When Darkness Falls

by James Grippando

  “Where’d you learn to shoot?” said Theo.

  Falcon stepped away from the draperies. “None of your damn business.”

  “What is that you got, anyway? A Browning?” A Browning Hi-Power, was Theo’s guess-a long-standing favorite with military forces around the world.

  Falcon didn’t answer.

  “Pretty efficient use of ammunition so far,” said Theo. “The girl, two cops, a searchlight. What’d it take you-five bullets, four bullets?”

  Falcon only smiled, as if amused by Theo’s transparency. “Don’t worry. Pretty sure I got one in here with your name on it. But let’s go ahead and remove all doubt.”

  For a split second, Theo thought he was about to be shot. Instead, Falcon hit the pistol’s slide-release button with his right thumb, dropping the magazine to the floor, while pulling a new magazine from his coat pocket with his left hand. He inserted the new magazine and finished with a quick slap to its bottom, ensuring that thirteen new rounds were locked in place. A complete tactical reload in about two seconds.

  The guy was definitely no stranger to a sidearm.

  “You can start counting all over again,” said Falcon as he picked up the old magazine.

  A loud thud at the door startled everyone in the room.

  “What was that?” said the weatherman.

  “Quiet!” said Falcon. He pulled the weatherman up off the floor and held him as a human shield. If SWAT came flying through the door, guns firing, the weatherman would be the first to get it.

  “Don’t use me, use the big guy,” the weatherman said in a quaking voice. “You can hide behind him better.”

  Theo made a mental note to nominate this jackass for Profiles in Courage, loser’s edition.

  Falcon said, “Be still, everybody.” No one moved, except for Falcon himself, who couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether to aim the pistol at the door or the weatherman’s brain. They listened for another thud, any sound at all that might explain the intrusion.

  A moment of loud electronic feedback resonated from somewhere in the parking lot, and the public address system clicked on. Paulo’s voice followed. “Falcon, there’s a knot of rope outside your door. Pull it, and it will draw a wagon toward you. There’s food in the wagon.”

  Theo watched as Falcon calculated his next move. Not a thought passed through the guy’s head without an exaggerated blink of the eye or twitch of the mouth, as if some kind of facial contortion were part of his normal brain function.

  The PA system keyed again. Paulo said, “Your necklace is in there, too.”

  That clinched it.

  “You,” Falcon said to the weatherman. He pressed the gun against the man’s right temple. “I want you to open the door.”

  “Okay, sure. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “You’re going to open the door and pull the rope. Take what’s in the wagon and grab the rope, too. Leave the wagon outside. If you try to run, I’ll shoot smart-ass here in the head and you in the back.”

  “You won’t have to shoot anyone. Just save your bullets, okay?”

  “I got plenty of bullets. Now don’t move until I tell you to.” He went quickly to the bathroom door and said, “I don’t want to hear a peep from you girls.”

  “You don’t have to worry about her,” said Natalia, speaking of her injured friend.

  “Good.” Falcon closed the door, then turned his gun toward Theo. “You. Face down on the floor, over against that wall, away from the door.”

  His ankles and wrists still bound, Theo rose up on his knees and crawled to the other side of the room. He lay on his belly, but he cocked his head to the left, so that he could still see what was going on.

  Falcon cleared away the furniture that was piled up against the door. He untied the electrical cord that bound the weatherman’s wrists, and then he stepped back against the far wall, having searched out a spot that would be outside the line of SWAT sniper fire once the door opened. His gun moved back and forth from Theo’s head to the weatherman’s back. “Now open the door,” he told the weatherman, “and do exactly what I told you to do.”

  The weatherman didn’t immediately comply. It seemed less an act of disobedience and more the paralysis of fear.

  “Do it!” said Falcon.

  The weatherman drew a breath, then let it out, clearly unaware of just how loud his breathing was. The bindings around his ankles forced him to shuffle rather than walk to the door. He turned the deadbolt, reached for the doorknob, and then stopped. “Let me go, please.”

  Falcon didn’t answer.

  “I have a wife. Kids, too.” The words caught in his throat, perhaps out of fear, perhaps because he was in a hotel room with two young prostitutes.

  “I don’t give a shit,” said Falcon.

  “Please. I want to see my family.”

  “Then do as I say. If you run, hop, or try to roll yourself to safety, you and your big-mouth buddy die. Now open the damn door.”

  Theo could see the man’s hand shaking as he turned the knob and pulled the door open. The room brightened, but not as much as Theo had expected. He’d either miscalculated the time of day, or it was completely overcast.

  “Pull the rope,” said Falcon.

  The weatherman bent over, grabbed the knot of rope at the doorstep, and started pulling.

  “Faster!” said Falcon.

  Hand over fist, he pulled, and Theo could hear the wagon wheels rolling on the pavement. The whirring grew louder until the wagon was at the door, and the weatherman stopped pulling.

  “Quick, empty it!” said Falcon.

  Everything was in one bag. The weatherman grabbed it and set it behind him on the floor.

  “The rope!” said Falcon. “I want the rope!”

