High Noon (44 page)

“What the fuck do you…I know you.”

“Yeah, I used to be a cop, too. Let's do it this way.” Lifting the gun, he whipped it across Arnie's face and sent him down. Even before the first scream, he was turning, both weapons in his hands. And he smiled as, right on schedule, right according to plan, some good employee hit the alarms that set them shrilling. And locked the place down.

“Everybody on the floor. Now! Now!” He put a series of rounds in the ceiling, shattering crystal. There was plenty of screaming as people dove for cover or simply dropped to huddle together on the floor. “Except you, Blondie.”

He aimed the nine at Patsy. “Over here.”

“Please. Please.”

“Die there or come here. Five seconds.”

With tears already streaming out of her eyes, she stumbled toward him. He hooked one arm around her neck, put the gun to her temple. “Want to live?”

“Yes. God. Oh God.”

“Anyone in the back? Lie to me, and I'll know, and I'll kill you.”

“I…Mr. D.” She sobbed it out. “Mr. D's in the back.”

“He's got monitors back there, right? He can see us right now. You'd better call out, Blondie. Because if he isn't out here in ten seconds, he's going to lose his first employee.”

“There's no need.” Mark stepped out of the back room, hands high. He was a small-framed man in his early sixties, with a dapper white mustache and a head of waving white hair. “There's no need to hurt her. No need to hurt anyone.”

“That'll be up to you, for a start. Over here, cuff your boy, hands behind his back.”

“He's hurt.”

“He'll be dead, you don't get it done. I want everyone to empty their pockets—one at a time—starting with you.” He kicked the shoulder of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. “Everything out, turn the pockets inside out. Anyone reaches for a cell phone, a weapon, a fucking stick of gum, I shoot. What's your name, honey?”

“Patsy. It's Patsy.”

“Cute. I shoot cute Patsy in the ear. Pockets, now,” he snapped.

“He needs medical attention,” Mark said as he knelt beside Arnie. “I'll unlock the cases. You can take whatever you want. The police are on the way. The alarm.”

“Yeah, it's handy.” He heard the sirens already, cutting through the high ring of the store alarm. Quicker than he'd thought, but that was fine. “You're going to turn off the alarm, Mark, but you're not going to abort the lockdown. You got that? Screw it up, and Patsy's brains are going to be all over your nice, shiny floor. You.” He kicked the first man again. “Up. Roll that dolly to the northeast corner.”

“I…I don't know which is the northeast.”

Walken rolled his eyes. “Right rear, fuckhead. Move! You, you, drag that worthless dick back there with it.” He back-walked with Patsy, then shoved her to her knees. “Get some shopping bags, Patsy. You're going to pick up all this junk people carried in here, put it in shopping bags and put the bags on this counter. Everybody else, facedown. Oh, not you, Mark, sorry. Northeast corner. I'm watching you, Patsy. You be good, now. Pick up the phone, Mark.” He nodded toward the one on the desk. “Call nine-one-one. You're going to say exactly what I tell you to say. Nothing more, nothing less. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Walken tucked Arnie's weapon in his belt, ripped open the top box on the dolly. “You see what's in here, Mark?”

Mark's white face went gray as he looked in the box. “Yes.”

“Plenty more where that came from. Make the call.”

Phoebe was minutes
from the jewelry store when the alarm went off. She stood within sight of it, with the crisis team already moving men and equipment into positions when the nine-one-one call was relayed to her.

This is Mark D, and I have an emergency. There is an armed man holding me and sixteen other hostages inside my store. He has guns and explosives. He says if he doesn't receive a call from Lieutenant Phoebe Mac Namara within five minutes from the end of this call, he will shoot one of the hostages. For every minute beyond that five-minute deadline, he will shoot another. If anyone other than Lieutenant Mac Namara attempts to contact him on this phone, or any other, he will shoot a hostage. If there is any attempt to enter this building, he will detonate the explosives. Lieutenant Mac Namara has exactly five minutes from now.

She reached for her cell phone. “Give me the number inside.”

“Communications is nearly set up,” Harrison told her.

“I don't want him to know that, or that I'm already here. The less he thinks we know, the longer we can stall.” She punched in the number passed to her, sucked in a breath, then punched to call.

“This better be Phoebe.”

Answered first ring, she noted, and scribbled down
eager/anxious to get started.
“It's Phoebe, Jerry. I'm told you want to talk to me.”

“You and nobody else. Anyone else calls in here, somebody dies. That's the first term.”

“No one else calls you, talks to you, but me. I understand. Will you tell me how everyone's doing in there?”

“Sure. Scared spitless. Got us some criers. One guy's going to have a hell of a headache when he comes to. If he comes to. Hey, I think you know him, Phoebe. Arnie Meeks? You've danced with him before, right?”

Her rapidly scribbling hand jumped. “Are you saying that Arnold Meeks is one of the hostages, and that he's injured?”

“That's what I'm saying. He's also wearing an accessory. Just like the one I made for Roy. You remember Roy.”

