Hostage (2001) (32 page)

'You're fucking crazy!'

'No, Dennis. I'm tired.'

Talley walked closer.

'No one's going to hurt you. Not unless you hurt those kids.'

Talley stopped outside the French doors. He could see Dennis and Jennifer plainly now. Dennis held the girl with one hand, a pistol with the other. A shadow moved to Talley's left, deep in the family room, and Talley saw a slender figure. Kevin. He looked like a child. On the other side of the kitchen, opposite the family room, a hall disappeared into the house. Talley saw a flickering glow from a door. A large shape blocked the light, growing in the shadows. That would be Krupchek. Talley felt a well of relief; wherever the boy was, they didn't have him. He had to keep them focused. He spread his hands wider. He went closer.

'I'm standing here, Dennis. I'm looking at you. Come out and let's talk.'

Talley heard them talking, Dennis calling Kevin into the kitchen. Krupchek stood at the mouth of the hall now, floating in the darkness. He held something in his hands, a flashlight, a gun, Talley couldn't tell.

Dennis got to his feet and came to the French doors. He looked out past Talley, then tried to see the sides of the house, probably thinking he would be rushed if he opened the doors. Talley spoke calmly.

'No one here but me, Dennis. You have my word.'

Dennis placed his gun on the floor, then pushed open the door and stepped out. Talley knew that people always looked heavier in pictures, but Rooney was shorter and thinner than Talley would have guessed from the videotape, and younger.

Talley smiled, but Rooney didn't smile back.

'How ya doin', Dennis?'

'Had better days.'

'This has been a long one, I'll hand you that.'

Dennis tipped his head toward the far wall.

'You got a sniper out there, gonna shoot me?'

'If you tried to grab me, they probably would. Otherwise, no. We could have shot you from the wall if we wanted to do that.'

Dennis seemed to accept that.

'Can I come out there, closer to you?'

'Sure. It's all right.'

Dennis stepped away from the door and joined Talley out by the foot of the pool. Dennis took a deep breath, looking up at the stars as he let it out.

'Good to be outside.'

'I guess.'

Talley said, 'I'm going to lower my arms, okay?'

'Sure.'

Talley could see Kevin still with the girl in the kitchen and Krupchek still in the hall. The boy was inside somewhere, getting the disks. Talley hoped it wouldn't take long.

Talley said, 'We've been at this a long time now. What are you waiting for?'

'Would you be in a hurry to go to prison for the rest of your life?'

'I'd be doing everything I can to get the best deal possible. I'd let these people go, I'd cooperate, I'd let a lawyer do my talking. I'd be smart enough to realize that I'm surrounded by police officers and I'm not getting out of here except through their good graces.'

'I want that helicopter.'

Talley shook his head.

'It's what I said before, where's it going to land? I can't give you a helicopter. That's not going to happen.'

'Then a car. I want a car to take me to Mexico, a car and an escort and a free pass south of the border.'

'We've been through that.'

Rooney seemed to be working himself up to something. He waved his arm in a flash of anger.

'Then what fuckin' good are you?'

'I'm trying to save your life.'

Dennis glanced back into the house. Talley watched him, thinking that Rooney showed the day's strain. Finally, Rooney faced him again and lowered his voice still more.

'Are you a rich man?'

Talley didn't answer. He didn't know where Rooney was taking this. He had learned to let them get wherever they were going on their own.

Rooney patted his pocket.

'Can I reach in here, show you something?'

Talley nodded.

Rooney stepped closer. Talley couldn't make out what Rooney took from his pocket at first, but then he saw that it was money. Rooney seemed to be trying to shield it so that only Talley could see.

'That's fifty one-hundred-dollar bills, Chief. Five thousand dollars. I got a whole suitcase of this stuff in the house.'

Rooney pushed the bills back into his pocket.

'How much would it be worth to you, getting me out of here? A hundred thousand dollars? You could drive me down to Mexico, just me and you, no one the wiser, just tell the others that was the deal we made without mentioning any money. I wouldn't tell. They got money in this house, Chief. More money than you've ever seen in your life. We could carve it up.'

Talley shook his head.

'You picked a bad house to hole up in, Dennis.'

'Two hundred thousand, cash, hundred-dollar bills, right in your pocket, no one needs to know.'

Talley didn't answer. He wondered about Smith, what he did here in the middle of nowhere, here in the safe, anonymous community of Bristo Camino, with so much cash and information in his house that this kid was willing to die for it and the men in the car were willing to kill for it. Do you ever really know your neighbors?

'Give up, Dennis.'

Rooney wet his lips. His eyes flicked past Talley again, then back.

'You tryin' to drive up the price? Okay, three hundred. Three hundred thousand dollars. Could you ever earn that much? You can have Mars and Kevin. Fuckin' bust them. Make that part of the deal.'

'You don't know what you're dealing with. You can't buy your way out of this.'

'Everybody wants money! Everybody! I'm not giving this up!'

Talley stared at him, wondering how far to go. If Rooney quit now, Amanda and Jane might pay for it. But if Rooney quit now, walked out right now, Talley would have the disks. Once the Watchman's people arrived, Talley might not have the chance.

'This house isn't what you think it is. You believe some guy has this kind of cash just laying around in his house?'

'There's a million bucks in there, maybe two million! I'll give you half!'

'The man you sent to the hospital, Walter Smith, he's a criminal. That money belongs to him.'

Rooney laughed.

'You're lying. What a crock of shit.'

