Shadow Prey

CHAPTER 11

The phone woke Lucas a few minutes before six.

"Davenport," he groaned.

"This is Del. Billy Hood just walked into his building."

Lucas sat up: "You made him for sure?"

"No question, man. It's him. He pulled up, hopped out and went inside before we could move. You better get your ass over here."

"Did you call Lily?" Lucas put a finger behind his bedroom curtain and looked out. Still dark.

"She's next on the list."

"I'll call her. You call Daniel…"

"Already did. He said go with the plan, like we talked," Del said.

"How about the feebs?"

"The guy here called his AIC."

Lily answered on the third ring, her voice croaking like a rusty gate.

"You awake?" Lucas asked.

"What do you want, Davenport?"

"I thought I'd call and see if you were lying there naked."

"Jesus Christ, are you nuts? What time…?"

"Billy Hood just rolled into his apartment."

"What?"

"I'll pick you up outside your hotel in ten minutes. Ten to fifteen. Brush your teeth, take a shower, run downstairs…"

"Ten minutes," she said.

Lucas showered, brushed, pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and a cotton jacket, and was outside five minutes after he talked to Lily. Rush hour was beginning: he punched the Porsche down Cretin Avenue, driving mostly on the wrong side of the street, jumping one red light and stretching a couple of greens. He put the car on 1-94 and made it to Lily's hotel twelve minutes after he had hung up the phone. She was walking out of the lobby doors when he pulled in.

"No question about the ID?" she snapped.

"No." He looked at her. "You're a little pale."

"Too early. And I'm a little queasy. I thought about stopping in the coffee shop for a roll, but I thought I better not," she said. Her voice was all business. She wouldn't meet his eye.

"You had a few last night."

"A few too many. I appreciate… you know."

"You were hot," Lucas said bluntly, but with a smile.

She blushed, furious. "Christ, Davenport, give me a break?"

"No."

"I shouldn't be riding with you," she said, looking out the window.

"You wanted to roll, last night. You backed out. I can live with it. The big question is…"

"What?"

"Can you?"

She looked at him and her voice carried an edge of disdain. "Ah, the Great Lover speaks…"

"Great Lover, bullshit," Lucas said. "You were hungry. That didn't develop since you met me."

"I happen to be…" she started.

"… very happily married," they said in unison.

"I want you pretty bad," Lucas said after a moment. "I feel like I'm smothering."

"Jesus, I don't know about this," she said, looking away.

Lucas touched her on the forearm. "If you really… rule it out completely… we probably ought to hang out with different people…"

She didn't say she ruled anything out. She did change the subject.

"So why didn't they take Hood when he pulled in? Was it like they thought…"

A half-dozen detectives and the FBI agent were waiting in the surveillance apartment when Lucas and Lily arrived. Del took them aside. He was wide-awake.

"Okay. Talked to Daniel, we all agreed. We wait until the baker leaves for his job. He leaves at seven-thirty, twenty minutes of eight, something like that."

Lucas glanced at his watch. Six-twenty.

"The other guy, the lifter, we can't tell when he leaves," Del continued. "The super says that some days he's out of there by nine, other days he sleeps 'til noon. We can't wait that long. We figure that if Hood comes in at six, he's probably pretty beat. Maybe driving all night. Anyway, there's a good chance he's asleep. So we call it this way: We go in and cut their phone, just in case somebody else in the building is with them. Then we put an entry team in the hall, four guys, and stick a microphone on the door. Listen awhile. See who's up. Then, when the baker opens the door to come out, we grab him and boom-we're in."

"Jesus, if Hood's awake and has the gun handy…"

"He'd hardly have time to get at it," Del said confidently. "You know that Jack Dionosopoulos guy, that big Greek with the ERU? Used to play ball at St. Thomas?"

"Yeah." Lucas nodded.

"He's going in first, bare hands. If Hood's there with a gun in his hand, we got no choice. Jack goes down and the second man takes Hood with the shotgun. If there's no gun showing, Jack takes him down. If he can't see him, he hits the bedroom. Just fucking jumps him, pins him. Hood's not that big a guy…"

"Fuckin' Jack, he's taking a chance…"

"He's all armored up. He thinks he's back at St. Thomas."

"I don't know," Lucas said. "It's your call, but it sounds like Jack might have played too long without a helmet."

"He did it before. Same deal. Gang guy, needed him to talk. He had a gun in his belt when Jack went in. He never had a chance to pull it. Jack was on him like holy on the pope."

"So we sit some more," Lily said, peering through the Venetian blinds at the apartment across the street.

