Endless Night Part 19

She sprang up and hurried across her bedroom, grimacing, gritting her teeth. The bottoms of her feet felt raw, but the padding of bandages and socks helped. Her good Reebok running shoes would cushion her feet even more.

In her closet, searching for them, she remembered that she had worn them to Evelyn's house.

They'd been brand new. Bright white with pink laces, so soft and squishy and cozy inside, and it had been wonderful how they made each step feel springy.

Gone. Burned.

She felt the loss as a tight lump in her throat.

Silly, she told herself. They're just shoes.

She slipped her feet into her moccasins, instead. As she left her room and walked down the hallway, she realized she had also lost her Eeyore socks.

My Eeyore socks.

Losing them hurt. Her eyes stung. She knew it was silly to cry over lost socks, but they'd been a gift picked for her specially by Dad and they'd been Eeyore, Pooh's poor, melancholy friend who always, always seemed to be the victim of life's unfairness. You had to feel sorry for him. You wanted to comfort and protect him.

If only she'd worn her Tigger socks to Evelyn's yesterday. She wouldn't have minded-not much, anyhow-Tigger getting burned. But poor Eeyore ...

She stopped thinking about her socks when she found Andy asleep on the living room sofa. He was covered to the shoulders with a blanket. All she could see of him was the shape of his body curled under the blanket, and the light brown hair on the back of his head.

He looked very small.

He looked very alone.

He's got me, Jody told herself.

I saved him. All by myself, I saved him. He's only alive today because of me.

She realized he wasn't just Andy, Evelyn's pesky little brother, anymore. Because she had saved him, he was now a lot more than that.

Like my own brother.

That's what she thought for a moment as she stared at him. She had no brother, so she didn't know how she might feel toward one. But the notion that he was now like her own brother seemed off. Somehow wrong.

Not like he's my brother, like he's my child.

The idea seemed outlandish. But somehow right. This was probably nothing at all like being a real mother, but she was the cause of Andy being alive just as surely as if she had given birth to him.

Whatever might happen to him from now on, whether good or bad, would only occur because she had led him out of the house last night.

How weird.

Weird, but nice.

Jody went to him. She bent over him and looked down at him sleeping. His breath made quiet sounds. Gently, she stroked his hair.

"You and me, kid," she whispered.

"Careful you don't wake him," came a whisper from behind her.

The voice in the silence startled her, but it was a good and comfortable voice. She looked around and saw her father under the arched entryway to the dining room. A comer of his mouth was stretched sideways. His usual smirk, but not really a smirk. Not a reflection of his att.i.tude, at all, but the permanent effect of his encounter with a .22 caliber bullet that had penetrated his skull. The bullet had done remarkably little damage. Its scars were hidden under his hair. On its way through his brain, however, the little slug had rewired the right side of his face. When he was serious, he seemed to be smirking. When he was happy, his face wore a big, lopsided grin that made him look quite goofy.

To Jody's way of thinking, the bullet had improved her father's appearance.

According to a book she had read, everyone in the world looks like either a pig or a weasel. One or the other. But her father didn't fit the pattern. The animal he resembled was a gorilla.

Before the shooting, he'd looked less like a cop than like a creep you might see on the television show, America's Most Wanted.

Which had never seemed fair at all.

Though he'd looked downright thuggish, he was more sensitive and compa.s.sionate and gentle and sweet than any man Jody had ever known. So the bullet had come like an artist from G.o.d to correct a mistake, to give his mouth a cheery upward turn.

Some people seemed to think that the constant smile made him look eerie. Not Jody, though. She considered it a major improvement.

The street lizards had dubbed him "Smiley." His nickname among the boys at the station was "Kong."

He was standing under the archway with a can of Bud in one big hand.

He wore baggy, tan shorts, white crew socks, and blue Nike running shoes. His T-shirt was neatly tucked in beneath the waistband of his shorts.

Yosemite Sam, emblazoned on the T-shirt, had both sixguns drawn and blazing. Parts of the hombre were hidden from sight, however, by the leather straps of a shoulder holster. The holster, flat against the left side of his ribcage, held his 9 mm Browning.

The sight of the Browning gave Jody a hot, squirmy feeling.

Normally, she felt comfortable about firearms. They were part of her father's job. No big deal. She even had her own .22, and loved to go out shooting with it.

But Dad didn't normally carry while having a beer in the late afternoon in his T-shirt and shorts in his own home.

That was eerie.

