She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the front door. But stopped short when someone began pounding on it. “Who’s there?” she cried.
“Mr. Sloan?” A man’s voice. Polite, or pretending to be. “Mr. Harvey Sloan?”
“Who is it?”
“We just want to talk to Mr. Sloan.”
“Who’s we?”
“Is Mr. Sloan there?” A little less polite. The doorknob turned, then the lock caught.
Josie led Harvey back to the couch, signed him to be quiet, and stepped over the gunman, who was still feebly twitching, to raise a corner of the window shade. Three men stood on the front porch, two of them state troopers in brown uniforms and Smokey bear hats. The third a civilian, in shirtsleeves. Although the window was shut, she could tell they were conferring, debating.
“… door,” said one of the troopers, but the civilian shook his head. “Let me …”
“Mr. Sloan?” Different voice, chummier, professionally friendly. “My name’s Randy. How are you today?”
Josie and Harvey looked at each other. Harvey whispered, “Do I have to tell him?”
“Mr. Sloan, how about you come for a ride with us? Frank sent us. What do you say?”
Her bastard father. He’d really gone and done it.
“Mr. Sloan?” The first voice. “We’ve got a court order here.” The gunman was attempting to get to his knees. Josie hit him with the frying pan, one-handed, and he went down again. It was like stepping on a particularly large bug when you could feel the shell crack. Then she screamed, convincingly, she hoped. “Don’t come in here! He’s got a gun!”
Law Enforcement
Elaine flew. Got herself to Harvey’s in nanoseconds. There was already a squad car blocking traffic, and two more pulled up across the street from the house. Frank was there, surrounded by walkie-talkies and flashing lights. Harvey’s place looked as fusty and tranquil as it always did. The shades were drawn. The elm tree in the front yard sent a stray brown leaf drifting to the ground. It seemed to be the only quiet place in the carnival of police and excited neighbor children. Frank saw Elaine coming toward him and met her eye without stopping the sour conversation he was having with some police type. She had to wait on the edge of the milling group until he was finished talking.
“What in the world is going on?”
The police type started in explaining, but Frank waved him off. “I got it, Joe.” He steered Elaine a few steps down the sidewalk. “Look, it’s going to be all right.”
“Where’s Josie?” “Inside with Harvey. I’m sure she’s fine. OK, it’s like this. When my team got here—”
“Team? Please.” “You want to hear this or not? I told you he was going into the hospital today. They were supposed to do intake, evaluation, physical, the works. It’s all legal. I got a judge to go for it.”
“Legal. Try screwed-up.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know he’d flip out? He’s got himself and Josie locked inside, and he won’t open the door.”
“How do you know it’s Josie, did you talk to her?”
“The phone’s not working. But she came to the window and waved.”
Waved? “What is she doing there in the first place?”
Frank shrugged. “Hiding from you, I guess.” He was dressed for the office, freshly shaven and smelling powerfully of premium aftershave. Elaine was wearing the pants and shirt she’d had on yesterday. She didn’t feel well-groomed enough to say hurtful things back at him.
“I want to see her.”
“Well, you can’t yet. Nobody’s getting in. We’re waiting for the negotiators.”
“Negotiators,” Elaine echoed. “Don’t tell me they really do that.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s standard in a hostage situation. I’ve been talking to these guys; it’s actually pretty interesting. They have a procedures manual, training film. Impressive.” Frank nodded. He wasn’t trying to be crass. He just was.
“I want to know what they’re going to do,” she said, keeping her voice stern. She was determined not to cry in front of him and give him one more reason not to take her seriously.
“Make sure nobody gets hurt. Address his demands.” “What demands? What do you think this is, one of your action movies? Harvey just wants to be left alone. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. Especially not Josie.”
“Then what’s this gun business?” “I don’t know.” Elaine, exasperated, turned back toward the house. “These people should all just go away, they’re making everything worse. Let me see Harvey for five minutes. I guarantee I’ll talk some sense into him. Josie too. After I strangle her.”
