Fly With Fire (35 page)

Mo lurched up with a gasp at
the sensation on her hand. She still had the blanket around her shoulders the
nurse had given her. She felt as if she were rising up out of water gulping for
air. It took her a few seconds to register her present circumstances. She
looked at her hand and saw his finger rubbing lightly over the top of it. His
eyes were closed. His color looked better and he had a calm contented little
smile on his face. Mo pressed her lips to the finger stroking hers lightly and
put her cheek to it. Her dark braid fell onto the bed as she absorbed the
sensation of Zack’s minute movement.

“I dreamed that you and I
were trapped in The Bean,” he whispered softly. “It was bean jail…jail bean, I
don’t... It was so stupid. God, I love you.” Mo raised her head and looked at him.
“You look like hell, Mo. I’m gonna have to try not to get shot too often.” He
grunted a little with a grimace of pain. “Go home, baby. You look tired.”

“I’m locked out, I don’t have
a key. So I guess I’ll have to stay right here. Do you need anything? Are you
thirsty?” She stood up and looked for a call button.

“Jesus, Mo, you’re wearing my
boxers.” Zack whispered weakly. He almost laughed but his face twisted with
pain. He took a deep breath which created more discomfort. “Thanks for going
all out to welcome me back to the world.” Another pained grunt.

“Nothing but the best for a
hero. Twice in a week. You’re going to knock Al off his pedestal. “Shhh, be
quiet now. Your hurt baby, but you’re going to be okay.” Mo stroked his head.
“I buzzed the nurse. You rest. You’re going to be all right.”

“Mo?”

“Shhh.”

“Are you here alone?”

Mayor Tyler brought me here.
He ran out of people to boss around and left. He said to call him and he’d get
me home or whatever. He’s been very kind. Concerned about you.”

“Tyler?”

“Mmhmm, Shhh.”

“Now I know he’s got the hots
for you.” Zack coughed and tried to breathe through a spasm of pain. The nurse
came in and took a look at him, gave him some water and told him he needed to
rest. He pursed his lips at Mo raising his eyebrows in a ‘naughty girl’ scold.

“They told me just a few
minutes and I’ve been here for hours. You really need to rest and not worry
about my hot date with Tyler.” She bent over and kissed his head.

“We did it Mo. We got ‘im. Al
was with me in the ambulance. He said to stop being a wimp. That it was nothing
compared to what he got in Viet Nam. He said, ‘Stop whining, you’ll live’. And
I thought, yeah, he wouldn’t talk to me like that if I was dying. Right? I knew
I was going to be okay. But when I thought I was going to die, Mo, all I could
think of was you.”

“I’m right here.” She stroked
his face. He sighed as contentedly as if they were laying under a tree
somewhere, caressing on a blanket. “Al was here. He had to go get his car. He’s
fine. It’s just like him to sound like an ass trying to comfort you. They
really want you to rest.” Mo kissed his lips lightly and smoothed his hair
until he closed his eyes and his breathing calmed into the even breaths of
sleep.

With Tyler vouching for Mo
she was able to get Zack’s keys. Noticing that Mo didn’t seem to have much in
the way of clothes he offered to have his driver run her out to Greendale but
she declined figuring she gone this long. Greendale coliseum and the show
seemed far away. Yet the show would be opening for its extended run the next
night. She thought about it and made plans to spend as much of the day as
possible with Zack, do the show then return to Chicago. There was no way she
could take the time off. Debbie was not ready and though she herself had not
rehearsed in days she would have to do the show.

Relieved as she was that Zack
was going to live, a gnawing fear welled up in her. What if there were other
drug dealers involved who would want revenge on Zack. What if Bull Shaughnessy
got out on bail? But the deeper fear came from knowing she had gotten an early
taste of the harsh possibilities of Zack’s job. She knew his job must mean as
much to him and hers did to her. Not that he was the kind of guy who talked
about being a cop all the time. He had not really talked about it much at all.
He talked less about his job than anyone she knew. He’d told a couple humorous
stories and of course about the situation with his partner’s death but he never
mentioned his feelings about the job. He never talked about it in the day to
day sense. Maybe he thought it was just too connected to murder and would be an
unpleasant topic for her.

