Terminal (17 page)

“What does it matter if he gives us up, Sherm? Huh? They’ve already got us surrounded. Everybody in here already knows our names. Let’s do like Dugan said. Have some paramedics come in here.”

“Yeah right. And what do we do when they turn out not to be paramedics but fucking SWAT commandos, huh? You want that on your head? That’s just asking to be captured.”

“They wouldn’t be that stupid, Sherm. They know there would be a bloodbath if they tried something like that. We’ve got to do something, man. This is my fucking gig, goddamn it. I’m in charge.”

“Okay, man, chill the fuck out, for Christ’s sake. I’ll ask them to get an ambulance for us when they call back.”

He slid down the wall and took a seat on the floor next to John and me. Then he snubbed his cigarette out and lit up another. At that moment, I don’t think I’d ever needed a cigarette so bad. Not even when the doctor diagnosed me with cancer. The secondhand smoke drifted over to me, and I breathed it in, relishing it.

“Yo, can I get one of those?”

“Sure.” He handed me the pack and the lighter. I noticed that it was the silver lighter that he’d stolen from Mac Davis. He glanced around the room again, and sighed.

“Damn, I’m hungry. I could eat Kim up right now.”

Sherm stared at Kim. Kim stared at Oscar. Oscar stared at the floor. Dugan and Sharon stared at each other. Sheila stared at me and I stared at her. Roy stared at all of us and Martha kept her eyes shut tight, whispering prayers to Jesus to save her from the Devil’s minions. Benjy stared at John, Sherm, and me, and I wondered what he saw.

We sat in silence for a long time. Sherm finished cleaning out the vault, emptying the cash into his bag. Eventually, through Sheila’s timid pleading and my logical prodding, Sherm agreed to let me escort Benjy to the bathroom. Sheila begged to come along with us, but Sherm refused, making her stay behind.

I led Benjy out into the hallway. I actually felt nervous about leaving John and the hostages behind. Keith’s office, with his name emblazoned on the door, was directly across the hall from the vault. There were four more closed doors to the right, plus a fire door and a skinnier door at the end of the hall that had to be the janitor’s closet. The fourth door had a sign marked RESTROOM.

“How you holding up, little man?”

“I’m okay, Mr. Tommy”— he looked up at me and gave his crotch a squeeze—“but I’ve got to pee really, really bad.”

I suppressed a smile. “Well then, we better get you taken care of.”

I walked him to the door and pushed it open, making sure there were no windows inside. There weren’t, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Can you— do this by yourself?”

“Yes. Like I tell Mommy, I’m not a little kid anymore, Mr. Tommy. I’m in kindergarten now, not day care. I’m a big kid.”

“Kindergarten! I guess you are.” Despite the situation, I stifled a laugh. “Okay, I’ll wait for you out here then.”

He went inside and closed the door behind him. A few moments later, I heard the seat go up and then the sound of him peeing into the bowl. I leaned back against the door to the janitor’s closet and closed my eyes, letting out a heavy sigh and craving a cigarette. Cracking my neck, I bumped the door with my head.

Inside the closet, something bumped back.

I was instantly alert, my headache forgotten. Raising the pistol, I put my ear to the door. There was a stifled electronic beep, like a cell phone or a video game with the volume turned down low.

In the bathroom, Benjy flushed the toilet. I cursed. The noise drowned out everything else.

Cautiously, I reached for the closet doorknob with one trembling hand. I heard a rush of water as Benjy began washing his hands. He was singing another song from a kid’s show, but I didn’t recognize this one.

I counted to three and twisted the knob and flung the door open, shoving the handgun forward.

“Freeze motherfucker! Don’t you fucking move!”

It was dark inside, but I could make out a shape. It was human and it was alone.

“Don’t shoot! Oh Jesus, please don’t shoot me.”

“Get the fuck out of there, right now. Come here!”

A middle-aged black man in a blue delivery uniform stumbled out into the hall. Trembling, he waved his hands above his head, clutching a cell phone in one of them.

“Mr. Tommy,” Benjy called from behind the closed door, “what’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Benjy, you stay in there, buddy. It’s okay. Just don’t come out yet.”

Down the hall, I heard Sheila yelp inside the vault and Sherm telling her to shut up.

The black man’s lip quivered. A patch over his left pocket said LUCAS and over the right was another that said DROVERS WATER.

“Who the fuck are you, man? How’d you get in there? What were you doing in the closet? Answer me!”

“I-I’m Lucas. I’m the d-deliveryman.”

Sherm stuck his pistol out of the vault, followed by his head.

“What the hell is going on, Tommy? Who the fuck is that?”

“He says his name is Lucas. Apparently, he delivers the water bottles for the cooler. I just found him hiding in the janitor’s closet.”

