Between Friends (28 page)

Benny didn’t answer, and I called home to check messages, but there was nothing. I settled in to wait until I thought Drew and Cora had had enough time to talk alone. I wanted to see her before I had to pick Letty up from school in a few minutes, but just as I fitted my cell phone back into my purse it rang.

“Hello,” I answered quickly, assuming it was Benny calling me back.

“Ali? It’s Tim, uh, where you at, honey?”

The only reason I knew I was still breathing was that aside from Tim’s voice in my ear, the only thing I could hear was my breath rasping in and out. Tim was a friend, a cop friend, a former partner of Benny’s.

And there was only one reason for him to call me.

“Tim? Tim?” I asked, as if he weren’t talking, as if I couldn’t hear him. He went silent for a moment, forcing my own silence.

“Ali,” he said slowly, keeping me from doing anything but concentrating on his voice “Benny’s been shot.”

Not just shot—but shot three times.

All I got to see of him was a blood-soaked gurney surrounded by a medical team flying by, racing into surgery. I never had a chance to call out to him, and I don’t know if I could have produced sound even if they’d stopped right in front of me to let me see the damage.

Tim arrived within seconds of the ambulance and sought me out amid the sea of uniforms in the hall outside surgery and clasped me to him, his bulletproof vest unwieldy under my arms, his fear-laced sweat acrid in my nose.

He held me still for a moment, an embrace I would have normally felt trapped in. I pretended, for a split second, that it was Benny’s arms holding me upright, and strength flooded me like adrenaline, forcing my legs to straighten, my shoulders to rise. I didn’t know if it was me pulling away, or Tim letting go, or a combination of those things, but I found myself standing upright and alone, a three-foot-wide cushion of air around me like an emotional no-fly zone.

“What can I do? What do you need?” Tim asked, leading me to a small waiting room. Energy practically vibrated off him, and I realized that he was desperate to do something, anything. Like Benny, he was built for action, and as cops began to fill the hall that same energy made me feel as if I might drown in it.

I thought quickly, ticked off a mental list of what might get lost in the next twenty-four hours. Only one thing came to mind.

“Letty, oh God,” I said, the image of her standing in front of the school waiting for me to pick her up sliding over the memory of the blood-spattered gurney.

“Where is she?” Tim asked, seizing on it. “I’ll go get her, or I’ll send someone for her.”

“No, no, I think it would be better to have someone else pick her up,” I said, already dialing Emily’s mother. I couldn’t have Tim pick Letty up. His nervous energy, his fury, and worry, and barely contained need to
do
something would only frighten Letty more than she was going to be to begin with.

“Jean,” I said, not even giving her a moment to finish her greeting. “There’s been an accident and Benny’s been hurt. I’m at the hospital. Could you possibly pick up Letty at school?”

“Oh my God,” Jean breathed, but then her efficiency kicked in, as I had counted on. “Of course. What do I say?”

I remembered this, the way we had, during those short toddler years, compared notes on what to tell our kids, making sure our own thoughts were in order before presenting them to our, or each other’s, children. The mommy bond was one I’d been surprised to find existed, and one I hadn’t realized I’d missed so much.

“Don’t say anything, please. Once you pick her up, tell her to call me and I’ll tell her.”

“Was he . . . was it a car accident?”

“No, he was—Benny was shot.”

Jean gasped but remained silent, waiting for me to continue.

“He’s going into surgery now, and that’s as much as I know.”

“Oh, Ali. Okay, okay, where am I going? Should she be at the hospital?”

I recoiled at the thought. No, there was no reason to subject her to . . .
this
—the jumpy cops, the surgeons and nurses and the smell of blood and fear. There were still some things I could control, and if I could help it, she wasn’t going to be here for this part of it.

“Could you take her back to your place? She’d probably need to spend the night. Is that okay?”

“Of course. She’s welcome here for as long as you need. I’m out the door. Keep me posted.”

“Thanks, Jean,” I said, hanging up.

“You got someone? Because I can go get her, I’m happy to go get her,” Tim said, standing, ready for anything I might point him toward, like a retriever.

“It’s okay,” I said. “My friend will pick her up. I need to call her.”

“Okay, you tell her that he’s going to be fine, you know? He’s a hell of a tough cop and he’s going to come through this . . .” He trailed off and looked away from me, toward the three cops who stood in a huddle in the hall, his shoulders hunched forward. I could have fitted myself into that space again and it might have helped, a little. I turned away from him and dialed.

“Tell me you’re on your way,” she answered the phone. “Because if I have to listen to the marching band murder Eminem one more time, I really might spontaneously combust or something.”

I wanted to be able to laugh for her, if for nothing else than to put off her inevitable fear for as long as I could. But I could not manage it. At least my voice didn’t shake when I spoke.

“Sweetie, Emily’s mom is going to pick you up. She’ll be there soon.”

Her tone changed immediately. “Is Aunt Cora all right?”

I had forgotten about Cora. Completely forgotten the fact that she was the reason I’d been at the hospital to begin with. Leaving her to have some alone time with Drew seemed like weeks ago. I seized on it, relieved to have an opportunity to put off telling her that her father had been shot, to put off not just having her hear it, but put off having to say the words myself.

