Hostage

by Robert Crais

  Martin glanced at Maddox.

  “You ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Martin nodded at Talley.

  “Go.”

  Talley uncovered his phone.

  “Dennis, have you been thinking about what we talked about earlier?”

  “I got a lot on my mind.”

  “I’m sure. It was good advice, what I said.”

  “Whatever.”

  Talley lowered his voice, trying to sound like what he was about to say was just between them, guy to guy.

  “Can I tell you something of a personal nature?”

  “What?”

  “I gotta piss real bad.”

  Rooney laughed. Just like that, and Talley knew that the handoff would work. He made his voice relaxed, putting a friendly spin on it, indicating that everything that was about to happen was the most natural thing in the world and beyond all objection. Rooney was just as relieved to be past this hump as Talley.

  “Dennis, I’m going to take a break out here. You see all the new people we have?”

  “You got a thousand guys out there. Of course I see’m.”

  “I’m going to put an officer named Will Maddox on the line. You scared me so bad that I’ve gotta go clean my shorts, you know? So Maddox will be here on the line if you want to talk or if you need anything.”

  “You’re a funny guy, Talley.”

  “Here he is, Dennis. You stay cool in there.”

  “I’m cool.”

  Talley handed the phone to Maddox, who introduced himself with a warm, mellow voice.

  “Hey, Dennis. You should’ve seen ol’ Jeff out here. I think he crapped his pants.”

  Talley didn’t listen to any more. The rest of it would be up to Maddox. He slumped down onto the street and leaned against the car, feeling drained.

  He glanced at Martin, and found her watching him. She duck-walked over, and hunkered on the pavement beside him, then searched his eyes for a moment as if she were trying to find the right words. Her face softened.

  “You were right. I got in a hurry and screwed up.”

  Talley admired her for saying it.

  “We survived.”

  “So far.”

  THOMAS

  After the screaming, after those frantic moments when Thomas thought that Dennis would shoot him in the head as he was threatening, Jennifer glared at him and said one word.

  “Don’t.”

  No one heard but Thomas; Dennis was pacing and talking to himself, Kevin following Dennis with his eyes the way a nervous dog will watch its master. They were in the office, the TV on, just now reporting that shots had been fired in the house. Dennis stopped to watch, suddenly laughing.

  “Jesus, but that was close. Jesus Christ.”

  Kevin crossed his arms, rocking nervously.

  “What are we going to do? We can’t get away now. They’re all around the house. They’re even in the neighbor’s yard.”

  Dennis’s face darkened, and he snapped.

  “I don’t know, Kevin. I don’t know. We’ll figure out something.”

  “We should give up.”

  “Shut up!”

  Thomas rubbed his neck, thinking he might yak. Dennis had carried him down to the office by the neck, an arm hooked around his throat in a headlock, squeezing so hard that Thomas couldn’t breathe. Jennifer came over and knelt by him, making as if to help him, but pinching his arm, instead, her whisper angry and frightened.

  “You see? You see? You almost got caught!”

  She went to their father.

  Mars returned from elsewhere in the house, his arms filled with big white candles. Without saying a word, he lit one, dripped wax on the television, seated the base in the wax. He moved to the bookcase, did it again. Dennis and Kevin were coming apart, but Thomas thought that Mars looked content.

  Dennis finally noticed.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Mars answered as he lit another candle.

  “They might cut the power. Here, take this.”

  He stopped with the candles long enough to toss a flashlight to Dennis. It was the one from the kitchen utility drawer. He tossed a second to Kevin, who dropped it.

  Dennis turned on the light, then turned it off.

  “Those candles are a good idea.”

  Soon, the office looked like an altar.

  Thomas watched Dennis. Dennis seemed inside himself, following Mars with a kind of watchful wariness, as if Mars held something over him that he was trying to figure out. Thomas hated them all, thinking that if he only had the gun he could kill them, Mars with the candles, Dennis with his eyes on Mars, Kevin staring at Dennis, none of them looking at him, pull out the gun and shoot every one of them, bangbangbang.

