“SHADY! SHADY, THIS IS DETECTIVE RAMIREZ! SHADY, I NEED YOU TO PICK UP THE PHONE! I NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU IMMEDIATELY REGARDING YOUR REQUESTS. IT’S IMPORTANT. PLEASE PICK UP THE PHONE!”
Two more rings.
“SHADY!”
Sherm gritted his teeth.
“Oh, man, I hope I get a chance to shoot that motherfucker in the face before this is over.”
He grabbed the phone from its cradle and brought it to his ear.
“Yo. This is Shady. What the fuck do you want now, Ramirez?”
He listened quietly, then said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. You been smoking the crack that you have in the evidence locker or something?”
Another pause.
“No man, I told you what my name was.”
A third pause.
“No.”
Slowly, Sherm raised his eyes to me.
“O’Brien? No, I never heard of him either.”
My heart jumped into my throat.
“Yo, I’m telling you Ramirez, I don’t know any Tommy O’Brien or this fucking John dude. Of course I’m being straight with you.”
He started to twitch. It began with a vein in his neck. It throbbed and pulsated like a snake twisting and coiling. Then his eye began to flutter. He sat down on the corner of the desk and his leg began to kick wildly back and forth.
“Well maybe the bitch is crazy. You ever consider that, Detective?”
Oh no . . .
Sherm looked up again. Glaring, he pointed to the chair and pushed it toward me with his foot.
“Let me get this straight, Ramirez. This crazy bitch calls 911, tells the operator that her husband and two of his friends are the ones robbing the bank, and that one of those friends is hurt, and she knows all of this because her husband called her from the inside. Is that what you’re telling me? Sounds like bullshit to me. ’Cause how could somebody have called from in here if you guys are controlling the phone lines? Who you playing?”
Michelle. Michelle had dialed the police after I hung up with her. She’d been worried, frantic, freaked the fuck out. And in that state, she’d told them everything, given them our names, begged them to tell her that it wasn’t true, that her husband who had never lied to her before was lying now because there was no way he could be involved in something like this, no way he could be involved in a bank robbery, could he?
Without even realizing it, my own wife had dropped the dime on us.
And now I was fucked. Now we were all fucked. Because Sherm was fucked and as a result, he would fuck the rest of us.
“Portland?” Sherm barked into the phone, “What about it? Never been there in my life. I’m East Coast all the way, dog.”
A pause. Sherm began tapping the handgun against his leg.
“Tampa? No, I ain’t never been to Tampa either. I’m telling you, Ramirez, you’re barking up the wrong tree, dog. Bowwow, yippee-yo, you know what I’m saying?”
A longer pause.
“I don’t care what they’re faxing you! Fax this, motherfucker . . .”
A very long pause. Time seemed to slow.
“San Francisco? Shit. Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Ramirez. I’m impressed. How’d you guys find out about that? I didn’t think anybody knew about San Francisco.”
The longest pause yet, and I stopped breathing.
“Yeah. Uh-huh. Look, give me fifteen minutes. I need to talk this over with Tommy and John. No, I ain’t trying to bullshit you, man. I’ve been straight up with you so far, right? Well yeah, of course not about the names and shit, but I ain’t killed anybody. You still got all your hostages, right? Just give us another fifteen minutes. That’s all I’m asking for. Let us arrange how we want to surrender and shit. Then you can slap the cuffs on and be the hero. Get your picture in the paper and on the news.”
My eyes widened in surprise. Sherm turned the pistol toward himself and peered down the barrel.
“No, no, no! No good fucking faith gestures. I ain’t releasing anybody early. Fifteen minutes. I’m hanging up now. You get back on that bullhorn, or call me before the time is up, and it’s on your head. Is that understood? Until we surrender, I’m still in charge inside this bank, motherfucker. Clear?”
He slammed the phone down and stared into the gun.
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“Sherm. I—”
“Shut up, Tommy. Just shut the fuck up.”
His voice was tired, emotionless. Beaten. I’d never heard him sound like this, and I think that scared me more than anything.
He shook his head sadly.
“Goddamn it, Tommy. You just had to call Michelle.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. There was no point in denying it. “I had to.”
“How did you do it?”
