by Brian Keene
“A hostage, dog. But they still wouldn't budge.”
“Why?” I sputtered. I knew it didn't matter, knew that John was getting better at that very moment. But I still had to distract Sherm and it was still aggravating.
He shrugged, not answering.
“Come on, Sherm. What reason did they give you?”
He shrugged a second time, his eyes flickered, and I knew then that he was lying again. He hadn't even mentioned it to the cops.
“Sherm—”
“What the fuck you doing, Tommy?”
I pushed past him, rounding the corner of the desk and reached for the phone. He grabbed my arm and tried to yank me back. The phone slipped from my hands and I shoved him, grappling for it.
And I found Keith.
Strips of duct tape covered his nose and mouth. His face was purple and his eyes bulged in their sockets, frozen in death. The tiny veins inside of them had ruptured, and the whites turned blood red. His feet had left black scuff marks on the wall and desk, where he'd kicked at them in what must have been his death throes. I remembered that muffled thumping sound, and I gaped at Sherm in horror.
“Little fucker tried to holler out to the cops while I had him on the phone,” he explained. “I put him on to verify what I was telling them and instead, he started talking smack. Almost told them there was only the three of us and that John was wounded. So I slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth, just to keep him quiet. But he still wouldn't shut up. So I put one over his nose too. Figured I'd just teach him a lesson—let him suffocate for a minute or two, then take it off. Fucking asshole went and died on me before I could do that, though. Heh. You should have seen him, yo. Kicking and straining and shit. His head looked like it was gonna explode.”
“So you killed him?”
“It was the only way, Tommy. I couldn't shoot the fucker. Like you said earlier, if the cops heard another gunshot, they'd have been on us like white on rice.”
“Motherfucker . . . this is some bad shit, Sherm.”
“Yo, it's not my fault, Tommy. Neither of them were my fault.”
“Neither of them? What are you talking about? Who? Do you mean Lucas?”
“Yeah, Lucas, the delivery driver. Dude wanted to try and make a dash out the back door when we were checking on his truck. Tried to slip out of my grasp, even though I had the gun pointed at the back of his head. Couldn't let that happen, but I couldn't shoot him either.”
“You said he was locked in the bathroom, Sherm. You said he wouldn't be a problem anymore. Are you telling me you lied about that too? You killed him and didn't tell me?”
“I didn't lie. I just didn't tell you everything. I didn't want the rest of the hostages freaking out on us.”
“So what really happened to him then?”
“I drowned him in the toilet.”
I ran a hand across my face and sighed.
“You killed him too.” It wasn't a question.
“Just like Keith. Had to do it, man. But hey, I didn't lie, right? I said he wouldn't be a problem anymore and he isn't. I'm telling you, dog, it was the only way.”
“That's not what I mean, Sherm.”
His brow furrowed in puzzlement. He shrugged and lit up another cigarette.
“I don't get you, man. What the hell is your problem? I warned you we might have to be hard-core on this from the beginning. So why you breaking my balls about this now?”
“Why kill him at all, Sherm? For fuck's sake, man. I mean, have you lost your fucking mind? Do you have to keep wasting people? Isn't this shit bad enough already? Can it get any fucking worse?”
He shrugged again. “It's bad, sure. But it could get a lot fucking worse, Tommy. A lot worse. I'm starting to think we ain't gonna make it out of here alive, bro.”
Unable to keep the edge out of my voice any longer, I snapped.
“Not if you keep killing people we won't. Jesus fucking Christ in a jumped-up frigging sidecar, Sherm! How many people have to die before you're done? Kelvin. That cop, Mac Davis. Lucas. Now Keith. Maybe John. How many? How many do you have to kill? We need a fucking plan, man. What the hell are we going to do?”
“Seriously? 'Cause I've been thinking about that.”
“Of course, seriously. What's the plan?”
“I think we should have some fun. You know. Make the most of what time we have left. Take that Kim chick for example. Did you see the ass on her? God, I'd love to pound that. And those ripe little tits? I'd like to chew my way through them.”
