Terminal

FIFTEEN

That’s not funny, Roy. You better take that shit back right now.”

“John is dead, Tommy,” he repeated.

“Why you want to say some shit like that, man? Why you gotta fuck with me?”

I could hear the desperate tone in my voice, and I hated myself for it. I willed it to go away, but it increased instead as he tried again.

“He’s not breathing, Tommy. He hasn’t been for a while. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Your friend is gone. He’s dead. Look at him, son.”

“Shut the hell up, you old fart. Just shut the fuck up right now!”

“Tommy…”

“He’s not dead. You don’t know shit, man. You don’t fucking know, okay?”

“Look at him, Tommy!”

“No! Now knock it off.”

“Look at him.”

“I SAID NO!”

Without thinking about it, I swung the pistol out from me at arm’s length and pointed it at him. Gasping, they all scurried backward, trying to push themselves into the wall, trying to hide behind each other. Roy closed his eyes in fearful resignation. Kim whimpered. Sharon and Dugan cowered close together. Oscar let out a frightened squeal. Only Sheila held her ground. She bent her head and listened while Benjy whispered something in her ear. Then she looked up at me, her face serious.

“Tommy, Benjy says to check his pulse.”

“I don’t need to check his pulse. He’s alive.”

“He’s not breathing.” Roy tried again. “It’s over. How many more people have to die before you let us go, Tommy? Who’s going to be next? Me? Kim? The boy?”

“Don’t start with that shit! I told you to drop it!”

“His chest isn’t moving. What do you think that means, Tommy? That he’s sleeping? Of course not. He’s dead…”

Now Sheila interrupted Roy. “Shut up for a minute, Mr. Kirby. Tommy, please. Just do it.”

Before I could reply, a series of coughs rattled my chest. Bloody phlegm and spittle shot out of my mouth and onto John’s shirt, mixing with his own. It looked bright and fresh against his darker, dried stains.

“Tommy, check his pulse.”

I looked at the two of them, mother and son. They seemed so sure, so urgent.

“Please, Mr. Tommy,” Benjy pleaded. “He doesn’t have much longer until he goes to see Jesus. The light is coming. It’s just a little pinprick right now, but it’s getting bigger.”

Something in Benjy’s voice, an honesty that only a child could convey, forced me to calm down. If you have kids, then you know what I’m talking about. I looked into those big, innocent, brown eyes—eyes that should have been home watching cartoons instead of being held hostage in a bank vault, and my heart shattered.

John’s chest wasn’t moving beneath my hand. It probably hadn’t been for a while. I just hadn’t noticed.

“He’s my best friend,” I sobbed. “We grew up together, goddamn it. I’ve known him since we were little kids. It isn’t fair for him to end up like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I always watched his back, kept him out of trouble. And look what I did to him now…”

Using his feet, Benjy pushed away from Sheila and scooted across the floor toward me.

“He’s not dead yet, Mr. Tommy.”

Hunched over, I pressed my lips to John’s cold forehead—and froze. A soft puff of air, so slight that I almost missed it, escaped his lips. Quickly, I put my fingers to his throat.

“He’s breathing. Barely… but there’s no heartbeat. He’s still breathing but I can’t find a pulse.”

I felt a weak flutter beneath my fingertips, then nothing. I checked again for another breath, but all that came out of his gaping mouth was a small trickle of blood.

“Oh Christ! Come on, John—breathe.” I pounded on his chest in frustration. “Breathe man.”

“Mr. Tommy, I can help him, but we have to do it now. He’s almost to Jesus. He’s on his way, now. The light is getting brighter.”

He’s on his way now! Look out! Jesus H. Christ, here he comes! Coming at an alarming rate!

“Mr. Tommy!”

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“I can’t, Benjy. If Sherm comes back in here and finds your hands untied…”

“Then you’ve got to stall him,” Sheila insisted. “Benjy only needs a minute or two.”

“She’s right, Tommy,” Roy said. “We’ve all heard what the child can do. I’ve felt it myself, and I know that you saw it. You believe, whether you want to admit it or not. And even if you don’t, isn’t your friend’s life worth the chance?”

