Hostage

by Robert Crais

  Talley watched the video without a feeling of connection. During his time on LAPD he had seen three or four hundred such videos, all showing robberies gone bad just the way this one was about to go bad, and only one out of twenty perpetrators had bothered to don a mask. Mostly, they didn’t care; mostly, they didn’t think about it; geniuses didn’t go into crime. Only the first tape had shocked him. He was still a probationary officer, twenty-two years old and fresh from the academy. He had watched a thirteen-year-old Vietnamese girl walk into a convenience store just like this one, shoot the elderly African-American clerk in the face at point-blank range, then turn her gun on the only other person in the store, a pregnant Latina named Muriel Gonzales who was standing next to her. The pregnant woman had fallen to her knees, thrusting her hands up as she begged for her life. The Vietnamese shooter touched the gun to Muriel Gonzales’s forehead and let off a shot without hesitation, then calmly walked around behind the counter and cleaned out the cash register before walking out of the store. When she reached the door, she hesitated, then returned to the counter, where she stole a box of Altoids. After that she stepped over Muriel Gonzales and left. Seeing those murders had left Talley so shaken that he had spent the next two months thinking about resigning.

  The events in Kim’s Minimart happened as quickly: Rooney lifted his shirt to expose a gun, then vaulted over the counter. Kim stood with a gun of his own. Talley was relieved that Rooney had told the truth about Kim having a gun. It wouldn’t help Rooney in court, but Talley could use what he was seeing to play on Rooney’s sense of being the victim of bad luck. That was all Talley cared about right now, finding things he could use to manipulate Dennis Rooney.

  The struggle between Rooney and Junior Kim lasted only seconds, then Kim staggered backward, dropped his pistol, and slumped against the Slurpee machine. Rooney was clearly surprised that Kim had been shot. He jumped back over the counter and ran to the door. The larger man didn’t move. Talley found that odd. Kim had just been shot and Rooney was running, but the third man just stood there. Junior Kim’s pistol had landed on the counter. The third man tucked it into his waist, then leaned over the counter, resting his weight on his left hand.

  Mikkelson said, “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s watching Kim die.”

  The big man’s pasty Pillsbury Doughboy face creased.

  Mikkelson said, “Jesus, he’s smiling.”

  Talley’s back and chest prickled. He stopped the tape, then rewound it until the unknown subject leaned forward on his hand.

  “We need to confirm that the younger guy is Kevin Rooney, and we need to ID the third subject. Make hard-copy prints from the tape. Show them to Rooney’s landlord, his neighbors, and the people at his job. We might get a fast ID on the third guy that way.”

  Mikkelson glanced at Dreyer uncertainly.

  “Ah, Chief, how do we make prints from the tape?”

  Talley cursed under his breath. In Los Angeles, an officer would take the tape to the Scientific Investigations Division in Glendale, then return an hour later with however many prints were needed. Talley thought that the Palmdale PD probably had the necessary equipment to do that job, but Palmdale was a long drive in Friday-night traffic.

  “You know the computer store in the mall?”

  “Sure. They sell PlayStations.”

  “Call first. Tell them we have a VHS videotape and ask if they know how to grab and print a frame. If they can, take it there. If they can’t, call the camera store in Santa Clarita. If they can’t help, call Palmdale.”

  Talley pointed out the unknown subject’s hand resting on the counter. He turned to Cooper and Frost.

  “See here where he put his hand? I want you two to meet the Sheriff’s homicide team at Kim’s, and tell them about this. They’ll be able to lift a good set of prints.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Talley told them to get to it, then headed back out to the street and climbed into his car. He considered his impressions of Rooney from the videotape and from their conversation. Rooney wanted to be “understood,” but he also wanted to be seen in exaggerated heroic terms: tough, manly, and dominant. Talley decided that Rooney was a low-self-esteem personality who craved the approval of others while seeking to control his environment. He was probably a coward who covered his lack of courage with aggressive behavior. Talley decided that he could use Rooney’s needs to his advantage. He checked his watch. It was time.

