“It’s amazing. You are the most hunted man in America. And your first question isn’t about yourself but about a dog. And when he’s dead – I can tell, you’re really upset.”

“That damned old dog loved me and I wish I’d been a better friend to him. He never cut out but stayed to do his job. He deserved more than he got.”

“So does everybody. Look, you should get some rest. What you’ve been through, the physical stress, the blood loss. It would have killed most men. I know some Indians it wouldn’t have killed, but I don’t know too many white men who could have gotten through it.”

He slept again, though this time without dreams. When he awoke, she was there too. He ate a little, then dozed off. And the third time he awoke, she was still there, just staring at him.

“What time is it?”

“Time? It’s Tuesday, that’s what time it is. You slept eighteen hours.”

“I don’t feel as if I’ll ever walk again.”

“Oh, I think you’ll make it. You were very lucky. The bullet went right through you with very little damage. You were smart enough to plug that entrance wound with a clump of plastic wadding. That probably saved your life. I’ve been pumping you full of penicillin to preclude infection.”

“What are they saying about me now?”

“Oh, they’ve gotten around to the psychiatrists and the psychologists, because they have no real news. There’s a lot of theorizing going on about motive. Your anger at your father for dying, how that became your anger at the president. Your anger at not becoming a big hero like – do I have the name right? – Carl Hathco – ”

“Hitchcock. Carl Hitchcock.”

“Yes. Things like that.”

“It’s just a lot of talk. They don’t know the first goddamn thing. My daddy was a great hero. And I never cared for medals. He didn’t and I didn’t. Talk’s cheap.”

“You’re certainly right about that, Sergeant.”

He stared off, bitterly. The mention of his father unsettled him. People had no right to bring his father into all this.

“You can’t let it get to you,” she said. “They’ve turned it into a circus. But they always do these days.”

He looked back at her.

“I have to thank you. What you’re doing, it’s – ”

“No, I don’t need thanks. I knew in a split second you couldn’t have shot at the president or that archbishop. If that was in you, Donny would have seen it all the years back; he would have sniffed it out.”

Bob couldn’t look at her. Hearing such judgments put baldly into language had the weird effect of shrinking him. He felt small and wan and self-conscious. He had to tell her the truth.

“If he told you I was some kind of hero, let me set you straight. I spent ten years drunk, and I used to beat on the only woman who ever loved me. But also I let myself slide into bitterness. That was maybe the worst. I let them get to me, and make me less a man.”

A puzzled look came across her face.

“Who? Oh, you know who. They’re always around: smart boys, have all the answers, always telling you what’s wrong and why what you done, you should be ashamed of it.

“But worst of all, I was stupid. I let some smart boys come into my life and turn me around. Real smart boys. They knew all my weaknesses, got real deep inside where I thought nobody could. I don’t know how they knew to get inside me like that. Turned me around, made me a fool. Christ, made me the most hated man in the country. Well, now, I seem to have survived all that. And so now it’s my turn. I need to stay until I’m better and stronger and have figured out another move. I’m sorry to have brought all this trouble to your door. No other door was open to me. So I’m asking you, please: let me stay and mend. A few weeks, maybe a month. And let me study on my problems, figure what the next step is. I can’t give you much but thanks. Will you consider it?”

She looked at him hard. Then her face lit up in a smile that just cracked him in two.

“Jesus,” she said, “it’s so nice to have a man around the house.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Newly promoted Detective Sergeant Leon Timmons was drunk and he was high. He was sailing, he was floating. He felt so good.

“Hey, Payne, hey, damn, boy, we, we got it made, huh?”

Payne snorted. They were in Big Sam’s, on Bourbon. Up on the stage a buxom woman shimmied. To Payne she looked like an animated piece of beef on a hook in a Jersey warehouse.

“Damn,” Timmons said, “damn, boy, she all girl, eh, Payno?”

“She’s all girl,” said Payne. “She’s a girl and a fuckin’ half.”

“Wooooo!” said Timmons, his eyes lighting up like headlamps.

Payne took a long swallow of Dixie beer. It was the only thing he liked about New Orleans and he was glad to be just about out of New Orleans.

Somebody put another beer in front of Timmons.

“Huh?” said Timmons.

“Leon, honey,” said the waitress, “gintlemin over thar said thanks to the man what almost shot the man what almost shot the president.”

Timmons raised the bottle in salute to his benefactors, who appeared to be a crowd of dentists from Dayton. They applauded in the red wash of light from the overheads, then went back to hooting at Bonnie Anne Clyde and her smoking.45’s up there on the stage.

“You’re quite a hero,” said Payne.

“Damn betcha. You know, Payne, ain’t yet heard whether old President what’s-his-name gonna have me up at the White House. Hell, that old boy ought give me a ticket to the town with my name written all over it.”

“That he should,” said Payne. “You saved his life, man. You stopped Bob Lee Swagger from blowing him up and you almost nailed Bob the Nailer, the great sniper himself.”

“That’s right,” said Timmons, who by now pretty much believed he’d actually fired the shot. He told Payne the story again in excruciating detail, with a few embellishments thrown in. Payne listened dully. Finally Timmons said, “You know, I might even be the NRA Police Officer of the Year.”

“You ought to think about selling your story to the movies, bub.”

“Ahead of you there, Payno. Got me a agent already, out in Hollywood. A very big guy. We gonna make a potful of money.”

“You don’t need no agent. You already got a potful of money.”

“Cain’t have too much money,” said Payne. “Ain’t no such thing as too much money.”

“Ummm,” said Payne.

Timmons’s eyes went back to Bonnie Anne Clyde. He licked his lips; his face had the hard set of a man who’d seen what he liked and liked what he’d seen.

“I believe you could get yourself that girl,” said Payne. “Seems to me she ought to be pleased to spend some time with the hero cop of New Orleans, who almost shot the man who almost shot the man who – well, you know.”

“I believe you are right,” said Timmons.

With a self-important twitch of his head, he beckoned the manager over. Quickly he told him what he wanted.

“Be right back,” the guy said.

“Whooo, think I’m gone be in the hot spot tonight,” said Timmons eagerly.

“Pussy-o-rama, Leon. Wall to wall and floor to ceiling,” said Payne.

The manager came back after Bonnie left the stage, to be replaced by Miss Suzie Cue and her eight-balls.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “She says, yeah, sure, anything for Detective Sergeant Timmons. Only thing is, see, she has the boyfriend, mean nigger motherfucker. So, what she wants is, um, discretion. Quietude. Nothing to rile Ben, ’cause Ben whack her upside the haid he catch her with another man.”

“Okay,” said Timmons. “So how we work it?”

“Out back at midnight. He’s a fireman, goes on duty at eleven-thirty. So you meet her out there, she takes you to her crib, you git your windshield wiper fluid changed but, like, good, my friend, Ben ain’t the wiser, she done bagged a celebrity, and the old world just goes humpty-humping along.”