by Ted Wood
Margaret said, "You have a very active imagination. I'll grant you that. I guess you spend a lot of time watching TV."
I didn't mind the sneer. She was loosening, becoming personal when she should have been detached and distant. Insults were a crack in the wall. With work I could chip a hole big enough to climb through.
"TV, eh? Try this plot on for size. Young war hero comes out of college in the forties. Comes north to a place so remote you can get there only by float plane or canoe. Stays for a summer and starts romancing a local girl." She said nothing, but it seemed to me that some of the stiffness in her back and neck was softening out. She was listening.
"How am I doing so far? Anyway, hero is called back south and leaves a problem behind him."
She snapped, addressing Rachael, not me. "Keep that man covered. I have to talk."
She bent, put one hand flat on the stage, and slipped gracefully down to my level. She pointed at me. "You. Put your hands on your head and turn to face that wall."
This time I complied. It would make it next to impossible for me to swing and grab her, making her a shield and turning this scene into a Mexican stand-off. I didn't think Rachael would shoot while her leader was menaced. And I would menace her. I know holds that could snap her neck like a carrot. I turned, dutifully, standing two feet from the wall with room enough to swing around. But she was ready for that move. "Nose and toes to the wall."
I did it, moving in slowly. There was a crack in the plaster and it ran north and south through my consciousness, as raw as the Grand Canyon.
"Now." She said it very softly, from a couple of feet behind me. "I'll hear that message."
I ran through all the possibilities. It was like playing chess in a blindfold. I didn't know which pieces were important or what the reaction would be. I had to make this count. It was the last card in the hand.
"He was in tears." I let that dangle, but there was no reaction. I invented as quickly as I could, but kept my voice calm, just the messenger. "He was sent to Brazil. He got down to Montreal and they sent him off at once. He thought he was coming back up north again but instead they sent him overseas and when he got back it was too late to do anything. He wants to see you. He'd lost all track of you, and now he wants to see you."
This got a reaction. "And how does he propose to do that, with that blonde bombshell he's married to hanging around? What's she—number three, is it? Number four?"
I turned my head slightly and when she said nothing I turned my whole body to face her. I could see Rachael, over her head, still pointing that shotgun at Walter Puckrin, but watching us jealously. That was the emotion in her face. She loved this woman and I was certain in that moment that she would fire the shotgun as fast as she could pump new rounds into the chamber. I had to cool her out.
"He was in tears. And I don't think he's a man who does much crying. He wanted you to know that his life has been miserable."
There were many angry, vicious responses possible but she did not make them. She looked at me and said, "Miserable? How does he think his son has been? Foster homes, prison. Miserable! He doesn't know the meaning of the word. Misery to him is not making money fast enough, not laying the pretty girls fast enough, not drinking the good cognac and smoking the Havana cigars. He's miserable about things most people never even get to dream about."
My chances were improving. I could feel it. All I needed was time and quiet so I could be the sympathetic, understanding friend. People don't menace friends with shotguns. Soon the gun would be lowered and the menace would be over. Given time and a never-failing gift of gab.
"Your own life has been successful. You're an educated woman. You've got money. You're a credit to yourself."
"To my people," she corrected ironically. "That's the proper degree of patronage. As if an Indian were somehow incapable of being educated, especially when she starts off at the Salvation Army Grace hospital with a white man's baby in her belly and no money."
"I'm not patronizing you. I haven't lifted myself the way you did and I had all the breaks an Indian boy wouldn't have had. My father had a good job with INCO, I finished high school."
She looked at me unblinkingly. "You could have done it. You're tough enough to be Indian."
"I've had to be tough, but not that tough. I settled for three square meals a day and the uniform."
"Were there any Indians in the Marines?" It was an honest question and I was able to lower my arms as I answered. She was beginning to trust me. I was afraid she might wonder about her son. If she suspected I had put him down in a fight, had injured him and left him handcuffed, all this human interest, hearts and flowers mood would flash away like magnesium and turn into a white heat that would leave her capable of killing me. I had to tread a line to get some concessions now.
