'Are you trying to scare me?' Anna asked coldly.

'Yes. 'Cause you should be scared. Now what I'm suggesting is, we get a little proactive.'

'Proactive? You sound like the Long Beach chamber of commerce.'

'What I'm saying is, you talk to me: about your friends, about Creek's friends, about the dopers you've known, about weird shit you've seen the last couple of months. Creek must know some dopers, living where he does, there's dope coming through the Marina all the time, and with your job

'You've been down to look at Creek's place?' Glass asked.

'Sure. Looked at his boat, looked at his house.' He turned back to Anna. 'But getting back to the point: talk to me. Let me debrief you. The shooteryou know him. We can work out a few ideas together, and I'll check them out.'

Anna said, 'Look, Jake, I don't know what's going on, but I really think you're wasting your time. This can't have anything to do with your son. If you think about it.'

He spread his hands, then touched her knee: 'So maybe it doesn't. I'd like to find out for sure, though. That's the only thing I've gotI want to know what the dope was about.'

'If you find the dealer, what're you gonna do?' Glass asked.

'I don't know,' he said.

'Kill him?' asked Anna.

He looked away from them, down the hall. 'I don't know. I doubt it. But I won't know for sure until I get there.'

They were still talking when a doctor came down the hall, surgery gown showing a half-dozen blood spots, his mask pulled down under his chin. He pulled off his cap as he came up, looked at Anna and asked, a little doubt in his voice, 'Are you Mr Creek's relatives?'

Anna and Glass were on their feet: 'How is he?'

'You don't look like sisters.'

'Different mom,' Anna said. Tell us.'

Again, their intensity banished doubt about the connection and the doc smiled gravely and said, 'Unless there's something we didn't find, he should be okay.'

'Oh, thank God,' Anna said, and Glass started to leak tears again.

'But he's hurt badly,' the surgeon continued. 'The lung will repair itself fairly quickly, but there's muscle damage in the chest wall and the back muscles, and that'll take a while.'

'When's he gonna be able to talk?' Harper asked.

'Tomorrow, probably. He's going to be pretty sleepy for a couple of days, at least. Then he's going to hurtbut I doubt he'll be in here a week.'

'Did the police tell you about the circumstances of the shooting?' Harper asked.

The doc nodded: 'Yes. We'll list him under an aliaswe do it all the time in battering cases. If somebody doesn't know exactly where to find him, they won't.'

'Aw, that's great,' Anna said.

Glass started sniffing again, and then turned to Anna and said, 'I don't cry for anything. Ever.'

Anna nodded. 'Neither do I,' she said, another tear rolling down her cheek.

They stayed until Creek had gone to the recovery room, then Glass left in a hurry: 'I'm moving in here,' she declared. 'I've got to get some stuff together, and get some time off.'

'Moving in?' Anna asked.

'The guy may be stalking you, but he's killing the people around you,' Glass said. 'I'm gonna get a chair and sit in his room with a gun.'

When she was gone, Harper and Anna stood by the side of the street, the sun beating down. 'What're you gonna do?' Harper asked.

'Try to get some sleep,' Anna said. 'Try to think of some names.'

'Think of some names?'

'Yeah. I'm gonna talk to you. And something else.'

'What's that?'

'When you go looking for this guy,' Anna said, in a way that left no doubt, 'I'm coming with you.'

Chapter 12

Anna made lists.

She slept, exhausted, but her brain made lists, the crazies, the dopers, the men who'd come on to her in the past six months, anyone who might have fixated on her.

She dreamed, twisting in the percale sheets, of the man at the truck, the shooter: a big man, with something familiar to him, a way of holding his shoulders. And the voice: he'd said only one word, her name, but he'd spoken it before, in her hearing. She knew this man.

But who was it? She found herself paying attention to Harper, when he spoke her name. Was the voice the same? She didn't think sobut now she was confusing her memories of the shooting with other moments, with other people calling her name.

She made lists.

A thumpa human soundfrom downstairs. She rose out of her sleep like a diver coming to the surface, breaking through, gasping, looking around, thinking, gun. But she had no gun, the gun was in the truck.

Then another thump, running water. and she recognized the thump as a toilet seat going up, then coming down, the water in the downstairs toilet.

Harper. He'd been sleeping on the couch. He wouldn't go away. She pushed herself up, glanced at the bedroom door. Closed, not locked.

Harper? No. She knew why Harper was here.

When she came down from the bedroom, hair still wet from the shower, Harper was putting at a paper circle on the living room carpet. 'Your floor breaks about an inch toward the back wall, on a fifteen-foot putt,' he said.

'Do tell.' She went on past and picked up the phone in the kitchen.

'He was awake for an hour about noon, but he's sleeping again. He's doing fine and without complications, he could be out this week.' Harper said. He was squatting, looking over a ball at the paper circle.

She put the phone back on the hook: 'How is that possible? This week?'

'They push them out in a hurry,' Harper said. He stood up, and hovered over the ball, then looked at Anna. 'Are you going to say something before I putt?'

'No.'

'I'd hate to have you say something right in the middle of my backswing.'

'No, go ahead.'

He moved the putter head back an inch, and Anna said, 'Watch it.' The stroke came through, and the ball missed the paper circle by two inches. 'That's fuckin' hilarious,' he said.

'Are we gonna talk, or are you gonna spend the afternoon playing with your putter?'

They walked out to Jerry's, into the sun, Anna quiet, head down. Harper carrying the putter, swinging it, balancing it, turning it like a walking stick. The afternoon traffic was already building toward the rush, and they had to wait before crossing Pacific to the restaurant.

'You're not scared enough,' Harper said, as they walked.

'What?'

'Most people, if a madman was stalking them, they couldn't move,' he said.

She thought about it as they crossed the street, and said, 'Maybe I'm burned out on being scared. Going out every night, we see all kinds of stuff, people shot and stabbed and squashed in cars and burned to death. When you see enough of it, you've got to assume it won't happen to you. You must've felt like that when you were a cop.'

'Nope. Never did. I was scared shitless all the time.'

Logan had parked the truck in the restaurant lot after the shooting, and now Anna unlocked the door, knelt on the seat and fished in the hideout box for the.357, got it, turned, and caught Harper appreciating her ass. She hopped out of the truck and dropped the pistol in her jacket pocket.

'I thought you kept the gun at home,' Harper said, grinning. He knew he'd been caught, and he wasn't the least abashed by it; he twirled the putter like a baton.

'I do, but I had it last night when Creek got shot, and I didn't want the cops to take it.'

Jerry's was Anna's regular spot, with comfortable booths and decent coffee, mostly empty in the late afternoon, the waiters bustling around, getting ready for the dinner rush. The owner, Donna TowJerry's ex-wifecame over with coffee and said, 'Heard about Creek. I called the hospital and they said he'd be okay.'

'Looks like it,' Anna said. They talked for a few more minutes, Anna giving her a quick account of the shooting.