Okay, I’m not dead, and I know this only because there are people insisting on it, hovering over me and whispering, “She’s awake” and “You’ll be okay” and “Try to stay calm.” I don’t know what they’re talking about until they get out of the way and give me a chance to see the mess we’ve made. Spotlights bring the space to life: a dingy bedroom with impersonal, temporary decor like a halfway house or a weekly motel; everything yellowed like old newspaper except the black-red blood on the floor. Officers wear rubber gloves and goggles as they work around me, dusting where there is already so much dust. I see someone drop what looks like my gun into a plastic bag.
“Fred,” I say. I can feel him next to me. “Fred,” I say again, and I reach for him, but then hands come from everywhere and start to lift me carefully off the floor. Someone says, “You have a concussion.” Someone else: “We’re taking you to the hospital.” I resist, I say I’m okay, and I drop to Fred’s side and pull at his shirt, but he doesn’t move. I want to hit him and hurt his feelings and tell him I love him and yes, I’ll call John, you fucking nag, but they take hold of my arms again and remind me that I have a head injury. They pull me away from Fred and help me outside like I don’t know the way. Like I never found my way here in the dark.
Outside, they sit me down in the back of an ambulance and act like I’m dying. And I sit there like a victim. My uniform embarrasses me.
I watch other cops act officially calm, but I can hear them asking each other all of these questions: “Who were they after?” and “Why didn’t they wait for backup?” and “What were they fighting about?” I know the answers. But they’re not asking me.
Then I see Sergeant MacInerny. I slip off the back of the ambulance and get to him just before the medics try to drag me back. MacInerny puts his arm around me. I don’t understand why he’s telling me to quiet down because I’m not saying anything. Then I follow his gaze to a stretcher. Covered with a white sheet.
“Marko Trovic,” I say, but now that I am talking, Sarge doesn’t seem to hear me. “It’s Marko Trovic!” I say again. Sarge holds me there firmly, neither one of us sure where I’d go if he didn’t, and I can hear the stretcher getting closer, its wheels turning.
“It’s Fred,” is what I think Sarge says, but that’s when it happens: Marko Trovic sits up on the stretcher. Not dead.
An onlooker screams when Trovic throws the sheet off his wounded torso and pulls out his gun. Everyone dodges in different directions and I grab Sarge’s gun right out of his holster before he hits the ground and takes cover.
Then Trovic fires. At me.
I feel all six shots burn through my flesh, through my chest, through my heart, and I still manage to shoot back as I fall very slowly, taking in every detail as I go: Trovic’s vicious eyes staring from below a thick brow, the heavy gold medallion peeking out of his shirt, his wicked smile defying my bullets. And then, abruptly, all I see is the underside of everything.
As I lie on the ground, I know I must be dead this time. I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel troubled. In fact, I don’t even mind that I’m dead. My only hope is that Fred made it out okay.
People surround my body and speak in hushed tones and I can’t understand them or make out their faces. I would tell them, “It’s okay, I am not a hero, I was just doing my job”—if I could, at least to comfort them, but I know they wouldn’t understand. Then one face comes into focus. Just one.
And it’s Marko Trovic.
I scream loud enough for the living to hear.
“She’s awake all right.”
A fat, tough nurse wraps something around my arm. As soon as another nurse messes with a bandage on my head, I’m certain I’m still not dead because dead people don’t throw up, and I’m about to. Fluorescent lights assault my eyes and a nauseously pink curtain surrounds half of the room.
“I feel sick.” Having stated the obvious, I get a macaroni-shaped dish placed conveniently on my sternum. So I’m in the hospital. I’d rather be dead.
“Breathe,” the fat nurse says, putting her hand on my forehead like she can actually stop my head from spinning. I have to say, it helps.
Next thing I know, she opens my gown, exposing my breasts to anyone who cares to look as they pass by, and listens to my heart. Her shirt is patterned with a gaudy mix of lipstick tubes and cosmetic brushes, and her complete disregard for vanity makes me wonder why she chose it. “Vitals are stable, Cerita.”
