I’d imagined the light. Or it had been a reflection off the high north-facing windows.
I went along to my office, slid the key into its dead-bolt lock. When I turned it, the bolt clicked into place. Now that was
wrong; I’d locked it when I left the office. We all made a point to do so because we had so many sensitive files in cabinets
and on our computers.
I turned the key again and shoved the door open. Stepped inside and reached for the light switch.
Motion in the darkness, more sensed than heard.
My fingertips touched the switch but before I could flip it, a dark figure appeared only a few feet away and then barreled
into me, knocked me against the wall. My head bounced off the Sheet-rock hard enough to blur my vision. In the next second
I reeled backward through the door, spun around, and was down on my knees on the hard iron catwalk. As I tried to scramble
away, push up and regain my footing, one of my groping hands brushed over some other kind of metal—
Sudden flash, loud pop.
Rush of pain.
Oh my God, I’ve been shot—
Nothing.
A
thin bright line. Widening. Slowly.
Beige light.
What… ?
My eyes began to focus.
A ceiling. I’m on my back looking at an unfamiliar ceiling.
A tube was thrust into my mouth, and from somewhere nearby came a rhythmic breathing sound. In my peripheral vision were other
tubes, snaking in many directions. Metal bars to either side, like a baby’s crib.
I couldn’t move my head either to the left or to the right.
Straight ahead, a curtain. Beige and green—a leafy pattern.
Rhythmic beeping sounds from behind me.
Hospital room. I’m in a hospital!
But where… ? What… ? How… ?
The light dimmed, narrowed—
The light returned, softer now.
Rustling noises and then, in profile, a face.
Nurse? Must be. Blue scrubs and a gentle, placid expression. Asian, probably Filipina.
She moved away.
Come back! I need to ask you—
Everything dimmed again.
* * *
Dark now, but a shaft of light slanting across the ceiling. Must be coming from a doorway. Faint sounds of men and women talking.
No, one man and two women. Who… ?
Hospital staff. A friend had once told me hospitals were noisy at night; no cessation of activity then. Nurses gave medications,
responded to emergency situations and the ring of patients’ call buttons.
Call button…
It would be within easy reach. All I had to do was feel around for it—
My right arm wouldn’t move.
My calves and feet hurt, an ache that went straight to the bones. I couldn’t move them either.
Paralyzed!
No, that can’t be.
Frantically I willed some part of me to move—a finger, a toe, anything.
Nothing.
Total immobility.
A scream rose in my throat. A scream without voice.
I couldn’t make a sound.
What’s happening to me?
Cold, foggy night along the Embarcadero… Derelict coming out of the mist… Deserted pier… My office… Shadowy figure slamming
into me… Flash, pop, pain…
Oh, God!
Panic shot through me. The scream rose to a high, shrill pitch, but only in my mind.
“… Appears comatose. As you know, it took quite an effort to stabilize her.” A stranger’s voice, grave. “But her blood pressure
is finally in hand, essentially normal, she’s taking nourishment through the feeding tube, and is able to breathe well on
her own since we began taking her off the ventilator yesterday.”
“Do you have a definite diagnosis yet?”
Hy! But what—?
“Traumatic brain injury, of course, but beyond that we can’t yet say. The CT scan shows the bullet entered the occipital lobe
of her brain, carrying along with it bone fragments. A clot formed from internal bleeding, creating pressure.”
“And the prognosis?” Hy’s voice was tightly controlled, but I knew he was quaking inside.
“Too early to tell. It’s—if you’ll excuse my wording—a mess in there, which is why we can’t attempt surgery. She appears comatose
and completely paralyzed, but the scan we took yesterday shows she has good brain wave activity.”
“So she’ll come out of this?”
A pause. “I do think you may have to face some hard decisions about your wife’s quality of life.” Rustling of paper. “I see
here that you have her advance directive giving you medical power of attorney. Have the two of you discussed her wishes?”
“Yes.” Curt. He wasn’t ready to go there yet.
