Far From True

Sixty

“Sam!” I said, still looking at that closed office door only a few feet away from me.

Even over the low-level rumble of the washing machines I had just started, I thought I heard a lock being turned.

Something about that seemed wrong.

Not taking my eye off the door, I set Crystal’s graphic novel on the top of the washer. But I’d set it on the edge and it fell, open to some inside page, on the floor.

I left it there and moved toward the door.

“Hey, Sam!” I said. “I think one of the washers is on the blink!”

No response.

I got up close to the door, put my ear to it. Someone was whispering on the other side. I was pretty sure it was Sam’s voice.

“Sam, everything okay in there?” I said, my mouth right up to the door.

A pause. Then, “Yes. Everything is fine.”

Her stilted reply didn’t sound fine to me.

“One of the washers seems to be broken,” I said through the door.

Another pause. “I’ll take... a look at it in a minute.”

I unholstered my gun, held it in my right hand, pointed toward the floor.

I said, “What’s the plan, Ed?”

A long pause this time. If Samantha had been in there alone, she would have said, almost immediately, “What?” Or maybe, “Ed?”

The fact that she said nothing right away told me he was in there with her. When I called out his name, it threw him. He needed a few seconds to think of something to tell Sam to say to me.

Finally, it came.

“There’s no Ed here,” Sam said, her voice sounding close to breaking.

I said, “Ed, you need to open this door and send Sam out. You hurt, Sam?”

“Not so far,” she said.

“That’s good,” I said, keeping my voice even. “That’s good, Ed. You let Sam out, and I think there’s a pretty good chance no one’s going to get hurt. Whaddya say to that?”

Two seconds. Then, “Fuck you!”

Ed’s presence confirmed.

“He’s got a gun!” Sam screamed.

“Shut up!” Ed shouted.

I moved, took up a position to the side of the door.

“Ed, this is the kind of situation that could get out of hand very quickly. Whatever you came here planning to do, it’s not going to work. It’s not something you’re going to be able to get away with. Best thing you can do now is walk away. You came in through the back, right? So just go. Walk out the door and go. I won’t come after you. Just leave Sam where she is and take off. You hearing me?”

“I hear ya,” Ed Noble said.

“That sound like a plan to you?”

“I guess. Sure. No harm done, right?”

“That’s right. Just get out of here.”

“You’re right,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I don’t know what I was thinking. There are better ways to resolve things, right?”

I heard the dead bolt slide back into the door.

“I mean, people have their differences, but the best thing to do is sit down and work them out reasonably.”

The doorknob turned slowly.

“That’s right, Ed. I like your attitude,” I said, bringing up my gun. “I’m glad we could work things out without anyone getting hurt. You still okay, Sam?”

Nothing.

“Sam?”

And she screamed: “Look ou—”

The door burst open. Ed Noble, his nose heavily bandaged, came out like a sprinter out of the blocks at the sound of the starter’s pistol. He was crouched low, gun in hand, head turning my way as he launched out of the room. He rolled his body a quarter turn, heading deliberately for the floor on his right shoulder, gun up, pointed my way.

It looked like a stunt he’d probably seen in a movie. Maybe Liam Neeson or Kiefer Sutherland could pull off a midflight shot and hit the target, but when Noble fired, the bullet went wide, somewhere off to the left, and into a dryer.

The round glass window shattered.

Just because Noble wasn’t the world’s best shot didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. Which was why, the second he started coming out the door, I headed for the floor as well. But even though I was armed, I wasn’t going to shoot wildly.

If I was going to shoot, I was going to make it count.

Noble wasn’t happy with just one shot. Once he’d skidded to a stop, he took another, this one a little closer to home. It hit another dryer on the wall behind me, this time only a couple of feet up from the floor.

“Shit!” he said.

Lying on my side, one arm tight against the floor, I extended my arms, both hands on the gun, and prepared to fire.

But Noble scurried, crablike, toward the broad table near the back of the Laundromat where customers folded their clothes.

This was dangerously close to the office door, where, I now noticed, Sam was standing, wide-eyed, one hand over her mouth, watching.

“Get back!” I shouted.

I was getting to my feet, gun in my right hand, thinking back to the days when I was still a cop and wore Kevlar while on duty. I didn’t have any such protection now. Hunched over, I ran to the other side of the room where I’d have a clearer shot at Noble, who was flat on his back now, aiming my way.

Another shot, this one going into the ceiling.

I fired, aiming for body mass. But in the millisecond before I squeezed the trigger, he rolled toward the office. The bullet hit the floor and ricocheted, pinging off an appliance. Any more shots that way might find their way into the adjoining room and hit Sam.

Not even ten seconds had gone by since this had all started.

I was getting to my feet just as Noble was scrambling to his. “Don’t fucking move!” I shouted.

He glanced my way, rose and fired again. I leapt to the right, noticed movement in the open office door.

It all happened very fast.

While Noble was looking in my direction, Sam stepped into the main room, right arm outstretched, like she was getting ready to throw out the first pitch.

But it wasn’t a baseball in her hand. It was the leather satchel full of quarters, the drawstring wound tightly around her wrist.

She swung it with everything she had.

Noble saw it just before it connected, but not in time to do anything about it. The sack of metal caught him squarely on that broken nose, and the yelp of pain was louder than any of the shots that had been fired. He stumbled back two steps.

“Fucking Jesus!” he screamed, putting his free hand over his face. He still had the gun in his right hand, but he’d blinded himself with his left.

I could have shot him — and God knows I wanted to — but instead I ran toward him, flat out, tackling him around the waist, bringing him down onto the floor so hard it knocked the wind out of him.

I went for the gun first, putting both hands on his right wrist and slamming it to the floor once, twice, until the gun slipped from his fingers.

Sam didn’t waste a second in grabbing it.

Noble was struggling for air, bringing up his knees, collapsing in on himself, blood streaming out from below the bandages that spanned his nose.

“Yo... lan... da!” he said between gasps. “She... ordered... it! It’s... all her... fault!”

Sam had Noble’s gun pointed straight at his head. “You motherfucker,” she said.

“Don’t,” I cautioned her. “Don’t shoot him, Sam. Not now. Not for you, and not for Carl.”

She didn’t lower the gun. “I’ve had it. I’ve just had it. I can’t take any more of this.”

“I know, I know. But he’s going down for this. Yolanda, too. Give me the gun, Sam.”

It took about ten seconds for her to hand it over. I tucked it into my jacket pocket.

She raised the bloodied bag of coins. “Could I hit him one more time with this?”

I sighed.

“What the hell?” I said. “Go ahead.”