  Talley opened his phone and punched the redial button. The phone in Smith’s house rang. And rang. On the tenth ring, Rooney still hadn’t answered. Talley grew worried, imagining a mass murder though he knew it was more likely that Rooney was just being a dick. He radioed Jorgenson.

  “Jorgy, anything happening at the house?”

  Jorgenson was still hunkered behind his car in the body of the cul-de-sac.

  “Nada. It’s quiet so far. I would’ve called you if I heard anything.”

  “Okay. Stand by.”

  Talley pressed the redial button again. This time he let the phone ring an even dozen times before he closed the phone. He went back on the radio.

  “You hear anything from the house?”

  “I thought I heard the phone ringing.”

  “See any movement?

  “No, sir. It’s quiet as a clam.”

  Talley wondered why Rooney was refusing to answer the phone. He had seemed agreeable enough during their first contact. Talley keyed his radio again.

  “Who’s on with the CHiPs?”

  The California Highway Patrol officers had been used to supplement his own people on the perimeter of the house. They worked off their own communication frequency, distinct from the Bristo freq.

  “I am.”

  “Tell them to advance to the property lines. I don’t want them exposed to fire, but I want Rooney to see them. Put them at the east and west walls, and at the back wall.”

  “Rog. I’ll take care of it.”

  If Rooney wouldn’t answer the phone, Talley would force Rooney to call him.

  DENNIS

  The money changed things. Dennis couldn’t stop thinking about the money. It no longer was enough to escape; he was frantic to take the money with him. Dennis brought Mars to the closet, letting him see the boxes of cash that crowded the closet floor. Dennis laid his hands on the cash to savor the velvety feel. He lifted a pack of hundred-dollar bills to his nose and riffled the bills, smelling the paper and ink and the sweet human smell of cash. He tried to guess the number of bills in the pack. Fifty, at least; maybe a hundred. Five thousand dollars. Maybe ten thousand. Dennis couldn’t stop touching the money, feeling it; softer than any breast, silkier than a woman’s thigh, sexier than the finest ass.

  He grinned up at Mars so wide that his cheeks cramped.

  “There’s gotta be a million dollars here. Maybe more. Look at it, Mars! This place is a bank!”

  Mars barely glanced at the money. He went to the back of the little room, looking at the ceiling and the floor, tapping the walls, then studied the monitors. He pushed the boxes aside with his feet.

  “It’s a safety room. Steel door, reinforced walls, all the security; it’s like a bunker. If anyone breaks into your house, you can hide. I wonder if they have sex in here?”

  Dennis was irritated that Mars showed so little interest in the cash. Dennis wanted to dump the cash into a huge pile and dive in naked.

  “Who gives a shit, Mars? Check out this cash. We’re rich.”

  “We’re trapped in a house.”

  Dennis was getting pissed off. This was the life-altering event that Dennis had always known was waiting for him: This house, this money, here and now—this was his destiny and his fate; the moment that had drawn him all the years of his life, plucked at him to take chances and commit outrageous acts, made him the star in the movie of his own life—all along it had been pulling him forward to the here and now, and Mars was harshing his mellow. He shoved a pack of cash into his pocket and stood.

>   “Mars, listen, we’re going to take this with us. We’ll put it in something. They must have suitcases or plastic bags.”

  “You can’t run with a suitcase.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “It’s going to be heavy.”

  Dennis was getting more pissed off. He slapped Mars in the chest. It was like slapping a wall, but Mars averted his eyes. Dennis had learned that Mars would go along if you knocked the shit out of him.

  “We can carry it, we can even stuff it up our asses, but we’re not leaving here without it.”

  Mars nodded, rolling over just as Dennis knew he would.

  “I’m glad you found the money, Dennis. You can have my share.”

  Mars was depressing him. Dennis told Mars to go back to the office to make sure Kevin wasn’t fucking up. When Mars left, Dennis felt relieved; Mars was fucking weird and getting weirder. If he didn’t want the money, Dennis would keep it all for himself.

