Endless Night Part 26

"It's just a scratch, remember? Don't make me go. Please."

He looked at Miles.

"It's your call," she said.

"Please, Dad."

He seemed to be thinking about it.

"Besides," Jody pointed out, "I'm safer here. What if there's another sniper outside? Maybe there's one in front of the house, too."

Dad shook his head. "One in front would've tried for Andy."

"Maybe. Unless he wasn't ready yet. Anyway, I'm safer here than someplace else like an ambulance or the emergency room, don't you think so?"

"Probably," he admitted. "Okay, you win."

Miles gave her shoulder a squeeze. "If you want to check on the situation outside, Sergeant, I'll take care of Jody ... patch her up."

"Would that be all right with you, honey?"

"Sure, I guess so."

"Hold this right where I've got it," he told her.

He moved his hand away, and Jody took over pressing the pad of shorts against her wound.

Then Dad helped Miles carry her into the bathroom. They sat her on the edge of the tub, her feet on the floor.

"I'll be back pretty soon," he said, and left.

"Let's have a look there." Miles bent over Jody and lifted the pad.

They both studied the wound.

It didn't seem to be bleeding much anymore.

Now that Jody could get a good look at it, the injury did seem pretty minor. The side of her thigh looked as if it had been sc.r.a.ped by the tip of a knife-a dull tip that had opened a furrow and hadn't gone in very deep.

"I'd say you're very lucky," Miles told her.

"Yeah."

"Let me see if these are salvageable." She took the shorts to the sink, unfolded them, rinsed out a lot of blood, wrung them out, and shook them open. She whistled softly.

"What?"

She turned around and held up the shorts for Jody to see.

The bullet hole wasn't much more than an inch below the bottom of the zipper. It looked larger than the hole she had seen in the door frame. And rough around the edges, not perfectly round.

"Came out here," Miles said, and showed her the rear of the shorts. This hole was higher than the one in front. "Awfully close."

"It was close, all right. It hit me."

"It could've been a whole lot worse." She turned to the sink, dropped in the shorts, let water run onto them, and said, "We can let 'em soak. You might at least want to keep them as a souvenir."

"Thank G.o.d for lousy shots," Jody said.

"He's probably a terrific shot, or he wouldn't have tried it in the first place. Firing down at a target can be awfully tricky. Where do you keep the first aid stuff?"

"Behind there." Jody nodded toward the larger of the two mirrors, the one above the counter to the right of the sink.

Miles stepped over to it. "Your father probably saved you."

"He got me inside awfully fast, that's for sure."

"Didn't even bother to open the screen door," Miles said, and swung the mirror open. "From the look of the thing, he must've barreled straight through it."

"That's what he did, all right."

"You've got yourself quite a father."

"Yeah, I know."

She had her back to Jody as she gathered what she needed off the cluttered shelves of the medicine cabinet.

From behind, she looked fairly large and heavy, but not fat. She was broad across the shoulders and back, had wide hips, and a rump that filled the seat of her Wrangler blue jeans. What with the jeans, her plaid s.h.i.+rt and her cowboy boots, she might've been stopping by the house on her way to a rodeo.

When she turned around, her hands were full with a tube of antiseptic cream, rolls of adhesive tape and gauze. A pair of toenail scissors dangled from her pinkie finger.

"We'll have you fixed up in no time at all," she said. She knelt in front of Jody.

"Did you know Dad before tonight?"

"Nope." Arranging the supplies on the floor beside her knee, she said, "I'd heard of him, but never met him."

"He's stationed at the 77th."

Nodding, Miles took the moccasin off Jody's right foot. Then she peeled off the b.l.o.o.d.y sock. The way she was hunched over, Jody could see down the front of her blouse. She had major cleavage. She had a ravine between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her bra was black and lacy, which seemed like an odd, s.e.xy sort of thing for a policewoman to be wearing on duty, even if she was working plainclothes.

Jody wondered what her father might think of such large b.r.e.a.s.t.s and such a bra.

Then she found herself blus.h.i.+ng.

Miles rinsed the b.l.o.o.d.y sock under the bathtub faucet, then crouched and began to clean Jody's leg with it.

