Saints Of New York (63 page)

It
was not a good set-up. The basement was more a utility room, no more than
fifteen by fifteen. It housed an oil tank, a rack of shelves loaded with
various tools and repair equipment, in back a door that led through to the
boiler room. The hostages - thirty- four in all - were seated in a huddle
against the right-hand wall. There were men, women and children. One girl,
couldn't have been more than twenty or twenty-one, was carrying a baby. The
first question on Michael Vale's mind was how this guy had managed to get
thirty-four people down into the basement. He must have gone through the
apartment block with his gun and his grenade and herded them all down here like
sheep. Un- fucking-real.

'You
alone?' the guy said. He was white, heavy built, buzz-cut hair, the top half
inch of his right ear missing. He looked like the doorman at a KKK meeting. In
his right hand he held a Sig, in his left the grenade. The pin was still in,
but that didn't mean a great deal, for he had looped a piece of string through it
and put that string around his neck. One sharp pull and the pin was out. He
didn't have to use his gun hand to activate the grenade. He'd thought this
thing through. This was premeditated.

'What's
your name?' Vale asked.

'You
on your own or is there someone back of you?'

'My
partner's back there.'

'Well,
bring him the fuck on down here, motherfucker. Can't have him left out of the
party, can we?'

The
kid's eyes were hot and spiked. He was still cooked on whatever he'd been
doing.

Parrish
had heard every word, and he came on down.

'Guns,'
the kid said, and nodded towards the floor. Both Vale
and Parrish produced their
service semis and lowered them to the concrete floor.

'Ankles/
the kid said. 'You first,' he added, and waved his gun at Parrish.

Parrish
leaned down and lifted each pant leg in turn. There was no ankle holster.

Vale
did the same, took a .38 snub-nosed from the holster and put that on the floor
also.

'Lift
your arms and turn around slowly,' the kid ordered. 'I wanna see waistbands,
wanna see under arms, wanna see everything.'

Vale
and Parrish did as they were told.

'Now
kick those guns over here - slowly, okay?'

Vale
did as he was asked, and the kid used his foot to put the guns behind him in
the corner.

The
kid - satisfied - told Parrish to sit on a step halfway up. 'And sit on your
hands,' he added. 'I see you move I'm gonna shoot someone in the fucking face,
okay?'

Parrish
backed up a step, sat down, put his hands beneath him.

'What's
your name?'

'Frank
Parrish.'

'And
you?'

'Michael
Vale.'

'I'm
Karl. That's all you get. Just Karl. My girl's name is Laney, my son's name is
Karl junior. They live upstairs at 13B. Everything you wanna know about them is
in the apartment - pictures, phone books, her computer, the fucking lot. That's
what you got. You gotta find her and my kid and you gotta bring them back here
to talk to me, or everyone goes sky-fucking-high, okay?'

'When
did she go?'

Karl
frowned. 'Yesterday.'

'And
does she drive . . . does she have a car?'

'Sure
she does . . . why?'

'So
we can gauge how far she'll have gone.'

'Shit,
man, she won't go far . . . she'll go see that motherfuck- ing Ramone. Either
that or her mother, fucking bitch.'

'Who
is Ramone?' Parrish asked.

Karl
looked surprised. He scowled at Parrish. 'I was talking to you, motherfucker?
Was I fucking talking to you? Mind your own fucking business, you cocksucker .
. . I'm talking to your buddy here.'

Parrish
raised his hand - palms up, a conciliatory gesture.

'Anyways,
who is Ramone? I'll tell you who Ramone is. Ramone is a wetback motherfucker
asshole who's been fucking my girl, that's who he is.'

'And
where does he live?'

'I
don't fucking know. I only found out about it yesterday.'

'What
happened? You found out she was cheating on you?'

Karl
laughed - a sharp and sudden sound.

The
baby started crying.

Karl
turned and raised his gun. 'I said for you to shut the fucking baby up, lady!'

'Karl!'
Vale said. His voice was commanding and definite. 'You have to let the baby
go,' he said.

Karl
turned and looked at him. The gun was now directed at Vale's chest. 'You what?'

'We
have to get the baby out of here. No questions. No bullshit. No fucking around.
There are more than enough people here to get what you want. The baby, the
mother
...
in fact all the kids need to be out of
here now.'

Karl
was silent for a moment.

'Hey,
man, say one of them was Karl Junior. This is not a
good
scene. This is not what people want to
see on the TV. They
wanna
see
some guy, he's got a beef, he's cut up by his girl,
you know?
He's gonna make a stand, he's got
something to say,
but he's a
father,
right? He understands what's happening. He
proves how
good a father he is by letting all the
kids go—'

'You!'
Karl said, and he pointed the gun at Parrish. 'You
take all
the kids outside. You come right on
back, okay? No bullshitting me. You come right on back . . . you got one minute
to get all these kids outta here, the mother too, and then you come right on
back or your buddy's gonna be breathing out a hole in his fucking head, you
understand me?'