“I stuck Lucas’s cell phone in my pocket because I didn’t know what else to do with it. While you were gone, I used it to call her.”
He placed the gun flat on the desktop, but kept his hand on it. I couldn’t help but notice that the barrel was pointing at me. The hole looked very big, bigger than I’d realized. The dead cop’s .38 lay next to it. Both were out of reach.
“Why? That’s all I want to know, dog. Why would you do some stupid shit like that?”
“Because she’s my wife, man. Because I love her. I owed it to her, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. All I know is that it was a dumber move than even Carpet Dick could have come up with.”
I could see on his face that he really didn’t know, and that he never would. Sherm would never understand. How could you explain love to a guy like Sherm? Remember when I said that all the women wanted to fix him because he was broken, but that he didn’t want to be fixed? Well, this was part of it.
“You— you want to tell me why it was so dumb?”
His voice remained flat and emotionless.
“Because now they know, Tommy. Now they fucking know. They know that there’s only the three of us. They know that Carpet Dick is wounded. They know our names, our backgrounds, our . . . They know everything. It gives them a leg up on us. Gives them leverage. We’re fucked.”
“I’m sorry, Sherm. I was just sick of lying to her, man. I’m fucking sorry.”
“I know”— he shrugged—“but that doesn’t exactly help matters now, does it?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
We sat in silence for a moment, then I tried again.
“What was the deal with those cities the negotiator read off to you? Tampa and San Francisco and shit? What was that about?”
“Nothing. Everything. Like I said, now they know. But that ain’t important right now. You still got the cell phone?”
“Yeah. It’s in my pocket.”
“Good. Give it to me.”
He held his free hand out to me. The other one remained on the gun.
I fumbled in my pocket and pulled it out. My hands were slick with sweat.
“Thanks.” He studied it carefully. “Nice phone. One of those expensive kinds.”
With a sudden burst of rage, he threw it across the room. It smashed into the wall and fell to the floor, the casing cracked. I flinched, but managed to keep from jumping in my seat.
“I just want to know one thing, Tommy.”
“W-what?”
“Was it worth it? Talking to Michelle? Hearing her voice? Was it fucking worth it?”
I didn’t hesitate, but my voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper.
“Yeah. Yeah, Sherm, it was.”
“Okay then.”
He lifted his head, looked me in the eye and grinned.
“W-what now?”
His grin got wider.
“They’ll probably try to do some surveillance, see if they can verify the situation. Might try to get a camera inside, maybe one of those little robotic units or a pole scope or something. We’ve got fifteen minutes left. After that, all bets are off.”
“So what do we do?”
His demeanor changed again. Once more, his tone was light and friendly— just my buddy Sherm, who’d never pointed a gun at me in his life and who didn’t have a secret past that I knew nothing about.
“We go with my plan, dog. We have some fun. You still thirsty?”
“Uh, sure. Yeah, I could use a drink.”
“I’ll go get you one of those sodas, do a quick check, and make sure everything’s secure; and then we’ll start.”
“Start what?”
“The party, man. Let’s get this party started.”
With a wink, he grabbed his pistol and hopped off the desk. Turning his back to me, he walked out of the office and turned left down the hall.
Fifteen minutes. But if Sherm found out about Benjy or John or any of the other stuff, the shit could hit the fan long before then.
The dead cop’s .38 stared up at me with that one good eye.
I picked it up, tucked it underneath my shirt, and hurried for the vault.
John was sitting up and staring at Benjy in wide-eyed amazement. Both of them smiled at me as I rushed in. The others looked tense, except for Martha, who had her eyes tightly shut and her head bowed in prayer. I wondered what I’d missed. Things had changed, however subtly. Something was going on, something more than John’s miraculous recovery. I figured they must have overheard Sherm’s and my conversation.
John was breathless. “Tommy! Holy shit, you’re never gonna believe what’s happened. It’s incredible.”
“I know all about it,” I said, trying to quiet him. “But we got more important things to worry about right now.”
I had their attention.
“Listen up, all of you. Sherm’s going to be back here any second now. The cops know who we are. They know that it’s just the three of us holding you. My— my wife called them, after I talked to her.”
“Michelle?” John gasped. “She ratted us out?”