"Not here," Del said. "We sent your drawing of the apartment down to the ERU-they're staging in the garage of that Amoco station three blocks up. We need you to go down there and talk to them about the apartment."

"All right," said Lucas. "If anything happens, call."

"Del's pretty sharp for this time in the morning," Lily said on the way down to the ERU meeting.

"Uh." Lucas glanced at her.

"He's maybe got his nose in the evidence? He was sleeping so hard yesterday it kinda looked like a chemical crash."

Lucas shook his head. "No coke," he muttered.

"Something?"

Lucas shrugged. "There're some stories," his voice still low. "He maybe does a black beauty from time to time."

"Like once a fuckin' hour," she said under her breath.

The ERU felt like a ball team. They were psyched, already on their toes, talking with the distracted air of a team already focusing on the game. The apartment diagram had been laid out on plastic board with a black marker. The Polaroid photos Lucas had shot in the apartment were Scotch-taped to one side. He spent a few minutes spotting chairs, sofas, tables, rugs.

"What kind of rug is that? Is that loose?" Dionosopoulos asked. "I don't want to run in there and fall on my ass."

"That's what you did at St. Thomas," one of the other ERU men said.

"Fuck you and all pagan Lutherans," Dionosopoulos said casually. "What about the rug, Lucas?"

"It's small, that's all I can tell you. I don't know, I'd say be careful, you could slide…"

"It's one of those old fake Persian carpets, you know, you can see the threads," said Lily. "I think it'd slide."

"Okay."

"Lucas?" One of the other team members moved up. "Del just called. He sounds weird, man, but he says to get your ass back to the surveillance post. Like instantly."

"What do you mean, 'weird'?" Lucas asked.

"He was whispering, man. On the radio…"

Del met them in the hallway outside the apartment. His eyes looked like white plastic poker chips.

"What?" asked Lucas.

"The feds are here. They've got an entry team on the way in."

"What?" Lucas brushed past him into the apartment. The Minneapolis agent-in-charge was standing by the window, next to the FBI surveillance man. Both were wearing radio headsets and looking across the street.

"What the fuck is going on?" Lucas asked.

"Who are you?" the AIC asked, his voice cold.

"Davenport, lieutenant, Minneapolis Police. We've got this scene wrapped…"

"It's not your scene anymore, Lieutenant. If you doubt that, I suggest you call your chief-"

"We got guys on the street," a Minneapolis surveillance man suddenly blurted. "We got guys on the street."

"Motherfucker," Del said, "motherfucker…"

Lucas looked through the slats of the Venetian blind. Lily was at his shoulder. There were six men on the street, two in long coats, four in body armor. Three of the men in armor and one man in a coat were climbing the stoop into the apartment building; the other man in a coat waited at the base of the steps, while the last man in armor posted himself at the corner of the building. One of the men on the steps showed a shotgun just before going inside. The man in the coat turned and looked at the surveillance post. Kieffer.

"Oh, no, no," Lily said, "He's got an AVON, they're gonna hit the door with AVONs."

"It'll never fall, man," Lucas said urgently to the AIC. "The door's a solid chunk of oak. Call them down, man, it'll never fall."

"What?" The AIC couldn't sort it out, and Lily said, "The door won't fall to AVONs."

Lucas turned and ran out of the apartment and down the hall to the front door of the building. He could hear Del chanting, "Motherfuckers, motherfuckers…"

Lucas crashed through the front door, startling the FBI man on the street. The agent made a move toward his hip and Lucas swerved, screaming "No, no…"

There was a boom, then a second and a third, not sharp reports, but a hollow, echoing boom-boom-boom, as though someone in the distance were pounding a timpani. Lucas stopped, waiting, one second, two, three; then another boom, boom… And then a pistol, a sharper sound, nastier, with an edge, six, seven rounds, then a pause, then an odd cracking explosion…

"Minneapolis cops," Lucas shouted to the FBI man at the base of the stairs. Lily was with him now and they crossed the street. The FBI man had one hand out at them, but with the series of pistol shots he turned and looked at the building.

"Get out of the fuckin' street, dummy," Lucas screamed. "That's fuckin' Hood with the pistol. If he comes to the window, you're a dead sonofabitch."

Lucas and Lily crossed the sidewalk to the building until they were standing behind the stoop. The FBI man came over and stood with them, his pistol out now. There was shouting in the hallway.

"They got him," the agent said, looking at them. He sounded unsure.

"Bullshit," said Lily. "They never got inside. If you got a radio, you better call the paramedics, because it sounds like Hood sprayed the place…"

The building door popped open and Kieffer, in a crouch, his gun drawn, stepped down onto the stoop.