John’s face was completely drained of color. His skin looked like snow. Snow…

One winter, when we were about ten years old, school got canceled one day because of a snowstorm the night before. John and I spent the day with some other kids, sledding down the big hill on the outskirts of town, the same hill I’d gone to the afternoon I was diagnosed with cancer. At the bottom of the hill was a short grassy strip, littered with beer bottles and fast-food bags, and beyond that, the road leading from Hanover to Spring Grove. Not a major road, but busy just the same. Truckers used it as a shortcut between towns, rather than taking the highway. The storm had dumped about two inches of sleet on top of the snow, so the hill was one big mountain of solid ice. Kids were flying down it at breakneck speeds, turning their sleds at the last moment to avoid going out into the road. All except for John… He’d done it on a dare. A stupid dare. Richie Wagaman had called him a pussy—told him that he didn’t have the balls to ride his sled straight across the road and into the field on the other side without stopping to look for traffic. Rich bet him a House of Pain cassette (remember, we were kids and House of Pain was still the bomb back then). John looked down the hill, glanced up both sides of the road, saw that there was no traffic coming, and took the bet. I pulled him aside and tried talking him out of it, but unlike he usually did, John wouldn’t listen to me this time. Instead, he just stared at Richie and his friends, clustered together and calling him a pussy, laughing to each other and any girl within earshot about how chicken shit John was. The next thing I knew, John ran to the edge, threw the sled down, jumped onto it (landing on his belly), and rocketed down the hill like a runaway train. Kids were cheering and shouting—and then we all heard it at the same time, the loud blast of a truck horn. The Department of Transportation’s dump trucks had been out early, covering the roads with salt and cinders, but all that did was make them slicker. There was a hiss of air brakes as the trucker tried to stop, and then the back end of the trailer began to fishtail, taking up both sides of the road. I tried to scream but my breath caught in my throat as John shot across the grass and directly into the path of the jackknifed truck. Time seemed to slow down then, just as it had done on the morning of the robbery. The truck slid toward John, John flashed across the road, and the truck slid on by and crashed into a snowbank, sending brown snow and cinders and dirt flying high into the air. The cloud obscured everything, and there was dead silence from the kids on the top of the hill.

The cloud settled, and the trucker clambered out of his cab, unhurt but shaking an angry fist. There was still no sign of John…

And then we saw him, clambering off his sled and waving at us from the other side of the road. I’ll never forget how my panic dissolved, how grateful I was to see him at that instant. To see him alive—there in the snow.

Alive…

I knew what I had to do.

“Benjy, come here.”

He finished sliding over to me, his eyes alert and urgent.

“How can you—make him better? What do you need to do?”

“I need to touch him, Mr. Tommy. I have to put my hands where that other man shot him.”

The thought of Benjy’s little hands touching that bloody mess made my stomach turn. Not to mention the image of what Sherm would do if he came back and caught us.

“Couldn’t you touch him with your head or your foot or something? Maybe rest your forehead on his?”

“No, Mr. Tommy. It has to be with my hands. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it always works.”

I took a deep breath, glanced down at John, and focused on Benjy.

“Okay. I’m going to take the tape off your wrists. But Benjy, you’ve got to promise me that you won’t try to get away. If you do, I don’t know what Sherm might do. He could get very, very angry and we don’t want that to happen right now. You were right about him. He might be sick too. I don’t want him to hurt your mommy or any of these other people. So you can’t run away, okay?”

“Okay.” He nodded. “I promise, Mr. Tommy. I just want to help. I’m good at helping.”

“All right,” I agreed. “Hold still. This might hurt a little.”

I ripped the duct tape from his thin wrists as carefully but as quickly as possible. He gritted his teeth and I could tell that it hurt him, but he didn’t make a sound. Just like T.J. would have done. He rubbed his wrists and gave me a reassuring wink. It seemed absurd, this little boy trying to reassure the bank robber who was holding his mother and him captive. But I took comfort in it. Maybe that was part of his power—not just healing people, but also making them feel better in general. Then he knelt over John, placing his palms on the bloody wound.

“I’ll make it all better.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I believe you.”