“She didn’t mean to, dog. She was just worried. Anyway, Sherm’s not acting real steady right now. He says that he’s going to surrender and let you guys go, but I don’t know if he means it. I’ve made up my mind— I’m going to get you out of here, but I need to find a way to talk to the cops and let them know I want to surrender. Any ideas?”
“I could fake another heart attack,” Roy suggested, glancing uneasily at the others, especially Dugan. At the time, I chalked it up to stress. Had I known . . .
“No.” I shook my head. “That won’t work. Sherm would probably just let you die in here. I found out that he didn’t ask for an ambulance for John, so I can’t see him getting one for you.”
Benjy slid backward, wiping John’s blood on his pants.
“Shit, I almost forgot. Benjy, come here. I need to tie your hands up again.”
Without a word, Benjy scurried back over to his mother.
“Come on, Benjy, don’t do this. You know I’m not gonna hurt you, buddy.” I looked around. “Where the hell is the duct tape?”
“Tommy.” John was wide-eyed. “We can’t surrender. They’ll take us to jail.”
I knelt beside him and gave him a hug. He was surprised at first, but then he squeezed me back, tight.
“I’m glad you’re alive, man. You have no idea . . .” My voice cracked.
“Tommy, don’t cry. It’s okay now. That little kid saved me. Ain’t it wild?”
“Yeah, it’s something, that’s for sure. But we can’t let Sherm find out about him, John. Sherm can’t know what he can do, okay?”
“Why not?”
I sighed. “Something’s wrong with him, John. Something bad. Remember when you said that sometimes Sherm scares you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, let’s just say that I’m learning the reasons why. You’ve got to trust me on this, bro. There’s a lot of stuff about Sherm that we didn’t know. Stuff that happened before we met him, before he came to town.”
“What kind of stuff, Tommy?”
“Don’t worry about it right now. I’ll tell you later.”
He felt his stomach, letting his fingers trace over the spot where the wound had been.
“Now listen, John. I’m telling the cops that you weren’t involved with the robbery. You drove us here and didn’t know what we were planning. We just told you to sit in the car and wait. Next thing you know, Kelvin tried to carjack you. He shot you and you ran into the bank for help. That’s how you got here.”
“But Tommy—”
“No buts, John! You shut the fuck up right now and listen to me. That’s what I’m telling the cops and that’s what you’re gonna tell them too. You got that? Enough people’s lives have been destroyed today. I almost lost you, man. You almost fucking died. I’m not going to let anything else happen.”
“That’s very noble,” Dugan said. I detected a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but I ignored it.
John nodded in understanding, then reached up and grabbed my shirt in his bloody fists.
“No more arguing,” I pushed his hand away.
“No, it’s not that, Tommy. I’ve gotta tell you something else. Wait till you hear this.”
“What?” I was only half-paying attention to him. Remembering my discarded pistol, I glanced around for it, only to find that it wasn’t where I’d left it. It was gone— just like the duct tape. I started to get a very bad feeling.
“Tommy— there was a light.”
That stopped me cold.
“W-what? What are you talking about, dog?”
“There was a light, a bright light. I remember getting shot, and I remember a little bit of running to find you guys, but not much after that. Just pieces here and there, like skipping around on a DVD or something. Gunshots. Sherm hollering at somebody. Sirens. I guess I went to sleep for a while. I remember it being cold, really fucking cold. I don’t know how long I was out. But when I woke up and looked down, you were bent over me, pounding on my chest and telling me to breathe. I told you that I was okay, but you didn’t hear me. That’s when I figured out that I was looking down at my own body, just like in the movies. I was here in the vault but I was floating above the rest of you.”
The image made me think of my nightmare. I kept looking for the gun and listening for Sherm’s return while John continued.
“There was a light outside in the hall, and voices too. I tried to go to the light, but the voices stopped me before I could reach it. I couldn’t see anybody, but I felt them all around me.”
It seemed that God had decided to show me more proof after all. In fact, it looked like He was going to shove the proof up my ass.
Ask and you shall receive . . .
“Who? Who’d you feel?”
