Chapter THIRTY-THREE
We walked out of the police station into the bright sun of late morning. J.D. was talking about Steve Carey, the young cop who’d been shot at Leffis Key. He was doing well, and the chief was keeping J.D. updated on a daily basis. “He wants to get back to work and the chief is going to let him start coming in tomorrow to do admin stuff. His arm is still hurting, he says, but he can answer phones.”
I noticed a car with darkly tinted windows idling at the curb about thirty feet from us. I’m not sure what caught my attention, maybe that it was idling in a no parking zone in front of a police station. It obviously hadn’t been there very long or some cop would have been writing a ticket. Three officers in uniform were coming up the sidewalk, apparently heading toward the door we had just come out of.
The car started to move and the right rear window glided down. The muzzle of a shotgun was beginning to poke out of the window as I dove to my left, taking J.D. to the sidewalk. We fell behind a concrete receptacle that held a trash can, giving us some cover. I twisted as I fell, bringing J.D. on top of me to cushion her fall. At the same instant, I heard the explosion of the shotgun and heard buckshot hitting the trash container.
I landed on my side and back, with J.D. on top of me. My head hit the sidewalk. I felt pain shooting through every lobe of my brain. My eyesight dimmed and the buildings within my line of sight seemed to sway. My world slowed down. I heard pistol shots, people running, a crash. A weight lifted off me, my sight sharpened some. I saw J.D. standing next to me, her knees flexed, her hands holding her pistol. More gunshots. The smell of cordite. A yell of pain. Darkness was edging into my consciousness. I pushed it back, tried to sit up. I felt pressure on my chest, somebody holding me down. The darkness receded further. My eyes began to focus. I saw J.D.’s face looking down at me, marked by worry or fear or sadness or, maybe, pain. I couldn’t read it. I realized that she was sitting beside me, my head in her lap, her hand resting on my chest. She was saying something I couldn’t make out. Her lips were moving and sound was coming out of her mouth, but it was just noise. Nothing made sense.
I heard sirens. They were coming toward us, getting louder. J.D.’s words were becoming clearer, starting to make sense. I tried to get up. “Stay down, Matt, please.” It was J.D.
“I have to get up,” I said.
“No, Matt. Stay down. You’re hurt. The paramedics are on the way.”
“Was I shot?”
“No, I don’t think so. You hit your head pretty hard. You’ve probably got a concussion. Just stay still until they get here.”
I felt a stickiness through my shirt and reached down to my waist. I was relieved that I couldn’t feel any holes in my precious hide. My mind was clearing. Then it hit me. J.D. was bleeding. “You’re hit,” I said.
“I’m fine. I think you busted up my bandages when you pulled me down. It’s just blood from the knife wound.”
“Did you get the bad guys?”
“I think I hit one of them. The officers on the street fired at the car. They must have hit the driver, because he crashed into a parked car. Just as I was getting untangled from you, one guy came out of the car’s rear door with a pistol in his hand. I think I hit him, but there were other cops firing, so who knows. How’re you doing?”
“My head hurts like a son of a bitch.”
A paramedic came up with his bag of supplies and squatted down beside me. “You get hit?”
“No,” said J.D., before I could form an answer. “But he hit his head when he pushed me out of the line of fire.”
The medic snapped on a pair of latex gloves and felt around on the back of my head. “I don’t think there are any fractures, but you’ve got a large bump back there. We better get you to the hospital for x-rays.”
“Check her side,” I said. “She’s bleeding.”
J.D. lifted up her blouse. “It’s from a knife fight last night. I think I opened up the wound.”
“A knife fight?” the paramedic asked.
“Yeah. But you ought to see the other guy,” I said.
He smiled and pulled the bandages from J.D.’s laceration. He pulled a spray can out of his kit and doused the area. “A little antiseptic,” he said. “I’ll get another bandage on this and we’ll take you in to the hospital.”
“Can we ride in the same ambulance?” J.D. asked.
“Sure,” said the medic.
“Can we share a stretcher?” I asked.
“You’re going to ruin my reputation, Royal,” J.D. said.
The medic laughed. “I’ll go get the gurney.”