They’d taken Weecho’s mother into the operating room earlier than expected. By the time he got off the train at White Plains and walked to the hospital, she’d already been in surgery three hours. 

Tilda was in the waiting room. 

Weecho came in looking puzzled. “How come they speeded it up?” 

“I don’t know, but something changed.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like all of a sudden she’s everybody’s pet patient. Like some heavy here said move her to the top of the list. They can’t do enough for her or move fast enough.” 

Nobody except for Juna even knew she was here. 

Before Weecho could think too much about it, the doctor that he and Tilda had talked to before about the X-rays came into the room, rubbing his eyes, damp patches under the arms of his scrubs. 

Weecho could feel himself tense up, taking a breath and holding it in when the doctor came over. 

“She’s made it in pretty good shape so far.” 

Weecho letting out the breath, not too loud. 

“We removed the troublemaker,” the doctor said.”The next day or so should tell us what kind of recovery to expect.” 

“When can I see her?” Weecho said. 

The doctor shook his head. “First we have to get her hooked up in ICU.” He looked over his shoulder toward the hallway where two orderlies were wheeling a gurney, a white sheet pulled up to the chin of the figure they steered down the hall. 

The doctor turned back to Weecho, could see the stress was taking its toll. “Why don’t you ask one of the nurses if there’s someplace you can rest. Or go downstairs and get something to eat. We’ll find you when it looks like it’s okay to go in.” 

                                                #          #          # 

It was an hour later when a nurse found Weecho wandering the halls and showed him into the intensive care unit (Tilda had already parked herself outside it). The nurse was all niceness, Tilda was right. She led Weecho down a row of beds to the one where his mother was hooked up to the intravenous drips and blinking screens that were part of her life now. Weecho could hardly recognize her for all the bandaging around her head. 

“We can only let you stay for a minute,” the nurse said. 

“Can she hear me if I talk?” 

“Probably not. She’s still coming out of the anesthetic.” 

Weecho nodded. But he knew better. 

The nurse went to check on another patient and Weecho moved closer to the bed. 

“Hey, Ma, it’s me,” he whispered. “It looks like the operation worked.”  

She lay there as still as a corpse. Weecho looked at the thin blanket across her chest for some sign she was breathing. 

“The doctor said everybody talked about how they’d never seen such a thick skull.” 

Thought he saw a little rise in the blanket. 

“He says you came through great. I told him that was your style, I never thought it’d be any different.”  

Yeah, right. 

“Tilda’s here, says if you need anything just ask. The fatteninger the better.” 

He went on like that, talking nonsense, just trying to let her know he was here. He took her hand and bent down and kissed it. Kept holding it, rubbing it gently. 

Then the minute was up. 

The nurse started to come over but Weecho nodded that he knew it was time. Went to put his mother’s hand down… and she wouldn’t let go. Had him in one of her grips, like when he was little and she was trying to make a point, usually about something he’d screwed up on. Her eyes were closed but she was letting him know not to screw up now.   

It wasn’t even one day before he had the chance. 

                                                #          #          # 

Juna had left him a text to meet her in Broad Channel. 

“This was her weekend place,” she said now.   

It had just turned dark. They were staring out at the silhouette of a bungalow on stilts, the old place tilted down at one end like the pilings there had settled. It stood by itself over the smooth black water, quiet, no one seeming to be inside.    

“Mainly she stayed in the city,” Juna said. 

Out past the bungalow was Jamaica Bay, and past that the lights of the city.   

“Or was traveling on shoots.” 

“Why did Burke ask you to do it?” Weecho said. 

“Because I was already out here. If any locals or cops saw me, at least I had reason to be in the neighborhood, working at the pet place.” She shrugged. “I could say I was looking to moonlight, looking for like maintenance work.” 

It had the advantage of truth, he thought. She was back to looking like the original Juna – hoodie, beat-up jeans, no makeup… 

The bungalow had been Nina Galleon’s. Commissioner Burke wanted it checked out quick and quiet. If there was anything going on there, or if anything was left there that could be a comeback, Burke wanted to know or have it destroyed. And he wanted it done with nobody official involved. 

 “I didn’t know you and the Commissioner kept in touch,” Weecho said.   

“He’s not that bad once you know him.” 