"One Pima, in my platoon. He lived through it. Last time I talked to any of the guys I heard he was running a gas station in New Mexico." All lies. He had come home in a body bag, what we found of him. I held out my hands pleadingly. "Margaret, these people here are frightened. Why don't you let them go?"
Her expression did not change but it seemed that the light in her eyes became less bright. "Have you been telling me the truth?"
"Every word. But I'm worried about these dumb people. The civilians. They don't know where anything's coming from. Turn them loose."
Rachael must have heard me, perhaps even read my lips, I swear my voice was no louder than a whisper. She shouted suddenly, "Don't listen to him. Action on behalf of women, that's why we're here."
I grabbed it, any reaction was better than nothing. "Fine, then. Let the women go. Keep the men, that emphasizes your point. Why don't you do that?"
Margaret looked at me a long time. I felt like the prisoner waiting for the judge to pronounce sentence. Would it be a year, life, or a dismissal? At last she spoke, calling out loud enough for all the people in the hall to hear. "The women may leave. No men. Just the women."
The hall broke out in a babble of talk. Rachael's voice rose over all of it, shrill, bitter. "It's a trick. Don't trust him." Margaret locked her eyes on mine, uncertain, wavering for a moment, and I took my cue. "No tricks. Women only, prove your point. I'll help you."
She nodded and I whistled, Sam at once sprang to his feet, and all the people turned to look at me. Not all of them stopped talking but I shouted, "Women only. This lady says the women can go and that's the way it has to be. The women take their coats from the cloakroom and go and sit in your cars. Take the car keys and start the engines so you won't freeze. But no men."
The women got up, unfolding like flowers in their party dresses. One young woman hung onto her husband's arm. She was sobbing and when I reached her I could see she was pregnant. I went over to her and told her, "It's all right, he'll be out in a few minutes." The husband looked at me, then licked his lips nervously and told her, "Go, Corinne. Take care of him." He touched her stomach gently. Their love hung in the air like honeysuckle. "Good girl," I told her. "Your husband won't be long."
Close to the back of the hall a man jumped to his feet and ran for the door. Rachael shouted and I kept my promise. "Track," I called, and Sam ran between his legs and tripped him, then stood over him snarling. I went over and told Sam "Easy." He relaxed and I patted his head. The man still lay there. He had wet himself but I made no comment. "Women only," I said. "The rest of us are going to wait a while." I held out my hand to him and he got up, ignoring my hand, and went to the center of the room, not looking at anybody. His wife shrieked at me, "You bastard!" but I ignored her and went back to stand close by Margaret, part of the new establishment.
A lot of the women were sobbing, but it didn't stop them from getting their boots and coats on. Many of them had drunk too much during the evening but they were all cold sober now. I stood and watched them. "Don't try to drive away, the road is blocked to anything but snow machines. Start your cars, stay warm, stay awake."
The men watched as their own women left, then turned to look
at me, some with resignation, some with blazing hatred in their faces, but they said nothing. They would remember their own danger long after they had forgotten their wives' safety.
When the last woman had left I moved away from Margaret, drifting slowly closer to the stage. Rachael was still standing, still holding the gun on Walter Puckrin, but the strain was beginning to tell. She had probably never carried a gun for any length of time. Now she was finding that it was a machine, and like all machines it was heavy. I knew already. I'd carried my M16 over more klicks of jungle than she had ever seen. Her arms were trembling. I hoped she would keep her finger off the trigger. She turned and looked at me and her arms tightened convulsively. "No closer," she told me.
"Would you like a chair?" Just a thought. If she was green enough to accept I could sweep her feet away, throwing the gun barrel up at the ceiling. It would be all over without blood.
"Chauvinist swine." She hissed it. I shrugged.
"You sure do take all this personally, Rachael." I hoped it would widen the gap I'd pushed between her and Margaret, but Margaret's mood had changed already. She knew she had been outmaneuvered and was hiding her anger.
