The Night Crew

The hospital was two minutes away. Harper insisted on carrying her inside, and as they came through the emergency room doors, a nurse behind the counter took one look and ran around and grabbed a gurney and pushed it toward them. Harper put her on it, the sheets stiff and starched beneath her, and the woman started asking questions and then.

She drifted away. She could hear them talking, a noisy hash of words. Then another woman was there, in a suit, looking down at her face. She closed her eyescouldn't seem to help herselfand then she was rolling along a corridor, around a turn to the left. More voices, all women now, and something cool touched her face, wet.

'Anna?' Woman's voice.

She opened her eyes. She was looking at a light on the ceiling. She tried to pull herself back together.

'Yeah. I'm here,' she said.

'How do you feel?'

'Not so bad.' She actually grinned. 'I think I could walk out of here. But I'm tired.'

'I'll bet.' Anna turned her head and saw the woman: she had an absorbent gauze pad in her hand, and it was soaked with blood. 'Is that from me?'

The woman looked down at the pad and said, 'Yesyou've got a scalp cut. Not bad, but they bleed like crazy. You'll need some stitches. And you've got some smaller cuts on one of your arms.'

The doctor shined a light in her eyes, gently moved her head, her neck, compressed her ribs. Had her remove her blouse and jeans, found small cuts, scuffs and bruises on her arms, her side, one leg.

'I think you're okay,' the doctor said, conversationally. 'I better put a few stitches on that scalp cut, though.'

'Go ahead.'

The doctor used a topical anesthetic, but the stitches still hurt. 'Nice that you've got dark hairthey'll be completely invisible,' the doctor said. 'Your face was covered with blood when you came in, like a mask. Your friend thought you were dying.'

'He was pretty freaked out,' Anna said. Despite the stitching, she yawned, apologized, and said, 'I don't know what's wrong with me.'

'Your system is closing down. You'll need some sleep. With the adrenaline and the wrestling around, the blows. you had about two weeks' wear and tear in two minutes. You'll sleep for a while.'

Then she asked, 'The gentleman who brought you in. he wasn't involved in any way, was he?'

Anna was startled. 'No, no, he was actually hitting golf balls, and I went out to the parking lot to get something. Some shoes, actually, and this other guy was waiting.'

'You're sure? You can tell me.'

'I know what you're getting at,' Anna said. 'This guy. he's okay.'

'All right.' The doctor dropped her hands to her lap. 'All doneexcept the part where you pay.'

They were at the hospital for two hours: when it appeared that Anna would be all right, Harper sent the elderly golfer back to the range in a cab, then sat next to the bed where they put her.

Two uniformed cops came by, spoke to her for a few moments, then an L.A. County detective showed up. The detective took her through the attack, then said, 'Uh, could you, uh, stand up.'

She stood up and he turned her by the shoulder and said, 'Yeah.'

'What?' She tried to look over her shoulder.

'We're going to have to take your jeans,' he said; he seemed embarrassed. 'The guy, uh. ejaculated on you.'

'Ah, God,' Anna said. The doctor said, 'I'll get you some scrubs.'

'I'm sorry,' the detective said, 'but we can get a DNA tracewe might even get lucky and get a cold ID.'

'Fat chance,' Harper said.

The detective shrugged: 'It's been done.'

The doctor got her some green scrub pants, and Anna gave her jeans to the detective, who put them in a plastic bag. 'Pasadena's got some guys going over the parking lot,' he said. 'If we could get you back there for just a few minutes, we'd appreciate it.'

'Can I go?' Anna asked the doctor.

'Yesbut you'll be sore tomorrow,' the doctor warned.

'Take some ibuprofen tonight and as soon as you get up in the morning.'

The owner of the driving range met them in the lot, where he'd been talking to a half-dozen cops. Things were happening now, Anna thought: the story was getting larger. But the range owner was thinking lawsuit. He was a worried man. Anna showed him a small smile: 'Don't worry about it,' she said. 'We brought the trouble to you.'

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he said.

'Yeah, yeah.' Anna walked the cops through the lot, showed them where the straggle took place, where the guy ran. The scrub pants flapped around her ankles as she walked. The cops traced the flight path in the dark, up the hill through brash and shrubs, found a few scuff marks near the scenic overlook.

'We'll check the houses around, see if anybody saw a car,' one of the cops said. 'I wouldn't be too hopeful.'

'You're lucky,' said another one. 'If he'd just wanted to take you home, he could've hit you with a sap, dumped you in the trunk of his car and nobody would've known what happened. But he tried to talk to you.'

'It's love,' said the first cop. 'Saved by love.'

Anna slept on the way home, drifting in and out. When they pulled up outside her house, Harper got out, his gun at his side. He looked around the yard, then came back and opened the car door, led her to the house, waited while she unlocked the door, then led the way inside. He checked the ground floor, the doors, the windows, then the second floor.

'Should be okay,' he said. 'But the guy's tracking us. He picked us up somewhere along the way, and followed us right out to the range. If we stay here, we'll be sitting ducks.'

'Unless it was just the Pasadena neighborhood pervert.'

'You don't believe that,' he said.

'No. He knew my name.'

She left Harper downstairs, moving furniture, the better to repel boarders, and went upstairs and looked at herself in the big bathroom mirror. Scuffed up, she thought. Beat up. She shivered, thinking about it: and about the man's sweat on her, about the semen on her pants.

She pulled off her blouse and bra, slipped out of the scrub pants, wadded them, threw them toward the waste basket and then growled after them. She surprised herself with the growl, a harsh, guttural snarl. The guy had been controlling her life for a week. Had gone after people she'd known, people she loved, had come after her.

She looked at herself again in the mirror, a slender dark-haired, beat-up elf in a pair of blue Jockeys for Her.

The guy was just trying to corner her, control her, possess her.

She stretched, stuck out an arm, twisted: hurt a little bit, but not that much. Looked at herself in the mirror again, and suddenly the anger came back, and she tottered with it, put her hands on the counter and closed her eyes, trying to keep her balance. She snarled again: she wanted to kill something.

Let the feeling ebb. Brushed her teeth, stood in the shower for ten minutes, steaming out, then pulled on a robe and went back down the stairs.

Harper was sprawled on the couch, looking at the TV, which he hadn't bothered to turn on. He was barefoot, tired.

'Hey, Jake,' she said.

'Yeah?'

'We were gonna go to BJ's tonight.'

'We're never gonna get there,' he said, shaking his head. 'We're cursed.'

'Tomorrow,' she said.

He nodded: 'How're you feeling?'

'I gotta get some sleep: I'm wrecked.'

'So go to bed: I got it covered down here.'

'I wanted to tell you. When you told me this afternoon that if I didn't know why you were hanging around, I must have my head up my ass.'

'Yeah?'

'Maybe I do, sometimes,' she said. 'I'm nervous about relationship stuff. But before the driving range thing. I was sort of planning to take you upstairs tonight.'