“Getting hysterical doesn’t help anything.” “I am not hysterical. I’m emotional. It’s an appropriate response.”
The police had come up with a bullhorn and were taking turns talking through it, testing one two three, one two three. At least they’d stopped short of a SWAT team. Elaine didn’t like the enthusiastic way they were pitching, in. A chance to practice procedures. She kept waiting for someone to realize how ridiculous it all was. This was Harvey, for God’s sake. A slingshot was enough firepower to deal with him.
Elaine recognized the young, glum policeman who had come to the house, even though he was out of uniform. He stood under a tree, talking to another cop. She walked away from Frank and approached him. “Hello again,” she said. She realized that she had forgotten his name. “What a big production,” she said idiotically.
He turned toward her, his face puckering into a frown. “Oh, hi.” The other officer excused himself, giving Elaine a brief, noncommittal look that nevertheless made her feel he knew exactly who she was. Frank had probably made a general announcement. Expect my hysterical pushy ex-wife to show up at some point.
She was being paranoid. Although now that they were alone, the young man seemed reluctant or embarrassed to be seen with her, as if without his uniform he didn’t quite know how to behave. Still, she didn’t want to go running after Frank just yet, so she said, “Maybe you heard. My daughter’s in that house.” “Yes ma’am. They told me.” “She turns up right in the middle of a huge mess. Typical. I don’t really mean that. I’m just so worried.” “Of course, ma’am. It’s a serious situation.”
“I wonder if she can see me. I wonder if she’s watching right now.” Elaine shaded her eyes and looked down the street. “Maybe I should hold up a sign or something.” She was talking too much, like always.
“That’s what they use the bullhorn for, ma’am. Communicating with the subject.”
“Oh. Sure.” He looked as if he was about to bolt, so she said, quickly, “I’m afraid somebody’s going to get all Ramboed up and do something that’ll only make everything worse. Harvey, the old man who lives there, is not … dangerous. He’s the most undangerous guy in the world. Can you help me make them understand that?”
It was hard to tell if she was making any headway with him. He was handsome in an almost cartoon fashion, all jaw and eyebrows. They hadn’t drawn in enough lines, his face wasn’t capable of doing certain things. “Please.” Elaine said. “If there’s anything you can do.” Wondering if she could get her crusted eyelashes to flutter appealingly.
“I could go in as part of a hostage exchange. Me for your daughter.” She’s not really a hostage, Elaine wanted to tell him, but he was already squaring his shoulders and looking resolute, obviously taken with the idea. “Well, if you think that would work,” she murmured.
“We’ll need to establish communications first. Gain his trust. Set up some ground rules.”
“You really don’t have to …” “I feel it’s my duty, ma’am. Following through on the case.” He did seem energized by his own words. Elaine had to admire his nearly classic profile. He could be on one of those television shows featuring Hollywood policemen.
“I’ll go talk to my lieutenant,” he told her, and Elaine thanked him, then promptly forgot about him. She stood by herself beneath the tree. It was one of those maples that turned so g
old you wanted to put a leaf in your mouth. The sky was blue enamel and the sun was bright. Entirely the wrong kind of weather for guns and cops.
Two little boys on bicycles rode up and skidded to a stop, making sound effects as if they were … eighteen-wheelers? Urban desperadoes? She had no idea what little boys pretended to be these days. One of them said, “They gone shoot that ol man. Boom-o.” More sound effects.
“Nobody’s going to shoot anyone,” Elaine told them. “That’s just foolish talk.”
“We got this machine gun at our house,” offered the other boy. Elaine said that she hoped he didn’t really.
“Big ol machine gun. Supersonic laser death ray.”
“You so full of it.”
“Shup, man.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Elaine asked.