  Dennis suddenly said, “We should stack pots and pans under the windows in case they try to sneak in, things that will fall, so we’ll hear.”

  Mars grunted.

  “Mars, when you’re back there, do that, okay? Set up some booby traps.”

  Jennifer said, “What about my father?”

  “Jesus, not that again. Christ.”

  Her voice rose.

  “He needs a doctor, you asshole!”

  “Kevin, take’m back upstairs. Please.”

  Thomas didn’t care. That was what he wanted.

  “Do you want me to tie them again?”

  Dennis started to answer, then squinched his face, thinking.

  “It took too long to cut all that shit off, you and Mars tying them like a couple of fuckin’ mummies. Just make sure they’re locked in real good, not just with the nails.”

  Mars finished with the candles.

  “I can take care of that. Bring them up.”

  Kevin brought them, holding Jennifer’s arm, almost having to drag her, but Thomas walking in front, anxious to get back to his room though he tried to hide it. They waited at the top of the stairs until Mars rejoined them, now with a hammer and screwdriver. He trudged up the steps, thump thump thump, with the slow inevitability of a rising freight elevator, dark and dirty. Mars led them to Thomas’s room first, the end of the hall. It was spooky without light.

  “Get in there, fat boy. Pull your covers over your head.”

  Mars pushed him inside hard, then knelt by the knob, the one Thomas would use to get out. He hammered the screwdriver under the base, popped it off, unfastened three screws, then pulled the knob free, leaving only a square hole. He looked at Jennifer then, no one else, Jennifer.

  “You see? That’s how you keep a child in its room.”

  They left Thomas like that, pulling the door, then hammering the door closed. Thomas listened until he heard the crash of Jennifer’s knob coming free and her door being nailed, and then he scrambled for his closet. He was thinking only of the gun, but as soon as he turned on his flashlight he saw Jennifer’s purse. He had dropped it just inside the hatch when he scrambled back into the room. He clawed it open and upended it.

  Out fell her cell phone.

  10

  • • •

  Friday, 8:32 P.M.

  Palm Springs, California

  SONNY BENZA

  The three of them had Glen Howell on the speaker, Benza, Tuzee, and Salvetti, the TVs muted so they could hear. Benza, on his third pack of Gaviscom, nursed an upset stomach, his acid reflux acting up.

  Howell, his voice crackling with the shitty cell connection, sitting in his car somewhere in the dark, said, “He’s got a wife and kid, a daughter. They’re divorced or separated or something. The wife and kid live down in LA, but he sees the kid every two weeks or something.”

  Tuzee, his face pasty beneath the tan, looking like a corpse from the strain, rubbed irritably at his face and interrupted.

  “Stop it.”

  “What?”

  “Stop with the ‘or something.’ Don’t end every sentence with ‘or something.’ It’s pissing me off. You’ve got a college education.”

  Benza reached out, patte
d Tuzee’s leg, but didn’t say anything.

  Tuzee had his face in his hands, the flesh folded around his fingers like a man twice his age.

  “He either sees them every two weeks or he doesn’t; it’s either a fact or it isn’t. Find out the fucking facts before you call us.”

  The connection popped and hissed, a background roar.

  “Sorry.”

  “Keep going.”

  “He’s seeing them this weekend. The wife is bringing up the daughter.”

  Benza cleared his throat, phlegm from the Gaviscom.

  “And you know this to be a fact?”

  “Book it. We got that from his office, an older woman there who likes to talk, you know, how sad it is and all because the Chief’s such a nice man.”

  “Where are they now, the family I mean?”

  “That, I don’t know. I got people on that. They’re due up tonight, though. That part I know for sure.”

  Benza nodded.

  “We’ve gotta think about this.”

  Salvetti had already made up his mind. He leaned back, crossed his arms, his legs splayed and open.

