Killer's Wedge

CHAPTER 12

He felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

For a moment, he couldn't imagine what had caused the sudden blinding illumination. And then he realized the lights were on again, and here he was reaching into the pocket of Virginia's coat, his fingers not an inch from the gun. Oddly, time seemed to lose all meaning as soon as the lights went on. He knew that time was speeding by at a remarkable clip, knew that whatever he did in the next few seconds could very well mean the life or death of everyone in the room, and yet time seemed to stop.

He decided, in what seemed to take three years, to whirl on Virginia with the revolver in his hand.

He closed his fingers around the butt of the gun his the warmth of the dark pocket, and the c1o~ing of his hand took twelve years. He was ready to draw the gun when he saw Arthur Brown, a puzzled look on his face, striding rapidly up the corridor. He decided then-the decision was a century coming-to yell, "Get out, Arthur! Run!"

and then the time for yelling was gone because Arthur was pushing through the gate and entering the squad room And then, too, the time for pulling the revolver was gone, all the time in the world had suddenly dwindled down to its proper perspective, perhaps twenty seconds in all had gone by since the lights went on, and now there was no time at all, time had gone down the drain, now there was only Virginia Dodge's cold lethal voice cutting through the time rushing silence of the squad room

"Don't pull it, redhead! I'm aiming at the nitro!"

He hesitated. A thought flashed into his head: Is there really nitroglycerin in that bottle?

And then the thought blinked out as suddenly as it had come. He could not chance it. He released his grip on the pistol and turned to face her.

Thunderstruck, Arthur Brown stood just inside the gate.

"What ?" he said.

"Shut up," Virginia snapped.

"Get in here!"

"What. ?" Brown said again, and there was complete puzzlement on his face. He knew only that he'd returned to the precinct after sitting in the back room of a tailor shop all afternoon. He had climbed the metal steps leading to the second story as he'd done perhaps ten thousand times since joining the 87th Squad. He had found the upstairs corridor in darkness, and had automatically reached for the light switch at the top of the steps, turning on the lights.

The first person he'd seen was Cotton 1lawes reaching into the pocket of a coat hanging on the rack. And now a woman with a gun.

"Get over here, redhead," Virginia said.

Silently, Hawes walked to her.

"You're a pretty smart bastard, aren't you?" she said.

"I

The gun in her hand moved upwards blurringly, came down again in a violent sweeping motion of wrist and arm. He felt the fixed sight at the barrel's end ripping into his cheek. He covered his face with his hands because he expected more. But more did not come. He looked at his fingers.

They were covered with fresh blood.

"No more stunts, redhead," she said coldly.

"Understand?"

"I understand."

"Now get out of my way. Over there on the other side of the room. You!" She turned to Brown.

"Inside. Hurry up!"

Brown moved deeper into the room. The puzzlement on his face was slowly giving way to awareness. And fast on the heels of this came a look of shrewd calculation.

Virginia picked up the bottle of nitroglycerin, and then began walking toward the coat rack, the bottle in one hand, the gun in the other. Her walk was a jerky nervous movement of shoulders, hips, and legs, devoid of all fernirlinity, a sharp, quick perambulation that propelled her across the room. And watching her erratic walk, Hawes was certain that the liquid in her hand was not the high explosive she claimed it was. And yet, nitro was funny.

Sometimes it went if you breathed on it.

And other times He wondered.

Nitro? Or water?

Step into the isolation booth, sir, and answer the question.

Quickly, Virginia removed Byrnes' pistol from her coat. She walked back to the desk, put the bottle of nitro down on its top, unlocked the desk drawer, and tossed the revolver in with the others.

"All right, you," she said to Brown.

"Give me your gun.

Brown hesitated.

"The bottle here is full of nitroglycerin," Virginia said calmly.

"Give me your gun."

Brown looked to Byrnes.

"Give it to her, Artie," Byrnes said.

"She's calling all the shots."

"What's her game?" Brown wanted to know.

"Never mind my game," Virginia said heatedly.

"Just shut your mouth and bring me your gun."

"You sure are a tough lady," Brown said.

He walked to the desk, watching her. He watched her while he unclipped his gun and holster. He was trying, in his own mind, to determine whether or not Virginia Dodge was a hater. He could usually spot hatred at a thousand paces, could know with instant certainty that the person he was looking at or talking to would allow the color of Brown's skin to determine the course of their relationship. Arthur Brown was a Negro. He was also a very impatient man.

He had learned early in the game that the chance similarity of his pigmentation and his name-was it chance, or had some long-ago slave owner chosen the name for simplicity?-only added to his black man's burden. Patiently, he waited for the inevitable slur, the thoughtless, comment.

Usually, it came-though not always. Now, as he put his gun and holster on the desk, his impatience reached unprecedented heights. He could read nothing on the face of Virginia Dodge. And, too, though he had newly entered the situation in the squad room he was impatiently itchy to have it done and over with.