  He searched through the other closets in the bedroom until he found a black Tumi suitcase, the kind with a handle and wheels. Dennis filled it with packs of hundreds; worn bills that had seen a lot of use, not a crisp new note among them. When the suitcase was full, Dennis wheeled it into the bedroom and parked it on the bed. Mars was right: He didn’t know how he was going to get out of here lugging that big-ass case. He wouldn’t be able to sneak out a window and run through backyards, but they had two cars and three hostages. Dennis refused to believe that he had come this close to his destiny to let it slip away.

  Dennis returned to the office and found Mars watching the television. Mars turned up the volume.

  “It’s on every channel, dude. You’re a star.”

  Dennis saw himself on television. The newspeople had cut one of Dennis’s old booking photos into the upper right corner of the screen. It was a shot that made him look like Charles Manson.

  The picture changed to an aerial view of the house they were in. Dennis saw police cars parked in the street and two cops hunkered behind the wheels. A hot newschick was saying how Dennis had recently been released from the Ant Farm. Dennis found himself grinning again. Something smoky rushed through Dennis’s veins just as it did when he got away with stealing a car: part anger and rage, part rush, part a groovy feeling like the whole fucking world was giving him high fives. Here he was with a million bucks for the taking, here he was on television. It was the big FUCK YOU to his parents, to his teachers, to the cops, to all the shitbirds who had kept him down. FUCK! YOU! He had arrived. He felt real. It was better than sex.

  “Yeah! Fuckin’ YEAH!”

  He went to the door.

  “Kevin! Come see this!”

  The phone rang, spoiling the magic of the television. That would be Talley. Dennis ignored it, and returned to the television. The helicopters, the cops, the reporters—everyone was here because of him. It was The Dennis Rooney Show, and he had just figured out the ending: They would use the kids as hostages and boogie to the border in that big flashy Jaguar with the helicopters broadcasting every moment of the trip on live TV.

  Dennis slapped Mars on the arm.

  “I got it, dude. We’ll use the Jaguar. We’ll take the cash and the two kids, and leave their father here. The cops won’t mess with us if we have those kids. We can boogie straight down to TJ.”

  Mars shrugged blandly, his voice as quiet as a whisper.

  “That won’t work, Dennis.”

  Dennis grew irritated again.

  Why not?”

  “They’ll shoot out the tires, and then a police sniper will put a bullet in your head from a hundred yards away.”

  “Bullshit, Mars. O. J. Simpson drove around for hours.”

  “O. J. Simpson didn’t have hostages. They won’t let us leave with these children. They’ll kill us, and we won’t even see it coming.”

  The picture shifted again to an aerial view of the minimart surrounded by Highway Patrol cars. The view slowly orbited the cars. The movement made Dennis feel sick, like riding in the backseat of a car. He watched the cops crouched behind their cars, and worried that Mars was right about the snipers. That was just the kind of chickenshit double cross the cops would pull.

  Dennis was still thinking about it when Kevin screamed from his position by the French doors.

  “Dennis! There’s cops all over the place out here! They’re coming!”

  Dennis forgot the snipers and ran to his brother.

  TALLEY

  Talley was in the cul-de-sac, waiting behind his car, when Dennis began shouting from the house. Talley let him rant, then opened his phone and called.

  Dennis answered on the first ring.

  “You fuck! You tell those fuckin’ cops to move back! I don’t like’m this close!”

  “Take it easy, Dennis. Are you saying that you don’t like seeing the officers on the perimeter?”

  “Stop saying whatever I say back to me! You know what I mean!”

  “I do that to make sure I understand you. We can’t afford to misunderstand each other.”

  “If these bastards try to come in here, people are gonna die! Everybody’s gonna die!”

  “No one is going to hurt you, Dennis. I told you that before. Now give me a minute to see what’s going on out here, okay?”

  Talley hit the mute button on his phone.

  “Jorgy, are you on with the perimeter?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are they on the walls where we placed them?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve got two north on Flanders, and two more in each of the rear yards on either side. They’re on the wall.”