I’d been listening to the conversation dispassionately, as if they were talking about somebody else. Now my defenses crumbled,
and I gave in to panic. The silent scream rose again.
The doctor said, “Have you given any further thought to transferring her to the Brandt Neurological Institute?”
“I spoke with them this morning. They have a room available and will admit her as soon as you give the go-ahead.” Hy hesitated.
“Isn’t this the equivalent of giving up on her?”
“Not at all.” The doctor’s voice was too upbeat. “It’s an excellent acute rehabilitation center. Dr. Ralph Saxnay, who will
be her attending neurosurgeon, is one of the best. In addition, it’s very quiet and private. No one needs to know she’s there.”
A pause. “You must realize we’ve had difficulty with the media here. Your wife has made quite a name for herself in this city.”
Hy didn’t respond to the doctor’s comment. “I’ll make the final arrangements with the institute.”
Final arragements. It sounds as if he’s planning my funeral.
The doctor said a few more things in low tones, and then I heard him leave the room. Hy was still there, standing back and
to the right of me; I couldn’t see him.
I tried to say something, to move something again. Couldn’t do anything. Paralyzed.
But not in a coma as the doctor had said.
Hy doesn’t know. I can’t communicate with him, even though I can hear every word he says.
Hy sighed heavily and placed his hand on my forehead. “Oh, McCone, I don’t know if you even realize I’m here.” His voice was
twisted with pain.
Look at me! Look into my eyes! You’ll see I’m with you.
“If you can hear me, remember that I love you. Hold to that thought, and we’ll get through this together. Just like we always
have.”
I love you too, Ripinsky.
H
e stepped out into the parking lot of San Francisco General Hospital and turned up his collar against the fog. Walked toward
where he’d left his silver-blue 1966 Mustang, fumbling in his pocket for the keys. When he got to the classic machine, he
had to curb a violent desire to kick it. This was not the time to give way to impotent rage.
Not yet, anyway.
Inside the car, he took out his cell phone and called the Brandt Neurological Institute’s admitting office. He told the clerk
he’d arranged for his wife’s transfer, then set up a meeting with Dr. Ralph Saxnay, the neurosurgeon, for eleven the next
morning. After he ended the call, he just sat there, staring out at the gathering mist.
Nothing more to be done today. Shar would be in good hands tomorrow. Not that there was anything wrong with SF General’s trauma
unit—they’d saved her life with all the odds against her—or ICU; they were both excellent, but they’d done all they could
and weren’t set up to handle a patient with a long-term… condition.
His thoughts flashed back to his first wife, Julie, now many years dead of multiple sclerosis. Toward the end she’d also been
unmoving and silent, but there’d been an absence about her, as if her essence had already left her body. Not so with McCone;
he still felt the psychic connection that had bound them together since almost the first time they met. If she was beyond
all hope, would that connection exist?
No, he refused to believe it.
The past ten days were a jumble in his memory. His shock when the call came to his hotel in Seattle from Ted Smalley, who
had been summoned along with the police and paramedics when the half-drunk security guard found McCone shortly after hearing
the shot. The frantic and reckless flight to San Francisco piloting Ripinsky International’s jet. Heart-pounding drive from
the airport, where two days before he’d left the Mustang inside the jet’s hangar, to the hospital. Then the waiting, a three-day
and -night vigil.
We’ve established a good oxygen supply… Blood flow and pressure returning to normal… A setback, blood pressure crashing… BP
edging toward normal… She’s responding to the medications… Another setback, incompatibility with the medication… Have to be
very careful with meds in cases of traumatic brain injury… No, we can’t operate at this point; chances of her survival would
be very slim.…
Why don’t you get some rest. Mr. Ripinsky? Really, you’ll be no good to your wife if you don’t rest.
Of course, he hadn’t rested. Had sat by her bedside, alert for any change, any sign. And later, when they’d said she was stabilized,
he’d stayed with her in the ICU except for brief trips home to shower and change and field phone calls from her family and
friends.