She reached down to pat Andy's hair again, then thought better of it. Let him sleep. The more he slept, the better.

She turned away from him and walked slowly toward her father. She tried not to hobble. She tried not to wince. Dad couldn't stand pain-not when it belonged to Jody.

"We can talk in the kitchen," he whispered.

She walked behind him through the dining room and into the kitchen. She walked; he swaggered. The swagger, like his smirk, had nothing to do with a macho att.i.tude. The swagger had a lot to do with a high-speed chase that had ended in a collision. Though he'd regained full use of his legs, the nature of their stride had been changed forever.

"Get yourself a Pepsi," he said.

She opened the refrigerator door. "Want another beer?"

"Sure, why not?"

She pulled out a cold Pepsi for herself, a Bud for him. She carried them to the table, where Dad had already seated himself with his back to the wall.

He always sat with his back to a wall.

In college, he used to sit with his back to the wall. Jody's mother had often told about it. The first time she'd seen him, he'd been sitting with his back to a wall in the student union, drinking a Pepsi and reading an 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain. Here was a guy who looked like a grouchy ape, and was therefore no doubt a mindless jock, reading a book. Not a textbook, either. A mystery. Reading it, seemingly, for the joy of reading. Intrigued by the shocking contradiction between his appearance and behavior, she'd gone to his table, sat down, and introduced herself.

Kate Monroe.

Jack Fargo.

Jack Fargo. Who had, among other things, two lists of heroes. Fictional heroes and real life heroes. At the top of his fiction list was Steve Carella. His real life list was headed by James Butler Hickok.

Hickok, who always sat with his back to the wall.

Except once. Once in Deadwood, while playing poker, while holding aces and eights, he'd violated his rule. Jack McCall had plugged him from behind and killed him.

According to Mom, Dad had actually said, "If Wild Bill had followed his own rules and kept a wall to his back, he'd be alive today."

"But he might be too old to know the difference," Mom had quipped, and they'd both suddenly cracked up laughing. By the time the laughter had stopped, according to both of them, they knew they were in love.

The "back to the wall" principle had been so much a part of Jody's life that she'd gotten into the habit, herself. Except when Dad was around. Then, he got the wall seat. And that was fine. Jody never felt the need to have her back protected when he was nearby.

She sat down, slid the Bud across the table to him, and snapped open the top of her Pepsi.

"Did you sleep all right?" he asked.

She nodded.

"How's it going?"

"Okay, I guess."

"You got banged up pretty good."

"I'll say."

"The doctor says you'll be fine, though."

"Yeah, he told me."

"Anyway, we still need to keep an eye on things. You've got to let me know if anything's wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Like if you get dizzy spells, blurred vision, headaches, any sort of unusual pains or bleeding. Just don't keep something like that to yourself."

"Okay." She took a drink of the Pepsi. It was cold and sweet, and tasted great.

"And if you remember anything else about last night, tell me right away. I know we gave you a pretty good grilling, but sometimes people remember little details later on."

"They haven't caught anyone yet, have they?" She knew it was a stupid question. If suspects had been taken into custody, Dad would've told her so immediately.

"I'm afraid not, honey."

"Anything?"

"Not yet. So far, about all we've got is what you and Andy told us."

"Is his uncle still coming?"

"He's on his way."

Jody tried not to let the hurt show. From the look on her father's face, however, she did a lousy job of it.

"I know you went through a lot with him, honey."

"I don't want him to go away."

"You want him to be safe, don't you?"

"Sure. But why does he have to go to Phoenix? It's so far."

"He'll be a lot safer there. And he'll be with family."

"What if they're not nice to him?"

"The guy sounded fine on the phone."

"He might be a child-beater, or something."

"I'll check him out."

"Check him out how? You mean look him over?"

"That, too. But I'll put in a call to the Phoenix PD and see if they've got anything on him. Just to be sure, all right?"

"Okay."

Dad took a swig of beer. He stared into Jody's eyes. "It sounds like you saved Andy's b.u.t.t, honey."

"Yeah, sort of. But we sort of helped each other, too."

"Your mother would sure be proud of you." As he said that, his eyes filled. "So am I," he added, then quickly turned his head away. "Why don't you go and get Andy up? Maybe he oughta take a shower or something. And we oughta eat. I don't know. Go on."

Chapter Fifteen.

In the living room, Jody gave Andy's shoulder a gentle shake. He rolled onto his back. He yawned and blinked up at her, looking groggy and peaceful. Then, he remembered. Jody saw him remember, saw his eyes change.