''Sandy…'' He stepped up to her, maybe to kiss her. She moved just an inch sideways and pecked him on the cheek.
''You go on; I'll be okay. Just wait 'til I get there, before you call John.''
He didn't want to go, but he couldn't stay. He shifted his feet, looked up at the sky, shook his head, then started the low moaning that she'd seen earlier: he was weeping again.
''El, El, hold on,'' she said. ''Come on, El…''
''Ah, Jesus,'' he said.
''I'll see you in the morning,'' she said.
As Elmore was starting the truck, Sandy walked back toward the house; Butters suddenly dropped off the porch and hurried past her, waving at Elmore. Elmore rolled down the driver's-side window and Butters came up, leaned close to
Elmore, grinned and said, ''You call the cops, we'll cut off her head.''
THE BULLET HAD SIMPLY SLIPPED BENEATH THE SKIN and back out again, but the wound had to be opened and cleaned. Sandy cut through the skin, carefully, with a razor blade. Fresh blood trickled into the gash, but as soon as she had the entire pathway open, she flushed it with saline, thensoaked a sterile gauze pad with more saline and dabbed it clean. At the bottom of the wound, there was a flash of white. Rib bone.
''Just touched a rib,'' she said to Martin.
''I see,'' he said, peering into the hole. He was interested in bullet wounds.
After a final wash, she repaired the razor cut with a long series of rolling stitches with black nylon thread, then painted the area around the wound with antiseptic. LaChaise wiggled a few times, but kept his mouth shut.
When she'd finished the stitching, Sandy's hands were red with blood. She went to the kitchen, washed, then returned to LaChaise and put a heavy bandage over the wound. She fixed the bandage in place with round-the-chest wraps of gauze, and then tape.
At the end of it, LaChaise sat up.
''Maybe you shouldn't move,'' she said.
He was feeling the pills, and smiled weakly and said, ''Shit, I been hurt worse than this by sissies.''
''That's the codeine. You're gonna hurt later on,'' Sandy said.
''I can live with it,'' he said. He got shakily to his feet and looked down at the bandaging job. ''Jesus, good job. Really good job. You're a little honey,'' he said.
DEL AND LUCAS WERE ON THE WAY OUT OF THE BUILDING when Sloan caught up: ''I'm coming,'' he said. ''Keep you out of trouble.''
All the way out to the laundromat, they argued about the shootings, and the response. Del said the season was open.
''Wouldn't be murder,'' Del said stubbornly. ''I wouldn't just shoot them cold.''
''… and the thing is,'' Lucas continued, ''you'd take allof us down with you. We'd all go out to Stillwater together. Nobody'd believe it was just you.''
An unwanted grin popped up on Del's face: ''Hell, we know half the guys out there. Be like old home week.''
Sloan said, ''Lucas is right. I don't even think you should be riding with us.
If you pop somebody now, after Cheryl, the media'd crucify us, and the grand jury'd be on us like a hot sweat: the politics would kill us.''
''Well, who in the hell's side is everybody on?'' Del asked. ''What about
Cheryl?''
''Don't ask that question,'' Lucas said. ''The answer'll piss you off.''
They were in Lucas's Explorer, Lucas driving, beating through the desolate streets to the near south side. Lights showed on the laundromat's second floor.
Below them, behind the storefront windows of the laundromat, five women, all of them black, folded clothes, read magazines or sat and stared at the dirty pink plaster walls.
Lucas stopped in a bus zone on the corner, twenty yards up the street from the windows. ''When I talked to Lonnie, he said if you go up the main stairway, you get to the top and there's a bunch of junk, cardboard boxes and stuff, all piled up. You can't get through to the door, not in a hurry, anyway,'' Del said, peering up at the second-story windows. ''There's a back stairs that comes down inside the garage. But the garage door's locked, and you can't get through that.''
''So you go up the stairs and make a lot of noise-kick the boxes out of the way, bang away on the door,'' Sloan said to Del. ''We'll wait out back. If he opens up the front door, you call us; and if he runs, we'll be the net.''
''All right,'' Del said, ''but I think we might be barking up the wrong tree. I can't see Harp having anything to do with a bunch of…'' He stopped in midsentence, pointed through the windshield. ''Hey-look there.''
A woman was walking toward them, half skating on the slippery sidewalk, holding what appeared to be a small white bakery sack. She passed under a streetlight and then into the brighter lights from the laundromat window.
''That's Jas Smith, Daymon's old lady,'' Del said.
Lucas said, ''Let's take her. Maybe she'll invite us up.''
''Yeah.'' Del and Sloan hopped out of the right side, while Lucas walked around the nose of the truck, converging on Jasmine. She was wearing a brimmed hat, and her head was down against the snow: she didn't see them coming until they were on top of her.
Then she jumped, and put her hand across her heart: '' Goddamn, Capslock, give me some warning.''
''Sorry…''
''If I was carrying a little piece or something, I might of shot you outa self-defense, popping out like that.''
She looked at Lucas and Sloan, worried, and Del said, ''This is Chief Davenport and Detective Sloan. We got something we need to talk to Daymon about. Not bust him; just talk.''
''Whyn't you call him up?''
''Because we didn't want him hanging up on us,'' Sloan said pleasantly. ''You hear about all those cops' husbands and wives getting shot today?''
''Everybody heard,'' she said.
''My wife was one of them,'' Del said. ''She's in the hospital now, and she's hurting. We want you to know how serious this is-so why don't you just open up the garage and we'll go on up and talk to Daymon.''
She looked from Del to Sloan to Lucas, and said, ''He'd kick my ass if I done that. I mean, he'd kick me so bad.''
Del looked at Lucas and nodded: he would.
''What happened to your hand?'' Lucas asked. Jasminewasn't carrying a bakery sack; her hand was professionally wrapped in a huge white bandage.
She looked down at it, and her lip trembled: ''Paper cutter,'' she said. ''Cut my finger right off.'' She started to blubber. ''It was just layin' there, and I knew it was off, and then the blood squirted out…''
Lucas said, ''Jeez, that's too bad. Look, Daymon must have an unlisted number, right? Of course he does.''
He nodded, and she nodded. He took a cellular phone out of his pocket.
''So why don't you dial him up, and tell him we're down here by the garage, and then he can go brush his teeth or whatever, and we can go on up.''
''I'll try,'' she said, after a moment.
HARP LET THEM UP, UNHAPPY ABOUT IT. THE APARTMENT smelled of marijuana, but nothing fresh, just old curtainandrug contacts, enough to get you started if you'd gone to college in the sixties. Harp was waiting for them in the kitchen, his butt against the edge of the table, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked at Jasmine as if she were at fault, and she said, ''Honey, they snatched me right off the street, they knew you was up here…''
Del said, ''That's right, Day; we were coming up, one way or another.''
''What you want?'' Harp grunted.
''You heard about the killings?''
''Didn't do it,'' Harp said.
Lucas felt a tingle: Harp was a little too tough. ''We know you didn't do it personally, but we think you might have a connection,'' Lucas said. ''Two of the people involved met down in your laundromat. We have a witness. We want to know why these two white assholes would come halfway across the country to meet in
Daymon Harp's laundromat.''
''You think I'd help them peckerwoods?'' Harp asked indignantly. ''I been inside with those motherfuckers. Daymon Harp ain't helping them no way, no place, no time.''