Not someone she loved this time, she thought, but someone she detested. And a damn clever, vicious way to up the stakes. “Are you telling me that you've rigged explosives on Arnold Meeks's person?”

“Oh yeah. A whole shitload of them. Any move on the building, and I blow him and a hell of a lot of others to hell. I don't figure you'll mind much about old Arnie, right? Guy messed you up, didn't he? Coward's way. How about if I pay him back for you?”

“You don't sound as if you want to do me any favors, Jerry. Can we talk about you and me, and what you do want?”

“We're just getting started. You'd better get things set up fast, Phoebe. I've got a little work to do in here. You call me back in ten.”

“Get the com up,” Phoebe snapped. “Commander, I need Mike Vince here, right here.”

“Done.” He ordered it. “We've got a partial visual, a count of ten hostages on the floor. We can't confirm if there are seven more. Internal security has locked down the building. There's a device rigged to the rear door with trip wires.”

“Don't try to defuse, please. He'd know. It would give him the excuse to kill a hostage, or set off the rig he has on Meeks. What he wants most is to play me, to pay me back. We need to let him do that, as long as we can.”

He'd left a tidy house, she thought, and roses for Angela.

“Commander, he's not planning on coming out of there alive. It's a suicide mission for him, his sacrifice. And his way of paying me back. The loss of seventeen hostages, including a man who injured me. I know what he's doing. I need time to wind this out.”

“Com's set—negotiation control's in that ladies' boutique up there.” Sykes gestured.

“Okay, I need everything, every scrap we have on him, everything we know or think we know. I need Mike Vince sent up as soon as possible. I need you with me, Sykes. I talk. Nobody talks to him but me,” she continued as they hurried toward the boutique. “I need you to feed me information, to let me know if I go off on the wrong angle. He wants to play this out, too, so he won't rush it if we don't rush him. You help me interpret, help me listen, help me with every goddamn thing. Because he knows how this works, and he's waiting for me to make a mistake. He's salivating for just that.”

“He's got nothing to lose, Lieutenant.”

“No, he's already lost. What he wants is for me to sweat, then blow the whole thing—including himself—to pieces. This isn't a negotiation. But the longer he believes I think it is, the longer we have to get everyone out alive.”

“You think he knew Arnie was security there?”

“Yes.” She stepped into the boutique where her base had been set up amid thin summer dresses, pretty accessories, high-end handbags and fashionable sandals.

“I think it must have thrilled him to find out Arnie was on the door there. I think he saw it as a sign that he'd chosen his last stand perfectly.” She stripped off her blazer, tossed it aside. “We already know why he's in there, what he wants. But we play it out. Start the checklist.”

She sat at a table cleared of stock, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “He's cold, rational, committed. He's suicidal. He wants to die. This is another kind of suicide by cop—but a specific cop. Me. I fail, everyone dies. My failure's his motive, but that doesn't go for him unless we establish negotiations, unless we talk, play the game.”

She checked her watch. Ten minutes exactly, she told herself. If she called a minute before, a minute after, he could use it as an excuse.

She ordered herself to clear her head, to find the calm. When Liz came through the door, Phoebe was counting down the last two minutes. “Your guy Duncan's just outside the perimeter, with his lawyer, Phineas Hector. He says he has to talk to you, right now. It's urgent.”

“I can't—”

“Phoebe, he says he's got two people inside. He says he knows two of the hostages.”

“Pull him in, fast.”

One minute, fifteen seconds, she noted when Duncan and Phin came in.

“He's got my mother in there,” Phin blurted out. “He's got my wife and mother in there.”

It was like a bare-fisted blow to the throat. “Are you sure?”

“They were going to meet me there.” The fight for control was obvious on his face as Duncan stood shoulder to shoulder with Phin. “I talked to Loo on her cell a few minutes before twelve because I was running late. They were inside. They were waiting for me. Jesus, Phoebe—”

“They're not hurt. He hasn't hurt anyone but the security guard.” But her hands had gone clammy. “They're smart, sensible women, and they won't do anything to get themselves hurt.”

“If he knows who they are…” Duncan began.

“He doesn't. He couldn't know they'd be in there. He isn't looking at them. It isn't about them. I need you both to go stand back there. Don't say anything, don't do anything. He doesn't know who they are, my connection to them, and that's vital to keeping them safe. I have to call him back. He can't hear anything but me now.”

She signaled as Mike Vince came in. “I'm not asking you to go outside. I'm trusting you to let me do my job. You trust me to do it. Sykes, ADA Louise Hector and her mother-in-law, Beatrice Hector, are inside. I'm calling him back,” she said to Vince. “I want you to listen. You have anything, anything at all to add, to help, any question, you write it down. Don't speak. I don't want him to hear your voice.”

“Christ, Lieutenant, Christ, I can't believe Jerry would do something like this.”

“Believe it.” She shoved a pad and pencil at him, then made the call.

“Right on time.”

“What can I do for you now, Jerry?”