"How come you'd heard of Dad?" Jody asked.

"Everybody's heard of him. Kong Fargo. You know about the tape, don't you?"

"Which one?"

"The one they show at the academy."

"They show a tape of my dad at the police academy?"

"You bet. It's used for training in how to deal with armed suspects."

"Oh! It isn't the weirdo with the machete, is it?"

"That's the one."

Jody had seen it once, during a party at the house. The guys were showing a lot of video tapes-pretty rough stuff, mostly. Trying either to impress or gross out their girlfriends and wives, she supposed. She had crept in from her bedroom and watched from the rear. Dad had been fairly soused by then, so he never caught on that she was there.

On the tape, a man charges at him, waving a machete. It is night. They are on a sidewalk in front of a store that has big, lighted display windows. The man wears sungla.s.ses, a black goatee, a gold necklace, and briefs that have a leopard skin pattern. He yells "Dust the pork!" as he races at Dad.

Dad is in full uniform. His Browning stays in his holster as the maniac runs toward him, shouting, but he is holding his PR 24 side-handle baton.

The guy seems to take a long time arriving.

Jody later realized that she'd been watching the tape in slow motion.

But slow motion or fast, Dad had plenty of time to pull and fire. He'd chosen not to shoot the man.

Finally, the nut arrives and is swinging the machete down and sideways as if he intends to chop Dad's head off.

Dad catches the guy's forearm with a full power stroke of the baton. The machete flies and crashes through the store's plate gla.s.s window. While the gla.s.s is shattering, Dad is ducking low and bringing up the baton hard and fast between the a.s.sailant's legs. It strikes the thigh just to the side of the leopard skin pouch. The man cries out, hops, and plunges sideways through what is left of the disintegrating window.

"They show that at the academy?" Jody asked, astonished.

"They sure do." Miles tossed the moist sock into the tub.

"The creep sued us. He and his slimy lawyer wanted three million bucks! Can you believe it? Three million! I mean, Dad had every right to shoot the dirtbag. He risked his life by not shooting him, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d turns around and files a G.o.dd.a.m.n lawsuit!"

Miles gaped at her. When Jody was done, she pursed her lips and blew softly. "You've got a temper."

"Yeah. Well. Anyway, the suit was dismissed, but ... Some things make me mad."

"Obviously."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Do you know what they call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?"

"No, what?"

"A good start."

Jody started to laugh, but quit when she saw Miles squeezing the tube. A white worm of cream squirmed out onto the cop's fingertip.

"That's gonna sting, isn't it?"

"I doubt it."

"I'd really rather not have any more pain today, if it's all the same to you."

"It won't hurt. It's just antiseptic. You don't want to get infected, do you?"

She thought about that one for a while. Finally, she answered, "I guess not. But take it easy, okay?"

"Easy does it." Miles gently spread the goo over the raw wound. The white cream turned pink as blood mixed with it.

"Yuck."

"Does it sting?"

"Feels pretty good, actually."

Miles wiped her fingertip with a bit of gauze, then unrolled a long strip and folded it into a pad about two inches long. She smoothed the pad against the side of Jody's thigh. It stuck to the ointment. While she taped it in place, she said, "Anyway, that video was my introduction to your father. I think he became an instant hero to just about everyone who saw it. Of course, we all wish he'd smashed the guy in the nuts, but that would've been out of policy. The bra.s.s just loved it that he showed so much restraint and still managed to demolish that sc.u.mwad."

"He's done some other stuff."

"Don't I know it."

Jody grinned. "So, you think he's pretty cool?"

"Cool?" Miles let out a small laugh. "Something like that, I suppose. He does seem to be an interesting fellow."

"You don't think he's funny-looking, do you?"

"Jody! That's a terrible thing to say."

"Well, he doesn't exactly look like Tom Cruise, you know."

"He looks just fine."

"Do you really think so?"

"Sure."

"I figure the reason he doesn't have hardly any girlfriends is because of how his mouth is kind of crooked and how he walks funny. Not to mention that he looks like he's all set to rip off somebody's head."

"Oh, he does not."

"I don't think women want to go out with somebody like that."

Miles looked annoyed. "Wouldn't you go out with him?"