Cerita nods and gets ready to stick a needle in my arm. “How old are you, hon?”
“Thirty-two.”
“You look so young. I’d have guessed she was in her twenties,” she says to the fat one as she flicks the syringe with her middle finger.
“She ain’t had no babies to round her out,” the fat one says.
“What happened?” I ask. I stretch my jaw and my mouth feels like I swallowed flour.
“Your brain practically fell out of your head, girl,” Cerita says, matter-of-fact. “Doctor stitched you up. Your hair’ll hide the wound, though. Lucky you got so much hair.” I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch her stick me. Guns, okay; needles, no thanks.
“Lucky she’s got a hard head, too. That’s some concussion,” the fat one says, looking at my X ray in a backlit box. So that part of my dream was true, but . . .
“What happened tonight?” is what I want to know.
“That’s what everyone outside’s waiting for you to wake up and tell ’em. You’re the most popular patient we had since . . . since that second baseman in here last spring. Cerita, what was his name? That Cub with the broken collarbone?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m a Sox fan,” Cerita says as she puts a cotton swab over the needle and pulls it from my skin. “This’ll keep the swelling down,” she says. Then she puts her gear in some kind of plastic pail, a toolbox for all things injected, and prepares to leave.
“Is my partner here, in this hospital?” I ask. Cerita stops. They look at each other like I’m asking to be a part of some secret club.
“Tell that policeman he can come on in now,” the fat one says to Cerita. “He’s been bugging me.”
“Where’s Freddy?” I ask as soon as Sarge clears the doorway. As usual, he can’t keep up with himself. He’s always out of breath, always stretching his neck with a tense hand. I worry about his blood pressure.
“How you feeling, Smack?” he asks me. A question with a question. Not good.
“Do I look all right?” I ask. He’s trying to come up with a polite response, so I save him the trouble and say, “I’m fine.”
“Doctor says you have a—”
“Concussion. I know that. Tell me what happened out there.”
Sarge keeps his distance from the bed and his eyes on the floor. He’s pulling a white handkerchief through his rough hands like a magic trick, though there’s nothing magic about it. Finally he says, “Fred died on scene.”
The reality of that statement escapes me and I try to go back: Fred said he was hit, but I couldn’t tell where. We were talking, and there was someone behind us—
“Marko Trovic,” I say.
Sarge looks at me like I’ve lost it. “Who?”
“The guy I shot. The other body. That’s Marko Trovic.”
“There was no other body.”
The reality of that statement hits me. Like a bullet. Marko Trovic is alive. Just like in my dream. I sit up.
“Is he in custody?” I ask.
Sarge doesn’t want to answer me. He acts like his handkerchief is the most interesting thing he’s ever held in his hands.
“He fled.” I assume.
“Is that why you two were at that house? Looking for Trovic?” Sarge asks.
“We got a tip. We heard he was there. He was there. He shot Fred.” When I close my eyes I see flashes of what happened: Fred going for his gun, the look on his face signaling danger behind me, my knees hitting the floor, the split second before I turn and fire. Our lives in my hands.
“You’re sure you saw this guy, Trovic?” Sarge asks. I can see Trovic’s face all right, his smile a threat, but I can’t tell the difference between what I’m remembering and what I was dreaming. Did I see his face when I turned and started shooting?
“I don’t know” is my answer.
“We’re trying to get to the bottom of this, Sam. At this point it’s a little complicated.”
“It’s simple to me,” I say. “Marko Trovic. And if he isn’t in custody, somebody better find him.”
Sarge takes my hand and eases me back to my pillow. “Relax, Smack. Doctor says you need to take it easy, let your head settle. We won’t solve this tonight. Get some rest, and a union rep will come talk to you when you’re feeling better.”
“Why would I need a lawyer? You’re not telling me something.” I get the feeling I’m going to get in trouble for some remedial violation, like not waiting for backup.
“It’s procedure,” he says. “An officer died.”
