gave way to overwhelming helplessness and uselessness, and he began to cry.
        Winton Tolk choked. Coughed. Opened his eyes. Breath rattled thinly and wetly in his throat, and a soft groan escaped him.
        Amazed, Brendan felt for a pulse in the man's throat again. It was weak but definitely not as weak as before, and hardly irregular at all.
        Raising his voice over the shrieking sirens, which were now so near that the air trembled, Brendan said, "Winton? Winton, do you hear me?"
        The cop did not seem to recognize Brendan-or even to know where he was. He coughed again and choked more violently than before.
        Brendan quickly lifted Tolk's head a few inches and turned it to one side, to let the blood and mucus drain more freely from his mouth. Immediately the wounded man's respiration improved, though it remained noisy, each inhalation hard-won. He was still in critical condition, in desperate need of medical attention, but he was alive.
        Alive.
        Incredible. All this blood, and he was still alive, hanging on.
        Outside, three sirens died one after the other. Brendan shouted for Paul Armes. Excited by the hope that Winton could be saved, but also panicked by the possibility that medical attention would arrive seconds too late, he glanced at the sandwich-shop employees and shouted, "Go! Get them in here. Let them know it's safe. Paramedics, damn it!"
        The man in the apron hesitated, then moved toward the door.
        Winton Tolk expelled bloody mucus and finally drew an unobstructed breath. Brendan carefully lowered Winton's head to the floor again. The cop continued to breathe shallowly, with difficulty, but steadily.
        Outside there were shouts and doors slamming and running feet coming toward the sandwich shop
        Brendan's hands were wet with Winton Tolk's blood. Unthinking, he blotted them on his coat - and it was then that he realized the rings had reappeared on his hands for the first time in nearly two weeks. One on each palm. Twin bands of raised and inflamed tissue.
        Cops and paramedics burst through the front door, stepping over the