Billy Straight

“Oh no,” said Petra. “Going after the twenty-five thou.”

“It would motivate me, and I don't live in a trailer.”

“Lord,” said Petra. William Bradley Straight. A kid with a survival plan, thinking he had a chance. Pathetic. What had they done to him?

“Okay,” said Wil. “Let's divide up those airlines.”

When she hung up, Ron said, “What's wrong?”

“Another orphan.”

62

Bound volumes of TV Guide, each with a no circu- lation tag.

An hour into the surgery, Stu found himself going crazy in the waiting room. Leaving the hospital, he drove to a branch in downtown Burbank, used his badge and good ma

Now here he was back at St. Joe's, waiting with other worried people.

Hundreds of Adjustor plot summaries.

Dack Price comes to the aid of a woman harassed by street thugs.

Dack Price helps expose drug dealing at a local high school.

A woman claiming to be Dack's sister, abandoned at birth…

Dack Price saves a political reformer's reputation when blackmailers…

The same old garbage, over and over.

No mention of any parks, let alone Griffith. Rarely was the setting ever mentioned, except when it was considered exotic: Dack Price investigates several murders aboard a submarine.

He kept turning pages, sitting by Kathy's bedside as she slept off the anesthesia.

Snoring. Kathy never snored. A padded dressing was taped to her chest like some bulletproof vest. The IV dripped, a catheter drained, machines graphed and beeped the saga of his wife's physiology. Stu had watched the blood pressure for a while until he was certain it was normal. At the last temperature check, Kathy'd registered a slight fever. Normal reaction, the nurse claimed.

The room was a private with a view, courtesy of Father's clout. Cheerful wallpaper, ten-dollar Tylenol. The nurses seemed smart and efficient.

Drizak had taken Kathy's left breast.

Stu knew the minute the surgeon came out in his greens. Droning on about lymphovascular invasion, nodal status, margins of excision, best efforts at breast conservation.

“So you did a mastectomy.”

“The bottom line is we want to save your wife's life.”

“Did you?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you save her life?”

The surgeon scratched his chin. “The prognosis is excellent, Mr. Bishop, given proper follow-up, radiotherapy. She went through it like a trouper.”

Stu thanked him, pumped his hand, and grateful for the lack of outward anguish, the surgeon walked away with a bounce in his step.

The breast didn't matter to Stu- not as an object- but how would Kathy react to the loss?

What to tell the kids?

Mommy was sick, now she'd be getting better.

No good; when the side effects of radiation showed up, they'd think he lied.

Kathy stirred and moaned. Stu put the book down, leaned over the bed rails, and kissed her forehead lightly. She didn't react. He touched her hand. Cold and limp. Why wasn't the blood circulating to her extremities?

He checked the machines. Normal; everything normal.

Her padded chest proved it, rising and falling.

It was 8 P.M. Surgery had been delayed twice because of emergencies- Kathy wheeled up to the OR, then down, the entire process repeated again. Waiting in the hall on a gurney as the priority patients were rushed through.

A car crash and a shooting.

Stu watched Burbank officers come up to the surgical floor, accompanying the med techs as they wheeled in the shooting victim. Young Hispanic kid, sixteen, seventeen, bad color, vacant eyes. Stu knew DOA when he saw it. Another stupid drive-by.

The cops didn't notice him- just some guy in a sweater reading in the corner of the waiting room.

Young-blood cops, swaggering. Like they knew what they were doing.

Pathetic. No one had a clue. God was a comedian.

Look at Ramsey.

Had a wife but couldn't keep her.

No way was the actor going down for Lisa's murder. Not with what they had so far. No help from TV Guide.

He suppressed bitter laughter.

Dack Price butchers a woman. Now a word from our sponsor.

63

I'm talking to Mom, trying to explain something important to her, but she's not getting it. She's not even listening.

I get mad at her, start to yell; she just stands there, arms at her side, this weird look in her eyes. Like I don't matter.

Then her face starts to melt and blood shoots out of her eyes like from red faucets. She cups her hands to catch the blood, splashes it all over her face, and then throws some at-

I wake up sweating. My head hurts, my arms hurt, my stomach kills worse than ever, I can't breathe.

I'm in a dark box with cold, hard walls. Glass walls. Trapped, like a bug in a jar- I really can't breathe- no air holes in the box. No matter how hard I suck in the air, it won't feed my lungs- then I see it. Crack at the top of one glass wall. A window left a little open.

Car window.

I'm in Sam's car. The backseat. Must have fallen asleep under the blankets.

It's making me sick being cooped up here. I want to break out, but the alley at night, who knows what's out there? At least let me open the window a little wider- nope, electric, they don't budge.

My Casio says 8:19. The Jews have been praying for a while. When they finish, Sam will take me with him. He's a stranger, and I don't know anything about his house, but there's no other place to hide, not with that $25,000 reward.

Maybe I should try to get the money, like Sam suggested… no, the police would never give it to a kid. Even if they did, Mom and Moron would find out and take it all and I'd be back in the trailer and they'd have dope money.

I could call the police without telling them who I was, let them know I saw PLYR 1 stab Lisa. But what if they had a way of tracing the phone and PLYR found out and went after me?

Who saw me and gave them my face for that picture?

No, I'll just keep my mouth shut. If I dream about Mom again, I'll try to figure out what it is I want to convince her of.

64

Land of the free, home of the stupid.

In the cramped storage room behind the souvenir shack, Vladimir Zhukanov finished the vodka and wondered if he'd been an asshole to leave Russia.

At least there he had a uniform, a purpose. There was always someone who needed controlling. Even more now, since capitalism was sinking its claws in. The gangs were taking over, and half the gangsters were ex-police. He could've found something.

In America, he had no respect, only stupid dolls. Stupid nigger cop ignoring him, then taking his information to the TV, the black bastard.

Anonymous tip. Meaning they didn't want to pay him.

One thing: It proved he'd been right about the kid. Like there'd been any doubt- that dimple in the chin, just like the drawing. Scratches on his face, what you'd expect in someone hiding in a forest. Zhukanov's father had told him stories about forests, the war. Militiamen chasing Yids through clumps of wintering birch. Bare trees, iron sky, the marriage of bayonet and flesh, crimson stains on snow.

Anonymous tip. The TV news meant competition for the twenty-five thousand. Only one competitor so far, but he was trouble enough. Fat guy in filthy leather, walking up and down the walkway with the kid's picture.

From his station behind the counter, Zhukanov watched the big pig. Up and back, up and back, walking laboriously, breathing hard in the heat. Growing visibly pissed off as the day wore on and he got nothing but head shakes and blank stares.