"What's happening, what's happening?" shouted the armored agent on the corner.

"Back it off, back it off," Kieffer shouted. "He's got hostages."

"You dumb sonofabitch, Kieffer…" Lucas shouted.

"Get out of here, Davenport, this is a federal crime scene."

"Fuck you, asshole…"

"I'll arrest your ass, Davenport."

"Come down here and you can arrest me for kicking a federal agent's ass, 'cause I will," Lucas shouted back. "You dumb cocksucker…"

The federal entry team and the Minneapolis teams stabilized the area and hustled the other tenants out of the apartment building and adjacent buildings. The city's hostage negotiator set up a mobile phone to call Hood.

When Lucas and Lily returned to the surveillance apartment, Daniel was talking with the AIC and Sloan was leaning against the apartment wall, listening.

"… go on television and explain exactly what happened," Daniel was droning piously. "We've had substantial experience with this type of situation, we had the scene cleared and stable, we had an excellent action plan prepared by our best officers. Suddenly, with no coordination and without proper intelligence-intelligence that we had: we knew that door wouldn't fall to AVONs, which is one reason we didn't try them-suddenly, an FBI team takes jurisdiction and promptly launches what I can only describe as a rash action, which not only endangered the lives of many police officers and innocent people in adjoining apartments, but also jeopardizes the chances of capturing Bill Hood alive, and cracking this terrible conspiracy which has taken the lives of so many people…"

"It should have worked," the AIC said bitterly.

Daniel discarded his pious-preacher voice and turned hard. "Bullshit. You know, I never would have believed you'd have tried this. I thought you were too smart. If you'd come in with your team, taken some time, talked it over, we could have done a joint operation and you would have gotten the credit. The way it happened… I ain't taking the rap."

"Could I get everybody out of here? Just for a minute," the AIC asked loudly. "Everybody?"

"Lucas, you stay," Daniel said.

When the other cops were gone, the AIC looked briefly at Lucas, then turned to Daniel.

"You need a witness?"

"Never hurts," Daniel said.

"So what do you want?"

"I don't know. I'll probably want your seal of approval and some active lobbying on a half-dozen federal law-enforcement-assistance grant applications…"

"No problem…"

"… and a line into your files. When I call you on something, I want what you got and no bullshit."

"Jesus Christ, Daniel."

"You can write me a letter to that effect."

"Nothing on paper…"

"If there's nothing on paper, there's no deal."

The AIC was sweating. He could have had a coup. He was now in charge of a disaster. "All right," he said finally. "I gotta trust you."

"Hey, we've always been friends," Daniel offered, slapping the FBI man on the back.

"Fuck that," said the AIC, wrenching away. "That fuckin' Clay. He's calling me every fifteen minutes, screaming for action. He's coming here, you know. He'll have that fuckin' gun in his armpit, the asshole."

"I feel for you," Daniel said.

"I don't give a shit about that," the AIC said. "Just find something that'll get me off the hook."

"I think we can do that," Daniel said. He glanced at Lucas. "We'll say that Minneapolis made the call and we decided to use FBI experts to attempt an entry. When that couldn't be accomplished, we went to an alternate plan that used city officers to negotiate a surrender."

"The fuckin' TV'11 never buy it," the agent said unhappily.

"If we both agree, what choice have they got?"

Del, Lily and Sloan were standing together in the hallway when Lucas and Daniel left the surveillance apartment.

"What'd we do?" Del asked.

"A deal," Daniel said.

"I hope you got a lot," Del said.

"We did all right, as long as we can pull Hood out of there," Daniel said.

"Maybe this wasn't a time to deal," Sloan suggested. "Maybe this was a time to tell it like it is."

Daniel shook his head. "You always deal," he said.

"Always," said Lucas.

Lily and Del nodded and Sloan shrugged.

Hood had fired seven shots with a big-bore pistol through the oak door after the molded-compound AVON rounds had failed to blow it open. When they saw that the door wasn't going to fall, the agents had cleared away from it and nobody was hurt. The firing stopped, there was the odd explosion, and then silence.

Twenty minutes after the attempted entry, with Daniel still meeting with the agent-in-charge, the police hostage negotiator called Hood. Hood answered, said he wasn't coming out, but that his friends in the apartment had nothing to do with any of it.

"You know me?" he asked.

"Yeah, we've had a line on you, Billy," the negotiator said. "But that wasn't us at the door, that was another agency."

"The FBI…"

"We're just trying to get everybody out, including you, without anybody getting hurt…"

"These guys in here, they didn't have anything to do with it."

"Could you send them out?"

