by Lisa Black
“Again, telling us stuff,” Frank muttered. “Does this guy even want to get away? Or is he just that stupid?”
“He’s not stupid,” Theresa said, back at the telescope.
Cavanaugh opened his mouth, then stopped. Then he said, “Thank you, Lucas. Give me a second, okay?”
He tapped a button on the phone console and turned to the rest of the sweltering group. “It sounds like he has us on speakerphone. If Bobby can hear what we’re saying, so can the hostages.”
Maybe we could get a message to Paul, Theresa thought. But what would they say? Run for it? Don’t run for it?
“I can’t ask him about Ludlow. Ludlow’s wife is sitting there with a gun to her baby’s head and then hears that her husband has been murdered? She’ll freak out.”
“She’ll be uncooperative.” Theresa shuddered. Lucas hadn’t stopped at an unarmed woman; there was no reason to think he would stop at killing a child.
“Just as well,” Jason said. “I still think he’ll become more desperate if he knows we know about Ludlow’s murder.”
Cavanaugh rubbed his eyes.
“I spoke with Atlanta again,” Jason went on. “Bobby did not have any visitors during his incarceration. He gave exactly one name for his visitors’ list, his mother’s, and they erased that after she died.”
Theresa said, “His brother didn’t even know Bobby had been released.”
Cavanaugh stared at her, and too late she realized they hadn’t told him about Eric Moyers’s being in the building. But he didn’t ask how she knew that, and Jason went on, “They had nine Lucases incarcerated at the same time as Bobby—four in his cell block—who’ve been released in the past six months.”
He paused, his eyes going to the blinking red light indicating that their Lucas was on hold. But Cavanaugh said, “Details.”
Jason rattled off four names, then added, “One white, thirty-two, Arkansas resident, second conviction for selling marijuana within five hundred yards of a school. The other three are black. The first is twenty-one, did four years for assault after nearly killing a guy in a bar fight. No other record. The second is forty, two and a half years for credit-card fraud, first offense. Third is thirty-one, did five years for putting his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend in intensive care. No other record.”
“Military backgrounds?”
“The white guy got kicked out of the National Guard. The last black guy got kicked out of the regular army for medical reasons.”
“What kinds of reasons?”
“They didn’t know. His record just said honorable discharge, medical deferment.”
“None classified as mixed-race,” Cavanaugh mused.
Frank said, “We can’t eliminate by that. He’d be entered as whatever the arresting officer considered him, which depends a lot on the arresting officer.”
The light on the phone went out. Lucas had hung up. Cavanaugh glanced at it but did not seem concerned.
Please don’t make that man angry, Theresa thought. “What’s that last one’s name again?”
Jason checked his notes, but the scribe read first, from hers: “Lucas Winston Parrish.”
“Why him?” Cavanaugh asked.
“We figured this guy’s age at twenty-five or thirty, right? He and the white guy would fit, but the drug dealer doesn’t have a record of violence, and he does. Besides, the bottle of Advil in the car might have been his. Maybe his medical condition involves headaches or some other kind of chronic pain.”
“It’s slim.”
“Everything we have is slim.” She could not keep the bitterness from her voice.
“Good point. Okay, Jason, call whoever you have to call to get Parrish’s military history. I’ll try to keep him occupied talking about Cherise.”
Theresa’s Nextel rang. The caller ID read OLIVER TOX. She moved to the window seat facing Superior and cupped the tiny phone with her hand, to keep from disturbing the negotiations.
“Here’s the thing,” he said without preamble. “The dirt from your victim’s shoulder?”
“Yeah?”
“Vaseline. With cyclotrimethylene trinitramine.”
The vast library felt airless all of a sudden. “Shit.”
“Yep. Whatever the hell you’ve gotten yourself into down there, don’t bring it back here.”
She snapped her phone shut. Apollo and Hyacinthus rested stiffly in their painting overhead, aware that Hyacinthus would die from a misdirected discus. His lifeblood would drain out at the feet of someone who loved him.
Who the hell decided to put that on the library wall?
She went back to the reading table, where the conversation between hostage taker and hostage negotiator continued. “I’ll pick one from the middle of the row this time,” Lucas was saying, “if I don’t see that car outside the door in five minutes.”
“What’s your hurry? I thought you wanted more money,” Cavanaugh pointed out.
“I did. But I’ve decided I can live with what I’ve got. I’m tired of this place, and I need a drink. I want my car, and I want to get out of here.”
The scribe, Irene, made a note, which Theresa read over the girl’s shoulder. “Drinks?”
“This guy goes back and forth,” Frank groused.
Cavanaugh said into the phone, “I thought it was Bobby’s car.”
“You’re nitpicking, Chris. Does that mean you’re out of ideas?”
“I’ll be happy to give you the car, Lucas. But you can’t take any of those innocent people away in it.”
“There you go with the ‘innocent’ bit again.” The robber paused, perhaps to think. “Tell you what. The hostages will walk to the car with us but won’t get in. That will protect us from the snipers, at least until we drive away. Then they’ll riddle us with bullets, like Bonnie and Clyde or something, but it will just be us criminals.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good plan for you two.”
