Yet another way of looking at the same story. Rawlings wasn’t mad at me, just worried. Maybe the Buddha was looking out for me after all.

“I want my gun back, Terry. I’ve got a license for it.” I let the horse blanket drop and dug in my back pocket for my wallet. It was gummy with mud and water. I pried it open and tried separating the different bits of identification and credit cards from its sodden slots.

Finchley watched me fumble with it for a minute or two, then relented and handed me the Smith & Wesson. “I ought to get ballistics to check you against the slug Christ Hospital dug out. And then I ought to arrest you for assaulting the guy.”

“And then I’d have to have a big trial proving self-defense, and his six buddies would be the only witnesses.”

“It’s tempting, Vic, very tempting. I bet the lieutenant would get me promoted on the basis of it. You be careful how you fire that thing in the future.”

“Yes, Detective,” I agreed meekly. I took the clip out and stuck it in my jeans pocket before putting the gun back in the holster. A rusty gun could misbehave in some ugly ways.

Rawlings picked up the blanket and draped it across my shoulders. I leaned gratefully into the strength of his arm on my way out the door.

34

The Strong Arm of the Law

I was so exhausted, it wasn’t until I had fumbled uselessly with my keys for several minutes that I realized something was wrong. “Someone’s been trying to break in, but all they did was smash up the lock.”

My lips were swollen with fatigue; the words came out in an incomprehensible mumble. Rawlings took one look at the door frame and saw the damage at once. He was starting to bark commands into his lapel mike before I realized it.

I put a hand over the speaker. “Not now, Sergeant, please. I need to sleep—I just can’t face any more servants or protectors tonight. We can go around the back way, see if we can get in through there. And if not … I’ll sleep on Mr. Contreras’s couch.” Sharing my rest with Mitch Kruger’s ghost. The thought made me shudder.

Rawlings looked at me dubiously. “Let’s see what we find when we get around back,” he temporized.

My legs seemed to have come unhinged from my torso. They moved with heavy, robotlike strides, but showed a distressing tendency to buckle without warning. Rawlings, his gun in his right hand, kept an arm around me after my first collapse. When he saw how feeble I was he drove around the block to the alley.