"Jesus," said Kurtz. "Do I have to do all your thinking for you? Show some initiative. You're the goddamned detective here."

"Joe?" she called again just as he was about to shut her door.

He stuck his head back in.

"Thank you," said Rigby.

Kurtz went down the hall, around a corridor, and down another hall. No one was guarding Peg O'Toole's room and the nurse had just stepped out.

Kurtz went in and pulled the only visitor's chair closer to her bed.

Machines were keeping her alive. One breathed up and down for her. At least four visible tubes ran in and out of her body, which already looked pale and emaciated. The parole officer's auburn hair was stiff and pulled back off her face where it hadn't been shaved off near the bandage over her forehead and temples. She was unconscious, with a snorkel-like ventilator tube taped in her mouth. Her posture in coma, wrists cocked at a painful angle, knees drawn up, reminded Kurtz of a broken baby bird he'd found in his backyard one summer day when he was a kid.

"Ah, goddamn it," breathed Kurtz.

He walked over to the machines that were breathing for her and acting as her kidneys. There were various switches and dials and plugs and sensors. None of the readouts made any sense to him.

Kurtz looked at his parole officer's unconscious face for a long moment and then laid his hand on the top of the nearest machine. It had been one week exactly since the two of them had been shot together in the parking garage.

His cell phone vibrated in his sport coat pocket Kurtz answered in a whisper. "Yeah?"

"Joe?" It was Arlene.

"Yeah."

"Joe, I didn't want to bother you, and I've hesitated to ask, but Gail needs to know about Friday…"

"Friday," said Kurtz.

"Yes… Friday evening," said Arlene. "It's…"

"It's Rachel's birthday party," said Kurtz. "She'll be fifteen. Yeah, I'll be there. Tell Gail that I wouldn't miss it."

He disconnected, not interested in hearing whatever Arlene was going to say next. Then he touched Peg O'Toole's shoulder under the thin hospital gown and went back to the uncomfortable chair, leaning forward so it didn't press against his bruised back.

Sitting that way, leaning forward, hands loosely clasped, speaking softly only to the nurse when she came in from time to time to check on her patient, Kurtz waited there with O'Toole the rest of the day.

Since his first-published short story won the Rod Serling Memorial Award in the 1982 Twilight Zone magazine short fiction contest, DAN SIMMONS has won some of the top awards in the science fiction, horror, fantasy, and thriller genres, as well as honors for his mainstream fiction. His books include the Joe Kurtz novels Hardcase and Hard Freeze, as well as the science fiction epic Ilium. He lives along the Front Range of Colorado, where he is currently at work on a new Joe Kurtz novel.