“Hardly your problem, is it?”
“It is. I don’t want you to die any more than I want one of the bank employees to die. If we can come to some agreement, some conditions under which you’d turn yourselves in, then we could be sure to avoid the whole ‘riddled with bullets’ thing.”
Bobby said something in the background.
“The bullets sound better than trusting you cops, that’s what Bobby thinks.”
“What do you think?”
“Trying to create a difference of opinion over here? It’s not going to work. We’re a team, me and Bobby.”
“Then decide as a team. Under what conditions would you consider letting those people go and turning yourselves in?”
Lucas did not hesitate. “The team answers: None. We are driving away from here under our own power, no matter what. So let’s get back to the central point, because I think we’ve digressed. I want the car outside, keys in, engine running, in ten minutes.”
“Can’t do it. Not like this.”
“The middle of the line this time. I’m thinking Brad. I don’t really like Brad. He looks like the kind of pencil-necked little geek who cashes postdated checks a day early just to watch them bounce.”
“I don’t cash checks!” they heard the young man’s distant protest. “I’m just a tour guide!”
Appropriating Jason’s binoculars, Theresa could see the left half of Brad and his crisp white shirt. He held his hands up to his shoulders, palms out, and even without high resolution she could see the look of horror on his face as the barrel of Lucas’s gun came to rest a few inches from his nose.
Paul sat no more than five feet away. He would not let Lucas shoot another hostage. Theresa knew that. He would die, and they would not be married. This did not surprise her. She could be a good mother, a good daughter, a good employee, and be happy in those roles. But romance would never be hers; like Apollo and Hyacinthus, they had been doomed from the start.
“I think Brad,” Lucas said again. “Or maybe Missy.”
Next to her, Frank whispered,
“If they head for the door, Theresa, get away from this window. Immediately.”
“I know.”
“Besides, I’ll need room to aim.”
Cavanaugh kept talking. “And then what, Lucas? You’re already on the hook for whatever you did to Cherise. You want to make this situation even worse? Or do you want to quit while you’re ahead?”
“Shooting Cherise put me ahead? You must not have liked her any more than I did.”
Theresa opened her mouth to tell Frank about Oliver’s call but broke off with a frown when Cavanaugh said, “You told me she struggled with you. Did she grab the gun, make it go off?”
“He’s giving him an out,” Frank said, “not blaming the victim. He’s trying to guide Lucas into thinking he can weasel out of the murder charge with self-defense. He needs Lucas to think he can get out of jail again someday, which of course he can’t.”
“I understand that. My back aches, that’s all.”
“Want to sit down?”
“No. I want to curl up in a ball and die.”
He put his arm around her, but only for a moment. It was too bloody hot in the sunny window for that. “Your mom won’t see this on TV, will she?”
“She’s at the restaurant. What about your mom?” The sisters had perfected the science of instant communication.
“She doesn’t watch anything but the Weather Channel.”
“You’ve just wasted five minutes, Chris,” Lucas said.
“You’re afraid to come out because you’re afraid of the police snipers. But don’t you think they’ll be even more trigger-happy if you shoot that young man?”
“Or Missy.”
“Or Missy.”
They could hear the girl wail, “But my baby—”
“That’s good reasoning, Chris. You have four minutes remaining.”
“What’s the hurry, Lucas? You’ve been in there for over four hours now. What’s another twenty minutes or so to work this out?”
“I think we’re done here, Chris. It’s been a pleasure talking with you. Have the car outside in four minutes.”
Click.
“I don’t get this.” Frank lit a cigarette in his agitation. “He said he wanted more money. Now he’s leaving without it. What’s up with that?”
Cavanaugh rubbed his face, an agitated tic Theresa hadn’t seen before. “I don’t know. And don’t smoke in here.”
“Give him the car,” Theresa said.
“We can’t.”
“It will keep him from shooting that kid.”
“He’ll take the kid with him to shoot later. And maybe Mrs. Ludlow and her little boy. They’ll get in that car with him and Bobby and they’ll drive away and we won’t be able to stop them without harming the innocents, so they’ll get away, and then those people’s lives won’t be worth a pack of gum.”
“We’ll follow them. They can’t drive forever. And at least most of the hostages will be safe.”
His chair turned on a swivel, and he spun around to look at her. His face held neither encouragement nor condemnation. “And what if Paul is one of the hostages he wants to take with him, Theresa? How would that affect your decision?”
He was right, and she hated him for it. But her growing desperation made her willing to be inconsistent. “We have to do something.”
“We delay. That’s how this works. We keep him busy with details and small decisions. We send in food, cold cuts, and bread so that the hostages will have to put a sandwich together for them, which creates more bonding than a ready-made sub would. And we keep talking.”
“Until what?”
“Until his sense of self-preservation overrules his ambition.” Cavanaugh’s hand went to the phone.
Lucas picked up on the tenth ring. “I don’t see our car, Chris.”
“It’s on its way. But I can’t turn it over to you until I can be sure no one else is going to get hurt.”
“Oh, someone’s going to get hurt,” Lucas said. “And it’s going to be Brad. Sixty seconds.”
