sword I saved those three kids.”
“We have far bigger problems than that. It’s fallen to you to lead the defense of our world. Instead you’re hesitating and regretting and postponing instead of accepting your responsibilities. That has always been your problem, Richard. Always. This weapon”—he gestured at the hilt—“is the only defense we have against these creatures.”
“I don’t know how to save the world. I knew how to save those kids.” I was surprised to discover that the bowel-loosening terror I always felt when he berated me was gone. What I felt was anger.
We were matching stares. I grabbed the control and with a hum raised the top of the bed so I could face him more easily.
“Can you look me in the eye and seriously tell me that I should have done nothing? Just driven on down to headquarters and resigned? Let those children die?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
I stared at him and wondered who he was. At some point every kid secretly suspects they were adopted. In my case I figured I was a stepchild. I knew I was my mother’s child. It was written in my face, and our emotional bond, but I was so different from my older sisters and my father that I figured we couldn’t share any genes. It had been a source of grief for me because I so wanted to be his. Now I was grown, and I knew he was my father. And at this moment I didn’t want to be his son.
“You don’t get the life you wished for, Richard. You get the life you have. Now get on with it.” The words were cold, clipped, and precise. “You will resign from the force immediately.”
I couldn’t look at his face, pinched with anger and disappointment, any longer. I closed my eyes, and suddenly new faces pushed their way forward. Faces of victims as their fear turned to relief at learning of an arrest. The blank surprise and anger that crossed a perp’s face at the moment of capture. That sense of enormous satisfaction I’d felt when my testimony had resulted in a guilty verdict, and taken another animal in human skin off the street.
And the face of every criminal I had arrested held a shadow of the faces of the men who had hurt me, disrupted my life, and led me to attempt suicide. That assault had brought McGowan into my life, and with his help I had regained my strength and the will to live, and found my life’s work. I had been good at police work, very good.
“Have you anything to say?”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “I’m going to be on leave anyway because I shot a fellow officer and because I’ve been hurt. We don’t have to deal with this right now.” He opened his mouth to continue the argument. I cut him off. “Now, I’d appreciate it if you got me a wheelchair.” I picked up the phone and started dialing.
“What nonsense is this?”
“They hired someone to kill me. I don’t really want to stay in an unsecured hospital. I’ll be safer at Lumina. The limo is big, so I won’t hurt my leg … too much.”
The expression on my father’s face was hard to interpret. “You need medical care.”
“Angela can look out for me.”
“She’s a coroner, for God’s sake. She cuts up dead people.” The words were explosive with fury.
“Yes, and I’m trying to keep from becoming one of her customers.”
FOUR
E ven at 3:00 A.M. Bourbon Street was rocking. Music poured out of the doors of bars and dives—the sob of a saxophone, the husky voice of a blues singer, the clear blare of a Dixieland clarinet, even the rollicking rhythms of a Celtic band. The moisture-laden air reeked of booze, grease, the pungent scent of seafood, humidity, and humanity.
Neon signs blinked and flared, throwing garish multicolored light across the cheap T-shirts that hung in every store window demanding SHUCK ME, SUCK ME, EAT ME RAW . Signs screamed out ALL NAKED, ALL THE TIME!!! A big-bellied white man, his face beet red and moisture-slick with sweat, shouted at her.
“Come on in, darlin’. You could win a
“We have far bigger problems than that. It’s fallen to you to lead the defense of our world. Instead you’re hesitating and regretting and postponing instead of accepting your responsibilities. That has always been your problem, Richard. Always. This weapon”—he gestured at the hilt—“is the only defense we have against these creatures.”
“I don’t know how to save the world. I knew how to save those kids.” I was surprised to discover that the bowel-loosening terror I always felt when he berated me was gone. What I felt was anger.
We were matching stares. I grabbed the control and with a hum raised the top of the bed so I could face him more easily.
“Can you look me in the eye and seriously tell me that I should have done nothing? Just driven on down to headquarters and resigned? Let those children die?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
I stared at him and wondered who he was. At some point every kid secretly suspects they were adopted. In my case I figured I was a stepchild. I knew I was my mother’s child. It was written in my face, and our emotional bond, but I was so different from my older sisters and my father that I figured we couldn’t share any genes. It had been a source of grief for me because I so wanted to be his. Now I was grown, and I knew he was my father. And at this moment I didn’t want to be his son.
“You don’t get the life you wished for, Richard. You get the life you have. Now get on with it.” The words were cold, clipped, and precise. “You will resign from the force immediately.”
I couldn’t look at his face, pinched with anger and disappointment, any longer. I closed my eyes, and suddenly new faces pushed their way forward. Faces of victims as their fear turned to relief at learning of an arrest. The blank surprise and anger that crossed a perp’s face at the moment of capture. That sense of enormous satisfaction I’d felt when my testimony had resulted in a guilty verdict, and taken another animal in human skin off the street.
And the face of every criminal I had arrested held a shadow of the faces of the men who had hurt me, disrupted my life, and led me to attempt suicide. That assault had brought McGowan into my life, and with his help I had regained my strength and the will to live, and found my life’s work. I had been good at police work, very good.
“Have you anything to say?”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “I’m going to be on leave anyway because I shot a fellow officer and because I’ve been hurt. We don’t have to deal with this right now.” He opened his mouth to continue the argument. I cut him off. “Now, I’d appreciate it if you got me a wheelchair.” I picked up the phone and started dialing.
“What nonsense is this?”
“They hired someone to kill me. I don’t really want to stay in an unsecured hospital. I’ll be safer at Lumina. The limo is big, so I won’t hurt my leg … too much.”
The expression on my father’s face was hard to interpret. “You need medical care.”
“Angela can look out for me.”
“She’s a coroner, for God’s sake. She cuts up dead people.” The words were explosive with fury.
“Yes, and I’m trying to keep from becoming one of her customers.”
FOUR
E ven at 3:00 A.M. Bourbon Street was rocking. Music poured out of the doors of bars and dives—the sob of a saxophone, the husky voice of a blues singer, the clear blare of a Dixieland clarinet, even the rollicking rhythms of a Celtic band. The moisture-laden air reeked of booze, grease, the pungent scent of seafood, humidity, and humanity.
Neon signs blinked and flared, throwing garish multicolored light across the cheap T-shirts that hung in every store window demanding SHUCK ME, SUCK ME, EAT ME RAW . Signs screamed out ALL NAKED, ALL THE TIME!!! A big-bellied white man, his face beet red and moisture-slick with sweat, shouted at her.
“Come on in, darlin’. You could win a
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