11th hour

Chapter 101

The TV was on in the waiting room.

Jason Blayney was on the screen, standing outside Metropolitan Hospital in a smart jacket and tie, telling the network news what had gone down on Haight Street.

He looked and sounded authoritative, as if he knew what he was talking about. But Blayney was doing what he always did. He didn’t know what happened, so he made up the facts.

As Blayney told it, the cops had come onto Haight Street and started firing.

“William Randall, a ten-year veteran in Vice, was pursuing a drug dealer named Jimmy Lesko,” Blayney said. “Lesko was a small-time drug dealer, and according to witnesses, Lesko was unarmed. Randall fired at Lesko without provocation, kept firing until Lesko was dead.

“Homicide detectives were alerted to the shooting and tore onto Haight Street, where they began firing at anything that moved.

“Sergeant Randall was seriously wounded and is now in surgery at Metropolitan Hospital, fighting for his life.

“Nicholas Kiernan, age sixty-two, was a resident of the Lower Haight, an innocent bystander who stepped outside his home and was caught in the cross fire,” Blayney went on. “Mr. Kiernan, father of three, died at the scene.

“Two other police officers were shot in the blistering hail of gunfire. Lieutenant Jackson Brady, head of the Southern District Homicide Division, and Inspector Richard Conklin are in surgery right now, their lives hanging by threads.

“This is a shameful night for the San Francisco Police Department, which can truly be described as the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.”

It was a nasty story, the worst of Blayney. There was no mention of Randall’s being a bona fide rogue cop, no hint that the SFPD had warned Randall to drop his weapon, no indication that the police had fired on him only when he refused to drop his gun. And Blayney’s biased reporting was now flashing around the world as truth.

I grabbed the remote control and turned off the set.

Randall was still in surgery, and from what I’d been told, the odds were against his coming out of the OR alive. Brady was also fighting terrible odds. As he was being cut and stitched, a whole lot of prayers came his way from the waiting room.

At around two in the morning, Cindy took Richie home to bed, and Claire let me walk her out to the parking lot. She made me promise to call her when Brady was out of surgery.

After that, Yuki and I sat together surrounded by Homicide cops who had come to show support for Brady. Lieutenant Meile arrived in street clothes and apologized to me in front of a packed waiting room.

“I’m sorry for the things I said to you, Sergeant. And I’m sorry for a few things you didn’t hear me say. I’m a dumbass, but I believed in Will Randall’s innocence. He’d better not die before he tells me what the hell he was thinking. Damn him. I have to know.”