Chapter 19: Acting Boss

St. Anne's smelled the way it had the last time I was carried into it.

Stefano had driven the whole way with his foot to the floor and Dario's head in my lap.

Now they had taken Dario through two swinging doors, and I sat in the corridor with his blood drying on my coat.

The doctor came out after an hour.

She was the same woman who had signed my death certificate, and she looked at the stains on my sleeve before she looked at my face.

"The bullet went through the shoulder," she said. "It missed the bone and the artery. He'll keep the arm."

"Will he wake?"

"Tonight. He'll be angry about the sling."

I laughed, and the laugh turned into something else, and I put my hand over my mouth.

Stefano was sitting on the floor against the opposite wall with the rifle gone and his shirt streaked red.

He did not come over.

He held out a paper cup of coffee at arm's length, and I took it.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't."

"I said thank you."

"You said it to a man who held a rifle on a bridge for ten minutes and couldn't hit the one he wanted."

"You hit the one who counted."

He looked at the floor.

I pulled the left glove off with my teeth and turned it inside out.

The recorder lay in the lining, no bigger than my thumbnail.

"Four hours," I said. "She said all of it."

I handed him the phone from his own pocket and pressed play.

Camille's voice came out thin and delighted.

*The tea was only tea. I wanted you hollow.*

Stefano's hand went to his mouth.

*When you went into the shed, I stood at my window and watched. I thought, what a thing to see.*

He listened to the whole of it with his eyes shut and his back against the wall.

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