28

JACK AND OSCAR PARKED in police parking at Cedars and ran into the emergency room.

Standing in the lobby with his baseball uniform still on, Kevin rushed to his father, hugging him in a way Jack hadn’t felt since he was only an infant.

“How’s Charlie doing?”

“He had to have twenty-four stitches in his forehead, but he’s going to be okay,” Kevin said.

Jacked turned to Oscar, who crossed himself.

“In my own home,” Jack said. “The son of a bitch.”

But even as he said it, he realized that he didn’t know which “son of a bitch.”

Oscar was already dialing his cell phone.

“I’m getting Tommy Wilson right now.”

Jack hugged Kevin tighter and felt the rage well up inside of him.

• • •

A few minutes later, Jack and Oscar stood by Charlie’s bedside. The nurse, a middle-aged woman named Ruth Anne with bleached blond hair, smiled at them.

“Five minutes,” she said. “That’s it.”

Jack smiled back at her.

“You in the business?” she said.

“The cop business,” Jack said.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were a producer. I’ve been doing a little extra work.”

Jack said nothing and she opened her palms, faceup.

“Hey,” she said. “A girl’s gotta try, huh?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jack said. “You mind if I talk to my friend?”

“No problem,” she said.

She walked out of the room, giving Jack a sexy parting smile, just in case he was lying about not being a producer. It never hurt to leave a good impression.

Jack looked down at Charlie, whose skin looked pale, almost gray, like a frozen haddock Jack had seen on ice in a stall at the farmers market.

“Charlie, how you doing, buddy?”

“Okay,” Charlie said, grimacing as he spoke. “I shoulda never let him get the jump on me like that, Jackie.”

“Cut it out,” Jack said. “You get a look at him?”

Charlie shook his head a little and grimaced again.

“Nah. It was dark. Back in your extra bedroom. He had on a ski mask.”

“Yeah,” Oscar said. “Big guy?”

“Yeah, he used a gun butt on me. I’m just glad it was me. When I think it coulda been Kevin walking in there . . .”

Jack felt the icy shiver up his back. The mere thought of Kevin meeting one of Steinbach’s crew made him feel cold and sick.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I owe you big-time, Charlie.”

“Nah,” Charlie said. “You don’t owe me a thing. Just try and make it to the next ball game, huh? I’m sorry they took your computer, that’s all.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said. “Get some rest.”

He squeezed Charlie’s hand and watched his battered friend close his eyes.

Outside in the hallway, Jack looked at Oscar.

“There’s something they want really bad, all right. But I got nothing like that in my computer.”

“No, maybe not. But they don’t know that. Maybe we should really take a look at anything we’ve ever been involved with that had Witness Protection in it.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll think about that tonight.”

Jack and Oscar walked back out to the lobby, where Kevin was watching an old episode of Family Guy.

“This is a great one, Dad,” Kevin said. “The dog goes to California to be a movie star.”

“Some lucky dog,” Jack said. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s go home.”

At home Jack tried to act as though everything was normal but, in spite of Kevin’s best efforts, Jack saw a flash of fear in his eyes. His son looked like an animal that was cornered, trapped in a hunter’s gun sights.

Jack sat on the corner of the bed and patted Kevin’s hair away from his eyes. It was the kind of gesture he’d done when his son was much younger. The last few times he’d tried anything so blatantly tender, Kevin had jerked away, mumbling, “Cut it out. What do you think I am, a baby?”

But now Kevin didn’t flinch. He smiled at his dad in a vulnerable way, his eyes still darting around the corners of the room searching for something lurking there, something monstrous, which would emerge only when he was alone.

“You okay, buddy?” Jack said.

“Sure, Dad, fine,” Kevin said. But his voice was filled with doubt.

Jack saw his eyes watching the window. Waiting for whatever might be there in the backyard, just waiting.

“Listen, pal,” Jack said. “Nothing like that is going to happen again.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Kevin said.

“The alarm is here, and so am I,” Jack said. “Anybody who comes through that door won’t be walking when he leaves.”

“What do you think the guy wanted, Dad?”

“Something he thought was in my computer. But I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”

“You think it was that guy you arrested . . . one of his guys?”

“Steinbach?” Jack said. “Could have been. But there’s something that bugs me about that, too.”

“What?” Kevin said. He sat up on his pillow. Jack wondered if he should talk about the case with his son. But then again, all this affected him . . . so maybe he had a right to know. Plus, he was a smart kid. Maybe he’d come up with something helpful. In any case, he seemed wide-awake now.

“You see, if Steinbach sends a guy, he’s a professional. He goes in, he looks for something, and he doesn’t panic if somebody walks in. More than likely, he would have been quieter and simply gone out the window. That’s what bugs me. Whoever was in here panicked and got involved with armed robbery. Pros never want to do that. In a federal agent’s house? Something about it doesn’t add up.”

Kevin’s eyes gleamed.

“So maybe it wasn’t Steinbach who sent him, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Maybe it wasn’t.”

He thought of Forrester. That made sense somehow. Forrester sending the guy to find someone in Jack’s computer whom Jack had sent into Witness Protection.

Jack hugged his son good night and went back to the kitchen, where he poured himself a beer.

That was the problem. There was only one person Jack had sent into Witness Protection, a guy named Mark Reynolds. But Reynolds had died of lung cancer years ago, and the case had nothing to do with anything Forrester could be interested in.

No, that didn’t make any sense.

He drank his beer and looked out the window at a green palm tree in which three wild parrots made their home. Behind them was the wonderful purple-and-orange light, a perfect L.A. sunset. Of course, the colors were created by toxic waste, but you can’t have everything.

Had to be some other case, and then it seemed to him — just then — that there was another case sometime long ago.

But what was it? Something he couldn’t quite put his fin- ger on.

But it was there, somewhere . . .

If he could only recall it. But he was wasted, exhausted. Within a few seconds after putting his head down on the kitchen table, he was fast asleep.