Broken glass cracked beneath the deputy’s collar.
Rafferty grabbed a pitcher of margaritas and with a roundhouse swing smacked Lester in the head. The glass cracked apart, and Lester ricocheted away from the bleeding deputy. Rafferty went after Lester with the broken pitcher, Lester backed off, threw a chair in Rafferty's path, then took off through the hole in the window.
Rafferty followed Lester through the broken window. Rafferty saw Lester leaping onto a parked car. Lester kept moving, across the parked car, then he jumped onto the roof of a station wagon coming down the street. Then he was across the street and running away.
Rafferty was left standing on the sidewalk.
Lester Rahler ran like a deer through the streets and the night. His head was back, his nostrils flaring, the adrenaline coursing through him. After moments, he slowed, then stopped. His chest heaved from the effort. Aching, in pain, he leaned up against a telephone pole to catch his wind. Most of his clothes were splattered with blood and booze.
Lester's eyes were crazed. After a moment, he started laughing hysterically, from the sheer joy that came when trouble explodes around him, but then his laughter died off. Then, grimly determined, he looked back at where he came.
Rafferty brought the ambulance up by the front door of Suszie’s Sugar Shack, got out and opened the rear hatch, just as Nora, Ginny and Cheryl Park were helped outside with a folding-chair-used-as-a-stretcher carrying Eddie.
Eddie Ka’aina was dying. As the women used cocktail napkins as makeshift bandages, his neck wounds looked sliced, blood was pulsing out in waves, and his eyes were lolling around like loose marbles.
Ginny was worried. She said to Rafferty, "He's lost a lot of blood."
Rafferty helped them get the stretcher inside and said, "If there's anything I can do—"
Nora was impatient. "Are you a doctor?" Then she eased up. "I'm a nurse, and Ginny's a paramedic." She told Ginny, "Ginny, you get in first."
Ginny told Rafferty, "You're driving." As she climbed into the back of the ambulance, she added, "County General. Just follow this highway downhill. As fast as you can."
"If you need blood for transfusions," Rafferty told Nora, "I'm a universal donor."
Nora was not impressed. She helped Cheryl Park inside. "Great!" Then she climbed in after the other woman. "But let's go, let's go!"
As Nora slammed the hatch, Rafferty ran and jumped in behind the driver's seat. He slammed it into gear.
The white ambulance drove fast down the highway, its lights flashing, its siren wailing. The ambulance screeched around one tight corner after another.
Inside Rafferty was the model of concentration as the road sped by. He drove like a man possessed.
The highway went down in sweeping curves. The ambulance handled switchbacks and S-curves and hairpin curves on its way down from the mountains.
Rafferty found the driving was a blur.
He heard Ginny call his name.
He stepped on the gas.
The rain started, a ferocity of raindrops much like hailstones.
Rafferty flicked on the wipers. The sleeting rain befuddled the wipers and Rafferty lost all visibility in the blurry windshield.
Ginny said, "Terry!"
Rafferty arched his back and stood on the gas pedal. Rain drizzled outside the ambulance.
The highway glistened with rain and flooding ditches. The ambulance almost struck a deer on the road.
Momentarily startled, Rafferty knuckled down over the steering wheel and glared out at the road unfolding ahead.
Ginny said, "Please!"
The highway leveled off into the valley. The ambulance flashed past a sheriff's patrol car that had left the road, having heard the ambulance coming. Then the ambulance ran a red light inside the city limits. Then the neon lights of the hospital EMERGENCY appeared.
The ambulance pulled in and alongside the emergency entrance.
Rafferty parked, then ran back and opened up the hatch. Nora jumped out, followed by Ginny. They hauled out the makeshift stretcher carrying Eddie Ka’aina.
Nora said, "Rafferty, are you still offering to give blood?"
That evening Tomo Oteas arrived back at his grandfather's farmhouse, meeting Henry on the side porch. Tomo stood there, smiling slyly, but not saying a word.
"Did you make a deal?" Henry asked.
Tomo grinned. "Yeah, grandpa! We get almost three grand a dried pound!"
Henry had his breath taken away in awe. The two started laughing, jabbing each other in the ribs.
Tomo said, "How 'bout a little Gatorade and bourbon maybe?"
They laughed together and started pouring drinks.
Sheriff Charles Hartman arrived at the emergency room in time to see one of his deputies interviewing Rafferty, who was donating blood and lying on a gurney. The Sheriff took over.
Hartman said, "I understand you broke up the fight, Mister ... ?"
Rafferty said, "Terry Rafferty, a friend of Ginny Hong's."
Hartman stared at the blood bag by Rafferty's arm. "Do you know who attacked my deputy?"
"Ginny said his name was Lester," Rafferty said. "I don't remember if she said his last name."
"You're positive she called him Lester?"
The deputy said, "Her description matches ours."
Hartman told Rafferty, "Any idea where he is now?"
The deputy spoke. "I think Lester and his father work for Tomo Oteas."
Hartman told the deputy, "Call Dispatch, have her call all the men on tomorrow's Strike Force, tell them to be at the Ilima substation within thirty minutes in full gear." He faced Rafferty. "Thank you for what you've done."
Then he turned and left the waiting room.