T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

"It took a while, but yeah."

"Then what happened?"

"She dumped me."

"Because of the family feud?"

"Just because I was me."

"You don't want a fisherman in drag anyway."

"I married a woman named Stephanie and I have a son, John Gabriel. He's seven."

"Then you're a lucky man."

"He's really something."

A pause then, while McMichael wondered what Johnny would make of Sally Rainwater. It was a year since the separation, only six months since the divorce. McMichael had never tried such a thing. Maybe there was a book about how to do it.

"I know you're not a walk-in clinic," he said. "But invite me over. Right now."

"No. I'm free tomorrow night."

McMichael decided quickly between Sally Rainwater and his son.

"Can't do that," he said. "How about lunch? It would be Johnny and me."

"There's a good place down here called Mario's, right on Seacoast. Great pizza. Noon okay?"

Johnny sat sullenly until the pizza arrived. Then he ate with the manners of a pig and pushed a drink into Sally Rainwater's lap.

McMichael guided Johnny out of the booth by his ear, then to the counter to get some towels to wipe up.

"Apologize, son," he said on the way back. "You don't do that."

"Sorry," Johnny mumbled at Sally.

By then she was standing, her back to the booth, wiping herself down with a towel supplied by a busboy. The busboy now hovered nearby, uncertain how to help.

"Don't worry," she said. "Jeans won't hurt that soda."

Johnny walked past her and threw himself into the far side of the booth.

Angry, but feeling as if he'd somehow betrayed his son by his interest in this woman, McMichael got another towel from the counter girl.

When he came back Sally was still dabbing at her pants and his son was gone and the busboy was looking out the window, where McMichael saw an enormous black utility vehicle hunch into a shrieking skid and plow toward Johnny.

McMichael slammed through the door and into a white billow of tire smoke. Another scream of tires to his left and he broke through to see Johnny frozen in the far lane- arms out and eyes wide- as a pickup truck braked and tried to swerve away. The boy looked at his father questioningly. The back end of the truck came around in a cloud of smoke as McMichael hurtled in front of it, tackled Johnny and landed hard. He rolled once and came to rest on his back, clamping his son against him, looking up at a grille and a headlight.

He carried his son to the sidewalk, holding him tight. Johnny was crying now and McMichael felt the tears and the ferocious strength of Johnny's skinny little seven-year-old arms around his neck.

"Are you okay, Johnny? Are you okay?"

Then the pickup driver: You all right? Should I call nine-one-one? I never saw him! Didn't see him 'til he jumped out!

"Don't put me down, Dad."

McMichael was swaying with him the way he did when Johnny was a baby. His heart pounded hard and fast and his eyes burned. "Are you sure you're okay? Let me look at you."

That was crazy, kid. Absolutely crazy.

Johnny held on to him even harder. "I'm okay, Dad, just don't put me down."

Johnny allowed himself to be taken to Sally Rainwater's house. He had an abrasion on his cheek, but that was it. McMichael tended to him in the small bathroom, with Johnny sitting on the counter while his father dabbed the cheek with a warm washcloth. In the mirror McMichael could see his own bloodied and gravel-pitted elbows, the shredded knuckles of his left hand, the round red asphalt burn high on his forehead.

"You got it worse than me, Dad."

"Hardly even feel it. That was the wrong thing to do, Johnny. We're going to talk about it later."

"Let's go to your place."

McMichael made Johnny sit right there on the counter while Sally dressed his wounds. The boy seemed interested in her techniques and tools- the long tweezers to get out the gravel and debris, the foaming antiseptic, the round-ended tape scissors, the quick economy with which she wrapped each knuckle in gauze and tape.

"Are you a doctor, or what?" he asked.

"I will be, someday. One more year of college, then three of med school."

"Oh."

A while later she walked them to the car. McMichael held the door open for Johnny and shut it behind him. Then he turned to Sally Rainwater. "That was really enjoyable. Thanks."

"You don't have to be sarcastic."

He looked at her and could tell she meant it. He sighed and felt the adrenaline butterflies settling, felt tiredness and disappointment coming on. "Maybe some other time."

"That's up to you. Call me."

He offered his bandaged hand and she shook it carefully. In the hard winter sunlight she looked different. The squint lines at the edges of her eyes were new to him and the way she stood with her shoulders back and her head high revealed new facets of what McMichael believed were grace and character.

She struck him as utterly alien, cut from some template he had never seen before, could not recognize or easily understand. He had never seen a woman this way, certainly not Steffy, who had seemed familiar and comprehensible from the first moment they met.

He could see the Phoenix taking off just behind the collar of Sally Rainwater's blouse.

He and Johnny walked Balboa Park, saw the latest IMAX movie, stopped by one of the fountains. Johnny left his father to circle the water, toss in a few coins. McMichael watched him every second. Johnny had never run before, never done anything like what he'd done today. Perilous. So the boy was angry at him, that was understandable. Felt threatened by the new woman. That was understandable, too. But you run into traffic and you have to figure on getting hurt. He's seven, McMichael thought. He should know better. God, he's only seven. Please help me look after this perfect boy.

He called Steffy on his cell phone and told her what had happened. She said, "Oh my God," then went silent as McMichael explained how Johnny had run off into the street.

After a long silence she spoke. "You couldn't stop him?"

"I couldn't imagine it, Steff. I wasn't even looking at him when he took off."

"You should have seen it coming."

"I didn't."

"You should have introduced him to your new friend in some better way."

"If you can think of a better way than over pizza on a Saturday, tell me about it."

He hung up on her. Of all the people he'd ever known she was the best at making him furious.

McMichael and his son walked to the car side by side, but not close. Johnny let his eyes and attention wander everywhere but to his father. McMichael looked at the people around them and saw again what he'd never noticed until the divorce- all the other fathers and children without mothers. Hundreds of them, right here in this one park. Like a convention, he thought. Like us, trying to squeeze real lives out of weekend visitations, maybe alternate Wednesdays and half of Christmas day. What a lousy fucking deal for everybody.

You get what you get.

McMichael thought of a favorite biblical passage, one that summed up the bitter inequities of life on Earth as he knew it: For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away . Quite a showstopper, he thought. It wasn't one of those passages that Father Shea spent much time on. McMichael thought of Franklin. He thought of Steffy and the oral surgeon and their mountain of booty, topped by the ultimate jewel- his son.

"Are you in love with her?"

"I don't know her very well."

"She looks younger than you."

"She is, by ten years."

"That's a lot."