He certainly didn’t seem like
the archetypal image of cops she had always imagined. Callous and tough. He was
compassionate and kind. He had a gentleness dealing with people and had not
developed a cynical world view one might expect, considering what he’d seen.
There was a sensibility about him that she would never have expected from a
cop. He had taken her completely by surprise with his open minded eroticism
blended with tenderness and respectfulness. There was a fire in him that had
threatened to burn her alive with the force of its passion. Yet he was a
soothing balm who had appeared in her life at just the time she needed it. If she
could keep the fears at bay and accept the present without thinking of the
future maybe she’d be able to keep the memory of their time together unsullied
by regret. For the time to return to their own worlds was going to close in on
them. They couldn’t hold it back. They couldn’t deny who they were or the paths
that had been set for them years before. They had a few weeks while the show
did the extended run. Zack would need time to recuperate. She’d spend all the
time she could with him. But in the end, they both knew, time was running out.

Mo took a shower and read the
paper she found in front of Zack’s condo door. There was nothing about Zack or
Al or anything pertaining to events that day. She figured it would be headline
news the next day. She couldn’t bear to turn on the television. She’d seen
enough. How did women or men for that matter live with someone who did what
police do? Facing potential danger everyday might be something that a cop took
for granted, but what about those waiting for them to return home?

It was a question Mo had had
in the back of her mind during her days with Zack. To be a cop’s lover? The
possibility of marriage had not entered her mind knowing how far removed their
worlds were from each others. She had wondered what it would be like to be with
Zack, live with Zack. But marriage as an option was impossible. How could they
even live together? A long distance relationship?  She’d seen the toll
that had taken on other performers. She almost chuckled at the idiocy she was entertaining.
Yet like a tic quivering in the corner of her eye the question of how one could
cope living with a man who could walk out the door and never return had bugged
her insistently.

Now she thought she was in
love. But she also knew she had been living a fantasy. They both had had a
respite from traumatic events in their lives. Once again reality had come back
with a burning vengeance. The hardest thing of all, the most painful had been
the words most people would find the ultimate joy to hear. “God, I love you.”
Said in dazed reaction. The words had sounded so wholly authentic, without
expectation that she would respond in kind or try to comfort him with words
she’d said herself but could not have spoken aloud. Could her words have
entered his sub conscience as he slept? Had he known what he was saying?

Throwing back the unruly
bedclothes Mo realized that the idea of real sleep was a fantasy as well. She
drifted in and out of a doze never truly falling asleep as a torrent of
thoughts seemed to tap at her as persistently as the drip of a leaking faucet.

A shout. Angry, righteous and
vehement broke into her dreams. “Hey! I’m gonna call the police! Hey, Lady!”

Then loud knocks. Did
somebody…Is Zack…

Mo staggered to the door.
“What…What is it? Who are you?”

“Hey, Lady. We live two doors
down. There was someone on the terrace. On Zack’s terrace. You okay?” A goateed
man and a disheveled woman peered into the dark opening.

She cracked the door wider
and realized she had not secured the chain. “I’m sorry…what?”

“We saw on the news. We
didn’t want to bother you when you came back.”

Mo looked at the two young
people and recognized the odor she noticed from the terrace.

“Look, there was someone out
there.  I was… out on my terrace and I heard something. I looked over and
there was a man. A man standing on the terrace and looking in the door!” The
woman put her hand on his shoulder. He was obviously shaken.

“Come in.” She hit a switch
and turned and looked at the terrace door. How could someone climb up that high?
The breeze had soothed her somewhat and she’d left the door open just like Zack
always seemed to. The couple came in and looked around.

