“My dog. I think he shot Midnight.”

“Yes, sir, she’s right here; looks like she took a shot to her hip. Dragged herself over to you. Easy girl, I’m not going to hurt you. Tell her it’s okay, Mr. Harris.”

“Be still. Thatsa girl.”

“I’ve got EMS coming for you, Mr. Harris, and my partner and I, we’re driving your dog to the animal hospital. She’ll be fine, good as new.”

Leo Harris went out again. When he came to, he felt the bumps as the paramedics jostled him into the ambulance, heard someone call it in: “Emergency room. Paramedic Colomello. We’ve got a male, approximately sixty-five years old, with a GSW to the right thorax. Blood pressure’s one forty over one hundred. Pulse, one fifty. We’ve got decreased breath sounds on his right side. Heart sounds are good. No other obvious injuries. We’re about to transport him. We’ve got normal saline running wide open.”

“Imagine. The little prick shooting a blind man,” Officer Larry Petroff said to his partner.

“Legally blind,” Leo Harris called out from inside the ambulance. “Legally blind is not totally in the dark.”

“I stand corrected, Mr. Harris. Now don’t worry about anything. They’ve got good docs on board at Municipal. Traffic or not, you’ll be there in three minutes. Midnight’s going to be fine, too. You’re both very lucky.”

“Yeah, today’s my lucky day,” said Leo Harris.

Chapter 49

NURSE NODDIE WILKINS was fuming. If she got into her car this minute, she’d still be a half hour late for her date with Rudolpho. This job sucked. It was sucking up her whole life! Plus, the damn hospital was cutting back on her benefits every chance it got. The cheap bastards.

She bumped open the door to room 228 with her hip, careful not to spill the tray. The only light in the room came from the TV. “Hey, Mr. Man,” she called out over the cheers of 49ers fans in an uproar about something stupid and ridiculous.

The nurse angled the tray onto the swinging arm of the bedside table, staying out of her patient’s reach. Mr. Harris was sixty-six and recovering from his gunshot wound; still, she had to move quickly or, legally blind or not, he’d grab her with his good arm. He was nice enough, though, a sweet older guy who sure loved his dog, Midnight.

“I got your dinner, Mr. Harris, and your two ice creams, soon’s I take your blood pressure.”

The nurse turned away from her patient, rolled the blood-pressure machine from the corner toward the bed, expecting to hear his “Sweetheart, fluff my pillow. Thatsa girl.”

Noddie glanced over to the bed. Her stomach dropped the equivalent of half a dozen stories.

Something was wrong.

“Mr. Harris! Mr. Harris!”

She shook the patient’s arm, and his head lolled, coins slipping off his eyes onto the bedding. One of the coins dropped to the floor, rolling to the corner of the room, rattling before it fell flat to the linoleum.