  The weatherman untied it from the wagon and dropped it on the floor beside the bag.

  “Shut the door!”

  The instant it closed, Falcon hurried across the room and pushed the weatherman to the floor. He took the knife from his coat pocket, cut a two-foot length of the rope, and tied the weatherman’s hands behind his back. Then he locked the door and piled up the furniture to barricade the entrance. He was about to open the bag when Theo’s cell phone rang. Falcon dug it from his pocket and answered on the third ring. Theo was close enough to hear Jack on the other end of the line. He always kept the volume on his cell phone at the maximum setting, since he worked in a noisy bar, and Jack had one of those voices that carried like a loudspeaker. Falcon was holding Theo’s phone a good two inches away from his ear to save his eardrum.

  “We made good on our end of the deal,” said Jack. “Now we need that camera-phone picture we talked about.”

  “I told you, I’m not wired with explosives.”

  “Good. Then just take off your coat, take off your shirt, and take a picture. Then put your coat in the wagon and send it back to us. When we see there’s no bomb, then we’ll all be happy.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Falcon, I won’t be able to talk the cops into meeting any more of your demands if you don’t keep up your end of the deal.”

  “I said screw you!” He ended the call and stuffed the phone back into his pocket. The expression on his face went completely blank. Finally, he glared at Theo and said, “What are you looking at?”

  “You should listen to Jack. He’s a straight shooter.”

  “He’s a liar. They’re all liars.”

  “Right now, I’d say you’re the one who looks like the liar.”

  “Who asked you?” He went to the bag, opened it, and looked inside.

  Theo could smell the food from across the room. He hadn’t realized how hungry he actually was. “We gonna eat or just talk?” said Theo.

  “I’m not eating this crap,” said Falcon. “The bastards probably put sleeping powder in it.”

  The guy sounded paranoid, but Theo wasn’t so sure that he was wrong. Falcon grabbed a burger from inside the bag and unwrapped it. The aroma was irresistible, and Theo’s s
tomach growled. Falcon went to him and put the burger to his lips. “Lucky you. You’re my food tester.”

  Never in his life had Theo refused food, especially if it was free. Even when he was on death row, he was the one-man exception to a prisonwide hunger strike. But the prospect of some sort of drug in the food didn’t seem so far-fetched. “I’m not hungry.”

  Falcon pressed the barrel of the gun to Theo’s forehead. “I’m not asking. Eat it.”

  Theo took a huge bite.

  “That’s it,” said Falcon. “Let the big dog eat.”

  Theo took another bite. It tasted amazing, even at gunpoint.

  Theo chewed, swallowed. “What are you hiding under the coat?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then take a picture and show Jack that it’s nothing.”

  “Nah. I kind of like letting those jerk-offs think I have a bomb.”

  “If it’s not a bomb, then what are you hiding under there?”

  “What makes you think I’m hiding anything?”

  “I felt it when we were wrestling on the ground. There’s something under there. Something with wires.”

  Their eyes locked, and Falcon’s expression changed dramatically. He seemed less nervous, less intense, and he was suddenly more distant and vacant. It was an expression unlike any that Theo had ever seen in his life, and Theo had stared down some pretty scary characters in his checkered past. He felt a strange sensation that he had probed into another part of Falcon’s world and that Falcon was not sure how to deal with the intruder. The room seemed hotter. Falcon was sweating as he unzipped his coat, though Theo was dead certain that it had nothing to do with the room temperature. Theo braced himself-for what, he wasn’t quite sure.

  “You mean these wires?” said Falcon. He held them in his fist, pulling them out from inside his coat just far enough for Theo to see.

  “Oh, shit!” said the weatherman.

  “Take it easy,” said Theo. “If there’s a bomb in there, this is no time to be yanking on any wires.”

  Falcon clutched the wires tighter with his free hand. Carefully, he continued to unzip the jacket with his gun hand, his index finger still on the trigger, his middle finger pressing the metal zipper tag to the gun butt. He didn’t stop until the jacket was completely unzipped. Slowly, he swung open the right half of the heavy coat, like a model showing off the lining to a tailored suit.

  Theo could see the bulge in the inside pocket-and the wires leading to it.

  “Curious?” said Falcon.

  The weatherman’s eyes were like saucers. “You don’t have to prove anything. Just leave it alone, all right?”

  Falcon was perfectly still for perhaps a minute, though it seemed much longer to Theo. Then his hand started upward. The wires went taut, and the bulge in his pocket began to climb.

  Theo said, “The weatherman is right. Just leave it alone.”

  Falcon ignored him. He was like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat in slow motion. The weatherman cowered in the corner. “Stop, just stop already!”

  Falcon’s expression changed once again, the vacant look giving way to something that Theo could only assume was pure amusement. He jerked the wires upward. The weatherman screamed, and Theo rolled toward the wall, as if that would save him from the blast.

  Nothing happened.

  Theo looked back and saw a small black metal box dangling from the end of the wires. “What is that?”

  Falcon flashed a sardonic smile. “It’s just an old generator,” he said.

