Ed studied the carpet for a minute and then stood. “Just finished cutting the grass. I’d like an iced tea, how about you?” With a surprised look, Sara nodded.
A few minutes later Ed came back with glasses of ice and a pitcher of tea. As he filled the glasses he said, “I’ve thought a lot about that night. I don’t remember all of it. Had a damn bad hangover the next day. As mad as I was, I never should’ve hit Johnny. Not in the damn gut.”
“He’s pretty tough.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Ed took a swallow of tea and sat back, chewing on his lip. “Did Johnny ever tell you why he left the police force?”
“He said he had arrested some young kid for a drug offense. That the kid was so pathetic and everything, that he decided to start helping people like that.”
Ed nodded. “Well, he didn’t actually arrest him. That boy died at the scene. And so did the officer that backed Johnny up on that call.”
Sara almost spilled her tea. “What?”
Ed looked a little uncomfortable now that he had opened this subject, but he continued. “Johnny never really talked about it, but I got the story from the officers who arrived after it all happened. Johnny stopped the car for some reason. It was stolen, I think. Anyway, he called in for backup. He got the two boys out of the car. Found the drugs. That’s when his backup came. Right before they were going to search them, one of the boys dropped like he was having a seizure. Johnny tried to help him. His backup should’ve kept his gun on the other, but he didn’t, and the other fellow pulled a gun and killed him. Johnny managed to fire, but the boy put two rounds into him.
“They both went down, facing each other. The other boy had just been faking it. He jumped up and took off in the car. They caught him a little while later. The other fellow and Johnny were about a foot apart, both bleeding like crazy.”
“Omigod!”
“Johnny stuffed a finger in one of the holes. It stopped the bleeding a little. Well — and I heard some of this from him while he was in the hospital half out of his head — the boy said some things to Johnny. I’m not exactly sure what, Johnny never would say, but they found the boy dead and Johnny next to him, his arm around him. Must’ve dragged himself over there or something. Some of the cops didn’t exactly like that, what with one of their own lying dead because of the kid. But they checked everything out and Johnny was cleared. It was the other cop’s fault. Anyway, Johnny almost died on the way to the hospital. As it was, he was in there for about a month. Whatever load the boy was carrying in that pistol ripped Johnny’s insides to shreds.”
Sara suddenly thought back to Fiske’s pulling his shirt back down before they made love. “Does he have a scar?”
Ed looked at her funny. “Why do you ask?”
“Something he said.”
He nodded slowly. “From his gut to his neck.”
“Too old for skinny-dipping,” Sara said to herself.
“Guess they could’ve done some plastic surgery, but Johnny had had enough of hospitals. Besides, I think he figured if they couldn’t fix him on the inside, what the hell did it matter what he looked like on the outside?”
Sara’s face took on a stricken look. “What do you mean? He fully recovered, didn’t he?”
Ed shook his head sadly. “Those bullets ripped him bad, bounced around inside him like a damn pinball. They patched him up, but just about every one of his organs was damaged for good. Maybe they could make it all right if Johnny wanted to spend a bunch of years in the hospital, have transplants and stuff like that. But that ain’t my son. Docs say eventually things inside him are just going to stop working. They said it was like diabetes — you know, how a person’s organs get worn out and all?” Sara nodded as her own stomach started to churn. “Well, the docs said those two bullets will eventually cost Johnny about twenty years of his life, maybe more. And there wasn’t really nothing they could do about it. Back then we didn’t care. Hell, he was alive, that was enough. But I know he thinks about it. He pumped iron, ran like a damn demon, got himself in good shape, at least on the outside. Quit the police force. Wouldn’t even take damn disability, although he was sure as hell entitled. Became a lawyer, works like a dog for what amounts to chickenshit, and gives me and his momma most of it. I got no pension and Gladys’s medical bills added up to more than I made in my whole life. Hell, we had to mortgage this place again after spending thirty years paying it off. But you do what you got to do.”