Gregg Hurwitz - Troubleshooter

Tim caught a few stares from the waiting wounded, who-as a corralled TV viewership on a bureaucratic timetable-had no doubt watched grainy, zoom-lensed Deputy Rackley poking through one of the three high-profile crime scenes that had emerged last night and this morning.

Dray was alone in her room, arrayed peacefully under the covers, her head tilted just so on the pillow. He spoke her name, half expecting her to rise and greet him. Her skin felt hard and waxy and gave off the scent of antiseptic. He missed the smell of her, and it struck him that there was no way to recapture it unless Dray reentered her life, unless she showered, sweated, ate her vast yet specific array of foods, rubbed jasmine lotion into her hands in her elaborate manner that made her look like a cartoon villain scheming. Her smell captured the combination of countless variables that were her life, that were her alive.

A middle-aged woman-a physical therapist by her ID card-entered and introduced herself. She was heavyset and to the point. "The nurses in the CWA told me you're the guy. In charge of catching those bikers? I have a daughter who lives out in Simi…" Her thought trailed off into a dark corner. "You catch those guys."

She pulled the sheets off Dray and rearranged her body with practiced, no-nonsense movements. Dray's arms looked thin, dwarfed by her belly.

"How's she doing?" Tim asked.

"Still not arousable to stimuli. No purposeful movements. The doc says the baby's going strong, so that's good."

She grasped Dray's calf and foot and rocked the leg, as if shaking off dust, then bent it back. She repeated the motion a few times before switching legs. He watched her work. Seeing Dray animated, even falsely, gave him a stab of irrational hopefulness.

Tim cleared his throat. "What can I expect here?"

"There are significant variations based on the nature of the injury-"

"No bullshit," he said softly. "Please."

She paused and regarded him, Dray's foot in hand, before returning to her task. For a moment Tim thought she wasn't going to answer. Then, without looking up, she said, "I can't speak to brain damage. My area of expertise is muscle atrophy. She has a week or two before there's appreciable deterioration. Rehabilitation gets harder after that. And, you know, the likelihood that…"

"That she won't be able to."

The physical therapist contemplated Dray's leg bends with renewed focus. Tim watched the knee rise, fall, rise.

Think this is the best use of your time?

"Shut up, Dray."

The therapist caught his murmur, raised an eyebrow in his direction.

I miss you, too, babe, but you have more important things to do than watch me play cadaver Twister.

Tim watched the physical therapist rotate Dray's foot in precise circles.

So you won't leave?

Not right now.

Make yourself useful, then.

The therapist placed Dray's heel on her own shoulder and elevated the leg to stretch the hamstring, her fingers laced to brace the knee straight. She finished and jotted a few notes on her clipboard.

"Can I?"

She looked up at Tim, surprised. Her eyes twinkled with a sad grin that never made it to the rest of her face. "Of course, hon."

Tim set his holstered gun on the neighboring chair and rose. The therapist paused at the door, monitoring him before withdrawing.

Tim started at the beginning of the routine. Dray's bare sole fit perfectly, as always, in the curve of his hand. He'd stretched her enough, before their early-morning runs, to note that her muscles were now tight and cranky. He rotated her arms, compressed her shoulders, kneaded her neck.

He kissed her cool lips before slipping on his holster and heading back to work.

Wristwatch Annie shoulder-slumped against the chain-link outside the Sinners' clubhouse, twisting a high heel into the curb and negotiating with a guy in a gray Pinto who was leaning across his passenger seat, john style. Despite the weather she wore a miniskirt, her leather jacket huffing around her shoulders.

When Tim slammed the door of the Explorer and headed across the street, the guy sped off. Despite having grabbed no more than a few hours' sleep, Tim felt surprisingly lucid.

Annie dropped a Baggie to the curb and slid it back with her heel until it slipped through the sewer grates. She smiled sweetly at Tim, showing off matching shelves of creative dentition.

Tim nodded at the grate through which the drugs had made their getaway. "Crank or heroin?"

Her eyes had the infinity stare, pupils dilated wider than the morning sun allowed. "Just sugar, sugar."

"You'd better be careful. I'll write you up for littering."

She returned his smile. "You're a naughty boy. Go to my room."

"How'd you get the name Wristwatch Annie?"

"You really wanna know?"

He'd fallen into his and Dray's bed last night grateful for his exhaustion; he'd been unable to muster the energy to be mournful. The light had never made it on, so he'd barely distinguished the house as his home-he'd entered a dark box, slept, and left while the air was still slate at the windows. Knowing he was on the Sinners' hit list, he'd gone as he'd come, over the back fence, a fugitive on his own property.

A Christmas morning very different from the one he would have chosen to wake up to. Annie's game attitude lightened it up, for a moment.

It required three separate parties to escort Tim through the yard and clubhouse upstairs to Uncle Pete's room. Hound Dog, looking displeased beneath his fluffy topknot, balanced atop a card table. Sitting on what looked like a reinforced piano bench, Uncle Pete revved up an electric razor and sculpted the poodle's tail pom-pom. Curls of white hair clung to Uncle Pete's forearms and lay like shorn wool at his feet. The dog's lip wrinkled into a soundless growl at Tim's appearance.

Ash-laden cigarette dangling aesthetically from the corner of his mouth, Uncle Pete flicked the razor at the dog's underbelly. His arm jiggled; stretch marks interrupted his biceps tattoo like vertical blinds. He wore a black shirt with white block letters across the chest: DEEP THINKER. Aphoristic T-shirts seemed a bikerwear staple.

"This here"-Pete leaned back, admiring his work-"this here's the English-saddle clip. Standard poodles are like Harleys-well-designed machines. Waterfowl retrievers. Truffle hunters. Vaudeville performers. They're the smartest dogs, you know that? Clean, too. They don't shed. You leave that to us, don't you, Hound Dog?"

In response the poodle made a sound like a whinny.

Uncle Pete's eyes finally pulled north, taking in Tim. "Where's your backup? The spic and the muscle? Ain't you worried we gonna carve you up?"

"Not a bit."

Pete pinched his cigarette like a joint, sucking a final inhale. The ash fell across his chest, and he brushed it to the carpet with a few delicate flicks of his hand.

"Diamond Dog showed up dead," Tim said. "Wouldn't you know it, he was running with Goat."

A flicker of alarm showed in Uncle Pete's face before receding beneath his usual calm. It was only an instant, but it was precisely what Tim was looking for.

"No matter how I try to keep those boys away from trouble…" Pete shook his head. "Ain't it the damnedest thing?"

"The damnedest."

Uncle Pete lifted Hound Dog off the card table, the dog licking his face until he set him down.

"Diamond Dog's one of yours," Tim said. "Not a nomad. This case is at your doorstep now. Thought I'd give you a knock-and-notice."

"Characteristically thoughtful."

"Just another service we provide to taxpaying citizens."

Uncle Pete puffed out his cheeks with a troubled sigh. "Shucks, that is bad news about Dog. A lot of my mother-club boys are discipline problems. Impervious to reform, no matter how we try. Now and then they run with the wrong crowd, choose a lifestyle that's socially irresponsible. You let me know if there's any way I or the Laughing Sinners can be of assistance. Deputy." His head was pulled back contemptuously, the stick of braided beard pointing at Tim like a gun barrel. "In the meantime I'd recommend you watch yourself. These are some deep, dark rabbit holes you're scurrying down. Keep up the pace, some of the boys might be inclined to start shooting back."