And I did. I actually did. For the first time in my life, I believed in something other than my wife and my son. I’d demanded that God prove himself to me. I’d expected it immediately, but maybe this was more His style.

While Benjy got started, I crept to the vault doorway and listened. There was silence on the other side. I thought again of that strange, muffled thumping I’d heard earlier and wondered what it had been. It occurred to me that we hadn’t heard a peep from Keith or Lucas since Sherm had taken them away. Keith was right across the hall. Shouldn’t we have heard from him? And where was Sherm? I craned my head around the corner, trying to eavesdrop, but the only sound was the blood ringing in my ears. What the hell was going on?

As if in answer to my question, I heard the faint but unmistakable trickle of piss hitting toilet water, followed seconds later by a long fart. At least I now knew where Sherm had gone and what he was doing. But then it hit me. Sherm had also told me that he locked Lucas inside the bathroom and squirted glue in the lock. So was it Sherm or the delivery driver I heard now?

There was no way to be sure. Had Sherm lied, and if so, why?

I glanced back over my shoulder. Benjy’s eyes were closed and he rocked back and forth, still holding his hands over the bullet’s entry point. The others craned their heads forward, focusing on him, absolutely transfixed by what they were seeing.

I don’t know what we expected. Maybe we’d seen too many movies or read too many novels. There was no glow, no heat, and no blinding flash of white light. Trumpets didn’t sound and no heavenly chorus appeared before us. But one thing did happen. Immediately, John’s chest began to rise and fall. His breathing was harsh, ragged—but his lungs were working again and that was all that mattered.

I’d gotten the proof that I’d demanded. I believed.

And in that newfound belief, I was both exhilarated and terrified.

“Jesus…” Oscar breathed.

“This is—I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kim gasped.

Down the hall, a toilet flushed. Whoever was in the bathroom, Sherm or Lucas, was finishing his business. I reached down, scooped up the torn duct tape that had bound Benjy’s hands, wadded it into a ball, and stuffed it in my pocket.

“Sharon, there’s only the one bathroom in this place, right?”

She didn’t take her eyes off Benjy and John. “Umm, yeah. The one down the hall. It’s the fourth door past Keith’s office, next to the janitor’s closet. That’s all.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay, everybody listen to me carefully. Whatever happens, we can’t let Sherm find out about this. He’ll go ape shit if he sees that I freed Benjy. Even worse, I don’t know what he’d do if he figures out about Benjy’s—power. If he even believes in it, that is.”

“You think he’d try using the boy as a bargaining chip, don’t you?” Roy asked, still watching the miracle unfolding before our eyes.

“It’s a possibility. Shit, it’s more than a possibility. So I’m going to stall Sherm. I’ve let him bum rush this whole thing and it’s time I took it back. Keep an ear out for us and keep quiet for fuck’s sake. If I can’t keep him in one of the other rooms, I’ll start coughing really loud. If you hear that, it’s your signal to get back into your positions. Sheila, if that happens, you’re going to have to do your best to keep Benjy’s hands hidden. Everybody clear?”

They nodded in unison, all except for Benjy.

“Benjy, do you understand, buddy?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he pressed down harder. I caught a glimpse between his fingers and saw something that looked like flesh-colored cheesecloth. It appeared as if John’s skin was growing, knitting itself back together over the wound in weblike strands.

“He can’t hear you when he’s like this,” Sheila explained. “He goes into a trance or something. But I’ll make sure.”

“Okay.”

John’s breathing was audible by then, and more regulated.

I wanted to stay and watch, wanted it more than anything in the world, but I couldn’t. Instead, I took a deep breath, felt my lungs wheeze in response, and walked out into the hall. I felt helpless and powerless. The desk plaque from Charlie Strauser’s office back at the foundry flashed through my head.

“I have gone out to find myself,” I whispered. “If I should get here before I return, please hold me until I get back.”

Then, even softer, I added, “Peace out.”