“Naw, it’s a teacher day,” said the older boy, who looked to be around eight or nine. Elaine thought she recognized them as part of the family who lived across the street from Harvey. “We goin to Super-K with my mamma. When they shoot that man so she can drive us.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“They been shootin over there already.”
“What are you talking about?”
But the boys were already darting off on their bikes, as quick as dragonflies, calling to each other in their high, excited voices. The police were clearing people away and stretching yellow plastic tape around trees. Elaine looked for Frank and found him huddled with his new police buddies. “I want to talk to Josie.”
Frank intercepted her. “Let’s just let the professionals handle it, shall we?”
“What is the matter with you that you’re not worried about her?”
“Just because I’m not jumping up and down and screaming doesn’t mean I’m not concerned.”
“We don’t need the police here. Especially not a lot of police. They’re going to overreact, somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“Elaine, they’re going to make certain tactical decisions. They’ve got it under control, OK? Sometimes I think you just like worrying.”
She could have smacked him. Him and every other man you were supposed to believe when they told you not to worry about the world they were in charge of. Don’t worry about the DDT, the Agent Orange, the acceptable levels of strontium 90 in milk. The oil pipeline that would never rupture in the caribou breeding ground. The aging jetliner that was perfectly safe right up until the moment it went cartwheeling down the runway in flaming chunks. You couldn’t tell them anything because nothing bad had happened yet and when it did it was probably your fault anyway. The child wasn’t hurt, he was only crying because he was spoiled, and why were you making such a big deal out of a little blood, or a cough, or a rash, or a touch of food poisoning? What was it about men that they marched straight into disasters they swore would never happen, invincible in their arrogance? They needed women around so that they could make fun of them for reflecting their own fears.
She said, “Frank, I think you should leave me alone right now,” and there was something in her tone that made him turn without argument and walk away.
There were more people than ever on the street, in spite of the police trying to shoo them off. Everyone in the neighborhood with nothing better to do seemed to be congregating behind the yellow tape, even though most of them had no idea what the excitement was about. A few had even brought lawn chairs and were setting them up on the grass as if they were watching a parade.
Elaine was startled to see Rosa there, a small figure pressed up against the tape by the herd of larger bodies.
“Rosa!” Elaine waved and headed toward her, and just then one of the police officers appeared in her path, telling her she was going to have to clear the area. “I want to talk to whoever’s in charge,” Elaine said. “I need that woman to come too. And you can stop calling me ‘ma’am,’ I’ve got a name.”
It took a little while for Elaine to argue him aside, then Rosa was escorted from behind the tape. There was some commotion; another, younger woman ducked under the tape and began protesting. Elaine hurried over. She must think Rosa was being arrested or deported or something.
It’s OK, it’s OK, she told them. Está bien. The younger one spoke English. Rosa’s granddaughter. Her name was Lorena and she was small and bright brown like Rosa and she had a pretty, scared, indignant face. “Can you help us?” Elaine asked them. “Come with me.”
It seemed that Rosa had been here earlier, trying to get into Harvey’s, had become alarmed at all the commotion, and had gone home to bring Lorena back with her. “Good, good,” murmured Elaine. She steered them over to where Frank and the police lieutenant were conferring. “This is Harvey’s friend,” she told them. “She can talk to him.”
They were not persuaded. They weren’t men who were inclined to take Mexican cleaning ladies seriously. Rosa kept a firm grip on her big embroidered purse. She looked a little frightened, but determined to hold her ground, and every so often she whispered urgently to Lorena. Frank said, “This is a joke, right?”
“Who do you think he’s going to listen to, you?”
“I didn’t know Harvey spoke Spanish.”
Elaine gave him a hateful look. “They’re close,” she told him. “They have a rapport, they communicate. Nothing you’d understand.”
The lieutenant had heard about enough. “Folks, I need you to step back and let us do our job. For your own safety. I’ll let you know if you can assist.” They were left by themselves, off to one side behind the protective barrier of a police van. Its doors were open and Elaine regarded the jumble of baleful-looking gear—helmets, vests, plastic shields, batons—on its floor. At least she didn’t see anything like tear gas, although she supposed they had that somewhere.
