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His face was crisscrossed with gouges and cuts, dark with bruised flesh and as waxy as a mask. Terry felt tears burning in his eyes as he looked at his friend. He would, he thought, forever relive that dreadful moment when he had searched for the pulse and not found it, and heard Val scream. He wondered if maybe that had pushed her over the edge, and if so, then he was partly responsible for her present situation. How was he to know that he was feeling for the pulse in the wrong place? He was a politician, not a paramedic.
When the real medics had come over and dug their fingers into the carotid arteries and reported that Crow was still alive, Terry felt at once massively relieved and abominably stupid. He had pressed the wrong spot on Crow’s neck and had, of course, felt no pulse. He tried to tell Val, to explain and apologize for his mistake, but she had passed out. In shock, the medics told him. Comatose. Out of it for now, and better for it. Terry wondered if that was true. Knowing that Crow was still alive would probably do her a power of good.
Terry touched Crow’s face, feeling the iciness of the skin, the slickness of sweat.
“Jesus, Crow…” he murmured.
“Bullet graze on the left side,” paramedic had reported after a quick examination. “And another on the right of him. Looks like it glanced off his belt. ”
“Is he going to die?” Terry had asked, dreading the sound of his own words.
The paramedic gave a philosophic shrug and said, “Maybe of old age. Two hits and neither of them much of anything. Damn lucky guy. But he has lost some blood and somebody kicked the living piss out of him. Nice gouge on his head, looks like it might have been a pipe or something. Now, sir, if you’ll just step back…”
Terry had let them get to work, and now here Crow was, all trussed up and ready to be carted away to the hospital and the surgeon.
“Okay, Jack, we’re ready for him,” called one of the medics from inside the ambulance. The medic that had first diagnosed Crow as being among the living came over and double-?checked the buckles on the straps.
“Okay down here. ”
The two medics squatted, grabbed either end of the stretcher, and as one lifted Crow with great care and practiced ease.
“Take good care of him,” Terry said in his mayor’s voice. The medics swapped a quick glance. They heard that sort of thing fifty times a week, as if they would take less care if someone didn’t tell them to do it in an officious voice.
“Ouch!” said someone in a loud, complaining voice.
Terry stared.
Crow opened his eyes, looked around, then closed them and sighed. “Oh, shit,” he said groggily. “Now what?”
Unbelieving, delighted, Terry crowded the stretcher, touching Crow’s arm. “You bloody idiot,” he said.
“I love you, too,” Crow mumbled hoarsely. He blinked a couple of times. “Christ, was I that drunk?”
“No, you numbskull, you were shot. ”
Crow’s eyes snapped wide and his face hardened as everything came rushing back. “Val!” He tried to sit up but he hit a brick wall of pain and collapsed back down, aided by the hands of the paramedics.
“Shh, shh, she’s okay,” said Terry. “She’s in the other ambulance. They’re taking good care of her. She’ll be fine. ”
Breathing out a heavy sigh, Crow said, “Oh, thank God. ” Darkness welled up in Crow’s mind, and he could barely form words. After several false starts, he managed to say, “Terry…did I…do it?”
“Do what? Did you do what?”
“Did I…kill the rotten son of a bitch?”
Terry patted Crow’s arm. “From what one of Sergeant Ferro’s men said, you two were standing there shooting at each other, you fell down, and when the officer joined in and started to shoot, Ruger ran off. ”
“Ruger?” Crow’s eyes widened. “That was really…him?”
“Yeah…are you impressed with yourself?”
“Damn, Terry, but he was one tough bastard. Almost…couldn’t take him…”
“You fought him?”
Crow licked his split lips and then quickly—but disjointedly—told Terry everything that had happened. “We beat the living shit out of each other…and then he shot me. Shot that poor girl, too. Rhoda. ” He grabbed Terry’s sleeve. “She dead?”
“No, but she’s hurt pretty bad. They took her to the hospital. ”
