'Yes.' She looked past him at Harper, who was arguing with another cop, his hair flopping into his eyes as he talked. 'Why can't I talk to that man?'

'We want to get a statement from you before you talk to anyone else. You have a right to see your lawyer if you want, but they'll tell you about that downtown,' the cop said. He looked back at Harper: 'He used to be a cop.'

'Homicide,' Anna said.

'Used to be,' the cop said.

So she did it all over again: talked to cops, to a different shift, fresher, just up, three of them this time. Dictated a statement, impatient, worried about Creek. Demanded information about Creek: he was alive, they told her, should be okay. The detectives in the unit were beginning to gather around her.

'This guy is. this guy is berserk,' a detective named Samson told her.

'You remember that case down in Anaheim?' asked another cop. The guy would stalk these people for weeks, then slash them, then he started killing them? When was that? That was like this.'

'Guy's dead, though,' Samson said.

'Yeah? When did that happen?'

'I don't knowI heard it. He hung himself in prison.'

'Besides, it's more like that one over in Downey, the kid with the Taurus wagon,' said a third cop. 'Man, I couldn't believe he'd do them right in the wagon. Told his mother the blood was some kind of fertilizer for a greenhouse.'

'Yeah, I remember. Whatever happened to him? He used both a gun and a knife, didn't he?'

'Can I go?' Anna asked.

Harper was waiting in the same spot where he'd waited the night before, in the hall near the exit.

'Creek's in the OR at L.A. General,' he said. 'He's got three bullets still in him, twenty-twos. If it'd been almost anything else, he'd be dead.' They were walking at speed, heading for the door. They hit it with a bang and were into the street, side by side.

'The face isn't bad, just barely caught some skin, in and out. No nerve damage, nothing,' Harper said. 'The problem is with the chest. One tore a hole in his left lung and collapsed it; another one went between two ribs and rattled around behind his heart.'

'Oh, God.' Standing on the street, she started to cry, one hand to her face. Harper draped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her head into his chest: 'Listen, the docs down there are good.'

'I had the gun in my pocket, I couldn't get it out.'

'Well, you can't.'

'He was right there,' she said, pointing at a parking meter, trying to make him see it. 'The guy was right there, he said my name. I had the gun, but I couldn't get it out.'

She started to cry again and he squeezed her head in tight: he smelled of clean sweat and deodorant, his arms felt like bricks. She let herself go for a moment, leaning into the comfort of the man, then pushed back, wiped tears with the back of her hand. 'Let's go see him.'

'You're his sister,' Harper muttered as they pushed through the emergency room door. The place smelled like all emergency rooms, a combination of alcohol and raw turkey.

Anna nodded, and five seconds later, at the desk, she said to a nurse, 'My brother was shot and they brought him here. Can you tell me where he is?'

Her distress came through: the nurse never questioned her. 'He's still in surgery,' he said, tipping his head down the hall. There's a waiting room.'

'Can anybody tell us how he is?'

The nurse shook his head: 'He should be all right, if he's in good shape, and they say he is. That's the best thing.'

'How. are they operating right now?'

The nurse glanced at the clock: 'They have been for almost two hours.'

'Oh, Jesus.' The tears started again and Harper steered her toward the waiting area.

Anna wasn't good at waiting, and Harper was worse.

While she sat, remembering the attack, and the days before itall going back to Jacob's leap, and Jason's deathhe read an aging copy of Modern Maturity, the sports section of a three-day-old USA Today, and a coverless Time.

A man with a bad hand cut came in, and Harper went over to talk about it, until a nurse shooed him away. He walked around and jingled change in his pocket, got coffee for the two of them. Three or four times, he went to the desk, came back with nothing new. He put his feet up, tried to sleep and failed.

An hour after they arrived, Pam Glass walked in, her face haggard. She was wearing one of her power suits, with an HermŠs knotted at the throat, but the rims of her eyes were red with stress and tears.

'Why didn't anybody call me?' she asked Anna. 'How is he?'

Anna said, 'Where? We didn't know. he's still in surgery.'

'He was supposed to call me this morning and he didn't and I thought. I don't know what I thought.' She was not quite babbling: 'I didn't hear from him and I went in and Jim said he'd been shot, I was getting a cup of orange juice and Jim came over and said Creek was shot.'

'You better sit down,' Harper said. He introduced himself and said, 'I saw you a couple of days ago, I was in talking to Jim.'

'Oh, yeah.' she said vaguely. She looked back toward the operating suite: 'What have you heard?'

'Not much: he's hurting. And he's been in there a while.'

'Oh, my God.'

Anna was watching her; and watching her, knowing that Creek had made a connection with the woman. Nothing forced here, no sense that Creek was a fling for her. She liked him, a lot. And Anna liked her, for that.

Anna sat on a too-soft chair with her legs curled beneath her, and stared, running mental movies of her time with Creek. Glass tried to read a Times: Harper wandered.

'Look,' Harper finally said to Anna. 'We're not gonna do your pal any good sitting around.'

'I'm not leaving until I know how he is,' Anna said.

'Neither am I,' Glass said.

Harper pulled a chair out of the line beside Anna's, and faced it toward her. 'What have you been doing the last couple of days?'

The question had a rhetorical sound to it, and Anna shrugged and opened her mouth and Harper cut her off: 'I'll tell you what. You've been shuttling around from one bunch of cops to another. Santa Monica, L.A., Venice, these guys up in Burbank, whoever they were.'

'North Hollywood.'

'Whatever. And you know what? All those cops are hoping that somebody else'll get this guy, because they ain't got squat, and they don't have enough time to chase him with everything else they gotta do.'

'We're chasing him,' Glass said grimly.

'C'mon,' Harper said to her. 'How many hours will you put on it? The only reason L.A. tolerates me running around is because I used to work there, and they're hoping I might turn something up and call them. They just don't have the time.'

'They'll makethe time,' Anna said grimly. 'The only reason this guy isn't a big story is that nobody's paid attention to him. If I want them to pay attention, they will.'

'Oh, bullshit,' Harper said. 'How're you gonna do that? You can't.'

'You don't know everything about television,' Anna said, interrupting. 'You look at anybody in this place'she waved at the emergency room in general'and I could do a story on himor herand I could sell it. Anybody. You, me, the nurse guy, the guy with the cut. A serial killer? Everybody would take it, if it was done right. And I'll tell you whatthe cops don't want to chase him, I'll put them on CNN tomorrow morning. Thenthey'll chase him.'

Harper was shaking his head: 'All right. Maybe you could do that, but.'

'You'd just start a cluster-fuck,' Glass said, interrupting him. 'They'd bring in the nine patrolmen with the flattest feet and put them in suits and have them go around with notepads, playing investigator, and nothing would get done. I mean, you'd just panic themusand piss 'em off.'

'I've dealt with a couple of these guys, the fruitcakes,' Harper said intently. 'They're crazy and screwed up but most of them are. sort of smart. Twisted, but not stupid. You sic the cops on him really heavyyou put him on TVand he'll love it. And then he'll kill somebody else just to keep things going. One of your friends, maybe. And he'll be looking for you, too. He'll be out thereand if the cops don't get him, he'll get you, eventually.'