“The voices. They told me that I wasn’t allowed to go into the light and that I had to come with them instead. I was scared, Tommy. I was so fucking scared. And then you guys disappeared. You and all these other people. I was alone in the vault with just the voices. They kept telling me to go with them.”
“He wasn’t going to see Jesus,” Benjy murmured. “He was going to see the others. The monster people. The ones inside Mr. Sherm’s head.”
“I don’t know about it being Jesus,” John said, “but it sure was something.”
I was starting to panic. Benjy’s hands were still loose, the tape and the gun were missing, my best friend who couldn’t add two plus two on a good day was sounding like some New Age prophet, and according to our six-year-old healer, Sherm had monsters living inside his head.
“The light vanished,” John continued, “like somebody had turned it off. I still couldn’t see them, but I could feel their breath on me. It stank, man— like the jiffy johns at the ballpark. They were shouting at me, calling me names and cursing me out. Then they started pushing me. I tried shoving them back, but there was nothing there. They moved quickly. One of them bit me, and I screamed. Its teeth, man— you know how it feels when you get a tattoo? That pinching feeling? That’s what their teeth felt like, except sharper. I kept trying to hit the fuckers, but it was like punching air.”
I turned in a circle, looking for the gun. Dugan eyed me suspiciously.
“Then, all of a sudden, I felt something warm on my chest. It was another pair of hands— but they didn’t belong to those things in the darkness. The light came back— just a pinprick, but man was I glad to see it. It started getting brighter and brighter, and there was somebody standing inside it. I know it sounds crazy, but there was. A man, but I couldn’t make out much else. Then he touched me and I felt better. Just like that. The next thing I remember, I woke up, and that kid was taking his hands off my stomach.”
“That’s really something, man.”
“You know what else, Tommy?”
Sherm would be back any second. The last thing I wanted to hear any more about at that moment was John’s confirmation of life after death— especially given my current situation.
“John— listen, dog, did you see my gun? I left it lying right here next to you. I’ve got this .38 but we need to find the .357 before Sherm does. He’ll go fucking nuclear if he finds out I lost it.”
“Nope. When I woke up, the kid told me to close my eyes for a few minutes and rest. Then he had me open them again. That was when you walked in. I didn’t see a gun.”
“How about the rest of you? Anybody see my .357? And the duct tape?”
Benjy looked like he was ready to cry, and Sheila wouldn’t meet my stare. Neither would Sharon, Kim, or Oscar. Roy found something interesting to look at on the floor and Martha continued to pray. Only Dugan looked at me, and the sneer on his face disturbed me.
“Yo, Tommy! Come out here a minute.”
It was Sherm, and it sounded like he was right outside the door. I froze, wondering how much he’d overheard. I motioned to Benjy to stick his arms behind his back.
“What’s up, man?” I called.
“Check this shit out. The cops have got a— well shit! Never mind. The fucking thing is gone now.”
Footsteps, then he entered the vault.
Quickly, Benjy folded his arms behind him. If Sherm noticed, he gave no sign. Instead, he took a gulp from the soda can he’d brought me, set it on a shelf, and proceeded to polish his pistol on his shirt. He leaned against the heavy steel door with one leg cocked behind him, and grinned.
“Hey, look who’s up and about. Damn, I’m surprised to see you awake. Must hurt like hell. How you feeling, Carpet Dick?”
John tried to smile. “I’m okay, Sherm. How are you?”
“Ready to party. Ready to get it on. Ain’t that right, Tommy?”
“Whatever you say, Sherm.”
His laughter sounded like a barking dog.
“Whatever I say? Well shit, that leaves us with all kinds of possibilities, don’t it? Hear that, Kim baby? Whatever I say.”
Kim didn’t reply. She glanced anxiously at Dugan, and that bad feeling in my stomach came back again.
“Some of us need to use the restroom,” Roy spoke up, “and unless you want it getting messy in here, you’ll have to come up with a place for us to do that.”
“Just sit tight,” Sherm said. “Nobody is leaving this room right now. I just caught the cops trying to send a little robot through the front door— one of those NASA-looking motherfuckers with the spy scope and shit. That’s what I wanted you to come look at, Tommy. It scurried back out before I could smash the fucker. Rolled right overtop of Kelvin.”
