Nora Roberts - Inner Harbor

P HILLIP QUINN DIED at the age of thirteen. Since the overworked and underpaid staff at the Baltimore City Hospital emergency room zapped him back in less than ninety seconds, he wasnt dead very long.

As far as he was concerned, it was plenty long enough.

What had killed him, briefly, were two .25-caliber bullets pumped out of a Saturday night special shoved through the open window of a stolen Toyota Celica. The finger on the trigger had belonged to a close personal friendor as near to a close personal friend as a thirteen-year-old thief could claim on Baltimores bad streets.

The bullets missed his heart. Not by much, but in later years Phillip considered it just far enough.

That heart, young and strong, though sadly jaded, continued to beat as he lay there, pouring blood over the used condoms and crack vials in the stinking gutter on the corner of Fayette and Paca.

The pain was obscene, like sharp, burning icicles stabbing into his chest. But that grinning pain refused to take him under, into the release of unconsciousness. He lay awake and aware, hearing the screams of other victims or bystanders, the squeal of brakes, the revving of engines, and his own ragged and rapid breaths.

Hed just fenced a small haul of electronics that hed stolen from a third-story walk-up less than four blocks away. He had two hundred fifty dollars in his pocket and had swaggered down to score a dime bag to help him get through the night. Since hed just been sprung from ninety days in juvie for another B and E that hadnt gone quite so smoothly, hed been out of the loop. And out of cash.

Now it appeared he was out of luck.

Later, he would remember thinking, Shit, oh, shit, this hurts! But he couldnt seem to wrap his mind around another thought. Hed gotten in the way. He knew that. The bullets hadnt been meant for him in particular. Hed caught a glimpse of the gang colors in that frozen three seconds before the gun had fired. His own colors, when he bothered to associate himself with one of the gangs that roamed the streets and alleys of the city.

If he hadnt just popped out of the system, he wouldnt have been on that corner at that moment. He would have been told to stay clear, and he wouldnt now be sprawled out, pumping blood and staring into the dirty mouth of the gutter.

Lights flashedblue, red, white. The scream of sirens pierced through human screams. Cops. Even through the slick haze of pain his instinct was to run. In his mind he sprang up, young, agile, street-smart, and melted into the shadows. But even the effort of the thought had cold sweat sliding down his face.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and fingers probed until they reached the thready pulse in his throat.

This ones breathing. Get the paramedics over here.

Someone turned him over. The pain was unspeakable, but he couldnt release the scream that ripped through his head. He saw faces swimming over him, the hard eyes of a cop, the grim ones of the medical technician. Red, blue, and white lights burned his eyes. Someone wept in high, keening sobs.

Hang in there, kid.

Why? He wanted to ask why. It hurt to be there. He was never going to escape as hed once promised himself he would. What was left of his life was running red into the gutter. What had come before was only ugliness. What was now was only pain.

What was the damn point?

H E WENT AWAY for a while, sinking down below the pain, where the world was a dark and dingy red. From somewhere outside his world came the shriek of the sirens, the pressure on his chest, the speeding motion of the ambulance.

Then lights again, bright white to sear his closed lids. And he was flying while voices shouted on all sides of him.

Bullet wounds, chest. BPs eighty over fifty and falling, pulse thready and rapid. In and out. Pupils are good.

Type and cross-match. We need pictures. On three. One, two, three.

His body seemed to jerk, up then down. He no longer cared. Even the dingy red was going gray. A tube was pushing its way down his throat and he didnt bother to try to cough it out. He barely felt it. Barely felt anything and thanked God for it.

BPs dropping. Were losing him.

Ive been lost a long time, he thought.

With vague interest he watched them, half a dozen green-suited people in a small room where a tall blond boy lay on a table. Blood was everywhere. His blood, he realized. He was on that table with his chest torn open. He looked down at himself with detached sympathy. No more pain now, and the quiet sense of relief nearly made him smile.

He floated higher, until the scene below took on a pearly sheen and the sounds were nothing but echoes.

Then the pain tore through him, an abrupt shock that made the body on the table jerk, that sucked him back. His struggle to pull away was brief and fruitless. He was inside again, feeling again, lost again.

The next thing he knew, he was riding in a drug-hazed blur. Someone was snoring. The room was dark and the bed narrow and hard. A backwash of light filtered through a pane of glass that was spotted with fingerprints. Machines beeped and sucked monotonously. Wanting only to escape the sounds, he rolled back under.

He was in and out for two days. He was very lucky. Thats what they told him. There was a pretty nurse with tired eyes and a doctor with graying hair and thin lips. He wasnt ready to believe them, not when he was too weak to lift his head, not when the hideous pain swarmed back into him every two hours like clockwork.

When the two cops came in he was awake, and the pain was smothered under a few layers of morphine. He made them out to be cops at a glance. His instincts werent so dulled that he didnt recognize the walk, the shoes, the eyes. He didnt need the identification they flashed at him.

Gotta smoke? Phillip asked it of everyone who passed through. He had a low-grade desperation for nicotine even though he doubted he could manage to suck on a cigarette.

Youre too young to smoke. The first cop pasted on an avuncular smile and stationed himself on one side of the bed. The Good Cop, Phillip thought wearily.

Im getting older every minute.

Youre lucky to be alive. The second cop kept his face hard as he pulled out a notebook.

And the Bad Cop, Phillip decided. He was nearly amused.

Thats what they keep telling me. So, what the hell happened?