Know him?Deputy Police Commissioner of New York? And then it fell into place, Weecho realizing what the blowback for someone like that could be. If one of Burke’s off-the-books operatives, Nina, had gotten herself hooked on smack, and that operative, a star cover girl, a murdered cover girl who the media would resurrect big time, had turned informant for her supplier, and the supplier was a weapons and terrorist smuggler, this whole thing would detonate in Burke’s face. He was leaning on Juna because Juna was all he had to work with. 

She and Weecho out here now checking their backs, checking the shoreline on both sides to make sure nobody was watching. Saw they were clear, started across the rickety plank walkway out to the bungalow. 

“How is your mother?” Juna said on the way. 

“Too early to tell, but thanks for asking.” 

“Of course I’d be asking.” 

At the door, Weecho tried the handle. Locked, like he’d expected.  

“There’s a deck in back.” He’d seen it from shore. “We can try from there.” 

“How do we get to it?” 

The walkway stopped where they were standing, didn’t go around the bungalow, the place surrounded by water. The deck back there was meant to be accessed from inside only. Weecho looked up. 

“Wait here,” he said. 

He checked again behind them for watchers, then swung himself up onto the walkway’s railing. Reached up to the gutter above the door and pulled himself up onto the roof. Kept low, duck-walked across to the other side, looked down at the deck that looked out over the water. 

Jesus! Some kind of gull or night bird swooped out of the dark and screamed at him. He lost his balance and almost went over into the drink. He ducked and covered his head with his arms, crouched and waited and listened.  

When he was sure whatever it was had flown off, he shuffled over to the edge of the roof and hung his legs over the side. Turned onto his stomach and grabbed hold of the gutter, eased himself off until he was hanging by his fingers. Lowered himself as far as he could, let go and landed in a heap on the deck. 

Got to his feet, was standing in front of a sliding glass door, knew it had to be locked. Dara, he was sure, could have jimmied it in two seconds. But he wasn’t Dara and Juna was waiting for him to let her in. He cupped his hands against the glass and tried to see inside. Everything dark in there except for a little light coming from what looked like a fish tank. Fish had to be hungry, no Nina to feed them. He stepped back, ran his eyes around the door frame. There was a little flange just under the lock. He gave it a tug. 

The door slid open, just like that. 

Well, take what favors you can get. He stepped inside, the glow from the fish tank just enough for him to see the layout, which he thought was pretty underwhelming for a supermodel – cramped living room furnished with what looked like Salvation Army, dining area next to a galley kitchen that was hardly any better than what he had at the loft, a short hallway leading to what looked like a junior size bedroom. 

He stepped around the beat-up sofa to get to the fish tank, surprised to see none of them were belly-up. Picked up a container of fish food and sprinkled it on the water. 

“Last supper, guys.” 

While the fish went at it, he went to let Juna in. 

 Her standing here now looking the place over. “For a supermodel it’s pretty underwhelming.” 

See that? It wasn’t the first time she’d said out loud something he’d just been thinking. He watched her step over to an old cupboard and yank open a drawer. 

“So what’d Burke say we’re looking for?” 

“Whatever shouldn’t be here,” she said. 

“Which is what?” 

“She was on smack. We find any, dump it. Cell phone, laptop, iPad… anything that’ll lead back to bite Burke in the ass.” 

“You think Lynch hasn’t been here and taken anything like that himself?”   

“Maybe he didn’t get everything,” she said. 

And so they started. Juna handed Weecho one of the penlights she’d brought and they spent the next hour going through every drawer and closet and cabinet in the place.  Checked under the rugs in each room for loose boards and hollow spaces. Nothing. 

“What about outside?” Juna said. 

They stepped out through the sliding glass door and onto the deck. Looked around with their penlights turned off so they wouldn’t be spotted. 

On one side of the deck they found an open hatch with a ramp leading down to a floating dock. Climbed down there to check it out, found a Jet Ski tied up to it that Weecho could picture Nina Galleon ripping around Jamaica Bay on, maybe taking out on the ocean.  

“I wonder,” he said, “if she ever used it to bring in her own stuff.” Right away felt like a turd for saying it. 

But Juna was distracted. “There’s a boat coming.” 

Weecho whipped around and looked up the channel, could see running lights and the outline of a Donzi pointed their way. 

“Let’s go,” he said.