"Sit down, Bennett. I mean it," she said. And this time I sat. There was nothing to do for a few minutes anyway, until it was time to make the next exchange, when her mood had settled again. I had recognized the town's lawyer among the men. Soon I would suggest that he help draft her demands. If she had any demands. So far she had said nothing. But she must have a real purpose for doing this.
I let her go for three minutes before I asked her, "Mrs. Sumner, can you let us know what you want in return for the safe release of these people? I assume your League has some specific political aims."
She didn't like my tone. "You've talked enough. I'll give you my demands when we get the attention I need outside."
"That won't be for hours, maybe a full day."
"I have all the time in the world."
"Do you want to talk to the man I spoke to you about?" I hoped not. If he told her anything different from what I had invented, she would probably tell Rachael to pull the trigger on me. She did not answer and I didn't press it. I sat waiting for the boredom to begin to build. Most hostage situations devolve to that at some point. It is the eventual undoing of all the cases that end happily for the hostages.
She went back to the stage and sat on the edge of it. Then she called Rachael over, and Rachael came, keeping the gun on Puckrin the whole time. They changed over. Margaret took the gun, balancing it over her knees, pointing at Puckrin. She was smart, I knew that. If she were an amateur she would point at me, but Puckrin was a better hostage. His death would disturb more people than the death of a copper. And his life was vital to me. If he died, I would be blamed for killing him.
We all sat still. Outside I heard cars starting up, revving high as drivers rushed the heating system to protect themselves from the cold that would be intensified by their fears for their own safety and the safety of their menfolk.
And then, far off but coming closer, as pure as an ascending glissando on some electronic instrument, I could make out the whine of a snow machine. I checked my watch. It was four forty-three. Nobody would be moving at this hour unless they had some special reason for coming here. And to confirm my thoughts, the note bent like a harmonica sound as the machine pulled into the parking lot and right up against the front steps.
Everybody in the room craned around as the outer door closed with a hollow boom. Then the inner door opened and a man stood there, one hand clutched to his stomach. For an instant I didn't recognize him in his tight, green workman's parka, then I saw the handcuff dangling from his right wrist in the same second that Margaret's voice gave a half scream. "Tom! What's happened to you?"
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17
He came into the room slowly, walking straddle-legged around his injured testicles. He had heavy leather work gloves on, and as he took them off I could see that his right hand was rusty as if he had dipped it in paint. And the empty half of my handcuffs still dangled from it.
"Ask him," he said in a low, hoarse voice. He came through the crowd of seated men and stood a few feet from me. I willed Sam not to growl and he didn't, his training too deep to presume in my presence.
"Wondering how I got away? Is that it, tough guy?" He held up his right hand so I could see it better. I could see that the rust was turning to black and I knew what had happened. "Easy," he said, and laughed with a sound like the bark of an angry dog. "Easy. You didn't look around that cabin too good, did you? There was a hatchet in the kindling box. I disconnected the kid."
"You cut his hand off?" I could hardly believe it. I knew he was a killer, but that kind of deliberate horror was too hard to imagine.
"Don't worry about him none. He won't be needin' it. You worry about you." He held out his left hand and I saw what was in it. "See this? Know what it is? It's a grenade. Seen one before?"
I had seen, and used, dozens of them. It was an M67, a fragmentation grenade, capable of killing most of the people in the hall. If he was careful and went out to the doorway he could bounce it in among us, then drop flat below the stone step that rose to this level. He would live. We would die, or suffer injuries most of the men in this room had never dreamed of. Only the Legion veterans knew what grenades can do.
I noticed he had already removed the safety clip. Now he removed the pin, keeping his hand clamped around the lever. He tossed the pin casually among the people on the floor and they scrambled away from it, all except for one gray-haired man who looked at it without flinching.
"If you killed the kid that makes four people you've wasted tonight."