"Yeah, but I don't want any of those white guys to snipe them. You know? The fuckin' FBIs, man, they shoot us down like dirty dogs."

"You send them out, I guarantee no harm will come to them."

"I'll ask them," Hood said. "They're scared. They're sleeping, and all of a sudden somebody tries to blow up the fuckin' apartment, you know?"

"I guarantee…"

"I'll ask them. You call back in two minutes." He hung up.

"What's going on?" Lucas asked. He and Lily had cut around the building to come up on the negotiator's car.

"I think he's gonna let the other two guys out."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. He's not thinking like they're hostages."

"They're not. They're his friends."

"What happened with Daniel?" the negotiator asked.

"The feebs are out," Lucas said.

"All right."

The negotiator called back after a little more than two minutes.

"They're coming out, but they gotta come out the window. The goddamn door is all fucked up, we can't get it open," Hood said.

"All right. That's fine. Break the window, whatever you have to do."

"Tell those white boys, so they don't get sniped."

"We'll pass the word right now. Give us a minute, then send them out. And you ought to think about it too, Billy; we really don't want to do you any harm."

"Save the bullshit and pass the word not to snipe these guys," Hood said, and hung up.

"The two guys are coming out," the negotiator told the radio man next to him. "Pass the word."

As they watched, with Lucas and Lily standing beside the car, a chair sailed through the front window and broken glass was knocked out of the window frame with a broom. Then a blanket was thrown over the window ledge. The first man stood in the window, jumped the five feet to the ground and hurried down the street toward the blocking police cars. A patrolman met him as he crossed the line of cars.

Lily looked at him and shook her head. "Don't know him. Wasn't in any of the photos."

The second man followed a half-minute later, sitting on the window ledge with his legs dangling, talking back into the apartment. After a few seconds, he shrugged, hopped down and walked to the police line. The negotiator got back on the phone.

"Billy? Billy? Talk to me, man. Talk to me:… Come on, Billy, you know that's not right. That was the FBI, we cleared those fuckers out of here… I know, I know… No, bullshit, I don't do that and the men here don't do that. You tell me one time… Billy? Billy?" He shook his head and dropped the receiver to his lap. "Fuck it, he hung up."

"What's he say?" Lily asked.

"He says us white boys are going to snipe him," the negotiator said. The negotiator, who was burly and black, smiled and picked up the phone and started dialing again. "He's probably right, fuckin' white boys with guns."

The line was busy.

"Where's that file Anderson made?" the negotiator asked his radio man. The radio man passed a notebook. "Call the phone company, tell them what's happening and ask them to check the number, see where the call's going."

"Check his family," Lucas suggested. "There oughta be a phone number."

The negotiator found the Bemidji number in Anderson's notebook, dialed it, found it busy. "That's it," he said. "We ought to have somebody get onto the sheriff's office up there, get them to go see his wife. We might want to talk to her. We can get her to call here, and then switch her in, so we can hear what they're saying."

A plainclothes cop hurried up. "One of the roommates says that Hood tried to fire a rifle and it blew up on him. He's hurt. He's got a cut on his face, he's bleeding. The roommate doesn't think it's too bad."

Lucas looked at Lily, and Lily grinned and nodded.

Five minutes later, the negotiator got through again.

"You can't get out, Billy. All that's gonna happen is that somebody's gonna get hurt. We'll get you a lawyer, free, we'll get you.'… Fuck."

"Try his wife?" Lucas suggested.

"How about those two guys who came out?" asked Lily. "Maybe they'd help…"

Kieffer drifted up to the car. "I thought you were out of here," Lucas said, standing to confront him.

"We're observing," Kieffer said bitterly.

"Observe my ass." Lucas stood directly in front of Kieffer, their chests almost touching.

"Fuckin' touch me, Davenport," Kieffer said. "I'll have your ass in jail…"

"I'll touch you," Lily said, pushing between them. Lucas reluctantly gave a step. "You gonna put me in jail for assault? I'm not so polite as these Minneapolis assholes, Kieffer, and I don't have to honor any of Daniel's deals. I can go talk to the TV on my own."

"Fuck it," Kieffer said, stepping back. "I'm observing."

The negotiator tried again, spoke longer this time. "You can trust us… Wait a minute, let me talk to a guy…"

He finally turned to Lucas, covered the mouthpiece on the phone and said, "You know any Indians?"

"A few."

