by Lee Butcher
Paula remained silent. She just sat at the table with her face buried in her hands. Then Chino noticed Davis’s cell phone on the table and started to dial someone. He made several calls. Davis thought he was incredibly rude, just using the phone without even asking for permission. Chino might have a gun, but would it have hurt him to ask?
Chino and Paula started making telephone calls from the land phone and the cell phone. Davis couldn’t tell whom the calls were to, but he thought one was to Chino’s mother, and that Paula made several long-distance calls. He couldn’t understand Paula because she spoke in Spanish. He heard her say something to Chino, but only got bits and pieces of it. She said, “We’ve got to call (inaudible) before whatever’s gonna happen, happens.”
The TV news started showing a lot of movement by the SWAT team, making Chino and Paula increasingly frightened. They were afraid the apartment was going to be stormed.
“Go lay down in the bathtub,” Chino ordered Davis. “You’ll be safer from stray bullets when they storm the place.” Then he spoke to Paula, “Well, Paula, you know we talked about this already. You know what we have to do.”
“I can’t do it!” Paula said. “I can do time. I was in the bank, but I didn’t shoot anybody. I can handle time. I can do it.”
“Do you know what you’re saying, Paula?” Chino asked. “We talked about this before. Do you understand what’s happened? I shot a cop. A cop may be dead. Either way it goes, we’re gonna die. Either they’re gonna kill me or I’m gonna kill myself. But either way, it’s leaving in a body bag.”
More than an hour had passed since the standoff began and there was no end in sight. “Maybe we don’t have to. Maybe we’ll just do some time.”
Chino lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, then squatted in the hallway. The MAC-11 at the ready, he kept an eye on the door.
Detective Batista had Chino on the line again. In the few minutes that he was off the phone with Chino, he found out as much as he could. The apartment the suspects were in belonged to Isaac Davis. He had discovered that the woman’s name was Paula. He didn’t believe, as Detective Black did, that Isaac Davis was part of the robbery gang. Instead, he believed that Chino had taken him hostage at the point of a gun.
Chino wanted to know how the officer he shot was doing.
“She’s in critical condition, but she’s still alive,” Batista said.
“I want you to be nice to my mother,” Chino said. “Don’t be mean to her. She didn’t have nothin’ to do with this. Neither did Paula. Paula wasn’t even in the bank. I don’t want you to step on their necks.”
At this point Batista didn’t have much official information. Perhaps Paula wasn’t involved in the robbery and shooting, as the police thought. Of course, Batista realized, Chino could be shading this for his own purposes.
Batista started to chat about various things, trying to steer the conversation away from the shooting. He asked about Chino’s family and learned that he had a little girl named Ashley. Batista noticed that he spoke lovingly of his baby daughter, and whenever Chino started to get agitated, Batista steered the talk to Ashley. It brought Chino right down. That was the key to calming him; he adored his daughter.
“C’mon, Chino, what’s it gonna take to resolve this?” Batista said. “You didn’t wake up this morning and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to kill a police officer.’ You didn’t plan for it to happen. We can resolve this.”
“My father died in prison,” Chino said. “I’m not going to prison. A day in prison is like a week in prison.”
Obviously, Chino had strong feelings about staying out of prison, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t eventually give up. Nobody wanted to go to prison, and everyone Batista had negotiated with said the same thing. Sometimes they were bad guys who lacked the courage to kill themselves and would start a gunfight so that the cops would kill them. The police call it “suicide by cop.” There was always that possibility that Chino, having nothing to lose, could decide to go down in a blaze of glory with his gun firing.
From time to time, Chino became very agitated, as if he were losing control. Every time it happened, there was greater danger for further bloodshed. Batista was able to soothe Chino by bringing Ashley back into the conversation. “You know, she’s gonna need her dad, Chino. You come out, you have a chance to do time, you get to see Ashley.”
Chino went all over the place in his conversation. He told Batista one of his pet peeves, one of the many things he blamed, instead of himself, for his misfortunes. “White people are to blame for all my problems,” he said. “They have everything, we have nothing. I blame them.”
This didn’t wash with Batista, who is Hispanic. This had not stopped him from making a good life for himself and his family.
“Oh, Chino, you have what you work for,” he said. “I’ve worked hard for everything I have. I’ve worked hard all my life. If you want something, you have to work hard for it. You do that, you’ll get it.”
Chino muttered something about stacked laws, slavery, the way the blacks and Latinos are kept down like slaves, the whites being the slave masters.
“It’s not slavery,” Batista said. “It’s a civilized world. We have to abide by the laws. People make the laws and we have to live by them. If you violate the laws, you have to live with the consequences.”
Batista knew better than to try and bullshit Chino. He tried to be as truthful as he could; otherwise, Chino would catch him in a lie and he would lose his trust. Chino was too intelligent to think he might get out of this mess without paying some kind of price.