Her adoptive mother near San Diego had collapsed upon hearing the news and been placed under sedation, according to Sharon’s
stepfather. Sister Charlene and her husband, Vic, were in the city, in spite of Sharon’s not being allowed visitors. Calls
came daily from her birth mother in Boise, Idaho; from her birth father on the Flathead Reservation in Montana; from her half
sister Robin in Berkeley; from her sister Patsy in Sonoma. Brother John arrived from San Diego and installed himself in Sharon
and Hy’s guest room.
The people at the agency knew better than to bother Hy. They had established a rapport with two of the floor nurses who kept
them posted.
Hy leaned forward and grasped the steering wheel, weariness and helplessness diluting his earlier rage. When he’d first heard
the news of McCone’s shooting, the rage had been dominant: he’d flown the jet recklessly, driven erratically, burst into the
hospital like the proverbial storm. Now he was wearing down, the only bright spot on the horizon being the slim hope that
the Brandt Neurological Institute promised.
Life without her—
No, for God’s sake, don’t go there!
He straightened, grasped the wheel.
So what to do to pass the long evening? Go home, where everything was a reminder of Shar, and their cats stared at her favorite
chair with bewildered eyes? Where her brother John would rekindle his rage with endless discussions about “getting the bastard
that did this”? Go to the RI office, catch up on paperwork in the hope it would numb his mind enough to let him sleep on the
sofa there? Impose his presence upon friends who had already done more than he could ever repay?
None of the above.
He started the car and drove toward Pier 24½.
Cars were parked on the pier’s floor—so many that he had trouble slotting the Mustang. Odd, this late in the afternoon. Some
of the offices on the first story were closed, but lights blazed upstairs at McCone Investigations, and he sensed tension
and activity. As he climbed the stairway to the catwalk, he heard voices coming from the conference room.
When he appeared in the doorway, silence fell. Adah Joslyn, Sharon’s executive administrator, broke it by saying to Hy, “Is
there—”
“No news. She’s being transferred to an acute care facility tomorrow.”
A collective sigh of disappointment mixed with relief. No news was bad news; no news was good news.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asked.
“No, no, of course not. Come in.”
He did, taking a chair against the wall, since there were no places left at the round oak table.
Adah was standing: an elegant, slim woman in a well tailored navy blue suit, with a honey-tan complexion and beautifully corn-rowed
black hair. The perfect image for an increasingly successful agency, just as she’d been the perfect image for the SFPD’s campaign
to promote women and minorities—not only because she was female, but because she was also half black and half Jewish. The
perfect image until working the homicide detail had taken its toll and Shar had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. In
spite of Adah’s tightly controlled exterior, Hy knew her to be funny, generous, and a thoroughly staunch friend.
The silence stretched out. He said, “Go on with whatever you were discussing, please.”
Looks were exchanged around the table. Adah said, “Actually, we should have invited you to this meeting, Hy. It’s kind of…
a tribal war council.”
“Meaning what?”
“We’re Sharon’s tribe… family… whatever—”
“And we’re pissed off, going to find out who shot her,” said Sharon’s nephew Mick Savage.
Hy turned his gaze to Mick. The petulant, spoiled son of a country-music superstar had matured into a stand-up man in the
years he’d known him. Hard to grow up in the shadow of his father, but Mick had managed—in spite of being a tall, blond version
of handsome Ricky Savage, but without his father’s musical talent, ambition, or ruthless drive. Mick had found both his present
and his future in computers and, owing to the revolutionary software programs he was currently creating with fellow operative
Derek Ford, would someday rival Ricky in fortune, if not in fame.
Hy said, “So how do you intend to nail this person?”
The operative who replied surprised him: Julia Rafael. She and his wife had had dinner at a Mission district tacqueria before
Shar had returned to the pier to pick up her forgotten cell phone. Julia was something of an engima to Hy. She’d worked the
streets of the Mission district from age twelve, selling herself and drugs. Arrests, abortions, and the birth of a son whose
father she couldn’t begin to name had followed. The boy had given Julia a purpose; after her final release from the California
Youth Authority, she’d turned her life around.