"You want to try him? He's scared. Mention these people you know…"

Lucas took the phone. "Billy Hood. This is Lucas Davenport from the Minneapolis cops. Listen, you know Dick Yellow Hand, a friend of Bluebird's? Or Chief Dooley, the barber? Do you know Earl and Betty May? They're friends of mine, man. They'd be worried about you. I'm worried about you. There's nothing you can do in there. You'll just get hurt. If you come out, you'll be okay. I swear."

There was another moment of silence. Then Hood said, "You know Earl and Betty?"

"Yeah, man. You could call them. They'd tell you I'm okay."

"You white?"

"Yeah, yeah, but I don't want to hurt anybody. Come on out, Billy. I swear to God nobody wants to shoot at you. Walk on out and we can all go home."

"Let me think, man. Let me think, okay?" "Okay, Billy." The line went dead.

"What?" Lucas asked the negotiator, who had been listening on a headset.

"He may be calling these people. Earl and Betty, was that their names?"

"Yeah. Just about everybody knows them."

"We'll give him two minutes and try again."

Two minutes later, the line was busy. After three, they got through. The negotiator said a few words, then handed the phone to Lucas.

"Is this the guy who knows Earl and Betty?" Hood asked.

"Yeah. Davenport," Lucas said.

"I'll come out, but I want you to come up here and get me. If I just come outside, one of those white boys is gonna snipe me."

"No, they won't, Billy… Listen…" Lucas hunched over the phone.

"Bullshit, man, don't bullshit me. Those guys been against me for a long time. Ever since I was born, man. They're just waiting. I got nothing against you, so you'd be safe. You want me out, you come up here."

Lucas looked at the negotiator. "What do you think?"

"He killed the guy in New York," the negotiator said. "He tried to kill the FBI team."

"He had a reason. Maybe he really wants the protection."

"He's scared," the negotiator agreed.

"What are you going to do?" Hood asked.

"Hold on a minute, we're talking," Lucas said. He looked at Lily. "There might not be any other way to take him alive."

"You'd be nuts to go in there," Lily objected. "We've got him. Sooner or later he's got to come out and nobody has to get hurt. Nobody out here…"

"We need to talk to him."

"I don't need to talk to him," she said. "I just need him any way we can get him. Dead or alive."

"You don't care if we get the rest of the group?" Lucas asked.

"Sure. Theoretically. But Hood's my man. After he's taken care of, the rest is up to you and the feebs."

Kieffer had been standing back from the car, looking down the street at the apartment. "It'd take some balls to go in there," he said.

His tone was ambiguous, as if he weren't sure that Lucas would do it.

"Hey, we aren't talking balls here," the negotiator said, anger in his voice.

"Yeah, what the fuck did that crack mean, Kieffer?" Lily asked, turning to Kieffer with her hands on her hips.

"Take it easy," Lucas said, waving them off. He didn't look at Kieffer but stared past the negotiator at the apartment window. With the glass broken out, it was a black square in the red stone. "I'll give it a try."

"God damn it, Davenport, you're crazy," Lily said. But then she said, "Talk to him through the window. Don't go inside, just talk over the ledge."

Lucas got back on the phone. "Billy? I'm ready, man."

"Well, come on."

"You're not bullshitting me?"

"I'm not, I just don't want one of them white boys to snipe me, man."

"They see him from across the street. They got a gun on him. He's halfway up into the room," the radio man said quietly, as he listened on his headset. "Del says that when you get up there, if he tries anything, you drop below the window; we'll hose him down."

"Okay." Lucas glanced at Lily, nodded and said into the phone, "I'm stepping out, Billy. I'm down the street, way to your right as you look out the window."

"Come on, man. This is getting old."

Lucas stepped out from behind the car, his hands held wide and open at shoulder height.

"Okay, man," he yelled at the window.

He walked slowly down the street, his hands wide, conscious of two dozen sets of eyes following him. The day was cool, but he could feel sweat starting on his back. A line of blue-and-white pigeons watched from.a red-tiled roof down the street. On another roof, beside a chimney and out of Hood's line of sight, an ERU officer was lined up on the window with an M-16. A police radio poked unintelligible sentences into the morning air. Lucas was thirty feet out.

"Come on, man, you're okay," Hood called from the window. Lucas moved closer, his hands still away from his side. When he was five feet from the window, Hood called again. "Come straight on in. I'll be off to the left. I don't want to see no gun pointing at me, man. I'm really tight, you know?"

Lucas reached out, touched the outer wall of the building and eased up to the window. Looking in at a sharp angle, he could see nothing but a broken-down chair. He moved a little farther into the window opening. There was nobody in his line of sight. The red beanbag was squashed in the middle of the floor, with a dent in it, as though somebody had been thrown on top of it.