“Tell me she’s going to be all right,” Elaine said to Frank.
“I’ve been telling you that all along.”
“Convince me.”
Lorena touched Elaine’s elbow. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come.”
She wasn’t that much older than Josie, and she was dressed as Josie might be if she had more flair for jewelry: black jeans and a pink tank top with a collection of thin gold necklaces and three jeweled studs outlining the curve of her pretty ear. She had a trace of an accent that tilted her i’s into e’s and was serious about r’s. Elaine said, “No, I’m glad you’re here. I want you to ask your grandmother if she knows anything about a gun in the house, if she ever saw such a thing.”
The Spanish word for gun, Elaine gathered, was pistola. Rosa went on for some time. Lorena translated. “She says your uncle is a gentleman and an honest person and he would not hurt even an insect with a gun. And if she herself had a gun, she would use it to shoot his enemies.”
Frank and Elaine looked at each other and shrugged. Something lost in the translation. Elaine said, “Please tell her she’s done a terrific job taking care of the house. We really appreciate it.”
Frank walked away, bored by such domestic matters. Lorena conveyed the message, then told Elaine, “Yeah, she’s nuts about clean. Her and my mom both. You can’t walk across a floor without one of them tracking you with a broom. You should see our house. Between the two of them, they keep it so clean it hurts your eyes.”
“She’s very thorough,” Elaine offered.
“We’re always telling her, slow down, take it easy. But she says she likes working. She’s so stubborn, she’s like a truck, you see her coming you better get out of the way.” She patted Rosa’s arm. “So what’s happening, why are all the police here?”
Elaine said that her daughter was inside, without going into the messy details of Josie’s situation. And that her uncle needed a cataract operation but he was afraid to have it. There had been a misunderstanding. Things had gotten way out of hand. It was all because they were concerned he could no longer take care of himself. “He’s been on his own for so long,” Elaine said vaguely, feeling, as usual, guilty. Lorena, with three generations under one roof, would th
ink all their arrangements especially coldhearted. “But sometimes, when people get older, the best place for them is …” She trailed off. “The dementia ward of a nursing home” wasn’t something she wanted in her mouth just now.
Lorena spoke to Rosa again and conveyed Rosa’s response. “She says your uncle needs new eyes and your daughter needs a new heart because she is sick with love. And that she has been saying special prayers for them and soon they will be answered.”
“Well, that’s nice of her.” Elaine was unsure of the etiquette of thanking people for prayers. “But what does she know about my daughter?”
Another conference. Lorena shook her head. “She won’t tell, she just says she has received signs of good luck. She’s superstitious like that, all the old people are. They all believe in fortune-telling and blood-sucking ghosts and the Virgin appearing in your dreams. I don’t even try to make sense of it.”
“Excuse me, ladies.” One of the policemen got into the driver’s seat of the van and spoke into the radio, his voice too low to make out. When he was finished, the bullhorn was left behind on the dashboard. It was white plastic, sleek and functional. It always amazed Elaine to realize there must be companies out there in the business of making things you never thought about. She reached into the van for it and held it up to her ear, as if it were a shell and you could hear the ocean, as if all the things she ought to say to Josie were somewhere inside. Then, embarrassed, she set it down again.
“My grandmother wants to know what that is.”
“It’s like a loudspeaker, they’ll use it to talk to the people in the house.”
“That’s what I told her. She wants to know ‘if it makes your voice important.’ Don’t ask me.”
“I suppose you could say that.”
Lorena said, “They’re probably scared to come out now. I would be, with all these people.”
“Harvey’s really not used to crowds.” The house was still as silent as a closed mouth. If there were any signs of good fortune, she couldn’t read them. She turned back to Lorena and, reduced to small talk, asked, “Are you in school? Working?”
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