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"Good," said the surgeon. She looked tired as she dumped her mask and gloves in the discard bin. "I better go talk to the family."

She was headed toward the family waiting area when the automatic doors swung open. The mayor and one of his aides came through, followed by the FBI's agent in charge.

"We gotta do something for the TV," the mayor snapped.

"I think we need more investigation…" the AIC said urgently.

"Bullshit, we got Davenport and a half-dozen cops saw the girl and we've got her statement and his body. There's no question…"

"There's always a question," said the AIC.

"There's a videotape," said Daniel.

"Aw, Jesus," said the AIC. He turned to a hospital wall and leaned his head against it.

"We could deal," the mayor said to Daniel. "He was one of the administration's point men on crime. I don't know what we could get, but it'd be a lot. More urban renewal; new sewage treatment; our own air force; you name it."

Daniel shook his head. "No."

"Why not?" the AIC asked heatedly. "Why the fuck not? We stood down in that surveillance post after the fuckup with Bill Hood and we cut a deal. Remember what you said? You said, 'You always deal. Always.' "

"There's a corollary to that rule," Daniel said.

"What's that?"

"You always deal, except sometimes," Daniel said. He looked at the mayor. "This is one of those times."

The mayor nodded. "First, it just wouldn't be right."

"And second, we'd get caught," said Daniel. "You want to tell the TV, or you want me to?"

"You do it; I'm going to call somebody in the White House," the mayor said. "It's going to be bad, but there are levels of badness. Maybe I can cut a deal to make it less bad…"

The AIC argued that the mayor should talk to the president before any announcement; the aide suggested that they had nothing to lose. Daniel pointed out that the discussion they were having could already bring big political trouble: they were talking about a conspiracy to cover up a crime. The politicians began backing away. The AIC still wanted to talk. As tempers got hotter, the night seemed to close in on Lucas, until he felt he might suffocate.

"I'm going," he told Daniel. "You don't need me and I need to sit down somewhere."

"All right," Daniel nodded. "But if you can't help thinking about it, think about Shadow Love."

Sloan was coming in as Lucas left.

"You okay?" Sloan asked.

"Yeah," Lucas said wearily. "Considering."

"How's Wilson?"

"Dead. They're selling off his heart and lungs and liver and kidneys and probably his dick…"

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Sloan blurted, appalled.

"Belloo's gonna make it. Might lose one of his balls."

"Jesus…" Sloan ran a hand through his hair. "You stop to see Lily?"

"No…"

"Look, man…" Sloan started.

He hesitated, and Lucas said, "What?"

"Do you feel bad about her now? With her husband here and all?" (Lucas thought about it for a second before he shook his | head. "No," he said.

"Good," said Sloan. '"Cause you shouldn't."

"Got my goddamn car shot up," Lucas said. "My fuckin' insurance agent is gonna jump out a window when he hears about it."

"I got no sympathy for you," Sloan said. "You're the luckiest motherfucker on the face of the earth. Cothron said you walked right into the Crows' guns, like Jesus walking across the water, and never anything happened."

"I can't remember too well," Lucas said. "It's just all fucked up in my head." "Yeah. Well, take it easy." "Sure." Lucas nodded and limped away down the hall.

The Porsche had three bullet holes in it, each in a separate piece of sheet metal. Lucas shook his head and climbed in.

The night was not quite cold. He ran down through the Loop, in sync with traffic lights, and made it out to the interstate without stopping. He was flying on automatic: east across the river, off at the Cretin Avenue exit, south down Cretin, right to Mississippi River Boulevard, south to home.

Jennifer was waiting.

Her car was in the driveway, a light was on in a window of the house. He pulled into the drive and jabbed the transmitter for the garage door opener. As he waited for the door to open, she came to the window and looked out. She had the baby on her arm.

"I freaked out," she said simply.

"I'm all right," he said. He was limping from the lost heel.

"How about the other guys?"

"One dead. One pretty busted up. The Crows are dead."

"So it's over."

"Not quite. Shadow Love got away."

They were staring at each other across the narrow space of the kitchen, Jennifer unconsciously bouncing the baby on her arm.

"We've got to talk. I can't just walk away from you. I thought I could, but I can't," she said.

"Man, Jen, I'm fuckin' crazy right now. I don't know what's going on…" He looked around wildly, the peaceful neighborhood hovering around them like a joke. "Come on," he said. "Come on and talk…"

Shadow Love had heard about the shootout on his radio, and now he waited in a thicket just over the lip of the slope that went down to the river. He'd planned to take Davenport when he got out of the car, but he hadn't counted on the automatic garage door opener. The door rolled up with Davenport still in the car, waiting. Shadow Love crouched, considered a dash across the street, but Davenport's house was set too far back from the road. He'd never make it.

When the door went down, Shadow Love walked fifty feet down the street, into the shadow of a spreading oak, and hurried across the street, through a corner of another yard and into the dark space beside Davenport's garage. Front doors were usually stout. Back doors, on garages, usually were not, since they didn't lead directly into the house. Shadow Love slipped around the garage to the back door and tested the knob. Locked.

The door had two panes of inset glass. Shadow Love peeled off his jacket, wrapped a sleeve around the middle joints of his fingers and pressed on the glass, hard, harder, until it cracked. There was almost no noise, but he paused, counted to three, then put more pressure along the crack. Another crack radiated out from the pressure point, then another. Two small pieces of glass fell almost noiselessly into the garage. Shadow Love stopped and checked the night around him: nothing moving, no sense of anything. Still using the jacket as padding, he pushed his little finger through the hole and carefully pulled two of the larger shards of glass from the door. In another minute, he had a hole large enough to reach through. He turned the lock knob and eased the door open.

The garage was not quite pitch dark: some light filtered in from the neighbor's house in back, enough that he could see large shapes, such as the car. With his left hand on the Porsche's warm hood, he moved carefully toward the door that led into the house. His right hand was wrapped around the pistol grip of the M-15. Once he was lined up on it, he would blow the knob off the door, and he'd be inside in a matter of a second or two…

He never saw the shovel hanging from a nail on the garage wall. His sleeve hooked the blade and the shovel came down like a thunderclap, hammering into a garbage can, rattling off the car and onto the floor.

"What?" said Jennifer, starting at the noise. Lucas knew. "Shadow Love," he whispered.

CHAPTER 28

"The basement," Lucas snapped.

He grabbed Jennifer by the shoulder and threw her toward the stairs as he drew his gun. She wrapped her arms around Sarah and went down, taking three steps at a time and leaping the last four, staggering as she hit the bottom.

In the garage, Shadow Love, stunned by the thunderclap of the falling shovel, brought the M-15 to his hip and fired three shots at the door's knob plate. One shot missed and blew through the door, into the kitchen cabinets and stove. The other two hit the knob plate, battering the door open. Half blinded by the flash from the weapon, his brain unconsciously registering the stink of the gunpowder, Shadow Love took two steps toward the door, then dropped to his face as three answering shots punched through the opening into the garage.