Virginia pushed Brown's gun into the top drawer.

"Now get over there," she said.

"The other side of the room.~~ "Is it okay to report to the lieutenant first?" he asked.

"Lieutenant!" she called. Come here."

Byrnes walked over.

"He's got a report for you. Give it here, mister, where I can hear it all."

"How'd it go?" Byrnes said.

"No dice. And it isn't going to work either, Pete."

"Why not?"

"I stopped off in a candy store when I left the tailor shop. To get a pack of cigarettes."

"Yeah?"

"I got to talking with the owner. He told me there's been a lot of holdups in the neighborhood. Tailor shops mostly."

"Yeah?"

"But he told me the holdups would be stopping soon. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because-and this is just what he told me-there's a bull sitting in the back room of the tailor shop right up the street, just waiting for the crook to show up. That's what the guy in the candy store told me."

"I see."

"So if he knows, every other merchant on the street knows. And if they know, their customers know. And you can bet your ass the thief knows, too. So it won't work, Pete.

We'll have to dope out something else."

"Mmm," Byrnes said.

"You finished?"

Virginia asked.

"I'm finished."

"All right, get over on the other side of the room."

Byrnes walked away from the desk.

Brown hesitated.

"Did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

"Then move!"

"I mean, what do you want here? What's your purpose?"

"I'm here to kill Steve Carella."

"With a bottle of soup?"

"With a gun. The nitro is my insurance."

Brown nodded.

"Is it real?"

"It's real."

"How do I know?"

"You don't. Would you like to try belling the cat?" Virginia smiled.

Brown returned the smile.

"No, thank you, lady. I was just asking. Gonna kill Steve, huh?

Why, what'd he do to you? Give you a traffic ticket?"

"This isn't funny," Virginia said, the smile leaving her mouth.

"I didn't think it was, Who's the floozy?

Your partner?"

"I have no partner," Virginia said, and Brown thought her eyes clouded for a moment.

"She's a prisoner."

"Aren't we all?" Brown said, and again he smiled, and Virginia did not return the smile.

Hal Willis walked over to the desk.

"Listen," he said, "Miscolo's in a bad way. Will you let us get a doctor in here?"

"No," Virginia said.

"For Christ's sake, he may be dying! Look, you want Carella, don't you?

What's the sense in letting an innocent guy .

"No doctor," Virginia said.

"Why not?" Byrnes asked, walking over.

"You can keep him here after he treats Miscolo. Same as all of us. What the hell difference will it make?"

"No doctor," she said again.

Hawes drifted over to the desk.

Unconsciously, the four men assumed the position they would ordinarily use in interrogating a suspect. Hawes, Byrnes, and Brown were in front of the desk. Willis was standing to the right of it. Virginia sat in her chair, the bottle of nitro within easy reach of her left hand, the38 in her right hand.

"Suppose I picked up a phone and called a doctor?" Hawes asked.

"I'd shoot you."

"Aren't you afraid of another explosion?"

Willis said.

"You got a little nervous when Murchison came up here last time, didn't you?" Hawes said.

"Shut up, redhead. I've had enough from you."

"Enough to shoot me?" Hawes said.

"Yes."

"And chance the explosion?" Brown put in.

"And another visit from downstairs?"

"You can't chance that, Virginia, can you?"

"I can! Because if anyone else comes up, the nitro goes, goddammit!"

"But what about Carella? You blow us up, and you don't get Carella. You want Carella, don't you?"

"Yes, but ..

"Then how can you explode that nitro?"

"How can you chance another gunshot?"

"You can't shoot any of us, can you? It's too risky."

"Get back," she said.

"All of you."

"What are you afraid of, Virginia?"

"You've got the gun, not us."

"Can't you fire it?"

"Are you afraid of firing it?"

Hawes came around to the left side of the desk, moving closer to her.

"Get back!" she said.

Willis moved closer on the right, and Virginia whirled, thrusting the gun at him.

In that instant, Hawes stepped between her and the bottle of nitroglycerin. She was out of the chair in the space of a heartbeat, pushing the chair out from beneath her, and starting to rise. And as she started the rise, Willis-seeing that her hand was away from the bottle, knowing she was off balance as she rose -kicked out with his left foot, swinging it in a backward arc that caught her at the ankles. Hawes shoved at her simultaneously, completing the imbalance, sending Virginia sprawling to the right, toppling toward the floor. She hit the floor with resounding force, and her right hand opened as Hawes scuttled around the desk.

The gun fell from her fingers, slid across the floor,

whirled in a series of dizzying circles and then came to a sudden stop.

Willis dove for it.

He extended his hand, and Hawes held his breath because they were getting rid of the crazy bitch at last.

And then Willis shrieked in pain as a three-inch dagger of leather and metal stamped his hand into the floor.