Man Who Risked His Partner

1 Six months after that bomb took Ginny's left hand off, she still hadn't gotten over it. I didn't need a degree in psychology or a message from God to figure out what was going on. I lived with herI could see it. And I was living with her for all the wrong reasons. Not because she liked having me around. Not because she thought I was a particularly nice person to share a bed with. And certainly not because I was so all-fired tidy that I made the mess in her apartment stand up and salute. No, I was living with her because she couldn't live by herself anymore. She only had one hand. She needed somebody to take care of her. If I'd said that to people who knew her, they would've laughed out loud. Sure, Axbrewder. She needs you. Tell us another one. She was Ginny Fistoulari, the boss and brains of Fistoulari Investigations. With her keen gray eyes and her attractive face and blond hair and the way her tall lean body moved in her clothes, she could've been a society doll, the wife of some big snort who owned a country club or two, or maybe just half the first-born children in Puerta del Sol. But her nose had been broken once when some clown had clipped her with a crowbarto which she'd replied by shooting the sucker in the face. And she'd lost her hand by holding a bomb out the window of a hospital so that it wouldn't blow up in the building or on the people below. When things got tough, she had a way of looking like her features were molded over iron instead of bone. As for meat six foot five and too heavy, I was big enough that most people wouldn't ordinarily laugh at the idea I was needed. But I was only temporarily sober. I was known to be totally fubar, "fucked up beyond all repair," even before that wonderful daythe highlight of my lifewhen in a fit of civic righteousness and alcohol I'd tried to apprehend a purse-snatcher and ended up shooting my brother instead. Like they say, anybody who can't aim a .45 better than that ought to have his brains recalled for production defects. And I was never going to get my license back. The commission watched Ginny like a hawk because she insisted on hiring me when I didn't have a license. Sure, Axbrewder. She needs you. Tell us another one. Well, in this particular case, "temporarily sober" had been going on for six months. Almost every night I dreamed about the special amber peace you can only find somewhere near the bottom of a bottle, and woke up grinding my teeth. Almost every day, when I wasn't braced for it, my throat ached for the lovely burn of whiskey. I still had withdrawal flashes that made me sweat and tremble and hold my head like a junkie. The simple smell of scotch was enough to turn my guts inside out. On bad days, when I got out of bed, I said to myself, Maybe today's the day. The day I get to take a drink. Just one. Or maybe two. Two drinks can't hurt me. I've earned two drinks. But I didn't do it. For a drunk like me, sobriety is like trying to push a brick wall down with your nose. Six months of it gets to be pretty painful. But I hadn't had a drink yesterday, or last week, or last month, and I wasn't going to have one today. Because Ginny really did need me. She wasn't actually helpless. In practice, she could've done just about anything she wanted. With her purse on a strap over her right shoulder, she could get what she needed out of it almost as fast as usual. And the doctors had fitted her with a prosthetic device"the claw," she called itthat looked pretty handy to me. Sure, it was made of stainless steel, which isn't exaDonaldson, Stephen R. is the author of 'Man Who Risked His Partner', published 2003 under ISBN 9780765302045 and ISBN 0765302047.