"I'm giving up, man," Hood said. His voice came from off to the right, but Lucas still couldn't see him. He took another step.

"I want you inside," Hood said.

"I can't do that, Billy," Lucas said.

"You're just setting me up, man. You're just making me a target. If I come to that window, I'm a dead man, aren't I?"

"I swear to God, Billy…"

"You don't have to swear to God. Just get up in that window. I'll be there. I want you to go out right in front of me, man, so those white boys don't snipe me."

Lucas looked around once, muttered "Fuck it" under his breath, put his hands on the window ledge and boosted himself up. As he crawled onto the ledge, Hood was suddenly there, his back to the outer wall. He was looking at Lucas over the shotgun.

"Step in further," he said. The muzzle of the shotgun followed Lucas' head like a steel eye.

"Come on, man," Lucas said. There hadn't been any shells in the closet with the shotgun. Since Hood was using it, he either had found the shells or was bluffing with an empty weapon. Why would he bluff? He'd used a pistol of some kind, anyone would be willing to believe that the pistol was loaded… "This can't do any good."

"Shut up," Hood said. He was wound tight as a spring, frightened. "Get in here."

Lucas hopped down from the window ledge.

"Did one of you wise-ass cops fuck up my rifle? You did, didn't you?"

"I don't know about a rifle," Lucas said. Hood's face was bleeding from a long cut over one eye. On the floor near his foot was a.45, the slide locked open. Out of ammo, Lucas decided.

"Pulled the trigger on that cocksucker rifle and almost blew my face off. There was a rag in it," Hood said.

"I don't know anything about that," Lucas said. He could feel the P7 pushing into his back.

"Bullshit," Hood snapped. "But I know you didn't know about these…"

He kept the shotgun muzzle on Lucas' head but opened the hand under the shotgun's fore-end. He had two shells in his hand.

"Buckshot, for deer," Hood said. "I had them stuck in with the thirty-thirty shells. Somebody missed them, huh?"

"Bill…" Lucas started. Inside, he was cursing himself for not taking the.30-. 30 shells, or at least checking the box. "You won't get out of here this way…"

"Buckshot's no good when those fuckers out there got M-16s, but this buckshot is going to get me out of here, because I got you, white boy," he said. He gestured with the muzzle. "Lay down. On the floor."

"Billy, I trusted you, man. This is no good." Lucas felt the sweat start at his temples, felt the heat in his armpits.

"So I lied, motherfucker," Hood said. "Get the fuck down." He dipped the barrel of the shotgun an inch, to indicate down.

Lucas got down on his knees, thought about going for the P7, but the shotgun muzzle never wavered.

"Keep your hands away from your body…"

From outside, the ERU team leader called on a loudspeaker. "You coming out? Everything okay?"

"Everything fine," Hood yelled back. "We're talking. Let us talk."

"Nothing you can do is going to help…" Lucas started.

"On your fuckin' belly," Hood snapped.

Lucas let himself down on the floor. It smelled of city grime. Grit cut into his chin.

"I'll tell you what we're doing, so you don't fuck me up," Hood said. Sweat was pouring down his face, and Lucas could smell the fear on him. "I'm going to march you out of here with this gun. We're going to take a car and we're going down the Mississippi to the res. Someplace along the way I'll get out and get off in the woods. Once I'm in the woods, I'm gone, man."

"They'll come through with dogs…"

"Let them. There'll be Indians all over the place, running them fuckin' dogs to death, man. They'll never get me out of them swamps down there." Lucas felt Hood easing up close to him; then the shotgun muzzle touched the back of his head. "Just to let you know I'm here. I want your face straight down, until I tell you different."

Lucas lay facedown, still thinking about the gun on his hip. Hood was doing something behind him, but he couldn't see what it was. There was a ripping sound and he tried tipping his face, but Hood said, "Hey," and Lucas tipped it back. "I gotta breathe," Lucas said.

"You can breathe, don't bullshit me… Now vou're going to feel the gun on your head. I 'sped you've ';o,;. gun and maybe you're one of them karate experts, but if you so much as jiggle, I'm going to blow your fucking brains out… I got my finger on the trigger and the safety is off, you got it?"

"I got it," Lucas said.

He felt the cold touch of the muzzle on the skin behind his ear. "Now push your head back until you're looking off the floor. Look out into the kitchen, but don't move anything else but your head," Hood said. Lucas lifted his head, and a second later Hood took a quick turn of tape around his forehead, then another. Lucas gritted his teeth.