“And I’m telling you who killed him. You put the word out to every cop in this city and they’ll have Trovic strung up by his balls before you can pull his file.” Cop killers don’t have a prayer in this town, and everyone knows it. “He’s probably on the run right now. You should have every uniform on the street after him! Put it on the wires, get it on the news . . .” It seems so obvious to me, until Sarge says,
“We’re waiting for ballistics.”
Ballistics. “Why?”
“All we have to go on right now is the bullet they pulled out of Fred,” he says.
“So?”
“So we can’t go out and arrest a guy you don’t know whether you saw or not when all we have are two issued thirty-eights, both fired, and two wounded officers, one fatally. We need evidence. We need fingerprints and ballistics.”
“Trovic shot Fred. And I shot at Trovic.”
“Are you sure?”
Wait, what? My head might be a little foggy, but, “I’m sure. Who the hell do you think gave me this concussion?”
Sarge stretches his neck. “We’re trying to keep this quiet,” he says, “for your sake, and the department. It’s already been turned over to the detectives’ bureau and I’m on my way to talk to the superintendent.”
My sake? The superintendent? Of the city of Chicago?
“You think I killed Fred?”
“Sam, don’t jump to conclusions. We just have to keep procedure intact, and keep the lines open for the higher-ups. We don’t want to make any mistakes.”
“Your mistake is waiting around for some lab report while Trovic catches the next flight out of here.” I sit up again, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and say, “I’ll find him myself.”
I stand up too quickly and all the blood rushes out of my head. For a moment I feel okay, maybe a little dizzy. Then the pain comes around the side of my head and it’s so bad that I can’t fake it. Sarge grabs my arm to steady me and it pisses me off, but he won’t let go.
“Dammit, I’m fine,” I say, and I think I will be if I can just get used to being upright. Sarge puts me back on the bed, sits down next to me, and presses the nurse’s call button.
“You’re not fine, and you’re staying here,” he says.
“I have to do something,” I tell him.
“How about cooperating? Get some rest. I’ll go see the chief and tell him you’ll give your statement tomorrow.”
“I’ll give it to you right now. Fred and I were after Marko Trovic. He killed Fred, and I shot at him. I must have missed. He must have walked out of there. We need to find him.”
“Trust that we will do everything we can.” Except find Trovic, I want to say, but Cerita appears in the doorway with her bucket of needles and I know this debate is over.
“All right, Sarge,” I concede. For now.
I have no idea what time it is. I feel like I’ve been lying here for days, but the sun still hasn’t come up. I’m waiting for my head to stop hurting, and I ask for some painkillers. The nurses don’t listen. They just keep telling me to get some sleep.
Yeah, right. Every time I close my eyes I see Marko Trovic.
So I lie in the dark, staring at nothing, trying to remember everything that happened. None of it comes to me in order, and the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.
I keep hearing our last conversation: “I got him,” Fred said. “Thank me.” Going on about his friend John. “You don’t know who he is,” he insisted. What was he getting at? And why would he bring it up in the middle of such a dangerous situation? Fred always mixes up work and life, everyone knows that, but he never brings it on the street. He was different tonight. “Leave her out of this,” he told Trovic. I know I haven’t worked with Fred in a while, but I still know how he works, and this was more than payback for Trovic’s priors. Nobody likes a child molester, but tonight Fred acted like Trovic was after his own kid. Tonight was personal, and it had nothing to do with me, the American whore.
No matter what I remember, it’s the only way I can figure that things went down the way they did. It was personal, and Fred left me out of it. Marko Trovic is the only one who knows why, and no one is currently looking for him. In fact, they haven’t even posted anyone outside my room.
They don’t think he was there at all. They think I made this up. They must think I accidentally killed Fred.
I sit up and give myself a minute to get used to the ache in my head. Then I get out of bed and walk around the room a few times, to make sure I’m mobile. Then I cover up with a coat someone brought from the station, and I sneak very carefully down the hall, past the fat nurse, and out of the hospital.