Theresa gave up on the telescope’s narrow view and watched the monitor. Lucas pointed his gun at the young bank employee, who covered his eyes with one trembling hand. His mouth moved, but his voice did not reach the speakerphone.
“We can’t work this way, Lucas.”
“You can’t. I can.”
“Are you on speakerphone, Lucas?”
“Why, yes, Chris. I kind of need my hands free at the moment.”
“Can you pick up? I need to talk to just you.”
Theresa saw Lucas hesitate, glance at the phone, consider his options. Perhaps curiosity won out.
Into the receiver he said, “Trying to cut Bobby out?”
“No, no. I don’t care if Bobby’s in on this conversation, but I don’t want the hostages to be able to hear us.”
Theresa watched as Lucas turned, glanced at Bobby, then picked up the receiver. He stood at the side of the information desk, slightly behind the hostages but not totally exposed to the employee lobby.
“Please just listen to me for a minute, and don’t say anything. There’s a woman there who’s going to be very upset if she hears what we’re going to discuss, and I don’t want anyone in there getting bent out of shape. You with me?”
“I haven’t shut the timer down, Chris, so you may want to get to the point.”
Water trickled down the back of Cavanaugh’s neck.
“He’s sweating,” Theresa whispered to Frank.
“He’s calling an armed killer’s attention to a young woman and a baby. It’s a hell of a risk. I’d be sweating, too.”
“I suppose that’s why he just said ‘a woman,’ no specifics. She’s one of two, if Lucas doesn’t know what she looks like.”
“He hasn’t given any indication of it so far.”
On the phone Cavanaugh spoke quietly but clearly. “Do you want to tell us why you killed Mark Ludlow, Lucas?”
Lucas said nothing. But on the screen Theresa saw him turn away from the reception desk, phone receiver still to his ear, and gaze in the direction of his partner. He said nothing, and the video did not give sufficient clarity to show if they exchanged some sort of signal. Then Lucas said, “Never heard of him.”
“He was a bank examiner for the Fed, previously worked in Atlanta. We found him murdered this morning.”
“Never heard of him.”
“There’s an off chance he’s telling the truth,” Frank whispered to her. “It would explain why he’s not paying any attention to Mrs. Ludlow. You’d think if he knew Mark Ludlow enough to try to extort inside information about the Fed, he’d know about his wife and kid.”
“And we still can’t be sure Cherise is even dead. What if she was in this with him? What if she was the inside connection, not Ludlow?”
“Then why is Ludlow dead?”
“Maybe he found out, or maybe he had access to something she didn’t.”
Cavanaugh, meanwhile, continued, “You have to understand our point of view, Lucas. We found a man dead this morning, and now Cherise has been killed. To let you take people out of that bank…well, how can we have confidence that you wouldn’t hurt them?”
“You’re going at this all wrong, Chris.” Lucas set down the receiver and punched a button to turn the speakerphone back on. Unencumbered by the cord, he moved back to the young man in the tie, Brad. “I want you to have confidence that I will hurt them. And time’s up.”
He had left the phone line open. He wanted them to hear this.
The M4 carbine came up.
As Theresa watched, Paul stayed on the floor but brought his sidearm out and upward in one fluid motion.
“Stop.” His voice sounded light-years away, but still she heard the strength of it, the clarity of purpose. “Police.”
Two shots, in quick succession.
Paul fell back, both hands to his right leg. He dropped the gun, and the janitor kicked it across the tile, shoving it away from himself as if it were a live grenade.
“Anyone else?” Cavanaugh scanned the monitor, his face flushed as if with heat and fear. “I heard two shots.”
“No one else acts hurt.” Frank squinted at the scene. “Not Lucas. Bobby—No, there’s Bobby, he just darted out to pick up Paul’s gun.”
“He’s hit.” Theresa didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t have enough breath in her lungs to say it anyway.
Frank tried to guide her to a chair. “Just in the leg, Tess. He’ll be okay.”
“Just in the leg?”
Cavanaugh punched the phone’s numbered buttons with savage force, nodding at Frank. “Get her out of here.”
She voiced some unintelligible protest.
“I can’t have screaming in here, Theresa. They have that second monitor in the map room. You can watch from there. Hello, Lucas?”
“Well…” the robber drawled. “That was interesting.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Where I come from, we call that a snake in the grass. Guy was a cop, and I didn’t know it. Serves me right for not searching everybody at the beginning, but I am a little shorthanded. And you know what? I still don’t see my car.”
“Shooting a cop is not a way to demonstrate good faith.”
“Point A.” The gunshots had rattled him; he seemed to be fighting to keep his voice low and insolent, but higher tones kept slipping out. “I didn’t know he was a cop because he neglected to mention it at the start of this exercise, which really wasn’t demonstrating any good faith on his part, don’t you think? Point B: What makes you think I’m interested in showing good faith? I don’t care if you have faith in me. All I want is my car!”
Theresa watched the monitor, her vision of the world narrowed to one nineteen-inch black-and-white screen. Paul had his back up against the reception desk; he had not moved his hands from his wound. The older black man next to him removed Paul’s suit jacket and began to wrap it around the injured leg, revealing the now-empty holster. “Trade him the car for Paul.”