  Talley turned off the mute.

  “Dennis, I’m checking into it, okay? Tell me what you see.”

  “I see fuckin’ cops! I’m looking right at’m. They’re too close!”

  “I can’t see them from out here behind my car. Help me, okay? Where are they?”

  Talley heard muffling sounds, as if Rooney was moving with the phone. Talley wondered if it was a cordless. Like all hostage negotiators, he hated cordless and cell phones because they didn’t anchor the subject. You could fix a hardwired phone’s location. Then you knew the subject’s location whenever you had him on the line. If you launched a tactical breach, knowing the subject’s location could save lives.

  Rooney said, “All the way around, goddamnit! These bastards over here at this white house. They’re right on the goddamn wall! You make them get back!”

  Talley hit the mute button again. The white house was a sprawling contemporary to Talley’s left. A brushed-steel gate crossed the front drive. The house on the east side to Talley’s right was dark gray. Talley counted to fifty, then opened the cell line again.

  “Dennis, we got a little problem here.”

  “Fucking right we got a problem. Make’m get back!”

  “Those officers are Highway Patrolmen, Dennis. I’m with the Bristo Camino Police Department. They don’t work for me.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “I can tell you what they’re going to say.”

  “Fuck what they say! If they come over that wall, people are going to die! I’ve got hostages in here!”

  “If I tell these guys that you’re being cooperative, they’ll be more inclined to cooperate with you. You understand that, don’t you? Everyone out here is concerned that the civilians in there with you are okay. Let me speak with Mr. Smith.”

  “I told you they’re fine.”

  Talley sensed that everything inside wasn’t as Rooney claimed, and that concerned him. Most hostage takers agreed to let their hostages say a few words because they enjoyed taunting the police with their control of the hostage; it made them feel powerful. If Rooney wouldn’t let the Smiths talk, then he must be frightened of what they might say.

  “Tell me what’s wrong, Dennis.”

  “Nothing’s wrong! I’ll let the sonofabitch talk when I get good and goddamned ready. I’m in charge of this shit, not you!”

  Dennis sounded so stressed t
hat Talley backed off. If anything was wrong in the house, he didn’t want to make the situation worse. But having pressed Rooney for a concession, he had to get something or he would lose credibility.

  “Okay, Dennis, fair enough for now, but you’ve still got to give me something if you want the patrolmen to back off. So how about this: You tell me who you have in there. Just tell me their names.”

  “You know who owns the house.”

  “We heard that those kids might have some friends over.”

  “If I tell you, will you get these assholes to back off?”

  “I can do that, Dennis. I just got word from their commander. He’ll go along.”

  Rooney hesitated, but then he answered.

  “Walter Smith, Jennifer Smith, and Thomas Smith. There’s no one else in here.”

  Talley muted the phone again.

  “Jorgy, tell the CHiPs to back off the wall. Tell them to find a position with a view of the house, but they can’t be on the wall. Have them do it now.”

  “Rog.”

  Talley waited as Jorgenson spoke into his mike, then he went back to his phone.

  “Dennis, what do you see?”

  “They’re pulling back.”

  “Okay. We made it work, me and you. We did something here, Dennis. Way to go.”

  Talley wanted Rooney to feel as if they had accomplished something together. Like they were a team.

  “Just keep them away. I don’t like them that close. They come over that wall, people are going to die in here. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m not a guy you can fuck with.”

  “I’ll give you my word about that right now. We’re not coming in there. We won’t come over that wall unless we think you’re hurting someone. I want to be up front about that. If it looks like you’re going to hurt those people, we’ll come in without warning.”

  “I’m not going to hurt anyone if you stay away. That’s all there is to it.”

  “That’s the way to play it. Just be cool.”

  “You want these people, Talley? You want them safe and sound? Right now?”

  Talley knew that Rooney was about to make his first demand. It could be as innocent as a pack of cigarettes or as outrageous as a phone call from the President.