'Absolutely,'
Parrish said. He stood up. He came slowly down the steps as Vale stepped to the
left.

'Get
up, kids,' Parrish said. 'Get up quickly. Come with me. We're going up the
steps and out of here now.'

The
mother with the baby helped corral the children - all eight of them, and she
and Parrish escorted them up and along the corridor that led to the basement
exit.

Vale
was left in the basement with Karl and his remaining twenty-four hostages.

Parrish
was back within forty-five seconds. He returned to the step and sat down.

'So
you were telling me who Ramone was. You were telling me what happened.'

'Ramone?
I don't know who the fuck Ramone is. She said if I hit her she'd tell Ramone.
She didn't even mean to fucking say it. I know it. She said his name and then
she knew she was in it deep, man, in it real fucking deep. I told her I'd find
the motherfucker and put a half dozen caps in his ass. She told me that he was
over the street at this house, and I went to find out what the fuck was going
on. She lied to me, man. There wasn't no fucking Ramone over the street. I come
back here and she's taken off with Karl Junior. Fucking bitch!'

Karl
was angry and agitated. He started waving the gun at the hostages. They
crouched closer. They let out exclamations of fear. Some of the women were
crying, but trying to suppress it. He was pissed, they knew that, and they
didn't want to piss him off even further. They only wanted to get out of there
one way, and that was alive.

'So
there was no Ramone?' Vale asked.

'No,'
Karl said. He stopped waving the gun and turned back to the steps.

'You
wanna know what I think?' Vale asked.

'Not
really no.'

'I
don't think there is any Ramone—'

'What?
What the fuck you talking about, man?'

'What
I said. I don't think there is any Ramone. I don't think there's such a person.
Girl like Laney isn't gonna go for a guy called Ramone. C'mon, man, take a look
at it. Look at you. For God's sake, man, as American as they come. You've done
service, right?'

'Yeah,
sure have. Done my time in the military.'

'A
girl who goes with a solider, has his son, calls him Karl junior . . . shee-it
man, she isn't gonna go for some wetback cocksucker called Ramone, is she? Get
your head straight, man.

She's just bullshitted you to get
a bit of space. She's over at her mother's place, right? Is that where she goe
s
when she's pissed with you?'

'Yeah, man, she does. She goes
over there and tells the old bitch
what an asshole I am.'

'Hell,
man, they all do that. It's how they make themselves feel less guilty for
holding out on you. It'll be something simple, man. She's taken some of your
money. She's had some guy ask her out and she hasn't told you about it. You did
something that pissed her off and she's got mad and taken off, and she's
probably all ready to come right back at you and say sorry.'

Karl
didn't respond.

Vale
took a half-step closer to Karl. 'How old's your son?' he asked.

Karl
looked up. 'How old? He's five, man, five years old.'

'And
you guys have been together how long?'

'Me
an' Laney? Eight years we been together, eight fucking years.'

'And
how many times has she run off like this?'

'Aah,
man, I can't even remember how many fucking times she's done that.'

'See?'
Vale said. 'It's the same as always. You guys just need to get your heads
straight. You need to stop cranking up so fucking much for starters, and then
you need to spend some time together, talk about this shit, get it worked out.'

Karl
closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply.

Vale
took another half-step forward.

Parrish
watched him do it, felt the indescribable tension in his gut, in every nerve
and sinew and muscle. Vale wasn't a negotiator. He wasn't trained to do the
shit that he was doing.

Karl
opened his eyes. He seemed not to notice that Michael Vale was a foot closer
than he had been.

'You're
right, man. This is just so much bullshit.'

'Look,
Karl. I can't get you out of this with nothing. You got a weapon there. You got
a fucking grenade, for God's sake.' Vale smiled. 'That's fucking impressive by
the way. All the years I've been doing this and that's a fucking first for me.
Work o' genius, a fucking grenade of all things. Anyways, like I said, you got
a weapon there, you got a grenade. You let all the kids go. That was
real fucking smart even if I say
so myself. You got some people down here who are a bit shaken up, but right now
no-one's been hurt-

Vale
was interrupted by his radio.

The
sudden burst of static was loud in the confines of the room. Karl took a step
backwards and raised the gun. 'What the fuck?'

Vale
raised his hands. 'It'll be news about Laney,' he said calmly. 'Let me find out
what's happening, okay?'

Karl
paused. He looked at Vale, then at Parrish, then surveyed the hostages. 'Go,'
he said. 'Answer the thing.'

Vale
unhooked his radio and held it up. He pressed the button. 'Vale here,' he said.
'What you got for us?'

'We
got the girl, Detective. She's here. She says she's willing to see the guy now.
The boy is here too.'

'Good
enough,' Vale said. 'We'll be up in a little while. I don't want to see anyone
up there. Everyone stay well back. No guns, okay? No sharpshooters. None of
that bullshit. We're gonna be coming up unarmed and ready to talk.'

He
released the button on the radio and switched it off. He lowered it gently to
the ground and kicked it towards Karl.