The door to Keith’s office was closed. There was a slim window in the door and I could see that the lights inside the office were off. I knew that Sherm must have turned them off, rather than the cops cutting the power on us, because the lights in the vault and the lobby still worked. I turned and looked back. From this spot, even if Sherm were standing directly in front of the vault, John and Benjy would be hidden from view since they were in the corner. I paused, listening. In the bathroom, somebody was washing his hands. Outside, the police called out to one another and their radios crackled with garbled orders and updates. A big part of me wanted to turn left, walk out into the lobby with my hands up in the air, and keep going straight out the door, staring down the barrels of a hundred rifles. Maybe they’d shoot me, and maybe not. What did it matter? I was dead already. I’d seen Benjy’s power, and I knew that it worked. But even if Benjy cured me, without Michelle and T.J. in my life, I would be dead inside anyway. The bathroom door opened and Sherm walked out, still clutching the .357. He jumped when he saw me, and I caught a glimpse of something behind him, something lying on the floor in the shadowy bathroom. Before I could make out what it was, he raised the pistol and pointed it at me. I shouted in surprise, thrusting my hands out in front of me.

“Chill, Sherm! Fuck, man, it’s just me.”

“Jesus Christ, Tommy!” He lowered the gun nervously. “I almost shot you, man. What the fuck are you doing?”

“I wanted to see what was going on and talk over some shit.”

“I was taking a dump, yo. Don’t go in there for a while.”

“Thanks for the warning. I won’t.”

“Probably those refried beans I had last night—or the tequila.”

“Where’s Lucas?”

“Who?” He jumped again, trying to hide his surprise.

“The delivery guy. The driver. You said that you locked him in the bathroom, Sherm. So how’d you get back inside if you just took a shit?”

“Oh, him. The water dude. Yeah. When I needed to go, I just moved him into the janitor’s closet. He’s fine, dog. Chill. I didn’t hurt him or anything like that.”

I chose my words carefully.

“But you said that you’d squirted glue in the lock after you locked him inside. How did you get the door open again?”

“Must not have been as strong as I thought it was.”

“Oh.” He was lying, and I knew it. I just wasn’t sure why.

He glided toward me. His feet didn’t seem to touch the carpet. He stank. Armpits and stale, sour sweat, and cigarette smoke, along with a faint hint of cordite.

“So what’s up?” I asked.

“Just finished with the police negotiator again. Same asshole that was on the bullhorn—

Ramirez. Why is it that those fucks act so nice, like they’re your best buddy in the whole wide world and the only chance you have to survive is by listening to them? They pretend that they’re so concerned about your fucking well-being and meanwhile, all they want you to do is let the hostages go so they can storm the place and shoot your ass and make the five o’clock news. God, that shit pisses me off. That’s why I was hoping the Quick Response guys would have a negotiator too. Just once, I’d like to fucking deal with a negotiator that was just straight up with me.”

“What do you mean just once?”

He winked. “Nothing. I’m just playing. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, the cops will be busy for the next hour or so. Couldn’t get them to go for backing away from the truck, so instead, I gave them a list of demands like you wouldn’t believe. And they still think there are more of us in here than there really are. So while they’re fucking around with that, let’s have some fun with our guests.”

“We need to talk first,” I said, positioning myself in front of the vault door. “Without them listening.”

“Let’s go in here, then.” He pointed to Keith’s office. Then he raised his voice and hollered at the others. “Listen up! We’re gonna be next door for a second. If any of you fuckers try to run out while we’re talking, just remember that we’re right across the hall. You’ll be dead before you take three steps.”

“Yes, sir,” Roy called. “You’re the boss, after all.”

“That’s right, I am. And you better remember it, old man.”

“We won’t try anything,” Sharon assured him.

There was murmured consent from the rest of them as well.

“After you.” I tried to grin. It felt false.

“You all right, yo?”

“Yeah. Just the cancer eating at my fucking stomach. It hurts, like I drank acid or something. Every time I burp it burns the hell out of my throat.”

“That must suck.”

He opened the office door and flicked the light switch. Behind us, hidden from sight in the vault, John coughed.

“How is he?” Sherm asked, stepping into the office.

“Still out cold, pretty much. Dugan says that he might not wake up again.”

In the vault, I suddenly heard John mutter, “W-what’s happening? Where’s Tommy and Sherm?

Who are you?”

Sherm turned around. “You say something, Tommy?”