  Theo’s heart was in his throat. It did appear to be some kind of battery-powered generator, which was better than a bomb, but it was still confusing. Falcon was apparently one of those homeless people who kept his treasured possessions with him at all times, no matter how bizarre or useless. Theo said, “I guess you never know when you’re going to need your own electricity.”

  Falcon went to the bag, reached inside, and ran the strand of metal beads through his fingers as if it were a fine pearl necklace. “You’ll know,” he said in a voice that seemed to come from another place, the remote part of Falcon’s world that Theo had intruded upon. “Trust me, smart mouth. You will know.”

  chapter 41

  T he relief was written all over Sergeant Paulo’s face.

  Jack felt exactly the same way, and to that extent, looking at Paulo was like looking in the mirror. It had been Paulo’s idea to plant the tiny electronic listening device in the bottom of the double paper bag, buried between the seams. No one, however, had expected such a big payoff so soon: no bomb. On some level, it seemed bizarre to rejoice in the fact that they were dealing only with a paranoid killer who had plenty of ammunition and was a crack shot with his pistol. Small victories, however, were a relative concept, especially in hostage negotiations.

  “So, who’s the weatherman?” said Jack.

  “We think it must be Walt the Weather Wizard from channel seven,” said Paulo. “He left the station at eleven-thirty last night and never came home. His wife reported him missing this morning.”

  “His wife?” said Alicia. “I thought he was gay.”

  “Everybody does,” said Paulo. “Maybe that’s how he ended up in a hotel room with two prostitutes. A metrosexual with something to prove.”

  “More to the point,” said Jack, “we now know that there are two male hostages and two females. That’s an awful lot for Theo to deal with.”

  Alicia said, “You mean it’s a lot for Falcon to deal with.”

  “No, I meant Theo,” said Jack. “I know how my friend thinks. He won’t come out of that hotel room unless they all come out together. Now it turns out that he’s stuck in there with two teenage girls and Walt the Weather Wizard. It’s all on Theo’s shoulders.”

  No one disagreed.

  “At least there’s no bomb,” said Alicia.

  Paulo said, “It’s interesting, though, the way he talks about his generator. You can hear it in his voice. It’s as if he thinks a generator is more scary than explosives.”

  “I heard it, too,” said Jack. “But it’s hard to imagine how that could be.”

  “Depends on your imagination, I suppose,” said Alicia.

  “What do you mean?” said Jack.

  She hesitated and looked away. “Just, you know, this Falcon has already shown himself to be highly delusional. There’s no telling what he thinks his little generator can do. Maybe he’s convinced himself that it has the power to change the magnetic charge of the earth’s poles or the gravitational pull of the moon.”

  “You sure that’s what you meant?”

  “Yeah. What else would I mean?”

  Several possible answers to that question tumbled through Jack’s mind. The same intuition that had raised his antennae a few hours earlier was gnawing at him again. He could have sworn she was backpedaling. “Tell me something, Alicia. What scares you the most about Falcon?”

  She gave him a curious expression. “That he’ll kill the hostages, of course.”

  “Let me ask a different question. What does your father fear most about him?”

  “The same thing, I’m sure.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know my father.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes,” she said, somewhat annoyed.

  “Do you know what your father’s bodyguard was doing along the river, down by Falcon’s car, the other night?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “How about you, sergeant?”

  Jack had hoped to catch Paulo off guard and get some kind of reading from his expression. Paulo was too savvy for that. “Funny thing about people with something on their chest. If they’re afraid to get it off, they usually end up with a chip on their shoulder.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Spare us the cross-examination mode, counselor. If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

  “All right,” said Jack. “I’m all for the direct approach, so lo
ng as it’s a two-way street. Does somebody want to tell me what the mayor’s bodyguard was doing down there, or are you going to keep pretending that you didn’t know anything about it?”

  “I’m sure he had a good reason,” said Alicia.

  “I’d sure like to hear it. Because a woman was killed that night.”

  “She was beaten to death with a lead pipe that has Falcon’s fingerprints all over it,” she said.

  “Alicia,” said Paulo. It was clearly an admonishment, as she was sharing confidential details about the investigation with a guy who was (or at least had been) Falcon’s lawyer.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I see where you’re headed with this, Swyteck, and it’s nothing but a distraction. You think something smells fishy. Maybe you even think my father sent his bodyguard down to the river to make sure Falcon doesn’t come after me again.”

  “Maybe I do,” said Jack.

  “Alicia,” said Paulo.

  “No, I want to clear this up right now. It’s ridiculous. Even if my father were the type of man to do such a thing-which he’s not-your insinuation just doesn’t make any sense. If Falcon himself had ended up dead, maybe you would at least have some semblance of logic on your side. But why in the world would my father’s bodyguard kill a defenseless woman who has been homeless for so long that not even the medical examiner can identify her body?”

  She had a point, but at this stage of the discussion, Jack wasn’t ready to concede anything. “I’m working on that.”

  “Your work would be better focused on helping Vince solve this crisis.”