"The muzzle of the gun is taped to your head," Hood said when he had finished. His voice was a notch less tense. "If one of them white boys snipes me, you're dead. If anything happens, you're dead. A couple of pounds of pull on the trigger and you're gone, man. You know what I'm saying? Lights out." A third and fourth loop of tape overlapped the first two. The last loop partially covered Lucas' left eye. He could feel the buttons on his shirt pressing into his chest and suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"Jesus Christ, man, be careful," he said, struggling to keep a whine out of his voice.

"You just be cool, man… Now get up."

Lucas got to his hands and knees and shakily stood up. The muzzle of the gun stayed with him, behind his right ear.

"Everything all right?" the ERU team leader called.

"Everything is great, motherfucker," Hood yelled back. "We're coming out in a minute." He turned back to Lucas. "My car's about fucked up. I want a cop car and I need some time. We're going out there and get it."

"Tell them what you're doing," Lucas said. The weight of the gun pulled his head to the side. The tape over his left eye was sticking to his eyelid, and he struggled with a sudden feeling of claustrophobia. "If they see me with my hands up and you behind me, maybe somebody who can't see what's going on will take a shot at you."

"You tell them," Hood said. "They'll believe you. Over to the window."

Lucas stepped over to the window. Hood held onto his shirt collar with his left hand. The shotgun was in his right and he used the end of the barrel to push Lucas to the win-dowsill.

"Everybody hold it," Lucas screamed as he stepped into the opening. He put his arms up over his head, his fingers spread. "Everybody fuckin' hold it. He's got a shotgun taped to my head. Everybody fuckin' hold it."

There was movement inside the apartment across the street, just a flicker at the window. Hood pulled him closer, the shotgun cutting into the flesh behind his ear.

"Billy…" said the loudspeaker.

"I want a car, man," Hood shouted. He prodded Lucas forward until he was sitting on the windowsill. Carefully, carefully, he climbed up beside him. "You get down first," he said.

"Jesus," said Lucas. "Don't jar anything."

"Get down."

Lucas dropped the five feet, flexing his knees, his eyes closed as he landed. The world was still there. Hood landed next to him. Lucas took another breath. "I want a cop car and I want everybody out of my way," Hood screamed.

"Billy, this isn't going to help, man, everything was fine," the team leader called. The loudspeaker echoed in Lucas' ears. He looked at the street, the cars blocking it, the people half visible behind them, and he wondered if they would suddenly wink out and Lucas Davenport would be a shell on the cold ground, with a crowd looking down at him…

"Just give me the car, man, bring a car down here." Hood was tensing up again, his voice screeching toward blind panic.

"Give him the fuckin' car," Lucas yelled. The scent of pines came through. There were no pines there; no vegetation at all, but the scent of pines was there, just as though he were at his Wisconsin cabin. A refrain started running through the back of Lucas' mind, Not yet, please not yet, but the cold circle of the shotgun muzzle pressed into the flesh behind his ear…

"Okay, okay, okay, we're calling for a car, take it easy, Billy, we don't want anybody else hurt…"

"Where's the car?" Hood screamed. "Where's the car?" He jerked on the shotgun and Lucas' head snapped back.

"Take it easy, take it easy, man," Lucas said, his heart in his throat. His neck hurt, his head hurt, and Hood pressed against him like an unwanted partner in a three-legged race. "If you fire this thing accidentally, you're a dead motherfucker just like me."

"Shut up," Hood snapped.

"You can have a car, Christ, take it easy," the ERU team leader called. He was directly across the street. "Take the car down to your right, down to your right. See the cop getting out? The keys are in that car."

Hood turned to look at it and Lucas looked with him.

The car was next to the negotiator's car. He could see Lily behind it.

"Okay, we're walking to the car," Hood yelled toward the ERU leader. They edged sideways, like crabs, slowly, the shotgun pressing… Twenty feet out from the car.

"Billy? Billy? I'm the guy on the telephone. We've got a doctor here," the negotiator called. The negotiator took a step away from his car and Lucas noticed that he'd taken off his sidearm. "We got a doctor, a registered psychologist, we want you to talk with her…"

Lily stepped out from behind the car and stood beside the negotiator, clutching her purse in both hands. She looked like a very scared public-health nurse.

"We brought her in to see if you were okay. She says she'll ride with the two of you, in case there's any trouble, she wants to talk…"

"I don't want any talk, man, I just want the car." Hood prodded Lucas and Lucas sidestepped toward the car, his head twisted by the angle of the shotgun.

"I can help you," Lily called. She was fifteen feet away.

"I don't want you, man," Hood said. He was sweating, and the odor of the fear sweat filled the air around him. "Just get the fuck out of my way."