He laughed again, stopping in mid-bark as pain struck his diaphragm. He coughed gently, clutching the hand with the grenade to his solar plexus. Then he straightened. "You've done better than that in your time," he said. "Women, kids, no problem to our big tough Marine."
I glanced at Margaret Sumner. She was sitting mesmerized on the edge of the stage, her mouth slightly open. The gun was slumped upside down across her knees, the muzzle pointing harmlessly up at a spot high on the side wall. This was the break I'd prayed for earlier, but now it was too late. Her son had us much more secure than her single-hit gun ever did.
I was willing her to shoot him. If she did, I could have a chance to grab the grenade before he dropped it, before the lever flipped away and the last four seconds of our lives began to tick. But if I was too late, I was helpless. There were heavy drapes over the window. I would not have time to part them, smash the glass, and throw the grenade out. And if I did, I had the new problem of my own making. The parking lot was full of women sitting behind the eggshell security of their Detroit sheet metal. The fragments would slice through three of them in a row. I would have dead women on my hands.
But otherwise? Otherwise, what? I would die here, among a number of others. I had to negotiate.
"Margaret, talk to him. He's your son, he'll listen to you. Tell him not to let go of that thing, I'll put the pin back in."
Tom waved his left hand, pushing out his lower lip and making a downturned smile. "I'm through takin' orders, Bennett. And so are you." He jerked his head to the women on stage. "Come on, you two. Out in the lobby an' lay down. I wanna open these guys' Christmas present."
Margaret slid down, holding the gun in one hand by the barrel. Then Rachael followed. She had lost her anger but none of her hatred. She sneered at me without speaking as she passed.
Tom waited for them to go to the door, then followed slowly, painfully. I had caused him pain. So far that was the best news I had had all night. We all swiveled our heads to watch him go. He stood at the door and addressed us all. "Any of you wanna say a prayer, get it said." He paused to give another painful cough. "Only make it quick. This here is a capitalist weapon, same as your hero used in Viet Nam. When I pitch it in, you're on your last four seconds. It will kill most of you like a lot of people got killed in that rot
ten war. Any of you as don't die, I'll come back for."
My head was racing. Around me men were weeping, praying, some pushing themselves back, vainly, on hands and heels. I knew I had to load the dice my way if I could. I broke in on his speech.
"Don't listen to this punk. He's nothing more than a jailhouse queen acting butch."
He pointed at me with his right hand. "You sent me in there, you sonofabitch. I was straight as an arrow up to then."
"Gearbox!" I roared it. "The only way you can bang anything is with a grenade."
It worked. Instead of tossing the grenade he hurled it directly at me, hard as a line drive in baseball, hard as the hockey slap-shots I used to grab out of the air when I played goal for Sudbury my last year in high school. I was ready. It was all slowed down as if I were on dope. The lever catapulted away in a series of slow lazy loops. I counted in my head, the seconds booming like cannons.
One! Grab the grenade out of the air, swinging my arm back and spinning completely around to take the force without shocking the load any further.
Two! Shout "Fight" to Sam, who jumped for Margaret Sumner who was struggling to bring the gun up to a firing position while her son pushed her toward the lobby door and I leaped toward the door of Puckrin's office, dodging the flat bodies of men who groveled there, willing themselves smaller.
Three! Into the office and over the desk.
Four! Roll the grenade into the open safe with my right hand and slam the door with my left.
I hit the floor as the grenade exploded, muffled by the walls of the safe but loud enough to deafen me. Without pausing, I shook my head and came back into the hall on the run in case Sam had failed to pin Margaret Sumner.
She was tugging back against his jaws clamped on her right arm, trying to reach the trigger with her left hand. Tom was looming over and around her, punching at Sam. Sam was ignoring him, snarling, holding, ignoring the punches. Then as I sprinted toward them, I saw Tom making a dagger of his thumb and stab down, going for Sam's eyes. I let out a roar of fury and drove right into him, smashing him up under the chin with the edge of my left hand.