“Not me,” I shook my head. My heart was pounding. “It was probably Martha. She’s been rambling the whole time about God and shit. She’s a real religious nut.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

I followed him into the office and left the door halfway open behind us, just in case any of them really did try to run. The room was small and windowless. There was a coatrack, a potted and anorexic palm tree, and a few pictures of flowers on the wall. A big desk dominated one end of the office, and the leather chair behind it lay on the floor. I could see the silver wheels sticking out from behind the corner of the desk. Another chair sat in front of the desk. There was no sign of Keith, but there was a picture of him on the top of the desk, standing in front of the Washington Monument. His arm was around a smiling woman, and two smiling kids stood in front of them. The .38 Sherm took from Mac Davis rested on the desk beside the picture.

“So what’s up? What’d you need to talk about?”

“You tell me, Sherm. John’s not good at all, man. Any word on the ambulance yet?”

“Yeah, but it ain’t what you want to hear. They won’t send one. I asked them, but they wouldn’t do it. Fucking cops.”

“Did you tell them that John was one of us, or that he was a wounded hostage?”

“A hostage, dog. But they still wouldn’t budge.”

“Why?” I sputtered. I knew it didn’t matter, knew that John was getting better at that very moment. But I still had to distract Sherm and it was still aggravating. He shrugged, not answering.

“Come on, Sherm. What reason did they give you?”

He shrugged a second time, his eyes flickered, and I knew then that he was lying again. He hadn’t even mentioned it to the cops.

“Sherm—”

“What the fuck you doing, Tommy?”

I pushed past him, rounding the corner of the desk and reached for the phone. He grabbed my arm and tried to yank me back. The phone slipped from my hands and I shoved him, grappling for it.

And I found Keith.

Strips of duct tape covered his nose and mouth. His face was purple and his eyes bulged in their sockets, frozen in death. The tiny veins inside of them had ruptured, and the whites turned blood red. His feet had left black scuff marks on the wall and desk, where he’d kicked at them in what must have been his death throes. I remembered that muffled thumping sound, and I gaped at Sherm in horror.

“Little fucker tried to holler out to the cops while I had him on the phone,” he explained. “I put him on to verify what I was telling them and instead, he started talking smack. Almost told them there was only the three of us and that John was wounded. So I slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth, just to keep him quiet. But he still wouldn’t shut up. So I put one over his nose too. Figured I’d just teach him a lesson—let him suffocate for a minute or two, then take it off. Fucking asshole went and died on me before I could do that, though. Heh. You should have seen him, yo. Kicking and straining and shit. His head looked like it was gonna explode.”

“So you killed him?”

“It was the only way, Tommy. I couldn’t shoot the fucker. Like you said earlier, if the cops heard another gunshot, they’d have been on us like white on rice.”

“Motherfucker… this is some bad shit, Sherm.”

“Yo, it’s not my fault, Tommy. Neither of them were my fault.”

“Neither of them? What are you talking about? Who? Do you mean Lucas?”

“Yeah, Lucas, the delivery driver. Dude wanted to try and make a dash out the back door when we were checking on his truck. Tried to slip out of my grasp, even though I had the gun pointed at the back of his head. Couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t shoot him either.”

“You said he was locked in the bathroom, Sherm. You said he wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Are you telling me you lied about that too? You killed him and didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t want the rest of the hostages freaking out on us.”

“So what really happened to him then?”

“I drowned him in the toilet.”

I ran a hand across my face and sighed.

“You killed him too.” It wasn’t a question.

“Just like Keith. Had to do it, man. But hey, I didn’t lie, right? I said he wouldn’t be a problem anymore and he isn’t. I’m telling you, dog, it was the only way.”

“That’s not what I mean, Sherm.”

His brow furrowed in puzzlement. He shrugged and lit up another cigarette.

“I don’t get you, man. What the hell is your problem? I warned you we might have to be hard-core on this from the beginning. So why you breaking my balls about this now?”

“Why kill him at all, Sherm? For fuck’s sake, man. I mean, have you lost your fucking mind? Do you have to keep wasting people? Isn’t this shit bad enough already? Can it get any fucking worse?”