“I heard Steve shout. I
didn’t see anything.” The woman said.

“He went over the rail, over
the rail when I shouted, I swear to god!”

“You must have been dreaming.
I think he fell asleep on the terrace and dreamed it. Steve, come on, you can’t
be waking people up in the middle of the night with your crazy dreams. He has
some of the craziest dreams. You should hear how he talks in his sleep.” She
yanked at the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“Wait. Please wait.
Detective…Zack is in the hospital.” She went to the open sliding glass door and
flipped the switch. The single bulb dimly lit the small terrace. The couple
went over to the door and watched her as she looked around. “What did you see?”
she asked looking over the rail.

“I heard a noise and looked
over. I knew Zack was in the hospital from the news. We heard you, figured it
was you, come in. Saw the light was on earlier. It was someone all in black I
think. Hard to see. Tall, I think, or maybe just seemed like it. It was so
quick! Couldn’t see a face. But I could tell it was a man. I shouted and he
went over the rail. Just like that! Right there where it meets the wall.” He
pointed to the rail furthest away from his own terrace. Mo looked down. The
Rosemary plant Zack had picked out at the grocery store had been knocked over.
Could have been the wind. When she looked more closely she could barely make
out a pattern in the dirt. A partial footprint.

Mo sat in the dark gazing at
the sliding glass door to Zack’s terrace. She had called Tyler in the middle of
the night and he’d sent a cruiser over with two uniformed to keep a watch on
the terrace. Her next call had been to Les Moore, head of her security team.
The dormant security crew was called back into action and on their way. A
detective was on his way to investigate the footprint. Steve had gotten a
Styrofoam cooler to cover the spilled dirt to prevent the wind blowing the clue
away. The young couple, Steve and Marlene, had finally succumbed to exhaustion
and Mo’s insistence she’d be fine. Just don’t smoke on your terrace she had
joked, since the place was crawling with cops.

 “You go to hotel now!”
Roddy had shouted into the phone. Moore had called him. “Security take you. I
leave New York two hours!

“Not until I see Zack. I’ll
be there for rehearsal this afternoon.” She looked at the clock. Six twenty.

“You must practice. You must
rehearse. Zack not want you to miss job.” Roddy felt deeply for Mo and Zack. He
had learned of Zack’s shooting very late the night before. His first impulse
had been to call Mo. But he figured she’d need the rest. With irritation she
realized he was right. But she wasn’t going anywhere until she had to. And when
would she sleep?”

The security guys had arrived
at Zack’s condo and sized up the situation. She’d been shacked up with the very
cop who had referred them to Mr. D’Mario. She had ditched them at the airport
and inconvenienced them to no end in order to chase the guy down who had taken
a walk on his job protecting her. Go figure.

They checked out the condo
which should have been easy to secure. They looked down over the terrace rail
and shook their heads. Few people could make that climb. Fewer could do it at
night. They had watched the detective photograph the footprint and make a
plastic mold of it.  They’d accepted coffee and settled in to await Mo’s
next move.

She locked the door to the
bedroom when she finally thought she could sleep for a couple hours. It was a
fitful sleep. She felt very alone without Zack there. It was an entirely new
sensation for her to miss someone the way she was missing him. After just a few
nights she had become so used to his presence in bed she didn’t think she could
sleep without him. No one had ever become so important to her or to her sense
of well being. She had drifted into that broken slumber with bits and pieces of
Zack and rivers and fire drifting disturbingly in her mind.

Morning news was all about
the shooting. All about Zack and Al and the bust. Speculation was rife. Bull
Shaughnessy, who many had bet would be the next chief of police, busted for
drugs and charged with murder. Now Zack’s former partner was in the headlines
once again as well. Lyons and Shaughnessy were each pointing their finger at
the other. Who had murdered Ray Pollack? Was Zack finally vindicated? Questions
about the prior day’s big drug bust had arisen with Duke Washington putting on
a great performance about how it all had gone down.