"Listen, you've got to listen to me, Billy. Please? I've worked with a lot of Indian people and this is not the Indian way." She took a step closer, and another, and with their movement toward the car, she was now less than ten feet away.

"Just get away from me, will you?" Hood said in exasperation. "I don't need no fuckin' shrink, okay?"

"Billy, please…" Lily said, a pleading note in her voice. Six feet. She let the purse drop to her side on its shoulder strap, one hand gesturing while the other plucked at her jacket. "Let me…" Her voice suddenly changed from persuasion to urgency. "Billy, you've got a problem. Okay? Let me tell you about this, okay? You've got a problem that you don't know about. I mean it. Billy, there's a wasp on your hair. Above your right ear. If it stings, don't pull the trigger, it's just a wasp… We don't want a tragedy."

"A wasp, man… where is it?" Hood stopped, his voice suddenly tight. Lucas' mind flashed to the box of antihista-mine tablets in Hood's medicine cabinet.

"On your hair just above your right ear, right there, it's crawling down toward your ear…"

Hood had his left hand around Lucas' neck and Lucas felt the stock of the gun come up as Hood tried to brush the nonexistent wasp away with his gun hand. With his finger through the trigger guard, he couldn't quite reach his ear; for just the barest part of a second, not thinking, he pulled his trigger finger out of the guard, reaching toward his head. As his finger came out of the guard, Lily went into her belly with her right hand, the hand that had been nervously plucking at her jacket button, and came out with the full-cocked.45. She thrust it at Hood's head almost as if she were throwing a dart, and he saw it just soon enough to flinch. Lucas closed his eyes and started to turn away; the.45 went off and Lucas felt a hot stinging on his face, as though he'd been hit by a handful of beach sand. Hood kicked back onto the ground as Lucas fell to his knees and screamed:

"Get it off get it off get it off get it off."

The negotiator knelt beside him and said, "You're okay, you're okay." A hand grasped the shotgun barrel, held it, and Lucas, his breath ragged, groaned, "Get it off, get it off," and there was a flat cutting sound and the muzzle was gone.

Again, everything was sharp, the blacktop beneath his knees, the smell of tar and city garbage, the sound of the radios, an ERU officer running, Lily saying "Jesus, Jesus," the team leader's knee next to his face, Billy Hood's gym shoe twisted in the dirt. Then Lucas' breakfast came up, and he knelt outside Billy Hood's apartment and vomited and vomited; and when he couldn't vomit anymore, dry heaves shook his shoulders and racked his stomach. Members of the ERU team were gathering around the body, and from somewhere he could hear a woman's wail over the shouting and the chatter. The team leader's hand was on the back of his neck, warm against his cold skin. He heard somebody crack the shotgun and a green-cased shotgun shell flipped out.

When the stomach spasms stopped, when he had controlled them, Lucas turned his head and saw Billy Hood's face. The front of it was caved in, as though somebody had hit him with a claw hammer.

"One shot in the ten ring," Lily said. She was standing above him, her face pale as winter, looking down at Hood. "Right on the bridge of his nose." And although her voice was brave, she sounded ineffably sad. Lucas got to his hands and knees, then to his feet, wobbling.

The team leader helped him strip the tape off his head, and turned to look at Lily. "You okay?" he asked.

"I'm okay," Lily said.

"How about you?" the negotiator asked Lucas.

"Fuck, no." Lucas took a couple wobbly steps and Lily slipped an arm around his waist. "It could take a couple of minutes. I was a dead man."

"Maybe he would have let you go," Lily said, looking back at Hood's body.

"Maybe, but I don't think so. Billy Hood was an angry man," Lucas said. "He was ready to die and he wasn't going alone."

He stopped and turned and, like Lily, looked back at the body. Hood's face wasn't peaceful in death. It was simply dead, and empty, like a beer can crushed on the side of a road. A red-hot anger washed through Lucas.

"God damn, we needed him. We needed the motherfucker to talk, the stupid shit. The stupid shit, why'd he do this?" He was shouting and the ERU team was looking at him.

Lily tightened her grip around his waist and gave him a gentle push toward the house across the street.

"Did I say Thank you'?" Lucas asked, looking down at Lily.

"Not yet."

"You could have blown my fuckin' brains out, Rothen-burg. And I've got all kinds of shit buried in my face."

"I'm too good a shot to have hit you. And the shit in your face is better than shotgun pellets behind your ear," she said.

"So, thanks. You saved my ass."

"I accept your abject gratitude, and while it's not enough…"

"I'll give you all the gratitude you can handle. You know that," he said. The hair on the top of her head brushed against his cheek.

"Fuckin' men," she muttered.