He shrugged again. “It’s bad, sure. But it could get a lot fucking worse, Tommy. A lot worse. I’m starting to think we ain’t gonna make it out of here alive, bro.”

Unable to keep the edge out of my voice any longer, I snapped.

“Not if you keep killing people we won’t. Jesus fucking Christ in a jumped-up frigging sidecar, Sherm! How many people have to die before you’re done? Kelvin. That cop, Mac Davis. Lucas. Now Keith. Maybe John. How many? How many do you have to kill? We need a fucking plan, man. What the hell are we going to do?”

“Seriously? ’Cause I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Of course, seriously. What’s the plan?”

“I think we should have some fun. You know. Make the most of what time we have left. Take that Kim chick for example. Did you see the ass on her? God, I’d love to pound that. And those ripe little tits? I’d like to chew my way through them.”

He licked his lips and grabbed his crotch, rubbing it through his jeans. I shook my head in disgust.

“That’s your great master plan? Bang Kim?”

“Well, what the hell else we gonna do, Tommy?”

“We surrender,” I suggested. “Tell them that you and John were just unwilling accomplices. I’ll take the rap.” It sounds stupid now, but at the time, I really did believe it would be that easy—

believed that they’d just let John and Sherm off with a slap on the wrist and a don’t-do-it-again.

“Fuck that shit. That’s all good for you, man, but John and I ain’t dying of cancer. You think they’ll just let us walk? What the fuck have you been smoking, Tommy? I’m looking at the death penalty, easy. They’ll give me a lethal injection, then strap my ass down in the electric chair just to make sure. And like I told you before, even if Carpet Dick lives, he’ll get at least forty-one months. They know they’ve got dead bodies already. They can see Kelvin and that dead cop from where they stand. No way, yo. We ain’t walking out of here.”

“Fine. Then John and I can surrender, and you can stay and negotiate separately.”

He raised the .357 and pointed it at me.

“No, Tommy. You must not have understood me. Let’s try this again. I said we ain’t walking out of here.”

My stomach felt cold and the bottom dropped out of it. Automatically, my hand dropped to my waistband, searching for my own weapon. Only then did I realize that I’d left it lying on the floor next to John and Benjy. Out of the corner of my eye, I considered the dead cop’s .38, still lying on the desk. But if I reached for it, he’d drop me before I could grab it.

“Goddamn it, Sherm…”

“Remember who planned this shit,” he warned me. “You couldn’t have pulled this off without me. Now, you still want to walk outside?”

“What are you gonna do, Sherm? You gonna fucking shoot me?”

He fingered the trigger, smiled, then relaxed.

“No, man, I ain’t gonna shoot you. I was just playing. But I want you to realize that you’re not thinking straight. That’s exactly what would have been waiting for you if you’d tried walking outside. A bullet. A fucking storm of lead.”

I let go of the breath I’d been holding.

“Look,” he continued, “we all knew the risks when we went into this. You were dying anyway, you said. You didn’t have to worry about getting caught. And as for John—hey, Carpet Dick was dumb enough to come along, even after we both told him not to. So whatever happens with him—well, shit happens. Life’s a bitch, then you die. That’s the rule, man. You can’t do anything about it. He made his decision.”

“And what about you, Sherm? What made you want to come along, knowing that we might end up just as fucked as we are right now?”

“I told you before, yo. We’re boys. I was bored with Hanover. Shit never happens here. I haven’t done anything fun like this since I left Portland.”

“What, you mean you’ve done this before? And this is fun to you?”

His face grew serious again. “Tommy, you got no idea some of the things I’ve done. Some of the shit I’ve pulled.”

I shivered.

He smiled.

“And yeah, this is fun. And it’s about to get funner.”

“Funner ain’t a word, Sherm.”

“Neither is surrender. At least not in my dictionary. So we cool on that?”

I looked down at Keith’s stiffening corpse, then back up at the gun still in Sherm’s hand.

“Yeah. Sure, man, I’m cool with that.”

“All right then. How about we go get this fucking party started?”

He stepped toward the door. I coughed, loud and hard, hoping that the others could hear me in time.

“You all right?”

I rubbed my throat, hamming it up as best I could.

