Billy Straight

62

Bound volumes of TV Guide, each with a no circu- lation tag.

An hour into the surgery, Stu found himself going crazy in the waiting room. Leaving the hospital, he drove to a branch in downtown Burbank, used his badge and good manners, finally convinced the librarian to let him check out a decade's worth.

Now here he was back at St. Joe's, waiting with other worried people.

Hundreds of Adjustor plot summaries.

Dack Price comes to the aid of a woman harassed by street thugs.

Dack Price helps expose drug dealing at a local high school.

A woman claiming to be Dack's sister, abandoned at birth…

Dack Price saves a political reformer's reputation when blackmailers…

The same old garbage, over and over.

No mention of any parks, let alone Griffith. Rarely was the setting ever mentioned, except when it was considered exotic: Dack Price investigates several murders aboard a submarine.

He kept turning pages, sitting by Kathy's bedside as she slept off the anesthesia.

Snoring. Kathy never snored. A padded dressing was taped to her chest like some bulletproof vest. The IV dripped, a catheter drained, machines graphed and beeped the saga of his wife's physiology. Stu had watched the blood pressure for a while until he was certain it was normal. At the last temperature check, Kathy'd registered a slight fever. Normal reaction, the nurse claimed.

The room was a private with a view, courtesy of Father's clout. Cheerful wallpaper, ten-dollar Tylenol. The nurses seemed smart and efficient.

Drizak had taken Kathy's left breast.

Stu knew the minute the surgeon came out in his greens. Droning on about lymphovascular invasion, nodal status, margins of excision, best efforts at breast conservation.

“So you did a mastectomy.”

“The bottom line is we want to save your wife's life.”

“Did you?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you save her life?”

The surgeon scratched his chin. “The prognosis is excellent, Mr. Bishop, given proper follow-up, radiotherapy. She went through it like a trouper.”

Stu thanked him, pumped his hand, and grateful for the lack of outward anguish, the surgeon walked away with a bounce in his step.

The breast didn't matter to Stu- not as an object- but how would Kathy react to the loss?

What to tell the kids?

Mommy was sick, now she'd be getting better.

No good; when the side effects of radiation showed up, they'd think he lied.

Kathy stirred and moaned. Stu put the book down, leaned over the bed rails, and kissed her forehead lightly. She didn't react. He touched her hand. Cold and limp. Why wasn't the blood circulating to her extremities?

He checked the machines. Normal; everything normal.

Her padded chest proved it, rising and falling.

It was 8 P.M. Surgery had been delayed twice because of emergencies- Kathy wheeled up to the OR, then down, the entire process repeated again. Waiting in the hall on a gurney as the priority patients were rushed through.

A car crash and a shooting.

Stu watched Burbank officers come up to the surgical floor, accompanying the med techs as they wheeled in the shooting victim. Young Hispanic kid, sixteen, seventeen, bad color, vacant eyes. Stu knew DOA when he saw it. Another stupid drive-by.

The cops didn't notice him- just some guy in a sweater reading in the corner of the waiting room.

Young-blood cops, swaggering. Like they knew what they were doing.

Pathetic. No one had a clue. God was a comedian.

Look at Ramsey.

Had a wife but couldn't keep her.

No way was the actor going down for Lisa's murder. Not with what they had so far. No help from TV Guide.

He suppressed bitter laughter.

Dack Price butchers a woman. Now a word from our sponsor.