“Cora’s okay, she’s resting, but I got hung up here. Jean should be there in a few minutes, so call me the second you’re in the car, okay?”

“Mom, I wish you hadn’t called her. I could have found another way home,” she said, peevish now. Which was fine. Peevish was normal, and I even smiled a little.

“Just call me when she gets there, all right, honey? I love you,” I said, my voice breaking. I punched the off button quickly, hoping she didn’t catch it.

“Hey, Ali,” Tim said quietly. “I thought I’d try to see where he is, you know, where they’re at, and then I’d go give blood.”

I nodded. It was what the department usually did when one of their own had been hurt. They arrived, in uniform, in plainclothes, in the cutoffs and T-shirts they were wearing to cut the lawn, in whatever they had on when they got the news, to roll up their sleeves and give blood, the only thing they could do. The little room would soon be swarming with people trying to support me, and the thought of it made me dizzy. I’d been on these hospital visits myself, called by Benny when a colleague had been in a car accident, or, as had happened twice in his career, when they had been shot.

Both of those cops had died, and everyone had gathered around their wives before they’d even passed away, as if they already knew.

I wasn’t ready to be treated like a widow.

She hung up with her mom and wished her dad would call. She wanted to know what was happening, if he’d found Seth’s dad, if he’d gotten any information about getting him out of Venice.

But she mostly just wanted to be able to talk to Seth, to let him know that someone was doing something for him.

She didn’t think a lot of people had ever gone out of their way to do anything for him before, and she was proud that she had the kind of father who would. It made her feel safer, like he really meant it when he said she could tell him about any problem. She thought that maybe Seth could be like that, if he had someone like her dad to show him how.

Emily’s mom didn’t take long. She could see Jean’s face through the windshield, looking all worried with her eyebrows hiked up way high. She didn’t see Emily in the passenger seat, and she was surprised at how much that hurt.

But when she opened the door, she saw Emily in the backseat, biting her lower lip, looking like a little miniature Jean. They used to make fun of her mom, how protective she was, but now it was like Emily was turning into her. She didn’t know why they were so worried about her waiting a little long to be picked up. She wasn’t six years old or anything.

“Hey, Jean,” she said, climbing in and dropping her bag on the floor. Emily leaned forward and put her hand on Letty’s shoulder.

“Are you okay, Let?” she asked, nearly breathless as her mom pulled away from the school.

She had been feeling bad about Emily, about how they’d grown so far apart, and, to be honest, she sort of missed having a girl friend. But now she was just irritating again. Letty pulled forward, away from Emily’s hand.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Hon,” Jean said. “Your mom wants you to call her.”

Hon?
Jean had always been nice to her, nicer when she and Emily were hanging out more, but now she sounded downright loving. Something wasn’t right. She dialed as quickly as she could, looking back over her shoulder at Emily, who was now chewing on the edge of her thumbnail.

“Mom?” she asked as soon as her mother answered, her voice wavering.

“Has Jean picked you up yet?” she asked, and her voice was so calm that for a minute she thought she’d been wrong.

“Yeah, I’m in the car now,” Letty said, looking over at Jean like she was expecting her to confirm that yes, indeedy, she was definitely in the car. She pressed the phone tighter against her ear. “Mom?” she asked, softer now.

“Now, don’t worry, everything is going to be fine, but there’s been a problem with Dad,” she said.

Letty felt so relieved for a minute. She had been expecting her to say Aunt Cora, to even, maybe, tell her that she was dead, or in a coma or something. But then she realized what she’d said, and she froze, everything went cold. She turned toward the door, away from Jean, away from Emily.

“What? No. He’s okay, right? He’s okay?” she asked, frantic. “Mom?”

“Everything is going to be okay,” she repeated, but she could hear in her mother’s voice that she didn’t know that for sure.

“But what happened?”

“He was on a call and something happened, we don’t know exactly what just yet. Your dad was careful, honey, you know that, and he was wearing his vest, but he got hit. They’re taking him in now to get the bullet out.”

“Oh my God, Mom, was he . . . was he at Seth’s?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute, but Letty could hear her breathing heavily, and there were suddenly a lot of voices in the background.

“I don’t think so,” she said, but she knew she was lying. “Honey,” she continued, “I want you to go home with Jean and Emily—”

“What? No, I’m coming there. Aren’t I? I have to be there,” she cried, looking again at Jean. She didn’t look back at her, and Emily grabbed her shoulder again. She didn’t pull away this time. This time it felt okay, like she was grounding her, holding her there in the seat so she didn’t fly apart.

“Letty, listen to me. There’s nothing you can do here, and I need you to be where I know you’re being taken care of and where I can find you. The second I know anything I’ll call you. Okay?”

“No,” she said, and she didn’t care if she sounded whiny or not. She could be there, she
should
be there. What would her dad think? That she didn’t even care enough to come? What if he could hear her voice, and he’d know that she was there, and he’d be fine, knowing she was waiting for him?

“I want to come,” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, Letty, I know you do,” her mom said, her voice really soft, and that was when Letty started to cry. Because she sounded really sorry, and really sad, and she knew she wasn’t going to change her mind.