“Yeah. Just thirsty, is all. My throat is really raw. I wish there was something to drink up in here.”

“There’s sodas in the office down the hall. They’re warm though. You want me to get you one?”

“That’d be great, man. Thanks, dog.”

“No problem.”

Before either of us could move, the phones began to ring.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he whined. “What the hell do they want now?”

They rang again. And again.

“Ain’t you gonna pick it up?” I asked.

“No. It’s just that asshole Ramirez, wanting to blow some more smoke up my ass.”

Three more rings.

“I don’t know, Sherm. It might be important.”

Four more.

“Fuck them.”

There was a squawk from outside, then Detective Ramirez’s voice boomed over the still-ringing phones.

“SHADY! SHADY, THIS IS DETECTIVE RAMIREZ! SHADY, I NEED YOU TO PICK

UP THE PHONE! I NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU IMMEDIATELY REGARDING

YOUR REQUESTS. IT’S IMPORTANT. PLEASE PICK UP THE PHONE!”

Two more rings.

“SHADY!”

Sherm gritted his teeth.

“Oh, man, I hope I get a chance to shoot that motherfucker in the face before this is over.”

He grabbed the phone from its cradle and brought it to his ear.

“Yo. This is Shady. What the fuck do you want now, Ramirez?”

He listened quietly, then said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. You been smoking the crack that you have in the evidence locker or something?”

Another pause.

“No man, I told you what my name was.”

A third pause.

“No.”

Slowly, Sherm raised his eyes to me.

“O’Brien? No, I never heard of him either.”

My heart jumped into my throat.

“Yo, I’m telling you Ramirez, I don’t know any Tommy O’Brien or this fucking John dude. Of course I’m being straight with you.”

He started to twitch. It began with a vein in his neck. It throbbed and pulsated like a snake twisting and coiling. Then his eye began to flutter. He sat down on the corner of the desk and his leg began to kick wildly back and forth.

“Well maybe the bitch is crazy. You ever consider that, Detective?”

Oh no…

Sherm looked up again. Glaring, he pointed to the chair and pushed it toward me with his foot.

“Let me get this straight, Ramirez. This crazy bitch calls 911, tells the operator that her husband and two of his friends are the ones robbing the bank, and that one of those friends is hurt, and she knows all of this because her husband called her from the inside. Is that what you’re telling me? Sounds like bullshit to me. ’Cause how could somebody have called from in here if you guys are controlling the phone lines? Who you playing?”

Michelle. Michelle had dialed the police after I hung up with her. She’d been worried, frantic, freaked the fuck out. And in that state, she’d told them everything, given them our names, begged them to tell her that it wasn’t true, that her husband who had never lied to her before was lying now because there was no way he could be involved in something like this, no way he could be involved in a bank robbery, could he?

Without even realizing it, my own wife had dropped the dime on us. And now I was fucked. Now we were all fucked. Because Sherm was fucked and as a result, he would fuck the rest of us.

“Portland?” Sherm barked into the phone, “What about it? Never been there in my life. I’m East Coast all the way, dog.”

A pause. Sherm began tapping the handgun against his leg.

“Tampa? No, I ain’t never been to Tampa either. I’m telling you, Ramirez, you’re barking up the wrong tree, dog. Bowwow, yippee-yo, you know what I’m saying?”

A longer pause.

“I don’t care what they’re faxing you! Fax this, motherfucker…”

A very long pause. Time seemed to slow.

“San Francisco? Shit. Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Ramirez. I’m impressed. How’d you guys find out about that? I didn’t think anybody knew about San Francisco.”

The longest pause yet, and I stopped breathing.

“Yeah. Uh-huh. Look, give me fifteen minutes. I need to talk this over with Tommy and John. No, I ain’t trying to bullshit you, man. I’ve been straight up with you so far, right? Well yeah, of course not about the names and shit, but I ain’t killed anybody. You still got all your hostages, right? Just give us another fifteen minutes. That’s all I’m asking for. Let us arrange how we want to surrender and shit. Then you can slap the cuffs on and be the hero. Get your picture in the paper and on the news.”

