pristine white carpet - not a grease mark or spill or streak of dirt anywhere. I put my present for Ozzie down momentarily, pulled off my boots, and left them next to Ozzie's.
Walking across the living-room carpet was like walking across marshmallow. There was a cream-colored couch and matching love seat placed at a V in front of the fireplace, a neat stack of Handloader and Police Ammo magazines on the glass coffee table next to a vase of fresh-cut bluebonnets. On the mantel were years of photos from Ozzie's ex-wife and two kids in California. The ex-wife, Ozzie'd once told me, was very dependable about sending photos every Christmas, but each one had her in it, too, along with the kids. Every year, Ozzie carefully cut her out with an X-Acto knife and inserted a picture of himself instead. The photos were odd to look at - Ozzie floating between his kids, slightly off in color and size and resolution, overlapping their Christmas Day like some alien beaming in from Star Trek.
The dining room was dominated by a state-of-the-art, polished oak-and-glass gun locker filled with every manner of hunting rifle and handgun. Around it were more gold-framed pictures - Ozzie with my father at our family ranch in Sabinal, standing on either side of a dead buck; a much younger, slimmer Ozzie receiving his detective's shield from my dad; Ozzie with his latest girlfriend Audrey, the large redheaded manicurist who Ozzie swore "had a shot at Miss Texas once."
I walked back to the bedroom.
Gerson was propped up in bed amid enough down comforters and pillows to break a free fall. There were two prescription bottles, a TV remote control, and a can of Sprite on the bedstand. The drapes were open and sunlight flooded in, making the daytime soap opera on TV almost impossible to see.
Ozzie looked pretty good for a man who'd recently come out of the ICU. His color was back. His upper body was bare - Buddha-belly and flabby tits and massive arms swirling in coarse black hair, an old Marines tattoo on his right biceps. His left shoulder was heavily padded and taped, but there was no hint of bleeding. Ozzie's face was its usual brutish slab of pink - a bull's visage, shaved and smiling.
"You ever watch these shows?" he demanded. "Audrey likes them. She tells me they're good - I don't know."
On the screen, a doctor was talking to a woman in a low-cut evening dress. I placed Ozzie's present on the bedstand. "Hope you're feeling better."
His smile widened. He turned the little bonsai plant around. "What's this?"
"A tree. You said you wanted a place with trees."
He laughed. "Nicest fucking gift I've gotten so far. Not counting what Audrey gave me last night. Thanks, Navarre."
"One can't outdo Audrey."
"One sure as shit can't. Pull up a chair."
Ozzie filled me in on his condition - how he'd survived an infiltrated IV and bad hospital food, survived his first phone call from his kids in three years. How he planned on going back to light duty tomorrow over the doctors' objections. Ozzie said he'd be damned if he'd lose field hours toward his next salary review over a scumbag like Zeta Sanchez.
I was almost convinced Ozzie was really doing fine until he tried to sit up and the blood drained from his face.
"Can I help?"
"Nah. Nah." He took a few careful, slow breaths. "How about that medicine bottle though? The bigger one. Yeah. Thanks."
He downed a couple of painkillers with some Sprite, then stared at the TV. After a minute the glassiness cleared from his eyes again. "So. You screwing up the Brandon case yet?"
"Who, me?"
Ozzie gave me a crooked grin. "Your daddy would kill you. Let's hear what you've got."
I filled him in on the last two days. As he listened, Ozzie's smile faded into a hard line. His eyes drifted back to the television. "You tell Kelsey about Del Brandon and Hector Mara?"
"I told him to tell DeLeon. Kelsey didn't seem to think they could do much to establish the connection."
"He may be right."
Two feminine hygiene commercials played through.
"You worked with Kelsey before - "
"Before I got demoted," Ozzie supplied. "Yeah. Kelsey used to be on city vice. I was county gang task force. We crossed paths."
His voice was less than enthusiastic.
"You trust Kelsey?"
Ozzie worked his mouth like he was tasting the question. "This guy you saw with Hector Mara,