“I tried to be completely honest with him,” Batista said. “Here he is, he just shot a police officer. I didn’t want to tell him, ‘Oh, you’re not going to jail.’ Oh yeah, you are going to jail, to prison. There’s no doubt about that. He didn’t want to hear that, because he didn’t want to go to prison.”
Civilians in the area saw how tough it was for the cops and started to bring them cold sports drinks and water.
More than an hour had passed and the end was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 9
Paula dialed her mother’s number in New York and the answering machine picked up to take a message.
“Chino and I messed up,” she said in Spanish. “We robbed a bank and killed a cop. We’re going to kill ourselves. I’m sorry. Please take care of Ashley.”
Davis didn’t understand Paula’s message. Chino was also making and receiving telephone calls. Both Chino and Paula were nervous and scared. The more frightened they became, the more Davis worried about his own safety.
Chino hung up and started to pace. He left the MAC-11 on the table without the magazine. Paula had Lois’s gun on the table in front of her.
“Is she alive or dead?” Chino screamed at the television. He held his head with both hands while he paced. “Oh man. What are we gonna do?”
The television news showed more movement by the SWAT team. “Come here,” Chino said to Davis. He grabbed Davis around the neck and marched him from window to window. “Tell me what you see.”
Davis saw twenty or thirty police cars, and police officers, who had taken cover and had their guns out. He reported it to Chino.
“They’re gonna rush the place,” Chino said to Paula. “You know what we gotta do.”
“No, man, you don’t want to do that,” Davis said, knowing Chino was talking about suicide again. “You—”
Chino’s lips curled into a smirk. “At least I got to take one cop with me.”
Paula said, “Maybe we’ll just get some time.”
“I think the cops are gonna rush us,” he said again to Davis, who hadn’t moved.
A note that Paula had scribbled lay on the table. It read, “Mamacita, I love you so much! Please forgive us for messing up! Mami, I will miss you!”
Davis couldn’t understand much of the conversation from the bathroom, but he heard telephone calls being made. He heard Paula say “Ashley,” and then she started to weep.
Batista was back on the telephone with Chino, still trying to establish a rapport and to convince Chino to release the hostage and give himself up. Batista still didn’t know that Lois had been killed, although he knew a police officer had been shot.
“I know you want to do the right thing, Chino,” Batista said. “We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to hurt your girlfriend. We don’t want to hurt anybody. We don’t want anybody else to get hurt. And I know you want to do the right thing, and I know you want to see your daughter. When is your daughter’s birthday coming, is it coming up, or is it past?”
“It’s past.”
“Just past? She just turned two?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, it’s not easy what you’re going through,” Batista said. “And I know . . . you are trying to decide the rest of your life here. You are going to live through this . . . and you are going to live many, many more years. That’s what you want, Chino.”
“Of course. Yeah, I want to live a couple of more years, but not in prison.”
“It’s better to live in prison, man . . . knowing that you have a daughter. . . . You have somebody out there, somebody that is part of you, Chino. That’s never going to change, man. You may be in prison for a while . . . but it’s still up to you to keep her close to you. I mean letters and calls and visits. You’re going to be able to do that.”
“Yeah, but do you know . . . what kind of torture that is?” Chino asked.
“What about her . . . knowing what happened today?” Batista asked. “Because she is going to find out. She is two years old. She doesn’t understand.... It may take you five, six, seven years . . . and she’s going to ask, ‘Hey, what happened to my dad? What did my dad do?’ And then she’s going to go to the public library and read the newspapers and she is going to find out. Do you want your daughter to find out about this from the newspapers? Or do you want to have her here? You want to be able to tell her, ‘Hey, look, I made a mistake. I’m paying for my mistake. I’m going to be out. You’re my daughter.’ But you want her to find . . . ‘My father, the quitter . . . he gave it all up. He gave me up. And then it ended on July sixth.’ Come on, do you want her to find that out about you? I know, man. You’re Hispanic like I am. I know the way you think. I think the same way. We are a very proud people.”
“Okay. So you know about pride, then you know, basically, surrender is slavery. You know, I would never allow anyone to enslave me.”
“Chino, you make a mistake, you pay the price. That’s not slavery.”
“But who owns the price? The price you made up? Fuck the society.”
“. . . We both live in society.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing,” Chino said. “If I walk out, I’ll probably kill you and . . . all your shit.... White people did it. They took over control of everything. And then what the fuck do we got?”
“We got everything we want to have,” Batista told him. “We work hard for it, man. We make mistakes, we have to pay for them. Once we pay the price, it’s over, you’re done. I know that you want to go on with life. I know you do, because ending it, that’s the easy way out, man. Come on.”
“Yeah, come on. Easy for who?”
“It’s the easy way for you.”
“No, that’s the hardest way. It ain’t easy to take your own life.”
Chino’s voice broke. He was getting emotional and that meant he would be more dangerous. Batista had found out that talking about Ashley was the only thing that would calm Chino.
“It’s over with them, man,” Batista said. “But you don’t want to do that. You got to think of Ashley. That’s who you got to think of. And what about Paula? What about Paula? What about her future? How old is Paula?”
