Shakespeares Champion Page 0,57

heels. The shoulder wound was the only injury Jack had. It had stopped bleeding. It looked awful. I didn't have any experience treating bullet wounds, but it seemed that the bullet had plowed through the top of Jack's shoulder; and since the bleeding had stopped, I knew it hadn't severed a major blood line.

So infection had to be the biggest danger. I'd have to clean the wound. Unless...

"Is there any chance of me taking you to the hospital?" I asked.

He shot me a look that said the question had been as futile as I'd feared. "I'll get back to my place," Jack said. He began trying to push himself up from the floor with his uninjured arm.

"Oh, sure." I was scared of treating the wound, so my voice came out harsh.

"Obviously, this is too much of a risk for you," he said, in an I'm-trying-to-be-patient voice.

Quelling my impulse to haul him to his feet, twist his good arm behind his back, and propel him into the nearest wall, I inhaled a calming breath. I let it out evenly, with control.

"You don't get to tell me what risks I'm prepared to assume," I said.

"I can go back to Little Rock, but you live here."

"I appreciate your pointing that out to me. Give me your hand." I was going through my own set of shakes. Stepping outside in my nightgown had chilled me to the bone in all kinds of ways.

Jack reached out with his good hand, and I planted my feet, gripped the hand firmly, and pulled up. His face twisted as he rose to his feet. Standing, he was taller than me, his physical presence dominating. I decided I preferred him on the floor. No. I felt more comfortable with him on the floor.

"You're freezing!" he said, and stretched out his good arm as if he would gather me to him. My white bathrobe fell off him and crumpled in a dirty heap. The remains of his shirt hung in rags around his shoulders.

"We're going into the bathroom to work on your wound," I told him, trying to sound confident. "Can you walk?"

He could, and was sitting on the toilet seat in a few seconds. I got out all my first-aid equipment. I had some sterile water, and some bandages containing powdered antibiotic, and a tube of antibiotic ointment. I had a lot of gauze and some tape. The Lily Bard MASH unit for wounded detectives.

The sterile water was even in a squirt bottle.

I worked the rest of the shirt off Jack, tried not to be distracted by his resulting bareness, and draped him with my oldest towels. I swept his half-dry hair over onto his sound shoulder. I assumed nurses and doctors learned how to detach themselves from touching people so intimately; I had not. This felt very personal to me.

"I'm going to clean the wound," I said.

"Yeah."

I lifted the plastic squeeze bottle. "So, did you recognize the men after you?" I asked. I squirted sterile water onto the bloody furrow. Jack turned whiter, and dark stubble stood out sharply on his lean cheeks. "Answer me, Jack Leeds," I said sharply.

"Not all of them." His voice more of a gasp.

"Of course there was Darcy." I squirted again, this time from the back. I thought of tiny fragments of shirt, or microscopic bits of the vest, that might be embedded in this tear in Jack's flesh. I felt dreadfully responsible.

"Uh-huh." His eyes closed. I kept going with the lavage.

"Who was another one, Jack?"

"The kid, the one with the pimples, works on the loading dock at the lumber and home supply place."

I patted the area dry with the cleanest whitest washcloth I had. I examined it. It looked clean, but how did I know? I wasn't used to cleaning on a microscopic scale. I squirted.

"And the guy with the big belly, the one who looks like a good heart-attack risk, I've seen him."

"That was Cleve Ragland, works down at the mattress factory," I murmured. "Cleve's been arrested for drunken driving at least twice, got a kid in jail for attempted rape."

Squirt, wipe.

"The other guy," Jack gasped, "isn't he a cop?"

"Uh-huh, Tom David Meicklejohn - in plain clothes. He kept to the back like it was possible for me to mistake him," I said, hoping the plowed track of the wound was clean enough. At least Jack's eyes were open again, though he wasn't looking at my face.

"And then there was Jim, works in the gun department, works out with Darcy. Another