He licked his lips and grabbed his crotch, rubbing it through his jeans.
I shook my head in disgust.
“That's your great master plan? Bang Kim?”
“Well, what the hell else we gonna do, Tommy?”
“We surrender,” I suggested. “Tell them that you and John were just unwilling accomplices. I'll take the rap.” It sounds stupid now, but at the time, I really did believe it would be that easy—believed that they'd just let John and Sherm off with a slap on the wrist and a don't-do-it-again.
“Fuck that shit. That's all good for you, man, but John and I ain't dying of cancer. You think they'll just let us walk? What the fuck have you been smoking, Tommy? I'm looking at the death penalty, easy. They'll give me a lethal injection, then strap my ass down in the electric chair just to make sure. And like I told you before, even if Carpet Dick lives, he'll get at least forty-one months. They know they've got dead bodies already. They can see Kelvin and that dead cop from where they stand. No way, yo. We ain't walking out of here.”
“Fine. Then John and I can surrender, and you can stay and negotiate separately.”
He raised the .357 and pointed it at me.
“No, Tommy. You must not have understood me. Let's try this again. I said we ain't walking out of here.”
My stomach felt cold and the bottom dropped out of it. Automatically, my hand dropped to my waistband, searching for my own weapon. Only then did I realize that I'd left it lying on the floor next to John and Benjy. Out of the corner of my eye, I considered the dead cop's .38, still lying on the desk. But if I reached for it, he'd drop me before I could grab it.
“Goddamn it, Sherm . . .”
“Remember who planned this shit,” he warned me. “You couldn't have pulled this off without me. Now, you still want to walk outside?”
“What are you gonna do, Sherm? You gonna fucking shoot me?”
He fingered the trigger, smiled, then relaxed.
“No, man, I ain't gonna shoot you. I was just playing. But I want you to realize that you're not thinking straight. That's exactly what would have been waiting for you if you'd tried walking outside. A bullet. A fucking storm of lead.”
I let go of the breath I'd been holding.
“Look,” he continued, “we all knew the risks when we went into this. You were dying anyway, you said. You didn't have to worry about getting caught. And as for John—hey, Carpet Dick was dumb enough to come along, even after we both told him not to. So whatever happens with him—well, shit happens. Life's a bitch, then you die. That's the rule, man. You can't do anything about it. He made his decision.”
“And what about you, Sherm? What made you want to come along, knowing that we might end up just as fucked as we are right now?”
“I told you before, yo. We're boys. I was bored with Hanover. Shit never happens here. I haven't done anything fun like this since I left Portland.”
“What, you mean you've done this before? And this is fun to you?”
His face grew serious again. “Tommy, you got no idea some of the things I've done. Some of the shit I've pulled.”
I shivered.
He smiled.
“And yeah, this is fun. And it's about to get funner.”
“Funner ain't a word, Sherm.”
“Neither is surrender. At least not in my dictionary. So we cool on that?”
I looked down at Keith's stiffening corpse, then back up at the gun still in Sherm's hand.
&nbs
p; “Yeah. Sure, man, I'm cool with that.”
“All right then. How about we go get this fucking party started?”
He stepped toward the door. I coughed, loud and hard, hoping that the others could hear me in time.
“You all right?”
I rubbed my throat, hamming it up as best I could.
“Yeah. Just thirsty, is all. My throat is really raw. I wish there was something to drink up in here.”
“There's sodas in the office down the hall. They're warm though. You want me to get you one?”
“That'd be great, man. Thanks, dog.”
“No problem.”
Before either of us could move, the phones began to ring.
“Oh for fuck's sake,” he whined. “What the hell do they want now?”
They rang again. And again.
“Ain't you gonna pick it up?” I asked.
“No. It's just that asshole Ramirez, wanting to blow some more smoke up my ass.”
Three more rings.
“I don't know, Sherm. It might be important.”
Four more.
“Fuck them.”
There was a squawk from outside, then Detective Ramirez's voice boomed over the still-ringing phones.
“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.<
br />
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.