“How about a car, and a plane waiting for me at the airport.”

“Is that what you want, Jerry?” She read the note Sykes put in front of her. “A car, a plane?”

Fifteen hostages, cuffed together in a circle. Explosive device in the center of the circle.

“And if I did?”

“You know I'd try to get it for you. Might be able to swing the car. What kind of car would you like, Jerry?”

“I've been looking at those Chrysler Crossfires. Gotta love the name, and I buy American.”

“You'd like a Chrysler Crossfire.”

“Might. Loaded.”

“I'll try to get that for you, Jerry. But you know that you'd have to give me something for it. We both know the way this works.”

“Fuck the way it works. What do you want for the car?”

“I'd have to ask if you'd release some hostages. Anyone with a medical condition to start, or children. Jerry, will you tell me if there are any children in there?”

“I don't do kids. If I were going to do a kid, I'd've done yours. Had plenty of opportunities the last couple years.”

“Thank you for not hurting my daughter,” she said as her blood ran cold. “Jerry, are you willing to release some hostages if I can get you the car you want?”

“Hell no.” He laughed himself breathless.

“What are you willing to give if I can get you the car you want?”

“Not a fucking thing. I don't want any goddamn car.”

She curled her hand around a bottle of water someone had set in front of her, but didn't drink. “You're saying you don't want a car, at this time?”

“Could've put a pipe bomb in yours. Thought about it.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Then we wouldn't be talking right now, would we, you stupid bitch.”

Mood swings. Conversational tone, then adversarial. Drug use?

“I understand you want to talk to me. So tell me, Jerry, what can I do to help resolve this situation?”

“You can pull out your piece, stick the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. How about doing that? I'll let all the female hostages go if you blow the back of your head off while I'm on the line. I want to hear it.”

“If I did that, we couldn't talk anymore. You told me you wouldn't talk to anyone but me. If anyone else tried to talk to you, you'd kill someone. Do you want to talk to someone else, Jerry, or to me?”

“You think you're going to build a
rapport
with me?”

“I think you have things to say to me. I'm here to listen to you.”

“You don't give a fuck about me. You didn't give a fuck about her.”

“I understand that you blame me for what happened to Angela.”

“You let her die, same thing as killing her. She bled to death while you fucked around with the men who put the bullet in her. I had the shot. In the first hour I had the kill shot, but didn't get the green.”

Lies. Probably believes he had the shot now. Needs to believe he could've saved her.

“None of us knew she'd been so seriously hurt, Jerry. They lied to us, to all of us. None of us knew Angela was hurt at all in that first hour.”

“You should've known!”

Fury. Grief.
“You're right, Jerry, I should've known. I should've known they were lying.” She read the next communique that came in with a runner. “I understand you loved her, and she loved you.”

“You understand
nothing.
”

Agree with him,
Mike Vince scribbled on his pad.
Don't say you understand or you know. Only make him madder.

“How could I, really? You're right. How could I understand that sort of bond? Most people only dream of having that. But I do understand that you were going to be together. You should've been together, Jerry. You should've been able to run away together and be happy.”

“The fuck you care.”

His voice was calmer, and she nodded at Vince. “I guess, well, I guess I've dreamed of having what you and Angela had. You know things weren't good for me and Roy. He never loved me the way I think you loved Angela.”

“She was my goddamn life. If I'd taken that shot, we'd both still have a life. You saved the men who murdered her, but you didn't save her.”

“I failed her. I failed you. You want to hurt me, I understand that, I understand why. But how does what you're doing now balance the scales?”

“They can't be
balanced,
you fucking cunt. Maybe I'll shoot this asshole Arnie between the eyes. Does that balance the scales for you?”

She picked up the water now, but only to rub the cold bottle over her forehead. “Killing him isn't going to hurt me, Jerry.”

“I want you to beg me not to, like you did with Roy. Hear that! Hear that?” he shouted as someone screamed. “I've got my gun pressed dead center of his forehead. You beg me not to pull the trigger.”

“Why would I, Jerry, after what he did to me? After I thought about doing it myself if I could.”

“You know what they'll say about you if I do it?”

“Yeah. They'll say maybe I didn't try hard enough, maybe I didn't put myself into this because, underneath, I wanted him to die. I wanted him to die hard. But you know, Jerry, I don't care what they say about me. You pull the trigger, he's gone, and it changes the situation out here. It takes a lot of the weight off me. You know how it works. You do a hostage, Tactical steps it up. So you want to pull the trigger? I don't lose a thing. Is that what you want, Jerry?”

“Wait and see.”

He cut off the line, and Phoebe dropped her head in her hands.

“Jesus, Lieutenant,” Vince managed. “You gave him permission to kill a hostage.”

“Which is why he won't.” Please God, don't let her be wrong. “If I'd asked him, begged him, not to do it, he'd have done it. And he'd strap the rig on one of the others.”

She pushed to her feet when Sergeant Meeks burst in. “You think I didn't hear that? You think I didn't hear you invite him to kill my boy?”