“They probably just want to make sure we’re gonna keep our end of the bargain,” I said.
“What bargain?” Roy asked.
I looked directly at Sherm when I answered him.
“Sherm says he’s gonna let you guys go in fifteen minutes. Right, Sherm?”
“Yeah, but the fucking robot still pisses me off. I told them not to do any shit like that. Wonder what they saw on the spy cam? What do you say, Kim? Maybe we should give them a live sex show to watch!”
Kim opened her mouth, started to reply, and seemed to think better of it. She glanced at Dugan, then quickly turned away.
“Come on, now,” Sherm scolded her, “you better be nice to me. I’m about to set you all free. I promise that after the next fifteen minutes, none of you will have to worry about this shit anymore. Hell, I guarantee it.”
I realized then, with a sinking feeling of finality, that there was no way Sherm was going to let them walk out of there.
I ran through the rest of it in my head. Benjy had told John to shut his eyes. Benjy had acted afraid of me when I came back in, as if he thought I might be mad at him. Dugan’s whole Stockholm Syndrome attitude had changed. The duct tape was missing and so was my handgun.
The gun was missing.
The gun . . .
“Let’s start with you, Kim. And no sense in fighting me.”
Sherm crossed the floor, reached down, and stroked Kim’s long blond hair with his dirty fingers. She closed her eyes and shuddered in revulsion. At the same time, Dugan brought his arms out from behind his back. The duct tape around his wrists was gone, his hands were free, and my .357 was in them.
“Don’t you fucking move, you white trash piece of shit!” he spat.
I yanked the .38 from beneath my shirt and pointed it at Dugan. Sherm whirled, raising his own gun. He clutched Kim’s hair in his other hand, yanking it hard. Her head jerked upward and she moaned.
“Drop the gun,” Dugan ordered, “and let her go, or so help me God I’ll shoot you where you stand, you son of a bitch. I mean it!”
“You might,” Sherm answered calmly, “but I goddamned guarantee you that I’ll shoot back. And if I’ve got time left before I die, I’ll fucking shoot Sharon too.”
As if to make his point, he aimed the gun in Sharon’s direction, still keeping his eyes on Dugan and Kim’s hair firmly clenched in his fist.
I inched closer to them. John was breathing heavily next to me.
“Drop it, Dugan,” I shouted. “Come on, man. It’s two against one. There’s no way this is gonna work, and you know it.”
His eyes didn’t leave Sherm’s as he spoke to me. “You’re not shooting anybody, Tommy. You don’t have it in you. Trust me, I know. I’ve killed before, in ’Nam.”
“Try me, you stupid motherfucker. I mean it, Dugan. Put down the gun, now.”
Dugan’s eyes flashed from Sherm to me and back to Sherm again. His hands were shaking, and the pistol barrel wobbled up and down.
“Hard to hit anything with your hand shaking like that,” John chipped in.
“Shut up!” Dugan hissed, but I heard the doubt creeping into his voice.
“Your choice, Dugan.” Sherm kept his gun aimed at Sharon. “Go ahead and shoot me. Maybe you’ll hit me or maybe you’ll hit Kim or maybe you’ll hit the wall and the ricochet will kill somebody else. No matter how it goes down, though, I’m gonna take out your piece of ass before I die.”
“Shoot him,” Sharon moaned, “I love you, Dugan. Now shoot him.”
“Shut up, bitch!”
“Oh shit . . .” Oscar breathed.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .” Martha recited over and over, her eyes still closed.
“I . . .” Dugan’s finger tightened on the trigger.
My palms were sweating and the .38 slipped. I tried to hold it steady again. Sweat ran into my eyes too, stinging them, making me half-blind.
“Dugan, I mean it. I’m not fucking around here, and neither is Sherm. Think about Sharon, man. Do you really want to see her get shot? Sherm said he’d let you guys go.”
Even as I said it, a part of me deep down inside wished Dugan would do it, wished he’d squeeze the trigger and shoot and end all of our misery by taking Sherm down. But friendship won out. I don’t know why, but it did. Maybe it was because I felt like Dugan had betrayed my trust, betrayed my good intentions. Maybe all of them had. They’d pretended to be nice and concerned, but all the while they were just playing me.