  “That shit just happened, that was too close. We’ve gotta move.”

  “You mean the Sheriffs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, that was close.”

  They were silent for a time, each man lost in his own thoughts. Benza had dialed up Howell as soon as he saw the Sheriffs rolling into the neighborhood. Then, when the TV reported that shots were fired, he damn near tossed his soup, thinking this was it, SWAT was going in and they were cooked.

  Howell said, “There’s more.”

  “Okay.”

  “They’re looking into the building permits.”

  “Why the fuck?”

  “Something like this happens, some asshole barricades himself in a building, they want the floor plans. So now they’re trying to find the people who built the house so they can get the plans.”

  “Shit.”

  Benza sighed and leaned back. Tuzee glanced at him, shaking his head. Benza owned the construction companies that built the house and installed the security systems. He didn’t like where this was going. He stood.

  “I’m going to walk, so if you can’t hear me just say, okay?”

  “Sure, Sonny.”

  “First thing first. Our records. I’m looking at this house on the TV right now. There’s a ring of cops around it like they’re about to hit the beach at Normandy, but let me ask you something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Could we get our people in there?”

  “In the house?”

  “Yeah, in the house. Right now, right in front of the cops, the TV cameras, everything; get a couple guys inside the house?”

  “No. I’ve got good people, Sonny, the best, but we can’t get in right now. Not the way it stands now. We’d have to own the cops to do that. You give me a day, two days, I could probably do it.”

  Benza, irritated, glowered at the televisions, two pictures, one showing the house with a bunch of SWAT cops out front, the other some blonde dyke being interviewed, short hair slicked back, dressed like a man.

  “Could we get close? Now. Not owning the cops, but now.”

  Howell thought about it.

  “Okay, look, I don’t have a TV. I’m not seeing what you’re seeing right now, okay? But I know Smith’s house and I’m familiar with the neighborhood, so I’m going to say yeah. We could probably get close.”

  Benza looked at Tuzee and Salvetti.

  “How about we burn it down? Right now, tonight. Get some guys in there with some accelerant, everybody’s gonna know it’s arson so who gives a shit what, torch the place, burn it to the ground.”

  He spread his hands, looking at them, hopeful.

  Salvetti shrugged, unimpressed.

  “No way to know the disks would be destroyed. Not for sure. I promise you this, if Smith has any of that stuff in his security room, it isn’t gonna burn. Then we’re fucked.”

  Benza stared at the floor, ashamed of himself, thinking what a stupid idea, burn the place.

  Tuzee leaned back now, crossing his arms, stared at the ceiling.

  “Okay, look. Here it is the way I see it: If these kids were going to give up, they would’ve given up. Something’s keeping them in that house, I don’t know what, but they’re sticking. The more cops pile up around that place, the more likely we are to have a breached entry.”

  Salvetti sat forward, raising a hand like he was in class, interrupting.

  “Wait. Call me crazy, but how about this? Why don’t we just call’m? Talk to these dicks ourselves, cut a deal.”

  Howell’s voice hissed from the speaker.

  “The lines are blocked. The cops did that.”

  “Smith’s regular lines, maybe, but not our lines. We pay extra for those lines.”

  Tuzee was saying, “What do you mean, cut a deal?”

  “We lay it out for these assholes who they’re dealing with, say they think they’re in trouble with the cops, they haven’t seen the kinda trouble we can bring down. We cut a deal, pay’m something like fifty K to give up, we’ll provide the lawyers, all of that.”

  “No fuckin’ way. Uh-uh.”

  “Why?”

  “You want to tell three punk assholes our business? Jesus, Sally.”

  Salvetti fell silent, embarrassed.

  Benza caught Tuzee looking at him, resigned.

  “What, Phil?”

  Tuzee slumped in his chair, more tired now than ever.

  “Talley’s family.”

  “We’ve got a lot to think about with that.”

  “I know. I’m thinking about it. Once we go down that road, no turning back.”