'He has partners, Dennis. This is their house, and they want it. The way I'm offering is the only way out for you.'

Rooney stared at him, then rubbed at his face.

'Fuck you, Talley. Just fuck you. You think I'm an idiot.'

'I'm telling you the truth. Give up. Work with me here, and at least you'll have your life.'

Rooney sighed, and Talley could see the sadness settle over him like a cloak.

'And what's that worth?'

'Whatever you make of it.'

'I'll go back in now. I'll think about it and give you my answer tomorrow.'

Talley knew that Dennis was lying. Talley had a sense for when they would give up and when they wouldn't, and Rooney had hold of something he couldn't turn loose.

'Please, Dennis.'

'Fuck off.'

Rooney backed to the door, then stepped inside and pulled it closed. The darkness inside swallowed him like dirty water.

Talley turned back to the officers lining the wall and walked away, praying that Thomas had the disks and was safe. Rooney wasn't the only one holding onto something he couldn't turn loose.

Chapter
20

Saturday, 12:04 A.M.

Thomas dripped with sweat. His knees were cut from the rafters, and, where streaks of sweat washed the cuts, they burned. Thomas didn't care. He was excited and happy - dude, he was pumped!; this was the best sneak ever, better than any he'd made with Duane Fergus!

With the power off, Thomas didn't have to worry about being seen on the monitors. He pushed through the hatch into his closet, and crossed the room to his computer. He took the computer apart and lugged it to the floor at the foot of his bed so that he wouldn't be seen by the camera when the power returned. His hands were so sweaty that he almost dropped the screen and caught it on his knee.

The lights came on without warning. Thomas worried that the turds would probably come upstairs to check on him, so he hurried to load the first disk.

The file icon that appeared was unnamed. He double-clicked on the icon to open it. A list of corporate names appeared that Thomas didn't know anything about. He opened a random file, but saw only tables and numbers. Thomas felt a stab of fear that he had snatched the wrong disks even though these were the only disks. Nothing that he saw made sense to him, but these were the disks Chief Talley wanted, so maybe the Chief would understand.

Thomas stopped in his work to listen for squeaks. The hall was quiet.

Thomas turned on his phone again, but this time the power indicator showed that less than half the power remained. He was down to almost a quarter of a charge.

Thomas pushed his redial button to call Chief Talley.

Talley climbed back over the wall where Martin and Hicks were waiting for him. Martin was angry.

'That was really dumb. What do you think you accomplished?'

Talley hurried away without answering her. He didn't want her around when Thomas called. He radioed Maddox to recount his conversation with Rooney as he walked around the side of the neighbor's house, and kept it short. He left out that Rooney had told him about the enormous store of cash in the house, as that would raise too many questions, and felt terrible about it. Talley was a negotiator. Another negotiator was depending on him, and Talley was lying by omission. Maybe that was why he kept the call short; he couldn't stand himself for doing it.

His phone rang as he reached the cul-de-sac. He hurried into a neighboring drive, out of sight of the house, and stood by himself.

'I got'm!'

Talley forced himself to stay calm. He didn't have anything yet.

'Good work, son. You're back in your room now, right? You're safe?'

'That big guy, Mars, he almost caught me, but I hid. What was that thing you blew up in the backyard? That was so cool!'

'Thomas, when we're done with this, I'll let you blow up one of those things yourself, you want. But not now, okay? I need to know what's on those disks.'

'Numbers. I think it's somebody's taxes.'

'You've opened them?'

'I told you I could.'

Martin and Hicks came out of the neighboring drive and joined the other officers behind the police vehicles that filled the cul-de-sac, Martin working her way to Maddox. Talley moved farther away.

'You sure did, Thomas. Are those disks labeled?'

'Uh-huh. Just like you said, disk one and disk two.'

Tell me what you got when you opened them.'

'I got one open right now.'

'Okay, tell me what you see.'

Talley patted himself down for his pad and pen in case he had to write.

Thomas described a list of files named for companies that Talley didn't recognize, anonymous names like Southgate Holdings and Desert Entertainment. Then Thomas mentioned two more companies: Palm Springs Ventures and The Springs Winery. There was the Palm Springs connection: Smith's home had been built by a Palm Springs contractor. Talley had Thomas open the Palm Springs Ventures file, but from Thomas's descriptions it sounded like a balance sheet or some kind of profit-and-loss statement without identifying the individuals involved. Talley scratched down the names on his pad.

'Open the files and see if there are any names.'

After a second, Thomas said, 'All I see is numbers. It's money.'

'Okay. Open the other disk. Tell me what that one says.'

Even the few seconds that it took Thomas to change the disks seemed to take forever, Talley sweating every moment of it that the boy would be discovered. But then Thomas read off file names and Talley knew that this was the one: Black, White, Up Money, Down Money, Transfers, Source, Cash Receipts, and others. Thomas was still reading file names when Talley stopped him.

'That's enough. The file named Black. Open that one.'

'It's more files.'

'Named what?'

'I think it's states. CA, AZ, NV, FL. Is NV Nevada?'

'Yeah, that's Nevada. Open California.'

Thomas described a long table that went on for pages listing names that Talley didn't recognize, along with dates and payments received. Talley grew antsy. This was taking too much time.

'Read off more of the file names.'

Thomas read off six or seven more names when Talley stopped him again.

'Open that one. Corporate Taxes.'

'Now there's more numbers, but I think they're years. Ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, like that.'