“Oh fuck me running! Bring that son of a bitch here. Now!”

“Benjy,” I called, trying to keep my voice calm, “come on out now, buddy.”

Timidly, he opened the door and peered outside. His little hands were still dripping soapy water. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw Lucas, and he started to shut the door again.

“It’s okay, Benjy. Go on back to your mom and let Sherm tie you up again.”

“But Mr. Tommy—”

“Listen to me now, Benjy. Just do it. I promise that everything will be all right.”

“Okay, Mr. Tommy.”

He trotted off toward the vault, with Sherm keeping an eye on him the whole way down the hall. I waved my pistol, indicating to Lucas that he should follow.

“Keep your fucking hands up where I can see them.”

“It’s cool, man. It’s cool. Just don’t shoot me, you hear? I didn’t mean any harm. I was just scared, man. I was real fucking scared.”

“Who did you call on that cell phone?” I asked.

He flinched.

“N-nobody!”

Keeping the pistol trained on him, I snatched the cell phone from his grasp. The lights on the keypad were still lit up and the screen showed the last number dialed.

911

“Oh shit. You called the cops?”

“I’m sorry. Please don’t shoot me, mister.”

“What were you doing in there anyway? How did you get inside the bank?”

“I was just doing my job. That’s all. I deliver the water and pick up the empty bottles every Thursday. Finished up the bank’s delivery and I was in the bathroom washing my hands when I heard the shooting start, so I hid inside the closet. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I figured it was a robbery of some kind.”

“Guess you were right.”

I followed him down the hall and shoved him into the vault ahead of me. Sherm appraised him with a grim smile.

“Well, well, well. Check this shit out. What do we have here? A late guest to the party?”

A look of recognition flashed between Lucas and Sharon and Kim. Sherm and I both caught it immediately.

“Oh, I see you’ve already met the ladies?” Sherm pulled out the duct tape. “Sit your ass down, now.”

“I’m sorry, Lucas,” Sharon said.

“Shut up!” Sherm pulled off a strip and began to bind the driver’s hands behind his back. Lucas began to shake.

“Look, I-I got a wife and two kids at home, and another one in college. Please don’t kill me. I’m begging you here, man. I’ll do anything you guys want.”

“What I want is for you to shut up,” Sherm snapped.

He turned to glare at Kim and Sharon and they shrank back against the wall, straining against their duct tape bonds.

“When exactly were you going to tell me that this guy was in the bank with us?”

The menace in Sherm’s voice was almost palpable.

“We didn’t know,” Sharon protested. “Honestly, Sherm. When you rounded us up, I figured that he must have gotten out. I wasn’t exactly paying attention to everything that was going on when the shooting started.”

“You’re lying, bitch.”

“No, I’m not. I swear to you, it’s true.”

“Goddamn it, leave her alone,” Dugan yelled. “She’s telling you the truth.”

“You stay out of it, tough guy. I warned you all what was gonna happen if you tried playing us.”

Finished with binding Lucas, he stood over Sharon.

“We honestly didn’t know, Sherm,” Kim pleaded. “We didn’t try to play you or anything like that. Why would we? It’s like you said, you’re the man in charge. Please, you’ve got to believe us.”

“Yo, Sherm?”

“What, Tommy?” His eyes didn’t leave Sharon and Kim.

“I found this on him,” I held up the cell phone. “He’d dialed 911 on it. Guess he talked to the cops. I don’t know what he told them but it probably wasn’t good.”

Sherm bent down and grabbed Lucas’s face in his hands, pulling him close.

“What the fuck did you tell them?”

“N-nothing. I didn’t say—”

Sherm moved like a piranha. He flashed forward and bit down on Lucas’s nose with his teeth. Lucas screamed and blood began to well from the corners of Sherm’s mouth.

“Stop it,” Kim yelled. “Leave him alone.”

Sherm shook his head back and forth like a dog and then let go. Sharon and Kim were screaming. Lucas’s mangled nose dripped blood onto his blue uniform. He was crying.

“That’s for lying to me,” Sherm wiped his crimson mouth on his sleeve. “Do it again and I’ll bite one of your fucking fingers off. Or maybe I’ll munch on one of these pretty ladies instead. Bite their titties off and shit. How would you like that? Maybe go down on them and get that clit between my teeth and then—CHOMP! Hell, I might even chew off one of fat boy’s nipples over there. If you think I’m playing, you just try me.”

“No sir,” Lucas wheezed, “I don’t think you’re playing. I believe you’d do just that.”

“Good. Now, tell me everything, from the beginning. And remember, Lucas, I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Lucas took a deep breath through his mouth. Bright red blood welled up from his nose and tears still ran from his eyes.

