"Come on," Kitteridge said to me. "Stand up."

I managed to get to my feet but couldn't keep the balance. I fell, in what felt like sections, to the floor. The concrete felt cold on my skin, and that was best sensation I'd known in a long time.

58

When I opened my eyes I was on my back, gazing at a white ceiling. The headache was gone, along with most other feelings. I rubbed my fingertips together, felt very little.

"Leonid?"

Aura was sitting there next to me, wearing the black dress and red shawl I'd bought for her when we first got together.

"Am I dying?"

"No," she said. "But you are very sick. The wound on your arm became infected and you were suffering from a serious concussion. The doctors were worried, but I knew you'd pull through.

"When they see that you've regained consciousness the staff will call your family. They were all here until an hour ago. I waited for them to leave before I came to sit with you."

"Where's your boyfriend?"

Aura smiled and took my hand. "You should have told me that George was threatening you."

"Wasn't your business."

"I saw the folders on his desk and he explained them to me. I pointed out that he was trying to prove that you were connected to some of the most dangerous crime families in New York. I asked him what he thought they might do to him if he dragged their friend into court."

"What'd he say?"

"He's just a poor fool. It took twenty-four hours for the gravity of the situation to sink in. But after that he was ready to leave immediately."

"A whole day? Is that how long I've been here?"

"Two."

"So George left his CFO job?"

"He left New York. He wanted me to move down to Florida with him, but I said no."

"I don't like the weather down there myself."

"I didn't want to leave you, Leonid."

She leaned over and kissed me.

"Things'll be different when I get out of here," I promised.

"You just get better."

"I'm sorry about George."

"He served his purpose," she said.

"What's that?"

"He showed me who my real man was."

TWILL BROUGHT ME HOME in the Pontiac the next day.

Gordo was already ensconced in the den. He looked better than I did. The doctor said that it was the next few months that would tell the tale.

Lieutenant Bonilla was true to her word. Gustav's operation closed down a day or so after our talk.

Dimitri rarely came home in those first weeks. He and Tatyana celebrated her freedom night and day.

Hush called me on a Wednesday afternoon and asked me to take a look at page thirteen of the New York Post. A fellow named Mallory Davis had been found strangled in his East Side apartment. The photograph of Davis looked an awful lot like Patrick.

As a kind of final favor to me, Rinaldo sent men to free Shell and Mammoth. He said that he'd find work for them.

And Sandra Sanderson III was committed to a mental institution in California; something about a suicidal depression. Her son's children took the reins of Regents Bank and decided to turn it into a publicly traded corporation. A few weeks after that, Sandra took a lethal overdose of sleeping pills.

When I could sit up and see straight I called Breland and told him to tell Ron that if he made it all the way through the program Jake Plumb enrolled him in that I would bring him together with his ex-wife and son.

"HEY, POPS," TWILL SAID the morning after I'd been brought home.

I was in the bed, resting. Katrina was out somewhere-probably with her boyfriend.

"Boy."

"You take workin' hard to a whole new level," my son said.

"Thanks for tryin' to help your brother. But please just call me when you get in trouble again. You shouldn't take so many risks."

"You the one got to take it easy, Pops. You know, somebody out there might could kill you one day."

Walter Mosley