Krantz said, "I can't let you go, Pike. I appreciate what you did, and I'll stand up at your trial, but for now it's over."

Krantz had his gun again. He was pale, and shaken, but he had the gun.

I said, "Don't be stupid, Krantz."

"It's over."

Pike kept walking.

Krantz aimed his gun, but it was shaking as badly now as when he was aiming at Sobek. "I mean it, Pike. You're a wanted man. You are under arrest, and you're going to stand trial. I won't let you leave this house."

Krantz steadied the gun with his second hand, and pulled back the hammer, and that's when I twisted the gun away from him with my good hand. I shoved him against the wall.

Krantz screamed, "You're interfering with an officer, goddamnit! You're obstructing justice!"

Pike walked out the front door without closing the door, and then he was gone.

I said, "Goodbye, Joe."

Krantz slumped to the floor and put his face in his hands. The sirens were working their way up the hill and would soon arrive. They would probably pass Pike on their way up, and I wondered if any of them would notice the car driven by the bloody man. Probably not.

Krantz said, "You shouldn't've done that, Cole. You aided and abetted his escape. I'm going to arrest you. It's going to cost your license."

I nodded.

"You didn't help him, you asshole. He's going to bleed to death. He's going to die."

The sirens arrived.

Of the two shots Sobek fired at Jerome Williams, only one connected, nipping an artery in his thigh. He would make it. My own wound was a bit more complicated. The bullet had torn through the outside of my right pectoral muscle, clipped the third lateral rib, then exited through my right latissimus dorsi. One of the hospital's resident surgeons came down to take a look, and said, "Hmm." You have to worry when they say that.

"I can clean you up," he said. "But you're going to need some reconstructive surgery to the muscle group. Your pectoris attacher tendon is partially sheared, and the anterior joint capsule needs to be repaired." "How long will that take?" "Four hours, tops."

"Not how long will the surgery take. How long would I have to be here?" "Three days." "Forget it."

"Just want you to know the score. I gotta put you out anyway to take care of this."

"Just give me a local. You're not putting me anywhere, and I'm not going out." I wanted to be awake to find out about Pike. I figured they'd find him bled out on the side of a road. I wanted to be awake when the word came because I wanted to go to him.

"It's going to hurt like a sonofabitch with just a local."

"Pretend you're a dentist and shoot me up, for chrissake."

He gave me about two thousand injections, then cleaned the wound, and stitched the muscles and skin. It hurt worse than he said, but maybe it wasn't just the shoulder.

When he was done, he said, "I'm giving you a Percocet script for the pain. You're going to need it. When the anesthetic wears off you're going to hurt even worse. This is strong stuff, so be sure you take just what I'm writing here. You need to see your own doctor tomorrow."

"I'll be in jail."

He sighed again and handed me the prescription. "Take twice as much."

He used thirty-two stitches to close the wound.

Krantz officially arrested me in the Palm Springs Hospital emergency room while Williams was in surgery. Stan Watts had driven out, and he stood there with a blank expression as Krantz read me the rights. Krantz said, "Stan, I'm having him brought to County-USC so they can look at him. Maybe they'll want to book him in the jail ward there, and keep him overnight."

Watts didn't answer.

"I want you to be there when they look at him. If they give him a pass, bring him over to Parker for the booking. I'll take care of it myself when I get back."

Watts didn't answer again; he just kept staring at me with the blank look.

Krantz walked away to talk to the press.

When Krantz was gone, Watts said, "I spent the whole ride out trying to figure out whether to blame you for Dolan."

"I've been doing some of that myself."

"Yeah, I imagine you would. But I know Dolan more than ten years, and I know what she was like. When she was hit, I saw how you went in. You didn't know what was in there, but you went right in. I saw how you covered her with your jacket."

He stood there for a time like he didn't know what else to say, then put out his hand. I gave him my left, and we shook.

I said, "Any word on Pike?"

"Not yet. Krantz said he was hit pretty bad."

"Yeah. Bad. You guys finish going through Sobek's garage?"

"Most of it. SID's there now."

"You see anything that clears Pike?"

Watts shook his head. "No."

I considered the Percocet script, wondering if it could take away this kind of hurt.

Watts said, "C'mon, I'll take you back."

"Krantz called a radio car."

"Screw the radio car. You can ride with me."

We didn't say ten words between Palm Springs and L.A. until we were approaching the exit for the County-USC Medical Center, where Krantz had ordered him to bring me.

"Where's your car?"

"Dolan's."

"You drive with that arm?"

"I can drive."

He continued past the County-USC exit without a word and brought me to Dolan's. We pulled into her drive, and sat there, staring at the house. Someone would have to go back to Sobek's garage for her Beemer. Someone would have to bring it home.

"I'm not going to book you tonight, but you gotta come in tomorrow."

"Krantz will be pissed."

"You let me worry about Krantz. You gonna come in or am I gonna have to go look for you?"

"I'll come in."

He shrugged like he hadn't expected anything else, and said, "I'll bet she's got a pretty good bottle of tequila in there. How about we tip one for her?"

"Sure."

Dolan kept a spare house key beneath a clay pot in her backyard. I didn't ask Watts how he knew. When we got inside, Watts knew where she kept the tequila, too.

Her house was as quiet as any house could be, as if something had vanished from her home when she died. Maybe it had. We sat and drank, and after a while Stan Watts went back into her bedroom. He stayed there for a long time, then came out with a small onyx box, and sat with the box in his lap, and drinking. When he'd had enough to drink, he opened the box and took out a small blue heart. He slipped the heart into his jacket pocket, then put his face in his hands and cried like a baby.

I sat with him for almost an hour. I didn't ask him about the heart or the box, but I cried with and for him, and for Dolan, too. And for Pike, and me, because my life was falling apart.

The human heart is worth crying for, even if it's made of onyx.

After a while I used Dolan's phone to check my messages. Joe hadn't called, and neither had Lucy. The news of Laurence Sobek's identification and the events in Palm Springs had broken, and I hoped she would've called, but there you go.

I thought that I should call her, but didn't. I don't know why. I could shoot it out with Laurence Sobek, but calling the woman I loved seemed beyond me.

Instead, I went into Dolan's kitchen for the photograph she'd taken of me at Forest Lawn. I stared at it for a long time, and then I took it. It was right there on the refrigerator, but I hoped that Watts hadn't seen it. I wanted it to be between me and Samantha, and I didn't want it between Watts and her.

I went back into the living room and told Watts that I had to leave, but he didn't hear me, or, if he heard, didn't think I was worth answering. He was someplace deep within himself, or maybe in that little blue heart. In a way, I guess he was with Dolan.

I left him like that, got my prescription filled, then drove home, wishing I had a little blue heart of my own. A secret heart where, if I looked real hard, I could find the people who were dear to me.