“I . . . I’d just finished delivering the bank’s weekly water supply, and picking up the empty bottles. My truck has been having trouble with the oil— got a leak in it. Been asking the maintenance department to fix it, but they couldn’t find their ass with both hands and a flashlight. So I checked the oil level before I went to the next stop. I got my hands dirty so I came back into the bank to wash them. Normally the bathroom is for employees only, but Keith said it was okay. I was in the bathroom washing my hands when I heard the shooting. I was scared and didn’t know what was going on, so I hid inside the janitor’s closet. I . . . I called the police on my cell phone, and then I called my dispatcher at work, and told them to call the police too. I tried calling my wife too, but she wasn’t at home. I’d just hung up with the police a second time when your partner caught me.”

“So you talked to five-oh twice? What did you tell them?”

“Not much, really. Just—”

“Careful,” Sherm warned. “Don’t you fucking lie to me, Lucas. I’m still hungry.”

The deliveryman glanced at Sharon and Kim, and swallowed nervously. Blood ran down his face. He licked his lips and continued.

“I-I t-told them that the bank was being robbed, that there was shooting and that there might be some people dead or hurt. I didn’t know how many of you there were or how many people were inside. That’s all. They asked me a bunch of questions but I couldn’t answer any of them because I was in that dark closet and couldn’t see anything. So they told me to sit tight. Said they’d get me out of here. The second time I talked to them, they told me that the Quick Response Team was on the way from York and that everything would be okay. Look, let’s be reasonable. What was I supposed to do, given the situation? I was scared.”

I needed another cigarette. Not sure what to do with the cell phone, I slipped it into my pocket.

“What do you think, Sherm?” I asked.

He exhaled and shook his head.

“No problem. We’re not going to sweat this. If they were going to rush us and try to take the bank based on what this asshole told them, they’d have tried it by now. We stick to the plan. We’re okay for now.”

“John’s not okay, Sherm.”

“I know that, dog. I meant other than him, we’re okay. That cool with you?”

I nodded.

Lucas looked at Sharon.

“Where’s Keith? A little while ago, when I was still in the utility closet, I thought I heard—”

“You’re not asking the fucking questions,” Sherm spat, “so sit back and shut the hell up. Don’t worry about Keith. He’s taken care of and he ain’t going nowhere.”

He lit up another cigarette, took a deep drag, and when he spoke again, it was with a much calmer tone.

“Tell me something, Lucas. Did your truck have oil in it?”

“W-what?”

“The engine? You know, that big thing under the hood that makes the truck run? You said that it had been burning up oil and that you’d been having trouble with it. So when you checked it this morning, was it okay? Does it work?”

“Yeah, it runs. Maintenance worked on it some. Burned about a half quart, but there’s still plenty of oil in it.”

“See? Now we’re getting somewhere. And it’s the one that’s parked out back, next to the Chinese restaurant’s garbage Dumpster?”

“Yes.”

I remembered seeing the truck when we’d rolled up in John’s car. It seemed like years ago now, rather than hours.

“Are the keys still in the truck, or do you have them on you?”

“I have them with me. They’re in my left pocket.”

“Good.” Sherm smiled. “Shit, this is perfect. Let’s go take a look and see what we got. You’re going to stick your head up to the back window and tell me how many cops are swarming around your truck and our car?”

“There is no window,” Sharon interrupted. “The only way to see out back is to open the fire door. But if you do that, you’ll set off the fire alarm.”

“Where do you guys go to smoke, then? I didn’t see an ashtray out on the front sidewalk.”

“No, there isn’t one. The girls go . . . out back.”

“So I’ll bet the alarm is disengaged during the day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she reluctantly admitted. “Keith turns it off so Kim and some of the other girls can smoke outside. He doesn’t want them doing it in front of the bank. The company that owns the mall doesn’t allow it, and Keith worries that it might offend some of the customers.”

“Well, no problem then, as long as the alarm is off.” He grabbed Lucas by the arm and dragged him to his feet. “Come on, man. Let’s go check out the situation with your truck.”

I was confused, so I spoke up before he could leave.

“Sherm, what the hell are we gonna do with his truck?”

He shoved Lucas toward the vault door and turned to answer me.

“I told you that I’d find us a way out of here, right? Well this is it, dog. This is our ticket home. We use a few hostages as human shields, slip out the back door, and make our getaway. If we can’t make it to our car, we use his truck. Then the cops come in and get Carpet Dick some help. Sound like a plan to you?”

I shrugged.

“You’re running the show right now, so whatever you say goes, I guess.”

“Well, it’s what I say. Any more questions?”

“No.”

“Okay. Watch them till we get back.”

As they walked down the hall, I heard Sherm ask Lucas how much a bottled water delivery driver made in a week. His laughter echoed off the walls.

In my arms, John was still dying.

Martha paused in her prayers.

“Oh my.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more, Martha.” I sighed. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”