“Twenty-three, twenty-four.”
“You got Paula, too. You love Paula. She loves you. You’re together. How long have you known Paula?”
“Since ’93.”
“That’s a long time, man. That’s a long time. Is Paula Ashley’s mother?”
Chino started to cry. Batista waited for a few seconds, and said, “It’s okay, man.”
“I’ll call you back.” Chino sobbed and then hung up the telephone.
“Are you recording this?” Batista asked Detective Black, who had joined him in the new command center.
“Okay. We’ll stop for now.”
Batista thought over his conversations with Chino. He had heard absolutely no remorse from Chino, except for himself, Ashley, and Paula. Chino was worried about whether the police officer he shot was dead or alive, but only because of how it affected him. He had expressed no regret for shooting her. Batisa was once more struck by how calm Chino seemed, except for the few times he broke down and wept. Chino had expressed concern for Paula, Ashley, Davis, and his mother.
“You know,” Batista said to Black, “he seems to be worried more about everybody else than he is about himself.”
Davis lay in the bathtub and peeked from behind the shower curtain that Paula had closed. By looking at some shiny tiles, he could see a blur of motion as Paula and Chino moved about, but he couldn’t tell what was going on. Paula seemed to be making a lot of telephone calls and saying good-bye to people.
Chino walked into the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back. He had the MAC-11 and looked scared. That scared Davis.
“Do you need any medicine, man?” Chino asked. “Do you want some water?”
“I’m okay,” Davis croaked.
“Relax, man. We ain’t gonna hurt you.” Chino made a motion with the gun, indicating he wanted Davis to come with him. “Come on. We need to check the windows.”
When they walked to the different windows, Chino kept the gun trained on Davis and gripped his neck, not hard enough to hurt, but to signal that he was in control. The police were still swarming outside. When the window check was finished, they went to the dining area. Chino placed the MAC-11 on the table beside Lois’s Glock and brought some crackers and juice from the kitchen. He offered some to Davis, who accepted.
The television was broadcasting constant updates on the standoff, but the condition of the officer Chino shot wasn’t known. Paula and Chino were described as “armed and extremely dangerous.”
“Tell me about the cop! Is she dead or what?” Chino said in frustration. He started to pace, faster and faster. The more Chino paced and the angrier he became, the more frightened Davis became. Davis hadn’t been threatened, but he still worried about being killed.
“Let’s give ourselves up,” Paula said. “Maybe doing time won’t be so bad.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chino responded. “You should kill yourself rather than give up. We talked about this before.”
They continued to argue until the telephone rang just a few minutes later. Paula picked up the phone. It was Detective Batista.
“Paula. How are you doing? This is Detective Batista. How are you doing?”
“Okay,” Paula said meekly.
“Okay. How is Chino doing? I know that he was a little upset there a minute ago. Is he okay?”
“Yeah, we’re all right.”
“Is anybody in there with you, besides you and Chino?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is there anybody else, besides you and Chino, in there?”
“Yes.”
“Who else is there?”
“Who else is in here, I can’t tell you that. Somebody else is in here. Didn’t you see him out the window? Are you close?”
“No, I’m not,” Batista said. “I’m not near a window here. I’m inside of a house. Does somebody live there?”
“Yes.”
“More than one person or—”
“Do you want to know his name?”
“Yeah, can you tell me his name?”
“Hold on.” Paula turned to Davis. “What’s your name?”
“Isaac Davis.”
Paula repeated it into the phone.
“Can I talk to him, Paula?” Batista asked.
“Hold on.”
Paula held the phone to Davis’s ear. “Hello,” he said.
“Davis, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay.”
“Are you in there against your will? Or are you—”
Paula interrupted. “He’s all right.”
“Did Davis leave?” Batista asked.
“Yeah, he left. He’s all right. He’s standing here.”
If Batista could convince them to let Davis go, the SWAT team would have one less person to worry about if they had to rush the apartment. It was a long shot, but Batista had to try it.
“Could you let him go?” Batista asked. “I mean, does he want to go? Does he want to stay, or what?”
“Well, we’re not going to let him go,” Paula said firmly.
“Okay. Who else is in there besides you and Isaac and Chino?”
Chino spoke up. “Is everything okay?” he asked Paula.
“They want to know how many people are in here.”
“We don’t want him to know that,” Chino said.
“We can’t tell you that,” Paula said.
Batista switched tactics. “Okay. Listen, we want to resolve this, Paula. . . . What is it going to take? We don’t want anybody else getting hurt. We really don’t want to hurt anybody. Paula, you’re not going to jail. You weren’t involved in this robbery. I already talked to Chino. I explained that to him. Why should you go to jail? You weren’t involved. I know you’re afraid that you’re going to go to jail, is that it?”
“Of course.”
“You’re not going to jail.”
Paula didn’t buy it. “Yeah. You have to prosecute when we go to court.”