My eyes widened in surprise. Sherm turned the pistol toward himself and peered down the barrel.

“No, no, no! No good fucking faith gestures. I ain’t releasing anybody early. Fifteen minutes. I’m hanging up now. You get back on that bullhorn, or call me before the time is up, and it’s on your head. Is that understood? Until we surrender, I’m still in charge inside this bank, motherfucker. Clear?”

He slammed the phone down and stared into the gun.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

“Sherm. I—”

“Shut up, Tommy. Just shut the fuck up.”

His voice was tired, emotionless. Beaten. I’d never heard him sound like this, and I think that scared me more than anything.

He shook his head sadly.

“Goddamn it, Tommy. You just had to call Michelle.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. There was no point in denying it. “I had to.”

“How did you do it?”

“I stuck Lucas’s cell phone in my pocket because I didn’t know what else to do with it. While you were gone, I used it to call her.”

He placed the gun flat on the desktop, but kept his hand on it. I couldn’t help but notice that the barrel was pointing at me. The hole looked very big, bigger than I’d realized. The dead cop’s .38

lay next to it. Both were out of reach.

“Why? That’s all I want to know, dog. Why would you do some stupid shit like that?”

“Because she’s my wife, man. Because I love her. I owed it to her, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. All I know is that it was a dumber move than even Carpet Dick could have come up with.”

I could see on his face that he really didn’t know, and that he never would. Sherm would never understand. How could you explain love to a guy like Sherm? Remember when I said that all the women wanted to fix him because he was broken, but that he didn’t want to be fixed? Well, this was part of it.

“You—you want to tell me why it was so dumb?”

His voice remained flat and emotionless.

“Because now they know, Tommy. Now they fucking know. They know that there’s only the three of us. They know that Carpet Dick is wounded. They know our names, our backgrounds, our… They know everything. It gives them a leg up on us. Gives them leverage. We’re fucked.”

“I’m sorry, Sherm. I was just sick of lying to her, man. I’m fucking sorry.”

“I know”—he shrugged—“but that doesn’t exactly help matters now, does it?”

“No, I guess it doesn’t.”

We sat in silence for a moment, then I tried again.

“What was the deal with those cities the negotiator read off to you? Tampa and San Francisco and shit? What was that about?”

“Nothing. Everything. Like I said, now they know. But that ain’t important right now. You still got the cell phone?”

“Yeah. It’s in my pocket.”

“Good. Give it to me.”

He held his free hand out to me. The other one remained on the gun. I fumbled in my pocket and pulled it out. My hands were slick with sweat.

“Thanks.” He studied it carefully. “Nice phone. One of those expensive kinds.”

With a sudden burst of rage, he threw it across the room. It smashed into the wall and fell to the floor, the casing cracked. I flinched, but managed to keep from jumping in my seat.

“I just want to know one thing, Tommy.”

“W-what?”

“Was it worth it? Talking to Michelle? Hearing her voice? Was it fucking worth it?”

I didn’t hesitate, but my voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

“Yeah. Yeah, Sherm, it was.”

“Okay then.”

He lifted his head, looked me in the eye and grinned.

“W-what now?”

His grin got wider.

“They’ll probably try to do some surveillance, see if they can verify the situation. Might try to get a camera inside, maybe one of those little robotic units or a pole scope or something. We’ve got fifteen minutes left. After that, all bets are off.”

“So what do we do?”

His demeanor changed again. Once more, his tone was light and friendly—just my buddy Sherm, who’d never pointed a gun at me in his life and who didn’t have a secret past that I knew nothing about.

“We go with my plan, dog. We have some fun. You still thirsty?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah, I could use a drink.”

“I’ll go get you one of those sodas, do a quick check, and make sure everything’s secure; and then we’ll start.”

“Start what?”

“The party, man. Let’s get this party started.”

With a wink, he grabbed his pistol and hopped off the desk. Turning his back to me, he walked out of the office and turned left down the hall.

Fifteen minutes. But if Sherm found out about Benjy or John or any of the other stuff, the shit could hit the fan long before then.

The dead cop’s .38 stared up at me with that one good eye.

I picked it up, tucked it underneath my shirt, and hurried for the vault.