  “You know where that ends, don’t you?”

  “You’re the guy just suggested we burn the fucking house down, six people inside, the whole world watching.”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t just sit. We came damned close with what happened tonight, and now they’re looking at the building permits and God knows what else. That’s bad enough, but I’m worried about New York. I’m thinking, how long can we keep the lid on this?”

  “We’ve got the lid on. I trust the guys we have on the scene.”

  “I trust our guys, too, but old man Castellano is going to find out sooner or later. It’s bound to happen.”

  “It’s only been a few hours.”

  “However long it’s been, we need to get a handle on things before they find out. By the time that old man hears, we’ve gotta be able to tell him that we’re no longer a threat to him. We’ve gotta laugh about this over schnapps and cigars, else he’ll hand us our asses.”

  Benza felt tired in his heart, but relieved, too. Comfort came with the decision.

  “Glen?”

  “I’m here, Sonny.”

  “If we move on Talley like this, you got a man there who can handle it?”

  “Yes, Sonny.”

  “He can do whatever needs to be done? All the way?”

  “Yes, Sonny. Can and will. I can handle the rest.” Benza glanced at Phil Tuzee, Tuzee nodding, then Salvetti, Salvetti ducking his head one time.

  “Okay, Glen. Get it done.”

  11

  • • •

  Friday, 11:40 P.M., Eastern time

  8:40 P.M., Pacific time

  New York City

  VIC CASTELLANO

  His wife was a light sleeper, so Vittorio “Vic” Castellano left their bedroom to take the call. He put on the thick terry-cloth bathrobe, the birthday present from his kids with Don’t Bug Me embroidered on the back, and gimped alongside Jamie Beldone to the kitchen. Beldone held a cell phone. On the other end of it was a man they employed to keep an eye on things in California.

  Vic, seventy-eight years old and two weeks away from a hip replacement, poured a small glass of orange juice, but couldn’t bring himself to drink it. His stomach was already sour.

  “You sure it’s
this bad?”

  “The police have the house locked down with all Benza’s records inside, including the books that link to us.”

  “That sonofabitch. What’s in his records?”

  “They show how much he kicks to us. I don’t know if it’ll show business by business, but it’s going to show something like that so he can keep track of where his money goes. If the Feds recover this, it will help them build an IRS case against you.”

  Vic poured out the orange juice, then ran water in the glass. He sipped. Warm.

  “It’s been how long this is going on?”

  “About five hours now.”

  Castellano checked the time.

  “Does Benza know that we know?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That chickenshit sonofabitch. Heaven forbid he call to warn me like a real man. He’d rather let me get caught cold than have time to fuckin’ prepare.”

  “He’s a piece of shit, skipper. That’s all there is to it.”

  “What’s he doing about it?”

  “He sent in a team. You know Glen Howell?”

  “No.”

  “Benza’s fixer. He’s good.”

  “Do we have our own guy there?”

  Beldone tipped the phone, nodding.

  “He’s on the line now. I have to tell him what to do.”

  Vic drank more of the warm water, then sighed. It was going to be a long night. He was already thinking of what he would say to his lawyers.

  “Should we maybe get our own team in there?”

  Beldone pursed his lips, then shook his head.

  “We’d have to get the guys together, plus the five-hour plane flight; not enough time, Vic. It’s Sonny’s show. Sonny and Glen Howell.”

  “I can’t believe that chickenshit hasn’t called me. What’s he thinkin’, back there?”

  “He’s thinking that if it goes south, he’s going to run. He’s probably more afraid of you than the Feds.”

  “He should be.”

  Vic sighed again, then went to the door. Forty years as the boss of the most powerful crime family on the East Coast had taught him to worry about the things he could control, and let other people worry about the things he couldn’t.

  He stopped in the door and turned back to Jamie Beldone.

  “Sonny Benza is an incompetent asshole, and so was his fuckin’ father.”