Winter Moon

in a month, Jack began to worry h drug dealing and violence surrounding

A les schools He became convinced they ing to be killed unless they

could find a way, in spite of his financial problems to pay private sc

h t such a once-safe place as a classr d ngerous as a battlefield led

him in f I t the conclusion that nowhere was son. If Toby could be

killed in school, why not on his t playing in his Own front yard? Ia

overly protective parent, which he had never been before, reluctant to

let the boy out of his sight. h fifth of August, with his return to d

way and the restoration of a møre t hand he shouldhave experienced p d

but the Opposite was the case. ting to the division for reassignme eat

even though he was at least a ving off a desk job and back on the li d

he had concealed his fears and P sions from everyone That night he

learned differently In bed, after he turned off the lamp, he worked up

the courage to say in the darkness what he would have been embarrassed

to say in the light: "I'm not going back on the street."

"I know," Heather said from her side of the bed. "I don't mean not

just right away. I mean never."

"I know, baby," she said tenderly, and reached out to find and hold his

hand. "Is it that obvious?"

"It's been a bad couple of weeks."

"I'm sorry."

"You had to go through it."

"I thought I'd be on the street until I retired. It's all I ever

wanted to do."

"Things change," she said. "I can't risk it now. I've lost my

confidence."

"You'll get it back."

"Maybe."

"You will," she insisted. "But you still won't go back on the

street.

You can't. You've done your part, you've pushed your luck as far as

any cop could be expected to push it. Let someone else save the

world."

"I feel ..."

"I know."

"... empty ..."

"It'll get better. Everything does."

"...

like a sorry-ass quitter."

"You're no quitter." She slid against his side and put her hand on his

chest. "You're a good man and you're brave--too damn brave, as far as

I'm concerned. If you hadn't decided to get off the street, I'd have

decided it for you. One way or another, I'd have made you do it,

because the odds are, next time, I'll be Alma Bryson and your partner's

wife will be coming to sit at my side, hold my hand. I'll be damned to

hell before I'll let that happen. You've had two partners shot down

beside you in one year, and there's been seven cops killed here since

January. Seven. I'm not going to lose you, Jack." He put his arm

around her, held her close, profoundly grateful to have found her in a

hard world where so much seemed to depend on random chance. For a

while he couldn't speak, his voice would have been too thick with

emotion. At last he said, "So I guess from here on out, I'll park my

butt in a chair and be a desk jockey of one kind or another."

"I'll buy you a whole case of hemorrhoid cream"

"I'll have to get a

coffee mug with my name on It."

"And a supply of notepads that say From the Desk of Jack Mcgarvey."

" He said, "It's going to mean a salary cut. Won't pay as much as

being on the street."

"We'll be all right."

"Will we? I'm not so sure. It's going to be tight." She said,

"You're forgetting Mcgarvey Associates. Inventive and flexible custom

programs. Tailored to your needs. Reasonable rates. Timely

delivery.

Better legs than Bill Gates."

And that night, in the darkness of their bedroom, it did seem that

finding security and happiness again in the City of Angels might be

possible, after all.

During the next ten days, however, they were confronted by a series of

reality checks that made it impossible to sustain the old L.A.

fantasy.

Yet another city budget shortfall was rectified in part by reducing the

compensation of street cops by five percent and that of the deskbound

in the department by twelve percent, a job that already paid less than

Jack's previous position now paid markedly less. A day later,

government statistics showed the economy slipping again, and a new

client, on the verge of signing a contract with Mcgarvey Associates,

was so unnerved by those numbers that he decided against investing in

new computer programs for a few months. Inflation was up.

Taxes were way up. The debt-strapped utility company was granted a

rate increase to prevent bankruptcy, which meant electricity rates were

going to climb. Water rates had already risen, natural-gas prices were

next. They were clobbered with a car-repair bill of six hundred forty

dollars on the same day that Anson Oliver's first film, which had not

enjoyed a wide or successful theatrical run in its initial release, was

reissued by Paramount, reigniting media interest in the shootout and in

Jack. And Richie Tendero, husband to the flamboyant and unshakable

Gina Tendero of the black leather clothes and red-pepper Mace, was hit

by a shotgun blast while answering a domestic-dispute call, resulting

in the amputation of his left arm and plastic surgery to the left side

of his face. On August fifteenth, an eleven-year-old girl was caught

in gang crossfire one block from the elementary school that Toby would